British Influence on the German Navy
In a very special sense the German Navy is the child of the British
Navy, which is the mother of all the great naval forces of the world
to-day. From the very first it has been no secret that the German Fleet
was definitely planned on the model furnished by the many centuries'
development of the British Navy, and the Emperor William has been
one of the principal agencies through which this formative influence
has been exerted in more recent years. He came to the throne at a
moment when naval sentiment in Germany was at its lowest point, and he
assisted in the initial revival which occurred before Grand Admiral von
Tirpitz came on the scene.
Old residents of Portsmouth still remember a boy whom they occasionally
saw walking about the dockyard looking at the ships with admiration and
rapt attention. His greatest delight seemed to be to watch the great
ironclads moving in and out of Spithead. Sometimes he would find his
way on board vessels of the Royal Navy. This lad was none other than
the present German Emperor. As a grandson of Queen Victoria, he was a
frequent visitor in his boyhood and early manhood to his grandmother
during the summer months when she was in residence at Osborne, and on
one occasion his father and mother, then Crown Prince and Princess
of Germany, rented Norris Castle, on the outskirts of Cowes, and
lived there for several months with their children. Prince William,
who was a great favourite of the late Queen, thus not only became an
eager spectator of the naval pageants in the Solent directly under the
windows of Osborne House and Norris Castle, but watched with interest
the gay assemblage in Cowes roadstead for the regatta from year to year.
At this time the newly-created German Empire had practically no fleet.
During the Franco-Prussian War the few ships which flew the flag of the
North German Confederation were so weak that they could take no part
in the conflict. The memory of these recent events was still fresh in
the mind of the future Emperor when he visited England and watched the
activities of the British Navy, whose far-flung squadrons performed
the triple task of protecting the Motherland from fear of invasion,
safeguarding all her oversea possessions, and defending British
ocean-borne commerce. He determined that he, too, would have a great
fleet when he succeeded to the throne of the German Empire.
This is no imaginary picture of the ideas which were taking root in the
mind of the ruler of the German Empire to-day. Years afterwards--in
fact, in 1904--addressing King Edward, on the occasion of His Majesty's
visit to the Kiel Regatta, the Emperor paid a tribute to the power
and traditions of the British Navy, with which, he added, he became
acquainted as a youth during visits which he paid to England. He
recalled that he had had many a sail in the _Dolphin_ and _Alberta_,
old British yachts, and had seen mighty ironclads constructed which
had since served their time and disappeared from the Navy List. "When
I came to the throne I attempted to reproduce on a scale commensurate
with the resources and interests of my own country that which had made
such a deep impression on my mind when I saw it as a young man in
England."
When he first advocated the construction of a big navy, the German
people viewed his dreams with indifference and distrust. Shackled
by a system of conscription in order to provide the Empire with its
huge army, they asked what it would profit them if to the burden
of a great army they added the vast expense of a fleet capable not
merely of defending their coasts, but of operating on the offensive in
distant seas. At first the Emperor made little progress in educating
public opinion; but he still nursed those dreams of sea-power--very
moderate dreams at that date, before Admiral von Tirpitz came on the
scene--which had first taken shape in his mind when he wandered about
Portsmouth Dockyard, and viewed from the grounds of Osborne House the
coming and going of mighty British warships. In the early days of
the present century he referred with some pride to the persistency
with which he had pursued his aims in spite of popular disfavour. At
the launch of the _Kaiser Karl der Grosse_ he said: "If the increase
in the navy which I had demanded with urgent prayers had not been
consistently refused me during the first eight years of my reign--I did
not even escape derision and mocking at the time--in how different a
manner should we now be able to promote our prosperous commerce and our
interests overseas!" He had to wait for many years before he saw his
dreams reaching fruition.
