the crime has been committed, which must be specified in the warrant ordering the punishment. He may delegate this authority to a limited extent to certain officers. All the officers and the whole ship’s company are to be present at every punishment, which must be inserted in the log-book, and an abstract sent to the admiralty every quarter.
The commander has the chief command in small vessels. In larger vessels he is chief of the staff to the captain and assists him in maintaining discipline, and in sailing and fighting the ship.
The lieutenants take the watch by turns, and are at such times entrusted, in the absence of the captain, with the command of the ship. The one on duty is to inform the captain of all important occurrences which take place during his watch. He is to see that the whole of the duties of the ship are carried on with the same punctuality as if the captain himself were present. In the absence of the captain, the commander or senior executive officer is responsible for everything done on board.
The navigating officer receives his orders from the captain or the senior executive officer. He is entrusted, under the command of the captain, with the charge of navigating the ship, bringing her to anchor, ascertaining the latitude and longitude of her place at sea, surveying harbours, and making such nautical remarks and observations as may be useful to navigation in general.
The warrant-officers of the navy may be compared with the non-commissioned officers of the army. They take rank as follows, viz. gunner, boatswain, carpenter; and, compared with other officers, they take rank after sub-lieutenants and before midshipmen.
The midshipmen are the principal subordinate officers, but have no specific duties assigned to them. In the smaller vessels some of the senior ones are entrusted with the watch; they attend parties of men sent on shore, pass the word of command on board, and see that the orders of their superiors are carried into effect; in short, they are exercised in all the duties of their profession, so as, after five years’ service as cadets and midshipmen, to qualify them to become lieutenants, and are then rated sub-lieutenants provided they have passed the requisite examination.
The duties and relative positions of these officers remain practically unaffected by recent changes; but a profound modification was made in the constitution of the corps of officers at the close of 1902. Up to the end of that year, officers who belonged to the “executive” branch, i.e. from midshipmen to admiral, to the marines and the engineers, had entered at different ages, had been trained in separate schools, and had formed three co-operating but independent lines. For reasons set forth in a memorandum by Lord Selborne (December 16, 1902)—from the desire to give a more scientific character to naval education, and to achieve complete unity among all classes of officers—it was decided to replace the triple by a single system of entry, and to coalesce all classes of officers, apart from the purely civil lines—surgeons and paymasters (formerly “pursers”)—into one. Lads were in future to be entered together, and at one training establishment at Osborne in the Isle of Wight, on the distinct understanding that it was to be at the discretion of the admiralty to assign them to executive, marine or engineer duties at a later period. After two years’ training at Osborne, and at the Naval College at Dartmouth, all alike were to go through the rank of midshipman and to pass the same examination for lieutenant. When in the intermediate position of sub-lieutenant, they were to be assigned to their respective branches as executive officer, marine or engineer. The engineers under this new system were to cease to be a civil branch, as they had been before, and become known as lieutenant, commander, captain or rear-admiral E. (Engineer).
The crew of a ship of war consists of leading seamen, able seamen, ordinary seamen, engine-room artificers, other artificers, leading stokers, stokers, coal-trimmers, boys and marines. The artificers and stokers and the marines are always entered voluntarily, the latter in the same manner as soldiers, by enlisting into the corps, the former at some rendezvous or on board particular ships. The supply of boys for the navy, from whom the seamen class of men and petty officers is recruited, is also obtained by voluntary entry.
Merchant seamen are admitted into the royal naval reserve, receive an annual payment by way of retainer, perform drill on board His Majesty’s ships, and are engaged to serve in the navy in case of war or emergency.
There are two schemes for forming reserves. The Royal Naval Reserve scheme draws men from the mercantile marine and fishing population of the United Kingdom. The Royal Fleet Reserve scheme, introduced in 1901, while it gave a better system of training to the pensioners, was mainly designed to obtain the services in war of the men who had quitted the navy after the expiration of their twelve years’ service.
