SOME PERSONALITIES
Amongst the 13 First Lords of the Admiralty I have had to deal with
(and with nine of them I was very intimately associated) I should like
to record that in my opinion Lord George Hamilton and Lord Spencer had
the toughest jobs, because of the constitution of their respective
Boards of Admiralty; and yet neither of them received the credit each
of them deserved for his most successful administration. With both of
them their tact was unsurpassable. They had to deal with extremely
able colleagues, and my experience is that it is not a good thing to
have a lot of able men associated together. If you take a little of
the best Port Wine, the best Champagne, the best Claret, and the best
Hock and mix them together, the result is disastrous. So often is it
with a Board of Admiralty. That’s why I have suffered fools gladly!
But Lord George Hamilton and Lord Spencer had an awful time of it. To
both of these (I consider) great men I am very specially beholden. Lord
George Hamilton more particularly endured much on my behalf when I was
Director of Naval Ordnance, fighting the War Office. It was his own
decision that sent me to Portsmouth as Admiral Superintendent of the
Dockyard, and thus enabled me practically to prove the wisdom and the
economy of concentrating workmen on one ship like a hive of bees and
adopting piece-work to the utmost limit. Cannot anyone realise that
if you have your men spread over many ships building, your capital is
producing no dividend as compared with getting a ship rushed and sent
to sea ready to fight? I was held up as a dramatic _poseur_ because
the “Dreadnought” was built in a year and a day. Yes! She was ready to
fight in a year and a day. She did fire her guns. The “Inflexible,”
her famous prototype in former years, which I commanded, was four or
five years building. I took up the battleship “Royal Sovereign” when
I went as Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard and got her completed
within two years, and thereby saw my way to doing it in a year. And so
would I have done the famous “Hush Hush” ships, as I said I would; only
circumstances brought about my departure from the Admiralty, and apathy
came back, and those “Hush Hush” ships consequently took more than
a year to build. And some armchair quill-drivers still sling ink at
’em. And when I heard from an eye-witness how the whole lot of German
cruisers did flee when they appeared and ought to have been gobbled
up I rubbed my hands with malignant glee at the devastation of my
pen-and-ink enemies. As usual in the war, on that occasion the business
wasn’t pushed home.
To revert to my theme--I owe also a great debt to Lord George Hamilton,
when at a previous stage of my career he dissuaded me from accepting an
offer from Lord Rothschild, really beyond the dreams of avarice, of
becoming the head of a great armament and shipbuilding combine, which
accordingly fell through on my refusal. Had I gone, I’d have been a
millionaire instead of a pauper as I am now; but I wouldn’t have been
First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and then “Sacking the Lot!” Lord
George also selected me to be Controller of the Navy.
Lord Spencer called a horse after me--almost as great an honour. Lord
Spencer was really a very magnificent man, and he had the attributes
of his great ancestor, who selected Nelson over a great many of his
seniors to go and win the Battle of the Nile. There was no one else
who would have done it; and when Sir John Orde, one of the aggrieved
Admirals, told the King that the selected Nelson was mad, he replied,
“I wish to God he would bite you all!” My Lord Spencer had the same
gift of selection--it’s the biggest gift that a man in such a position
can have, and the life, the fate of his country may depend upon him.
Only war finds out poltroons. Lord Spencer turned out his master, to
whom he was faithfully devoted, when he saw the Navy was in danger
and that Mr. Gladstone would not agree to strengthen it. His manners
were superb. He satisfied that great description of what constitutes a
gentleman: “He never hurt any man’s feelings.”
There’s another First Lord I have too faintly alluded to--Lord
Northbrook. He also was a great man, but he was not considered so by
the populace. He was a victim to his political associates--they let
him in. His finance at the Admiralty was bad through no fault of his,
and he was persuaded to go to Egypt, which I think was a mistake. I
stayed with him, and the microscope of home revealed him to me. His
conceptions were magnificent and his decisions were like those of the
Medes and Persians. Of all the awful people in the world nothing is so
terrible as a vacillator. I am not sure the Devil isn’t right when he
says, “Tell a lie and stick to it.” Lord Northbrook also in spite of
intense opposition laid hold of my hand and led me forth in the paths
I glory in, of Reform and Revolution. Stagnation, in my opinion, is
the curse of life. I have no fellow-feeling with those placid souls
who, like a duck-pond, torpid and quiescent, live the life of cabbages.
I don’t believe anybody can say, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,”
because it is immortally shown that strife is the secret of a good life.
As with Lord Spencer, so was it with Lord Selborne. He again, as First
Lord of the Admiralty, took the unusual course of kindly coming to
Malta to see me when I commanded the Mediterranean fleet (the Boer War
placed England in a very critical position at that time); and though
there was a great strife with the Admiralty he chose me after my three
years as Commander-in-Chief to be Second Sea Lord of the Admiralty and
permitted me to unfold a scheme of education which came into being on
the following Christmas Day without the alteration of a comma. More
than that, he benevolently spared me from the Admiralty to become
Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, to see that scheme carried out. Many
letters have I that that step indicated the end of my naval career.
