Memories, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher

by Baron John Arbuthnot Fisher Fisher

Extract from a Letter from Sir John Fisher to King Edward

I have just received Reich’s book. It is one unmitigated mass of misrepresentations.

In March this year, 1907, it is an absolute fact that Germany had not laid down a single “Dreadnought,” nor had she commenced building a single Battleship or Big Cruiser for eighteen months.

Germany has been paralysed by the “Dreadnought.”

The more the German Admiralty looked into her qualities the more convinced they became that they must follow suit, and the more convinced they were that the whole of their existing Battle Fleet was utterly useless because utterly wanting in gun power! For instance, half of the whole German Battle Fleet is only about equal to the English Armoured Cruisers.

The German Admiralty wrestled with the “Dreadnought” problem for eighteen months, and did nothing. Why? Because it meant their spending twelve and a half million sterling on widening and deepening the Kiel Canal, and in dredging all their harbours and all the approaches to their harbours, because if they did not do so it would be no use building German “Dreadnoughts” because they could not float! But there was another reason never yet made public. It is this: Our Battleships draw too much water to get close into the German Coast and harbours (we have to build ours big to go all over the world with great fuel endurance). But the German Admiralty is going, is indeed obliged, to spend twelve and a half million sterling in dredging so as to allow these existing ships of ours to go and fight them in their own waters when before they could not do so. It was, indeed, a Machiavellian interference of Providence on our behalf that brought about the evolution of the “Dreadnought.”

To return to Mr. Reich. He makes the flesh of the British public creep at page 78 et seq., by saying what the Germans are going to do. He does not say what they have done and what we have done.

Now this is the truth: England has seven “Dreadnoughts” and three “Dreadnought” Battle Cruisers (which last three ships are, in my opinion, far better than “Dreadnoughts”); total, ten “Dreadnoughts” built and building, while Germany, in March last, had not begun even one “Dreadnought.” It is doubtful if, even so late as May last, a German “Dreadnought” had been commenced. It will therefore be seen, from this one fact, what a liar Mr. Reich is.

Again, at page 86, he makes out the Germans are stronger than we are in torpedo craft, and states that England has only 24 fully commissioned Destroyers.

Again, what are the real facts? As stated in an Admiralty official document, dated August 22nd, 1907: “We have 123 Destroyers and 40 Submarines. The Germans have 48 Destroyers and 1 Submarine.”

The whole of our Destroyers and Submarines are absolutely efficient and ready for instant battle and are fully manned, except a portion of the Destroyers, which have four-fifths of their crew on board. Quite enough for instant service, and can be filled up under an hour to full crew. And they are all of them constantly being exercised.

There is one more piece of information I have to give: Admiral Tirpitz, the German Minister of Marine, has just stated, in a secret official document, that the English Navy is now four times stronger than the German Navy. Yes, that is so, and we are going to keep the British Navy at that strength, vide ten “Dreadnoughts” built and building, and not one German “Dreadnought” commenced last May. But we don’t want to parade all this to the world at large. Also we might have Parliamentary trouble. A hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons have just prepared one of the best papers I have ever read, shewing convincingly that we don’t want to lay down any new ships at all because we are so strong. My answer is: We can’t be too strong. Sir Charles Dilke, in the United Service Magazine for this month, says: “Sir George Clarke points out that the Navy is now, in October, 1907, stronger than at any previous time in all History,” and he adds that Sir George Clarke, in making this printed statement, makes it with the full knowledge of all the secrets of the Government, because, as Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, he, Sir George Clarke, has access to every bit of information that exists in regard to our own and foreign Naval strength.

King Edward VII. (who died May 6th, 1910) saying Good-bye to Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, 1910.

(Lord Fisher 69, so also the King.)

N.B.—The King thought the 1841 vintage very good. Certainly good men were born that year!

In conclusion, a letter in The Times of September 17th, 1907, should be read. The writer of the letter understates the case, as the British Home Fleet is twenty per cent. stronger than he puts it.

As regards Mr. Reich’s Naval statements, they are a réchauffé of the mendacious drivel of a certain English newspaper. I got a letter last night from a trustworthy person à propos of these virulent and persistent newspaper attacks as to the weakness of the Navy, stating that the recent inspection of the Fleet by Your Majesty has knocked the bottom out of the case against the Admiralty.

I don’t mean to say that we are not now menaced by Germany. Her diplomacy is, and always has been, and always will be, infinitely superior to ours. Observe our treatment of the Sultan as compared with Germany. The Sultan is the most important personage in the whole world for England. He lifts his finger, and Egypt and India are in a blaze of religious disaffection. That great American, Mr. Choate, swore to me before going to the Hague Conference that he would side with England over submarine mines and other Naval matters, but Germany has diplomatically collared the United States absolutely at The Hague.

The only thing in the world that England has to fear is Germany, and none else.

We have no idea, at the Foreign Office, of coping with the German propaganda in America. Our Naval Attaché in the United States tells me that the German Emperor is unceasing in his efforts to win over the American Official authorities, and that the German Embassy at Washington is far and away in the ascendant with the American Government.

I hope I shall not be considered presumptuous in saying all this. I humbly confess I am neither a diplomatist nor a politician. I thank God I am neither. The former are senile, and the latter are liars. But it all does seem such simple common sense to me that for our Army we require mobile troops as against sedentary garrisons, and that our military intervention in any very great Continental struggle is unwise, remembering what Napoleon said on that point with such emphasis and such sure conception of war, and that great combined Naval and Military expeditions should be our rôle. In the splendid words of Sir Edward Grey: “The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy.”

The foundation of our policy is that the communications of the Empire must be kept open by a predominant Fleet, and ipso facto such a Fleet will suffice to allay the fears of the “old women of both sexes” in regard to the invasion of England or the invasion of her Colonies.