hence will smile when he reads that his forefathers had to have an
officer of Commander’s rank appointed to a ship solely for charge of
the main engines. Foreigners gasp when they hear that Lieutenants of
two or three years standing command our destroyers; in other navies
destroyers are usually commanded by Captains de Corvette; and then we
smile when we remember youngsters like Lieutenant Rombulow-Pearse of
the “Sturgeon,” who rescued the crew of the sinking “Decoy” in a gale
of wind, with only his small whaler to help him, and with the loss of
only one man, who disappeared nobody knows how.
The ideal complement of officers of the future therefore will be: 1
Captain, 1 Commander, 1 Lieutenant G., 1 Lieutenant E., 1 Lieutenant
T., 1 Lieutenant M., 1 Lieutenant N., 1 Lieutenant P., and as many
other watchkeepers as necessary.
Enough has been said in the meantime to show how completely the new
system of entry and training of officers has remodelled the British
Navy, and it is with the object of using the case of the officers as an
argument in considering the case of the men, that it has been dilated
on at such length.
STATE EDUCATION IN THE NAVY.
(_This Paper was prepared in 1902 under great obligations to Mr. J. R.
Thursfield._)
Everyone must now feel that the new system of Entry and Education of
Naval Officers must have a fair trial, and all reasonable people will
hold that it deserves one.
There still remains to be faced an argument which is certain to appeal
to democratic sentiment. Broadly stated, it is this--that the new
system, as at present organised, must of necessity take all officers
of the Navy from among the sons of parents who can afford to spend
about £120 a year on their sons from the age of 12½ until they become
Lieutenants at the age of about 20, or even over. In other words, the
officers of the Navy will be drawn exclusively from the well-to-do
classes.
Democratic sentiment will wreck the present system in the long run, if
it is not given an outlet. But let us take the far higher ground of
efficiency: is it wise or expedient to take our Nelsons from so narrow
a class?
[Illustration: “THE DAUNTLESS THREE,” PORTSMOUTH, 1903.
Sir John Fisher, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth.
Viscount Esher, President of the Committee of War Office
Reconstruction.
Sir George Sydenham Clarke, late Governor of Victoria.
]
Surely some small percentage of promising and intelligent boys from the
other classes could be secured and (if caught early enough, as is
now the case) trained to be _officers and gentlemen_ by the time they
are grown up.
Nor is it the money barrier alone which excludes them. An exclusive
system of nomination is distasteful, if not alien, to the democratic
sentiment. Combined with the cost of the subsequent training, our
present system absolutely excludes all but a very small fraction of
the population from serving the King as naval officers. It admits the
duke’s son if he is fit, but it excludes the cook’s son whether he
is fit or not. It ought to admit both, _but only if both are fit_.
The cook’s son may not often be fit, but when he is, why exclude him?
Brains, character, and manners are not the exclusive endowment of those
whose parents can afford to spend £1,000 on their education.
There seems to be only one way of solving this problem. Initial
fitness must be secured, as at present, by careful selection at the
outset, and if the promise is not fulfilled as time goes on, ruthless
exclusion, whether of duke’s son or of cook’s son, must be the
inflexible rule. But do not exclude for poverty alone, either at the
outset or afterwards. Let every fit boy have his chance, irrespective
of the depth of his parents’ purse. This might, of course, be done
by a liberal system of reduced fees for cadets, midshipmen, and
sub-lieutenants whose parents were in poor circumstances. But in the
first place there would be a certain element of invidiousness in the
selection of the recipients of the national bounty, and, in the second,
mischievous class distinctions would inevitably arise among the cadets
themselves--between those who were supported wholly or partially by
the State and those who were not. It is most essential that there
should be no such distinctions--that the cadets should be taught
to look up only to those who are eminent in brains, character, and
manners, and to look down only on those who are idle, vicious, vulgar,
or incorrigibly stupid. Now, a common maintenance by the State would
put them all on a common level of equality. Though the additional cost
to the State would doubtless be great, the result would be well worth
the extra expenditure.
The quarter of a million sterling required would be lost and
unnoticeable in the millions of the Education Vote, yet it would be
worth all the millions of the Education Vote if it makes the Navy more
efficient, because
_The British Nation Floats on the British Navy._
It would put the Navy once for all on a basis as broad as the nation;
it would immeasurably widen the area of selection, and place at the
disposal of the Admiralty all the intellect and all the character of
all classes of the people.
THE NEW NAVAL EDUCATION.
Masts and sails disappeared irretrievably with the demand for high
speed.
Now, what went with them? Why! The education that the sole use of sail
power gave to the eye, brain, and body, in battling with the elements!
It was a marvellous education which we had in the pure sailing days!
One was alert by instinct! You never knew what might happen! A
topsail-sheet carrying away, or a weather brace going, or a sudden
shift of wind, or squall!
One thus got habituated to being quick and resourceful, and it was more
or less a slur and a stigma not to be so! _Also_ (_as Officer of the
Watch_) _men’s lives were in your hands!_ For instance with men on the
yards, and any lubberly stupidity with braces or helm!
Both for Officers and Men then we no longer have this magnificent
education by _the Elements_!
Steam has practically annihilated the wind and the sea!
What are we to do to get the same ready and resourceful qualities by
other methods?
The answer is: The Gymnasium, Boat Sailing, the Destroyer, the
Submarine, and the Engine Room.
Apparently, we are in this country in the infancy of Gymnastics for
the training of the body when one reads of the Swedish system and its
results. (“_Mens sana in corpore sano._”)
The one solitary element in which we are behind, and must be behind all
nations, is “Men.” We have no Conscription with the unlimited resources
it gives! How should we counterbalance this want? “By introducing every
possible form of labour-saving appliance,” regardless of cost, weight,
and space; for instance, is it really impossible to devise mechanical
arrangements for feeding the fires with coal instead of using the mass
of men we now are obliged to employ for the purpose? The coal is got
out of the bunkers in the same way now as in the first steamship ever
built. It is not only we thereby save men--we ensure success (for the
next Naval War will be largely a question of physical endurance and
nerves).
“A machine has no nerves and doesn’t tire!”
The other point necessary to consider is “not to waste educated labour,
and to utilise and cultivate specialities!”
The present system of education both of Men and Officers is that we all
go in at one end like the pigs of every type at Chicago, and come out a
uniform pattern of sausages at the other!
Thus, what we want is, above all things, a “Corps d’Elite” of
gun-firers! I should call them the “Bull’s Eye Party” (and give them
all 10_s._ a day extra pay!)
They must do nothing else but practise hitting the target and lose
their pay when they don’t!
Where would your violin player be if he didn’t daily practise? And if
you made him pick oakum, where would his touch be?
This is what Paganini said: “The first day I omit to practise the
violin I notice it myself!
“The second day my friends notice it!!
“The third day the public notice it!!!”
But if the “Bull’s Eye Party” are to hit the enemy as desired (and as
they can be made competent to do!) then the Admirals and Captains, and
all others, must equally play their parts to allow the “Bull’s Eye
Party” to get within range and sight of the enemy. _Their_ education
is therefore equally important. Scripture comes in here appropriately,
“The eye cannot say to the hand, nor the hand to the foot,” etc., etc.
To put the matter very briefly:
“The education of all our Officers, without distinction, must be
remodelled to cope with machinery, instead of sails!”
The Gymnasium, the Engine-room, the Destroyer, the Submarine, and Boat
Sailing must be our great educational instruments.
Not for a single moment is it put forward that a year in a workshop and
a year in an engine-room will make an efficient Engineer Officer! It is
long experience in such work that does that!--as in every other thing!
But in a small way, the argument of the abolition of the old Navigating
Class applies here very forcibly. It was said their abolition would be
absolutely fatal to the efficient navigation of the Fleet.
But what has been the result? There have been fewer cases of bad
navigation since the old Navigating Class was done away with than in
the whole history of the Navy! And with this immense gain--that the
knowledge of navigation is now widely diffused through the Fleet.
One can suppose cases where it would be of the utmost value to us were
engineering knowledge and the handling of mechanical appliances more
widely diffused amongst our Officers!
But that is not _the vital point_! _The vital point_ is that were a
Midshipman to be continuously serving in the engine-room of Destroyers
and larger vessels (continuously under weigh) at high speeds, he would
get a training assimilating in its nature to that marvellous training
of the old sailing days, which kept the wits of Officer of the Watch
in the utmost state of tension, and produced the splendid specimens of
readiness and resource which we read of in the sea Officers of Nelson’s
time and later!
TRAINING OF BOYS: No masts and sails--Gymnasium--Rifle and
gun practice--Boat sailing--Little or no school. (No Binomial
Theorem)--Destroyer work for sea-sickness--Sent straight from
training-ships to hot foreign stations on the hot-house principle
before bedding-out--Select from the very beginning the good shots and
the smart signalmen and train them specially.
TRAINING OF THE MEN: Re-model instruction in Gunnery and Torpedo
Schools--“Corps d’Elite” of three classes of (1) gun firers or
“Marksmen”; (2) gun loaders; (3) gun manipulators--From the time the
boy enters the Navy in the training-ship till he gets his pension, the
sole object to be to select, train, and improve and retain “the good
shot,” and all training subordinated to this!
TRAINING OF OFFICERS: Return to early entry at 12 years of age--A
much lower standard of entrance, educational examination, and a
high standard of physical entrance examination--Colloquial French
obligatory, no grammar, and no other language, dead or alive!--A
combined course of “Britannia” and “Keyham” Colleges with at least two
years of engine-room and shop work and Destroyer practice.
These great changes are not fanciful ideas!
The stubborn fact that we cannot provide what is required on the
present system forces the change both as regards Officers as well as
Men and Boys.
NAVAL OFFICERS’ TRAINING.
_Some Opinions on the Admiralty Scheme_ (1902).
1. ADMIRAL LORD CHARLES BERESFORD.
In 1902 Lord Charles Beresford, in an interview on the then recent
Admiralty memorandum on the subject of the entry, training, and
employment of officers and men of the Royal Navy, said:--
“The strongest opponent of the scheme will acknowledge that
it is a brilliant and statesmanlike effort to grapple with _a
problem upon the sound settlement of which depends the future
efficiency of the British Navy_. To-day the commander of fleets
must possess a greater combination of characteristics than
has ever before been required of him. He must not only be a
born leader of men, but he must have the practical scientific
training which the development of mechanical invention renders
an absolute and indispensable essential. The executive officer
of to-day should possess an intimate knowledge of all that
relates to his profession. Up to now he has been fairly
educated in the different branches. The most important,
however--in that we depend entirely upon it--that relating
to steam and machinery, has been sadly neglected. The duties
of this branch have been delegated to, and well and loyally
performed by, a body of officers existing for this special
purpose, and there have been two results. _The executive
officer has remained ignorant of one of the most important
parts of his profession; the engineer officer has never
received that recognition to which the importance of his duties
and responsibilities so justly entitled him._ The Board of
Admiralty have now unanimously approved a plan which provides
that naval officers shall have an opportunity of adding
to their professional attainments the essential knowledge
of marine engineering. Further than this, the Board have
recognised that the present status of naval engineer officers
could not continue, in fairness either to themselves or to the
Service. _The abolition of distinction regarding entry has
settled this point once and for ever, and it is satisfactory to
find that constituted authority has taken the matter in hand
before it became a political or party question._
“There seems to be a doubt as to whether it will be possible
under the new scheme for an executive officer to have the
knowledge he should possess of marine engineering. There is no
cast-iron secret or mystery with regard to marine engineering,
as some seem to imagine. This being so, there is no reason why
lieutenants (E.) should not be just as good and useful experts
in their speciality as the gunnery, torpedo, or navigating
lieutenant of the present day, without in the slightest degree
detracting from their ability to become excellent executive
officers. It is imperative that all officers of the present day
should be well acquainted with all the general duties connected
with the management of ships and fleets. The wider and fuller
the education the naval officer receives in matters relating to
science within his own profession, the more likely the Service
is to produce men who will be capable of seeing that the fleet
in its entirety is perfect for its work, and that there is no
weak link in the chain that may jeopardise the whole.
