detail, particularly on the subject of the organization of the
Operations Division of the Naval Staff, which I considered should
embrace the Plans Division as a sub-section in order to avoid
overlapping and delay. In my view it was undesirable for a body of
officers not working under the authority of those in close touch with
the daily operations of the Fleet to put forward plans for operations
which necessarily involved the use of the same vessels and material, as
such a procedure must inevitably lead to impracticable suggestions and
consequent waste of time; the system which I favoured was that in use in
the Army, where the Operations Section of the Staff dealt also with the
working out of plans.

The Admiralty Staff organization necessarily differed somewhat from that
at the War Office, because during the war the Admiralty in a sense
combined, so far as Naval operations were concerned, the functions both
of the War Office and of General Headquarters in France. This was due
primarily to the fact that intelligence was necessarily centred at the
Admiralty, and, secondly, because the Admiralty acted in a sense as
Commander-in-Chief of all the forces working in the vicinity of the
British Isles. It was not possible for the Commander-in-Chief of the
Grand Fleet to assume this function, since he could not be provided with
the necessary knowledge without great delay being caused, and, further,
when he was at sea the other commands would be without a head. The
Admiralty therefore necessarily assumed the duty, whilst supplying each
command with all the information required for operations. The general
lines of the Staff organizations at the War Office and at General
Headquarters in France are here given for the sake of comparison with
the Naval Staff organization.

1.--_The British War Office._