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decision
analysis
for
management
judgment
fi fth edi tion

Paul Goodwin & George Wright

vi CONTENTS

Chapter 17 Combining scenario planning with decision analysis 423

Chapter 18 Alternative decision-support systems
and conclusions 437

Suggested answers to selected questions 469

Index 475
 Foreword

It is a curious fact that although ability to take decisions is at the top of most senior
executives’ list of attributes for success in management, those same people are usu-
ally unwilling to spend any time developing this quality. Perhaps decision making
is considered as fundamental as breathing: essential for life, a natural and automatic
process. Therefore, why study it?
In this book, Paul Goodwin and George Wright show why: because research over the
past 40 years has revealed numerous ways in which the process of making decisions
goes wrong, usually without our knowing it. But the main thrust of this book is to
show how decision analysis can be applied so that decisions are made correctly. The
beauty of the book lies in providing numerous decision-analysis techniques in a form
that makes them usable by busy managers and administrators.
Ever since decision theory was introduced in 1960 by Howard Raiffa and Robert
Schlaifer of Harvard University’s Business School, a succession of textbooks has chron-
icled the development of this abstract mathematical discipline to a potentially useful
technology known as decision analysis, through to numerous successful applications
in commerce, industry, government, the military and medicine. But all these books
have been either inaccessible to managers and administrators or restricted to only a
narrow conception of decision analysis, such as decision trees.
Unusually, this book does not even start with decision trees. My experience as a prac-
ticing decision analyst shows that problems with multiple objectives are a frequent
source of difficulty in both public and private sectors: one course of action is better in
some respects, but another is better on other criteria. Which to choose? The authors
begin, in Chapter 3, with such a problem and present a straightforward technology,
called SMART, to handle it.
My advice to the reader is to stop after Chapter 3 and apply SMART on a problem
actually bothering you. Decision analysis works best on real problems, and it is most
useful when you get a result you did not expect. Sleep on it, then go back and work
it through again, altering and changing your representation of the problem, or your
viii FOREWORD

views of it, as necessary. After several tries you will almost certainly have deepened
your understanding of the issues, and now feel comfortable with taking a decision.
If you are then willing to invest some time and effort trying out the various
approaches covered in this book, the rewards should be worth it. No mathematical
skills are needed beyond an ability to use a calculator to add, multiply and occasionally
divide. But a willingness to express your judgments in numerical form is required
(even if you are not convinced at the start), and patience in following a step-by-step
process will help.
Whether your current problem is to evaluate options when objectives conflict, to
make a choice as you face considerable uncertainty about the future, to assess the un-
certainty associated with some future event, to decide on seeking new information
before making a choice, to obtain better information from a group of colleagues, to
reallocate limited resources for more effectiveness or to negotiate with another party,
you will find sound, practical help in these pages. Even if you do not overtly apply
any of the procedures in this book, the perspectives on decision making provided by
decision analysis should help you to deal with complex issues more effectively and
sharpen your everyday decision-making skills.

Lawrence D. Phillips
Department of Management
London School of Economics and Political Science
 Preface

In an increasingly complex world, decision analysis has a major role to play in helping
decision makers gain a greater understanding of the problems they face. The main
aim of this book is to make decision analysis accessible to its largest group of potential
users: managers and administrators in business and public-sector organizations, most
of whom, although expert at their work, are not mathematicians or statisticians. We
have therefore endeavored to write a book which makes the methodology of decision
analysis as ‘transparent’ as possible so that little has to be ‘taken on trust,’ while at the
same time making the minimum use of mathematical symbols and concepts. A chapter
introducing the ideas of probability has also been included for those who have little
or no background knowledge in this area.
The main focus of the book is on practical management problems, but we have also
considered theoretical issues where we feel that they are needed for readers to under-
stand the scope and applicability of a particular technique. Many decision problems
today are complicated by the need to consider a range of issues, such as those relating
to the environment, and by the participation of divergent interest groups. To reflect
this, we have included extensive coverage of problems involving multiple objectives
and methods which are designed to assist groups of decision makers to tackle deci-
sion problems. An important feature of the book is the way in which it integrates
the quantitative and psychological aspects of decision making. Rather than dealing
solely with the manipulation of numbers, we have also attempted to address in detail
the behavioral issues which are associated with the implementation of decision anal-
ysis. Besides being of interest to managers in general, the book is also intended for
use as a main text on a wide range of courses. It is particularly suitable for people
following courses in management and administration, such as an MBA, or final-year
undergraduate programs in Business Studies, Quantitative Methods and Business
Decision Analysis. Those studying for professional qualifications in areas like accoun-
tancy, where recent changes in syllabuses have placed greater emphasis on decision-
making techniques, should also find the book useful. Almost all the chapters are
followed by discussion questions or exercises, and we have included suggested
x PREFACE

answers to many of these exercises at the end of the book. More detailed answers,
and other material, can be found on the book’s website (see below).
Readers familiar with earlier editions of this book will see that we have made many
additions and changes throughout the text to reflect the latest findings in decision
analysis. There are also several significant changes. In particular, there is a new chap-
ter (Chapter 17) on combining scenario planning with decision analysis, which has
allowed us to extend the coverage of this topic.
Other changes have been made within the individual chapters. We now discuss the
distinction between good and bad decisions and good and bad outcomes in Chapter 1
and reflect on the extent to which the outcome of a decision can provide information on
the quality of that decision. Results from the latest research on how people make deci-
sions involving multiple objectives have been included in Chapter 2, while in Chapter
3 we have included recent research findings that indicate how individuals and groups
of decision makers can be helped to identify all their objectives when facing a decision.
The treatment of sensitivity analysis in this chapter has also been enhanced.
In Chapter 8 we have extended the discussion of second-order stochastic dominance
and we now provide a simple procedure which can be used in most circumstances
to determine whether one option exhibits second-order stochastic dominance over
another. We have included some recent research findings in our discussion of heuris-
tics and biases in probability judgments within Chapter 10.
In Chapter 13 our discussion of the Delphi method has been significantly extended
and we now include research-based step-by-step guides on how to apply the method
for maximum effectiveness. Our discussion of decision framing in Chapter 15 now
includes an introduction to prospect theory, which is probably the most well-known
theory of how people make decisions when they face risks. The chapter on scenario
planning has been extended to include a case study detailing how the method was
applied in the English National Health Service. We also contrast scenario planning
with Nassim Taleb’s recently published ideas about ‘antifragility’ in decision making.
Inevitably, a large number of people provided support during the writing of the
original version of this book and subsequent editions. We would particularly like to
thank Larry Phillips (for his advice, encouragement and the invaluable comments he
made on a draft manuscript of the first edition), Scott Barclay and Stephen Watson
(for their advice during the planning of the first edition), Kees van der Heijden, Alan
Pearman and John Maule (for their advice during the writing of the second edition)
and the staff at John Wiley for their help and advice during the writing of this fifth edi-
tion. The design of this edition has also benefited from the comments of our students
and readers and from the reports of a number of referees who reviewed our proposals.
PREFACE xi

Accompanying website at
http://www.wiley.com/college/goodwin/
You will find valuable additional learning and teaching material at the Decision
Analysis for Management Judgment website. Resources on the site include:

(1) Downloadable Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that are designed to demonstrate the
implementation of:
(i) SMART
(ii) Bayesian revision of prior probabilities
(iii) Negotiation problems
(iv) Simulation demo.
(2) Additional exercises.
(3) Specimen examination paper with answers.
(4) Links to decision-analysis resources on the Internet.
(5) Quiz and case studies.

In addition, lecturers adopting the text are able to access:

(1) Detailed answers to end-of-chapter questions.

