from in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.]]
As an instance of the tremendous range of the _Dreadnought’s_ guns:
mounted on one of the Dover forts, they could easily drop shells on the
deck of a Channel packet in the act of leaving Calais harbour. Imagine
one of them mounted in front of St. Paul’s and firing with full charges
in any direction. Its shells would burst over Slough in one direction and
over Gravesend in the other. Hertford, St. Albans, Chertsey, Sevenoaks,
would all be within range. Twenty-five miles is the extreme estimated
range of a shot fired with a full service charge, and the trajectory of
the projectile would, at its culminating point, attain a height in the
air of nearly six miles, twice the height of Mont Blanc.
They are “wire guns,” as the term goes, constructed in each case by
winding coil on coil of steel ribbon or “tape” (a quarter of an inch
wide and ·06 of an inch thick), round and round on an inner steel tube,
the barrel of the piece; just as the string is wound round the handle of
a cricket bat. The tape or “wire” is then covered by outer “jackets,”
or tubes of steel. Upwards of 228,800 yards of wire—a length of 130
miles—weighing some 15 tons, are required for each of the _Dreadnought’s_
12-inch guns, and it takes from three to four weeks to wind on the wire.
The rifling of the barrel comprises forty-eight grooves, varying in
depth from ·08 of an inch at the muzzle to ·1 at the breech. Each of the
_Dreadnought’s_ guns, separately, employs in its manufacture from first
to last upwards of five hundred men in various capacities, and costs, as
turned out ready to send on board, but without sighting and other vital
appliances, between £10,000 and £11,000.
The _Dreadnought_ carries eleven inches of Krupp steel armour on her
sides, turrets, and conning tower, and rather thinner armour at the bows
and stern. Her speed of twenty-one knots makes her a full two knots
faster than any existing battleship. She is the first battleship in any
navy to be propelled by the Parsons turbine, to which her speed is due.
Lastly, the cost of the _Dreadnought_ is officially stated at £1,797,497.
Exceptional in themselves, and of exceptional historic interest as well,
are the honours that have fallen to the _Dreadnought’s_ lot within the
few months that our great naval masterpiece has been in existence.
At the outset the _Dreadnought_ had the good fortune to be named and
sent afloat by His Majesty King Edward personally. That in itself was an
exceptional honour, and one that has fallen to the lot of very few ships
of the Royal Navy—to be named and sent afloat by the reigning sovereign.
There have been just six instances in all, from the earliest times to
the present day. Queen Victoria launched four men-of-war during her long
reign; but no King of England ever launched a ship in the four hundred
years between King Edward and Henry the Eighth: King Edward with the
_Dreadnought_ and Henry the Eighth with the _Great Harry_ are the two
historic instances. Many of our sovereigns, of course—practically all
of them: Edward the Sixth, Queen Elizabeth, the Stuart kings, Cromwell
also, George the Third, and William the Fourth—attended in state on
various occasions to witness the launch of some notable man-of-war, but
they were present only as spectators, and took no part in the actual
proceedings. Charles the First was to have personally named the famous
_Sovereign of the Seas_, with the same ceremonial used at the launch of
our first _Dreadnought_, and rode down with his Court to Woolwich to
do so; but they could not get the ship out of dock, and the King rode
back to Whitehall disappointed, deputing the Lord High Admiral to name
the ship when she did get clear—not till between eight and nine in the
evening. Charles the Second, in like manner, was to have personally named
our first _Britannia_, but His Majesty was taken ill on the day before.
Again too, as it also happened, there was a hitch at the launch. The
_Britannia_ stuck fast for twelve hours, and then went off at midnight to
the flare of torches and cressets, after which a courier was hurried off
at gallop to Whitehall, to acquaint the King, “lest certain base reports
(i.e. that the _Britannia_ had fallen over in dock) may have reached your
Majesty.”