As the British Parliament is the mother of all popular representative
institutions, so the British Navy is the mother of navies. If the
records of most of the great fleets of the world are searched, it will
be found that in greater or less degree they owe their birth to the
more or less direct assistance of British naval officers, oft times
acting with the direct authority of the British Admiralty; while in
almost every fleet in the world even to-day may be found ships designed
by British brains and constructed of British material by the skilled
craftsmen of these islands. It was to England that Peter the Great came
to watch the shipbuilding on the Thames, and it was with a large body
of British mechanics that he returned to Russia to create a fleet with
which to defend his empire and extend its borders at the point of the
gun. The prestige of the Russian Navy in the seventeenth century was
due entirely to the skill and daring of Scotsmen. The Greigs of four
generations, Admiral Elphinstone, Lord Duffus Gordon, and a number of
other Scotsmen entered the Navy of the Czar and did splendid service;
and some of the descendants of these pioneers of the Russian Navy may
still be traced in the fleet of to-day. The American Navy was, of
course, of distinctly British origin; so were the fleets of many of
the South American Republics; while, as everybody knows, the seeds
of sea-power of Japan were sown by British naval officers, including
first and foremost Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas, and her ships were
mainly built in England. The excellence to which the Chinese Navy once
attained was also due to British instruction under another Scotsman,
Admiral Lang; and one of the principal shipyards of Italy, as well as
her gun factory, is of British origin, and is still linked with its
British parent. The Spanish Navy is now being recreated under British
supervision; Turkey never was so nearly a sea power as when she had
British naval officers in her service; and under Admiral Mark Kerr the
glories of the Greek Navy are being revived.
In the case of the modern German Fleet the British Admiralty had little
part in its upbuilding, but British naval power fired the imagination
of the Emperor, and it was a kindly present made years before by King
William IV. to the then King of Prussia which first directed his
Majesty's thoughts towards the sea. When the present Emperor was a boy,
one of his favourite recreations was to sail a beautiful model of about
20 tons of a British frigate on the Havel lakes near Potsdam. This
little ship, of excellent workmanship, was sent as a present to the
then ruler of Prussia early in the last century by our sailor King, and
was a never-failing source of pleasure to the present German Emperor
as a youth. From his earliest years at home and in England the future
ruler's aspirations were always towards the sea, and we can now see
that his dreams of later years, which have taken such tangible shape,
were largely due to those vivid impressions of sea-power which he
obtained during his visits to England, and which reached their climax
in 1889, when Queen Victoria, on the occasion of his visit to the Cowes
Regatta, conferred on him, a foreign monarch, the, then, unique rank of
Admiral of the Fleet.
Though other foreign princes and monarchs have since been made honorary
officers of the British Navy, the German Emperor remained for some
years the only person of foreign birth holding supreme rank. The
commission conferred upon the Kaiser was of course purely honorary, but
his Majesty never concealed the pride with which he donned the British
uniform with its deep gold cuffs and cocked hat, and he could claim
that he was the only ruler of a foreign State who ever commanded the
British Navy in modern times.
Great Britain has boasted of her "splendid isolation," and the German
Emperor's is the only alien hand which has controlled any of her
fleets. In times gone by a British squadron was placed under the
orders of Peter the Great. This incident occurred during the Czar's
operations against Sweden, when he received the assistance of a
squadron from these islands and hoisted his flag in command of the
allied forces. Between that date and the year when the German Emperor
became an Admiral of the Fleet the British Navy maintained its absolute
independence, and British officers were not even permitted to accept
foreign decorations. But soon after receiving the honorary rank from
Queen Victoria, the Emperor seized the opportunity to emulate the
example of Peter the Great, and he afterwards confessed in a speech he
delivered on board the British battleship, _Royal Sovereign_, that the
incident had left an indelible impression upon his mind. "One of the
best days of my life," he remarked, "which I shall never forget as long
as I live, was the day when I inspected the Mediterranean Fleet when
I was on board the _Dreadnought_,[7] and my flag was hoisted for the
first time."
The Emperor at this time was making a cruise in the Mediterranean, and
visited the Piræus to attend the wedding of his sister to the present
King of Greece. Sir Anthony Hoskins, who was then only a Vice-Admiral,
was in command of the British Fleet which had assembled in honour of
the royal marriage. The German Emperor decided that in his new rôle
as a British officer he would exercise command, and consequently the
emblem of an Admiral of the Fleet, which consists of the Union flag,
was broken at the main on board the old battleship _Dreadnought_, and
Sir Anthony Hoskins, being a junior officer, was forthwith relieved of
the control of the British men-of-war, and nominally, though not of
course actually, the German Emperor, during the time that his flag was
flown, was in command of the greatest of all the fighting squadrons of
the British Empire.
