 Right. Well, it's 1715 everybody. Thanks for for attending. Welcome. Welcome to the lawton naval units in the Department of War Studies. Welcome to the School of Security Studies and welcome to Kings College London all of us make up your hosts for tonight. Welcome to the latest of the British Commission for maritime history Kings maritime history seminars that are supported by the Society for nautical research and Lloyds register, and I should say to welcome to Corbett 100 project that's launched to mark the centenary in 2022 I guess of the death of naval historian as strategists to Julian Corbett. So, watch this space for plenty of conferences and publications and events and so forth this is a project a collaborative affair between kings between law and the kings and the Hattendorf Center of the US naval war college and there may well be a chance to ask some questions about that because we happen to have online he's not showing his face but James Smith with us from from Kings, whose initiative it is as far as I'm aware. And of course we have our speaker tonight. Who is David Conan the director himself of the john B Hattendorf Center for maritime historical research at the US naval war college. David's a distinguished naval historian, as I'm sure you all know he's extensively on on on naval history also has had a really exciting career, a service career in the US Navy he's also a graduate of Kings, where he did his PhD so he was a professional and the academic perspectives that we've always valued and which will be celebrated I think as part of the Corbett 100 project. And I suppose he's better placed than many probably better place than any to discuss historical influences on contemporary debates and and strategy so it is with particular pleasure that I welcome David back. I'm just going to speak to us, all the way from the United States in our new global format. Interrupting is lunchtime I suppose, about British influence on American naval thinking and I'll just remind everybody to put any questions that you have into the Q amp a, rather than to the chat and we'll try to I'll try to read those out at the end. Otherwise, it's over to you David many many thanks. Well, thank you very much, Alan it's it's such a privilege to be able to address this great audience. Obviously it's a bit strange on my end because I can't see anybody. So it's a lot more like the Apollo missions I think of the 60s from my side of it. I'm the founding director of the center recently I've been sort of taken out of the the administration trivia, which is great, you know, all of us who write history prefer not to do administration trivia so now I'm the Tracy Kittredge who were maritime history and war studies at the Naval War College in the Hattendorf Center so we're making a lot of progress on multiple levels, getting the organization together. The purpose of the organization is, is that I'm part of at the Naval War College is right in line with what Stephen be loose and others at the very beginning of our institution, we're all about. I'd like to start my presentations on the beach, because who doesn't like to be on the beach. And what you see here is an image from 1944 of US Naval sailors on a place called Mog Mog Island out in the middle of the Pacific, and you can see in the background the big fleet, and a bunch of aircraft carriers. What's striking about this is, it's 1944 Pearl Harbor happened in 41 and within that very brief amount of time, the United States was able to build that fleet. Those carriers that are out on the horizon were not constructed when Pearl Harbor happened and that just to me it illustrates so many different levels of point it from a historical perspective, as to why we should study history. And of course, being American. One day as I was walking around London. I noticed there was a statue of a guy named George Washington who stood up against the crown, famously, and he's looking up to Nelson, which I found to be sort of striking as you know somebody who speaks with this type of accent. I wonder, you know, why is George Washington in the middle of Trafalgar Square looking up at at Nelson. And to me, this juxtaposition illustrates a bigger point about the transatlantic relationship and broader terms. Of course the statue was put there in the 1920s. The state of Virginia actually shipped over dirt to put into the ground, where they put the statue up. Because at one point George Washington said I shall never step foot on British soil again so just to keep that all together they, they went ahead and ship dirt over as well when they put the statue up. But I just find these types of things very interesting. The core of the story really hinges upon a group of us naval officers who came up in that immediate post civil war period, and into the early 20th century, the first 50 years of the 20th century. And deeply were affected by the experiences of two world wars, and into a Cold War era. And so today's presentation is primarily built upon the premise that these officers, who we all probably know, at least we do in the United States in general terms, studied their their profession by examining history. And Ernest King, for example, on the far left was was a student of history and his own right and he wrote a great deal about history, he knew all of Napoleon's Marshalls. And he wanted to be a lot like Jervis, the British Admiral so this image of King as an angle phobe is actually a myth. He was very much part of the British tradition, in the way he looked at the world Chester Nimitz, obviously is someone who we all know, Bill Halsey, not bull is also someone who spent a lot of time studying history, primarily because that was the emphasis that was placed on the curriculum at Naval War College here in Newport Rhode Island. Now, in the late 19th century, there was this idea of Imperial Federation. And this is coming out of Britain. And the idea of Imperial Federation was seen by the Americans is sort of. Is this a trick I mean where are we part of the Imperial Federation since we speak English. And there's a dialogue that takes place after the American Civil War about the question of how the United States fits in to the global system that existed in the late 19th century. And what we'll see today is some of that dialogue unfold in the presentation but the idea of Imperial Federation is something that is quite interesting and a good friend of mine named Leo, Louie Hailwood is actually doing a lot of work on this and so watch out for that because I think he's going to produce something very useful. The Americans showed up in the First World War as we all know. With all these ideas about League of Nations and all that sort of thing and didn't really work out. Because of course Congress didn't pass the legislation and so the Americans didn't really show up. But the British went ahead with it and you can see this map I like maps just so we know. So many different stories. They went ahead with the League of Nations and of course the Empire's is the basis for a lot of how the League of Nations was trying to be put together in that period of the 1920s and 30s. Now this map is of the British Empire from a military perspective in 1939, and we see all very clean lines between World Navy commands so very oceanic in focus, but then those rad dots on the on the map show land bases. And one of the things that the United States Navy sort of learned from their experience of working with the British during the First World War was that the Royal Navy was overly tied to the pier. I'm using terminology that Ernest King used when he wrote about it. The Royal Navy was was stuck at the pier side because they had to defend these bases around the world and so King started writing about logistics in the 1920s and into the 1930s and and trying to envision a time when we could operate without access to bases and these are ideas that are still being batted about in naval circles, at least here in the United States, trying to get untied to the pier so to speak. Now of course after the Second World War, the idea of a United Nations was