“The memo, referring to the marines will be, I believe,
received with the greatest satisfaction by that splendid
corps as a whole as by the Service as a whole. _It is a marvel
that the zeal and ability of the officers of the Royal Marines
has not been effectively utilised long ago._ Many important
positions will now be open to them, and _they will feel that
they are taking a real part in the executive working of the
ship and fleet which is so proud to own them as a component
part_. It is to be hoped the way will now be open to give them
appointments as general officers commanding at many of the
naval bases. No part of the scheme will give the Service in its
entirety more sincere pleasure than the improvements promised
with regard to the position of the warrant officers. Promotion
of warrant officers to lieutenant’s rank has long been urged
by those who argued that the lower deck were fully entitled
to a right that had from time immemorial been engaged by the
non-commissioned ranks of the sister Service. Placing the
signal ratings on an equality with gunnery and torpedo ratings
is of far more importance than is generally realised. The vital
necessity of a good line of communication and good signalmen
has never been thoroughly appreciated.
“_I consider the return to the early age of entry of infinite
value._ It has not yet been decided whether on first going
to sea midshipmen will be appointed to ships ordinarily in
commission or to ships specially in commission for training
purposes. I am strongly of opinion that it would be by far the
best plan to send them to learn their duties in the ordinary
ships of the regularly commissioned fleet. With regard to the
proposed arrangement of nomination to branches, I consider it
a fair contract, and it keeps the power of appointment to the
various branches in the hands of the constituted authorities.
In my opinion this gives the best young officer the fairest
chance of holding the best positions.
“In conclusion, I am of the opinion that the plan is one that
has been thoroughly matured and well thought out, and I believe
that when its details have been definitely settled it will
make more complete the well-being, contentment, and efficiency
of that Service on which the safety of the empire absolutely
depends.”
2. SIR JOHN HOPKINS.
I succeeded Admiral Sir John Hopkins, one of the most distinguished
Officers in the Navy, in seven different appointments--as Head of
the Gunnery School at Portsmouth, as Director of Naval Ordnance at
the Admiralty, as Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, as
Controller of the Navy, as 3rd Sea Lord, as Commander-in-Chief in
North America, and as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. In each
of these appointments force of circumstances compelled me to have a
revolution. So the following spontaneous letter, which he wrote me long
after, is the more gratifying and shows his magnanimity:
GREATBRIDGE, ROMSEY,
_16th April, 1906_.
MY DEAR FISHER,
There is a small band of writing critics “making mouths and
ceasing not” at the Education Scheme; but let them not trouble
you. The wonder will be in twenty years’ time how such a bold
forecast could have been made, that produced such excellent
results; and, in my opinion, the “Common Entry” man will be as
great a success as the best friends of the Service could wish.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) J. O. HOPKINS.
3. CHIEF INSPECTOR OF MACHINERY, SIR HENRY BENBOW, K.C.B., D.S.O., R.N.
HABESHI, DORMAN’S PARK,
SURREY,
_20th April, 1908_.
DEAR SIR,
Permit me to congratulate you on the success of the new
system of Entry and Education of Naval Cadets, which has
always elicited my warmest sympathy as the only means of
doing away with class prejudice. A relative and namesake of
mine, a Lieutenant in the Service, only the other day spoke
to me most highly of the mental and physical development of
the present-day Cadets, and remarked how very favourably they
compared with the Cadets entered under the old _régime_.
I remain, dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
HENRY BENBOW.
Admiral of the Fleet
Sir JOHN FISHER, G.C.B., O.M.
A NAVAL CANDIDATE’S ESSAY.
I give here an essay written on 20th February, 1908, by a candidate for
entry at Osborne as a Naval Cadet. His age was 12½; his height four
foot nothing. The subjects were suddenly set to the candidates by the
Interview Committee, and they were allowed only ten minutes to write
the essay in. The original of this essay I sent to King Edward.
_What Nation ought we to protect ourselves most against--and
why?_
“In my opinion we should protect ourselves most against Germany.
“The most important reason is that they have the second
largest Navy in the world; to which (their Navy) they are
rapidly adding. They are also building three ships equal to
our ‘Dreadnought.’ Their Army also is very formidable; though
they are suffering from flat-feet. It is also rumoured that the
present German Emperor has a feud against King Edward; namely,
when they were young, King Edward punched the German Emperor’s
head; how far that is true, I don’t know.
“I always think that Englishmen and Germans are, more or less,
natural enemies. One of the reasons for this is, I think,
that Englishmen and Germans are so different; for most of the
Germans I’ve met in Switzerland were not quarter so energetic
as our English friends. They (the Germans) would never go
much above the snow line. Also I think we rather despise the
Germans, because of their habit of eating a lot. The Germans
also would like a few of our possessions.”
CHAPTER XI
SUBMARINES
I begin this chapter with a letter written to me on April 18th, 1918,
by Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the War Cabinet:--
MY DEAR LORD FISHER,
Last night I dined with Lord Esher. He showed me letters of
yours dated 1904 describing in detail the German Submarine
Campaign of 1917. It is the most amazing thing I have ever
read; not one letter only, but several.
Also some astonishing remarks of yours about the Generals
who ought to man the War Office in case of war. All men who
have come to the top were your nominees. Finally, General
Plumer (whom few people knew about) you picked out for
Quartermaster-General, with this remark: “Every vote against
Plumer is a vote for paper boots and insufficient shells!”[8]
Priceless, the whole thing! Neck-busy though I am, I have
come to the Office early to pay this tribute of my undying
admiration, and to beg you to get hold of these astounding
documents for your Memoirs. But anyhow, they will appear in
Lord Esher’s Memoirs, I suppose.
Yours ever,
(Signed) M. P. A. HANKEY.
Now follows a letter which I wrote to a High Official in 1904, and
which I had forgotten, until I came across it recently. It’s somewhat
violent, but so true that I insert it. I went as First Sea Lord of the
Admiralty shortly after--very unexpectedly--and so was able to give
effect (though surreptitiously) to my convictions. Not only Admirals
afloat, but even Politicians ashore, dubbed submarines as “playthings,”
so the money had to be got by subterfuge (as I have explained in
Chapter V. of my “Memories”).
ADMIRALTY HOUSE,
PORTMOUTH.
_April 20th, 1904._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I will begin with the last thing in your letter, which is far
the most important, and that is our paucity of submarines. I
consider it the most serious thing at present affecting the
British Empire!--That sounds _big_, but it’s true. Had either
the Russians or the Japanese had submarines the whole face of
their war would have been changed for both sides. It really
makes me laugh to read of “Admiral Togo’s _eighth_ attack on
Port Arthur!” Why! had he possessed submarines it would have
been _one_ attack and _one_ attack only! It would have been
all over with the whole Russian Fleet, caught like rats in a
trap! Similarly, the Japanese Admiral Togo outside would never
have dared to let his transports full of troops pursue the even
tenor of their way to Chemulpo and elsewhere!
It’s astounding to me, _perfectly astounding_, how the very
best amongst us absolutely fail to realise the vast impending
revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the
submarine will accomplish! (I have written a paper on this,
but it’s so violent I am keeping it!) Here, just to take a
simple instance, is the battleship “Empress of India,” engaged
in manœuvres and knowing of the proximity of Submarines, the
Flagship of the Second Admiral of the Home Fleet nine miles
beyond the Nab Light (out in the open sea), so self-confident
of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities of modern
warfare that the Admiral is smoking his cigarette, the Captain
is calmly seeing defaulters down on the half-deck, no one
caring an iota for what is going on, and suddenly they see
a Whitehead torpedo miss their stern by a few feet! And how
fired? From a submarine of the “pre-Adamite” period, small,
slow, badly fitted, _with no periscope at all_--it had been
carried away by a destroyer lying over her, fishing for
her!--and yet this submarine followed that battleship for a
solid two hours under water, coming up gingerly about a mile
off, every now and then (like a beaver!), just to take a fresh
compass bearing of her prey, and then down again!
Remember, that this is done (and I want specially to emphasise
the point), with the Lieutenant in command of the boat out in
her for the first time in his life on his own account, and half
the crew never out before either! why, it’s wonderful! And so
what results may we expect with bigger and faster boats and
periscopes more powerful than the naked eye (such as the latest
pattern one I saw the other day), and with experienced officers
and crews, and with nests of these submarines acting together?
I have not disguised my opinion in season and out of season
as to the essential, imperative, immediate, vital, pressing,
urgent (I can’t think of any more adjectives!) necessity for
more submarines at once, at the very least 25 in addition to
those now ordered and building, and a hundred more as soon as
practicable, or we shall be caught with our breeches down just
as the Russians have been!
And then, my dear Friend, you have the astounding audacity to
say to me, “I presume you only think they (the submarines) can
act on the _defensive_!”... Why, my dear fellow! not take the
offensive? Good Lord! if our Admiral is worth his salt, he
will tow his submarines at 18 knots speed and put them into
the hostile Port (like ferrets after the rabbits!) before war
is officially declared, just as the Japanese acted before the
Russian Naval Officers knew that war was declared!
In all seriousness I don’t think it is even _faintly_ realised--
_The immense impending revolution which the submarines will
effect as offensive weapons of war._
When you calmly sit down and work out what will happen in the narrow
waters of the Channel and the Mediterranean--how totally the submarines
will alter the effect of Gibraltar, Port Said, Lemnos, and Malta, it
makes one’s hair stand on end!
I hope you don’t think this letter too personal!
Ever yours,
J. A. FISHER.
Note made on January 5th, 1904:
Satan disguised as an Angel of Light wouldn’t succeed in persuading the
Admiralty or the Navy that in the course of some few years Submarines
will prevent any Fleet remaining at sea continuously either in the
Mediterranean or the English Channel.
[Illustration: SOME SHELLS FOR 18-INCH GUNS.
The shells for the 20-inch guns to be carried by H.M.S. “Incomparable”
would have been far bigger, and would have weighed two tons.]
Now follows a paper on “The Effect of Submarine Boats,” which I wrote
while I was Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, October, 1903.
_These remarks can only be fully appreciated by those who witnessed the
Flotilla of Submarine Boats now at Portsmouth practising out in the
open sea._
It is an historical fact that the British Navy stubbornly
resists change.
A First Sea Lord told me on one occasion that there were no
torpedoes when he came to sea, and he didn’t see why the devil
there should be any of the beastly things now!
This was _à propos_ of my attracting the attention of his
serene and contented mind to the fact that we hadn’t got any
torpedoes at that time in the British Navy, and that a certain
Mr. Whitehead (with whom I was acquainted) had devised an
automobile torpedo, costing only £500, that would make a hole
as big as his Lordship’s carriage (then standing at the door)
in the bottom of the strongest and biggest ship in the world,
and she would go to the bottom in about five minutes.
Thirty-five years after this last interview, on September 4th,
1903, at 11 a.m., the ironclad “Belleisle,” having had several
extra bottoms put on her and strengthened in every conceivable
manner that science could suggest or money accomplish, was sent
to the bottom of Portsmouth Harbour by this very Whitehead
automobile torpedo in seven minutes.