(2) Model teaching schemes for courses in decision analysis designed around the use
of this textbook and case study teaching notes.
(3) Specimen coursework questions with suggested answers.
(4) Specimen examination papers with suggested answers.
(5) Downloadable PowerPoint slides to support the teaching of material appearing in
the book’s chapters.
 Introduction
1
Complex decisions
Imagine that you are facing the following problem. For several years you have
been employed as a manager by a major industrial company, but recently you have
become dissatisfied with the job. You are still interested in the nature of the work and
most of your colleagues have a high regard for you, but company politics are getting
you down, and there appears to be little prospect of promotion within the foreseeable
future. Moreover, the amount of work you are being asked to carry out seems to be
increasing relentlessly and you often find that you have to work late in the evenings
and at weekends.
One day you mention this to an old friend at a dinner party. ‘There’s an obvious
solution,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you set up on your own as a consultant? There must be
hundreds of companies that could use your experience and skills, and they would pay
well. I’m certain that you’d experience a significant increase in your income and there
would be other advantages as well. You’d be your own boss, you could choose to work
or take vacations at a time that suited you rather than the company and you’d gain an
enormous amount of satisfaction from solving a variety of challenging problems.’
Initially, you reject the friend’s advice as being out of the question, but as the days
go by the idea seems to become more attractive. Over the years you have made a large
number of contacts through your existing job and you feel reasonably confident that
you could use these to build a client base. Moreover, in addition to your specialist
knowledge and analytical ability you have a good feel for the way organizations tick,
you are a good communicator and colleagues have often complimented you on your
selling skills. Surely you would succeed.
However, when you mention all this to your spouse he or she expresses concern
and points out the virtues of your current job. It pays well – enough for you to live in
a large house in a pleasant neighborhood and to send the children to a good private
school – and there are lots of other benefits such as health insurance and a company
car. Above all, the job is secure. Setting up your own consultancy would be risky. Your
contacts might indicate now that they could offer you plenty of work, but when it
2 INTRODUCTION

came to paying you good money would they really be interested? Even if you were
to succeed eventually, it might take a while to build up a reputation, so would you
be able to maintain your current lifestyle or would short-term sacrifices have to be
made for long-term gains? Indeed, have you thought the idea through? Would you
work from home or rent an office? After all, an office might give a more professional
image to your business and increase your chances of success, but what would it cost?
Would you employ secretarial staff or attempt to carry out this sort of work yourself?
You are no typist and clerical work would leave less time for marketing your services
and carrying out the consultancy itself. Of course, if you failed as a consultant, you
might still get another job, but it is unlikely that it would be as well paid as your
current post and the loss of self-esteem would be hard to take.
You are further discouraged by a colleague when you mention the idea during a
coffee break. ‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘I would think that you have less than a fifty–fifty
chance of being successful. In our department I know of two people who have done
what you’re suggesting and given up after a year. If you’re fed up here why don’t you
simply apply for a job elsewhere? In a new job you might even find time to do a bit
of consultancy on the side, if that’s what you want. Who knows? If you built up a big
enough list of clients you might, in a few years’ time, be in a position to become a
full-time consultant, but I would certainly counsel you against doing it now.’
By now you are finding it difficult to think clearly about the decision; there seem to
be so many different aspects to consider. You feel tempted to make a choice purely on
emotional grounds – why not simply ‘jump in’ and take the risk? But you realize that
this would be unfair to your family. What you need is a method which will enable you
to address the complexities of the problem so that you can approach the decision in a
considered and dispassionate manner.
This is a personal decision problem, but it highlights many of the interrelated fea-
tures of decision problems in general. Ideally, you would like to maximize your
income, maximize your job security, maximize your job satisfaction, maximize your
freedom and so on, so that the problem involves multiple objectives. Clearly, no course
of action achieves all of these objectives, so you need to consider the trade-offs between
the benefits offered by the various alternatives. For example, would the increased free-
dom of being your own boss be worth more to you than the possible short-term loss
of income?
Second, the problem involves uncertainty. You are uncertain about the income that
your consultancy business might generate, about the sort of work that you could get
(would it be as satisfying as your friend suggests?), about the prospects you would
face if the business failed and so on. Associated with this will be your attitude to risk.
Are you a person who naturally prefers to select the least risky alternative in a decision
or are you prepared to tolerate some level of risk?
Much of your frustration in attempting to understand your decision problem arises
from its complex structure. This reflects, in part, the number of alternative courses of
THE ROLE OF DECISION ANALYSIS 3

action from which you can choose (should you stay with your present job, change jobs,
change jobs and become a part-time consultant, become a full-time consultant, etc.?),
and the fact that some of the decisions are sequential in nature. For example, if you did
decide to set up your own business should you then open an office and, if you open
an office, should you employ a secretary? Equally important, have you considered all
the possible options or is it possible to create new alternatives which may be more
attractive than the ones you are currently considering? Perhaps your company might
allow you to work for them on a part-time basis, allowing you to use your remaining
time to develop your consultancy practice.
Finally, this problem is not yours alone; it also concerns your spouse, so the decision
involves multiple stakeholders. Your spouse may view the problem in a very different
way. For example, he or she may have an alternative set of objectives from yours.
Moreover, he or she may have different views of the chances that you will make a
success of the business and be more or less willing than you to take a risk.

The role of decision analysis

In the face of this complexity, how can decision analysis be of assistance? The key
word is analysis, which refers to the process of breaking something down into its con-
stituent parts. Decision analysis therefore involves the decomposition of a decision
problem into a set of smaller (and, hopefully, easier to handle) problems. After each
smaller problem has been dealt with separately, decision analysis provides a formal
mechanism for integrating the results so that a course of action can be provisionally
selected. This has been referred to as the ‘divide and conquer orientation’ of decision
analysis. 1
Because decision analysis requires the decision maker to be clear and explicit about
his or her judgments, it is possible to trace back through the analysis to discover why
a particular course of action was preferred. This ability of decision analysis to provide
an ‘audit trail’ means that it is possible to use the analysis to produce a defensible
rationale for choosing a particular option. Clearly, this can be important when deci-
sions have to be justified to senior staff, colleagues, outside agencies, the general public
or even oneself.
When there are disagreements between a group of decision makers, decision
analysis can lead to a greater understanding of each person’s position so that there
is a raised consciousness about the issues involved and about the root of any conflict.
This enhanced communication and understanding can be particularly valuable when
a group of specialists from different fields have to meet to make a decision. Some-
times the analysis can reveal that a disputed issue is not worth debating because
a given course of action should still be chosen, whatever stance is taken in rela-
tion to that particular issue. Moreover, because decision analysis allows the different
4 INTRODUCTION

stakeholders to participate in the decision process and develop a shared perception of

the problem, it is more likely that there will be a commitment to the course of action
which is eventually chosen.
The insights which are engendered by the decision-analysis approach can lead to
other benefits. Creative thinking may result so that new, and possibly superior, courses
of action can be generated. The analysis can also provide guidance on what new
information should be gathered before a decision is made. For example, is it worth
undertaking more market research if this would cost $100 000? Should more extensive
geological testing be carried out in a potential mineral field?
It should be stressed, however, that over the years the role of decision analysis has
changed. No longer is it seen as a method for producing optimal solutions to decision
problems. As Keeney 1 points out:

Decision analysis will not solve a decision problem, nor is it intended to. Its purpose is to
produce insight and promote creativity to help decision makers make better decisions.

This changing perception of decision analysis is also emphasized by Phillips: 2

…decision theory has now evolved from a somewhat abstract mathematical discipline
which when applied was used to help individual decision-makers arrive at optimal
decisions, to a framework for thinking that enables different perspectives on a problem to
be brought together with the result that new intuitions and higher-level perspectives are
generated.

Indeed, in many applications decision analysis may be deliberately used to address

only part of the problem. This partial decision analysis can concentrate on those elements
of the problem where insight will be most valuable.
While we should not expect decision analysis to produce an optimal solution to a
problem, the results of an analysis can be regarded as being ‘conditionally prescrip-
tive.’ By this we mean that the analysis will show the decision maker what he or she
should do, given the judgments which have been elicited from him or her during the
course of the analysis. The basic assumption is that of rationality. If the decision maker
is prepared to accept a set of rules (or axioms) which most people would regard as
sensible then, to be rational, he or she should prefer the indicated course of action to
its alternatives. Of course, the course of action prescribed by the analysis may well
conflict with the decision maker’s intuitive feelings. This conflict between the analysis
and intuition can then be explored. Perhaps the judgments put forward by the deci-
sion maker represented only partially formed or inconsistent preferences, or perhaps
the analysis failed to capture some aspect of the problem.
Alternatively, the analysis may enable the decision maker to develop a greater
comprehension of the problem so that his or her preference changes towards that
GOOD AND BAD DECISIONS AND OUTCOMES 5

prescribed by the analysis. These attempts to explain why the rational option pre-
scribed by the analysis differs from the decision maker’s intuitive choice can therefore
lead to the insight and understanding which, as we emphasized earlier, is the main
motivation for carrying out decision analysis.