Yet another exceptional honour that befel the _Dreadnought_ was after
the great review of the Home Fleet off Cowes, on the first Monday of
August this year, when King Edward, with Queen Alexandra, the Prince of
Wales, and Prince Edward of Wales, with Sir John Fisher and members of
the Royal suite, went out on board the _Dreadnought_ to beyond Spithead
to witness target-practice with the _Dreadnought’s_ turret-guns; the
memorable occasion on which, at 2640 yards’ range, the four 12-in. guns
that fired, scored within two and a half minutes nine bull’s-eyes and
two “outers” out of twelve rounds discharged. Never to be forgotten
was the scene as the _Dreadnought_ passed down the double lines of the
Home Fleet in the brilliant sunshine; the ships all dressed with flags,
and with decks manned, and cheering, and firing salutes—the giant ship
herself flying the Royal Standard at the masthead and at either yard-arm
the Union Flag, symbol of His Majesty’s rank as Admiral of the Fleet,
and the Admiralty Anchor Flag, a combination not seen on board a British
man-of-war of the fighting-line, even in those historic waters, for
over a century—not, indeed, since that summer’s morning of 1794, when
the three flags flew together at the mastheads of the famous _Queen
Charlotte_, denoting King George the Third’s presence on board, with his
Queen, on his visit to present a diamond-hilted sword of honour to Lord
Howe, then just arrived with the prizes taken on the Glorious First of
June. That also was the last occasion, until the other day, on which a
King and Queen of England were together on board a British man-of-war at
sea.
The guns fired before the King and Queen were those in the two
after-turrets, and the targets used were the usual service ones, 16 ft.
by 20 ft., with a central bull’s-eye 14 ft. square. The range was about a
mile and a half, and six rounds were fired from each turret. Of the three
shots placed outside the bull’s-eye, two went through the target, whilst
the third, which missed, cut away the rope fastening the canvas of the
target to the framework. Two of the shots in the bull’s-eye went through
the very centre, through a small circle, about thirty inches in diameter,
marked in the middle of the target.
We will conclude this outline of our _Dreadnoughts’_ story with a brief
tabular statement of certain points in detail of comparison and contrast
between the _Dreadnought_ of to-day and the historic _Victory_.
THE _DREADNOUGHT_ AND _VICTORY_ COMPARED
_DREADNOUGHT._ _VICTORY._
Time Building 16 months Five years
ten months
Total Cost £1,797,497 £89,000
Displacement 17,900 tons 3400 tons.
Total Weight Broadside 6800 lb. 1160 lb.
Extreme Range of Guns 25 miles 3 miles.
Penetration of armour at six miles 9 in. Krupp Steel
Penetration at all distances Nil.
Heaviest Gun 12 inch 6 inch.
Weight of Charge 265 lb. 10½ lb.
(M.D. cordite). (gunpowder).
Time to make Gun 12 to 15 months Four guns a week.
Cost per Gun £11,000 £57. 15s.
Average Weight per Gun 58 tons 56 cwt.
Complement 780 men 850 men.
Length 490 ft. 226 ft. 6 in.
Breadth 82 ft. 52 ft.
Mean Load Draught 26 ft. 6 in. 25 ft.
Number of Guns 37 104
Speed 21½ knots 10 knots.
II
“KENT CLAIMS THE FIRST BLOW!”
“The Kentishe Menne in Front!”
“Kent claims for itself the first blow in battle against alien enemies.”
The hand that penned these words has lain in the grave for over seven
centuries; but old William Fitz-Stephen of Canterbury knew what he meant,
and meant what he wrote. They are words that our fine “county cruiser”
the _Kent_ of to-day—to which the ladies of Kent have presented a silken
battle flag and the Men of Kent a silver shield and other gifts, to
incite the _Kent’s_ bluejackets to shoot straight—might well adopt and
make the ship’s motto. It was from the County of Kent that the initiative
came in the movement which has had such excellent results in inducing the
county people in other counties all over Great Britain and Ireland to
display a practical interest in the warships that bear the county names;
and the idea has since spread in other cases throughout the Empire.
