How I became Captain of the “Inflexible”
The “Inflexible” in 1882 was a wonder. She had the thickest armour, the biggest guns, and the largest of everything beyond any ship in the world. A man could crawl up inside the bore of one of her guns. Controversy had raged round her. The greatest Naval Architects of the time quarrelled with each other. Endless inventions were on board her, accumulated there by cranks in the long years she took building. A German put a new type of gas into the engine room, which was lovely, and no smell, so bright, so simple! But when it chanced to escape from a leaky joint, it descended and did not rise, so it got into all the double bottoms and nearly polished off a goodly number of the crew. There were whistles in my cabin that yelled when the boiler was going to burst, or the ship was not properly steered, and so on. So to be Captain of the “Inflexible” was much sought after. As each name was discussed by the Board of Admiralty it got “butted,” that is to say, it would be remarked: “Yes, he’s a splendid officer and quite fit for it, but——” and then some reason was adduced why he should not be selected (he had murdered his father, or he had kissed the wrong girl!). Lord Northbrook, who was First Lord, got sick of these interminable discussions as to who should be Captain of the “Inflexible,” so he unexpectedly said one morning: “Do any of you know a young Captain called Fisher?” And they all—having no notion of what was in Lord Northbrook’s mind, and I being well known to each of them—had no “buts”! So he got up and said: “Well, that settles it. I’ll appoint him Captain of the “Inflexible.” I was about the Junior Captain in the biggest ship!
However, the “Inflexible” brought me to death’s door, as I was suddenly struck down by dysentery when ashore in charge of Alexandria after the bombardment. I had arranged an armoured train, with which we used to reconnoitre the enemy, who were in great strength and only a few miles off. The Officer who took my place in the armoured train the day after I was disabled by dysentery was knocked over by one of the enemy shells, and so it was telegraphed home that I was killed, and Queen Victoria telegraphed back for details, and very interesting leading articles appeared as to what I might have been had I lived. Lord Northbrook telegraphed for me to be sent home immediately, kindly adding that the Admiralty could build another “Inflexible” but not another Fisher.
As I was being carried on board, in a brief moment’s consciousness I heard the Doctor say: “He’ll never reach Gibraltar!” and then and there I determined I would live. When I got home, Lord Northbrook appointed me Head of the Gunnery School of the Navy. Queen Victoria asked me to stay at Osborne, and did so every year till she died; and this in spite of the fact that she hated the Admiralty, and didn’t much care for the Navy.
I kept on being ill from the effects of the dysentery for a long time, but Lord Northbrook never let go my hand. When all the doctors failed to cure me, I accidentally came across a lovely partner I used to waltz with, who begged me to go to Marienbad, in Bohemia. I did so, and in three weeks I was in robust health. It was the Pool of Bethesda, and this waltzing angel put me into it, for it really was a miracle, and I never again had a recurrence of my illness.
CHAPTER XI
NELSON
Lord Rosebery may have forgotten it, but in one of our perigrinations round and round Berkeley Square (I lived next door to him) he made a remark to me which made a deep and ineffaceable impression on me—that he felt sure one of the great reasons of Nelson being so in the hearts of his countrymen was the conviction that he had been slighted by Authority and even so after his death. Unquestionably his brother Admirals were envious. He was kept kicking his heels at Merton on half pay in momentous times, and so poor as to necessitate his getting advances from his Banker. He was cavalierly treated when he was told to haul down his flag and come home after the Battle of the Nile. I know all about the Queen of Naples and Lady Hamilton; but what was that in comparison with his astounding genius for war and his hold on the Fleet? And I want to draw attention to this delightful trait in his glorious character. Supposing (what I don’t admit) that there was any irregularity in his attachment to Lady Hamilton, he never disguised his feeling for her, or his gratitude to her for all she did for his grievously wounded and frail body after the Nile and her splendid conduct in getting his Fleet revictualled and stored by the Neapolitans through her influence with the King and Queen, when all the Authorities were against it. He used to ask his Captains to drink her health, and said (in my opinion quite truly), that if there were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons.