what the United States was really pushing Winston Churchill was a little bit skeptical of this idea and probably very good reason. At the end of the Second World War. What we had was what Franklin Roosevelt really wanted to achieve and that is a world under a United Nations with a four policemen type of setup. And of course China and Russia are part of the four policemen as we're as Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt used to talk about. These are ideas from all kinds of different places but one of the places that Roosevelt is sort of picking up on these ideas is right out here in Newport Rhode Island at the Naval War College. So, there was a brief shining moment when the world sort of seemed to be unified unified after the Second World War, under this new idea of United Nations, and we can't forget that the history of the British Empire is sort of at the basis of this whole utopian dream. Because of course by the 1950s it's a bipolar world and it's Cold War. I don't really like to use the word Cold War because if you look throughout the longer spans of history, basically pieces sort of like Cold War. So, here's how we look at the world today. I find it interesting, at least from a defense point of view, this is how the United States has sort of carved up the world and I think the interesting point about looking at maps like this is that you can make some juxtapositions as to how people used to look at the world in their own time. Today, the United States Navy and joint services are trying to sort of figure out how do we keep this together. And part of the dialogue that we're trying to have is how do we keep this together while operating as part of a global coalition when at the same time we all have common rivals is the best term. And how do we work with those rivals so that we can avoid wars. How do we prepare for the surprise if a rival decides to attack us. And those are the types of discussions that are happening today but of course that's nothing new this is, this is the ongoing dialogue of strategic maritime power it's the ongoing dialogue of military versus naval. And I look forward to answering questions about that. So, with all that is sort of a preface. This all sort of starts from an American perspective. After the American Civil War. It's too detailed to get into the pre Civil War mentality of the United States we all know about the Monroe doctrine which in 1823 President Monroe said, Why did you burn out our White House down we weren't really trying to hurt anybody. And of course the British came and renovated the White House for us and took the China with them. So, the Monroe doctrine was designed to say please don't invade us but we do reserve the right to defend our interests on the global stage. The Civil War happened in the 1860s and of course the people who participated in that war came out of that experience with with a lot of questions in their mind. The gentleman on the left is Emory Upton he's an army guy who became a hero in the Civil War and he went around the world to study the military organizations of Europe and he was particularly taken by the German system. And up then came home and met with the guy on the right. And then there was Louis, who is the skipper of the USS Hartford, when Emory Upton was the commander of the artillery school at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and they were having dinner on board the Hartford and up and told loose. You know, I went to Germany I saw that they have this thing called the Creeks Academy it's very interesting. They're doing some interesting things with history and they're they're trying to figure out ways to apply it. And I think we should have a Creeks Academy to which, for those of you who don't speak German, it's the war college and loose thought that was a pretty interesting idea. And this idea was, you know, sort of batted around in his mind and he recognized that professional education was critical for practitioners not just naval but also military to learn their their profession. And this is all happening of course during the post civil war reconstruction period into the gilded age. And so what you see Steven loose doing is trying to come up with new ways of educating sailors, how to practice their trade in a more efficient way. And this is also part and parcel to the transition from sale to steam. So you have coal fired ships with big guns and that sort of thing and sailors going on board without sufficient training to operate within these machines and so Steven loose was really pushing for educational reform in the late 19th century. And so he was reaching out to scholars, both within the United States and around the world. And of course, that is the connection. And John Knox lot and also was teaching about history the applied methods that the importance of education as a professor at King's College London, and Steven be loose, and John Knox lot and develop this, you know, ongoing correspondence about the issues of education, the role of history visions of the future, and lot and loose really became very close in their correspondence. And of course, Professor Lambert, Andrew Lambert has written about this extensively so nothing I'm saying is original. I think it's written in a very good book written by Andrew Lambert, which I highly recommend. And what what this all means is, we're still having this conversation today here at the Naval War College, the same conversations that we're going on between the youth in the late 19th century into the 20th century are still the ongoing conversation so the role of history is still with us. I'm mentioning Fred T Jane because it was very popular in that era to play around with toys, and they referred to him as toys to come up with new ways of using chips and deploying warships without actually having to go to see. The idea of wargaming of course was nothing new, but Fred T Jane had an influence on what we were ultimately doing here in Newport at the Naval War College. So I'm covering a lot of ground very quickly. Just to summarize, by putting together ideas from Britain, from John Locke Slotten, Fred T Jane and others, and looking at history with an applied approach. So the Battle of Trafalgar for example, ratio Nelson his, his style of leadership. So those are things that are all being discussed here in Newport at the Naval War College and this, this is an image on the far right of the Naval War College in its early days, 1884 or so. And then to the sort of center left is taking from a Leslie's of the period it's I think the earliest image of activity here at the Naval War College but what you can see is my hand sitting at the chair. Alfred there my hand listening to an officer briefing about a battle and it looks like a Civil War battle on the map to be honest I think it might be Savannah. So if they were studying Trafalgar then they would look at Civil War battles, and then they would start to have discussions about, well, what if we had other types of weapons how could, how could we use army forces to support that activity and vice versa, and they start having those discussions and they write papers about it. And that's the education that enabled the United States Navy to start thinking about joining the bigger navies of the world and the global maritime arena. This is another early image of the Naval War College. It's 1894. And the one thing that I always like to point out about this image if you look at the gentleman on the white in the white uniform. They're doing a war game, as you can see, the gentleman in the white uniform is actually wearing a Royal Navy uniform. He's British. And there's a couple of gentlemen in the, in the back, who are either Chinese or Japanese, they probably Chinese based upon the caps that they have. So, as loose intended Stephen be loose, the Naval War College always was a place for discussion about the global maritime arena. It's an international forum it's not just an American war college. It's also going to be an international forum for the advancement of strategic thought in the global maritime arena. Before