This Whitehead torpedo can be carried with facility in
Submarine Boats, and it has now attained such a range and such
accuracy (due to the marvellous adaptation of the gyroscope),
that even at two miles’ range it possesses a greater ratio
of power of vitally injuring a ship in the line of battle
than does the most accurate gun. This is capable of easy
demonstration (if anyone doubts it).
There is this immense fundamental difference between the
automobile torpedo and the gun--the torpedo has no trajectory:
it travels horizontally and hits below water, so all its hits
are vital hits; but not so the gun--only in a few places
are gun hits vital, and those places are armoured. It is
not feasible to armour the bottoms of ships even if it were
effectual--which it is not.
But the pith and marrow of the whole matter lies in the fact
that the Submarine Boat which carries this automobile torpedo
is up to the present date absolutely unattackable. When you see
Battleships or Cruisers, or Destroyers, or Torpedo Boats on
the horizon, you can send others after them to attack them or
drive them away! You see them--you can fire at them--you can
avoid them--you can chase them--but with the Submarine Boat
you can do nothing! You can’t fight them with other Submarine
Boats--they can’t see each other!
Now for the practical bearing of all this, and the special
manner it affects the Submarine Boat and the Army and the
Navy--for they are all inextricably mixed up together in this
matter:--
As regards the Navy, it must revolutionise Naval Tactics for
this simple reason--that the present battle formation of
ships in a single line presents a target of such a length
that the chances are altogether in favour of the Whitehead
torpedo hitting some ship in the line even when projected
from a distance of several miles. This applies specially to
its use by the Submarine Boat; but in addition, these boats
can, in operating defensively, come with absolute invisibility
within a few hundred yards to discharge the projectile, not at
random amongst the crowd of vessels but with certainty at the
Admiral’s ship for instance, or at any other specific vessel
desired to be sent to the bottom.
It affects the Army, because, imagine even one Submarine Boat
with a flock of transports in sight loaded each with some
two or three thousand troops! Imagine the effect of one such
transport going to the bottom in a few seconds with its living
freight!
Even the bare thought makes invasion impossible! Fancy 100,000
helpless, huddled up troops afloat in frightened transports
with these invisible demons known to be near.
Death
near--momentarily--sudden--awful--invisible--unavoidable!
Nothing conceivable more demoralising!
It affects the existence of the Empire, because just as we
were in peril by the non-adoption of the breech-loading gun
until after every Foreign nation had it, and just as we were
in peril when Napoleon the Third built “La Gloire” and other
French ironclads, while we were still stubbornly building
wooden three-deckers, and just as we were in peril when, before
the Boer War, we were waiting to perfect our ammunition and in
consequence had practically no ammunition at all, so are we
in peril now by only having 20 per cent. of our very minimum
requirements in Submarine Boats, because we are waiting for
perfection! We forget that “half a loaf is better than no
bread”--we strain at the gnat of perfection and swallow the
camel of unreadiness! We shall be found unready once too often!
In 1918 I wrote the following letter to a friend on “Submarines and Oil
Fuel.”
You ask for information in regard to a prophecy I made before
the War in relation to Submarines, because, you say, that my
statement made in 1912 that Submarines would utterly change
Naval Warfare is now making a stir. However, I made that same
statement in 1904, fourteen years ago.
I will endeavour to give you a brief, but succinct, synopsis of
the whole matter. I have to go some way back, but as you quite
correctly surmise the culmination of my beliefs since 1902 was
the paper on Submarine Warfare which I prepared six months
before the War.[9]...
In May, 1912 (I am working backwards), Mr. Asquith, the Prime
Minister, and Mr. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, came
to Naples, where I then was, and I was invited to be Chairman
of a Royal Commission on Oil Fuel for the Navy, and on Oil
Engines. What most moved me to acceptance was to push the
Submarine, because oil and the oil engine had a special bearing
on its development.
Continuing my march backwards in regard to the Submarine,
there was a cessation in the development of the Submarine
after I left the Admiralty as First Sea Lord on January 25th,
1910. When I returned as First Sea Lord to the Admiralty in
October, 1914, there were fewer Submarines than when I left the
Admiralty in January, 1910, and the one man incomparably fitted
to develop the Submarine had been cast away in a third-class
Cruiser stationed in Crete. No wonder! An Admiral, holding a
very high appointment afloat, derided Submarines as playthings!
In one set of manœuvres the young officer commanding a
Submarine, having for the third time successfully torpedoed
the hostile Admiral’s Flagship, humbly said so to the Admiral
by signal, and suggested the Flagship going out of action. The
answer he got back by signal from the Admiral was: “You be
damned!”
I am still going on tracing back the Submarine. In 1907,
King Edward went on board the “Dreadnought” for a cruise and
witnessed the manœuvres of a Submarine Flotilla. I then said
to His Majesty: “The Submarine will be the Battleship of the
future!”
In February, 1904, Admiral Count Montecuccoli, the Austrian
Minister of Marine, invited himself to stay with me at
Portsmouth, where I was then Commander-in-Chief. He had been
Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy at Pola when I was
Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. We became very great
friends out there. The Austrian Fleet gave us a most cordial
reception. He also was an ardent believer in the Submarine.
That’s why he invited himself to stay, but I refused to let him
see our Submarines at Portsmouth, which were then advancing
by leaps and bounds. Admiral Bacon was then the admirable
Captain in charge of Submarines, and he did more to develop the
Submarine than anyone living. The Submarine is not the weapon
of the weak. Had it only been properly used and developed,
it’s the weapon of the strong, if you use your Naval Supremacy
properly, and
_seize the exits of the enemy, and make a blockade effectual by
Submarines and Mines, which our predominant and overwhelming
naval superiority renders feasible_.
All that was required to meet a German Submarine Menace was the
possession of Antwerp, the Belgian Coast, and the Baltic. We could
quite easily have accomplished these three objects.
Nearly three months before the War, before the meeting of the Committee
of Imperial Defence held on May 14th, 1914, I sent the Prime Minister
the following Memorandum which I had written in the previous January;
and added:--
THE SUBMARINE IS THE COMING TYPE OF WAR VESSEL FOR SEA FIGHTING.
But for that consummation to be reached we must perfect the oil
engine and we must store oil.
There is a strong animus against the submarine--of course there
is!
An ancient Admiralty Board minute described the introduction of
the steam engine as fatal to England’s Navy.
Another Admiralty Board minute vetoed iron ships, because iron
sinks and wood floats!
The whole Navy objected to breech-loading guns, and in
consequence sure disaster was close to us for years and years.
There was virulent opposition to the water-tube boiler (fancy
putting the fire where the water ought to be, and the water
where the fire should be!)
The turbine was said by eminent marine engineers to have an
“insuperable and vital defect which renders it inadmissible as
a practical marine engine--its vast number of blades--it is
only a toy.” 80 per cent. of the steam-power of the world is
now driving turbines.
Wireless was voted damnable by all the armchair sailors when we
put it on the roof of the Admiralty, and yet we heard what one
ship (the “Argyll”) at Bombay was saying to another (the “Black
Prince”) at Gibraltar.
“Flying machines are a physical impossibility,” said a very
great scientist four years ago. To-day they are as plentiful as
sparrows.
“Submarines are only playthings!” was the official remark of
our Chief Admiral afloat only a little while ago, and yet now
submarines are talked of as presently ousting Dreadnoughts.
The above texts, extracted from comparatively modern naval
history (history is a record of exploded ideas!), should make
anyone chary of ridiculing the writer when he repeats:
THE SUBMARINE IS THE COMING TYPE OF WAR VESSEL FOR SEA FIGHTING.
And what is it that the coming of the submarine really means?
It means that the whole foundation of our traditional naval
strategy, which served us so well in the past, has been broken
down! The foundation of that strategy was blockade. The Fleet
did not exist merely to win battles--that was the means, not
the end. The ultimate purpose of the Fleet was to make blockade
possible for us and impossible for our enemy. Where that
situation was set up we could do what we liked with him on the
sea, and, despite a state of war, England grew steadily richer.
But with the advent of the long-range ocean-going submarine
that has all gone! Surface ships can no longer either maintain
or prevent blockade, and with the conception of blockade are
broken up all the consequences, direct and indirect, that used
to flow from it. All our old ideas of strategy are simmering in
the melting pot! Can we get anything out of it which will let
us know where we are and restore to us something of our former
grip? It is a question that must be faced.
* * * * *
Sea-fighting of to-day, or at any time, entails the removal of
the enemy’s sea forces. If, as is maintained, the submarine
proves itself at once the most efficient factor for this
purpose and also the most difficult sea force to remove, let us
clear our minds of all previous obsessions and acknowledge the
facts once and for all.
HOSTILE SUBMARINES.
_It has to be freely acknowledged that at the present time no
means exist of preventing hostile submarines emerging from
their own ports and cruising more or less at will._
It is, moreover, only barely possible that, in the future,
mining and other blocking operations on a very extensive scale
may so develop as to render their exit very hazardous; but it
is plain that such operations would require a large personnel,
unceasing energy and vigilance, and an immense quantity of
constantly replaceable materials.
* * * * *
THE SUBMARINE AND COMMERCE.
Again, the question arises as to what a submarine can do
against a merchant ship when she has found her. She cannot
capture the merchant ship; she has no spare hands to put a
prize crew on board; little or nothing would be gained by
disabling her engines or propeller; she cannot convoy her
into harbour; and, in fact, it is impossible for the submarine
to deal with commerce in the light and provisions of accepted
international law. Under these circumstances, is it presumed
that the hostile submarine will disregard such law and sink
any vessel heading for a British commercial port and certainly
those that are armed or carrying contraband?
There is nothing else the submarine can do except sink her
capture, and it must therefore be admitted that (provided it
is done, and however inhuman and barbarous it may appear) this
submarine menace is a truly terrible one for British commerce
and Great Britain alike, for no means can be suggested at
present of meeting it except by reprisals. All that would
be known would be that a certain ship and her crew had
disappeared, or some of her boats would be picked up with a few
survivors to tell the tale. Such a tale would fill the world
with horror, and it is freely acknowledged to be an altogether
barbarous method of warfare; but, again, if it is done by the
Germans the only thing would be to make reprisals. The essence
of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility.
It has been suggested that it should be obligatory for a
submarine to fire a warning gun, but is such a proceeding
practical? We must bear in mind that modern submarines are
faster on the surface than the majority of merchantmen, and
will not necessarily need to dive at all. Therefore, as the
submarine would in most cases be sighted, and as she has no
prize crew to put on board, the warning gun is useless, as the
only thing the submarine could do would be to sink the enemy;
also, the apparently harmless merchant vessel may be armed, in
which case the submarine may but have given herself away if she
did not sink her.
The subject is, indeed, one that bristles with great
difficulties, and it is highly desirable that the conduct
of submarines in molesting commerce should be thoroughly
considered. Above all, it is one of overwhelming interest to
neutrals. One flag is very much like another seen against the
light through a periscope, should he have thought it necessary
to dive; and the fear is natural that the only thing the
officer of the hostile submarine would make sure of would be
that the flag seen was not that of his own country.
Moreover, under numerous circumstances can a submarine allow
a merchant ship to pass unmolested? Harmless trader in
appearance, in reality she may be one of the numerous fleet
auxiliaries, a mine-layer, or carrying troops, and so on. Can
the submarine come to the surface to inquire and lose all
chance of attack if the vessel should prove to be faster than
she is? The apparent merchant ship may also be armed. In this
light, indeed, the recent arming of our British merchantmen is
unfortunate, for it gives the hostile submarine an excellent
excuse (if she needs one) for sinking them; namely, that of
self-defence against the guns of the merchant ship.