Then look at the Battle of the Nile! It was an incomparable battle—but it only made Nelson into a Common or Garden Lord; when the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, which was practically won by Nelson, made Sir John Jervis into an Earl. History is so written that no end of literary gentlemen will endeavour to confute all I am saying by extracts (or, as they will call them, facts) from Contemporary Documents and Newspapers. Well now, to-day, read the Morning Post and Daily News on the same incident! (For myself I prefer the Daily News.) Again, Nelson died poor. That appeals. What Prize Money might he not have accumulated, had he chased dollars as he chased the enemy! Then with his dying breath, mortally wounded in the hour of the greatest of sea victories, he asks his country to provide for his friend as he could do nothing for her himself; and, whatever may have been her faults, she had nursed and tended him, not only when sorely wounded after the Nile, but afterwards when his frail body was almost continuously racked with pain. She died in penury and found a pauper’s grave in a foreign land. A passing Englishman paid her funeral expenses. It makes one rise up and say “Damn!”
That vivid immortal spirit, whose life was his country’s, who never flogged a man; whose heart was tender and “worn on his sleeve for daws to peck at,” has to suffer even now for miscreants who published his letters to this friend of his that only her eye was meant to see. Also, Prudes nowadays forget how very different was the standard of morals at that time. Does not history tell us that Dukes were the honoured results of illicit relationships? And we don’t think any the worse of Abraham because he was the husband of more than one wife. But let that pass. I heard yesterday that a distinguished Bishop said he loved my sentiments but not my words. But fancy! Nelson left on half-pay in War! It’s unbelievable, but yet it so happened. It was envy; and he was no sycophant, so he couldn’t be a courtier. It was so with him as with our great Exemplar: “The Common People heard him gladly.” And what a “Send-off” it was on Southsea beach at Portsmouth when he embarked for Trafalgar! What a scene it was, with these Common People surging round him—none else were there, and neither the King nor the Admiralty sent a dummy, as is customary, to represent them. But isn’t it always the way? General Booth and Doctor Barnardo weren’t buried in Westminster Abbey; but they had a more glorious funeral—millions of the “Common People” followed them to their graves, unmarshalled and unsolicited. Give me the Common People, and a fig for your State ceremonial!
1904. Aged 63. Admiral.
Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth.
Perhaps in this cursory view of Nelson one may be permitted to seize on what appears to me the central incident of his life, which so peculiarly illustrates his extraordinary genius for War. His audacity! His imagination! His considered rashness! I think myself the Battle of the Nile is that incident—for this reason: that it has been recorded in writing what actually occurred to Lord Nelson and to the French Admiral at the very same instant of time—each having at his side the very same officer in each Fleet. It was sunset. Nelson was walking the deck with the Navigating Officer of the Fleet—the “Master of the Fleet” was his technical title. The look-out man at the mast-head reports seeing on the horizon the mast-heads of a mass of ships at anchor—it was the French Fleet in Aboukir Bay. Nelson instantly stops in his walk and orders the signal to the Fleet to make all possible sail and steer for the enemy. He is remonstrated with, both by his own officers on board and by his favourite Captain of the Fleet at going in to fight the French Fleet without any charts. If he waited till the sun rose, they would be able to see from aloft the shoal water and so steer with safety alongside the enemy. Nelson answers his favourite Captain that if that Captain’s ship does get on shore, as he fears, then she’ll be a buoy to show him where anyhow one shoal is. Troubridge did get on shore, and he was a buoy. Nelson went in. The French Admiral blew up at midnight in his flagship the “Orient” and Casabianca, his Captain, and his son are the theme of a great poem: “The boy stood on the burning deck.”