I move on, I would also hasten to point out that the gentleman that the British guy is talking to is wearing a US Army uniform. So let's just combine discussions to use the British term for multinational. It's also joint discussion among, among joint services so this is the type of dialogue that started to really come together in the late 19th century, which started to influence visions of power in the late 19th century and of course, history is a major part of that discussion. And so when Stephen loose was putting together the staff at the Naval War College, he made arrangements to have Professor James are solely appointed. He literally commissioned into the ranks of the US Navy with the rank, not the position but the rank of Professor us and that existed that concept existed into the 1930s by the way so it was a naval rank in the US Navy. And of course, if you were a junior professor you would carry the equivalency of a lieutenant commander, a mid grade professor your commander and then in solely case he's carrying the equivalency of a navy captain. So it's a pretty interesting idea. We all know who Teddy Roosevelt is I suspect. It's a very interesting character and we could probably spend the rest of the conversation about this gentleman, but Teddy Roosevelt is also a historian in his own right, of course, his uncle is a former Confederate, who set up headquarters in Liverpool, which is a great navy town I know. And one day when I was going around to see all the sites for the Beatles, you know, the cavern club and all that. I saw a building that had the marker that said this is the headquarters of the Confederate States Navy. And sure enough, James Baloch, who is the uncle of Theodore Roosevelt had a huge influence upon Theodore Roosevelt's view of how navies could work and James Baloch was the Confederate who operated from Liverpool and of course he never came on me stayed in England. And the interesting thing about how Teddy Roosevelt took those sea stories from his uncle. He actually took it back to the war of 1812 and he really kind of created a lot of mythology about American successes in the war of 1812. That being said, his history of the war of 1812 still looms as among one of the better histories of that particular war. I'm not going to give another shout out to Andrew but he also wrote a very good book about the war of 1812 called the challenge which I highly recommend as well. Okay, so I've covered a lot of ground very quickly. We've gotten through the 19th century. I made mention of the Monroe doctrine. And when Teddy Roosevelt became president, he said, you know, the Monroe doctrine is just too constraining. So he came up with the Roosevelt corollary. The Roosevelt corollary was all about 1904 1905 timeframe is Roosevelt declaring that the United States was going to be part of the global community of naval powers. So, rather than a military power. Roosevelt said we are a naval power. He gave a speech called our navy, comma, the peacemaker. About using navy is is part and parcel to efforts to use strength to avoid future wars so our navy, the peacemaker is is a really important idea. A lot of times we talk about the big stick policy but really it's it's better described as as Roosevelt did, which is our navy, the peacemaker. There was a double meaning to the word peacemaker. The double meaning is that at the time that Roosevelt was writing things like this, there was a very popular cult 45 pistol called the peacemaker. So when Roosevelt is talking about our navy, the peacemaker he's talking about it in very short of aggressive terms but his point is, we're trying to use naval power, not to have wars. There's there's double meanings in all of us. Teddy Roosevelt came to the naval war college quite often. And of course there's the loose hall it's the building named after Stephen be loose but those are the steps that Teddy Roosevelt famously stood on. So if you ever get to Newport you have to go stand on those steps and get a picture like that. We all do here in Newport, but Teddy Roosevelt would come to the naval war college quite often and in 1908. He came to the naval war college and there was a big debate between the younger officers and the more senior officers who were sort of steeped in the older traditions of coal and multiple caliber guns. The younger officers were saying no we have to have oil fired ships with single caliber guns. And so in 1908 Teddy Roosevelt came to the naval war college and they had this big debate in a room called the general boardroom which we still here at the college. And Roosevelt famously sat there and just listened to all the different arguments. And as he was walking out the door he said I'm not going to make any decisions here today. But as he's walking out the door. He told his aid lieutenant commander shims, William s Sims, you know I think we're probably going to go with oil. Now this is a major decision in the sense that by shifting the oil, you're adopting a system of technology that you really don't know how to use all that well. And of course coal is still kind of new too but we actually had developed procedures to use coal. So it's a radical decision that gets made here in Newport to shift to oil, almost overnight. In 1908 course it takes 10 more years for the US Navy to actually start building battleships oil powered so the destroyer squadrons served as our test bed for ideas in how to use oil fired ships. Alfred there may hand Stephen be loose Teddy Roosevelt. They're all sort of fixtures in the early years of the naval war college, and they're drawing a lot of their inspiration from Britain, and the traditions of Britannia. Not necessarily the history but the traditions of Britannia and Alfred there may hand is inspired of course by the example provided by by Nelson, and he writes extensively about Nelson, and the battle to Falger. And it's part of the curriculum here at the naval war college studies of Nelson's leadership, his tactics, and his ability to communicate in an era before wireless. How to write an order clearly to tell a subordinate what you want to do. Sorry to do this to you this is always better at Halloween time, but the idea of Nelson loomed very very large. So Teddy Roosevelt in 1904 sent a team of archaeologists over to Paris to find an American Nelson, and he chose John Paul Jones to serve as the American equivalent to racial Nelson. So they went to Paris and they found a body and they compared it to a bust that was rendered in John Paul Jones's time by who don the French artist, and they compared the mummy against the bus and they said, that's him. They brought poor old Pierre or John Paul Jones or whoever he might be back to the United States and they actually set him up quite nicely at the United States Naval Academy in a crypt that is fashioned after the crypt of none other than the immortal memory of John Nelson. And so what you see here in multiple different ways is Americans really embracing British traditions of sea power, and also at the same time coming up with practical means for applying historical lessons of the past in framing future strategy. Mind you, the United States Navy is maybe fifth or sixth on the scale of Navy's in the in the world at that time. And so what the US Navy is doing is they're really trying to carve out a vision for the future of American sea power. And whether it's part of a British coalition or not, the United States wanted to assert itself in the global American maritime arena. So we sort of know about Alfred there, man, and he's probably one of the most famous authors on the question of sea power. He's definitely a naval officer, he is not a historian. When we read his works. We always have to remember that man is writing for practitioners primarily, not for historians. Now he did adopt some sort of historical ideas from other people he was very good at taking other people's ideas and putting them together in narratives that flowed for the time. But the one thing I would say about my hand is, he is not really all that much of an original thinker. He has a historical perspective