But it takes a generation to form a General Staff. No wave of the wand can create those habits of mind in seniors on which the efficiency and even the reality of a Staff depends. Young officers can be trained, but thereafter they have to rise step by step in the passage of time to positions of authority in the Service. The dead weight of professional opinion was adverse. They had got on well enough without it before. They did not want a special class of officer professing to be more brainy than the rest. Sea-time should be the main qualification, and next to that technical aptitudes. Thus when I went to the Admiralty I found that there was no moment in the career and training of a naval officer, when he was obliged to read a single book about naval war, or pass even the most rudimentary examination in naval history. The Royal Navy had made no important contribution to Naval literature. The standard work on Sea Power was written by an American Admiral.[8] The best accounts of British sea fighting and naval strategy were compiled by an English civilian.[9] ‘The Silent Service’ was not mute because it was absorbed in thought and study, but because it was weighted down by its daily routine and by its ever complicating and diversifying technique. We had competent administrators, brilliant experts of every description, unequalled navigators, good disciplinarians, fine sea-officers, brave and devoted hearts: but at the outset of the conflict we had more captains of ships than captains of war. In this will be found the explanation of many untoward events. At least fifteen years of consistent policy were required to give the Royal Navy that widely extended outlook upon war problems and of war situations without which seamanship, gunnery, instrumentalisms of every kind, devotion of the highest order, could not achieve their due reward. Fifteen years! And we were only to have thirty months! CHAPTER V THE GERMAN NAVY LAW 1912 ‘The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.’ POPE, _Essay on Man_. The Morrow of Agadir—Mission of Sir Ernest Cassel—The New German Navy Law—The Haldane Visit to Berlin—An Imperial Mare’s Nest—The Opening of the Reichstag—A Speech at Glasgow—The _Luxus Flotte_—Mr. Haldane Returns—Attempt to reach a Settlement—Correspondence with Lord Fisher—Fisher’s Vision—The Navy Estimates—The Naval Holiday—Efforts at Goodwill—Consequences of German Naval Power—Von Tirpitz’ Illusions—Anglo-French Naval Conversations—The Entente strengthened—Von Tirpitz’ Unwisdom—Organisation of the Navy—The New Structure—With the Fleet—The _Enchantress_ in Portland Harbour—The Safeguard of Freedom.