I was the originator of the Naval War College at Portsmouth--that’s quite a different thing from an Imperial General Staff at the War Office. The vulgar error of Lord Haldane and others, who are always talking about “Clear thinking” and such-like twaddle, is that they do not realise that the Army is so absolutely different from the Navy. Every condition in them both is different. The Navy is always at war, because it is always fighting winds and waves and fog. The Navy is ready for an absolute instant blow; it has nothing to do with strategic railways, lines of communication, or bridging rivers, or crossing mountains, or the time of the year, when the Balkans may be snowed under, and mountain passes may be impassable. No! the ocean is limitless and unobstructed; and the fleet, each ship manned, gunned, provisioned and fuelled, ready to fight within five minutes. The Army not only has to mobilize, but--thank God! this being an island--it has to be carried somewhere by the Navy, no matter where it acts. I observe here that when Lord Kitchener went to Australia to inaugurate the scheme of Defence, he forgot Australia was an island. What Australia wants to make it impregnable is not Conscription--it’s Submarines. However, I fancy Kitchener was sent there to get him out of the way. They wanted me to go to Australia, but I didn’t.[11] Jellicoe has gone there. But then, Jellicoe hasn’t always sufficient foresight; _exempli gratia_, he was persuaded to take the deplorable step of giving up command of the Grand Fleet and going as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. Never was anything so regrettable. I told the War Council that I am very glad Nelson never went to the Admiralty, and that Nelson would have made an awful hash of it. Nelson was a fighter, not an administrator and a snake charmer--that’s what a First Sea Lord has to be. Gross von Schwartzhoff told me on the sands of Scheveningen:-- “Your Navy can strike in thirteen hours; Our Army can’t under thirteen days.”