The county “Association of Men of Kent and Kentish Men” of their own
accord took the initial step in the spring of 1899 by approaching the
late Lord Goschen, then First Lord of the Admiralty, with a request that
one of four cruisers of a new type, to be built under the supplemental
programme of the previous August, might be named after the County of
Kent. The request was heartily received, and in response the name _Kent_
was announced for the first of the new ships. A little later the Men
of Kent made a second proposal. They asked permission to establish
among themselves a “county memorial for the new county-cruiser _Kent_,”
expressing their “desire and intention to do something to keep up a
continual connection between the county and the good ship, and to cause
a sustained interest to be taken in her fortunes and the welfare of
those on board.” Lord Goschen acceded to that request, and a county
subscription was immediately set on foot by Lord Harris, the president of
the Association for the year, to form a Kent county trophy fund for the
cruiser _Kent_. It was proposed to present the ship, on commissioning,
with a challenge trophy in silver, to be competed for annually among the
gun crews of the ship, the champion gun team for each year to have their
names inscribed on the trophy and receive a special monetary reward from
a county fund established with the trophy. The trophy itself was to be
kept on board and to be displayed on special and festive occasions in the
mess of the winning team. Whenever the _Kent_ was out of commission the
trophy would be cared for by the Captain of the Royal Naval Barracks,
Chatham, or at Greenwich Naval College.[4] The movement received cordial
support from Lord Selborne, Lord Goschen’s successor at the Admiralty,
and from the late Earl Stanhope, the then Lord Lieutenant of Kent, and
the late Lord Salisbury, then Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. More than
that, indeed. Interested by the patriotic action taken by the County of
Kent on behalf of its cruiser namesake, His Majesty the King was himself
graciously pleased to command that in the cases of future ships bearing
the names of counties the Lords Lieutenant of the counties concerned
were to be requested by the Admiralty to nominate in each case some lady
connected with the county to perform the naming and launching ceremony.
[Illustration: THE COUNTY AND ITS SHIP. THE _KENT_ TROPHY CHALLENGE SHIELD
_From a photograph kindly lent by the Designers and Manufacturers of the
Trophy, Messrs. George Kenning & Son, Goldsmiths, Little Britain and
Aldersgate Street, London._]
The trophy-shield subscribed for by the Men of Kent, together with an
album for the names and scores of its winners from time to time, was
formally handed over to the captain and ship’s company of the _Kent_ at
Sheerness by representatives of the County Association, the gift being
received with every mark of regard and genuine welcome. Following on
that, a deputation of county ladies, headed by the Countess Stanhope,
the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, presented the favoured ship with two
flags, a beautiful silken ensign and a silken Union Jack, subscribed for
by the County Association of “Maids of Kent and Kentish Maids.” The flags
were brought on board in the beautiful box of Kentish Heart of Oak in
which they are now kept under the sentry before the captain’s cabin. The
ensign was bent on the halyards and ceremoniously hoisted to the peak by
Countess Stanhope in the presence of the assembled officers and crew of
the _Kent_, and the Jack was hoisted by the Hon. Secretary of the Ladies’
Committee, Mrs. Bills, the proceedings winding up with a luncheon to
the ladies on the after-deck by Captain Gamble and his officers, and an
afternoon dance on board.
* * * * *
That the name of the ancient maritime county of England should be borne
in the fleet to-day by a modern British warship is in itself a matter
of historic interest. There are, indeed, very excellent reasons why the
County of Kent should receive distinguished treatment from the Admiralty,
why its name deserves to be honourably commemorated in the British fleet
of to-day.
Kent has a place of its own in regard to the naval annals of England,
old-time associations with the oversea defence of England and the
national navy, that stand quite by themselves. The associations indeed go
back across fifteen centuries, to the earliest days of our “rough island
story”; so far back, indeed, as the old old times of the “Counts of the
Saxon Shore.”
Dover and Reculver, the two principal Kentish ports of the days when
Britain was a Roman province, were central stations in the widespread
line of outposts along the coast whence watch and ward were kept for the
coming of the Norseland raiders oversea in the springtime year by year.
Bared to the sun and soft, warm air,
Streams back the Norseman’s yellow hair,
I see the gleam of axe and spear,
The sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh, barbaric time
To Saga’s chant and Runic rhyme.
From the pharos on the Foreland in those strenuous times of long ago
keen-sighted men of Kent kept look-out daily, scanning the horizon from
sunrise to sunset; ever on the alert to start the alarm and pass it on to
where the Roman coast defence galleys lay at their moorings off the mouth
of the Wantsum Channel by Richborough Castle.
Alike on land and sea theirs was the post of honour. At Hastings, led by
the stout Earl Leofwine, as we know—
A standard made of sylke and jewells rare
Was borne near Harold at the Kenters Head.
And centuries after that, whenever the King of England was in the field,
they claimed the right to lead the van—“The Kentishe Menne in front!”