Good and bad decisions and outcomes

Consider the following two decisions which are based on those used in an experiment
carried out by Baron and Hershey.3

A. A 55-year-old man had a heart condition and a physician had to decide whether to
perform an operation which, if successful, would relieve the man’s pain and extend
his life expectancy by 5 years. The risk of the man dying as a result of the operation
was 8%. The operation was performed and had a successful outcome.
B. A 55-year-old man had a heart condition and a physician had to decide whether to
perform an operation which, if successful, would relieve the man’s pain and extend
his life expectancy by 5 years. The risk of the man dying as a result of the operation
was 2%. The operation was performed and, unfortunately, the man died.

Which was the better decision? In the experiment, people who saw decision A
typically rated it more highly than those who saw B because it resulted in a better
outcome. But, objectively, decision B carried much lower risks and offered the same
potential benefits as A. This suggests that we need to distinguish between good and
bad decisions and good and bad outcomes. A rash decision may, through luck, lead to
a brilliant outcome. You may gamble your house on a 100-to-1 outsider in a horse race
and win. In contrast, a carefully considered decision, made using the best available
decision-analysis technique, and based on the most reliable information available at
the time, may lead to disaster. This means that when we consider a single decision, the
outcome usually provides, at best, only limited information about the quality of the
decision.4
Outcomes across many decisions provide a better guide. If you are a newspaper
seller and every day have to decide how many newspapers to have available for sale,
your average profit over (say) the last 100 days will be a good guide to the quality
of your decision making. You might be lucky and get away with a bad decision on a
single day, but this is unlikely to be the case over a large number of days.
If decision analysis is being used to support a decision, how should we assess its
effectiveness? Schilling et al.5 suggest three main criteria: the quality of the process that
was used to arrive at the decision, output effectiveness and outcome effectiveness. The
quality of the process is measured by such factors as the extent to which people in the
organization participated in the decision-making process, and exchanged information,
6 INTRODUCTION

the extent to which the process was transparent and comprehensible and how much
it yielded insights into the problem. Output effectiveness embraces both ‘hard’ factors
like increased profit and ‘softer’ benefits like the provision of a common language
enabling different specialists to communicate and the development of a sense of com-
mon purpose amongst different stakeholders. Outcome effectiveness, which is usually
more difficult to measure, relates to the long-term consequences of the analysis. Did
the use of decision analysis help the decision makers to achieve their final objectives?

Applications of decision analysis

The following examples illustrate some of the areas where decision analysis has been
applied. 6, 7

Improved strategic decision making at Du Pont 8

The Du Pont chemical company has used influence diagrams (Chapter 7) and risk
analysis (Chapter 8) throughout the organization to create and evaluate strategies.
The analysis has allowed them to take into account the effect on the value of the
business of uncertainties such as competitors’ strategies, market share and market
size. Among the many benefits of the approach, managers reported that it
enhanced team building by providing a common language for sharing information
and debate. It also led to a commitment to action so that the implementation of the
selected strategy was likely to be successful. One application alone led to the
development of a strategy that was expected to enhance the value of the business by
$175 million.

Structuring decision problems in the International Chernobyl Project 9, 10

Four years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, the
International Chernobyl Project was undertaken at the request of the Soviet author-
ities. Decision analysis was used in the project to evaluate countermeasure strategies
(for example, relocation of some of the population, changes in agricultural practice and
decontamination of buildings). The use of SMART (Chapter 3) in decision conferences
(Chapter 13) enabled groups of people from a wide variety of backgrounds – such as
ministers, scientists and regional officials – to meet together to structure the decision
problem. They were thus able to clarify and elucidate the key issues associated with the
strategies, such as the number of fatal cancers which they would avert, their monetary
costs, the extent to which they could reduce stress in the population and their public
acceptability. By using decision analysis it was possible to evaluate the strategies by
APPLICATIONS OF DECISION ANALYSIS 7

taking into account all these issues, regardless of whether they were easily quantified
or capable of being measured on a monetary scale.

Selecting research projects at a large international

pharmaceutical company 11

Managers at a pharmaceutical company could not reach agreement on which of three

large research and development (R&D) projects they should undertake in order to
create value for the company. R&D projects in the pharmaceutical industry are
characterized by great uncertainty arising from both threats and opportunities. Some-
times future opportunities may have no relation to the original purpose of the R&D
project. For example, new and unexpected drugs are often developed from a partic-
ular molecule that has been screened. These opportunities can add substantially to a
project’s value. Decision trees (Chapter 7) were used to create transparent representa-
tions of the options that would be open to the company if each project was undertaken
and the risk that would be associated with it. The trees enabled the managers to assess
where decisions should be delayed until new information was available, where new
opportunities might arise and be pursued and the conditions under which it would be
appropriate to abandon a project. The approach drew attention to the key aspects of
the problem and most importantly, allowed the flexibility of projects to be taken into
account when they were evaluated, enabling a more informed decision to be made.

Petroleum exploration decisions at the Phillips Petroleum Company 12

Petroleum exploration is notoriously risky. Scarce resources are allocated to drilling

opportunities with no guarantee that significant quantities of oil will be found. In
the late 1980s and early 1990s the Phillips Petroleum Company was involved in oil
and gas exploration along the eastern and southern coasts of the United States. In
deciding how to allocate the annual exploration budget between drilling projects, the
company’s managers faced two issues. First, they wanted a consistent measure of risk
across projects. For example, they needed to compare projects offering a high chance
of low returns with those offering a low chance of high returns. Second, they needed
to decide their level of participation in joint drilling projects with other companies. For
example, the company could adopt a strategy of having a relatively small involvement
in a wide range of projects. The use of decision trees (Chapter 7) and utility functions
(Chapter 6) allowed managers to rank investment opportunities consistently and to
identify participation levels that conformed to the company’s willingness to take on
risk. Managers also gained insights into the financial risks associated with investment
opportunities and their awareness of these risks was increased.
8 INTRODUCTION

Prioritizing infrastructure-renewal projects at MIT 13

The buildings and ground of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) need
to be maintained and renewed constantly, but the resources available for carrying out
this work were limited. The department responsible for the work therefore needed
a systematic method for prioritizing projects such as the maintenance of heating,
ventilating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical systems and the refurbishment
and replacement of roofs. This prioritization needed to reflect the risk of not carry-
ing out a particular project. A series of workshops involving members of the infra-
structure renewal team took place. At these workshops a value tree (Chapter 3) was
used to identify and agree the objectives against which the projects would be assessed.
Typical objectives were minimizing impact on the environment, minimizing disrup-
tion to academic activities and minimizing impact on the public image of MIT. The
Analytic Hierarchy Process (Chapter 4) was then used to assess the relative weights
that should be attached to these objectives while utility functions (Chapter 6) were
used to obtain a score for the consequences, in relation to each objective, of not carry-
ing out a given project. By combining the weights and scores, an overall ‘performance
index’ was obtained for the projects so that they could be prioritized. The application
of these decision-analysis tools led to a number of benefits. It allowed people from
different professional backgrounds to apply their expertise to the process and reach a
consensus. It also provided a consistent and defensible rationale for the prioritization.
Most notably, the fact that discussions took place in the workshops about risks, objec-
tives and priorities led to a change of culture in the department so that people were
more willing to address these issues in an explicit and structured way.

