Armstrong’s—Russian War-ship Construction—Arrival of “Cimbria” at
Bar Harbor—Visit of Wharton Barker to Shipyard—Visit of
Captain Semetschkin and Commission to the Yard—Purchase of
Ships—Newspaper Accounts—Captain Gore-Jones—Mr. Cramp’s account of
Operations—“Europe,” “Asia,” “Africa,” and “Zabiaca”—Popoff and
“Livadia”—Visit to Grand Duke Constantine—Anniversary Banquet in St.
Petersburg of Survivors of “Cimbria” Expedition—Object of Visit to
Russia—Mr. Dunn and Japan—Contract for “Kasagi”—Jubilee Session of
Naval Architects in London—Visit to Russia—Correspondence with Russian
Officials—Visit to Armstrong’s—Japanese War-ship Construction—“Coming
Sea Power”—Correspondence with Russian Official—Invited to
Russia—Asked to bid for War-ships—Our Ministers abroad—Construction of
“Retvizan” and “Variag”—“Maine”
THE old Latin poet Horace introduces his First Book of “Sermons or
Satires” by addressing to his great patron, Mæcenas, the question:
“Qui fit, Mæcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem
Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illa
Contentus vivat? laudet diversa sequentes?”
(“How is it, Mæcenas, that no one lives content with the lot that
endeavor has given to him or that fortune has thrown in his way? but
emulates those following other pursuits?”)
Mr. Cramp reached the condition described by Horace early in the last
decade of the nineteenth century. He had exhausted the opportunities of
American ship-building, both for war and for commerce. A fleet, not only
respectable in number but formidable in type and power,—a fleet
embracing battleships, armored cruisers, and protected cruisers,—bore
the impress of his art and heralded the distinction of his name. To this
compact war-fleet he had added two ocean greyhounds, the first of their
type built in the Western hemisphere. In prosecution of all this
advancement, if we take the decade from 1885 to 1895, he had multiplied
the area of the shipyard by two, and its capacity alike in number and
size of steamships and their machinery more than three. In 1889, some
people—and among them his own associates in the ownership of the
yard—were afraid to undertake the armored cruiser “New York.” Mr. Cramp
met this obstruction with radical action, as was his wont in every
emergency; and in four years from that time he had laid the keels of
Atlantic greyhounds whose register tonnage was more than two thousand
tons greater than the total displacement of the “New York.”
Mr. Cramp had long been emulous, some Englishman might say envious, of
the wonderful career of Sir William Armstrong and of his marvellous
success in securing foreign contracts. On one occasion, returning from a
visit to Elswick with a party from the British Institution of Naval
Architects, of which he is a member, Mr. Cramp remarked that “Armstrong
and his establishment had ceased to be ship-builders in the ordinary
acceptation of the term and had become navy-builders. They do not
trouble themselves,” he said, “with isolated ships; to all intents and
purposes they undertake to build whole navies in bulk for ambitious
maritime states in South America and Asia.” At the time of the visit
referred to, with exceptions hardly worth mention, the navies of Brazil,
Argentine Republic, Chile, Japan, and China had been built, engined,
armed, armored, munitioned, equipped, and outfitted at Elswick; and
every ship was ready for battle when she finally sailed from Armstrong’s
works. In addition to this, Elswick had done a great deal of work for
European states, having, at one time or another, contributed in some
degree to every European navy, great or small, except those of France
and Russia.
To a man of Mr. Cramp’s untiring aspiration and restless ambition, this
was a spectacle not to be supinely endured. He therefore determined to
see what could be done, and he selected what seemed to him the most
promising directions of effort,—Russia and Japan. In dealing with the
Russians he had initial advantages. The first was that Russia never had
a war-ship, except the nondescript “Livadia,” built in England, though
she had been a liberal patron of English engine-builders. The second
point of advantage was that in 1878-79 a considerable volume of work had
been done by Cramp for the Russian navy, involving conversion of three
large merchant steamships into auxiliary cruisers and the construction
of one small cruiser.
The history of this interesting event, an event of international
importance, is as follows:
In the early part of the year 1878 the North German Lloyd steamer
“Cimbria” appeared at Bar Harbor with about sixty Russian officers and
about eight hundred men. Their presence at that place created a great
sensation. Visitors thronged there; and the officers were entertained at
Bangor and also in the neighboring towns. The common sailors, however,
who were allowed to go ashore about one hundred and fifty at a time,
were cruelly disappointed. They would go along the streets searching for
vodka in vain. The Maine law, which was in full force, was something
beyond their comprehension. “There is everything in the world here but
vodka,” they would say to one another, and even to their officers, when
they returned to their ship from shore liberty.
Almost at the same moment when the “Cimbria” arrived in the waters of
Maine, Mr. Wharton Barker visited Cramps’ shipyard. The banking concern
of Barker Brothers was at that time the representative of the Barings,
who were the financial agents of Russia. Mr. Barker informed Mr. Cramp
that he was delegated to arrange for the conversion and fitting out of a
number of auxiliary cruisers for the Russian navy, and that he had
selected the Cramp Company as the professional and mechanical
instrumentality for that purpose. He arranged for a visit of a number of
Russian officers to the office of the Cramp Company. These officers had
come over independent of the “Cimbria,” but arrived about the same time.
They were the Committee or Board which had been appointed to decide on
all questions that might arise in connection with the naval project
mentioned. The head of this Board was Captain Semetschkin, Chief of
Staff of the Grand Duke Constantine, who was then General Admiral of the
Navy. Besides Captain Semetschkin, the Board consisted of Captain
Grippenburg, Captain Avalan, Captain Alexeieff, Captain Loman, Captain
Rodionoff, and Naval Constructor Koutaneyoff. This was in 1879. At this
writing (1903) Captains Semetschkin and Loman have passed away; Captain
Avalan is now Vice-Admiral and Imperial Minister of Marine; Captain
Alexeieff, now Vice-Admiral, is also Viceroy of Manchuria; Captain
Rodionoff is an Admiral; and Naval Constructor Koutaneykoff is
Constructor-in-Chief of the Russian navy.
Upon examination of Cramps’ shipyard, they decided that Mr. Barker’s
selection was well judged, and approved his recommendations that the
work projected be done there.
The war between Russia and Turkey was still in progress, and there was
every indication at that moment of British intervention. The purpose of
the Russians was to fit out a small fleet of auxiliary cruisers or
commerce destroyers to cruise in the North Atlantic in the route of the
great British traffic between the United States and England. Their idea
was that the fitting out of such a fleet with its threatening attitude
toward their North Atlantic commerce might or would deter the British
from armed intervention in behalf of the Turks.
At first the Russians made pretence of great secrecy as to their
movements. “Pretence of secrecy” is the only phrase that can adequately
express their attitude. On the other hand, the appearance of the
“Cimbria” on the coast of Maine at Bar Harbor, filled with Russian naval
officers and seamen, was not concealed, but on the other hand
ostentatious. It of course instantly attracted the attention of the
British Ministry and excited their apprehension as to the possible
outcome; apprehension which the stories that for the time being filled
the papers of New York and New England certainly did nothing to abate.
An examination of the files of the _Evening Star_ and the _North
American_ at this time would be interesting reading. The _Evening Star_,
May 1, 1878, has an account headed, “_What brings the Russian Steamer to
Maine?_” May 2: “_Suspicious Craft._” May 6: “_Suspicious ‘Cimbria’ to
leave her Station._” Some accounts “_to stir up the Irish_.” May 8: “_An
Account of the ‘egg-eating’ incident_.”
The _North American_, May 13, states that the captain of the “Cimbria”
“has said that Russia is preparing to attack Great Britain by sea;” and
refers to the disastrous effects on our commerce during the Civil War by
the work of the Confederate cruisers which practically drove the
American flag from the ocean.
Captain Gore-Jones, the Naval Attaché of the British Legation at
Washington, and others visited Bar Harbor at the time the “Cimbria” was
there. They made their visit incognito, as they imagined, and they
located themselves daily on the landing pier near the Bar Harbor Club
House, where all the Russian officers who were aboard the ship landed
every day. It happened that one of the officers knew Gore-Jones
notwithstanding his disguise. The British Attaché was sitting upon the
pier with a slouch hat on his head and a fishing-rod in his hand,
intently watching and patiently waiting for a bite, and apparently
oblivious to all that was going on except at the other end of his line.
When this officer passed him on the pier, he said in very good English,
“Captain Gore-Jones, the fish do not seem to be anxious to make
acquaintance with you!”
The visit of these officers to the shipyard of course was carried out
with a great deal of real secrecy, and arrangements were made to buy
three or four fine and up-to-date merchant ships and to transform them
into cruisers, and also to build a small new cruiser.
Mr. Cramp first applied to the American Line to buy three of their
ships, but the president of the company was too much astonished to give
him any satisfaction; or, at least, he was not prepared to act as
promptly as the occasion required, and lost the chance of selling the
ships, to the most profound disgust of Mr. Thomas A. Scott, of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, which corporation had a paramount interest in the
ships and wanted to sell them!
The “State of California” was on the stocks at Cramps about ready to
launch. This board of officers inspected her. They also looked at the
“Columbus,” sailing between New York and Havana, a ship that Cramps had
built for Mr. Clyde,—and the “Saratoga,” a ship that had belonged to the
Ward Line, built by Mr. Roach for that same trade, and were favorably
impressed.