What can be the answer to all the foregoing but that (barbarous
and inhuman as, we again repeat, it may appear), if the
submarine is used at all against commerce, she must sink her
captures?
For the prevention of submarines preying on our commerce, it is
above all necessary that merchant shipping should take every
advantage of our favourable geographical position, and that we
should make the Straits of Dover as difficult as we possibly
can.
It is not proposed here to enter into the technical details of
such arrangements; but even after every conceivable means has
been taken, it must be conceded that there is at least a chance
of submarines passing safely through; while at night, or in
thick weather, it is probable that they would not fail to pass
in safety.
I conclude with some details of British Submarines before and during
the War:--
I. When I left the Admiralty in January, 1910:
Submarines ready for fighting 61
Building and on order 13
II. When I returned to the Admiralty, in October, 1914, as First Sea
Lord:
Submarines fit for fighting 53
Building and on order 21
But of these 21, only 5 were any good!
2 were paid off as useless.
3 sold to the Italians, not of use to us.
4 sold to the French, not of use to us.
7 of unsatisfactory design.
--
16 leaving only 5 of oversea modern (“E”) Type.
--
Nominally, there were 77 Submarines when I returned in October, 1914,
but out of these 24 were useless, or had gone to the Antipodes, as
follows:
2 to Australia.
3 to Hong Kong.
1 sold to Italy useless.
8 “A” Class scrapped, 10 years old.
10 “B” Class scrapped, 9 years old.
--
24
77 - 24 = 53 total Submarines fit for Service when I returned in
October, 1914.
There were 61 Submarines efficient when I left the Admiralty in
January, 1910.
Of those that were on order when I returned, 14 were of “G” Class,
but were of an experimental type, and so were not ready till _June,
1916_, or one year after the Submarines were ready which I ordered on
my return to the Admiralty in October, 1914.
Here may be stated the great service rendered by Mr. Schwab, of the
Bethlehem Steel Works. I specially sent for him. I told him the very
shortest time hitherto that a Submarine had been built in was 14
months. Would he use his best endeavours to deliver in six months? _He
delivered the first batch in five months!_ And not only that, but they
were of so efficient a type (“H” Class) that they came from America to
the Dardanelles without escort, and were of inestimable service out
there, and passed into the Sea of Marmora, and were most effective in
sinking Turkish Transports bringing munitions to Gallipoli.
The type of Submarine (“H” Class) he built hold the field for their
special attributes. I saw one in dock at Harwich that had been rammed
by a Destroyer--I think a German Destroyer--and had the forepart of her
taken clean away, and she got back to Harwich by herself all right. The
Commander of her, an aged man, was in the Merchant Service. (What a
lot we do indeed owe to the Merchant Service, and especially to those
wonderful men in the Trawlers!)
But Mr. Schwab did far more than what I have narrated above. He
undertook the delivery of a very important portion of the armament of
the Monitors.
The idea was followed up in making old Cruisers immune from German
Submarines--the “Grafton,” an old type Cruiser (and so also the
“Edgar”), thus fitted, was hit fair amidships by a torpedo from a
German submarine off Gibraltar, and the Captain of the “Grafton”
reported himself unhurt and going all the faster for it (as it had
blown off a good bit of the hull!), and those vessels were ever so much
the better sea boats for it!
It is lamentable that no heed was given to the great sagacity of Mr.
Churchill in his special endeavour to give further application to this
invention.
In the Submarine Monitor M1, which carries a 12-inch gun, and which is
illustrated in this volume, we have the type of vessel I put before the
Admiralty in August, 1915. She is the forerunner of the Battleship of
the future; but her successors should be built in a much shorter time
than she was.
CHAPTER XII
NOTES ON OIL AND OIL ENGINES
_How War and Peaceful Commerce will be Revolutionised by the Oil
Engine._
On September 17th, 1912, at 3 a.m., I invited two very eminent experts,
Sir Trevor Dawson and his coadjutor McKechnie, to leave their beds and
come into my room to see an outline of the Fast Ship of the Future,
both for War and Commerce, carrying sufficient fuel to go round the
Earth with and with an increased capacity of 30 per cent. as compared
with similar vessels of the same displacement using steam. At length a
special Government Research Department has been set up to develop the
Oil Engine, and a sum prohibitive in peace time has been cheerfully
accorded by War reasoning to set up this establishment on a big
basis. I reiterate what is said elsewhere, that the Oil Engine will
revolutionise both War and Commerce when once it is perfected--through
the enormous gain it affords in space and smaller crews through
riddance of stokeholds and firemen, and facility of re-fuelling and
cleanliness and absence of funnels, etc., etc.
Here is a descriptive outline of H.M.S. “Incomparable,” as set forth in
the early morning of September 17th, 1912:
Really a Gem! She can be riddled and gutted outside the Central
Diamond-shaped Armoured Citadel because nothing vital outside that
Citadel! So lightly built she’ll weigh so little as to go Fast, with a
hundred and fifty thousand horse power! She’ll shake to pieces in about
10 years! What’s the good of a warship lasting longer? The d--d things
get obsolete in about a year!
Ten 16-inch guns to begin with (afterwards 20-inch guns) for main
armament.
Eight broadside Torpedo Tubes (21-inch Torpedo).
32 knots speed at least.
16-inch armour on citadel and belt amidships, thinning towards the end.
850 feet long--to be afterwards 1,000 feet; 86 feet wide.
Four Torpedo Tubes each side to be well before the Citadel (submerged
Tubes) so as not to interfere with machinery space.
Quadruple screws.
Anti-Submarine guns in small single turrets.
A Turtle-backed armoured hull, with light steel uninflammable structure
before and abaft the armoured Diamond-shaped Citadel.
Two Conning Towers.
Hydraulic crane each side (very low in height) for lifting boats.
The light central steel hollow mast only for wireless and for
ventilation, made of steel ribbon to wind up and down at will.
Jam up the Citadel all that is possible right in centre of Hull, and
squeeze the last inch in space so as to lessen amount of 16-inch armour.
Curved thick armour deck.
Ammunition service by Hydraulic power.
Oil right fore and aft the whole ship. Enough to go round the earth!
Very high double bottom--honeycombed.
Coffer dams everywhere stuffed with cork.
This, then, is the Fast Battle Cruiser “Incomparable” of 32 knots speed
and 20-inch guns and no funnels, and phenomenal light draught of water,
because so very long and built so flimsy that she won’t last 10 years,
but that’s long enough for the War!
I have just found copy of a letter I sent Mr. Winston Churchill dated
two months later, when those two very eminent men, having cogitated
over the matter, very kindly informed me that the Visionary was
justified. I omit the details they kindly gave me, as I don’t wish to
deprive them of any trade advantage in the furtherance of their great
commercial intentions with regard to the oil engine, for it is just
now the commercial aspect of the internal combustion engine which
enthrals us. A ship now exists that has a dead weight capacity of 9,500
tons with a speed of eleven knots (which is quite fast enough for all
cargo-carrying purposes) and she burns only a little over ten tons of
oil an hour. Having worked out the matter, I conclude she would save
roughly a thousand pounds in fuel alone over a similar sized steamship
in a voyage of about 3,000 miles (say crossing the Atlantic); and, of
course, as compared with coal, she could carry much additional cargo,
probably about 600 tons more. Then the getting rid of boilers and coal
bunkers gives another immense additional space to the oil engine ship
for cargo, as the oil fuel would be carried in the double-bottom. A
Swiss firm has put on board an ocean-going motor-driven ship a Diesel
engine which develops 2,500 indicated Horse Power in one cylinder, so
that a quadruple-screw motor ship could have 80,000 Horse Power with
sixteen of these cylinders cranked on each shaft. I don’t see why one
shouldn’t have a sextuple-screw motor ship with a hundred thousand
Horse Power. So it is ludicrous to say that the internal combustion
engine is not suited to big ships. For some reason I cannot discover,
“Tramp” owners are hostile to the internal combustion engine. I hope
they will not discover their error too late. I sent two marvellous
pictures of a Motor Battleship to Mr. Winston Churchill on November
17th, 1912, saying to him:--
“These pictures will make your mouth water!”
However, this type of ship is obsolete for war before she has been
begun, as we have got to turn her into a submersible--not that there is
any difficulty in that--it has already been described that in August,
1916, a submersible vessel with a 12-inch gun was proposed and after
extreme hesitation and long delays in construction was built, but she
was completed too late to take part in the war. She might have sunk
a goodly number of the German Fleet at the Battle of Jutland. But our
motto in the war was “Too Late.”[10]
The whole pith and marrow of the Internal Combustion Engine lies in the
science of metallurgy. We are lamentably behind every foreign nation,
without exception, in our application of the Internal Combustion Engine
to commercial purposes, because its reliability depends on Metallurgy,
in which science we are wanting, and we are also wanting in scientific
research on the scale of 12 inches to a foot. We have no scale at all!
_We are going to be left behind!_
The Board of Invention and Research, of which I was President,
after much persistence obtained the loan of a small Laboratory at
South Kensington, greatly aided by Professor Dalby, F.R.S., for
research purposes as regards the Internal Combustion Engine; but its
capabilities were quite inadequate. Then the President of the Council
(Earl Curzon) was to undertake the whole question of Research on a
great and worthy scale, and I got a most kind letter from him. It ended
with the letter!
In this connection I have had wonderful support from Sir Marcus Samuel,
who staked his all on Oil and the Oil Engine. Where should we have
been in this War but for this Prime Mover? I’ve no doubt he is an oil
millionaire now, but that’s not the point. Oil is one of the things
that won us the War. And when he was Lord Mayor of London he was
about the only man who publicly supported me when it was extremely
unfashionable to do so.
* * * * *
Oil is the very soul of future Sea Fighting. Hence my interest in it,
and though not intending to work again, yet my consuming passion for
oil and the oil engine made me accept the Chairmanship of a Royal
Commission on Oil and the Oil Engine when Mr. Churchill and Mr. Asquith
found me at Naples in May, 1912.
I have come to the conclusion that about the best thing I ever did
was the following exuberant outburst over Oil and the Oil Engine. I
observe it was printed in November 1912, written “currente calamo,”
and now on reading it over I would not alter a word. I am only aghast
at the astounding stupidity of the British Shipbuilder and the British
Engineer in being behind every country in the development of motor
ships.
OIL AND THE OIL ENGINE (1912).
I.--With two similar Dreadnoughts oil gives 3 knots more
speed--that is if ships are designed to burn oil only
instead of oil and coal--_and speed is everything_.
II.--The use of oil fuel increases the strength of the British
Navy 33 per cent., because it can re-fuel at sea off the
enemy’s Harbours. Coal necessitates about one-third of
the Fleet being absent re-fuelling at a base (in case
of war with Germany) some three or four hundred miles
off!--_i.e._, some six or eight hundred miles unnecessary
expenditure of fuel and wear and tear of machinery and men.
III.--Oil for steam-raising reduces the present engine and
boiler room personnel some 25 per cent., and for Internal
Combustion Engines would perhaps reduce the personnel over
60 per cent. This powerfully affects both economy and
discipline.
IV.--Oil tankers are in profusion on every sea and as England
commands the Ocean (_she must command the Ocean to live!!_)
she has peripatetic re-fuelling stations on every sea and
every oil tanker’s position known every day to a yard!
Before very long there will be a million tons of oil on
the various oceans in hundreds of oil tankers. The bulk of
these would be at our disposal in time of war. Few or none
could reach Germany.
V.--The Internal Combustion Engine with _one_ ton of oil does
what it takes _four_ tons of coal to do![11] And having
no funnels or smoke is an _indescribable fighting asset_!