he's definitely a practitioner using history to educate American naval practitioners, how they should be types of naval officers are studies and different personality traits of naval officers of course, Nelson's part of that system, but also others are examined by me hand, French admiral others are used to look at different types of personalities who are successful in operations at sea in the past. The problem of Asia is probably one of the better books from from a contemporary standpoint in that he identifies some very interesting ideas about the role of Asia in global affairs in that work and of course he's writing right about turn in a century about these types of issues. I'm teaching this here at the Naval War College, I always like to bring out some important passages from his most famous book, the influence of sea power upon history conditions and weapons change, but to cope with one or successfully wield others respect must be had for those consistent teachings of history. He could have written that yesterday. He's saying basically the technology is the variable, but history shows that human beings are essentially the same. He goes on page 11. Nevertheless, a vague feeling of contempt for the past. Again, I think he probably could have written this yesterday. These are ideas that still resonate. I think in the contemporary context. In his memoir of service from sale to steam. He was asked, you know, are you an imperialist and he responded. He said, well, I'm an imperialist, but only in the sense that I'm not a national nationalist. So, you know, when we think about that idea a little bit, you have to think about what he's trying to say the Monroe doctrine is too constraining. Roosevelt's Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine opens up the idea that the United States can be part of this global maritime community of nations. And man is saying that we can't afford to be isolationist we have to be part of this globe. And we can't just say America first we have to be part of the dialogue around the world. Another thing that I'll point out, you know, just because I feel like this is kind of fun because I've been personally I'm a Navy guy retired but I've been to landlock countries a lot of times as American naval officer. And one of the landlock essentially landlocked countries I want to is Iraq. I mean there's just a little sliver of access to the sea, which is what caused all the problems recently. And Mahan wrote about that that area of the world and what's interesting is in 1904, the Persian Gulf and international relations he writes the Middle East, if I may adopt the term I have not seen. Now, my hand claims that he created the term Middle East because the British at the time we're using Near East and Far East and of course there was India in the middle. So my hand claims that he came up with this idea of the quote Middle East, whether that's true or not somebody I'm sure can correct me if I'm wrong but my hand certainly made the claim. Mahan is definitely an internationalist he's he's thinking about what's going on in the global stage. And there's a very obscure pamphlet that's written in 1910, just for a penny for the Daily Mail. He talks about the coming war he says that the arms race that's going on in Europe, the ongoing tensions in the Pacific with Japan, rising very very quickly as a naval power, and the ambiguity about what the United States wants to be. We need to, we need to have an open dialogue about where we're going in the world, and he publishes this in 1910. And if you do read the text it's very prophetic. Of course we know just four years later, the First World War happens. The love feast. This is one of my favorites because as someone who has come to London a couple of times I've gone to these places and what's interesting is when President Roosevelt came out of office in 1910. President Roosevelt for his administration he went to London, they gave him a great dinner and celebrated Teddy Roosevelt and they said you know you're just a great president and we're sorry that you're not in office anymore and we hope that Taft does a good job. And Teddy Roosevelt said well he'll probably do okay. And he came to London and had a great time. And that was in May of 1910 at Guild Hall. Now, his protege is a guy named William S Sims. And before he left office he gave Sims command of a battleship called the Minnesota. And this is actually a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt that he gave to Sims to Commander Sims you know thank you for for doing such a good job. His battleship commands are reserved for captains, oh six Sims at the time was a commander and oh five. So, you know he's, he's to junior and rank really to have command of a battleship in the US Navy of the period so his appointment to command a battleship was pretty controversial within the ranks of the US Navy. But Sims is one of these movers and shakers he's an up and comer he's sort of referred to as a young Turk. And he's willing to challenge the system. And 1905 as the inspector of gunnery working for Teddy Roosevelt. He went over to London and his friend John Jellico who he knew since their days together in the Asiatic. John Jellico showed him the HMS dreadnought at Christmas time 1905. And Sims is part of this decision to shift design of American warships and it's inspired by what's going on in the rolling and these personal connections I can't stress enough are very important to the development of the global relationship that evolves over time. In 1910, the Atlantic Fleet goes over and does gunnery exercises in the North Sea with the Royal Navy. As they're sailing from the North Sea along the North German coast the United States warships had their battle flags flying and they didn't pull in the port. So they did pull in the graves and then they went up to London and had a great dinner at Guild Hall. This is just a couple months after the Teddy Roosevelt visit at Guild Hall. And these are, this is the menu from the Guild Hall dinner from 1910 and that's Commander Sims is place setting from Guild Hall, which are in the Library of Congress actually. And Sims obviously enjoyed himself. All the junior officers are sitting there with him at the table, none other than Ernest King was sitting at the table next door to Sims. And Sims gets up and offers a speech and he says, if ever a time comes when the British Empire is ever menaced by an external enemy you can, in my opinion, count on every American man to defend your empire to the last drop of blood. That was pretty controversial because as a commander. He just made American policy and the Kaiser wasn't too pleased about that nor was the Japanese Emperor. And that created a huge controversy called the Guild Hall controversy. And in the New York Times they referred to it as you can see from the headline that they refer to it as the love feast, the London love feast. So, you know, what do you do with a guy that sort of exceeds his rank and influence. Send him to the Naval War College. So Sims gets removed from command in the Minnesota. And he's sent to the Naval War College where he learns that by looking at the past by applying that the historical methodology that loose and man were really pushing for, you could actually do some things with history in applied way to come up with new ways to use naval forces, and he writes about it while he's here he's here for the first time. His career was over. And, you know, he's assigned to the Naval War College for a three year period, which is the long course, and it was essentially designed for guys like Sims just to get him out of the newspapers. And during that three years he wrote profusely about the importance of history, the role of education, and of course, the importance of the Naval War College as an institution for educating practitioners about their profession. And these are ideas that are all being stolen by us Americans from the British and Germans and others. But to have the conversation is, is the strategic element in all of this. Now, for those of you who don't know who Sims is he's