Up to this time the presence of these gentlemen in Philadelphia was not
known or suspected; but when the purchases were made, Mr. Barker decided
that, while the time had arrived when it was necessary to remove the
veil of secrecy, the Cramps should continue to maintain it as to the
actual work and its progress.
Mr. Cramp arranged with Mr. Alexander McCleary with this end in view.
Mr. McCleary was at that time the principal reporter of the _Evening
Star_, and a friend and member of the Harrison Literary Association, to
which Mr. Cramp belonged. The whole affair was managed by him most
admirably. On May 16 the _North American_ and _Evening Star_ made the
first announcement that indicated what the Russians really intended to
do. These papers gave an account of the sale of the “State of
California,” and that $100,000 was paid on account to A. A. Low & Co.,
the agents of the Pacific Coast Navigation Company. May 16 was the day
of the launch, and on the next day preparations were made to remove the
joiner and cabin work, a full account of which appeared in the daily
papers.
Mr. Cramp ultimately purchased in addition the steamships “Columbus” and
“Saratoga.” These two and the “State of California,” after being
converted into auxiliary cruisers, were named the “Europe,” “Asia,” and
“Africa.” Then the Russians contracted for a small cruiser which they
called the “Zabiaca” (Mischief-maker). This ship was a regularly
designed man-of-war of a special type, and at the time of her completion
was the fastest cruiser in the world. The four ships were fitted out
under the direction of their captains respectively. The commander of the
“Europe” was Captain Grippenburg; of the “Asia,” Captain Avalan; of the
“Africa,” Captain Alexeieff; and the commander of the new cruiser
“Zabiaca” was Captain Loman.
The three ships purchased and converted into commerce destroyers were,
so far as internal arrangement and outfit were concerned, altered
altogether as to the respective ideas of their commanders, and they all
differed very much. They embodied very complete and somewhat ornamental
accommodations, and every modern convenience as understood at that time
was included in their design.
During these operations the show of secrecy was maintained, but Captain
Gore-Jones still zealously endeavored to keep himself and his government
_au courant_ with everything that was going on. In pursuit of this duty,
he managed on one occasion to get into the shipyard in the disguise of a
workman and on the pass or ticket which was then issued for the
admission of workingmen. He was, however, soon observed by Captain
Avalan of the “Asia,” who at once reported the fact of his presence to
the office. Captain Gore-Jones was then politely but firmly ushered out
of the shipyard and requested not to enter it again.
[Illustration: AMERICAN LINER ST. PAUL]
This incident of Captain Gore-Jones’s futile attempt to play detective
attracted wide attention and much comment. Among the newspaper articles
on that subject was one in the columns of the Washington _Sunday
Capital_, a journal then having national reputation for wit and humor.
The material part of it was as follows:
“Among the ornaments of the Diplomatic Corps is a possible, though
not altogether probable, successor of Nelson. He appears in the
Congressional Directory as Captain Gore-Jones, Naval Attaché of H.
B. M. Legation. Neither one of his two names, viewed separately,
suggest aristocracy. Both viewed together in normal condition are
not calculated to excite suspicion of blue blood. Still, Gore-Jones
is an aristocrat. The hyphen is what does it. For the rest,
Gore-Jones, being an English naval officer, is a Welshman born in
Ireland.
“His duties are supposed to be the observing of things naval in this
country. Being unable to discover a navy, or anything resembling
one, in possession of the United States, it occurred to him that
perhaps he might find here a navy or part of one belonging to some
other power. In fact, it was rumored in the Corps Diplomatique that
Gore-Jones had been notified that he must either find a navy in this
country somewhere and belonging to somebody or lose his job.
Naturally, his first quest would be at our navy-yards (so-called),
but at none of these could he even detect symptoms of naval
intention. All he could find was a few old hawse-holes. He was
informed that these had been accumulated by that jolly old tar, the
rotund Robeson, with the intention of building wooden tubs around
them whenever Grant might happen to run for a third term. He was
also informed that the present reform administration of the
venerable Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, viewed these hawse-holes
with suspicion. This was because they were hollow; whereas the
venerable reformer believed that everything about a ship should be
solid.
“Despairing of the navy-yards, Gore-Jones turned his attention to
places where merchant-ships were constructed. He heard that the
Cramps, of Philadelphia, were building something that did not look
merchant-like. He resolved to see it. Incidentally, he had heard
rumors that the queer craft at Cramps’ was being paid for along by
instalments of Russian money.
“Trouble was brewing between Russia and England. Aha! At last!
Gore-Jones had struck it rich. Let him unearth this foul conspiracy
to imitate in 1879 the pious example England had set with the
‘Alabama’ in 1863, and he would surely get a star. He might even get
a garter.
“But how? Cramp had views of his own as to private property. He was
not under diplomatic jurisdiction, as were the navy-yards. In fact,
the sign was out at Cramps’, ‘No English need apply!’ This, however,
was rather incentive than obstacle to Gore-Jones. He needn’t be
English. Nature had endowed him with an assortment of mental and
bodily peculiarities, mostly bodily, that adapted him to almost any
nationality. He resolved to be an Irishman. He at once began an
arduous practice of the brogue. First he had to get rid of the
cockney drawl which is enjoined by regulation in the English navy.
Demosthenes is said to have overcome a tendency to stutter by
orating with his mouth full of pebbles. Gore-Jones got rid of the
regulation cockney drawl of the English navy by talking with his
mouth full of Irish whiskey.
“Finally, he considered all preliminary difficulties overcome, and
began a siege of Cramps’ shipyard by regular approaches. Finding it
impregnable to front attack, he resolved to flank it. This he
accomplished by taking possession of an adjoining lumber yard in the
night-time. Early in the morning he entered the fortress by its
sally-port. Success was in his grasp,—almost. It glittered, then it
glimmered, then it fizzled out. There was one peculiarity he
couldn’t overcome. That was his remarkable resemblance in form and
figure to ‘Punch’s’ standard cartoon of ‘John Bull.’ He could smoke
a short, black pipe with the bowl turned down equal to the most
Corkonian Irishman in Fishtown. He could also fairly imitate that
peculiar accent produced by filtering conversation through the
teeth, commonly known as the brogue, particularly when the
conversation was diluted with a mouthful of Irish whiskey. But he
couldn’t escape his shape. One of the Russian officers on duty at
Cramps’, with that keenness characteristic of Napoleon’s ‘scratched
Tartar,’ penetrated all his disguises. Then he was ignominiously
ejected by one of those decrepit men who, when they get too old to
build ships, are usually employed by Cramps’ as watchmen. _Sic
transit gloria mundi._ Exit Gore-Jones. But he will remain with us.
He will hold his job. He deserves to. He has done what no American
has ever been able to do since the collapse of the Rebellion. He has
discovered a navy—an actual, real, live navy—in the United States.
The fact that it is a Russian navy and not an American one,
humiliating as it may be to us, is a huge feather in the cap to him.
We hasten to doff our editorial chapeau to Gore-Jones. We are
confident he will get his star. We fervently hope he may get also
the garter.”
At this point Mr. Cramp’s own narrative of the subsequent proceedings
will be more graphic and interesting than any other form of description
could be:
“Great activity marked the progress of alterations and fitting out
of the vessels. The yard was filled with men, some working night and
day, and the vessels were all fitted out at a very early date,
considering what had to be done. They were more than rebuilt. Each
ship was fitted out for an admiral and the accommodations for
officers and men were ample. They were full sparred and
square-rigged.
“The indications that the English would join the Sultan at any time
still prevailed at the time the vessels were ready to go to sea.
When the ‘Europe,’ ‘Asia,’ and ‘Africa’ were ready to depart, they
had to go without any guns, because all the loose guns that the
Russians could spare from the navy were mounted on forts, and none
could be appropriated for these ships, so they had to depart without
guns. They expected when they came here to be able to purchase guns
in this country from some of the gun manufacturers, and they were
very much amazed to find that our government had not permitted any
gun factories to exist here. So they had to go without.
“The captains all showed great determination and pluck, but their
going away was not under the conditions usually attending the
departure of war vessels. They expected when they left that England
would openly espouse the cause of Turkey before they arrived at the
other side, and they were all prepared to sink their ships rather
than surrender. They felt that their case was particularly hard and
that their hands were tied, and having no guns they were at the
mercy of the enemy. They could not find much satisfaction of sinking
with their own ships unless they had done some damage to the enemy,
so under the circumstances their sailing was a very sad occasion.
“The ‘Zabiaca’ being a new vessel, it took longer to finish her, and
by the time she was finished the war with Turkey was over, and they
managed to get guns to put aboard her.
“The fitting out of this small fleet of commerce destroyers had the
effect that the Russians originally intended it to have. It deterred
the English from going in with the Sultan. The merchant fleet of
England is too great and too vulnerable to permit their country to
go to war for a trifle. England would suffer more in a war than any
other nation on account of the large number of merchant-men under
her flag; and it was because of the great number of her ships and
the danger and loss from their destruction that made the British
government and its people labor so hard to have our navigation laws
repealed, so that a fictitious sale could be made and the vessels of
their merchant marine could be put under the protection of the
American flag. As two of our statesmen said (Henry C. Carey and
Judge Kelley), ‘As long as our navigation laws remain as they are,
England will be under perpetual bonds of indemnity to keep the peace
with all the small nations in the world, because their
merchant-ships cannot fly to the protection of the American flag.’