Supporting the systems-acquisition process for the US military 14

In the past, the acquisition process for major military systems in the United States
has been subject to much criticism because it did not produce defensible decisions
underpinned by sound analyses and a clear rationale. As a result, decision-analysis
techniques like SMART (Chapter 3) have been increasingly widely used to structure
decision making at the various stages of the process. For example, when the US Army
air defense community needed to establish the most cost-effective mix of low-altitude
air defense weapons, decision analysis was used to help a group – consisting of both
technical experts and senior officers – to rank alternative weapon mixes. The pro-
cess enabled a large number of criteria to be identified (e.g., flexibility at night, refuel
capability, capability of defeating an enemy fixed-wing aircraft) and allowed options
to be evaluated explicitly by taking into account all these criteria. Where decisions
involved several organizations, the decision model was found have a valuable role in
depoliticizing issues.
APPLICATIONS OF DECISION ANALYSIS 9

Prioritizing projects in a busy UK social services department 15

Kent Social Services Department is responsible for the provision of services to the
elderly, mentally handicapped, mentally ill, physically handicapped, and children
and families in south-eastern England. In the late 1980s managers in the department
were facing an increasing workload with insufficient resources to handle it. The result
was ‘resource log-jams, random-seeming displacement of previously understood
priorities, foreshortened deadlines, and an overall sense of overload and chaos.’
Decision analysis, based on SMART (Chapter 3) and the V⋅I⋅S⋅A package, was used by
key personnel to develop and refine a consistent and structured approach to project
prioritization. It enabled the many attributes associated with a project – such as
benefits to the service, monetary costs, workload involved and political pressures – to
be assessed and taken into account. However, the key benefits were seen to emanate
from the process itself. It allowed a problem which had been ‘a fermenting source of
unrest [to be] brought to the surface, openly accepted to be a problem and shared.’
As a result, ‘the undercurrent of discontent’ was replaced by ‘enthusiasm for action.’

Selecting a wide area network solution at EXEL Logistics 16

EXEL Logistics, a division of one of the top 100 British companies which special-
izes in distribution solutions, has applied decision analysis to a number of problems.
One problem involved the selection of a wide area network (WAN) for interconnect-
ing around 150 sites in the UK. Seven alternative proposals needed to be consid-
ered. The decision was complicated by the need to involve a range of people in the
decision process (e.g., professional information systems staff, depot managers and IT
directors) and by the variety of attributes that applied to the WANs, such as costs,
flexibility, performance, safety and supplier stability. By using decision conferencing
(Chapter 13) together with SMART (Chapter 3), the team were able to agree a choice
and recommend it with confidence to the company’s board.

Planning under a range of futures in a financial services firm

ATM Ltd (a pseudonym) provides the electromechanical machines that dispense cash
outside many of the banks and building societies in the UK. Auto-teller machines, as
they are called, are ATM’s main products. However, in the early 1990s, several of the
executives at ATM were concerned that the use of cash might be in swift decline in
the European Union since ‘smart cards’ – cards similar to debit cards but which store
electronic cash – were being promoted by a competitor in the financial services sector.
The executives did not feel able to predict the year in which cash transactions would
10 INTRODUCTION

cease to be significant, nor did they feel able to assess the potential rate of decline. By
using scenario planning (Chapter 16), they felt able to identify critical driving forces
which would accelerate or decelerate the move away from cash. As a result, they felt
better placed to anticipate and cope with an unfavorable future – if such a future did
begin to unfold.

Supporting top-level political decision making in Finland 17

Decision analysis based on the analytic hierarchy process (Chapter 4) has been used
by groups of members (MPs) of the Finnish parliament to structure discussion and
clarify their positions on decisions such as whether Finland should join the European
Community (EU) or not. Such decisions are difficult because they involve many issues
that are likely to have differing levels of importance. For example, in the EU decision,
issues such as effects on industry, agriculture, national security, the environment and
national culture needed to be addressed. The MPs found that the approach enabled
them to generate ideas and structure the problems so that irrelevant or insignificant
arguments were avoided in their decision making.

Automating advice-giving in a building society front office

Home Counties Building Society (a pseudonym) took advantage of deregulation in the

UK financial services sector and investigated the possibility of offering tailored finan-
cial products – such as pension plans – at point-of-sale in their high-street branches.
They found that tailoring financial products to client characteristics, although theoret-
ically straightforward, would not be practicable given the limited expertise of counter
staff. One solution was to capture the expertise of the senior pensions’ adviser and
deliver it via an expert system (Chapter 18) on a front-office desk. A clerk could type
in client details and chat while the system matched the best pension plan, printed a
hard copy of the details and explained – in plain English – the specific advantages of
the recommended plan for the particular client.

Allocating funds between competing aims in

a shampoo-manufacturing company 18

The managing director of an operating company which manufactures and markets a

well-known brand of shampoo in a particular country had been asked by head office
to justify his very large advertising budget. The managers responsible for distribu-
tion, advertising and promotion met with support staff and advertising agency repre-
sentatives in a decision conference (Chapter 13). However, the insights revealed by a
APPLICATIONS OF DECISION ANALYSIS 11

SMART model transformed their thinking and the problem was then seen as one of
improving the allocation of funds between distribution, advertising and promotion in
order to achieve the objectives of growth, leadership and profit. An EQUITY resource
allocation model (Chapter 14) enabled the participants to evaluate the costs and ben-
efits of combinations of strategies from each expenditure area. This led to agreement
on an action plan which was implemented within a month.

Anticipating the need for doctors and dentists in the English National
Health Service19

Doctors and dentists take many years to train in their various specialisms. But what
will be the demand for these health-service professionals in 2030? A scenario exercise
(Chapter 16) was conducted in England in 2012 to identify four different scenarios.
Predetermined, or ‘in-the-pipeline,’ factors were identified – such as an aging, internet-
saavy population – and uncertainties were also identified – such as the strength of the
economy and the linked ability of the country to provide healthcare. These views of
alternative futures were used to provide advice to the UK Government on 2013 student
intake numbers in the health professions.

Monitoring early warning signals in the business environment

at Nokia and Statoil20

Nokia and Statoil have a history of combining scenario planning (Chapter 16) with
‘early warning scanning,’ focusing on enhancing managers’ awareness of the occur-
rence of the early ‘trigger’ events that might indicate that a particular scenario is start-
ing to unfold. Statoil was inspired by long-standing activity within the oil giant Shell,
whereas Nokia’s activities started around 1990 and were driven by top management.
In both organizations, these activities were found to help reframe managerial atten-
tion (Chapter 15) and help determine where the companies should focus their new
technology investments. Differences, over time, in their foresight activities have been
analyzed and related to differences in the organizations’ financial performance.20