The French Admiral was walking up and down the deck with his Master of the Fleet, when his look-out man at the mast-head reported on the horizon the topmast sails of a number of ships. The French Admiral stopped in his walk as abruptly as Nelson and at the very same instant that Nelson stopped in his walk; but he said “It’s the English Fleet, but they won’t come in to-night. They have no charts!” So he did not recall his men from the shore—and in the result his fleet was destroyed, and the one or two ships that did escape under Admiral Dumanoir were captured. And Napoleon wrote, “But for Nelson at the Nile I would have been Conqueror of the World”—or words to that effect. And yet Nelson was only made a common or garden Lord for this great battle, and spent two years on the Continent kicking his heels about to pass the time before returning to England. Imagine! he wasn’t wanted! I think Lord Rosebery was right—Nelson being slighted has led to his greater appreciation.
Again—even a greater slight, a slight he feels more—when he looks down from his monument in Trafalgar Square, does he see anywhere those splendid Captains of his? But let alone those Captains of his—does he see anywhere a single Admiral? Not one. And yet who made England what she is? Those splendid Sea Heroes are in very deed “England’s forgotten worthies”! Yes! Nelson looks down from his isolated column, and looks in vain for Hawke, Dundonald, Howe, Hood, Rodney, Cornwallis, Benbow, “and a great multitude which no man can number”—all Seamen of Deathless Fame, fighting single frigate actions, cutting out the enemy’s ships from under the guns of forts, sending in fire ships and burning the enemy’s vessels thought to be safe in harbour under the guns of their forts—Doers of Imperishable Deeds![13] Death found them fighting. We have heaps of statues to everybody else. Indeed such a lot of them that they reach down as far off as Knightsbridge. But who knows about Quiberon—one of the greatest of sea fights? And if you mention Hawke, your friend probably thinks only of his worthy descendant—the cricketer.
An old woman eating a penny bun asked a friend of mine called Buggins, when she was passing through Trafalgar Square, “What are them lions a-guarding of?” Buggins told her that her penny bun would have cost her threepence if it hadn’t been for the man them lions were a-guarding of.
When I see the Duke of York’s Column still allowed to rear its futile head, and scores of other fifth-rate nonentities glorified by statues, I thank God I’m a sailor—we don’t want to be in that galley!
I began my sea life with the last of Nelson’s Captains, through Nelson’s own niece; and I fitly, I think, among my last words may ask the Nation to do justice to Nelson’s Trade! This country owes all she has to the sea, it was the sea that won the late war, and if we’d stuck to the sea we should not now be thinking of bankruptcy and some of us imagining Carthage! We were led away by Militarist folly to be a conscript Nation and it will take us all we know to recover from it. We shall recover, for England never succumbs!
CHAPTER XII
LETTERS TO LORD ESHER
Lord Esher has kindly sent me three bulky volumes of letters I wrote him from 1903 onwards—I have others also. Many of them are unquotable, so blasting are they in their truth to existing reputations. It’s not my business to blast reputations—so the real gems are missing.
Somebody felt in 1903 that the War Office was wrong, and so a Committee was set up with Lord Esher as President, Sir George Clarke and myself the other two members; and that very able and not sufficiently recognised man, now General Sir C. Ellison, was Secretary. How I got there is still a mystery; but it was a great enjoyment as Generals came to stay with me at Admiralty House, Portsmouth—I was the Port Admiral. I always explained to them I was Lord Esher’s facile dupe and Sir George Clarke’s servile copyist, and thereby avoided odium personally (I was getting all the odium I wanted from the Admirals!).
As usual, when we reported, the Government didn’t appreciate those inestimable words “Totus Porcus” (No Government—anyhow no English Government—ever yet went “the whole hog”—“Compromise” is the British God!).[14]
1903 [Sir John Fisher, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth].
... My humble idea is that “men are everything and material nothing” whether it’s working the War Office or fighting a fleet! So some day I am going to try and entice you to read my lectures to the Officers of the Mediterranean Fleet because the spirit intended to be diffused by them is what I think is the one great want in the British Army, and without it 50,000 Lord Eshers would be no good in producing “Angel Gabriel” organisations! The Military system is rotten to the very core! You want to begin ab ovo! The best of the Generals are even worse than the subalterns because they are more hardened sinners! I fear I shocked Ellison, but he is simply first class and I most heartily congratulate you on your selection.... I really begin to feel I never ought to have joined you as I have some very big jobs on now which require incessant personal attention and this must be my excuse for not coming up to see Girouard this week. I have the new Civil Lord staying with me and I have got to prevent him joining with a lot of asses at the Admiralty, who want to throw half a million of money in the gutter.