In this case the English saw the scheme of the ‘Alabama’ applied to
themselves.
“These vessels went abroad, and most of them became flag-ships on
foreign stations.
“The ‘Europe’ and ‘Africa’ became flag-ships, and the ‘Asia’ was
afterward taken by the Grand Duke Alexis, who made a yacht of her,
and a very handsome one she made. She remains the Grand Duke’s yacht
to this day.
“The rest of the history of this transaction is generally known. The
vessels were fitted out, went to sea, and made their way to Russian
ports without interruption, and a final treaty of peace was effected
through the Congress of European Powers at Berlin. I believe that
the strongest argument the Russian government could offer to
persuade Great Britain against intervention was the fitting out of
these vessels as commerce destroyers in our shipyard.
“The next year during a trip abroad I visited Paris. I found there
Captain Semetschkin, who told me that the Grand Duke Constantine was
in the city and would like to receive me. The captain arranged that
I should call the next morning, and at the same time informed me
that the Grand Duke had given a contract for a new ship, afterward
called the ‘Livadia,’ designed by Admiral Popoff and Dr. Zimmerman,
to be built at the Fairfield Works at Glasgow. Admiral Popoff was a
notable example of that type of man to which, for example, De
Lesseps, and Keely of motor fame, and Eads belong. Such men affect
an almost celestial knowledge in everything they undertake, and that
affectation, coupled with an apparent sincerity of manner,
earnestness of purpose, and unflinching nerve, often enables them to
captivate people of good information on general topics, but
unacquainted with the technique of engineering problems; and who
therefore are unable to detect the cunning charlatanry of such
pretenders.
“Admiral Popoff had fascinated the Grand Duke Constantine with his
peculiar type of war-ship, which was a circular floating turret of
large dimensions that could be revolved by means of her propellers,
so that, porcupine-like, she could present her ‘bristles’ in every
direction to an enemy.
“Quite a number of the Popoff type of floating batteries were built,
and a dry-dock was constructed for their special accommodation when
repairs might be necessary. The ‘Livadia’ was the last production of
Admiral Popoff, who, as I have already remarked, designed her with
the assistance of Dr. Zimmerman, of Holland. She was not circular
like her predecessors, but was oval in shape, the transverse
diameter being almost but not quite equal to the conjugate, and she
was fitted with three screws entirely under the bottom. Captain
Semetschkin informed me that the Grand Duke was much impressed with
this new design, and that nothing could shake his belief in its
success. Being thus forewarned, I could avoid giving him an adverse
criticism in case he brought the subject up by simply exercising a
little diplomacy, as it was not my desire or intention to cross his
predilections in any way. When I called on the Grand Duke at the
Russian Legation, I found him reclining on a sofa, having severely
injured his leg in a fall. He arose as I entered and invited me to
take a seat in front of him. Being full of the subject, he
immediately asked me if I would visit Glasgow soon, and when I
stated that I intended to go there at an early date he gave me a
letter to Captain Goulaieff, Russian Naval Constructor, who he said
had charge of the construction of the new ‘Livadia,’ and that he had
had prepared a working model fifteen feet long with engines complete
as an experiment, and he wanted me to see it.
“I am sure he fully believed in the successful future of this type.
He stated that he was confident that it would revolutionize
merchant-ship as well as war-ship construction, and his enthusiasm
was unbounded in the contemplation of it.
“When he had exhausted the subject, which took some time, in elegant
English and with fascinating fluency of speech, he changed the
subject, and I was subjected to one of the most severe examinations
in naval construction, equipment, and technical practice that I ever
encountered. Of course, there was a change from my attitude of
listener to that of a sort of principal in the conversation that
followed.
“In referring in a complimentary way to the new fleet that we had
turned out,—the outcome of the ‘Cimbria’ expedition,—the Grand Duke
stated that one quality in them that impressed him more than any
other was the large coal carrying capabilities of the vessels, and
he asked me how I explained it. I stated that the models of the
ships were of the best American type with certain improvements of
our own.
“Expressing himself in a complimentary manner as to what we had done
and as to what I said, he then put the question to me with much
‘empressement’ and sympathetic interest of manner: ‘Mr. Cramp, from
what school of naval architecture did you graduate?’
“Fully appreciating all that was involved in the question from his
stand-point and what he considered of paramount importance,—the
necessity of the Technical School for Naval Officials—I was prepared
for the question, and determined that my answer should be apropos;
and that I would not permit myself and my profession to be
disparaged, knowing that in Russia and on the Continent generally
there were no great private shipyards, and that if a naval architect
or ship-builder there did not graduate from a technical school, he
was practically nowhere at that time. Trained as I was in
Philadelphia in a first-class shipyard, surrounded by others of the
same kind and in close contact with New York, which city occupied
the head and front of the ship-building profession in the world, I
felt myself doubly armed and more than confident when my answer came
promptly after the question.
“I said: ‘Your Imperial Highness! when I graduated from my father’s
shipyard as a naval architect and ship-builder, there were no
schools of naval architecture. I belong to that race which created
them!’
“This unexpected answer, and the gravity of my manner, astonished
for an instant the Grand Duke, who glanced at Captain Semetschkin,
and rising to his feet he bowed profoundly to me and sat down.
“The history of the ‘Livadia’ is well known,—encountering a storm in
the Bay of Biscay she was somewhat battered up under the bottom
forward. On account of her peculiar shape and light draught she did
not respond quickly to the motions of a head sea; when her bow was
lifted clear of the water, the following seas would strike the
bottom very severely before she would come down.
“After serving at Sebastopol somewhat under a cloud, she was laid
up; the propeller engines were ultimately put in three new
gun-boats.”
The departure of the “Cimbria” from Russia was a great event there, and
all the officers who left Russia on that expedition have continued ever
since to meet yearly on March 28 (O. S.), that being the date of their
departure from Russia. On March 29, 1898, twenty years afterward, Mr.
Cramp happened to be in Russia arranging for the contract between his
Company and the Russian government for the construction of the
battleship “Retvizan” and the cruiser “Variag.” A committee of officers
at the time called and invited him to be present at their annual banquet
as a guest. This committee was composed of some of the younger officers
who were on the “Cimbria” expedition. They stated that no guest had ever
been invited to one of these banquets, but they considered Mr. Cramp’s
connection with the fitting out of that fleet entitled him to the
distinction of being the only guest they ever had on one of those
occasions. He found there Vice-Admiral Avalan, the Assistant of the
Minister of Marine and now Minister of Marine,—he had been captain of
the “Asia;” Admiral Grippenburg, who had been captain of the “Europe;”
and also about thirty of the sixty officers who left on the “Cimbria” on
its first voyage. Of those absent, a great many had died, and some, of
course, were away. Admiral Alexeieff was in China.
Mr. Cramp had begun his overtures with a view to naval construction for
Russia as early as the fall of 1893. During that period the Russian
Atlantic fleet was present in our waters to take part in celebrating the
four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ discovery. The Grand Duke
Alexander was an officer in that squadron, which during its stay in our
waters was at anchor for some time in the Delaware, and its officers
freely visited the shipyard, carefully inspecting and examining all the
work then going on. The general result was that they became enthusiastic
with regard to the development of the art in this country and with the
character of work being done toward the rebuilding of our navy, and they
were also profoundly impressed with the facilities of Cramps’ shipyard
which might be utilized for increase of the Russian navy. They frankly
said, however, that just at that moment it did not seem to be the policy
of their government to have important work done for the Russian navy in
foreign shipyards. This was, of course, true, for at that time Russia
was not building any kind of naval construction more important than
torpedo-boat destroyers outside of her own domain. During the following
years (1894, 1895, 1896) certain correspondence passed between Mr. Cramp
and high officials in the Russian Ministry of Marine; though little
progress was made during those years except to call the attention of the
Russians in a vivid and forceful manner to the capacities and facilities
which he controlled, and to strengthen the _entente cordiale_ which had
so long existed between the Russian naval authorities and himself.
At this point it becomes necessary to take up a new branch of the
general subject, which is that of foreign work.
[Illustration: MEDI-J-IEH LAUNCHING—TURKISH
Copyright, 1904, by John W. Dawson]
While the correspondence with the authorities of the Russian government
above referred to was going on, our Minister at Tokio, Mr. Dunn, called
the attention of the Japanese government to the fact that their
expenditure of vast sums of money on a new navy in England principally,
and also in France and Germany on a smaller scale, was well known; and
in a diplomatic way he suggested that some of that kind of patronage
bestowed upon the ship-building interests in the United States would be
extremely gratifying to the American people. He also thought that the
popularity of such a project in this country would be made universal if
part of the proposed patronage should be awarded to the Atlantic and
part to the Pacific coast. Minister Dunn’s suggestion was taken up by
the American Trading Company in the Orient, and their joint advocacy of
the scheme was crowned with success. Acting upon intimation of such a
suggestion, the Cramp Company and the Union Iron Works of San Francisco
sent agents to Japan, and when they returned, contracts were made with
the Japanese Minister Toru Hoshi, representing the Imperial Government,
and the two ship-building companies above mentioned. The ship built by
Cramp is now known in the Japanese navy list as the “Kasagi,” and that
built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco as the “Chitose.”
Up to that time the Japanese navy had been built almost exclusively in
England, and with unimportant exceptions wholly by Armstrong. Of the
vessels which won the naval battles on the Yellow Sea in the
Chino-Japanese War of 1894 almost all, with the exception of a few
torpedo craft, were built by Armstrong & Company at Elswick.