I believe to that date it always has been so, but within a year I was
First Sea Lord, and never did any First Lord hold more warmly the hand
of his principal adviser than Lord Selborne held mine.
There are few people living to whom I am under a greater obligation
than Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman, G.C.B. This distinguished sailor
aided me in the gradual building up of the Grand Fleet. As I have
said before, it had to be done unostentatiously and by slow degrees,
for fear of exciting the attention of the German Admiralty and too
much embroiling myself with the Admirals whose fleets had to be
denuded till they disappeared, so as to come under Admiral Sir Francis
Bridgeman’s command, with whom the Grand Fleet originated under the
humble designation of the Home Fleet--a gathering and perpetuation of
the old more or less stationary coast-guard ships scattered all round
the United Kingdom and, as the old phrase was, “Grounding on their beef
bones” as they swung with the tide at their anchors. In the Providence
of God the animosities of the Admirals thus engendered caused the
real success of the whole scheme--and what should have been as clear
as crystal to the least observant onlooker was obscured by the fumes
of anger exuding from these scandalized Admirals. I look back with
astonishment at my Job-like conduct, but it had its compensations. I
hope Sir Francis Bridgeman will forgive me for hauling him into this
book--I have no other way of showing him my eternal gratitude; and
it was with intense delight that I congratulated Mr. Churchill on
obtaining his services to succeed Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea
Lord, who had so magnificently adhered to the scheme I left.
Sir Arthur refused a Peerage, and he was a faithful and self-effacing
friend in his room at the Admiralty those seven fateful months I
was First Sea Lord during the war. It was peculiarly fortunate and
providential that the two immediately succeeding First Sea Lords after
my departure on January 25th, 1910, should have been the two great
sailors they were--otherwise there would have been no Grand Fleet--they
altered nothing, and the glacier moved along, resistless and crushing
all the obstacles in its path, and now, after the war, it has passed
on; the dead corpses of the foes of the scheme are disclosed, and we’ll
bury them without comment.
I began these talks by solemnly declaring that I would not mention
a single living name--please let it stand--it shows what one’s
intention was; but one is really forced to stand up to such outstanding
personalities as Sir Arthur Wilson and Sir Francis Bridgeman, and I
again repeat with all the emphasis at my command that it would have
been impossible to have conducted those eight great years of ceaseless
reform, culminating in the production of the most incomparable fleet
that ever existed, had not the two Political Administrations, four
First Lords, and every member of the several Boards of Admiralty been,
as I described them in public, united, determined, and progressive.
Never for one instant did a single Board of Admiralty during that time
lay on its oars. For to rest on our oars would not have been standing
still; the malignant tide was fierce against us, and the younger
Officers of the fleet responded splendidly.
On January 3rd, 1903, I wrote as follows in reply to some criticism of
me as First Sea Lord:--
“Our Fleets are 50 per cent. more at sea, and we hit the target 50 per
cent. more than we did two years ago.
“In the first year there were 2,000 more misses than hits!
“In the second year there were 2,000 more hits than misses!”
The very first thing I did when I returned to the Admiralty as First
Sea Lord for those seven months in the first year of the war was
instantly to get back Sir Percy Scott into the Fighting Arena. I had
but one answer to all his detractors and to the opposition to his
return:--
“_He hits the target!_”
He _also_ was maliciously maligned. I don’t mean to say that Sir Percy
Scott indulges in soft soap towards his superiors. I don’t think he
ever poured hot water down anybody’s back. Let us thank God he didn’t!
I have repeatedly said (and I reiterate it whenever I get the chance)
that Nelson was nothing if he was not insubordinate. Nelson’s four
immortal Big Fights are brilliant and everlasting testimonies to the
virtues of Self-Assertion, Self-Reliance, and Contempt of Authority.
But of Nelson and the Nelsonic attributes I treat in another place.
(Ah! Lord Rosebery, if only you had written “Nelson’s Last Phase”!
I entreated you, but without avail!) (Again a repetition!) Nelson’s
_Life_ not yet written! Southey’s _Life_, meant only for schoolboys,
still holds the field. W. T. Stead might have done it, for the sacred
fire of Great Emotions was the calorific of Stead’s Internal Combustion
Engine. Suffice it to say of Sir Percy Scott that it was he and he
alone who made the first start of the Fleet’s hitting the enemy and not
missing him. Why hasn’t _he_ been made a Viscount? But that is reserved
for those in another sphere!