* * * * *
Nov. 19th, 1903.
On my return I found the first proofs of your three papers. I have studied them with close care and interest. There are some points of detail which puzzle me, but it seems you are absolutely convincing on the main lines. What I venture to emphasise is this:—We cannot reform the Army Administration until it is laid down what it is the Administration is going to Administer! For instance, the Citizen Army for Home Defence! Are we going to have it? If so, then you will certainly want a Member of the Board or Council to superintend it! Again, I say, the Regular Army (as distinguished from the Home Army and the Indian Army) should be regarded as a projectile to be fired by the Navy! The Navy embarks it and lands it where it can do most mischief!—Thus, the Germans are ready to land a large Military Force on the Cotentin Peninsula in case of War with France and my German Military Colleague at the Hague Conference told me this comparatively small Military Force would have the effect of demobilising half a million of men who would thus be taken away from the German Frontier—they never know where the devil the brutes are going to land! Consequently instead of our Military Manœuvres being on Salisbury Plain and its vicinity (ineffectually aping the vast Continental Armies!) we should be employing ourselves in joint Naval and Military Manœuvres embarking 50,000 men at Portsmouth and landing them at Milford Haven or Bantry Bay!—This would make the Foreigners sit up! Fancy! in the Mediterranean Fleet we disembarked 12,000 men with guns in 19 minutes! What do you think of that! and we should hurry up the soldiers! No doubt there would be good-natured chaff! Once we embarked 7,000 soldiers at Malta and took them round and landed them elsewhere for practice, and I remember having a complaint that the Bluejackets said “Come on, you bloody lobsters! Wake up!” However all the above en passant. I expect the Prime Minister must have pretty good ideas now crystallised as to how the Army should be constituted—let us ask him for this at once—if he hasn’t got it, let us tell him we must have it, because as I said at starting, you can’t organise an administration without clearly knowing what you are going to administer. This is a hasty bit of writing but not a hasty thought.
* * * * *
1903.
Nov. 25th.
I send you two books—a more portly volume I hesitate to send!—Also I fear without some verbal explanation you may not see the application to Military matters of these purely Naval Notes, but they do apply in the spirit if not in the letter! For instance I had an overwhelming confidence that every Officer and man in the Mediterranean Fleet had also an overwhelming confidence that we thoroughly knew all we had to do in case of war in every conceivable eventuality! Well! that is the confidence you also want in an Army! Have you got it!
* * * * *
Dec. 2nd.
Here is a letter just come from Prince Louis of Battenberg illustrating what I was saying to you this morning as to a Member of the Board of Admiralty however junior in rank being accepted as a superior controlling authority by all in rank above him. An Officer actually at the moment serving under Prince Louis in the Admiralty itself being put over Prince Louis in the Admiralty itself, and sending for him and giving him orders! I don’t know that it would be possible to have a stronger case to quote when by and by we have to defend or rather have to lay down and define the status of the Members of the New War Office Board. Inglefield, the new Naval Lord, being a Junior Captain, will be sending for Admiral Boys, Director of Transports, who is specially under him and who I rather think entered the service before Inglefield was born.
* * * * *
Dec. 4th.
... You are right about the Submarines!
“We strain at the gnat of perfection and swallow the camel of unreadiness,” and that permeates every branch of Naval and Military Administration, forgetting the homely proverb that “half a loaf is better than no bread!” but please God! “the dauntless three” [Sir Geo. Clarke, Lord Esher and Sir John Fisher] (as I see we are now called) will change all that! “We’ll stagger humanity” as old Kruger said!
* * * * *
Dec. 7th.