There was, however, one difficulty in the way of Japanese patronage of
American shipyards in the construction of naval vessels. This difficulty
soon came to the surface, but was averted by the urgency of diplomatic
considerations. It grew out of the fact that the money which Japan was
using to augment her navy was that which she realized from the Chinese
Indemnity paid under the provisions of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. This
indemnity had been furnished by Russia and financed in England or by
English capitalists; and it appeared that there was a sort of tacit, if
not express, understanding that most of it was to be spent in naval
construction, and that the ships which it was to pay for should be built
in English shipyards. However, the Japanese naval authorities were
extremely desirous of adding one or more American-built ships to their
fleet; their idea, from the professional point of view, being that, as
they were then about prepared, or had been for some time engaged in
preparing, to build ships at home in their own dock-yards, the
possession of one or more American-built ships would be of value as
samples, models, or object lessons. Finally, after considerable
negotiation carried on partly with or through the Japanese Minister at
Washington, and partly at head-quarters in Tokio, the Japanese
government awarded a contract to Cramp for the construction of a
first-class protected cruiser of the highest attainable speed. This
contract was signed by Mr. Cramp on behalf of the Company and by Toru
Hoshi, the Minister, on behalf of his Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. The
vessel, the “Kasagi,” was originally designed to be of about 5000 tons
displacement, but was modified to a displacement of about 5500 tons. The
guaranty was 17,000 indicated horse-power and twenty-two and one-half
(22½) knots speed, to be determined by four runs, two each way over a
measured course ten knots long. Upon her completion the ship was taken
in charge by the Japanese captain and crew, and upon her arrival home
immediately took a conspicuous place in the Japanese navy. Although this
vessel gave the most profound satisfaction in every respect, and
although she had been built in the United States at a cost that compared
quite favorably with relative contract prices elsewhere, the Japanese
did not repeat the experiment for reasons already intimated. In fact,
all the influence of British diplomacy upon the policy of Japan was
successfully employed in securing the maintenance of the British
alliance in opposition to the advance of the Russians in the direction
of the Pacific and to retain the monopoly that English ship-builders,
principally Armstrong, had previously enjoyed, and to prevent or
prohibit the construction of any more vessels of war in the United
States or in American shipyards.
Mr. Cramp continued his active correspondence with the Russian
authorities with constantly increasing prospects of success. So
promising had the situation become in the summer of 1897, that Mr.
Cramp, who had gone to Europe to attend the Jubilee Session of the
British Institution of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, concluded
to make a flying visit to St. Petersburg before the meeting. His stay
there was not long, only about a week. His object was to survey the
ground and to ascertain definitely what prospect there was for the then
rumored intention of the Russian government to put forth a large and
formidable naval programme during the ensuing winter.
Mr. Cramp returned to England from St. Petersburg, and took part in the
many meetings of the Jubilee Session referred to. One of the events of
that occasion was a visit to the great Elswick Shipyards and Ordnance
Works of Armstrong & Company, which Mr. Cramp himself describes in a
private letter as follows:
VISIT TO THE ARMSTRONG WORKS.
“The officers of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine
Engineers of the United States with certain officers of the American
navy were invited to meet the representative Naval Architects and
Marine Engineers of foreign nations and participate in the meetings
of the International Congress of these bodies in London during the
month of July, 1897.
“After various entertainments under the auspices of the Institute
and a visit to and reception by the Queen at Windsor Castle, the
party went to Scotland; after visiting Glasgow and stopping at
Edinburgh, where Sir Andrew Noble and Philip Watt, of the Armstrong
Works, met them; they were to be escorted to the Works in the
afternoon. Feeling sure that a visit of that kind to such a shipyard
with a great crowd and in such limited time would be very
unsatisfactory, and its results necessarily incomplete, I concluded
to go on to Newcastle the night before and make an exhaustive visit
to the works there before the arrival of the large crowd. This being
the greatest shipyard in the world, I desired to examine its new
constructions in progress, with regard to their novelties in device
and design, in my own way and my own time, without being carried
along by a great crowd as in a ‘personally conducted’ tour. I
therefore went on to Newcastle the night previous to the projected
visit. When I arrived at the hotel in Newcastle, I found a Russian
Naval Architect, Mr. Tchernigovsky, in the act of registering, and
had gone there for the same reasons that I had, and we concluded to
go to the works together. When we arrived at the Armstrong Works and
had registered our names and had asked to be conducted through the
works, we found that all the principals had gone to Edinburgh, to
return with visitors, and, after some hesitation on the part of the
official in charge, we were escorted through the works by one of the
clerks.
“We found that there were eighteen war vessels on the stocks! a list
of which was found in the programme of the visit given us in the
afternoon. The destination of the majority of the ships was known,
but not indicated in the programme. Before we left Newcastle, I was
enabled to locate all of the ships.
“We had not gone far in the shipyard before I saw a 7-inch armor
plate suspended on slings ready for hoisting in its place on what
appeared at first to be a high-speed, large protected cruiser, but
on ascending the brow stage we found it to be an armored cruiser of
advanced type and speed and with very heavy armor for that type of
vessel.
“When we asked the young man as to the nationality of the ship he
could not tell, but stated that was one of the ships building on
account of the firm. This was as interesting to Mr. Tchernigovsky as
it was to me, and our examination was rather prolonged, no objection
being made by the young man who escorted us, who not being a
mechanic was indifferent as to our actions. We found before we left
the works that there were two or three battleships of advanced type
and superior model and three or four armored cruisers, whose
destination was unknown to the people at the works outside of the
office. There was one thing that we were sure of, that these ships
were not building by the company for sale, and that there was an
important mystery to be solved.
“By the time we returned to the office, we found that the Edinburgh
crowd had arrived, ready for luncheon, after which the whole party
went through the works; there was but little time to see what was
going on, and the character and the existence of these important
ships entirely escaped the notice of the visitors. There were a
number of Japanese and Chinese officers present with the visitors.
“We had for some time before this visit secured possession in China
of copies of certain plans and specifications for an advanced type
of armored cruiser, and after an examination we found that they were
proposals of the Thames Iron Works for raising a loan and for
building a fleet for the Chinese navy.
“The resemblance between the armored cruisers building and the
Chinese plans was so great, that I am sure the Japanese ships were
made from copies of the Thames Iron Works drawings. The whole scheme
of the Thames Iron Works was excellent and feasible, and the Chinese
lost a fine navy by not accepting the offer.
“I thought that the construction of such an advanced type of war
vessel under the conditions was of sufficient importance to inform
Lieutenant Colwell, our Naval Attaché at the United States Embassy.
When I called on him, he seemed surprised to find that I had made
the ‘discovery;’ and he stated that he had wired a cipher despatch
to Washington describing the ships, and that they were for the
Japanese, and that he had been informed of it by the Chinese Naval
Attaché, who was a very bright man and whose knowledge of the fact
was from an absolutely correct source. Mr. Colwell stated that no
one but the Chinese Attaché and himself was aware of it outside of
the Armstrong’s and the British government. Of course, the last
persons to be suspected of knowing anything about the matter were
the Japanese. Mr. Colwell was well posted as to the object of the
great enterprise.
“It was easy for Armstrong’s to keep a matter of this kind quiet, as
they had built so many war vessels for various countries, and with
eighteen on the stocks they would not be noticed; and, besides, they
were never without one or two vessels under construction for sale.
“The character of the vessels and the information that I gathered
from Mr. Colwell and the Chinese Attaché, and the fact that London
was filled with foreign naval officers, diplomats, and others in
attendance on the festivities, gave me opportunities to secure much
important information as to what was going on behind the scenes. The
Japanese in numbers and importance exceeded the delegates of the
other nationalities that participated in the Naval Architects’
ceremonies, and they were treated in the most obsequious and
deferential manner by all of the British dignitaries, ship-builders,
ordnance and armor makers, dealers in supplies, and the English
people generally.
“Soon after the Armstrong visit I met a Japanese nobleman, Marquis
Ito, or Iendo, at the Lord Mayor’s reception. He was the head and
front of the Japanese contingent, judging from the amount of
adulation that prominent British dignitaries and ship-builders
accorded him. Desiring to be sure of the facts in relation to the
Japanese ships at the Armstrong Works I accosted him with an air of
knowing all about it and as if there was no use of his denying
it,—hurrying along with my description in elaborate detail, giving
him no opportunity to reply,—I said: ‘Oh, Marquis Ito! I have just
examined your very fine ships at the Armstrong Works. They are
superior to anything in any navy, British or any other, and with the
speed of twenty knots and 7-inch armor and excellent model, etc.;’
running along without giving him time to reply until I got out of
breath and stopped.
“During my talk his face was a study. It was impossible to note or
guess at his impressions, and I was extremely doubtful as to the
result; but the fact that we were then building a Japanese war
vessel, the ‘Kasagi,’ led him to believe that I knew something,
particularly as my elaborate description in detail of the qualities
of the ships under construction was correct; so, being sure that I
was thoroughly posted, he made no denial, but bowed smilingly and
with an air of approval. I had no opportunity of discussing the new
fleet with Mr. Tchernigovsky after we left the Armstrong Works, but
from information I subsequently received I was satisfied that his
early visit to Newcastle was not accidental.