So far as other countries are concerned, the staff of officers does not differ materially from one navy to another. In all it consists of admirals, captains, lieutenants, midshipmen and cadets receiving their training in special schools. With the exception of the navy of the United States, all the important naval forces of the world are raised by conscription.
The strength and general condition of navies at any given time must be learnt from the official publications of the various powers, and from privately composed books founded on them. The yearly statements of the First Lord of the Admiralty in Great Britain, the Reports of the Secretary of the Navy in the United States, and the Reports of the Budget Committees of the French-Chamber contain masses of information. The Naval Annual, founded by Lord Brassey in 1886, is the model of publications which appear in nearly every country which possesses a navy. Mr F. T. Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Ships is a survey of the matériel of navies since 1898.
History of Navies
Every navy was at its beginning formed of the fighting men of the tribe, or city, serving in the ship or large boat, which was used indifferently for fishing, trade, war or piracy. The development of the warship as a special type, and the formation of organized bodies of men set aside for military service on the sea came later. We can follow the process from its starting-point in the case of the naval powers of the dark and middle ages, the Norsemen, the Venetians, the French, the English fleet and others. But centuries, and indeed millenniums, before the modern world emerged from darkness the nations of antiquity who lived on the shores of the Mediterranean had formed navies and had seen them culminate and decline. The adventures of the Argonauts and of Ulysses give a legendary and poetic picture of an “age of the Vikings” which was coming to an end two thousand years before the Norsemen first vexed the west of Europe. At a period anterior to written history necessity had dictated the formation of vessels adapted to the purposes of the warrior. Long ships built for speed (μακραὶ νῆες, naves longae) as distinguished from round ships for burden (στρογγύλαια νῆες, naves onerariae) are of extreme antiquity (see Ship). Greek tradition credited the Corinthians with the invention, but it is probable that the Hellenic peoples, in this as in other respects, had a Phoenician model before them. So little is known of the other early navies, whether Hellenic or non-Hellenic, that we must be content to take the Athenian as our example of them all, with a constant recognition of the fact that it was certainly the most highly developed, and that we cannot safely argue from it to the rest.
The Athenian navy began with the provision of warships by the state, because private citizens could not supply them in sufficient numbers. The approach of the Persian attack in 483 B.C. drove Athens to raise its establishment from 50 to 100 long ships, which were paid for out of the profits of the mines of Moroneia (see Themistocles). The Athenian. Persian danger compelled the Greeks to form a league for their common naval defence. The League had its first headquarters at Delos, where its treasury was guarded and administered by the Ἑλληνοταμίαι (Hellenotamiai), or trustees of the Hellenic fund. Her superiority in maritime strength gave Athens a predominance over the other members of the League like that which Holland enjoyed for the same reason in the Seven United Provinces. The Hellenotamiai were chosen from among her citizens, and Pericles transferred the fund to Athens, which became the mistress of the League. The allies sank in fact to subjects, and their contributions, aided by the produce of the mines, went to the support of the Athenian navy. The hundred long ships of the Persian War grew to three hundred by the end of the 5th century B.C. (see Peloponnesian War), and at a later period (when, however, the quality of ships and men alike had sunk) to three hundred and sixty. The ancient world did not attain to the formation of a civil service—at least until the time of the Roman Empire—and Athens had no admiralty or navy office. In peace the war-vessels were kept on slips under cover in sheds. In war a strategos was appointed to the general command, and he chose the trierarchs, whose duty it was to commission them partly at their own expense, under supervision of the state exercised by special inspectors (ἀποστολεῖς). The hulls, oars, rigging and pay of the crews were provided by the state, but it is certain that heavy charges fell upon the trierarchs, who had to fit the ships for sea and return them in good condition. The burden became so heavy that the trierarchies were divided, first between two citizens in the Peloponnesian War, and then among groups (synteleiai) consisting of from five to sixteen persons. Individual Athenians who were wealthy and patriotic or ambitious might fit out ships or spend freely on