(Always a chance of smoke in an oil steam-raising vessel
where of course the funnels which disclose a ship such an
immense distance off are obligatory. Each enemy’s ship
spells her name to you by her funnels as they appear on the
horizon, while you are unseen!)
VI.--The armament of the Internal Combustion Ship is not hampered
by funnels, so can give all-round fire, an inestimable
advantage because the armament can all be placed in the
central portion of the Hull with all-round fire, and giving
the ship better seaworthy qualities by not having great
weights in the extremities, as obligatory where you have
funnels and boilers.
VII.--But please imagine the blow to British prestige if a
German warship with Internal Combustion Propulsion is at
sea before us and capable of going round the World without
re-fuelling! What an _Alabama_!!! What an upset to the
tremblers on the brink who are hesitating to make the
plunge for Motor Battleships!
According to a reliable foreign correspondent, the keel of a
big Oil-Engine Warship for the German Navy is to be laid
shortly. Krupp has a design for a single cylinder of 4,000
H.P.! He has had a six-cylinder engine of 2,000 H.P., each
cylinder successfully running for over a year.
VIII.--Anyhow, it must be admitted that the burning of oil to
raise steam is a roundabout way of getting power! The motor
car and the aeroplane take little drops of oil and explode
them in cylinders and get all the power required without
being bothered with furnaces or boilers or steam engines,
so we say to the marine engineer, “Go and do thou likewise!”
The sailor’s life on the 70,000 H.P. coal using _Lion_ is
worse than in any ship in the service owing to the constant
coalings.
It’s an economic waste of good material to keep men grilling
in a baking fire hole at unnecessary labour and use 300 men
when a dozen or so would suffice!
Certainly oil at present is not a cheap fuel! but it _is_
cheap when the advantages are taken into consideration. In
an Internal Combustion Engine, according to figures given by
Lord Cowdray, his Mexican oil would work out in England,
when freights are normal, as equivalent to coal at twelve
to fifteen shillings a ton!
Oil does not deteriorate by keeping. Coal does. You can store
millions of tons of oil without fear of waste or loss of
power, and England has got to store those millions of tons,
though this reserve may be gradually built up. The initial
cost would be substantial but the investment is gilt-edged!
We must and can face it. _Si vis pacem para bellum!_
You can re-fuel a ship with oil in minutes as compared with
hours with coal!
At any moment during re-fuelling the oil-engine ship can
fight--the coal-driven ship can’t--she is disorganized--the
whole crew are black as niggers and worn out with intense
physical exertion! In the oil-driven ship one man turns a
tap!
_It’s criminal folly to allow another pound of coal on board a
fighting ship!_--or even in a cargo-ship either!--Krupp has
a design for a cargo-ship with Internal Combustion Engines
to go 40,000 (forty thousand) miles without re-fuelling!
It’s vital for the British Fleet and vital for no other
Fleet, to have the oil engine. That’s the strange thing!
And if only the Germans knew, they’d shoot their Dr. Diesel
like a dog!
Sir Charles Parsons and others prefer small units. It is
realised in regard to the multiplication of small units (as
the Lilliputians tied up Gulliver) that though there is
no important reason why cylinders shall not be multiplied
on the same shaft yet the space required will be very
large--the engines thus spreading themselves in the fore
and aft direction--but here comes in the ingenuity of the
Naval Constructor and the Marine Engineer in arranging a
complete fresh adaptation of the hull space and forthwith
immense fighting advantages will accrue! Far from being
an insuperable objection it’s a blessing in disguise, for
with a multiplicity of internal combustion engines there
undoubtedly follows increased safety from serious or total
breakdown, provided that suitable means are provided for
disconnecting any damaged unit and also for preventing in
case of such failure any damage to the rest of the system.
The storage of oil fuel lends itself to a remarkable new
disposition of the whole hull space. Thus a battleship
could carry some five or six thousand tons of oil in her
double bottoms--sufficient to go round the earth without
r-fuelling. The “Non-Pareil” (being the French for the
“Incomparable”) will carry over 6,000 tons of oil in her
double bottoms, with an extra double bottom below those
carrying the oil. This is equal to 24,000 tons of coal!
This new arrangement of the hull space permits some dozen
motor boats being carried in a central armoured pit (where
the funnels used to be). These 60-feet motor boats would
carry 21-inch Torpedoes and have a speed of 40 knots.
Imagine these hornets being let loose in a sea fight! The
21-inch Torpedo which they carry goes 5 miles! And the
silhouette of an Internal Combustion Battleship is over 30
per cent. less than any living or projected Battleship in
the target offered to the enemy’s fire.
IX.--Finally:
_To be first in the race is everything!_
Just consider our immense gains in having been first with the
water-tube boiler! First with the turbine! First with the
13½-inch gun! Just take this last as an illustration! We
shall have 16 ships armed with the 13½-inch gun before the
Germans have a single ship with anything bigger than the
12-inch, and the 13½-inch is as superior to the 12-inch as
the 12-inch is to a peashooter.
And yet we hesitate to plunge with a Motor Battleship! Why
boggle at this plunge when we have plunged before, every
time with success?
People say Internal Combustion Propulsion in a hundred
thousand horse-power _Dreadnought_ is similarly impossible!
“Wait and see!”--The “Non-Pareil” is coming along!
The rapid development of the oil engine is best illustrated
by the fact that a highly influential and rich German
syndicate have arranged for six passenger steamers for the
Atlantic and Pacific Trade, of 22 knots speed and 36,000
H.P. with nine of Krupp’s cylinders of 4,000 H.P. each on
three shafts.[12]
There need be no fear of an oil famine because of the immense
sure oil areas recently brought to notice in Canada,
Persia, Mesopotamia and elsewhere. The British oil area in
Trinidad alone will be able to more than supply all the
requirements of the British Navy. Assuming the present coal
requirements of the Navy at 1½ million tons annually, then
less than half a million tons of oil would suffice when
the whole British Navy is oil engined, and, as recently
remarked by the greatest oil magnate, this amount would be
a bagatelle compared with the total output of oil, which he
expects before many years to reach an output of a hundred
million tons a year in consequence of the great demand for
developing its output and the discovery of new oil areas
and the working of shale deposits.
We turned coal-burning Battleships that were building in November,
1914, into oilers, with great increase of efficiency and speed.
* * * * *
I have chanced upon a Memorandum on “Oil and its Fighting Attributes,”
which I drew up on March 3rd, 1913, for the First Lord of the
Admiralty. It shows what a Great Personality can effect. I was told by
an enemy of Mr. Deterding (of whom I am speaking) that when he came
in as Manager of the Great Shell Oil Combine, the Concern could have
been bought for £40,000. When I wrote my Memorandum, it was valued by
a hostile Oil Magnate (who told me this himself) at forty millions
sterling. Whether it is Oil, or Peace, or War, it’s the Man, and not
the System that Wins. And Mr. Deterding is the man who shifted the
centre of gravity of oil (together with an immense assemblage of clerks
and chemists and all the paraphernalia of a huge financial web) from
abroad to this country.
“The ideal accumulator which everybody has been after for
the last 50 years, is oil. There will never be found another
accumulator or source of power of such small volume as oil.
“Just fancy! Get a gallon of oil and a man can go to Brighton
and back again, carrying the weight of his bicycle and himself
by means of it....
“It’s a shame that anybody is allowed to put oil under a
boiler--for this reason, that when oil is used in an oil engine
it realises about five times greater effect....
“The moment the price of oil is £5 a ton it will not be used
anywhere under a boiler for steam raising, and the whole
world’s supply will be available for the Navy and the Diesel
Engine....
“I am going to raise every penny I can get and build storage,
and even when I have built five million tons of storage I
am still going on building it and filling it, even if it is
only for the pleasure of looking at it. It is always so much
condensed labour stored for the future....
“Oil fuel when stored, does not deteriorate as coal does.
The stocks would therefore constitute a national asset, the
intrinsic value of which would not diminish.”... (Mr. Deterding
before the Royal Commission on Oil and Oil Engines.)
My Memorandum was as follows:--
Mr. Deterding in his evidence before the Royal Commission,
confesses that he possesses in Roumania, in Russia, in
California, in the Dutch Indies, in Trinidad, and shortly in
Mexico, the controlling interest in oil. The Anglo-Persian
Company also say he is getting Mesopotamia and squeezing
Persia which are practically untouched areas of immense size
reeking with oil. Without doubt Mr. Deterding is Napoleonic in
his audacity and Cromwellian in his thoroughness. Sir Thomas
Browning in his evidence says that the Royal Dutch-Shell
Combination is more powerful and aggressive than ever was the
great Standard Oil Trust of America.
Let us therefore listen with deep attention to the words of a
man who has the sole executive control of the most powerful
organisation on earth for the production of a source of power
which almost doubles the power of our Navy whilst our potential
enemies remain normal in the strength of their fleets. _What
does he advise?_
He says: “Oil is the most extraordinary article in the
commercial world and the only thing that hampers its sale is
its production. There is no other article in the world where
you can get the consumption as long as you make the production.
In the case of oil make the production first as the consumption
will come. There is no need to look after the consumption, and
as a seller you need not make forward contracts as the oil
sells itself.” Only what you want is an enormously long purse
to be able to snap your fingers at everybody and if people
do not want to buy it to-day to be able to say to them: “All
right; I will spend a million sterling in making reservoirs
and then in the future you will have to pay so much more.”
“The great point for the Navy is to get oil from someone who
can draw supplies from many spots, because no one spot can be
absolutely relied on.” There is not anybody who can be certain
of his supply; oil fields in my own experience which at the
time yielded 18,000 barrels a day within five days went down to
3,000 barrels without the slightest warning.
_The British Empire “has the long purse”; build reservoirs and store
oil. Keep on building reservoirs and buy oil at favourable rates when
they offer._
_November 21st, 1917._
The report below of the Secretary of the United States Navy is
interesting. I have just been looking up the record in 1886, when
high officials said I was an “Oil Maniac.” I was at that time at
the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance, and was sent from that
appointment to be Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard,
prior to being appointed Controller of the Navy, where I remained six
years. At Portsmouth Dockyard, while I was Admiral Superintendent,
we paved the way for rapid shipbuilding in the completion of the
Battleship “Royal Sovereign” in two years. Afterwards, with the same
superintendence but additional vigour, we completed the “Dreadnought”
in one year and one day ready for Battle!
OIL BURNING BATTLESHIPS.
WASHINGTON.
Mr. Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, issues a report urging that
Congress should authorise the construction of three Battleships, one
Battle Cruiser, and nine Fleet Submarines. He favours oil-burning
units, and says that the splendid work which has been accomplished by
these vessels would not have been done by coal-burning ships. _The use
of any other power but oil is not now in sight._
CHAPTER XIII
THE BIG GUN
Perhaps the most convincing speech I ever read was made impromptu by
Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon at a meeting of the Institution of Naval
Architects on March 12th, 1913.
First of all Admiral Bacon disposed of the fallacy brought forward by
one of the speakers, as to which is more effective in disabling the
enemy, to destroy the structure of the ship or destroy the guns--the
fact being that both are bound up together--if you utterly destroy the
hull of the ship you thereby practically destroy the gun-fire. (This
is one of those things so obvious that one greatly wonders how these
clever experts lose themselves.)
Then Admiral Bacon in a most lovely parable disposed of the “Bow and
Arrow Party,” who want a lot of small guns instead of, as in the
Dreadnought, but one type of gun and that the heaviest gun that can be
made. This is Admiral Bacon:--
“I should like to draw your attention to some advice that was
given many years ago by an old Post Captain to a Midshipman.