“The discovery of the construction of this fleet was the origin of
my article on ‘The Coming Sea Power’ in the _North American Review_
of October, 1897.
“I ascertained while in London, from additional sources not to be
mentioned here, that the construction of these ships was undertaken
in consequence of a secret alliance between Great Britain and Japan
to prevent the United States from securing possession of the
Sandwich Islands and to head off the Russians in the Pacific, etc.
“The great engineering strike in Great Britain during this time
delayed the delivery of the Japanese vessels and the construction of
the great fleet of British ships then under way for two or three
years, and the whole thing fell through because the favorable
opportunity had passed. The delay gave them time to think it over.
And, besides, we were beginning to make a show of naval power. It
was also at this time that the Germans were beginning to show their
practical aspirations in the direction of ‘sea power.’
“The construction of the ships and their object was known also to
Captain Gregorovitch, Russian Naval Attaché in London, and that
probably accounted for the visit of Mr. Tchernigovsky.
“One interesting circumstance in connection with this strike and its
consequences was the fact that under the operations of the strike a
very large number of the best English shipyard workmen and engineers
went to Germany, and became permanently located there in the
shipyards; and while their absence crippled Great Britain, they more
than any other cause advanced the construction of the German navy;
so that while the leaders of the strike in England gained nothing by
it there for the engineers but disaster to themselves and their
country, they were conspicuously instrumental in assisting the most
powerful rival of England.
“It would be an interesting subject for reflection or discussion as
to what might have been the consequences if the strike had not
occurred and the Japanese and British fleets had been finished two
years before they were.
“At the time these fleets were started there existed throughout the
naval world a lull in war-vessel output, particularly so in Russia
and the United States, until some time after the announcement of the
Japanese policy. The Germans had, however, been much in advance in
the way of waking up and realizing the real situation.”
The programme of the visit to the Armstrong Works embraced the following
list of war vessels then building there. This programme did not indicate
the destination of any of these ships, so far as they were being built
for foreign account, and that designation included all of them except
one third-class cruiser of 2800 tons displacement building there for the
English navy. Therefore the destinations of all war-ships then building
at the Armstrong Works which are noted in the margin of the programme
are those dropped from other sources of information, all of which turned
out to be absolutely true. It should be explained here that the policy
of the Armstrong Company in building vessels of war for foreign navies
always was to keep their destination secret as long as possible. And
here it may be added that Brassey’s “Naval Annual,” the most
comprehensive work of its kind that ever existed, did not in its issue
for the year 1897 contain the destination of any of these ships building
at Armstrong’s for foreign account, and that the same work for the next
year did give their destinations based upon the disclosures made by Mr.
Cramp in connection with Commander Colwell, our Naval Attaché in London,
and the Naval Attaché of the Chinese Legation there. With this
explanation, we present a copy of the programme of the visit, with Mr.
Cramp’s annotations as noted above.
THROUGH NEW SMITH’S SHOP TO
ELSWICK SHIPYARD.
Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Limited, have now under
construction the following vessels of war:
Tons. Speed in For
Knots.
One armored-clad battleship 14,800 18 (Japan.)
One armored-clad battleship 12,200 18 (Japan.)
Two first-class armored cruisers, 9,600 20 (Japan.)
each of
One first-class armored cruiser 8,500 20 Chile.
Two fast protected cruisers 4,500 24 China.
Two fast protected cruisers 4,300 22½ (Japan.)
Portugal.
One fast protected cruiser 4,250 21 Chile.
Two armor-clads 3,800 17 Norway.
Three fast protected cruisers, each 3,450 20 Brazil.
of
One third-class cruiser 2,800 18 England.
One training ship 2,500 14
One torpedo-boat destroyer 300 30
Two first-class armored cruisers, 9,750 20 (Japan.)
contracted for Besides mercantile
vessels at their shipyard at
Walker.
By the end of the year 1897, or rather during this year, besides the
ships enumerated above for Japan there were in course of construction
elsewhere:
One battleship (“Fuji”), in commission.
One battleship, 14,800 tons, building at Thames Iron Works.
One battleship, 14,800 tons, building at Thompson’s.
One battleship, 10,000 tons, under consideration, the Armstrong Works
(contract not signed).
One armored cruiser, 9600 tons, ordered at Vulcan Works.
One armored cruiser, 9600 tons, ordered at St. Nazaire.
Four torpedo-boat destroyers of 30 knots, similar to British destroyers
of 30 knots, building at Yarrow.
Four torpedo-boat destroyers of 30 knots, similar to British destroyers
of 30 knots, building at Thornycroft.
One torpedo-boat destroyer of 30 knots (?), similar to British
destroyers of 30 knots, building at Schichau.
Eight torpedo boats of 90 tons, Schichau.
Four torpedo boats of 90 tons, Normand.
The Japanese battleships are named “Yashima,” “Hatzure,” “Mikasa,”
“Asahi,” and “Shikisima.”
[Illustration: MEDI-J-IEH IN COMMISSION
Copyright, 1904, by John W. Dawson]
The first-class armored cruisers with seven-inch side armor at
Armstrong’s were the “Asama,” “Idzumo,” “Iwate,” and “Takima;” at St.
Nazaire, France, “Azuma;” and at the Vulcan Iron Works, Stettin,
Germany, the “Yakumo.” Five battleships, 6 armored cruisers, and 21
torpedo boats under construction in 1897, in addition to the ships in
their own yards.
Soon after his return to America, Mr. Cramp decided that the results of
his visits to the Armstrong Works should be given to the public, as
there were no obligations of secrecy imposed on him, and particularly as
he thought that the United States was, or should be, interested in the
matter; besides, he desired to extend the field of the operations of
their ship-building works abroad and secure a small portion of the
construction of war-ships which England, France, and Germany had
monopolized, and for that purpose he prepared a paper, which was printed
in the November number of the _North American Review_ for 1897. This
paper added a considerable scope of discussion applying directly to the
relative naval activity of Russia and Japan, and drawing, or rather
pointedly leaving for inference, the conclusion that Russia was not
keeping pace with the development of her already great and rapidly
growing rival in the Oriental Pacific.
This paper was as follows:
“THE COMING SEA POWER.”
“Most well-informed people have a pretty clear general idea that the
present is an era of unexampled naval activity throughout the
civilized world; that great fleets are building everywhere; that the
ships composing them are of new types, representing the highest
development of naval architecture and the most exquisite refinement
of the art of naval armament. Doubtless, a much smaller number of
persons are aware that a new factor of imposing proportions has come
into the general situation; that the newest member of the family of
civilization is with rapid strides reaching a status of actual and
potential sea power with which the older nations must henceforth
reckon most seriously.
“It is, however, questionable whether any one not intimately
conversant with the current history of modern ship-building, or not
qualified to estimate properly the relative values of actual
armaments, can adequately conceive the vast significance of the
prodigious efforts which this youngest of civilized nations was
then, and still is, successfully putting forth toward the quick and
sure attainment of commanding power on the sea.
“In order to estimate accurately the significance of the current
naval activity of Japan, it is requisite to trace briefly her prior
development as a maritime power.
“The foundation of the Japanese navy was laid by the purchase of the
Confederate ram ‘Stonewall,’ built in France in 1864, surrendered to
the United States in 1865, and shortly afterward sold or given to
Japan. This ship was soon followed by another of somewhat similar
type, built at the Thames Iron Works in 1864-65, now borne on the
Japanese navy list as the ‘Riojo,’ and used as a gunnery and
training ship.
“From that time to the period of the Chinese War the naval growth of
Japan was steady, and, considering her very recent adoption of
Western methods, rapid.
“At the beginning of that war, Japan, though possessing a very
respectable force of cruisers and gunboats, mostly of modern types
and advanced design, had no armored ships worthy of the name. The
old ‘Stonewall’ had been broken up, the ‘Fu-So,’ the ‘Riojo,’ the
‘Heiyei,’ and the ‘Kon-Go,’ built from 1865 to 1877, were obsolete,
and the ‘Chiyoda,’ the only one of modern design and armament, was a
small armored cruiser of 2450 tons, with a 4½-inch belt, and no guns
larger than 4.7-inch caliber.
“The unarmored fleet, however, on which she had to rely, was for its
total displacement equal to any in the world. It embraced three of
the ‘Hoshidate’ class, 4277 tons and 5400 horse-power; two of the
‘Naniwa’ class, 3650 tons and 7000 horse-power, which had been
considered by our Navy Department worth copying in the ‘Charleston;’
the ‘Yoshino,’ 4150 tons and 15,000 horse-power, and about fifteen
serviceable gun-vessels from 615 to 1700 tons. All of the cruisers
had been built in Europe, but most of the gun-vessels were of
Japanese build, and represented the first efforts of the Japanese
people in modern naval construction.
“Among the results of the war was the addition of several Chinese
vessels to the Japanese navy, including the battleship ‘Chen Yuen,’
of 7400 tons and 6200 horse-power, and the ‘Ping Yuen,’ armored
coast defence ship, which had been captured by the unarmored
cruisers of the Mikado.
“At the end of the war Japan had forty-three sea-going vessels,
displacing in the aggregate 79,000 tons, of which seven serviceable
ships, with total displacement of 15,000 tons, were prizes.