On a subsequent occasion, at Malta, his Majesty again visited the
British Fleet. Arriving at this great naval base he announced that on
the following day he would inspect one of the men-of-war. Accordingly,
he proceeded on board, and his flag was forthwith hoisted. It was
thought that his Majesty would formally walk round the decks and then
take some light refreshments and return to his yacht. This was not
the case, however. No sooner did the Emperor reach the quarter-deck,
where he was received with naval honours by all the officers, than
he took off his coat and intimated that he was ready to go over the
ship. His Majesty went everywhere, from the turrets to the engine
and boiler-rooms, and kept the Captain fully occupied in answering a
multitude of questions as to the design and equipment of the vessel.
With all the impetuosity of his nature he dived into every hole and
corner and saw everything, and the Captain was kept so busy that he
forgot his duty as host and the wines he had laid in for the occasion.
At last the inspection ended, the questions ceased, and his Majesty
prepared, after complimenting the Captain on the smartness of his
ship, to go down the companion ladder to his lunch. As he did so, he
turned to this commanding officer and said: "Yours must be the longest
ship in the British Navy." "I think not, your Majesty," replied the
Captain, "it's only 420 feet long." "Oh, you surely are mistaken,"
added the Emperor, and then the Captain remembered the naval slang as
to "long-ships in the navy"--namely, those with long intervals between
refreshments. He forthwith apologised profusely for the oversight,
and implored the Emperor to return to the cabin. His Majesty would
not, however, do so, but added: "January 27th is my birthday, and my
orders are that on that day you entertain all your brother captains to
dinner and drink my health." He then left, pleased at the result of the
incident.
When the day arrived, the dinner was duly held, and the guests enjoyed
themselves immensely. During the evening they despatched the following
message to the Emperor: "The orders of our Admiral of the Fleet have
been carried out, and we have drunk your Majesty's good health. But
there is one point on which we cannot agree with your Majesty, and that
is as to the length of H.M.S. ----." From this the Emperor, who is
familiar with the language of the navy, was able consequently to infer
that on that evening there had been no lack of hospitality.
After the lapse of many years during which the progress of the German
Navy became ever more and more the preoccupation of the British
people, it is difficult to realize that when the movement for naval
expansion on the other side of the North Sea first began to take shape
it was regarded with sympathy by the British nation, and the German
Emperor, wearing his uniform as an honorary British officer, was, of
all monarchs, the most popular in this country. The two countries were
on terms of growing cordiality when the Emperor succeeded his father
in 1888. The absence of any reference by the new Emperor in his
proclamation either to England or to France caused momentary anxiety,
but that feeling quickly passed away, and in the following summer
the new Emperor was the central figure in the great naval pageant at
Spithead.
For the first time in the history of the British Fleet naval manoeuvres
had been held in 1885, and in the year after William II.'s accession
the young ruler witnessed the greatest display of British sea-power
which had ever been organised. The assembly of 1889 far exceeded in
numbers and in the suggestion of power the Naval Review which had
marked the celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. It was the most
powerful fleet ever brought together in time of peace. The Naval
Defence Act, the culmination of a long and vigorous agitation, had
been passed in the spring, and it was thought appropriate to mobilize
the fleet as a demonstration in the eyes of the world. The German
Emperor determined to visit this country for the special purpose of
joining in this festival of British sea-power. In those days the
act of mobilization occupied considerable time; though the ships in
reserve were manned in the middle of July it was not until August 1st
that the fleet assembled at Spithead. It included 20 battleships, 6
coast defence vessels, 29 cruisers, 3 gun vessels, 14 gunboats, and 38
torpedo boats. The great anchorage presented a brave appearance when,
on the following day, the Emperor arrived, escorted by a squadron of
his small navy. This force consisted of the battleships _Friedrich
der Grosse_, _Preussen_, _Deutschland_, _Kaiser_, _Sachsen_, _Baden_,
and _Oldenburg_, together with the despatch-vessels _Zieten_ and
_Wacht_; while the training ship for German naval cadets, the _Niobe_,
was also present together with the corvette _Irene_, commanded by
the Emperor's brother. The German Emperor and his ships received an
enthusiastic welcome as he passed through the British Fleet on board
his yacht, the _Hohenzollern_. The spectacle was one of the most
brilliant and imposing ever witnessed in waters which had often been
the scene of naval displays. On the following Monday, when the Prince
of Wales, representing Queen Victoria, inspected the ships, his Royal
Highness was accompanied by his Majesty, to whom, subsequently, all the
principal officers were presented on board the _Victoria and Albert_.