He said, ‘Boy, if ever you are dining and after dinner, over
the wine, some subject like politics is discussed when men’s
passions are aroused, if a man throws a glass of wine in your
face, do not throw a glass of wine in his: _Throw the decanter
stopper!_’ And that is what we advocates of the Heavy Gun as
mounted in the Dreadnought propose to do--not to slop the
six-inch shot over the shirt-front of a battleship, but to go
for her with the heaviest guns we can get; and the heavier
the explosive charge you can get in your shell and the bigger
explosion you can wreak on the structure near the turrets and
the conning tower and over the armoured deck the more likely
you are to disable that ship. We object most strongly to the
fire of the big guns being interfered with by the use of
smaller guns at the same time with all the smoke and mess that
are engendered by them. The attention of the Observing Officers
is distracted; their sight is to a great extent obliterated,
and even the theoretical result of the small guns is not worth
the candle.... The ordinary six-inch gun in a battleship is,
as regards torpedo-boat attack, of just as much use as a stick
is to an old gentleman who is being snow-balled: it keeps his
enemy at a respectful distance but still within the vulnerable
range of the torpedo. In these days the locomotive torpedo
can be fired at ranges at which it is absolutely impossible
even to hope or think of hitting the Destroyer which fires
the torpedoes at you. You may try to do it, but it is quite
useless. Very well, then; the six-inch gun does keep the
Destroyer at a longer range than would be the case if the
six-inch gun were not there, that’s all.... Then the problem
of speed has been touched upon. I quite see from one point of
view that to lose two guns for an extra five-knot speed seems
a great loss; but there is one question which I should like
to ask, and that is whether you would send out to sea a whole
fleet, the whole strength of the nation, with no single ship of
sufficient superior speed to pick up a particular ship of the
enemy? That is the point to rivet your attention upon. We must
always in our Navy have ships of greatly superior speed to any
one particular ship in the enemy’s fleet, otherwise over the
face of the sea you will have ships of the enemy roaming about
that we cannot overhaul and that nothing can touch.”
The above words were spoken by Admiral Bacon two and three-quarter
years before Admiral von Spee and his fast Squadron were caught up
and destroyed by the British fast Battle Cruisers, “Invincible” and
“Inflexible.” Admiral Bacon was a prophet! In other words, Admiral
Bacon had Common Sense, and saw the Obvious.
It’s difficult for a shore-going person to realise things obvious to
the sailor. For instance: in the case of a Big Gun, if twice two is
four, then twice four isn’t eight, it’s sixteen, and twice eight isn’t
sixteen, it’s sixty-four; that is to say, the bursting effect of a
shell varies with the square. So the bigger the calibre of the gun the
more immense is the desolating effect of the shell, and, incidentally,
the longer the range at which you hit the enemy.
The projectile of the 20-inch gun that was ready to be made for H.M.S.
“Incomparable” weighed _over two tons_, and the gun itself weighed 200
_tons_. Such a projectile, associated with a Howitzer, may effect vast
changes in both Sea and Land War, because of the awful and immense
craters such shell explosions would effect.
To illustrate the frightful devastating effect of such huge shell I
will tell a story that I heard from a great friend of mine, a Japanese
Admiral. He was a Lieutenant at the time of the Chino-Japanese War.
The Chinese vessels mounted very heavy guns. One of their shells burst
on the side of the Japanese ship in which my friend was. The Captain
sent him down off the bridge to see what had happened, as the ship
tottered under the effect of this shell. When he got down on the gun
deck, he saw, as it were, the whole side of the ship open to the sea,
and not a vestige of any of the crew could he see. They had all been
blown to pieces. The only thing he rescued was the uniform cap of his
friend, the Lieutenant who was in charge of that division of guns,
blown up overhead between the beams. The huge rope mantlets that acted
as splinter nettings hung between the guns had utterly disappeared and
were resolved into tooth powder! (so he described it).
I digress here with an anecdote that comes to my mind and which greatly
impressed me with the extraordinary humility of the Japanese mind. I
had remonstrated with my Japanese friend as to Admiral Togo not having
been suitably rewarded for his wonderful victory over the Russian
Admiral Rozhdestvensky. He replied: “Sir, Admiral Togo has received
the Second Class of the Order of the Golden Kite!” We should have made
him a Duke straight off! Togo was made a Count afterwards, but not all
at once--for fear, I suppose, of giving him a swelled head. He was a
great man, Togo; he was extremely diffident about accepting the English
Order of Merit, and even then he wore the Order the wrong way out, so
that the inscription “For Merit” should not be seen. The Mikado asked
him, after the great battle, to bring to him the bravest man in the
Fleet; the Mikado expecting to see a Japanese of some sort. I am told
that Admiral Togo brought Admiral Pakenham, who was alongside him
during the action. I quite believe it; but I have always been too shy
to ask my friend if it was true. All I know is that I never read better
Despatches anywhere than those of Admiral Pakenham.
[Illustration:
_Reproduced by courtesy of_ “_The Graphic_”
LORD FISHER’S PROPOSED SHIP, H.M.S. “INCOMPARABLE,” SHOWN ALONGSIDE
H.M.S. “DREADNOUGHT.”]
Somewhat is said in my “Memories” of the unmistakable astoundingness
of huge bursting charges in the shell of big guns. (I should be sorry
to limit the effects to even Geometrical Progression!) I don’t think
Science has as yet more than mathematically investigated the amazing
quality of Detonation. Here is a picture (see opposite p. 176) of only
eighteen inch gun shells, such as the Battle Cruiser “Furious” was
designed and built to fire. Her guns with their enormous shells were
built to make it impossible for the Germans to prevent the Russian
Millions from landing on the Pomeranian Coast! In this connection I
append a rough sketch by Oscar Parkes of a twenty-inch gun ship (see
opposite). The sketch will offend the critical eye of my very talented
friend, Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt, but it’s good enough for
shoregoing people to give them the idea of what, but for the prodigious
development of Air-craft, would have been as great a New Departure as
was the “Dreadnought.” The shells of the “Incomparable” fired from her
twenty-inch guns would each have weighed over two tons! Imagine two
tons being hurled by each of these guns to a height above the summit
of the Matterhorn, or any other mountain you like to take, and bursting
on its reaching the ground far out of human sight, but yet with exact
accuracy as to where it should fall, causing in its explosion a crater
somewhat like that of Vesuvius or Mount Etna, and consequently you can
then easily imagine the German Army fleeing for its life from Pomerania
to Berlin. The “Furious” (and all her breed) was not built for Salvoes!
They were built for Berlin, and that’s why they drew so little water
and were built so fragile, so as to weigh as little as possible, and so
go faster.
It is very silly indeed to build vessels of War so strong as to
last a hundred years. They are obsolete in less than ten years. But
the Navy is just one mass of Tories! In the old days a Sailing Line
of Battleship never became obsolete; the winds of Heaven remained
as in the days of Noah. I staggered one Old Admiral by telling him
that it blew twice as hard now as when he was at sea; he couldn’t go
head-to-wind in his day with sails only, now with the wind forty miles
against you you can go forty miles dead against it, and therefore the
wind is equal to eighty miles an hour. He didn’t quite take it in. I
heard one First Sea Lord say to the Second Sea Lord, when scandalised
at seeing in a new ship a bathroom for the midshipmen, that he never
washed when he went to sea and he didn’t see why the midshipmen should
now! But what most upset him was that the seat of the water-closet was
mahogany French-polished, instead of good old oak holystoned every
morning and so always nice and damp to sit on. (Another improvement is
unmentionable!)
I must not leave this chapter without expressing my unbounded delight
in having to do business with so splendid a man as Major A. G. Hadcock,
the Head of the Ordnance Department at the Elswick Works, who fought
out single-handed all the difficulties connected with the inception
of the eighteen-inch and the twenty-inch guns of the “Furious” and
“Incomparable.” I have another friend of the same calibre, who has
consistently been in the forefront of the Battle for the adoption of
the biggest possible gun that could be constructed--Admiral Sir Sydney
Eardley-Wilmot; he was also the most efficient Chief of the Munitions
Department of the Admiralty. When I was gasping with Hadcock over a
20-inch gun, Wilmot had a 22-inch gun! I really felt small (quite
unusual with me!). Now I hope no one is going to quote this line when
they review this book:--“Some men grow great, others only swell.”
CHAPTER XIV
SOME PREDICTIONS
When I was “sore let and hindered” in the days of my youth as a young
Lieutenant, a cordial hand was always held out to me by Commodore
Goodenough. He was killed by the South Sea Islanders with a poisoned
arrow. Being on intimate terms with him, I sent him, in 1868, a
reasoned statement proving conclusively that masts and sails were
damned as the motive power of warships.
(As a parenthesis I here insert the fact that so late as 1896 a
distinguished Admiral, on full pay and in active employment, put
forward a solemn declaration that unless sixteen sailing vessels were
built for the instruction of the Officers and men of the Navy the
fighting efficiency of the Fleet would go to the devil.)
Commodore Goodenough was so impressed by my memorandum that he had
a multitude of copies printed and circulated, with the result that
they were all burnt and I was damned, and I got a very good talking
to by the First Sea Lord. I hadn’t the courage of those fine old
boys--Bishops Latimer and Ridley--and ran away from the stake. Besides,
I wanted to get on. I felt my day had not yet come. Years after, I
commanded the “Inflexible,” still with masts and sails. She had every
sort of wonderful contrivance in engines, electricity, etc.; but
however well we did with them we were accorded no credit. The sails
had as much effect upon her in a gale of wind as a fly would have on a
hippopotamus in producing any movement. However, we shifted topsails
in three minutes and a half and the Admiral wrote home to say the
“Inflexible” was the best ship in the Fleet. Ultimately the masts and
sails were taken out of her.
It was not till I was Director of Naval Ordnance that wooden boarding
pikes were done away with. I had a good look round, at the time, to see
if there were any bows and arrows left.
What my retrograde enemies perfectly detested was being called “the
bow and arrow party.” When later they fought against me about speed
being the first desideratum, the only way I bowled them over was by
designating them as “the Snail and Tortoise party.” It was always the
same lot. They wanted to put on so much armour to make themselves safe
in battle that their ideal became like one of the Spithead Forts--it
could hardly move, it had so much armour on. The great principle of
fighting is simplicity, but the way a ship used to be built was that
you put into her everybody’s fad and everybody’s gun, and she sank in
the water so much through the weight of all these different fads that
she became a tortoise! The greatest possible speed with the biggest
practicable gun was, up to the time of aircraft, the acme of sea
fighting. Now, there is only one word--“Submersible.”
But to proceed with another Prediction:
The second prediction followed naturally from the first. With machinery
being dictated to us as the motive power instead of sails, officers and
men would have to become Engineers, and discipline would be better, and
so you would not require to have Marines to shoot the sailors in case
of mutiny. Now this does sound curious, but again it is so obvious.
When the sails were the motive power, the best Petty Officers--that
is to say, the smartest of the seamen--got their positions, not by
good conduct, but by their temerity aloft, and the man who hauled
out the weather-earing in reefing topsails in a gale of wind and
balanced himself on his stomach on a topsail yard, with the ship in
a mountainous sea, was a man you had to have in a leading position,
whatever his conduct was. But once the sails were done away with and
there was no going aloft, then the whole ship’s company became what may
be called “good conduct” men, and could be Marines, or, if you liked to
call them so, Sailors. One plan I had was to do away with the sailors;
and another plan I had was to do away with Marines. I plumped for the
sailors, though I loved the Marines.
In December, 1868, I predicted and patented a sympathetic exploder for
submarine mines. In the last year of the war this very invention proved
to be the most deadly of all species of submarine mines.