Arnold-Forster [Secretary for War] has been here three days and he is most cordially with us. I wish you had been here with him. He places implicit trust in us. He has shown me an outline of an excellent memorandum proposing an immediate reduction of 300,000 men and he will let me have a copy as soon as printed, also a memorandum of his difficulties in the War Office.... This is another proof of the value of the advice of my Military Nicodemus (he is one of the Sanhedrin!) that there must be an active “clear-out” of the present military gang, root and branch, lock, stock, and gunbarrel! Sir John French and General Smith-Dorrien (lately Adjutant-General in India) are names I have suggested to Arnold-Forster as members of his new Board.
* * * * *
Dec. 11th.
... Don’t forget your phrase “the biennial fortnightly picnic”! it’s splendid! That will fetch the mothers of families and reconcile them to the Swiss system! I hope you won’t lose any time in talking to the Prime Minister and showing him the immense advantages that will accrue from his turning over further matters to us instead of dear Arnold-Forster “raising Cain” as he surely will do! It would be so easy to associate Sir John French, Hildyard and Smith-Dorrien (very curious that all these three Generals were first in the Navy and got their early education there) with us for the further matters.
* * * * *
Dec. 17th.
Another Military Nicodemus came to see me yesterday. I had never met him before! He occupies a high official position. He highly approved of you and me, “but he had never heard of the third member of the Committee. What a pity they had not put a soldier on the Committee!” (How these Christians hate one another!) But the point of his remarks was the present system of Army Promotions, which he said was as iniquitous and baleful in its influence as could be possibly conceived, and then he illustrated by cases of certain officers made Generals. My only object in writing this to you is Selborne having spoken of the Admiralty method where the first Lord has the Naval Members of the Board in consultation, but he and his Private Secretary (who is always a Naval Officer of note) have the real responsibility.
* * * * *
Dec. 20th.
—— is and always has been drastic in his ideas of military reform, and I cordially agree with him and Stead agrees with me that the British Public loves a root and branch reform. One remnant left of the old gang or the organisations and you taint the whole new scheme!
Don’t fear about Arnold-Forster. He will come with us all right—you are absolutely sound on the Patronage question, but I would have the soldiers precisely on the same footing as Tyrwhitt at the Admiralty [Private Secretary. He was my Flag Captain] for detailed reasons I will give you when we meet. It is an ideal arrangement (the Private Secretary at Admiralty). He has the power, he pulls the strings, he has no position, he causes no jealousy, he talks to all the Lords as their servant, and he manipulates them all and oils the machine for his special master, the First Lord, to perpetrate a job when necessary! Make him a big-wig like an Official Military Secretary, and all this goes—he becomes too big for his boots!
* * * * *
Dec. 21st.
... I’ve been bombarded by Stead. I tried to boom him off but the scoundrel said if I didn’t see him, he would have to invent! I pointed out to him my métier was that of the mole! Trace me by upheavals! When you see the Admirals rise it’s that d—d fellow Jack Fisher taking the rise out of them! So I implored Stead to keep me out of the Magazine Rifle [this was my name for The Review of Reviews] or he will interfere with my professional career of crime. So please use your influence with him in the same direction. You and Clarke are the two legitimate members of the Committee to be trotted out, as you are both so well known. No sailor is ever known. The King was awfully good about this. He said “Sailors went all round the world but never went in it”! Stead is a very keen observer, as you know. He said our Committee could do anything, and that neither the Press nor Parliament nor the Public would tolerate any Military opposition to us because the whole Military hierarchy was utterly discredited from top to bottom; but he doubted The Times—I don’t. Further he expressed his firm belief there would be a change of Government possibly at Easter but certainly soon—if so we ought on that ground alone to “dig out” with our Report.
* * * * *
1903.
(No date.)
Knollys was very much impressed by the possibilities of the Submarine when he was down here. He saw them to better advantage than you did as it was blowing half a gale of wind with a good sea on when he saw the evolutionising! and it was very striking. I am working subterraneously about the Submarines and there are already “upheavals” in consequence.
* * * * *
1904.
Jan. 5th.
... I yesterday sent all my plans to French for embarking the whole of his First Army Corps on Monday, June 27th (Full Moon) at Portsmouth, and he is coming here with his Chief Staff Officer, Sir F. Stopford, next week, and we’ll land him like Hoche’s Army in Bantry Bay! [Sir John French commanded at Aldershot. The War Office stopped this.]
