ABSTRACT
However sensible her views on other things, Anne was wrong about there being ‘no science nor strategem in sea-fights’. There is, but naval officers around the world have traditionally been averse to thinking about it. Mahan lamented the fact that not only were British naval officers not ‘instruit’ in the French sense, they did not want to be. ‘To meet difficulties as they arise, instead of by foresight, to learn by hard experience rather than by reflection or premeditation, are national traits.’1 This was because the process was and is often quite boring, partly through fear that abstract concepts may damage young or tender minds and partly as Winston Churchill remarked: ‘The seafaring and scientific technique of the naval profession makes such severe demands upon the training of naval men, that they have very rarely the time or opportunity to study military history and the art of war in general.’2