Quite a different sort of prediction occurs in a letter I wrote to Sir
Maurice Hankey in 1910, and of which he reminded me in the following
letter:
LETTER FROM SIR M. HANKEY, K.C.B. (SECRETARY TO THE WAR CABINET).
OFFICES OF THE WAR CABINET,
2, WHITEHALL GARDENS, S.W.
_May 28th, 1917._
MY DEAR LORD FISHER,
I am sending your letter along to my wife and asking her to
write to you and send both a copy of your letter to me in 1910
about Mr. Asquith’s leaving office in November, 1916,[13] and
also to write to you about your prophecy of war with Germany
beginning in 1914, and Sir John Jellicoe being in command of
the Grand Fleet when war broke out.
I have the clearest recollection of the incident. My wife and
I had been down to you for a week-end to Kilverstone. You had
persuaded us not to go up by the early train on the Monday,
and you took us to the rose-garden, where there was a sundial
with a charming and interesting inscription. You linked one
arm through my wife’s and the other through mine, and walked
us round and round the paths, and it was walking thus that you
made the extraordinary prophecy--
“_The War will come in 1914, and Jellicoe will command the
Grand Fleet._”
I remember that my practical mind revolted against the prophecy, and
I pressed you for reasons. You then told us that the Kiel Canal,
according to experts whom you had assembled five or six years before
to examine this question, could not be enlarged for the passage of
the new German Dreadnoughts before 1914, and that Germany, though bent
on war, would not risk it until this date. As regards Jellicoe, you
explained how you yourself had so cast his professional career in such
directions as to train him for the post, and, after a brief horoscope
of his normal prospects of promotion, you indicated your intention of
watching over his career--as you actually did.
All this remains vividly in my mind, and I believe in that of my wife,
but, as I am not going home for a few days, she shall give you her
unbiassed account.
The calculation itself was an interesting one, but what strikes me
now as more remarkable is the “flair” with which you forecasted with
certainty the state of mind of the German Emperor and his advisers, and
their intention to go to war the first moment they dared....
No more now.
In haste,
Yours ever,
(Signed) M. P. A. HANKEY.
The grounds for my prophecies are stated elsewhere. I won’t repeat them
here. They really weren’t predictions; they were certainties.
I remark in passing that what the sundial said was:--
“Forsitan Ultima.”
By the way, I was called a sundial once by a vituperative woman whom
I didn’t know; she wrote a letter abusing me as an optimist, and sent
these lines:--
“There he stands amidst the flowers,
Counting only sunny hours,
Heeding neither rain nor mist,
That brazen-faced old optimist.”
Another woman (but I knew her) in sending me some lovely roses to
crown the event of a then recent success, sent also some beautiful
lines likewise of her own making. She regretted that I preferred a
crown of thorns to a crown of the thornless roses she sent me. The
rose she alluded to is called “Zephyrine Drouhin,” and, to me, it is
astounding that it is so unknown. It is absolutely the only absolute
thornless rose; it has absolutely the sweetest scent of any rose; it
is absolutely the most glorious coloured of all roses; it blooms more
than any rose; it requires no pruning, and costs less than any rose. I
planted these roses when I left the Admiralty in 1910. Somebody told
the Naval Attaché at Rome, not knowing that he knew me, that I had
taken to planting roses, and his remark was: “They’ll d--d well have to
grow!” He had served many years with me.
CHAPTER XV
THE BALTIC PROJECT
_Note._--This paper was submitted for my consideration by Sir
Julian Corbett, in the early autumn of 1914.
From the shape the war has now taken, it is to be assumed that Germany
is trusting for success to a repetition of the methods of Frederick
the Great in the Seven Years’ War. Not only are the conditions of the
present war closely analogous--the main difference being that Great
Britain and Austria have changed places--but during the last 15 years
the German Great General Staff have been producing an elaborate study
of these campaigns.
Broadly stated, Frederick’s original plan in that war was to meet the
hostile coalition with a sudden offensive against Saxony, precisely as
the Germans began with France. When that offensive failed, Frederick
fell back on a defensive plan under which he used his interior position
to deliver violent attacks beyond each of his frontiers successively.
By this means he was able for seven years to hold his own against odds
practically identical with those which now confront Germany; and in the
end, though he made none of the conquests he expected, he was able to
secure peace on the basis of the _status quo ante_ and materially to
enhance his position in Europe.
In the present war, so far as it has gone, the same methods promise the
same result. Owing to her excellent communications, Germany has been
able to employ Frederick’s methods with even greater success than he
did; and at present there seems no certain prospect of the Allies being
able to overcome them soon enough to ensure that exhaustion will not
sap the vigour and cohesion of the coalition.
The only new condition in favour of the Allies is that the Command
of the Sea is now against Germany, and it is possible that its mere
passive pressure may avail to bring her to a state of hopeless
exhaustion from which we were able to save Frederick in the earlier
war. If it is believed that this passive pressure can achieve the
desired result within a reasonable time, then there is no reason for
changing our present scheme of naval operations. If, on the other hand,
we have no sufficient promise of our passive attitude effecting what
is required to turn the scale, then it may be well to consider the
possibility of bringing our Command of the Sea to bear more actively.
We have only to go back again to the Seven Years’ War to find a means
of doing this, which, _if feasible under modern conditions_, would
promise success as surely as it did in the eighteenth century.
Though Frederick’s method succeeded, it was once brought within an ace
of failure. From the first he knew that the weak point of his system
was his northern frontier.
_He knew that a blow in force from the Baltic could at any time
paralyse his power of striking right and left, and it was in dread of
this from Russia that he began by pressing us so hard to provide him
with a covering fleet in that sea._
Owing to our world-wide preoccupations we were never able to provide
such a fleet, and the result was that at the end of 1761 the Russians
were able to seize the port of Colberg, occupy the greater part of
Pomerania, and winter there in preparation for the decisive campaign
in the following spring. Frederick’s view of his danger is typified in
the story that he now took to carrying a phial of poison in his pocket.
Owing, however, to the sudden death of the Czarina in the winter the
fatal campaign was never fought. Russia made peace and Prussia was
saved.
So critical an episode in the early history of Prussia cannot be
without an abiding influence in Berlin. Indeed, it is not too much to
say that in a country where military thought tends to dominate naval
plans, _the main value of the German Fleet must be its ability to keep
the command of the Baltic so far in dispute that hostile invasion
across it is impossible_.
_If then it is considered necessary to adopt a more drastic war plan
than that we are now pursuing, and to seek to revive the fatal stroke
of 1761, it is for consideration whether we are able to break down
the situation which the German fleet has set up. Are we, in short,
in a position to occupy the Baltic in such strength as to enable an
adequate Russian army to land in the spring on the coast of Pomerania
within striking distance of Berlin or so as to threaten the German
communications eastward?_
The first and most obvious difficulty attending such an operation is
that it would require the whole of our battle force, and we could
not at the same time occupy the North Sea effectively. We should,
therefore, lie open to the menace of a counterstroke which might at
any time force us to withdraw from the Baltic; and the only means of
preventing this--since the western exit of the Kiel Canal cannot be
blocked--
_would be to sow the North Sea with mines on such a scale that
naval operations in it would become impossible_.
The objections to such an expedient, both moral and practical, are, of
course, very great. The chief moral objection is offence to neutrals.
But it is to be observed that they are already suffering severely from
the open-sea mining which the Germans inaugurated, and it is possible
that, could they be persuaded that carrying the system of open-sea
mining to its logical conclusion would expedite the end of the present
intolerable conditions, they might be induced to adopt an attitude of
acquiescence. The actual attitude of the northern neutral Powers looks
at any rate as if they would be glad to acquiesce in any measure which
promised them freedom from their increasing apprehension of Germany’s
intentions. Sweden, at any rate, who would, after Holland, be the
greatest sufferer, has recently been ominously reminded of the days
when Napoleon forced her into war with us against her will.
In this connection it may also be observed that where one belligerent
departs from the rules of civilised warfare, it is open to the other to
take one of two courses. He may secure a moral advantage by refusing to
follow a bad lead, or he may seek a physical advantage by forcing the
enemy’s crime to its utmost consequences. _By the half measures we have
adopted hitherto in regard to open-sea mines, we are enjoying neither
the one advantage nor the other._
On the general idea of breaking up the German war plan by operations
in the Baltic, it may be recalled that it is not new to us. It was
attempted--but a little too late--during Napoleon’s Friedland-Eylau
campaign. It was again projected in 1854, when our operations in
the Great War after Trafalgar, and particularly in the Peninsula,
were still living memories. In that year we sent a Fleet into the
Baltic with the idea of covering the landing of a French force within
striking distance of Petrograd, which was to act in combination with
the Prussian army; but as Prussia held back, the idea was never
carried out. Still, the mere presence of our Fleet--giving colour
to the menace--did avail to keep a very large proportion of the
Russian strength away from the Crimea, and so materially hastened the
successful conclusion of the war.
On this analogy, it is for consideration whether, even if the suggested
operation is not feasible, a menace of carrying it out--concerted with
Russia--might not avail seriously to disturb German equilibrium and
force her to desperate expedients, even to hazarding a Fleet action or
to alienating entirely the Scandinavian Powers by drastic measures of
precaution.
The risks, of course, must be serious; but unless we are fairly sure
that the passive pressure of our Fleet is really bringing Germany to
a state of exhaustion, _risks must be taken to use our command of the
Sea with greater energy_; or, so far as the actual situation promises,
we can expect no better issue for the present war than that which the
continental coalition was forced to accept in the Seven Years’ War.
_Lord Fisher to Mr. Lloyd George._
36, BERKELEY SQUARE,
LONDON,
_March 28th, 1917_.
DEAR PRIME MINISTER,
I hardly liked to go further with my remarks this morning,
recognising how very valuable your time is, but I would have
liked to have added how appalling it is that the Germans may
now be about to deal a deadly blow to Russia by sending a large
German Force by sea from Kiel to take St. Petersburg (which, as
the Russian Prime Minister, Stolypin, told me, is the Key of
Russia! All is concentrated there!). And here we are with our
Fleet passive and unable to frustrate this German Sea attack
on Russia. All this due to the grievous faulty Naval strategy
of not adopting the Baltic Project put before Mr. Asquith in
association with the scheme for the British Army advancing
along the Belgian Coast, by which we should have re-captured
Antwerp, and there would have been no German submarine menace
such as now is. An Armada of 612 vessels was constructed to
carry out this policy, thanks to your splendid approval of the
cost when you were Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I. Our Naval Strategy has been unimaginative.
II. Our shipbuilding Policy has been futile, inasmuch as it has
not coped with the German Submarine Menace.
III. Our Naval Intelligence of the enemy’s doings is good for
nothing. For it is impossible to conceive there would have
been apathy at the Admiralty had it been known how the Germans
were building submarines in such numbers--3 a week, Sir John
Jellicoe told us at the War Cabinet. I say 5 a week.
Yours, etc.,
(Signed) FISHER.
28/3/17.
I append a couple of extracts from Memoranda made by me in 1902, when I
was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet.
“Here we see 5,000 of these offensive floating mines laid
down off Port Arthur, covering a wider space than the English
Channel, and we, so far, have none, nor any vessel yet fitted!
What a scandal! For a purpose unnecessary to be detailed
here, it is absolutely obligatory for us to have these mines
instantly for war against Germany. They are an imperative
strategic necessity, and must be got at once.”
AUTOMATIC DROPPING MINES FOR OCEAN USE.