The future of electric-drive vehicles in Germany21

Individual mobility seems indispensible in modern society and in the last 10 years the
total number of motor vehicles on the world’s roads has increased by 25%. But, with
the increase came related increases in noise exposure, air pollution, land fragmentation
Another random document with
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postcards, and, as a reminder that British troops had passed that
way before, boxes and packets of English cigarettes.
It did not need the bronze “T” on collars and shoulder-straps to tell
me that these were not Regular troops. These men were prone to
silence, rather shy, a trifle helpless, as they stood about the rain-
swept street, waiting for their officers to show them their billets, to tell
them what to do. They seemed to be drinking in their impressions of
this, their first experience of life in the field, and I doubt that they will
ever fade from the minds of those men, so cheerless was their
welcome at Merris. Regulars would have made themselves at home
on the instant. They would have found a fire at which they might
have dried their sodden overcoats and brewed themselves a drink of
hot tea in their capacious pannikins. If fire or warm drinks were not
forthcoming, they would have ferreted out for themselves a dry
corner under a roof somewhere, and gone to sleep with that infinite
capacity for sleeping at odd moments and in queer places that is
peculiar to the British soldier.
The officers did not seem to me to be quite sure of themselves.
They had a certain earnestness of mien, a certain formality of
manner, and seemed inclined to hold aloof from their men. It is only
the fire-trench, after all, that teaches the new officer the exact
proportion of familiarity that discipline permits between officers and
men.
Their equipment, too, seemed rather more elaborate than was
consonant with comfort on a long march through the wet. Their caps
were stiff-crowned, they wore heavy overcoats, and over them their
web equipment hung, attached to it a more or less large variety of
the leather-bound articles that people at home present to the
departing warrior, most of which he discards after a week or two in
the trenches, and their puttees were quite impeccably tied. To me,
who had grown accustomed to the négligé of dress and manner of
the fire-trench, these small distinctions were probably more apparent
than they would have been to an ordinary observer.
It was not until months later that I saw the North Midland Division
again. It was a thundery summer day in the trenches, with bursts of
hot sunshine alternating with drenching showers. The trenches were
ankle-deep in mud and water, and had been dug in many places
through the all too shallow burial-places of the dead of former fights.
In some places the British and German lines were very close
together, and there was short shrift for him who should thrust his
head, even for a moment, above the shelter of the parapet.
In these unwholesome surroundings I found my Territorials of
Merris again. But in the sunburnt, calmly deliberate veterans who
manned the parapet I scarcely recognized the young troops with the
half-fledged air that I had seen standing in the rain on that March
afternoon. The conditions in those trenches on that showery morning
were, I imagine, incomparably worse than anything the Division had
undergone before. But the men made the best of things, and
woebegone and weather-stained though they were in appearance,
went about their normal round of duties as though they had been
living all their lives in mud and water and in close proximity to a
dangerous foe.
Over fires skilfully contrived in dry corners some were cooking
pannikins of savoury soup and steaming tea; others, who had been
on guard all night, slept as peacefully as children, though “whizz-
bangs” burst noisily to and fro about the parapet, and now and again
the thunder rolled imperiously above the sound of the guns. The rain
came down steadily; every trench was a slough of sticky, yellow clay
and foul water; the walls of dug-out and “funk-hole” reeked with
damp. But the sleepers slept on, those who could not find room in a
“funk-hole” lying on the “fire-stand,” completely enveloped in their
great-coats or waterproof sheets.
Active service had transformed the officers. They looked as hard
and as capable and as self-reliant as their men. They had lost much
of their formality of manner; that very scrupulous correctitude of
dress had gone; vanished, too, were many of the natty little articles
that, but a few months since, had jingled melodiously about them as
they marched up from the coast at the head of their platoon or
company. Such of them as wore caps had old soft caps, stained with
mud and sweat, crushed well on to their heads; many were tunicless,
and made their round of the trenches simply attired in grey soldier
shirt and old riding-breeches thrust into trench boots, for all the world
like the old-time “Forty-niners” of the gold-fields.
The link between them and their men was much looser, but much
more intimate. It was not difficult to see that the men leant more than
ever on their officers, and that the officers, on their side, were
beginning to “discover” their men—to discover the soul of the
Englishman, as it has never been unbared between Englishmen
before, I think—simple, brave, devoted, uncomplaining, inspired by
an ocean-deep patriotism not fed from external sources, but
springing spontaneous and elemental from within. Both had found
themselves and one another, officers and men.
It was in the rainy days of the first battle of Ypres that our
Territorials first found themselves actually fighting on foreign soil. Of
Yeomanry Cavalry, the Northumberland, the Northamptonshire, the
North Somerset and the Leicestershire Regiments, and the
Oxfordshire Hussars; of Territorial Infantry, the London Scottish, the
Honourable Artillery Company, the Queen’s Westminsters, and the
Hertfordshire, were engaged. General Sir Julian Byng, commanding
the cavalry, made special mention to the Commander-in-Chief of the
conduct of the Yeomanry in the field, while, in the case of the
Territorial Infantry, Sir Douglas Haig spoke in high terms of their
gallant behaviour.
On these powerful recommendations Sir John French wrote the
sentence in his despatch on the first battle of Ypres which I have
quoted at the head of this chapter. It must have been with feelings of
peculiar satisfaction that he found himself in a position to pay this
well-merited tribute to the Territorials. For he, more than any other,
was responsible for the creation of the Territorial Army which was
destined to play an invaluable part in the expansion of the
Expeditionary Force into the great national army. It was he whom
Lord Haldane, fresh to the War Office, summoned to bring his wide
experience, his flexible mind, his great knowledge of war, to the task
of carrying the Haldane reforms—first and foremost among them the
creation of the Territorial Force—to fruitful accomplishment.
 The material of the Territorials sent out to the front was always
good; often their training and equipment left something to be desired.
At the outset of the war the progress of the Territorials from England
to the firing-line was very gentle. The first Territorial battalions to
come out were given a preliminary stage at a temporary camp
established at General Headquarters, where they went through a
further course of instruction at the hands of men fresh from the
trenches, or, at any rate, in closest touch with the army in the field,
and where any shortcomings in their equipment were rectified. As
their training proceeded they were sent to the trenches in driblets,
the officers going by couples to serve for some time with a battalion
in the front line, the men going first by sections, then by platoons,
then by double companies, until it was judged that the whole
battalion was sufficiently experienced to take over by itself a section
of the trenches, preferably in one of the quieter parts of the line.
The famous Artists’ Rifles have played a unique rôle in this war.
The battalion was originally intended to take its place in the line the
same as the Regulars and the other Territorial troops out here. But
their fine esprit de corps, together with the high standard of
intelligence and the good social standing of their men, pointed to this
distinguished battalion as an ideal Officers’ Training Corps in the
field. The experiment was tried. The battalion, as a homogeneous
unit, was not sent to the front line, but retained in the rear, and used
for furnishing sentries and doing other duties, while likely candidates
were selected from the ranks and sent to a Cadet School to be
trained for commissions. At the Cadet School, which, from very
modest beginnings, has now developed into a large and flourishing
institution—a veritable Sandhurst in Flanders—they are given a
thoroughly practical course of instruction, which includes trench
modelling in clay and weekly visits of forty-eight hours’ duration to
the trenches. So successful has the experiment proved that the
Commander-in-Chief is said to have stated that the Artists’ Rifles
