TACTICAL WORK 65

the other vessels of the navy. One special object of my manoeuvring course was to teach the naval officers to act on their own initiative much more than had been customary, owing to fear of collision. Before my time the single ship had hardly been given any training in independent manoeuvres, but had been straightway worked in squadron formations, in which one ship is bound by the others. It was my principle now to train the individual hoplites before forming the phalanx. This secured a high certainty of movement, which attracted much notice when I was able to proceed with apparent daring as commander of the Preussen and Wurttemberg in the first operations with heavy ships in squadron formation; in reality my ability to do so was due to practice, but it was often wanting in the other ships owing to the weakness of their individual training.

Besides training the single ship for the duel, I was also working upon the complicated co-operation of several units, when I was commissioned to work out tactics and organization for the new torpedo craft. The great risk of collision had made not only us, but foreign navies, too, nervous of real battle practice with torpedo boats. Those countries which are par-liamentarily governed have found by experience that it is almost impossible to hold naval manoeuvres which really reproduce war conditions. But we overcame the nervousness of public opinion most effectually, and gained thereby an advantage in preparedness for war. In all the mishaps that occurred to our ships during