* * * * *
1904.
Jan. 17th.
... For the reason I have given you at length in another letter I am convinced that French should be 1st Military Member and under him there should be 3 Directors (not Hieroglyphics such as A.Q.M.G., D.A.Q.M.G., A.Q.M.G. 2, etc., etc.).
Sir F. Stopford—Director of Intelligence and Mobilisation.
Gen. Grierson—Director of Training.
Gen. Maxwell—Director of Home Defence.
Also I still maintain that Smith-Dorrien and Plumer should be the 2nd and 3rd Military Members, and perhaps one young distinguished Indian Officer as 4th Military Lord. Haig, Inspector-General of Cavalry in India, should be brought home as the principal Director under 2nd Military Lord. We must have youth and enthusiasm, because it is only by the agency of young and enthusiastic believers in the immense revolution which must be carried out, that our scheme can bear fruit. The first thing of all is that every one of the “old gang” must be cleared out! “lock, stock, and gunbarrel, bob and sinker!” The next is that every one of the new men must be successful men, and must be young and enthusiastic and cordial supporters of the new policy—over every fellow’s door at the War Office under the new régime has got to be written in large letters:—
“No looking back. Remember Lot’s wife!”
* * * * *
1904.
(No date.)
The next pressing and important matter we have to deal with is to get the right men as Members of the new Army Council. Either you or Clarke have made a splendid observation that a rotten system may be run effectively by good men but duffers would spoil the work of the Angel Gabriel!... If we don’t get in men who will enthusiastically adopt our scheme and work with us, LET US THROW UP AT ONCE! as we shall only have an awful fiasco and I (for one) don’t want to go down with my grey hairs to the grave sorrowing and discredited! Therefore I suggest to you that we should agree on our men and run them at once! Like fighting the French Fleet! it’s half the battle gained to take the offensive, propose our men, give their advantages and ask them (our enemies) what they have to say against them and suggest every beastly thing we can against any likely competitors—Selection by Disparagement! I put forward names in enclosed paper simply as a basis.
1st Military Member—Sir John French, because he never failed in Africa (the grave of Military Reputations). He is young and energetic, has commanded the 1st Army Corps so far with conspicuous success and has the splendid gift of choosing the right men to work with him (vide his Staff in S. Africa, the best Staff out there) and as 1st Military Lord it would be his special function to prepare the Army in the Field for fighting, and who therefore better to command it when war breaks out, as his functions then at the War Office would disappear and be transferred to the Commander-in-Chief at the seat of war—Further, he is an enthusiastic and out-and-out believer in joint Naval and Military operations as the proper species of manœuvres for this Nation. In this belief he is almost solitary amongst all the Generals, who all want to play at the German Army. “Plump for French and Efficiency!” Any vote given against French is a vote given for Kelly-Kenny instead!
2nd Military Member.—Smith-Dorrien. Has been with great success in every campaign for the last 20 years, has been Adjutant-General in India (a much bigger billet than Adjutant-General in London!). He is young and energetic and is an extremely conciliatory and accomplished gentleman and would work the personnel of the Army (which would be his chief function as the Second Military Member) far better than some “safe” old man because he is in touch with the young generation. He took a Marine Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet as his A.D.C. when appointed a Brigadier in South Africa, because he considered him the ablest young officer in the Malta Garrison! Utterly shocking all the Military Mandarins. “Vote for Smith-Dorrien and Progress!”
“Every vote given against Smith-Dorrien is a vote for ——” [A lady who then “ran” the War Office!]
3rd Military Member. Supplies and Transport.—General Plumer. The only man besides French that never failed in anything he undertook in Africa! They say he has “the luck of the Devil,” but the fact is that “the luck of the Devil” is wholly attributable to a minute attention to anything that will ensure the success of his (Satanic Majesty’s) designs, and he leaves nothing to chance! Such is Plumer! He also is young, energetic and enthusiastic.