The Kentish contingent—the “Eastern Ports” contingent—formed the bulk and
the backbone of the Cinque Ports fleets of the Middle Ages, both in ships
and men. Four of the five “Head Ports” in the famous confederation were
Kentish ports—Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe. The “Eastern Ports”
counted twenty-one limbs, “Members”; the “Western Ports”—Hastings with
the two “Ancient Towns” attached—ten “Members.” The old Cinque Ports
Navy, in these times of ours it may be, is little more than a name, a
faded memory of a dim and distant past, a perished institution of a dead
old time; yet it was once an actual fact, a living hot-blooded reality,
the chief guarantee of our national existence, a very real bulwark, the
foremost defence of England from foreign invasion. “The courage of those
sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the
flag of England terrible on the seas.” For all that we have to thank, in
the first place, the Men of Kent, that Kent of which old twelfth-century
Fitz-Stephen, monk of Canterbury and historian of his own times, was
thinking when he wrote, “Kent claims for itself the first blow in battle
against alien enemies.”
The Kentish ships of the Cinque Ports, “Ships of Kent” they are
explicitly called, took a leading part with the Crusaders’ fleet which
on its way to the Holy Land for the Second Crusade, in the year 1147,
captured Lisbon from the Moors. Kentish men fought with that fine
leader, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, “Warden of the Cinque,”
when he fell on the French King’s fleet at Damme—just three years before
King John put his mark to Magna Charta.
It was a squadron of the Kentish ships of the Ports’ federation that, in
the year after Magna Charta, under one of England’s finest heroes and
greatest men, that grand fellow, stout-hearted Hubert de Burgh, Earl of
Kent, Chief Justiciar of England and Constable of Dover Castle, Cœur de
Lion’s favourite pupil in arms, saved England from invasion by rounding
up the fleet with which the renegade leader Eustace the Monk—“pirata
nequissimus” one old chronicler calls him—was making for the Thames,
and dealing the French the first of the series of knock-down blows of
which Nelson struck the last at Trafalgar. The story of the “Battle
of Bartholomew’s Day,” the 24th of August, 1217, is one we ought not
willingly to let die. There is hardly a finer tale in all our history
than that which tells how De Burgh’s sixteen Cinque Port warships from
Dover, with nineteen or twenty small craft, stood out to meet the Monk’s
hundred and odd ships—eighty of them the largest vessels of the time—off
the North Foreland; swept round them astern, weathered them and closed,
grappled them fast, under cover of a stinging fire of archery and
crossbow bolts, cut down their sails, and then, flinging up in the air
handfuls of quicklime to blow into the faces of the Frenchmen, boarded
and overpowered the enemy in hand-to-hand fight with falchion and pike
and battle-axe. They fought it out from early morning until the afternoon
was spent, when fifty-five ships of the Monk’s fleet had been taken, and
the rest, except fifteen ships that ran away, all sent to the bottom.
Again, in the tremendous Midsummer Day’s battle in the harbour of Sluys,
the “Trafalgar of the Middle Ages,” although to most people the event
is barely a schoolbook memory—the great naval victory that made Creçy
possible—once more the Ship-and-Lion flag at the masthead of vessels from
the four Kent ports was to the fore, well up in the van of King Edward’s
attacking fleet and in the thickest of the fighting. And at the battle of
“Espagnols-sur-Mer,” off Winchelsea, where again Edward the Third fought
in person, together with the Black Prince; off St. Mahé; and at Harfleur,
covering Henry the Fifth’s landing for the march that ended at Agincourt,
and in many another hard-fought action in the Narrow Seas after that,
Kentish men in the Kentish ships of the Ports’ Navy full well played
their part.
It was oak from the Weald of Kent for the most part that built the
men-of-war of Queen Elizabeth’s fleet which drove the Spanish Armada
through the Channel and North Sea to its doom on the reefs of Stornaway
and the quicksands of Connemara—ships timbered and planked with oak from
the Kentish Weald, and shaped and framed and clamped together in the
Kentish Dockyards of Deptford and Woolwich. Phineas Pett, a Kentish man
by birth, designed and built the famous _Sovereign of the Seas_; and his
grandson, Sir Phineas Pett, designed and built our first _Britannia_. The
_Great Harry_ was mostly built of Kentish oak; as was, at a later day,
Sir Richard Grenville’s “little” _Revenge_, and, at a still later day,
Nelson’s _Victory_, launched at Chatham.