“The navy of Japan in commission at that time (1897) embraced
forty-eight sea-going ships, of 111,000 tons displacement, and
twenty-six torpedo boats. The five sea-going vessels, of 32,000 tons
total displacement, which had been added since the war, represented
the most advanced types of modern naval architecture, and included
two first-class battleships of 12,800 tons each, the ‘Fuji’ and
‘Yashima.’
“The ship-building programme then in progress of actual construction
was calculated to produce by the year 1903 a total effective force
of sixty-seven sea-going ships, twelve torpedo-catchers, and
seventy-five torpedo boats, with an aggregate displacement of more
than 200,000 tons.
“To the navy in commission or available for instant service, already
described, Japan now adds, in plain sight under actual construction
in various stages of forwardness, a new fleet vastly superior to it
in power and efficiency.
“Here I desire to say that the word ‘progress,’ in its conventional
sense, does not adequately indicate the naval activity of Japan. The
word implies continuity, by more or less even pace, in one of two
directions, or in both; one direction is an increase in tonnage,
with but little or no improvement in efficiency; and the other is a
marked advance of new ships in all the elements of offence, defence,
staying power, and economy.
“The first condition of progress is represented by the present
activity of most nations who are sailing along evenly and with
self-approval in fancied superiority. The second condition is
represented by Japan, who suddenly appears as a cyclone in a smooth
sea of commonplace progress.
“Japan is not only building more ships than any other power except
England, but she is building _better ships in English shipyards than
England herself is constructing for her own navy_. While other
nations proceed by steps, Japan proceeds by leaps and bounds. What
other nations are doing may be described as progress, but what Japan
is doing must be termed a phenomenon. She is building:
“(1) Three 14,800-ton battleships, which are well advanced at the
Armstrong Works, Thompson’s, and Thames Iron Works, respectively.
“(2) One battleship of about 10,000 tons, commencing at the
Armstrong Works.
“(3) Four first-class armored cruisers of 9750 tons displacement and
twenty knots speed at the Armstrong Works; one at the Vulcan Works,
Stettin, Germany, and one in France.
“(4) Two 5000-ton protected cruisers of about twenty-three knots
speed; one at San Francisco and one at Philadelphia.
“(5) One protected cruiser of 4300 tons and about twenty-three knots
speed, at the Armstrong Works.
“(6) Four thirty-knot torpedo-boat destroyers at Yarrow’s.
“(7) Four more of similar type at Thompson’s.
“(8) Eight 90-ton torpedo boats at the Schichau Works, Elbing,
Germany.
“(9) Four more of similar type at the Normand Works, France.
“(10) Three 3000-ton protected cruisers of twenty knots, three
torpedo gunboats and a despatch vessel, at the Imperial Dock-yard,
Yokosuka, Japan.
“(11) The programme for the current year embraces a fifth armored
cruiser of the type previously described (9600 tons and twenty
knots), to be built also at Yokosuka.
“This is Japan’s naval increase actually in sight. Excepting the
ships building at Yokosuka, the whole programme has come under my
personal observation.
“Comparison with the current progress of other powers discloses the
fact that Japan is second only to England in naval activity, being
ahead of France, much in advance of Germany, and vastly in the lead
of Russia and the United States. It must also be borne in mind that
the new Japanese fleet comprises throughout the very latest and
highest types of naval architecture in every respect of force,
economy, and efficiency.
“The spectacle of Japan surpassing France and closely following
England herself in naval activity is startling. Considering the
shortness of the time which has elapsed since Japan entered the
family of nations or aspired to any rank whatever as a power, it is
little short of miraculous. Yet it is a fact, and to my mind it is
the most significant single fact of our time. Nations do not display
such energy or undertake such expenditure without a purpose.
“It can hardly be maintained that Japan aims her vast preparations
at the United States; at least, not primarily. The pending Hawaiian
affair has given rise to some irritation, but its importance has
been systematically exaggerated by the English press. It cannot, in
any event, go beyond the stage of diplomatic exchanges. Japan will,
doubtless, receive from the United States sufficient assurance that
the rights of her subjects in Hawaii will be protected in case of
annexation, and thus far she has asked no more than that. She is
certainly entitled to no less.
“The object of the English in encouraging Japan to make a bold front
against the United States was and is, like all their objects, purely
commercial. They hoped to stir up in the Japanese mind an
ill-feeling that would prevent the award of any more contracts to
American shipyards, and even this characteristic stratagem is not
likely to have more than a temporary effect. Thus I think it may be
assumed that Japan’s immense naval preparation is not made with the
United States in hostile view; certainly not mainly.
“Assuming these conditions to be beyond dispute, and considering
that the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway will at once make
Russia a great Pacific power, politically and commercially, her
naval situation in those seas must become a matter of prime
importance; perhaps not of equal importance with that of the United
States now, but at once sufficient to challenge the best efforts of
her statesmen.
“Having all these facts in view, and being in a position to judge
with some accuracy of the significance and value of preparations
which came under my own observation during a recent tour of Europe
in my professional capacity, I could not help remarking the vast
difference between the naval activity of Japan and that of the other
two first-rate pacific powers, Russia and the United States. The
existing situation in Russia and the United States, relatively
speaking, can hardly be called more than the merest perfunctory
progress, whereas the activity of Japan is really marvellous. If she
were simply meditating another attack on China alone or unsupported,
no such fleet as Japan is now building would be needed; certainly
not the enormous battleships and the great armored cruisers. It must
therefore be assumed that Japan’s purpose is the general one of
predominant sea power in the Orient.
“Japan may, and probably does, meditate a renewal of her efforts to
establish a footing on the Asiatic mainland. Possibly, she may have
in view the ultimate acquisition of the Philippine Islands! (This
was written the year before the Spanish War.) But, whatever may be
her territorial ambitions for the future, it is as plain as an open
book that she intends, before she moves again, to place herself in a
position to disregard and defy any external interference. This may
be the true meaning of Japan’s extreme activity in naval preparation
at this time.
“I may say without violation of confidence that a Japanese gentleman
of distinction, a civilian, not long ago remarked in conversation on
this subject that ‘while Japan was forced by circumstances to yield
much at Shimonoseki that she had fairly conquered, she still secured
indemnity enough to build a navy that would enable her to do better
next time!’
“In view of all these facts, the question at once arises: Are Russia
and the United States prepared or are they preparing to meet such
conditions, and to maintain their proper naval status as Pacific
powers? My answer to that question, based on observations of Japan’s
naval strength already in sight and on what I know of her intended
programme for further increase in the immediate future, as compared
with the relative conditions of Russia and this country, would be in
the negative.
“Just now Russia is trying the experiment of reliance on her own
Imperial dock-yards, including two semi-private shipyards under
government control; while the United States has halted completely.
The Russian dock-yards are efficient, as far as they go, and turn
out good work, judging from such specimens as I have seen. But their
capacity is not adequate to the task that is presented by the
situation which I have delineated. No other nation relies wholly on
its own public dock-yards for new naval constructions. England, with
public dock-yards almost equal in capacity to those of the rest of
the world combined, builds over 65 per cent. of her displacement and
97 per cent. of her horse-power by contract with private shipyards
and machine-shops. France, with very great dock-yard facilities,
builds a large proportion of her hulls and machinery by contract.
The same is true of Germany, Italy, and the United States. But
Russia has no great private ship-building facilities, and there are
no visible signs of the immediate development of resources of that
description.
“Japan, on the contrary, though she has some facilities of her own,
is drawing upon the very best resources elsewhere to be found; she
is drawing on the ship-building power at once of England, France,
Germany, and the United States. Not only that, but more than that;
the vessels Japan is building in the shipyards of England, France,
and Germany are superior to any vessels those nations are building
for themselves, class for class.
“Hence, viewing the situation from any point at will, the conclusion
of any one qualified to judge must be that, in the race for naval
supremacy in the Pacific, Japan is gaining, while Russia and the
United States are losing ground.
“It requires little prescience to discern that the issue which is to
settle that question of supremacy as between the powers may not be
long deferred.
“Though Japan’s naval activity is primarily significant of a purpose
to secure general predominance in Oriental seas, and though, as I
have suggested, there is no immediate reason for, or prospect of,
trouble between Japan and the United States involving naval
armaments; yet, in the broad general sense of dignity on the sea,
our country can by no means safely ignore or be inattentive to the
progress of our Oriental neighbor toward the rank of a first-class
sea power in the Pacific Ocean. The completion of her fleet now
building will, inside of three years, give Japan that rank, and the
future programme already laid out will accentuate it. The superior
quality of Japan’s new navy is even more significant than its
enormous quantity. She has no useless ships, none obsolete; all are
up to date.
“Meantime, the attitude of the United States seems quite as supine
as that of Russia. It is not necessary to go into minute detail on
this point. Suffice it to say that, taking Russia, Japan, and the
United States as the three maritime powers most directly concerned
in the Pacific Ocean, and whose interests are most immediately
affected by its command, Japan at her present rate of naval
progress, viewed with relation to the lack of progress of the other
two, must in three years be able to dominate the Pacific against
either, and in less than ten years, against both.