the guy who got sent over to London in 1917, almost by accident, or as a series of mistakes or nobody's really sure why. But I'll talk about that later. And he sent to London before the American declaration of war on a secret mission to establish ties with the Admiralty in the event that the United States declares war on Germany. Now for context, this is the Zimmerman Telegram happened in January of 1917 where the Germans suggested that they would support the Mexicans if they wanted Texas back. And the Germans even threw in some lines about supporting the Japanese if they wanted to take Hawaii and Alaska. And of course Woodrow Wilson did not want to be part of the First World War, which by 1917 the European powers were pretty much worn out. Woodrow Wilson really didn't want to get involved. But with the Zimmerman Telegram, it looked like there was no avoiding the war so in order to develop the sort of connections that might be required in the event of war they sent Sims. The problem here is they sent Sims over to London without a uniform they told him look we have not decided to have a declaration of war so you know be discreet don't tell anybody you're there you can say that you're an Admiral. And technically at the time he had been selected for promotion to Admiral but his date of promotion was still forthcoming. And so, technically he's still a captain in the US Navy. When he gets to London, but without a uniform, and it's four days after the American declaration of war, Jellico, the first sea lord says, Bill, where's your uniform. And Sims of course didn't have a uniform. And so Jellico made arrangements special for Sims to get a uniform made. And as you can see there's the, he went down to Savile Row Stovall Mason's actually on Birmingham Street now. They're still there though, and they had a uniform made up and as you can see he's, he's choosing to wear a US Navy admiral's uniform. It's not authorized to wear the rank of admiral but the rest of the United States Navy did not know that he had promoted to Admiral yet so when he suddenly appears in the British newspapers as the commander of US Naval Forces Europe. That creates a huge controversy here in the United States, and ultimately Sims does become commander US Naval Forces Europe and gets promoted the three star rank during the war within about two month period. This gentleman is Tracy Barrett Kittridge Kittridge was working for the belt Belgian relief effort, and he's also a sort of an entity in British intelligence, of course, with the American passport before the American declaration of war. He's operating in Europe and he's talking with the Germans he's going to Berlin he's talking to the Kaiser, and then he had come to London periodically and he'd meet with his friends. And he'd meet with his friends in Afghanistan and others, and just over drinks he would tell his British friends who he was talking to in Germany and what the Germans were up to so is he a spy. Maybe not really. He's an American he's neutral. But certainly the British were gathering information from him. And since he was already in London, and he was friends with a lot of British people. He attended Oxford University by the way. He was meeting Admiral Sims is de facto intelligence officer. And it's Kittridge who is the link that connects British intelligence with the headquarters that Sims ends up developing during the First World War it's a radical headquarters from an American perspective in the sense that in the US Navy, commanding ships at sea from from a building ashore was just not done. And these are the ones who are influencing American perspectives on how to command warships at sea in a wireless age. And part of that discussion is Sir Julian Corbett, who's obviously operating in a far higher level in the British government but he is influencing American approaches to command and this idea of a historical branch seems to be a really radical idea for from Sims's point of view. By the winter of 1917 you have Captain Dudley Knox, joining the staff and of course Tracy Kittridge is already there serving as an intelligence officer, and history and intelligence are short of functions that are at the nexus of what was being done in that building known as the London flagship, which the building is still there, and had served as the American naval headquarters for two World Wars. And that's where Sims is creating the new idea what we call in the Navy today, the joint force maritime component commander, or C, which is combined force maritime components commander. That's the first one to do that Sims is also the first to hold nominal command of foreign warships during the First World War, since George Washington. So, Sims is a really historic figure and it's all by essentially accident in 1917 1918. The bottom line is the US Navy was not configured for combined or joint operations and so they're kind of making it up as they go with a lot of help from the British. Now the history of the London flagship headquarters is compiled by Dudley Knox and Tracy Kittridge, and they're inspired by the example set by Corbett and the historical branch. And so they do actually start compiling publications that try and capture the applicable lessons of that First World War experience, and they bring all the records back here to Newport, and they produce a series. And you can see this one the American naval planning section. This is number seven in the series. And if you read it, it's all the memoranda that were produced by the planning section in Sims is headquarters. And it's the planning section that serves as the basis for American naval thinking on the use of headquarters in a strategic way to drive operations at sea, and all the way down to the tactical level. This is the experience of the First World War that really sets the US Navy up for what comes in the second. I couldn't help myself. I had to keep the slide on the fourth of July 1918. The King came to a baseball match that was held in central London more than 70,000 people were there. And what I always like to say is with the American Revolution and George Washington and all that the the actual victory happened on the fourth of July 1918, when King George signed the surrender document which happens to be that baseball. It's not a joke, just so you know, but there he is shaking hand with Sims standing proudly with the captain of the Navy baseball team and we all know that the Navy beat the army during this, this great ballgame on the fourth of July 1918. And that's Mike McNally of the Boston Red Sox who happened to be given yeoman's rank with the specific job of playing baseball for the Navy because we can't let the army win of course. Okay, so we've gotten through the 19th century we're into the First World War period. And we're getting into that interwar period. What's this all about. Well, the history of the British Empire is the inspiration for what the Americans start to see as a global mission in the maritime arena. It's serviced with the British during the First World War, that gives the Americans some practical ideas about how to use their Navy in the future. I always like to talk about Ernie King because I've spent so much time on him and it was the subject of my dissertation at King's College London with Andrew. But one of the interesting things that I picked up in my research was during the Grand Fleet maneuvers in 1918. King was there as a mere commander watching David Beatty maneuvering his ships in the Grand Fleet maneuvers and out of the mist, Admiral Sturdy surprised Beatty. And according to King Beatty cinched his hat down and a jaunty sort of angle, stuck his hands in the pocket and said to the everybody on the on the bridge that great, great job we won. Great job. Excellent work. And of course King said, didn't he lose he just lost. And so King adopted that look in his career. Whenever he wanted to look victorious he would cinch his cap down like Beatty stick his hands in the pocket and adopt the Beatty look and that I have this from Dudley Knox's letter to Samuel Elliott Morrison, who asked about the picture