have been worth a Division to him. Altogether the Artists have
supplied more than a thousand officers to the army in the field—a
truly magnificent achievement.
 When the Territorials first came to France, a Regular might yet
safely ruffle his nose at them and get a laugh. “T.F.” stood for
Saturday afternoon soldiering and tubby Colonels and bespectacled
privates. But the Territorials were used to being made fun of. In
peace-time kicks and no ha’pence were their lot, and in war they did
not care very much whether they got either as long as they might
“have a smack at the Germans.” So they grinned and bore the chaff,
and settled down in uncomfortable billets in dreary towns and dirty
villages to learn what they had not learnt about war—and at first it
was a good deal—in their camps at home, chafing desperately at the
waiting, but doing all manner of useful jobs behind the line against
the time that their services might be required for the work they had
volunteered to do.
Their chance came at last, as it comes to every man in the field. At
a critical stage in the first battle of Ypres (if you can speak of a
critical stage in a battle that was one long crisis), the Territorials I
have already mentioned, horse and foot, went into action and bore
themselves well. The London Scottish, particularly, fought like
veterans at Messines, though I fear that the injudicious “booming” of
their spirited charge in the newspapers called down on their heads a
good deal of unmerited ill-will on the part of other battalions out here.
Winter came and went. In March the first Territorial Division arrived
in France. Others followed, and Territorial Divisions began to be
employed, with due circumspection, as homogeneous units to do
their share of holding our lengthening line. Even as the Territorial
Divisions began to arrive, individual battalions were undergoing their
baptism of fire on the bloody field of Neuve Chapelle. There were
many Territorials in that hard-fought fight, and none did better than
the 6th Gordons and the 3rd London Regiment, the latter executing a
splendid charge that so electrified the Regulars who witnessed it,
that they stood up on the parapet of their trenches and cheered as
the “Terriers” swung past.
The second battle of Ypres saw the début of a Territorial Division,
fighting as a homogeneous unit, in the shape of the Northumberland
Division, which, as I have described elsewhere in this book, though
only a few days out from England, went straight into action and
played its part unflinchingly. Indeed, the fight for the Ypres Salient
was a Territorials’ as it was a Regulars’ battle from the inferno of Hill
60, where the Queen Victoria Rifles—“the Q. Vics,” as they are
affectionately called in the Brigade—and the 6th King’s Liverpool
Regiment earned the unstinted admiration of their fellow-Regulars, to
the horror of the closing stages of the battle on May 13, when the
North Somerset, the Leicestershire and the Essex Yeomanry showed
the Lifeguards and the Blues and the Bays, the flower of our cavalry,
that Yeomanry also know how to die.
Right round the arc of the salient, throughout those weeks of
bloody fighting, Territorials fought side by side with the Regulars.
After the battle General Prowse, commanding the Brigade to which
the London Rifle Brigade, that fine London Territorial Regiment, was
attached, said to me: “If you see the L.R.B.’s, tell them from me we
want them back. We all look on them as Regulars now.”
The old Territorial joke died at Ypres. It lies buried in the salient in
the graves where Territorials from nearly every shire in the United
Kingdom are sleeping their last sleep. Our fathers who laughed at
Punch’s gibes at the old Volunteers, with their “sham-fights” and
“field-days” on Wimbledon Common, little thought that those rotund
Colonels and bewhiskered Majors and slow-moving privates were
creating the tradition that was to bear our gallant Territorials with
heads uplifted unflinchingly through the inferno of the Flanders plain.
Do you remember Saturday afternoons in London before the war?
and the processions of young fellows in odd-looking uniforms of grey
and blue and bottle-green, rifles slung across their shoulders,
hastening to the railway-stations for their afternoon drills? Some of
us scoffed, maybe, at the “earnest” young men whose pleasure it
was to “play at soldiers” ... but the shame of it came back to me in a
hot flush as I stood by their graves in the salient of Ypres.
The attack on the Fromelles ridge on May 9, the fighting at
Festubert in May and June, the capture, loss, and recapture of the
trenches at Hooge in June, July, and August, found the Territorials in
action every time. Their behaviour under fire only confirmed the good
impression which their début at Ypres in November had produced on
the army. Its verdict was, “The ‘Terriers’ are all right.”
Thus, the Regular came to admire—nay, to love the Territorial. He
admitted him into the inner circle of his esteem and affection, where
hitherto only the navy and the Royal Flying Corps, of our combatants
in this war, have had a place. If the New Army prove themselves
hardy fighters, imbued with those soldierly qualities which are the
sole criterion by which the army in the field judges men, then they,
too, shall find ingress into that jealously guarded preserve, the heart
of the Regular.
When he gives you his friendship, the British soldier is a good
friend. Between some Regular and Territorial battalions bonds of the
closest affection have been formed in the field. Thus, the gallant
Hertfordshire Territorials, who wear the Hart badge of the
Bedfordshire Regiment, are sworn brothers to the Guards, by reason
of their being brigaded with the Guards in the famous Guards
Brigade—the only non-Guards battalion in the Brigade—for many
months. The army calls them “The Herts Guards,” and right proud
the Hertfordshires are of the title.
War has rounded off many edges in the Territorials, yet, to the
inexperienced eye, there is still a marked difference between the
Regular and even the most seasoned Territorial. A Territorial
battalion is far more of a family gathering than a Regular battalion.
Your Territorial regiment recruits, as a rule, from one more or less
restricted area, so that there are all kinds of bonds of family,
business, and speech between its men. To the Regulars of our old
standing army war has ever been a business: to the Territorial it is
much more of a prolonged foreign holiday—“the most glorious
change of air and scene I have ever had,” is how a member of the
H.A.C. referred to his service at the front.
This homogeneity of interests in a Territorial battalion also applies
to trades. Thus, you will find, in the case of Territorials from the
North, whole battalions of miners, of cotton operatives, of gillies. I
heard of an entire company of a certain Territorial regiment formed
out of hands from a well-known brewery, who had joined en masse.
 I imagine that our Territorial regiments resemble more closely than
any other formations we have in the field to-day the bands of archers
who, in the Middle Ages, as Froissart tells, followed their feudal
Barons to France and fought over the very fields where the war is
being waged to-day. Like our Territorials, these bands must have
been united within themselves by countless home associations, led,
as they were, by their home leaders, speaking their home speech,
swearing by their home shrines. The tie that welds Regulars together
is the spirit of the regiment; home is the uniting bond of the
Territorials.
The Regular generally marches in silence. If he sings it is as often
as not one of those soldier songs of obscure origin like “The Song of
Shame,” which I have often heard sung but have never seen in print.
It deals with the misfortunes of a lass that loved not wisely, but too
well, and beginning,
“She wuz pore but she wuz honest,”
continues through any number of more or less unprintable strophes.
The Territorial, on the other hand, hates to march in silence. If he
is not singing, he is whistling. His range of songs is extensive. He will
sing anything, from doggerel set to hymn tunes to Grand Opera. He
will carol from Poperinghe to Ypres, from Lillers to Béthune, that
familiar marching ditty which goes to the tune of “Here we go
gathering nuts and may”:
“Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
And nobody seems to care-oh!”
and when one song stops, another is started.
I have no hesitation in setting down the fine qualities of pluck and
endurance which the Territorials have displayed in this war to the
educational influence of games. The best type of Territorial—the
young city-dweller, the shop-assistant and clerk class—is nearly
always an athlete, and I make no doubt that the healthy spirit of the
cricket, football and hockey field, and of the boxing-ring, is
responsible not only for his fine capacity for delivering blows, but
also for standing knocks without repining, without losing his temper.
Our games are the product of our English minds, no doubt, and you
find these same qualities in the Regular soldier. But in the latter this
little seed is cultivated and developed by the force of regimental
tradition, while in the Territorial, who comes out to the front