“I have heard the question raised as to the character and quality of
the Japanese _personnel_; I have heard the suggestion that,
magnificent as their material may be, their officers and men are not
up to the European or American standard. It is not my intention to
discuss this phase of the matter. But it is worth while to observe
that, if the Japanese officers with whom we are in daily contact as
inspectors of work we are doing for their government are average
samples, they have no odds to ask of the officers of any other navy
whatsoever as to professional ability, practical application, and
capacity to profit by experience. And it should also be borne in
mind that they have had more and later experience in actual warfare
than the officers of any other navy, or of all other navies. While
all other navies have been wrestling with the theoretical problems
of war colleges, or encountering the hypothetical conditions of
squadron evolutions, fleet manœuvres, and sham battles, the Japanese
have been sinking or taking the ships, bombarding the towns, and
forcing the harbors of their enemy. I do not know how others may
view this sort of disparity in experience, but in my opinion it is
the most portentous fact in the whole situation, and because of it
no navy that has not done any fighting at all has the slightest
license to question in any respect the quality of the _personnel_ of
the Japanese navy that has done a good deal of extremely successful
fighting.
“On the whole, the attitude of Japan among the powers is in the last
degree admirable. Her aspirations are exaltedly patriotic, and her
movements to realize them are planned with a consummate wisdom, and
executed with a systematic skill, which nations far older in the
arts of Western civilization would do well to emulate.”
In this paper, it need hardly be said, Mr. Cramp hewed to the line. He
did not flatter the Russians nor did he omit to advise them of the full
extent and unquestionable consequences of their procrastination and
supineness. When the paper was prepared and had been finally revised,
Mr. Cramp still hesitated about publishing it in that form. “The
Russians,” he said, “are extremely sensitive; they know their weakness,
or the best minds among them know it quite as well as I have pointed it
out in this paper. Of course, I intend it as an appeal to their
patriotism and to their sense of their country’s needs; but I am afraid
that it will hurt the sensibilities of some of them.” However, after
further consideration, Mr. Cramp determined to print the paper as it
stood, and it was done. Probably no article appearing in an American
magazine in many years, if ever, received as widespread or as earnest
attention in Europe as did Mr. Cramp’s paper on “The Coming Sea Power.”
As soon as the _North American Review_ arrived in Europe, the paper was
translated and printed in Russian and German and a copious synopsis of
it in French, in the naval periodicals of the respective countries. It
was also extensively discussed and criticised in the English press, both
in the service papers and in the regular daily journals. In St.
Petersburg, besides being translated and printed in the principal
Russian magazine and discussed in the newspapers, it was made the basis
of an address by one of the most eminent Admirals in the Russian navy.
Mr. Cramp’s cautious apprehension, already referred to, that it might
touch the susceptibilities of Russian officers proved groundless; and it
has been openly admitted by high officials of the Russian Ministry of
Marine that the arguments and considerations so vigorously advanced by
Mr. Cramp had an effect of no little potency in turning the scale of
Russian policy, which a few months later found expression in the great
naval programme of 1898.
Early in the following spring Mr. Cramp received advices from St.
Petersburg that the Ministry of Marine would be glad to entertain plans
and proposals from him for the construction of at least two first-class
battleships, two first-class protected cruisers of the highest speed,
and thirty torpedo boats, under the new programme which had then,
February, 1898, been finally authorized by the Ministry and approved by
the Emperor Nicholas II.
Upon receipt of this information or suggestion, Mr. Cramp lost no time
in preparing for the voyage. Although the time of year, early in March,
was the most inclement season for a visit to the great northern capital,
he cheerfully accepted the situation. So far as the general scheme and
outline plans were concerned, he had substantially worked them out in
anticipation, and not much delay was caused on that account. Early in
March, 1898, Mr. Cramp sailed on the American Line steamship “St. Paul,”
bound for St. Petersburg by the way of Southampton. Upon his arrival at
the Russian capital, he was immediately turned over to the tender
mercies of what is known as the Technical Board. This in Russian naval
administration is a Board composed of officers representing all the
branches of the service,—Line, Construction, Engineering and Ordnance,
or the Artillery Branch, as they call it. The membership of this Board
is considerable in number. For several weeks they subjected Mr. Cramp to
a species of inquisition which might well have appalled a man of less
resources, less determination, or less confidence in his own ultimate
mastery of the situation. It is not worth while, even did our limits of
space admit, to go into detail of Mr. Cramp’s discussion of his proposed
designs and plans with the members of the Technical Board. Suffice to
say, that after some weeks of consideration, taking the widest possible
range, a general agreement was reached, leaving but few questions open
for subsequent determination, none of which were of vital importance.
The sequel of the whole transaction was that on the 23d of April, 1898,
contracts were signed by Mr. Cramp on behalf of the Company, and by
Vice-Admiral V. Verhovskoy, Chief of the Department of Construction and
Supply, on behalf of the Emperor, for the construction of two vessels,
one first-class battleship, now known as the “Retvizan,” and one
first-class protected cruiser of the highest practicable speed, known as
the “Variag.”
In his operations at St. Petersburg leading up to these important
contracts, which aggregated nearly seven millions of dollars, including
extra work ordered during construction, Mr. Cramp encountered powerful
and persistent opposition from three widely diverse sources. First,
there was an element strongly intrenched in the Ministry of Marine, who
opposed the award of contracts to foreign builders other than the
French. This element of opposition was powerfully represented on the
Technical Board, and its influences were shown particularly in the
Ordnance installation and in the Engineering section, who wanted
everything done in Russia. It proved factious and troublesome, though
not otherwise formidable, because the decision to have some of the ships
in the programme of 1898 built abroad had already been reached in higher
quarters. In fact, though not definitely so announced by the Russian
government, it was known by the middle of March, 1898, at least by those
intending to bid, that the Ministry of Marine had decided to award
contracts for the construction of two first-class battle-ships, one
armored cruiser, and three first-class protected cruisers of the highest
speed in foreign shipyards, and a large number of torpedo boats.
The French and German shipyards were represented not only by their own
agents and experts, but they were backed, and their claims to
consideration urged, with all the power and influence their respective
Embassies and banking houses could command at the Court of St.
Petersburg.
However, this situation was not at all unforeseen or unexpected by Mr.
Cramp. To encounter opposition from the agents of the foreign banking
houses and diplomats was a normal condition of this kind of business.
Fortunately for Mr. Cramp, or, rather, fortunately for American
industrial interests at large, we also had an ambassador at St.
Petersburg in 1898. He was not of the common run of American diplomatic
representatives “near” foreign Courts. He was different. Almost from the
foundation of our government, a rule—amounting to unwritten law—had
prevailed which forbade American diplomatic representatives abroad to do
or say anything in aid or furtherance of commercial or industrial
enterprises of American citizens in the country to which they were
accredited.
Object lessons were before them. During Polk’s Administration, James
Buchanan, then Secretary of State, had removed, or rather transferred to
another post, a United States Minister to one of the South American
Republics on the Pacific slope. This Minister had committed the, in
United States “diplomacy,” unpardonable offence of indorsing the drafts
of certain whale-ship captains upon their owners in New Bedford and
Nantucket. The ships of these captains were in distress, having been
dismasted in tempestuous passages around Cape Horn, and they had made
their voyage to Valparaiso under jury-masts. Arrived there, they needed
money to repair and refit their battered and storm-beaten ships. Our
Minister to Chile used his good offices to help them get their drafts
cashed so they could repair their vessels and pursue their voyages.
This, from the view-point of primitive United States “diplomacy,” was of
course a crime, and the Minister was made to suffer for it! Ultimately
this unwritten law or tacit doctrine found expression on the floor of
the Senate, in a debate on the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation,
from the lips of Thomas F. Bayard:
“The purity and dignity of our foreign representation,” he said,
“must be preserved! The law now recognized, though unwritten, should
be made statutory! If an American Minister abroad should use any of
the influence or employ any of the prestige or credit which he may
derive from his status as a representative of this country to aid or
further or promote any scheme or project of American citizens in
that country, having private gain in view, he should be held
answerable for official misdemeanor!”
Buchanan and Bayard have already found their proper levels in American
history, and need not be discussed here, even if their memories were
worth discussion. But the theory they applied to our diplomatic
representation was for many years the rule. The result was that our
“diplomatic service” (so-called) down to, we may say, the end of
Cleveland’s last Administration, had become little else than a hospital
for political cripples, or a sanitarium for over-worked old lawyers and
nervously prostrated college professors. It was the laughing-stock of
foreigners and the object of cynical, albeit good-natured, contempt on
the part of our own people. It had become a symposium of urbane
uselessness and solemn stupidity.
All this was changed in our representation at St. Petersburg in 1898.
Our Ambassador there was the Hon. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, of Missouri. He
was neither a political cripple, nor an overworked old lawyer, nor a
college president needing a gilt-edged vacation.
He was a great and successful manufacturer, a man of broad and keen
business instincts, and he thought that any scheme calculated to
disburse about seven million dollars among the workingmen and steel
mills of the United States was well worthy the earnest attention and the
best officers of the most dignified Ambassador. Imbued with such ideas,
Mr. Hitchcock helped Mr. Cramp all he could. He may not have been as
noisy about it as the German Ambassador or as strenuously in evidence as
the French Ambassador, but he was none the less active or effective in
his efforts to subserve and promote the interests of his country and her
citizens. The maw-worm doctrine of Buchanan and the raven-like croaking
of Bayard were lost upon such a man. Taking the situation altogether, it
is safe to say, so far as diplomatic representation was concerned, the
commercial and industrial interests of the United States and of American
citizens in the Russian Empire were quite as well guarded in 1898 as
were those of France and Germany.