“The Tides--and Sir Frederick Treves.”--One of my greatest benefactors
(he saved my life. Six doctors wanted to operate on me--he wouldn’t
have it; the consequence--I’m better now than ever I was in my life)
is Sir Frederick Treves, Surgeon, Orator, Writer, “Developer of the
Powers of Observation.” He, this morning, September 16th, 1919, gives
me something to think about. It has relation to my dear and splendid
friend Sir Charles Parsons, President of the British Association
and inventor of the Turbine, who said the other day at Bournemouth
that our coal bids fair to fail and we must seek other sources of
power. Considering that Sir Charles invented the Turbine--derided by
everyone as a box of tricks, and it now monopolises 80 per cent. of
the horse-power of the world--we ought to listen to him. His idea is
to dig a twelve-mile hole into the earth to get hold of power. Now Sir
Frederick in his letter this morning uses these words:
“_England is an Island._ We are surrounded on all sides with the
greatest source of power in the world--the _Tides_.
“There is enough force in the Tides to light and heat the whole
country, _and to run all its railways_. It is running to waste while we
are bellowing for coal.”
I know exactly what the Royal Society will say to Sir Frederick Treves.
The Royal Society, not so many years ago, said through one of its most
distinguished members that the aeroplane was a physical impossibility.
When I said this to Sir Hiram Maxim he placed his thumb to his nose and
extended his fingers; and, as I have remarked elsewhere, aeroplanes
are now as plentiful as sparrows. So do not let us put Sir Frederick
Treves in the waste paper basket. He’s a great man. When Lord Lister
and my dear friend Sir Thomas Smith were beholding him operating on
King Edward at the time when his illness stopped his Coronation--even
those two wonderful surgeons held their breath at Treves’s astounding
skill and confidence. He kept on, and saved King Edward’s life. There
was no “Not running risks” with him. He snatched his King from death.
The others both thought Death had won, and they both exclaimed!
Sir Frederick won’t see this until he reads it in his presentation copy
of this book, or he wouldn’t have it.
And then he is so choice in his educational ideas. Here’s a lovely
morsel, which I commend to Schoolmasters (Curse ’em! they ruined
Osborne). Sir Frederick says:--
“Our present system of education is on a par with the Training of
Performing Dogs, they’re merely taught tricks! and Trick antics do
not help a boy much in the serious business of life. There is no
attempt to get at the mind of a boy, and still less any attempt to
find out his particular abilities. The only thing is, Is he good
at Mental Acrobatics? A very fine book on ‘The New Education’[17]
was published in the Autumn of last year, 1918. It shows up the
wasteful absurdities of the present Educational System. Of course,
no attention has been paid to it, because it is so simple, so
evident, and so human.... Years are spent in teaching a boy Latin
Verses, but never a moment to teach him ‘_How to develop powers of
Observation_.’”
I could tell my readers instances of Sir Frederick’s powers in this
last regard; and the medical students during the many years he was
their Lecturer could all of them do Sir Frederick greater justice than
I can.
“_God bless Sir Frederick Treves!_”
Of all the famous men I have known, Lord Kelvin had the greatest
brain. He went to sea with me in many new ships that I commanded.
Once, in a bleak March east wind at Sheerness I found him on deck on
a high pedestal exposed to the piercing blast watching his wonderful
compass, and he had only a very thin coat on. I said: “For goodness
sake, Sir William, come down and put on a great coat.” He said: “No,
thank you, I am quite warm. I’ve got several vests on.” His theory
was that it was much warmer wearing many thin vests than one thick
one, as the interstices of one were filled up by the next one, and so
on. I explained this afterwards, as I sat one day at lunch next to
the Emperor of Russia, when he asked me to explain my youth and good
health, and I hoped that he would follow Lord Kelvin’s example, as I
did. Lord Kelvin got this idea of a number of thin vests instead of one
thick one from the Chinese, who, in many ways, are our superiors.
For instance, a Chinaman, like an ancient Greek or Roman, maintains
that the liver is the seat of the human affections. We believe that
the heart is. So a Chinese always offers his hand and his liver to
the young lady of his choice. Neither do they ever kiss each other in
China. Confucius stopped it because the lips are the most susceptible
portion of the human body to infection. When two Chinese meet, they
rub their knees with their hands, and say “Ah” with a deep breath.
A dear friend of mine went to the Viceroy of Nankin to enquire how
his newly-raised Army was getting on with the huge consignment of
magnificent rifles sent out from England for its use. The Chinese
Viceroy told my friend he was immensely pleased with these rifles, and
the reports made to him showed extraordinary accuracy, as the troops
hit the target every time. The Viceroy sent my friend up in a Chinese
gunboat to see the Army. When my friend landed he was received by the
Inspector-General of Musketry, who was a peacock feather Mandarin, and
taken to see the soldiers firing. To my friend’s amazement the soldiers
were firing at the targets placed only a few hundred yards off, and
he explained to the Mandarin that these wonderful rifles fitted with
telescopic sights were meant for long ranges, and their accuracy was
wonderful. The Mandarin replied to him: “Look here! my orders from the
Viceroy are that every man in the army should hit the target, because
these rifles are so wonderfully good, and so they do, and the Viceroy
is very pleased at my reports.” And he added: “You know, we go back
2,000 years before your people in our knowledge of the world.”