“The question of the use of these mines as an adjunct to a
Battle Fleet in a Fleet action has not been put forward so
strongly as desirable as compared with their use for preventing
ingress or egress to a port. They can be used with facility in
the open sea in depths up to 150 fathoms. There is no question
that they could be employed with immense effect to protect
the rear of a retreating Fleet. This type of mine is quite
different to the blockade mine. They are offensive mines. Is
it wise, indeed is it prudent not to acquaint ourselves, by
exhaustive trials, what the possibility of such a weapon may
be, and how it may be counteracted?”
CHAPTER XVI
THE NAVY IN THE WAR
SCAPA FLOW.
Ages before the War, but after I became First Sea Lord on Trafalgar
Day, 1904, I was sitting locked up in a secluded room that I had
mis-appropriated at the Admiralty, looking at a chart of the North Sea,
and playing with a pair of compasses, when these thoughts came into
my mind! “Those d--d Germans, if dear old Tirpitz is only far-seeing
enough, will multiply means of ‘dishing’ a blockade by making the life
of surface ships near the coast line a burden to them by submarines and
destroyers. (At this time the Germans had only one submarine, and she a
failure!) Also, as their radius of action grows through the marvellous
oil engine, and ‘internal combustion’ changes the face of sea war, we
must have our British Fleet so placed at such a distance from hostile
attack that our Force off the Enemy’s Coast will cut off his marauders
at daylight in the morning on their marauding return.” I put that safe
distance for the British Fleet on my compasses and swept a circle,
and behold it came to a large inland land-locked sheet of water, but
there was no name to it on the chart and no soundings in it put on the
chart. I sent for the Hydrographer, and pointing to the spot, I said:
“Bring me the large scale chart. What’s its name?” He didn’t know. He
would find out.
He was a d--d long time away, and I rang the bell twice and sent him
word each time that I was getting angry!
When he turned up, he said it hadn’t been properly surveyed, and he
believed it was called Scapa Flow! So up went a surveying ship about
an hour afterwards, and discovered, though the current raged through
the Pentland Firth at sometimes 14 knots, yet inside this huge secluded
basin it was comparatively a stagnant pool! Wasn’t that another proof
that we are the ten lost tribes of Israel? And the Fleet went there
forty-eight hours before the War, and a German in the German Fleet
wrote to his father to say how it had been intended to torpedo the
British Fleet, but it had left unexpectedly sooner for this Northern
“Unknown!” Also, he said in his letter that Jellicoe’s appointment as
Admiralissimo was very painful to them as they knew of his extreme
skill in the British Naval Manœuvres of 1913. Also, thirdly, he added
to his Papa that it was a d--d nuisance we had bagged the two Turkish
Dreadnoughts in the Tyne the very day they were ready to start, as they
belonged to Germany!
The mention of Jellicoe reminds me of Yamamoto saying to me that, just
before their War with Russia, he had superseded a splendid Admiral
loved by his Fleet, because Togo was “just a little better!!!”
The superseded man was his own _protégé_, and Togo wasn’t. No wonder
these Japanese fight!
Prince Fushishima, the Mikado’s brother, told me of 4,000 of a special
company of the bluest blood in Japan, of whom all except four were
killed in action or died of wounds--only nine were invalided for
sickness. However, I remarked to him we were braver than those 4,000
Japanese, because their religion is they go to Heaven if they die for
their country, and we are not so sure! He agreed with me, and gave me a
lovely present.
A PRE-WAR PROPHECY.
On December the 3rd, 1908, when I was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty,
I hazarded a prophecy (but, of course, I was only doing the obvious!)
that should we be led by our anti-Democratic tendencies in High
Places, and by Secret Treaties and by Compromising Attendances of
Great Military Officers at the French Manœuvres at Nancy, into a sort
of tacit pledge to France to land a British Army in France in a war
against Germany, then would come the biggest blow to England she would
ever have experienced--not a defeat, _because we never succumb_--but
a deadly blow to our economic resources and by the relegation of the
British Navy into a “Subsidiary Service.” I said in 1908 (and told
King Edward so) that the German Emperor would, in such a case, order
his generals “to fight neither with small nor great,” but only with
the English and wipe them out! So has it come to pass, as regards the
Emperor giving these orders and his having this desire!
The original English Expeditionary Force was but a drop in the Ocean
as compared with the German and French millions of soldiers, and the
value, _though not the gallantry_ of its exploits, has been greatly
over-rated. It was a very long time indeed before the British Army held
any considerable portion of the fighting line in France, and instead
of being on the seashore, in touch with the British Fleet and with
easy access to England, the British Expeditionary Force was by French
directions and because of French susceptibilities, stationed far away
from the sea, and sandwiched between French troops. We have always been
giving in to the susceptibilities of others and having none of our own!
The whole war illustrates this statement. The Naval situation in the
Mediterranean perhaps exemplifies this more than any other instance!
Had the French maintained the defensive in 1915, it is unquestionable
that it would have been the Germans and not the French who would have
suffered the bloody losses in the regions of Artois and the Champagne.
_We built up a great Army, but we wrecked our shipbuilding._ We ought
to have equipped Russia before we equipped our own Armies, for, had we
done so, the Russians would never have sustained the appalling losses
they did in pitting pikes against rifles and machine-guns. This was the
real reason of the Russian Catastrophe--the appalling casualties and
the inability of the old _régime_ to supply armaments on the modern
scale. Had another policy been pursued and the British Fleet, with its
enormous supremacy, cleared the Baltic of the German Navy and landed a
Russian Army on the Pomeranian Coast, then the War would have been won
in 1915! Also, as I pointed out in November, 1914, to Lord Kitchener,
we ought to have given Bulgaria all she asked of us. When later we
offered her these same terms she refused us with derisive laughter!
There was no difficulty in all this, but we were pusillanimous and we
procrastinated.
_We did not equip Russia!_ WE DID NOT SOW THE NORTH SEA WITH THOUSANDS
UPON THOUSANDS OF MINES, as I advocated in the Autumn of 1914,
and I bought eight of the fastest ships in the world to lay them
down! This sowing of the North Sea with a multitude of mines would
automatically have established a Complete Blockade! Again, we did not
foster Agriculture, and we almost ceased building Merchant Ships,
and robbed our building yards and machine shops of the most skilled
artisans and mechanics in the world to become “cannon fodder”! But a
wave of unthinking Militarism swept over the country and submerged
the Government, and we were in May, 1918, hard put to it to bring the
American Army across the Atlantic as we were so short of shipping.
It needs not a Soldier to realise that had the British Expeditionary
Force of 160,000 men been landed at Antwerp by the British Fleet in
August, 1914 (instead of its occupying a small sector in the midst of
the French Army in France), that the War would certainly have ended
in 1915. This, in conjunction with the seizure of the Baltic by the
British Fleet and the landing of a Russian Army on the Pomeranian Coast
would have smashed the Germans. All this was foreshadowed in 1908, and
the German Emperor kindly gave me the credit as the Instigator of the
Idea so deadly to Germany.
THE “MONSTROUS” CRUISERS SO DERIDED IN PARLIAMENT
_Note._--When I came to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord in
October, 1914--three months after the War had begun--I obtained
the very cordial concurrence and help of Mr. Churchill and Mr.
Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer) in an unparalleled
building programme of 612 vessels of types necessary for a
Big Offensive in Northern Waters (_the decisive theatre of
the War_). Coal-burning Battleships then under construction
were re-designed to burn oil, with great increase of their
efficiency and speed, and the last two of these eight
Battleships were scrapped (the “Renown” and “Repulse”), and,
together with three new vessels--the “Courageous,” “Glorious,”
and “Furious”--were arranged to have immense speed, heavy guns
and unprecedented light draught of water, thus enabling them
to fulfil the very work described in this letter below of
absolutely disposing of hostile light cruisers and following
them into shallow waters. They were also meant for service in
the Baltic.
Ever since their production became known, Naval critics in both
Houses of Parliament (quite ignorant of new Naval strategical
and tactical requirements) have consistently crabbed these
new mighty Engines of War as the emanations of a sick brain,
“_senile and autocratic_!” Hence the value of the following
letter from an eyewitness of high rank:
_To Lord Fisher from a Naval Officer_
_December 12th, 1917._
DEAR LORD FISHER,
In the late action in the Heligoland Bight the only heavy
ships which could get up with the enemy were the “Repulse,”
“Courageous” and “Glorious” (the “Renown” and “Furious” were
elsewhere).[14] They very nearly brought off an important
“coup!” Without them our light cruisers would not have had a
“look in,” or perhaps would have been “done in!” When public
speakers desired to decry the work of the Board of which you
were a Member in 1914 and 1915, and particularly that part of
the work for which you were so personally responsible as this
new type of heavy ship, no condemnation was too heavy to heap
on your design!
It is a pleasure to me, therefore, to be able to let you know
that they have fully justified your anticipation of their
success.
I trust you are quite well and will believe me,
Yours sincerely,
----.
_Lord Fisher to a Friend._
_August 22nd, 1917._
MY BELOVED FRIEND,
I am scanning the dark horizon for some faint glimmer of the
end of the War. Not a sign of a glimmer! So far as the Germans
are concerned, there is indisputable authority for stating
that Germany is equal to a seven years’ war! Are we? So far,
alas! we have had no Nelson, no Napoleon, no Pitt! The one
only “substantial victory” of ours in the War (and, as Nelson
wished, it was not a Victory--it was Annihilation!) was the
destruction of Admiral von Spee’s Armada off the Falkland
Islands.... And the above accomplished under the sole direction
of a Septuagenarian First Sea Lord, who was thought mad for
denuding the Grand Fleet of our fastest Battle Cruisers to
send them 14,000 miles on a supposed wild goose chase....
And how I was execrated for inventing the Battle Cruisers!
“Monstrous Cruisers,” they called them! To this day such asses
of this kidney calumniate them, and their still more wonderful
successors, the “Repulse,” “Renown,” “Furious,” “Glorious,” and
“Courageous.” How would they have saved England without these
Fast Battle Cruisers?... And yet, dear friend, what comes to
the Author of the Scene?
The words of Montaigne!
“Qui de nous n’a sa ‘terre promise,’
Son jour d’extase,
Et sa fin en exil?”
Yours, etc.,
(Signed) FISHER.
_Note._--Much talk of a recent _mot_ at a great dinner-table,
where society’s hatred of Lord Fisher was freely canvassed, and
his retirement (in May 1915) much applauded. “I did not know,”
remarked a statesman, “that Mr. Pitt ever put Lord Nelson on
the retired list.”
THE DREADNOUGHT BATTLE CRUISER.
The following imaginary dialogue I composed in 1904 to illustrate the
text that “Cruisers without high speed and protection are absolutely
useless”:--
“The ‘Venus,’ an Armoured Cruiser, is approaching her own Fleet at full
speed!
“Admiral signals to ‘Venus’: ‘What have you seen?’
“‘Venus’ replies: ‘Four funnels hull down.’
“Admiral: ‘Well, what was behind?’
“‘Venus’ replies: ‘Cannot say; she must have four knots more speed than
I had, and would have caught me in three hours, so I had to close you
at full speed.’
“Admiral’s logical reply: ‘You had better pay your ship off and turn
over to something that is some good; you are simply a device for
wasting 400 men!’”
The deduction is:
ARMOUR IS VISION.
So we got out the “Dreadnought” Battle Cruiser on that basis, and also
to fulfil that great Nelsonic idea of having a Squadron of very fast
ships to bring on an Action, or overtake and lame a retreating foe. And
in the great war this fast “Dreadnought” Battle Cruiser carried off all
the honours. She sank the “Blücher” and others, and also Admiral von
Spee at the Falkland Islands.