“Vote for Plumer and a full belly!”
“Every vote given against Plumer is a vote given for paper boots and no ammunition!”
4th Military Member—General F. G. Slade, now Inspector General of Garrison Artillery—has served in six campaigns and always come out top: has been in the Horse, Field and Garrison Artillery and commanded at Gibraltar. He is young and energetic and enthusiastic and will blow the trumpet of the Board (as well as his own!).
“Vote for Slade and hitting the Target!”
“Every vote given against Slade will be a vote given in favour of some d—d old woman.”...
* * * * *
1904.
Jan. 31st.
Post Office Telegraphs. Government Despatch No.... “Await Arrival.”
Lord Esher Windsor Castle.
In reply to your telegram just received our committee manœuvres commenced at Portsmouth on December 30 beating Moses by nine days as he took 40 days before he got down from the Mount with his report but if you refer to submarine manœuvres I have last night put them off to February twenty third to last three weeks from that date stop I see we are accused of not giving credit to the good motives that have always actuated the War Office stop Why is the War Office like hell answer because it is paved with good intentions Sir John Fisher Portsmouth.
[Not bad for an official telegram!]
* * * * *
1904.
Feb. 1st.
... I really think it is of extreme importance that you should be on the spot daily just now as without doubt “wire-pulling” of the “Eve” order will be going on. When the other day I met those three ladies on the back stairs of the War Office all in picture hats and smelling of White Rose or some other beastly thing, I thought to myself “How about Capua?” for really they were very nice looking indeed. You know the story about them having the entrée to the War Office!
* * * * *
1904.
Feb. 28th.
Best of Chairmen! Snatch a moment to look through enclosed ... as I am dead gone on starting the idea of a general list of officers, and general uniform and early entry and they will all go to sea, but I don’t want to mention that yet awhile; it will come of itself when ⅗ths of every man-of-war’s crew are soldiers; that’s not many years hence and will bring the income tax down to 3 pence in the pound! Mark my words! this will come, but it’s no use giving people premature shocks, so let me keep it quiet now. My idea is to acclimatise the chosen few to it first of all and then gradually spread it about, and when Kitchener comes home he will see it through. (He shares my view, I know.)
* * * * *
1904.
(?) March.
... Campbell-Bannerman told me last night he intended to make a special point of the Secretary of State’s responsibility and power being unduly lessened, and he would not admit that the new order of things makes him the same as the First Lord of the Admiralty!... To avoid the slightest misconception that may arise as to the lessening of the parliamentary responsibility of the Secretary of State for War by the formation of the Army Council or of his supreme authority as the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Army, it’s only necessary to reiterate and emphasise the statement that he is absolutely in the same position as the First Lord of the Admiralty, the patent constituting the Army Council being absolutely similar to the Admiralty Patent and no question has ever been raised nor is there any doubt whatever of the reform and present responsibility of the First Lord of the Admiralty as the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Navy.
* * * * *
1904.
March 10th.
Just back from the English Channel with the Submarines and am very enthusiastic!... We really must arrange to get the British Army to Sea somehow or other! Yesterday all the mice died in their cages and two of the crew fainted, but the young Lieutenant of the Submarine didn’t seem to care a d—n whether they all died so long as he bagged the Battleship he was after, and he practically got her and then he came up in his Submarine to breathe! Depend on it we shall have more “Niles” and “Trafalgars” so long as we continue to propagate such “young bloods” as this! But see how splendid if we could shove the same “ginger” into the young Military aspirants, and they all came from the same schools! but the whole secret is to catch them very young and mould them while they are then so plastic and receptive to be just what you want them. Another submarine had an explosion which made the interior “Hell” for some seconds (as the Submarine was bottled up and diving to evade a Destroyer who had caught her with a hook) but the Submarine Lieutenant saw them all d—d first before he would rise up and be caught. Another young fire-eater had his periscope smashed but bagged a battleship nevertheless by coming up stealthily to blow just like a beaver, and look round. It really is all lovely! but what I am writing about is—you must embark an Army Corps every year and give them sea training.