Lord Kelvin had a wonderful gift of being able to pursue abstruse
investigations in the hubbub of a drawing room full of visitors. He
would produce a large green book out of a gamekeeper’s pocket he had
at the back of his coat, and suddenly go ahead with figures. I had an
interesting episode once. Sir William Thomson, as he then was, had come
with me for the first voyage of a new big cruiser that I commanded. I
had arranged for various responsible persons to report to me at 8 a.m.
how various parts of the ship were behaving. One of them reported that
a rivet was loose, and there was a slight leak. I said casually: “I
wonder how much water would come in if the rivet came out altogether.”
Sir William was sitting next me at breakfast, very much enjoying eggs
and bacon, and he asked the Officer: “How big is the rivet?” and
whereabouts it was, etc. The Officer left, and Sir William went on
with his eggs and bacon, and I talked to Sir Nathaniel Barnaby on the
other side of me, who was the designer of the ship that we were in.
Presently, Sir William, in a mild voice, never having ceased his eggs
and bacon, said so much water would come in. Sir N. Barnaby thereupon
worked it out on paper and said to Sir William: “You made a good
guess.” He replied: “I didn’t guess. I worked it out.”
The Midshipmen idolised Lord Kelvin, and they were very intimate with
him. I heard one of them, who was four-foot-nothing, explain to Sir
William how to make a magnet. Sir William listened to the Midshipman’s
lecture on magnetism with the greatest deference, and gave the little
boy no idea of what a little ass he was to be talking to the greatest
man on earth on the subject of magnetism. The same little boy took the
time for him in observing the lighthouse flashes, and Sir William wrote
a splendid letter to _The Times_ pointing out that the intervals of
darkness should be the exception, and the flashes of light the rule, in
a lighthouse, whereupon the Chief Engineer of the Lighthouse Department
traversed Sir William’s facts. The little boy came up to Sir William
and asked him if he had read the letter, and he hadn’t, so he told him
of it and then asked Sir William if he would like him to write to _The
Times_ to corroborate him. Sir William thanked him sweetly, but said he
would take no notice, as they would alter the flashes, and so they did.
This little boy was splendid. He played me a Machiavellian trick. We
had an ass one night as Officer of the Watch, and in the middle watch
I was nearly jerked out of my cot by a heavy squall striking the ship.
I rushed up on deck (raining torrents) and we got in what was left of
the sails, and I came down soaked through and bitterly cold, and on
the main deck I met my young friend, the little Midshipman, with a
smoking hot bowl of cocoa. I never enjoyed anything more in my life,
and I blessed the little boy, but it suddenly occurred to me that he
was as dry as a bone. I said: “How is it you are dressed?” He said: “I
am Midshipman of the watch.” I said: “The devil you are! How is it you
aren’t wet?” “Well, sir,” he said, “I thought I should be best doing
my duty by going below and making you a bowl of cocoa.” I felt I had
sold myself, like Esau, for a mess of pottage. He was a splendid boy,
and he wrote me periodically till he died. He was left a fortune. He
was turned out of the Navy for knocking his Captain down. I received a
telegram to say that he was ill and delirious and talking of me only,
and almost immediately afterwards a telegram came to say he was dead.
Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, the eminent Director of Naval Construction at
the Admiralty, was also a great man, but he never had recognition. He
was not self-assertive. He was as meek as Moses, and he was a saint. It
was he conceived the wonder of the time--the “Inflexible”; and I was
her first Captain. He went out in her with me to the Mediterranean. We
had an awful gale in the Bay of Biscay. Sir Nathaniel nearly died with
sea-sickness. I was cheering him up, and he whispered in reply: “Fools
build houses for wise men to live in. Wise men build ships for fools to
go in.”
If ever there was a great Christian, he was. After he retired he
devoted his whole life to Sunday schools, not only in this country,
but in America. There was some great scheme, of which he gave me
particulars at the time, of a vast association of all Sunday schools
wherever the English tongue is spoken. Perhaps it is in being now--I
don’t know; but it was a fine conception that on some specified day
throughout the world every child should join in some hymn and prayer
for that great idea of John Bright’s--the Commonwealth of Free Nations,
all speaking the same grand old English tongue. I was too busy ever
to follow that up, as I would have liked to have done, and been his
missionary.
A letter which he wrote to me in 1910, and a much earlier note of mine
to him, which he enclosed with it, are interesting, and I give them
here:
_Letter from Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, K.C.B. (formerly
Chief Constructor of the Navy) to Lord Fisher._
MORAY HOUSE,
LEWISHAM, S.E.
_15th January, 1910_
MY DEAR ADMIRAL,
I suppose the enclosed brief note must have been written by
you to me over a quarter of a century ago. You were meditating
“Dreadnoughts” even then and finding in me the opposition on the
ground of “the degradation of our other Ironclads” through the
introduction of the “18-knot ‘Nonsuch.’”
I have said to you before that I love a man who knows his own mind,
and insists on getting his way. I have therefore no complaint to
make.