Early on the following day the fleet proceeded to sea, steaming past
the German Emperor, who watched the evolution from the deck of the
_Osborne_, moored in Sandown Bay.
Thus did the new ruler of Germany, on whom Queen Victoria had just
conferred the honorary rank of Admiral of the Fleet in the British
service, gain a unique knowledge of the size and efficiency of the
British Navy normally maintained on a peace footing in home waters.
The contrast in organization and in administration between the British
Navy and the German Army can hardly have failed to impress the young
Emperor, who had devoted himself with unremitting persistency to the
study of the military machine of his own country. Looking back with the
knowledge which we now possess of the rapidity with which a navy can
be raised from a peace footing to a war footing as exemplified by the
modern German Navy, we can imagine the impression which the British
mobilization made upon his Majesty. And then, when the time came for
the ships to pass out of the anchorage into the channel, the delays
and confusion which occurred must have suggested to the young ruler,
familiar with the standard of efficiency attained by the German Army,
that something was lacking.
A contemporary account of this evolution records that: "It was
at half-past three in the morning that the fleet began to unmoor
preparatory to proceeding to sea, but it was not until nearly eleven
that Sir George Tryon--the Admiral in supreme command--was able to
give the signal for his squadron to weigh anchor. Nearly all the delay
was caused by trouble and mishaps connected with the anchoring gear of
various ships. There is no part of the equipment of a man-of-war which
requires more management and experience in handling than the ground
tackle. Every vessel has peculiarities of her own in this respect,
therefore it is due, probably, to the crews being in most cases quite
strange to their ships, and to the officers not yet having got the hang
of things, that so many shortcomings were made apparent. Soon after ten
o'clock Admiral Baird, in command of the other section of the fleet,
got impatient of further delay, for it was manifest that if he did
not start speedily another review might have to be postponed. So he
signalled the ships of his squadron to proceed to sea as soon as ready,
and shortly afterwards they began filing out eastward in a long single
line. But some ships could not obey the order; and amongst these were
the _Anson_, _Collingwood_, and _Inflexible_, still engaged in getting
up their anchors."
This same writer concluded his account of the spectacle with the remark
that "A grander, a more magnificent demonstration of England's Fleet it
would indeed be difficult to imagine." But behind the seeming of things
there stood revealed an organization which, though it had recently been
greatly improved, still left much to be desired in rapid and efficient
action. Moreover, at this time even in the Channel Fleet, which then
consisted of five ships, and was the only fully commissioned force in
home waters, the main purpose of sea-power, to shoot straight, was
certainly not kept in view. In his interesting book of reminiscences,
"The Navy as I have Known It," Admiral the Hon. Sir Edmund Fremantle,
describing the conditions which existed in the Jubilee year, records:
"We had large crews and, as all the ships were masted, there was a fair
amount of sail drill, while I fear gunnery was little attended to."
There is no record of the impressions which the German Emperor carried
home with him from Spithead, but it is more than probable that, while
his Majesty was impressed by the great display of ships and men, he was
not less impressed by the failure to utilize these resources to the
best possible advantage.
The British Navy was living on its past achievements. Though it
possessed a mass of material and a large personnel, neither was well
organized for war. The available resources exceeded anything belonging
to any other nation, but the fleet still basked, content, in the glow
of the triumphs achieved in the early years of the nineteenth century.
The Navy was unreformed. Steam had taken the place of sails, wood had
been superseded, first by iron and then by steel, but the routine of
the squadrons, the training of officers and men had undergone little
change. The conditions of naval warfare had altered, but the British
Fleet remained faithful to the old regime, holding fast to the belief
that when war occurred there would be a sufficient interval to allow
it to complete its arrangements, elaborate its plans, and place all
its resources on a war footing. As the British Navy in its influence
on world policy inspired German ambitions, so German thoroughness in
organization, when applied to the growing German Fleet, reacted upon
the British Navy and gave it a new and vigorous life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: This ship was, of course, the predecessor of the present
_Dreadnought_.]