on the right and why is King sort of doing that, and Knox responded well that's King doing his baby. Okay, so the historical section. This is the good part. When Sims came home from London that experience. He reopened the naval war college here in Newport they wanted that it was closed during the First World War. And they basically wanted to keep it closed. And Sims said no we have got to learn lessons from that experience of the First World War. And so he got into a huge fight with the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels on the question of education and the role of history in examining what those lessons might be from history that can be applied for the future. You see Sims with his new staff. You see Professor Wilson over there carrying that professor rank in the lineup of of the staff at the court work college and you can see. This is the first class after the First World War. What's going on behind the scenes at the lower levels of rank are studies about the role of education. In 1919 Sims actually organizes a board with the help of Admiral Mayo who's another figure in all of this, comprised of earnest King. And they examine the question what what's the function of education why is it worth our money to spend money on education in the Navy. And one of the radical conclusions that they came up with was essentially that the highest ranking Admiral is only educated to the lowest commission grade. And what is the only actual education that naval officers have received is at the Naval Academy, which only produces ensigns. And so, all these admirals who are running around with all this rank, really haven't been educated to think in strategic terms and so they, what they end up saying is that your average Admiral is not educated to be an Admiral. And this is a radical statement at the time, 1919, but it's all part of this sort of mix of trying to learn lessons from the First World War experience. And what's happening after the First World War is people like Josephus Daniels the politician and the Secretary of the Navy. Basically he's trying to write the history of the war in a very positive way. I think Franklin Roosevelt his assistant Secretary of the Navy, probably with a knife in his hands behind Josephus Daniels, and basically sort of whispering in the ear of Daniels that, you know, Sims has a point here. And we need to actually take a very cold and objective look at what the experience of the First World War was all about. And we have to be honest with each other about it. And you see the cartoon of Sims, just shooting holes in the narrative of the heroic narrative that Josephus Daniels and the propagandists were trying to push. So Daniels book by the way is the one depicted on the left hand side, our Navy at war it's a very heroic portrayal of what the Navy achieved in the First World War context. The victory at sea is also sort of a fluffy positive view from from Admiral Sims's point of view, saying yeah we achieved a lot of great things but at the same time, you know there's still a lot of lessons to be learned and we had a great time by the way he actually makes pretty big mention of it as a strategic aspect of Anglo American collaboration in the victory at sea. But you can't read victory at sea without reading the naval lessons of the Great War, as written by Tracy Barrett Kittridge, who's inspired by Corbett and the historical section, and he's working with Knox, you're at the naval war college to basically produce that work. And if you read naval lessons of the Great War in conjunction with the victory at sea, you get a pretty full picture about the attitude within the US Navy about Josephus Daniels. The naval lessons of the Great War is essentially an indictment of the US Naval Department, and the failures of the United States Navy in the First World War. So we're part of this mix that we're talking about. How do we learn from the past. How do we apply it. We're practitioners we're not historians but we need historians to help us understand what the real lessons are of the past. And Sims is just making all kinds of trouble for the politicians. What I would say is Franklin Roosevelt has a role in this whole dialogue behind the scenes. And one of the great sort of things that I've discovered in my research is a headline from the New York Times where Franklin Roosevelt says, you know I supported Sims the whole time and if anybody ever found out the things that I did when I was assistant secretary of the Navy under Josephus Daniels, I would go to prison for 999 years. So, Corbett does loom large in setting the example for the Americans to use history in that post First World War period, learning the theoretical study of history. Now, Sims brings these ideas back he's corresponding with Corbett and actually out of his own pocket purchases as many copies of some principles of maritime strategies he can possibly get his hands on. And he comes back from the the experience of the First World War and he says okay guys we're going to be reading this stuff. And you're, you're going to get a heavy dose of Corbett. And of course, naval practitioners when they see books being inflicted upon them. And you're telling me I have to read all this, you know that this is what I have to do. I thought I was going to go go golfing here I mean it's Newport for God's sakes I want to go sailing. Why do I have to read all these books. And the Sims curriculum is sort of a shock to naval practitioners who attended the college during the interwar period. And there is a historical section generating new curriculum that is a direct model based upon that which Corbett had that was established here at the Naval War College and they're generating new historical studies. of past experiences, and they're trying to find lessons. Now with all those books and all these new historical studies, naval practitioners, they don't want to read that stuff. It just takes too much time. So what do they do they get together they say you read this book you read that book, and they all sort of read different books and they put together paragraph length summaries of the books and one of the best documents we have in our collections here at the Naval War College is the extracts from the books that Sims told you I was supposed to read, but they didn't want to, you know, bother taking the time to do so. But the summary is actually pretty interesting in the sense of looking at the lessons that the practitioners do find in reading these different volumes. Wargaming has always been part of the Naval War College experience and that of course is influenced by Fred T Jane and all of that that I talked about earlier. But the Battle of Jutland becomes fixture of the Naval War College curriculum. So the way it works in the interwar period is the Battle of Jutland is the second study that you do after you've studied Nelson. So you get Trafalgar, you get Jutland, and then they're also looking at the Dardanelles campaign, which are very interesting studies if you read the different theses written by practitioners who came through the college in the 20s and 30s. And it's a lot of British influence in the curriculum here at the college. Dudley Knox goes on to become a historian in his own right, sort of picking up the cross where Mahan left off, and trying to use history as a sort of a way of making political points and at the same time advancing the educational mission of the US Navy for practitioners. So Eclipse of American Sea Power is an interesting study of the post war effort to build a United Nations Navy, and basically Knox is saying you know let's be careful about some of these navies. We can't afford to consign ourselves to other nations interest, but at the same time we have to reserve a place for ourselves at the table in order to be a true maritime power. Later on he writes this book called the Naval Genius of George Washington. What's interesting about that book is the Naval Genius of George Washington. I thought George Washington was a general but what Knox demonstrates is that George Washington would not have won the American