In a note dated two days earlier I see you say, “Bother the money!
if we are all agreed that will be forthcoming.”
And they accuse you of cheeseparing and starving the Navy!
It was I that stood for economy--see enclosed, on the principal
events affecting and indicating Naval Policy, 1866–1884, drawn up
by me for Mr. Campbell-Bannerman.
See also the other side of me in a letter to the Peace Society
People, and see a little hymn written for children to “Russian
National Anthem” and now widely sung.
With sincere respect and good wishes,
Yours always,
(Signed) NATHANIEL BARNABY.
Please return your note to me; nothing else.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN FISHER AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE,
MAY, 1899.]
This was the old letter of mine which he enclosed:--
_From Lord Fisher to Sir N. Barnaby in 1883._
_January 25th._
I have delayed sending you this letter hoping to find copy of a
brief article I wrote on H.M. Ironclad “Nonsuch” of 18 knots,
after seeing your design A; I can’t find it, and have written
for the original, which I will send for your amusement. I don’t
think your argument is a sound one as to the “degradation of our
other ironclads by the construction of an 18-knotter.” Isn’t the
principle right to make each succeeding ironclad an improvement and
as perfect as you can?
THERE IS NO PROGRESS IN UNIFORMITY!!
We’ve had enough of the “Admiral” class of ship. Now try your hand
on a “Nonsuch” (of vast speed!).
In violent haste,
Ever yours,
(Sgd.) J. A. F.
“Build few, and build fast,
Each one better than the last.”
Two of Sir Nathaniel Barnaby’s great successors in that arduous and
always thankless post of Director of Naval Construction are Sir Philip
Watts and Sir Eustace Tennyson-D’Eyncourt. These two great men have
each of them done such service as should have brought them far greater
honour than as yet they have received. The “Dreadnought” could not have
been born but for Sir Philip Watts. I commend to all who wish to have a
succinct account of the ships of the British Navy that formed the line
of battle on the outbreak of war on the 4th August, 1914, to read the
paper delivered by Sir Philip Watts at the Spring Meeting of the Naval
Architects on the 9th April, 1919, when a very excellent Sea Officer
with more brains than most people I have met presided--being the
Marquis of Bristol. And it was a great delight to me that he commanded
the “Renown,” my favourite ship, to bring to England King Alfonso--an
equally admired hero of mine. If ever there was a brave man it is King
Alfonso.
My other scientific hero besides Sir Philip Watts is Sir Eustace
D’Eyncourt. He also was the practical means, besides his wonderful
professional genius, of bringing forth what are known as the “Hush
Hush” ships on account of the mystery surrounding their construction;
and notwithstanding the armchair “Know-alls” who have done their
best to blast their reputation, they achieved--the five of them--a
phenomenal success. Sir Eustace D’Eyncourt also gave us those
incomparable Monitors, with their bulges under water, which were “given
away” through the unmitigated folly of the Censors, who permitted a
newspaper correspondent to describe how he had seen men, like St.
Peter, walking on the water--they were walking on the protuberance
which extended under the surface as the absolute protection against
submarines; and when an old first-class cruiser called the “Grafton”
had been so made submarine-proof, the captain of her, after receiving
a torpedo fired at him at right angles and hitting him amidships,
reported to the Admiralty that she went faster than before, simply
because her hull proper had not been touched; the submarine had only
blown away the submarine obstruction that Sir Eustace had fitted to
her. Has he been made a lord? Personally I should say the tanks could
never have existed without him; of that I am quite sure. Sir Philip
Watts and Sir Eustace D’Eyncourt are enshrined in my heart.
Previously in this chapter I mentioned Mr. Gladstone. I sat next to
him at dinner once. At the other side of him was a very beautiful
woman, but she was struck dumb by awe of Mr. Gladstone, so he turned
round to me and asked me if I had ever been in China. Yes, I had.
And he asked me who were the best missionaries. I said the Roman
Catholics were the most successful as they wore the Chinese dress,
were untrammelled by families, so they got better amongst the people
in the interior, but furthermore in their chapels they represented our
Saviour and His Apostles with pigtails and dressed as Chinamen. Yes,
he said, he remembered that, and he told me the name of the Head of
the Roman Catholic Mission, whose name I had forgotten, and said to
me that the Pope considered he had gone too far in that respect, and
had recalled him. That had happened some twenty years previously, and
I had forgotten all about it. Someone said what a pity that all that
is now being said is being lost. Mr. Gladstone said: “Nothing is lost.