practically as an outsider to the army, it is by the physical and mental
training he has received from the games he has played in times of
peace.
Months of active service do not seem to eradicate altogether a
certain aloofness which generally exists between the Regular and
the Territorial, save in the case of those units which have been
brought into close touch in the field. The officers seem to slip more
slowly into the groove than the men. The Territorial officer is new to
the game. Under our Territorial system he has had but scant
opportunities in times of peace of knowing his men, and little or no
chance of familiarizing himself with the spirit of the army. Until he has
found his feet, therefore, he is inclined to grapple himself desperately
to the regulations, thereby acquiring, not only towards his men, but
also towards his brother officers in the Regulars, a certain formality
of manner which those brought up in that perfect school of easy
manners, the British Army, are inclined to resent.
When I have been in trenches held by Territorials, I have
sometimes noticed that the officers have been more concerned with
the making of reports, etc., than more practical and immediate cares,
such as the comfort of their men, the cleanliness of their trench (of
great importance from the standpoint of hygiene), and the
movements of the enemy. A good regimental officer of Regulars, in
similar circumstances, would have let the paper business go hang,
and would have set the whole company hustling, baling out the water
in the trenches, improving the dug-outs and mending the flooring,
whilst he himself would have had a prowl round looking out for
German snipers and for any likely corners from which his men might
“draw a bead” on the enemy.
The Territorial officer is lacking in experience, but that is a fault
that remedies itself with every day that he spends in the front line. It
is here that a good Staff tells. An active Brigadier who constantly
visits the trenches can get the very best results out of the real good-
will of the Territorial officer.
I have been round the trenches once or twice with the Brigade
Major of one of the brigades of a Territorial Division, and I have been
astonished to see the number of small points which his quick and
experienced eye has detected, which he has pointed out, always in a
tactful, suggesting way, to the officers in charge of the front-line
companies—here a German loophole left open, offering a chance for
a good shot (in which these Territorial battalions abound); there a
line of fresh earth behind the German trench, suggesting
underground activity of some sort; there, again, a weak parapet in
our fire-trench, or a man whom the careful eye has seen exposing
himself recklessly. The Brigade Major, who had fought at Mons, had
experience: the Territorial officers were getting it. The courteous,
eager way in which they accepted his hints was as charming as the
suave fashion in which they were proffered.
The army in the field has not been slow to learn that a profusion of
talent in the arts and crafts is lying dormant in the Territorial
battalions. If an expert in any branch is wanted, application is always
made to the nearest Territorial battalion, seldom, if ever, without
success. A friend of mine, a company commander in the Ypres
region, having procured a piano for his company’s rest billets behind
the line, found the instrument so much out of tune as to be useless.
Forthwith word was sent round for a piano-tuner. A search through
the battalion drew a blank. A note to an adjacent Territorial regiment
produced a finished piano-tuner who had been driving a lorry in the
Mechanical Transport. Naturally, he had none of his piano-tuning
tools with him, but he made excellent shift with a couple of spanners
from the travelling workshop. In the same way a Brigade wanted a
plumber and a clerk, and got both from its Territorial battalion. The
clerk was a bookmaker’s clerk, it is true, but he proved himself a
treasure—“... Besides,” as the Staff Captain said, “if one ever wants
to make a book on a race at home, why, there he is, don’t you know!”
Territorial battalions have supplied the army with chemists and
doctors and fly experts, with map-drawers and photographers and
electricians, and with an extraordinary variety of dramatic and
musical talent for concerts at the front. At the fortnightly “smokers” of
the Machine Gun School, which are by far the best in the field,
territorial battalions supply a good proportion of the contributors to
the programme. The Artists’ Rifles are particularly prolific in platform
talent. They possess three much sought after performers, in the
person of a lance-corporal (in private life a broker in the rubber
market, I believe), who is a most amusing “drawing-room entertainer”
after the style of the late George Grossmith; a transport sergeant (he
forsook the law for the war), who has an extensive repertory of
Kipling recitations; and a sergeant-instructor of machine-guns, who
is the perfect accompanist and a really first-class musician to boot.
These Territorial battalions are full of experts. The beautifully
finished sign-posts in Plug Street Wood are the work of Territorials,
and a familiar landmark in this historic part of the line is the exquisite
little cemetery laid out by a famous Southern Territorial battalion in a
pretty little wooded glade, where the gallant Lieutenant Poulton
Palmer, the international Rugby footballer, lies. The Adjutant of a
certain Territorial battalion of the Leicesters is a quarry manager in
civil life. When last I saw him, at tea in a Flemish farm-house, he was
proposing to utilize his expert knowledge of pumps for the benefit of
his battalion’s section of trenches.
In the field I have seen Territorials from England, Scotland and
Wales—raw troops fresh from home and hardened veterans of half a
dozen fights, bank clerks from Cornhill, miners from Cardiff, gillies
from Inverness shire, ploughboys from the Mendips. I have seen
them in rain and shine, in the fire-trenches and behind the lines. And
seeing them I have marvelled at the equalizing influence of war that
has moulded all these men, torn from their civilian callings—as
widely differing as the poles are asunder—to the same stamp of
cool, courageous fighters who will endure to the end.
The homogeneity of these Territorial battalions, even of the
Divisions, is remarkable. One day I met the whole of the London
Division together on the occasion of Divisional sports. The big field in
which the meeting was held was the microcosm of London life. It
was London in Picardy. Every London accent was heard in that
crowd—the whole gamut of dialects—from the mannered speech of
Berkeley Square through all the intonations and inflexions of the
suburbs from Highbury to Brixton, and from Shepherd’s Bush to
Streatham, down to the strident tones of the New Cut and the Old
Kent Road. It was strange to think that but a short year since all
these men had travelled together in ’bus and tube, had rubbed
elbows in Oxford Street or the Strand, strangers all, leading the
jealously guarded individual existence of the average Londoner—to
think that they were now thrown together into almost the closest
relationship it is possible to conceive, the life of troops fighting side
by side in the field.
With the Scottish battalions the family spirit is even more marked.
The Scotsman is a far more clannish creature than the Southerner,
and these Scottish battalions hang together with a fierce esprit de
corps in which the Englishman feels positively lost. This is especially
true of the kilted battalions, which have in their bonnets and kilts a
perpetual reminder of their origin.
I have been in the trenches with Highland battalions in which
hardly a man born south of the Tweed was serving, and in which all,
officers as well as men, spoke in the broadest Scottish vernacular.
The chaplains of some of these Scottish Territorial regiments are
delightful characters, fine types of “meenister” and “verra’ godly
men,” but, for all that, stout, great-hearted fellows who are
continually with the men in the front line. The fine, practical spirit in
which these Scottish padres carry out their mission is expressed in
the saying of one of their number, Chaplain to the 5th Gordon
Highlanders, whose continual exhortation to the men is: “Keep your
hearts up and your heads doon!”
With these brave words, which might well serve as a motto for the
Territorial on active service, we will leave the Territorials at the post
of duty. When the country’s need of men was sorest, they
volunteered for foreign service and came to France and did their
part. Now that the first great transports have crossed the Channel
with the men of the New Army, the original mission of the Territorials
may be regarded as accomplished, though, doubtless, many fights
still await them. They gave their help at a time when every man was
wanted to hold our fragile line. Now they have become absorbed into
the framework of our army in the field, which the legions of the New
Army are expanding into the great Continental host to decide the
ultimate issue with the hordes of Germany.
 CHAPTER XVI
THE EYES OF THE ARMY