* * * * *
It was a Man of Kent who, as admiral in chief command, planned and gave
the order for the capture of Gibraltar. It was another Man of Kent who,
as admiral second in command, carried that order out. Sir George Rooke,
one of the Rookes of Monk’s Horton, Kent—by far the ablest sea-officer
in the British service in the hundred years between Blake and Hawke—was
the Commander-in-Chief before Gibraltar. Byng, Sir George Byng, was the
second in command—the elder of the two Byngs known to naval history,
“Mediterranean Byng,” as he was called in the Navy in connection with a
later exploit of his, and remembered nowadays as the Byng who beat the
enemy and was not shot. He became Lord Viscount Torrington, and may, in
like manner, be distinguished from the other Lord Torrington of naval
history (Arthur Herbert) as the Torrington who beat the enemy and was not
court-martialled and broke.
A famous family of old-time Kent were the Byngs, seated at Wrotham ever
since the fifteenth century, more than one member of which came to the
front in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and the Stuart kings. Such as,
for instance, the fine old Kentish cavalier of Browning’s rousing song:
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing,
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along,
Fifty score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!
Fifty score strong! Fifty score strong!
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!
Other Kentish men of note associated directly with the Old Navy were Sir
Thomas Spert, founder of Trinity House, and captain of the _Harry Grace
à Dieu_ when Henry the Eighth crossed the Straits of Dover in her to
the Field of the Cloth of Gold; Sir William Hervey, of Kidbrooke, “who
greatly distinguished himself in boarding one of the vessels composing
the Spanish Armada,” and was raised to the peerage as Lord Hervey; old
Captain Dick Fogg, of Repton, near Ashford, captain under Charles the
First of the tenth whelp and the _Victory_ and of other men-of-war of
note; Kit Fogg, his son, who fought for England in half a score of
sea-fights under Charles the Second and down to the time of Queen Anne;
Christopher Gunman, a bold fireship and frigate captain in the Dutch
wars, captain of the Duke of York’s flagship at Solebay, who later on
nearly drowned the future James the Second; George Legge, afterwards the
Earl of Dartmouth, whose valour in battle at Solebay made his fortune, a
member of a Kent county family of long descent; two notable Commodores,
two St. Lo’s of Northfleet; Commodore Boys of the _Luxborough_ galley;
Sir Piercey Brett, who as a lieutenant went round the world with Anson,
and lived to be one of the most distinguished officers of his day; Sir
Thomas Boulden Thompson, who fought under Nelson at Teneriffe, at the
Nile, and at Copenhagen. These are a few names taken at random.
Sir Sidney Smith, the “Hero of Acre,” the man who made Bonaparte, as the
Emperor himself put it, “miss his destiny,” was of Kentish birth and
family, and learned his “three R’s” at Tunbridge School; and it was to
Lord Barham, as First Lord of the Admiralty, that Nelson reported himself
in September, 1805, when he volunteered to shorten his leave at home and
go out at once to fight the enemy at Trafalgar.
It was Kent, too, that gave England Captain John Harvey—one of the
Harveys of Eastrey, a family that for generations had sent its sons
into the Navy—captain of the _Brunswick_ on Lord Howe’s famous day,
the “Glorious First of June,” 1794, who fell mortally wounded in close
action with the French _Vengeur_. When the two ships first collided, the
master of the _Brunswick_ proposed to cut the _Vengeur_ clear. “No,”
answered Captain Harvey; “we’ve got her, and we’ll keep her!” After he
received his mortal wound he refused to let himself be carried off the
quarter-deck. He dragged himself down to the cockpit, saying as he went
off the deck, “Remember my last words: the colours of the _Brunswick_
must never be struck!” A brother, Henry Harvey, was the admiral whose
name is still to be met with on old tavern signboards here and there
in East Kent. Henry Harvey, captain of the _Ramillies_, came to his
brother’s aid on the 1st of June, and with three terrific broadsides
finished off the _Vengeur_ for the _Brunswick_, amid resounding cheers
from the _Brunswick’s_ men, and giving occasion to an officer in another
ship who was looking on to improvise on King David: “Behold how good and
joyful a thing it is for brethren to fight together in unity!”