Science will one day take off the walls of this room what we have been
saying.” This was years before the gramophone and the dictaphone and
the telephone. He told us a great deal about Abraham and pigs, and
why Abraham was so dead against them, and how he, Gladstone, had been
driven by Daniel O’Connell in a four-in-hand, and how the Bishops in
his early days were so much handsomer than now. One Bishop he specially
named was called “The Beauty of Holiness.” When he left, he asked me
to walk home with him, which I did. Mrs. Gladstone said, seated inside
the brougham which was waiting at the door: “Come in, William.” He
said: “No, I am going to walk with this young man.” It was midnight,
and Piccadilly was quite alive. He was living with Lady Frederick
Cavendish, I think, at Carlton Gardens. We were nearly run over, as he
was regardless of the traffic. I remember his saying: “Do right, and
you can never suffer for it.” I thought of that when, in my own case
later on, it was “Athanasius contra Mundum.” I was urged only to attack
one vested interest at a time, but I said, “No, if you kick everyone’s
shins at the same time they won’t trouble about their neighbours,”
and it succeeded; but alas! I gave up one thing, which was the real
democratic pith and marrow, the Free Education of the Naval Officer,
and a competence from the moment of entry, and open to all. King Edward
said to me about this: “You’re a Socialist.” I said that a white shirt
doesn’t imply the best brain. We have forty million to select from,
and we restrict our selection to about one-fortieth of the population.
I here relate an episode which made a deep impression on me and one
never effaced. At the time of Gladstone’s death I was looking at his
picture in a shop window. Two working men were doing the same. The
one said to the other: “That man died poor, but could have died rich,
had he used his knowledge as Prime Minister to make investments quite
lawfully; but he didn’t!”
It really is a very fine thing in the public men of this nation.
I have always worshipped Abraham Lincoln. I have elsewhere related how
he never argued with Judge or Jury or anyone else, but always told
a story, thus following that great and inestimable example in Holy
Writ: “And without a parable spake he not unto them.” But one wishes
it were more known how great were his simple views. His sole idea of a
Christian Church was to preach the Saviour’s condensed statement “to
love God and your Neighbour!” He said that summed up all religion.
He gloried in having been himself a hired labourer and believed in a
system which allowed labourers “to strike” when they wanted to, and did
not oblige them to labour whether you pay them or not. He said: “I do
not believe in a law to prevent a man getting rich (that would do more
harm than good), so while we do not propose any war upon Capital we do
wish to allow the humblest an equal chance to get rich with everybody
else. I want every man to have a chance to better his condition.” And
what Lincoln says of diligence is very good: “The leading rule for the
man of every calling is DILIGENCE! Whatever piece of business you have
in hand, before stopping do all the labour pertaining to it which can
be done.”
That most moving account of Lincoln’s simple eloquence at the graves
of Gettysburg is a most touching episode. The thousands listening to
him never uttered a sound. There was a dead silence, when he stopped
speaking. He left thinking himself a failure. It was the success of his
life. A great orator just before him had moved the multitude to cheer
unboundedly! but after Lincoln their feelings made them dumb.
While on personalities, I should like to say a little on one of
the best friends I ever had and in my opinion the greatest of all
journalists. Lord Morley once told me that he had never known the equal
of W. T. Stead in his astounding gift of catching the popular feeling.
He was absolute integrity and he feared no man. I myself have heard him
tackle a Prime Minister like a terrier a rat. I have known him go to a
packed meeting and scathe the whole mob of them. He never thought of
money; he only thought of truth. He might have been a rich man if he
hadn’t told the truth. I know it. When he was over sixty he performed a
journalistic feat that was wondrous. By King Edward’s positive orders
a cordon was arranged round the battle-cruiser “Indomitable,” arriving
late at night at Cowes with the Prince of Wales on board, to prevent
the Press being a nuisance. Stead, in a small boat, dropped down with
the tide from ahead and swarmed up a rope ladder under the bows, about
30 feet high and then along a sort of greasy pole, known to sailors as
the lower boom, talked to one of the Officers, who naturally supposed
he couldn’t be there without permission; and the _Daily Mail_ the
next morning had the most perfect digest I have ever read of perhaps
one of the most wonderful passages ever made. This big battle cruiser
encumbered with the heaviest guns known, and with hundreds and hundreds
of tons of armour on her side, beat the “Mauretania,” the greyhound of
the seas, built of gingerbread, carrying no cargo, and shaped for no
other purpose than for speed and luxury.
Of course no other paper had a word.
Stead always told me he would die in his boots. Strife was his portion,
he said. I am not sure that my friend Arnold White would not have shot
him at sight in the Boer War. Stead was a pro-Boer, and so was I. I
simply loved Botha, and Botha gave me great words. He said: “English
was the business language of the globe”--that’s good! Of course every
genius has a strain of queerness. Does not the poet say: “Great wits
to madness often are allied?” I remember a book which had a great
circulation, entitled “The Insanity of Genius.” I very nearly wrote a
letter to _The Times_ only I was afraid they might think _me_ mad, and
I was afraid that Admiral Fitzgerald might not think me modest (see his
letter in _The Times_ of Sept. 8th, 1919). This was my letter to _The
Times_:--
“Genius is not insanity, it only means the man is before his time.
That’s all.”
That was the whole of the letter.
There was a very great scientist (he is a very great friend of mine and
he discovered something I can’t remember the name of) who said: “A man
must be mad to think of flying machines!” and he lived to see them as
plentiful as sparrows.