Revolution in fact he sort of alleges that he didn't win the American Revolution. The British just got sort of tired of it. But what Washington did do is he worked with the French and was able to use sea power to achieve his ends over a certain timeline. And that's an interesting, interesting book to read. That's Chester Nimitz when he came here to the Naval War College and he wrote a thesis on tactics in which he just focused on the battle of Jotland and pulls out all these interesting perspectives you know this is applied history at its finest. And I would encourage all who are listening if you if you want to read new stuff about Second World War thinkers. Go into their thesis that they wrote when they were more junior when they came to the Naval War College and working within the context of applied history as provided by the historical section here in Newport. And Ernie King is the guy I've spent a lot of time writing a book about which I'm trying to find a publisher for just so you know if there's any publishers out there. It's a good book. Ernie King came through the college three times. He graduated first in 1916 then again correspondence course 1924 and then again 1933 King is what I would call a true believer in studying history and applied approaches to history. And when he becomes the commander in chief US Navy. He actually spends a lot of time on how we can learn from the lessons of the past as we're framing future operations. And the future in this whole mix is Hector C by water. Who's writing these fictions that Ernie King is died. He's devouring these, these, these books that are produced by Hector by water and one of the interesting ones is strange intelligence, which is all about intelligence and tracking enemy submarines and all that and strange intelligence is a book that does influence Ernie King's thinking when he organizes the American combat intelligence division in 1943. So here's some more British influences upon American thinking. Another book by by water, of course the Great Pacific War published in 1925, in which by water predicts the role of aircraft carriers, the role of submarines, the importance of logistics. 1925 he basically describes the future as it unfolds. Of course he didn't know he was doing that, but one of his avid readers is none other than Ernie King. Ernie King actually tries out some of these ideas during the fleet problems of the interwar period. Robert Heinlein is the communications officer he's a science fiction writer, who goes on to be a writer of great note, who served on board the Lexington, when Ernest King during a fleet problem demonstrated the vulnerability of fixed bases in the war when King bomb simulated the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1932. Heinlein later uses that experience in his writing on science fiction, using his experiences on board Lexington as the inspiration for those science fictions. Okay, so we've gotten through now the 1920s and 30s and we're getting into that period of the Second World War. And we all know that Adolf Hitler was somebody who was, you know, bent on having a war and Winston Churchill does rise to regain, you know, his role at the Admiralty and of course, goes on to become Prime Minister and Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in his dialogue between each other about the transatlantic relationship they had met in the First World War, actually, and Roosevelt wrote that he didn't really like him all Churchill all that much, but in the interest of collaboration. So the United States warship Panay was sunk in Chinese waters. Roosevelt said, Okay, let's, let's start the dialogue. Again, let's start talking to people like Winston Churchill and let's see what we can do to mitigate the prospect of a global flagration. And this does culminate in the Atlantic Charter of August of 1941 just a few months before Pearl Harbor. So what we have are the early sort of foundations for what would evolve in the Second World War context. During that Atlantic Charter Conference between Churchill and Roosevelt on board the Augusta the flagship of Ernest J. King who was the Commander in Chief Atlantic Fleet at the time. Here we see Stark standing behind Churchill he's the chief in naval operations. During those meetings Winston Churchill said we have to have a community of English speaking peoples we have to restore the order of the British Empire. Roosevelt said yeah that that's sure that maybe what we really need to do is to have a United Nations, not a British Empire, the Age of Empire is over. And you know the Americans are sort of listening to their policymakers, sort of friendly discussions about this future and the Americans are saying well my boss wants to have a United Nations we're not going to do British Empire we're going to do something in the event that we get involved with another war. Another figure still working on the scene is Tracy Kittridge, who's over in Europe working for Herbert Hoover of all people. He's part of the Red Cross efforts, based in in Switzerland, and he's also gathering information about what's going on in Europe and he's feeding that information to Captain Dudley Knox who's now working in the Navy Department in the Naval Intelligence as a historian, and Dudley Knox is also serving as an advisor to the chief naval operations Harold Stark. So Kittridge is another figure who's still in this sort of big mix of European and American dialogue about what's going on in the global stage and they're all historians, at least at heart, if not by trade. Before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt commissioned Dudley Knox gave him a lot of money to produce a series of histories. Official histories of the quasi war with France now Knox wanted to do an official history of the First World War and Franklin Roosevelt said no, go back to the age of sale. I want to talk about quasi wars. But what Roosevelt is trying to do is he's trying to use history as a means to communicate to the American taxpayer about what he proposes to do with the United States Navy. In other words, he's going to use the US Navy as the buffer to stay out of the global situation in Europe and Asia of course Japanese had invaded China before that and of course out of Hitler is making noise in Europe and what Roosevelt is trying to do is use history to set the stage for articulating articulating a policy that is built around the notion of naval neutrality. And the quasi war and Dudley Knox's efforts to put together those histories first published in 37, all the way up to 1939. That was part of Roosevelt's naval strategy. Now, I will tell you that the Pearl Harbor attack was truly a surprise for the Americans they were not really set up for that attack because the joint services were not talking to each other. Roosevelt knew that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable, but everybody was surprised and probably the most surprised person was none other than Carl Dernitz over there in Germany, because the Japanese also didn't bother to tell him that they were going to do this. And we all know that this is what finally does get the United States into the second world war the Pearl Harbor attack. