NELSON AT JUTLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 March 1930, Page 11

NELSON AT JUTLAND

WOULD HIS TACTICS HAVE WON ? Mr. C. S. Forester has already made himself known to the reading public with half a dozen popular novels, and with his studies of Napoleon, the Empress Josephine, and Victor Emmanuel 11. He has shown himself tp be familiar with the sea and sailors in his ‘Brown on Resolution,’ and now he has written the life of one of our great naval heroes, Lord Nelson (says ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’). Mr. Forester quickly passes over Nelson’s friendships with various women before his marriage. Lady Nelson is an unhappy figure about whom we know little. Mr. Forester remarks, rather unkindly, that “the most salient feature of her opinions, the one that comes readiest to the mind, is her belief in the efficacy of flannel worn next to the skin.”

Lady Hamilton has almost more than a fair share of the book devoted to her. The picture we get is by no means flattering, and it becomes increasingly difficult to Understand Nelson’s passion for her. What a weird trio they were —Nelson, Emma, and Sir William Hamilton—at Naples together, crossing Europe together, keeping house in England together. One wonders what would have been said to-day of a similar menage. The general attitude in Nelson’s time seems to us oddly tolerant.

Mr. Forester has another advantage over Southey in that he is able to make some interesting comparisons between Nelson’s naval actions and those of the Great War. It will be remembered that at St. Vincent Nelson risked his reputation (in fact, his whole career, for he was only a captain) and made an English victory certain by quitting his place in the rigid line that for over a hundred years had been the fighting formation for battleships. Says Mr. Forester: — “Comparison is hard, but it seems, nevertheless, a source ! of disappointment that a hundred years later the battle orders, when Jutland was fought although nominally giving the fullest possible independence to officers commanding divisions, still actually enforced a formation in line, seven miles of ships, rigid and difficult to handle, which. failed (there is no gainsaying it) in its primary object of compelling the enemy to fight. The Germans got away without much hurt. The ques-, tion of burning importance is whether a Nelson in command of the British Fleet would have been able to force a battle advantageously, and everyone is allowed his own individual opinion as to what the answer should be.”

It is easy to see from the book the opinion held by Mr. Forester. Nelson certainly had initiative, and he never shirked responsibility. A typical example is that occasion when Nelson — he was then Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean —took his whole force across the Atlantic and back in pursuit of the French, with a battle imminent at any moment. As Mr. Forester says, “the achievement stands as nearly the greatest, and by far the least known, of all Nelson’s, claims to fame.” If he had guessed wrongly the enemy’s destination it would probably have meant his professional ruin, and there is no knowing what might have happened at Trafalgar.