Without saying a word to me or even letting me know, in a few hasty
hours Stead wrote in the “Review of Reviews” in February, 1910, the
most extraordinarily accurate _résumé_ of every date and name connected
with my career. It would have taken any other man a month. However,
he made one great mistake in it. He only spoke in it, like all other
things that have been said of me, of “The full corn in the ear!” What
really is a man’s life is the endurance and the adversity and the
non-recognition and the humiliating slights and the fighting morning,
noon and night, of early life. That brings fortune. I like that word
“fortune.” Those inspired men who translated the Great Bible never said
a thing “happened,” they always said it “fortuned.”
I here insert a letter kindly lent me by Lord Esher. As it was written
on the spur of the moment and out of the abundance of the heart, I give
it verbatim. Esher loved Stead as much as I did. I knew it, and that’s
why I wrote to him. We felt a common affliction:--
_April 22, 1912._ HOTEL EXCELSIOR, NAPLES.
This loss of dear old Stead numbs me! Cromwell and Martin Luther
rolled into one. And such a big heart. Such great emotions. You
must write something. _All I’ve read quite inadequate._ The
telegrams here say he was to the forefront with the women and
children, putting them in the boats! _I can see him!_ and probably
singing “Hallelujah,” and encouraging the ship’s band to play
cheerfully. He told me he would die in his boots. So he has. _And
a fine death._ As a boy he had threepence a week pocket money. One
penny bought Shakespeare in weekly parts, the other two pennies
to his God for Missions. And the result was he became editor of
a big newspaper at 22! And he was a Missionary himself all his
life. Fearless even when alone, believing in his God--the God of
truth--and his enemies always rued it when they fought him. He
was an exploder of “gas-bags” and the terror of liars. He was
called a “wild man” because he said “Two keels to one.” He was at
Berlin--the High Personage said to him: “Don’t be frightened!”
Stead replied to the All Highest: “Oh, no! we won’t! _for every
Dreadnought you build we will build two!_” _That_ was the genesis
of the cry “Two keels to one.” I have a note of it made at the time
for my “Reflections.” But, my dear friend, put your concise pen to
paper for our Cromwellian Saint. He deserves it.
Yours always,
FISHER.
“You cannot do anyone more good than by trying unsuccessfully to do
him an injury,” was one of the aphorisms of Lord Dalling (Sir Henry
Bulwer); and it occurred to me forcibly on one occasion when I went to
stay with my very great friend, Henry Labouchere (the proprietor of
_Truth_). On the way I had been reading a peculiarly venomous attack
on me in his paper; and when he greeted me as affectionately as ever,
I showed it to him, saying: “Don’t put your arm on my shoulder! Read
that damned thing there!” Labouchere glanced at it and replied, “Where
would you have been if I hadn’t persistently maligned you?”
When I was with him at his villa at Florence, he used to smoke the most
beastly cigarettes at ten a penny, yet he left over a million sterling,
and was generous to absurdity to those he loved.
He had none but Italian servants; he told me he was always extremely
polite to them for the knife came so easy to them. He said he didn’t
realise this until, after he had had some words with an English
friend, his Italian gardener, who had overheard the altercation, asked
Labouchere if he would like him (the gardener) to deal with his friend,
and he tapped the stiletto in his waistband.
His own wit was as ready as his gardener’s stiletto. On one occasion
he was at Cologne railway station, and the Custom House Officer was
turning his portmanteau inside out. Labouchere had a telegraph form in
his pocket; he wrote out a telegram with a stylographic pen and handed
it to the official who was standing behind the Custom House Officer and
told him it was a Government telegram. This was the telegram:
PRINCE BISMARCK,
BERLIN.
Can’t dine with you to-night. Missed train through a damned ass of
a Custom House Officer. Will let you have his name.
LABOUCHERE, Cologne.
They offered him a special train. Labouchere had never seen Bismarck
in his life. This was the occasion on which Labouchere was reprimanded
by the Foreign Office for his delay in taking up his appointment as
attaché at St. Petersburg. His excuse was that the money allowed him
only permitted his travelling by railway as far as Cologne; the rest of
the way he walked.
This book would be incomplete if I did not draw attention to the great
debt the nation owes to three men yet unmentioned in this volume.
Mr. George Lambert, M.P., twice refused office and sacrificed his
political prospects and with a glorious victory sustained the whole
Government effort to kick him out of Parliament; but he conquered with
a magnificent majority of over two thousand! Why?
Because after serving for over seven years in the Admiralty he could
speak of his own knowledge that the War administration and the fighting
Sea Policy were shamefully effete.
The Recording Angel will mark down opposite Mr. Lambert’s name: “Well
done, thou good and faithful servant!” But may he also have his reward
here and now, as many years of good work here below may lie between him
and Heaven as yet.
Commodore Hugh Paget Sinclair is another “Stalwart” of the War. His
business was to provide the officers and men to man the Fleet--imagine
the stupendous task that was his!