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack Winston does come to the United States for the Arcadia conference. And it's a follow on in many respects to the Atlantic conference that had just taken place in August. And they all get together at the White House in Washington DC, they're in Christmas, and they're batting around these ideas do we restore the British Empire who's going to be in charge. Royal Navy are you in the lead for Europe US Navy or you're in the lead in the Pacific would, you know how are we going to do this and basically everybody sort of fighting with each other over Christmas time about how things are going to work. Harold Stark is still the chief of naval operations, Ernest King is still the commander of the Atlantic fleet. So, during these discussions it becomes clear that Harold Stark has another role to play. But Roosevelt doesn't want to let him leave in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor as CNO so chief naval operations. So there's sort of a timeline that is established during the Arcadia conference about how things would evolve in the American camp. And one of the things that they do create it just out of necessity is the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Arcadia conference Ernest King becomes the chief naval operations by March of 1942. He is promoted to the role of commander in chief US fleet which is known in the Navy at the time as sink us. And King said after Pearl Harbor I don't want to be called sink us. And so he changed the title to comments so King holds both the roles of CNO and comments by March of 1942. George Marshall is the army chief of staff and so basically that the American variant of the British Joint Chiefs is basically two people, it's Ernest King and George Marshall. To help facilitate all this, the former CNO Harold Stark is sent to London to reestablish the American headquarters in London. So what you see is this sort of Anglo American transatlantic network of command and history is a fundamental component of this. We all know that history is essentially unclassified. And it's Harold Stark who brings Tracy Kittridge back on to active service to help him reorganize the intelligence division of the headquarters in Europe, so that they can support the dialogue that's going on in Washington between the army and Navy. And so there's a lot of interesting figures and yet there you can see right after Harold Stark arrives in London in June of 42 you can see Tracy Kittridge following him behind. You know, by the summer of 1942 we essentially have the combined chiefs of staff on the American side we have the Joint Chiefs of Staff. William Leahy becomes an ex officio member as the chief of staff that the President, half Arnold is also a figure he's an Air Force guy, but the standing members of the American Joint Chiefs are Ernest King and George Marshall and that's, that's a nuance that a lot of Americans since the Second World War have not really recognized and addressed, but by 1942 1943. We're talking about the construction of a United Nations, not the restoration of the British Empire, at least from the American point of view. I'm sure we all know that Churchill had other ideas in the back of his mind. What's really important about combined operations, history, the role of intelligence is through those studies of the interwar period, the influence of history all the way back to the 19th century. Don't forget Ernest King is born right after the American Civil War. So, the way he thinks about the world is is completely different than the way we think about the world today. In 1943 context, and he recalls the experience of the First World War, working with the British they operated differently they had different communication systems they had different ways of doing business. And he gives a speech in 1943 where he says look unity of command is not what we want what we want is unity of effort. The idea of unity of effort he's pulling this out straight out of his studies of Corbett and the hand, and he's saying we need unity of effort. Now I'll help you if you help me obviously if I'll give you gas if I can give you gas I'll give you ammunition. But in the end the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, you all operate differently than than we do, and we're in the middle of a fight so let's just do unity of effort. And it's an interesting idea because he is drawing from his own studies of history and his own experience to make these types of speeches. In 1943, Ernest King reestablishes something that is based upon the historical section that was earlier time modeled after Corbett's, and he calls it the battle studies group, and they start producing histories of recent actions and they recruit all these historians to the navy and so Samuel Morrison is sort of part of that mix but Robert Greenall Albion, and their students, people like Phillip Lunderberg and others are brought into the Navy given commissions, and their sole purpose in life is to produce histories to support American naval commanders in making decisions. So here we see Ernest King and Dudley Knox harnessing that sort of nexus between history and intelligence, and they're using it in a very practical way in the heat of combat of the Second World War. And I think the battle studies group that the historical section of the First World War period are both examples that, at least today at the Naval War College we're trying to draw perspective from in in what we're doing today with, with what we're calling the battle studies group center, but I'll save that round for later. This is a lot of pictures for you, but just to give you a sense of the volume of product that was produced during the Second World War by the battle studies group historical section, it changes a little bit during the war. Which is part of that Dudley Knox and of course the guy in the lower right hand side is a guy named Commodore Richard S. Bates, who becomes part of the staff here at the Naval War College. So here's the Second World War to produce new histories about the past all the way back to the Civil War period for the purposes of educating the United States Navy, the applied historical purpose for global maritime operations in both peace and war. So, history is seen as a fundamental element in intelligence at the college. Now, I was going to talk at length about the Battle of Ladygolf in 1944, but I don't want to kill you too much with with detail. The bottom line is at the Battle of Ladygolf in 1944. William Halsey had those little blue books that I showed you earlier. He's reading those. Those are being sent out to the ships. He's reading the lessons learned. And there he is at the Battle of Ladygolf in 1944. He also has the Japanese plan in front of him and his intelligence officer Mike cheek who served in Queen's Town with William Halsey during the First World War, Mike cheek is his intelligence officer who briefs Admiral Halsey on the Japanese plan so Halsey knows what the Japanese are doing. He knows that there's a Japanese decoy force. He also was told that if he has an opportunity to wipe out the Japanese Navy, that he should take it. So what's this all about. When he came to the Naval War College, he wrote a thesis about the American Civil War amphibious operations of the American Civil War, he also wrote a thesis about the Dardanelles campaign. One of the things that he recognized in studying the Dardanelles campaign is that in the event that the amphibious beachhead is is threatened by an enemy force, you want to engage that enemy force as far out as you can, and wither them down before they can attack the amphibious force so when Halsey decides to attack what he knows is the Japanese decoy force. It makes a very sound military decision. It's a measured decision based upon the information he had. A lot of historians this is the Sean Connery moment, you know, you know Halsey was wrong and all that. Sean Connery is wrong. Halsey made a very good decision, I think, in the context of the moment at the Battle of Ladygolf and that decision was based upon his studies of past wars and recent experience in the Second World War. So, you know, I'm coming to a close here but the bottom line is, if you're going to win future wars, you're going to have to be able to do this. What we're going to have to do in the future is to be able to go on the high seas and operate and be able to take islands in order to have sailors on the beach and join themselves in the sun. If history is any guide to that, this is the opportunity for us to sort of think about how history influenced American strategy during the Second World War and how the British school influenced the American school in the aftermath of the American Civil War. So with that, Alan, thank you so much for the time. I hope I didn't bore you with too many details. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sure everybody's clapping in their own way at home. Many, many thanks for that.