The third element of opposition which Mr. Cramp had to encounter and
overcome was of a purely technical or mechanical character. His plans
involved installation of water-tube boilers of the Niclausse type. But
up to that moment, ever since the adoption of the water-tube system by
the Russian navy, the Belleville type of boiler had held undisputed sway
there. The enormous wealth of the Belleville people, their straightway,
open-handed mode of doing business with naval officials, not only in
Russia but in England as well, and their aptness in placing valuable
things where they would do the most good, were all notorious. They had
for some time admitted that the Niclausse system was their most
formidable rival, and naturally they were ready to exhaust their
resources to prevent its introduction into the Russian navy, where their
monopoly, up to that time, had been perfect and invulnerable. This
discussion was, of course, carried on wholly between Mr. Cramp and the
Russian technical authorities. It was a subject that could not be
touched by diplomacy or by personal influence; a contest to be fought
out wholly on the mechanical merits of the respective systems and
decided entirely by skilled judgment. In this kind of contest Mr. Cramp
was at home, and he won. His staple argument was that for any naval
power to surrender itself to a single type of proprietary boiler,
thereby creating a monopoly against itself, could not be else than
unwise; that the era of water-tube boilers was still in the experimental
stage, that perfection was yet to be developed, and was doubtless a long
way off. Exhaustive trials already made had demonstrated a wide range of
efficiency and consequent merit in the Niclausse system, and while it
was no part of his contention to decry or depreciate the rival type,
comparative performances of official record beyond dispute argued that
sound marine engineering policy would forbid the exclusion of the
Niclausse system. By the weight of these arguments Mr. Cramp carried all
his points. The ultimate result of a six weeks’ campaign was the award
of contracts for construction of six vessels in foreign shipyards: one
first-class battleship and one armored cruiser to the Forges et
Chantiers, of France; one first-class battleship and one large protected
cruiser of the highest attainable speed to Mr. Cramp, and two protected
cruisers of type similar to the last-named to Germany yards, the
“Germania” of Kiel and the “Vulcan” of Stettin.
Upon these awards, Mr. Cramp came home and began construction at once.
Indeed, while still in St. Petersburg, he had placed orders for
important parts of the material required, and had contracted for the
necessary armor. At the outset some delay occurred, due to the extreme
deliberation observed by the Russian Inspectors in approving detail
plans and specifications, and to some changes made in the character and
quality of material for protective decks after the contract was signed.
But notwithstanding these delays, Mr. Cramp completed and delivered both
his ships long in advance of either the French or German builders, and
such time penalties as had accrued by reason of the initial delays
already referred to were remitted by direction of the Emperor Nicholas
II himself.
The trial conditions imposed upon these ships were the most drastic and
crucial ever known; they being required to develop their maximum speed
for twelve hours continuously, as against four-hour or measured mile
trials in other navies.
Upon the completion and delivery of these ships, Mr. Cramp had achieved
the distinction of having done the greatest volume and highest value of
ship-building for foreign accounts ever performed in an American
shipyard. On their arrival at St. Petersburg, both ships were personally
inspected by the Emperor, who was so pleased with the “Variag” that he
ordered her detailed as escort to the Imperial yacht in a trip to
Cherbourg.
It is worthy of remark that in the fall of 1898 our Navy Department
advertised for proposals to construct three battleships, now known as
the “Maine” class. The plan put forth by the Department was a modified
and slightly enlarged “Alabama,” with a speed requirement of seventeen
knots as against sixteen in the original type. Mr. Cramp offered to
build an eighteen-knot ship within the statutory limit prescribed for
one of seventeen knots, and used his Russian battleship as a basis of
design. His proposition was accepted, and the other bidders—Newport News
and the Union Iron Works, to each of whom one ship was awarded—were
required to adopt Mr. Cramp’s conditions of dimension and performance.
In this manner the American navy as well as the Russian profited by Mr.
Cramp’s interesting and remarkable “Campaign of 1898.”
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CONCLUSION
THE foregoing chapters have dealt wholly with Mr. Cramp in what may be
termed his public capacity,—in his attitude of a public servant of most
important rank and most unfailing usefulness. The fact that he has been
such a public servant, without official position or emolument, stands
doubly to his credit. Viewing him in that relation alone, it may be said
that he has designed and built, or has been responsible for the
designing and building, more than three hundred ships of all kinds,
classes, and destinations during more than half a century. It requires
more than a second thought to adequately measure the impress a man makes
upon the fortunes and the destinies of his era when he creates over
three hundred ships either for commerce or for war.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIPS INDIANA AND MASSACHUSETTS]
Dismissing for the moment all thought of the perishability of things
made by human hands, the imagination does not need a free rein to fancy
an imperishable monument in legend, in tradition, and in history. The
ships themselves run their course, meet their fate, and pass away. But
the descendants of the men who sailed in them to the uttermost parts of
the earth, if merchant vessels, or the progeny of the men who fought in
them to save the country or to set a weaker people free, if men-of-war,
will forever cherish their memories. In such a way Charles H. Cramp has
linked his name with the era of his lifetime; and nothing has been
attempted in the foregoing Memoir but to make, in assembled form,
permanent record of the most important relations he has sustained to the
destiny-shapers of mankind, the most arduous of the tasks he has
undertaken, the most signal of the triumphs he has achieved, and the
most perplexing of the difficulties and obstacles he has encountered.
No attempt has been made to portray the gentler and more genial side of
his nature; that could be found in a survey of his social personality
for its own sake and dissociated from professional striving or public
service. From this point of view purely, another volume equal in extent
to the foregoing could be written. But here the opportunity is denied.
The boundless hospitality, the unflagging generosity, the inevitable
good cheer and helpfulness to all who had in any way earned his
confidence or invoked his gratitude, must be passed over with simple
mention.
Immersed though he always was in affairs of the most practical and
matter-of-fact nature, Mr. Cramp could always find time for the society
of the clever Bohemians of literature, art, and the drama. No other
association was so congenial to him. No other business man of his time
numbered so many friends and close acquaintances in that fraternity as
he. In him they always found quick appreciation of their abilities and,
when occasion might require, ready and cordial responsiveness to their
incidents of vicissitude. During the scores of years through which he
figured in a capacity as public and in affairs as momentous as ever fell
to the lot of the highest official, constantly engaged in operations
closely affecting the vitality and integrity of the nation, incessantly
subject to a scrutiny hardly less searching than “the fierce light which
beats upon a throne,” the files of American print for a lifetime may be
searched in vain for an ill-natured personal criticism upon his acts or
achievements or an aspersion upon his character. Even partisans of his
rivals, no matter what might be the bitterness of contention or the
rancor of faction, always halted at personal animadversion upon him.
This was not because he himself was reticent in criticism or always
cautious in comment. Having always ready and welcome access to the
columns of the most noted periodicals and the greatest newspapers, and
being by no means stingy of rhetoric, his innumerable newspaper
interviews and frequent magazine papers invariably “spoke his mind” with
neither extenuation nor malice, and always hewed to the line.
On one occasion he submitted a professional paper in manuscript to a
friend of literary pursuits whose judgment he held in high esteem. “In
that paper,” he said, “I have done my best to avoid all controversial
tendency. Please look it over and give me your view as to whether or not
I have succeeded.”
It was a paper on the subject of water-tube boilers involving discussion
of the various types, and referring to the policies of different naval
administrations at home and abroad in dealing with them.
“Well,” he inquired, when his friend returned the paper, “what do you
think of it?”
“I understood you to say, Mr. Cramp, that you desire to avoid
controversial matter in this paper?”
“Yes.”
“And you would strike out anything that might partake of that nature?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in that case, there would be little left but the title of the
paper!”
The fact is, that whenever Mr. Cramp undertook to write or dictate for
publication upon professional topics, he was almost instinctively
controversial, almost intuitively combative. His long experience and his
drastic training enabled him to see through any device within his
professional sphere as through a pane of glass, and he could read its
shortcomings or its defects as an open book. In such premises, it was
never his wont to be sparing. But his criticisms were so uniformly
sound, his comments so logical and practical, and his motives so
palpably beyond question, that he was seldom combated at all, and never
successfully.
In the foregoing chapters we have reproduced extracts from his published
papers and correspondence upon purely professional subjects. As the
reader has perceived, they involve not only knowledge of everything
within the immediate sphere of his own vocation, but also a broad and
generous group of the problems of international politics and diplomacy.
Mr. Cramp was not merely an adept in the design and construction of
ships, he was equally versed in that more subtle array of physical and
moral forces which in our day have come to be grouped under the general
head of “Sea power;” and his conception of the ultimate international
objects to be subserved and wrought out by the ships he built was as
clear as his knowledge of the details of their building.
In the domain of general thought, of history, and of ethics, Mr. Cramp
was only a little less prolific than in the literature of his own
profession. His address to the Netherlands Society on the Anglo-Dutch
Wars of the seventeenth century, delivered at the Union League, January
24, 1898; his “Forecast of the Steel Situation,” published January 18,
1900, which events two years later converted into prophecy, and a recent
article written for the journal of the Central High School (_The
Mirror_) on the subject of Fakes and Pretenders, introducing as his text
the notorious Keely and his “motor,” with many others like them, must be
passed over with simple mention. Reproduction of them even by extract or
in synopsis could only reinforce the impression, already clear, of the
wide diversity of his thought, the vast scope of his observation, the
keen thoroughness of his research, and the wonderful assimilative
capacity of his mind.
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● Transcriber’s note:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ The Table of Contents was reformatted to save space.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.