_We never wanted for Officer or Man!_
He is now Director of Naval Intelligence; and may his ascent in the
Navy be what is his splendid due!
Sir Alfred Yarrow I select for mention, for without him Mesopotamia
would have been a bigger crime than it was, and throughout all ages it
will be branded for gross and culpable and criminal ineptitude. If I
was asked to name the Capturer of Bagdad I would unhesitatingly reply
it was Sir Alfred Yarrow.
The Navy has not had its due credit for the Capture of Bagdad. If
Sir Alfred Yarrow with his usual astounding push, and without regard
to red tape or thanks or recognition, had not sent those splendid
light-draught gunboats of his to Mesopotamia, packed up in bits like
portmanteaux, then Bagdad would not have been ours. The Viceroy of
India sent us (acting on the advice he had received) the wrong draught
of water. We ignored the Viceroy and all his crew. It took _eighteen_
days to get this pressing vital business through the Government
Departments concerned. It took us _one_ day to accomplish the whole
procedure, with Sir Alfred Yarrow, and we chucked all the Departments.
So 24 light-draught gunboats grew up like Jonah’s Gourd, which came up
in a night (Jonah, iv, 10).
* * * * *
I append a memorandum compiled from the Official papers:--
_History of Provision of 24 Light-draught Gunboats for Mesopotamia._
* * * * *
_Note._--These Vessels played a great part in the capture of Bagdad.
* * * * *
January 9th, 1915.--Telegram from Viceroy to India Office that
Admiralty be asked to provide 4 gunboats--draught 4½ feet for
Tigris.[18]
January 11th, 1915.--India Office asked Admiralty to meet Viceroy’s
wishes.
January 29th, 1915.[19]--Admiralty Departments suggested various
types. War Staff proposed 3 from Egypt be sent.
January 29th, 1915.--Lord Fisher ordered 24 light-draught
gunboats. In order to save time, Captain [now Rear-Admiral Sir S.
S.] Hall, R.N., (Lord Fisher’s Secretary) was directed by Lord
Fisher “_to co-operate with Mr. Yarrow[20] and carry the operation
through without reference to Admiralty Departments or any other
Departments_.”
January 29th, 1915.--_Conference held. Design settled._[21]
January 30th, 1915.--{Captain Hall toured the country
February 1st, 1915.--{for likely firms to construct
{the 24 gunboats.
February 2nd, 1915.[22]--Proposals made for placing orders approved
by Lord Fisher and First Lord, and orders were placed as follows:--
12 Small by Yarrow.
4 Large by Barclay Curle.
2 Large by Lobnitz.
2 Large by Ailsa Shipbuilding Co.
2 Large by Wood Skinner.
2 Large by Sunderland Shipbuilding Co.
February 8th, 1915.--Captain Hall was appointed Commodore-in-Charge
of the Submarine Service, but was directed by Lord Fisher to
continue supervision of the provision of 24 gunboats.
Sir Alfred Yarrow ought (like Mr. Schwab) to have been made a Duke, and
I wrote to Sir John Jellicoe, when he was First Sea Lord, and told him
so.
The history of the Flotillas of light-draught gunboats built both
for Mesopotamia and the Danube will ever be associated with the good
service done by Sir Alfred Yarrow, and for which he was only made a
Baronet. Those built for the Tigris led our Army to Bagdad and far
beyond, and were at times unsupported far ahead of the military force;
and without any question whatever without them the Mesopotamian muddle
could never have emerged into a glorious victory. The speed with which
these vessels were constructed and despatched in small parcels to
Mesopotamia and there put together in an extemporary dockyard arranged
by Sir Alfred Yarrow’s staff was as much a feature as any other part
of their production. It necessitated masses of natives of different
religious persuasions being gathered together to assist the skilled
artizans in bolting the pieces together and launching them on the
Tigris. Their differing hours of prayer were a disturbing element
in the rapidity of the construction; but my splendid friend the
foreman from the Scotstoun Yard of Messrs. Yarrow contrived a prayer
compromise. The Danube Flotilla arranged for with a number of other
builders was equally remarkable; and Commodore (now Admiral) Bartolomé
wrote me a commendatory letter of their good service there.
I must also mention Commodore (now Admiral) Sir S. S. Hall, but for
whose continual journeys from shipyard to shipyard these vessels would
never have been delivered on the scene of action in the time required.
Within six months all these Flotillas were thought
of--designed--built--and in service, and nothing gave me intenser
delight than the visit I paid to these craft as they were all built and
then taken to pieces for transit to their destination in packages that
any motor car could have transported.
The world at large can have little conception of the remarkability of
those comparatively large hulls with good speed and practically drawing
but a few inches of water--the propellers (which were too large in
diameter for the depth of water) being made by an ingenious device to
revolve in a well above the water-line, the water being drawn up by
suction. I thought to myself as I viewed these miracles of ingenuity
and rapidity: “England can never succumb.”