“Why, all my life I have been trying to guess what lay on the
other side of the hill!”—The Duke of Wellington.
One day, while I was gazing at a German working-party grubbing
like ants on a far slope behind the enemy lines, a hawk glided swiftly
and strongly into the field of my telescope. It hung almost motionless
in the clear summer air, high up above the green valley, its powerful
wings outspread, the very incarnation of waking watchfulness. And I
found myself wondering of what the hawk reminded me, poised aloft,
now swooping a little this way, now that, until a low droning in the
azure far above gave me my clue even as an aeroplane glittered into
sight.
The aeroplane stood out, almost motionless as it seemed to me,
over the German lines, while with a “pom-pom-pom!” the German
anti-aircraft guns ringed it round in puffs of white smoke. Like the
hawk that continued to hover over the valley, it was watching—
watching. Like the hawk’s, its searching glance plunged down into
the animate life far below, the life that pursues its normal round
unperturbed because it knows it cannot escape from the eyes in the
sky.
The aeroplanes are the eyes of the army. They alone have made
possible the war of positions. From the Alps to the North Sea the
warring nations of Europe are hidden in the ground, but their eyes
are far aloft. It is the alliance between the mole and the hawk. While
the man in the trench uses the periscope to observe from his safe
shelter the enemy trench across the way, the army commanders in
the rear peer through the eyes of the aeroplanes into the enemy
trenches and into the enemy country far behind the firing-line.
 The most important contribution which this war is destined to make
to our knowledge of warfare lies in the development of the use of
military aircraft. The aeroplane has revolutionized warfare, because
it has practically removed from war the element of surprise. The only
hope that the modern General has of maintaining the fog of war lies
in the weather, which, in more than one instance in this war, has
effectually veiled from peering eyes aloft movements which are
destined to have a decisive influence on the operations.
The aeroplane has relieved the cavalry of the greater part of its
functions. If our cavalry are serving dismounted in the trenches, and
their horses growing round of belly, it is the fault of the aeroplane. Sir
John French has defined the functions of cavalry as threefold: to
reconnoitre, to deceive, to support. The aeroplane has entirely
usurped the first of these three roles, and has rendered the second
illusory. Only rain and mist can safely hope to obscure the
movements of an army from the eyes of the watcher in the skies.
Like cavalry, the military aeroplanes execute both tactical and
strategical reconnaissances. Their tactical reconnaissances are
carried out on shorter flights, which lead them out over the enemy
trench-lines and the region immediately behind. Their object is to
note any change in the clear-cut line of the trenches, as seen from
above, indicative of the laying out of fresh fortifications or
communication trenches; to look out for reliefs coming up; and,
generally, to gauge the strength and composition of the enemy
forces along a definite section of the front by noting the positions of
transport columns and by locating the whereabouts of brigade and
divisional headquarters.
Generally the aeroplane has a specific mission, though, of course,
roving flights are also made. A flight may be undertaken at the
request of a battalion in the front line which has observed suspicious
activity on the part of the enemy opposite, or the Intelligence may
have got wind of some move which seems to require further
elucidation by a peep from above.
Of the same nature as these tactical reconnaissances are the
flights undertaken in collaboration with the artillery, either to survey
likely objectives for our guns, to locate hostile batteries that have
been annoying our lines, or to perform that useful duty known as
“spotting for the guns”—i.e., observing the effect of our artillery fire.
Naturally, in the course of flights undertaken for purposes
unconnected with our artillery, an aeroplane will often make
observations of the greatest value to the guns. In such cases, of
course, a report is immediately made to the artillery headquarters.
As in these tactical reconnaissances the aeroplane is, so to speak,
an extended and movable periscope for the men in the front line, so,
in its strategical reconnaissance work, it may be said to serve as
eyes to the General Staff. Strategical reconnaissance takes the
aeroplane on longer flights far into the enemy’s country, where
above towns in the war zone, about barracks and railheads and
headquarters and fortifications, keen eyes may glean much that is of
supreme importance to the General Staff in compiling the information
as to the strength and dispositions of the enemy on which all
strategy is based.
In addition to the tactical and strategical importance of the
aeroplane in war, it is also a weapon not only of offence, but of
defence, against aircraft. It can carry out bombing raids on fortified
positions, factories of munitions of war, aviation centres, railway-
stations, barracks, bivouacs, and batteries. It is the only really
effective weapon of defence against aircraft, both aeroplanes and
airships. One of the principal duties of our aeroplanes at the front is
to go up and chase away German aircraft reconnoitring or bound on
bombing exploits. They have also done useful work as sky sentries
on the watch for the Zeppelins which from time to time sally forth—
with small success, be it said—to spread German Kultur from the
clouds over the towns situated in our zone of operations at the front.
The battle of Neuve Chapelle may be cited as a typical instance of
the work which the Royal Flying Corps is doing in this war. It was our
airmen who, by continual reconnaissance work in all the variations of
weather which are found in the late winter of Flanders, ascertained
the dispositions of the Germans about Neuve Chapelle to be such as
to justify the hope that we might risk a successful offensive at this
point. It was they who, while our troops were massing for the attack,
made sure that all was quiet, not only in the German lines, but also
in the enemy’s country, far back into Belgium. It was they who, by
hovering constantly above our trenches, kept prying German eyes
away, and prevented them from discovering the surprise which was
preparing for Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and his merry men.
Nor did the usefulness of the Royal Flying Corps cease here.
Despite the very hazy weather which prevailed on the morning of the
engagement (March 10), “a remarkable number of hours’ flying of a
most valuable character were effected, and continuous and close
reconnaissance was maintained over the enemy’s front” (Sir John
French’s Despatch, dated General Headquarters, April 5, 1915).
During the actual fighting, in addition to their usual work of
“spotting for the guns,” our aeroplanes executed several daring raids
into Belgium, in order to hamper the enemy’s movements by
destroying his points of communication. Bombs were dropped on the
railways at Menin, Courtrai, Don, and Douai; a wireless installation
near Lille is believed to have been destroyed; while, to quote the
official despatch again, “a house in which the enemy had installed
one of his headquarters was set on fire.”
This was, I believe, the headquarters of the German Intelligence,
for I read in the German newspapers that the rooms in which the
German Intelligence at General Headquarters is installed are
boarded up along one side as the result of the partial destruction of
the house by an English air raid. It was also stated that one of the
English bombs which had not exploded is kept on the mantelpiece in
the office as a memento.
A Belgian doctor who called upon me in London in April,
immediately on his arrival from Belgium, told me of a dramatic
account of the British air raid on the railway at Courtrai, given to him
by the guard of a train which had been standing in the station at the
time. The man had been wounded, and my Belgian friend had been
called in to attend him. The guard said that, on the appearance of
the British aeroplane over the station, a number of German soldiers
rushed out on to the line and started to fire at the raider with their
rifles. The British airman suddenly planed down, and the Germans,
thinking he had been hit, streamed together with shouts of joy into a
dense crowd to await his landing.
But their triumph was short-lived. When he was not more than a
hundred feet from the ground the raider dropped four bombs in rapid
succession right into the midst of the crowd; then, with a quick jerk of
his elevating plane, soared aloft and away. The bombs worked
havoc among that dense mass. A score or more of soldiers and
railwaymen were killed, and as many more wounded. The train was
wrecked; and as for the guard, who was a German, the doctor said
he became positively panic-stricken at the mere thought of what he
had seen that day.
The development which the war has produced in what I may call
air tactics is positively prodigious. It must be remembered that, at the
outset, the aeroplane had practically never been tried on active
service, for the experiments made in the Tripoli and Balkan wars,
and by the French in Morocco, were more in the nature of sporting
flights than serious military tests. Our pilots have had to learn by
their own experience in the air—and a gallant and bravely bought
experience it has been—the fighting tactics of the aeroplane. They
have had to learn to distinguish “by silhouette” the different types of
German machine, and to discover the most efficacious way of
dealing with each one, according as the position of the propeller and
of the driving-seat in relation to the planes restricts the field of fire of
the enemy machine-gun. They have had to learn for themselves how
to manœuvre for position when tackling an adversary in the air, to
find out the vital spots in the different types of enemy machines.
Active service has brought them their first taste of flying under fire.
They have learnt to keep a cool head with high-explosive shrapnel
from the enemy “Archies” bursting all around them, and bullets from
the machine-guns of attacking aeroplanes whistling about their ears
or rustling through the canvas stretches of their wings. They have
learnt to make those twists and turns, those swoops and dives,
which I have so often seen them making high in the air above the
lines, to avoid those pretty little puffs which carry instant destruction
in their folds of white smoke.
 Just as a certain temper of nerve is required of the airman, so
must he also possess special faculties of observation to fit him for
military work. The air observer must be cool-headed and resolute.
Above all things he must possess a certain measure of intuition
which will complete, which will fill in the details, as it were, of the
picture which his sharp eyes must pick out in relief from the blurred
chessboard of fields and roads and trees far beneath him.
Only experience will teach even the keenest eye to observe
fruitfully. Only the trained eye, reinforced by a good military brain, will
detect in that black thread on a white strip troops marching along a
road, or distinguish a moving train in that white smudge gliding over
a dark background. Only the trained mind will appreciate the military
significance of these observations. Where the intuition comes in is in
making the correct deductions from the things observed, and fitting
them into their right place in the general scheme of our information of
the enemy’s movements. Intelligent map-reading at the height at
which aeroplanes in war are compelled to travel is more than an
acquired accomplishment; it is a born gift.
Where a pilot and an observer venture forth together in one
machine, they must work in closest harmony. Like bowler and
wicket-keeper in one of those successful combinations with which
we are familiar in county cricket, each must divine by intuition the
intention of the other. In the roar of the propeller, the rush of the
hurricane, communication by word of mouth is hopeless, and even
the portable telephone is of small avail.
Now the observer is the captain on the bridge, the pilot the chief
engineer in the engine-room. Now the rôles are reversed.
Destruction threatens, and the pilot takes command. The observer
can lean back and commend his soul to God, while his comrade
strains every nerve to avert a swift end by a bullet in the air or a
more terrible death on the cruel earth a mile below.
Though only two years old, the Royal Flying Corps has already
created its own distinctive atmosphere. I can only describe it as a
subtle blend of the free-and-easy good-fellowship of the navy with
the kind of hectic dare-devilry which is characteristic of airmen
everywhere.
Not that the foolhardiness of a certain type of airman that we all
know is tolerated in the Royal Flying Corps. Its spirit demands high
courage, cool nerve, and absolute devotion to duty, on the part of
every one of its men, but feats of the “looping the loop” order are
strictly repressed. It is to keep this spirit out of the Corps that the rule
has been made forbidding any “advertising” of individual airmen by
name in connection with their flights on military service.
The risks are the same for all airmen at the front. Every airman
that fares forth over the German lines takes his life in his hand. The
authorities who decide these things hold—and rightly hold, in my
opinion—that the “writing-up” of the feats of individuals on duty might
introduce into the Corps a spirit of rivalry which is not consonant with
our high military traditions, and would also be unfair to those airmen
who weekly fly hundreds of miles in accomplishment of difficult and
dangerous missions, but who, by chance or by their own skill and
judgment, avoid adventures that savour of the sensational.
Therefore, “no names, no courts-martial.”
This rule has often rankled in my journalistic heart, for the Royal
Flying Corps accomplishes almost daily feats which appeal to all that
is daring and adventurous in Englishmen. Let us hope that after the
war the war diary of the Royal Flying Corps will be made public. It
should prove as inspiring a record of gallantry as the story of the
Scott Expedition.
Let me remind you, as a foretaste of the deeds of epic heroism
this diary contains, of the achievements of three young men of the
Royal Flying Corps, all of whom have made the sacrifice of their lives
—Rhodes-Moorhouse, V.C., Mapplebeck, D.S.O., and Aidan Liddell,
V.C.
England was thrilled to the depths when it read the plain,
unvarnished tale told by “Eyewitness” of the last flight and death of
Rhodes-Moorhouse. You remember how, landing at the flying-
ground with a mortal wound, he had but one thought, not of himself,
but of his mission—to make his report before they bore him away to