Navy War Council

The Navy War Council was an ad hoc committee of the Royal Navy formed in October, 1909 to perform the basic function of a general staff, and to formulate naval war plans and study naval strategy.

The Council was formed of four permanent ex-officio members, being assigned the following responsibilities;

• President of the War Council and Chief of Staff – First Sea Lord
• Director of Naval Intelligence
• Director of Naval Mobilisation
• Secretary of the Naval War Council – Assistant Secretary to the Admiralty

Other department heads of the Admiralty could be summoned, to act as members of the council as and when their expertise was required.

During Fisher's last three months in office the War Council met four times, and during Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson's tenure as First Sea Lord the council met seven times.

Captain Herbert W. Richmond commented that the Naval War Council was:

the most absurd bit of humbug that has ever been produced for a long time [lovely hyperbole - S.H.]. It pretends to be the basis of a General Staff, but its constitution shows that whoever devised it has no idea of what a staff is wanted for, or the particular functions of such a body. The result of the Committee of Enquiry has therefore merely been to produce an absurd anomaly called a War Council, which means nothing. The study of war forms no part of its work. The First Sea Lord remains supreme and imposes his crude strategical ideas on the nation.

Bibliography

• Template:BibUKNavalStaff
• Hunt, Barry D. (1982). Sailor-Scholar: Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond 1871-1946. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 0-88920-104-8.