OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
| The Seventeen Points of the First Lord | [206] | |
| Facsimile of Admiralty’s Instructions to the Commander-in-Chief at Devonport | facing page | [474] |
CHAPTER I
THE VIALS OF WRATH
1870–1904
“To put on record what were their grounds of feud.”
Herodotus.
The Unending Task—Ruthless War—The Victorian Age—National Pride—National Accountability—The Franco-German Feud—Bismarck’s Apprehension—His Precautions and Alliances—The Bismarckian Period and System—The Young Emperor and Caprivi—The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1892—The Balance of Power—Anglo-German Ties—Anglo-German Estrangement—Germany and the South African War—The Beginnings of the German Navy—The Birth of a Challenge—The Anglo-Japanese Alliance—The Russo-Japanese War—Consequences—The Anglo-French Agreement of 1904—Lord Rosebery’s Comment—The Triple Entente—Degeneration in Turkey and Austria—The Long Descent—The Sinister Hypothesis.
It was the custom in the palmy days of Queen Victoria for statesmen to expatiate upon the glories of the British Empire, and to rejoice in that protecting Providence which had preserved us through so many dangers and brought us at length into a secure and prosperous age. Little did they know that the worst perils had still to be encountered and that the greatest triumphs were yet to be won.
Children were taught of the Great War against Napoleon as the culminating effort in the history of the British peoples, and they looked on Waterloo and Trafalgar as the supreme achievements of British arms by land and sea. These prodigious victories, eclipsing all that had gone before, seemed the fit and predestined ending to the long drama of our island race, which had advanced over a thousand years from small and weak beginnings to a foremost position in the world. Three separate times in three different centuries had the British people rescued Europe from a military domination. Thrice had the Low Countries been assailed; by Spain, by the French Monarchy, by the French Empire. Thrice had British war and policy, often maintained single-handed, overthrown the aggressor. Always at the outset the strength of the enemy had seemed overwhelming, always the struggle had been prolonged through many years and across awful hazards, always the victory had at last been won: and the last of all the victories had been the greatest of all, gained after the most ruinous struggle and over the most formidable foe.
Surely that was the end of the tale as it was so often the end of the book. History showed the rise, culmination, splendour, transition and decline of States and Empires. It seemed inconceivable that the same series of tremendous events through which since the days of Queen Elizabeth we had three times made our way successfully, should be repeated a fourth time and on an immeasurably larger scale. Yet that is what has happened, and what we have lived to see.
The Great War through which we have passed differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived with reason that their very existence was at stake. Germany having let Hell loose kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals often on a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered, often slowly, in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries. Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilised, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility.
But nothing daunted the valiant heart of man. Son of the Stone Age, vanquisher of nature with all her trials and monsters, he met the awful and self-inflicted agony with new reserves of fortitude. Freed in the main by his intelligence from mediæval fears, he marched to death with sombre dignity. His nervous system was found in the twentieth century capable of enduring physical and moral stresses before which the simpler natures of primeval times would have collapsed. Again and again to the hideous bombardment, again and again from the hospital to the front, again and again to the hungry submarines, he strode unflinching. And withal, as an individual, preserved through these torments the glories of a reasonable and compassionate mind.
In the beginning of the twentieth century men were everywhere unconscious of the rate at which the world was growing. It required the convulsion of the war to awaken the nations to the knowledge of their strength. For a year after the war had begun hardly anyone understood how terrific, how almost inexhaustible were the resources in force, in substance, in virtue, behind every one of the combatants. The vials of wrath were full: but so were the reservoirs of power. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars and still more after 1870, the accumulation of wealth and health by every civilised community had been practically unchecked. Here and there a retarding episode had occurred. The waves had recoiled after advancing: but the mounting tides still flowed. And when the dread signal of Armageddon was made, mankind was found to be many times stronger in valour, in endurance, in brains, in science, in apparatus, in organisation, not only than it had ever been before, but than even its most audacious optimists had dared to dream.
The Victorian Age was the age of accumulation; not of a mere piling up of material wealth, but of the growth and gathering in every land of all those elements and factors which go to make up the power of States. Education spread itself over the broad surface of the millions. Science had opened the limitless treasure-house of nature. Door after door had been unlocked. One dim mysterious gallery after another had been lighted up, explored, made free for all: and every gallery entered gave access to at least two more. Every morning when the world woke up, some new machinery had started running. Every night while the world had supper, it was running still. It ran on while all men slept.
And the advance of the collective mind was at a similar pace. Disraeli said of the early years of the nineteenth century, “In those days England was for the few—and for the very few.” Every year of Queen Victoria’s reign saw those limits broken and extended. Every year brought in new thousands of people in private stations who thought about their own country and its story and its duties towards other countries, to the world and to the future, and understood the greatness of the responsibilities of which they were the heirs. Every year diffused a wider measure of material comfort among the higher ranks of labour. Substantial progress was made in mitigating the hard lot of the mass. Their health improved, their lives and the lives of their children were brightened, their stature grew, their securities against some of their gravest misfortunes were multiplied, their numbers greatly increased.
Thus when all the trumpets sounded, every class and rank had something to give to the need of the State. Some gave their science and some their wealth, some gave their business energy and drive, and some their wonderful personal prowess, and some their patient strength or patient weakness. But none gave more, or gave more readily, than the common man or woman who had nothing but a precarious week’s wages between them and poverty, and owned little more than the slender equipment of a cottage, and the garments in which they stood upright. Their love and pride of country, their loyalty to the symbols with which they were familiar, their keen sense of right and wrong as they saw it, led them to outface and endure perils and ordeals the like of which men had not known on earth.
But these developments, these virtues, were no monopoly of any one nation. In every free country, great or small, the spirit of patriotism and nationality grew steadily; and in every country, bond or free, the organisation and structure into which men were fitted by the laws, gathered and armed this sentiment. Far more than their vices, the virtues of nations ill-directed or mis-directed by their rulers, became the cause of their own undoing and of the general catastrophe. And these rulers, in Germany, Austria, and Italy; in France, Russia or Britain, how far were they to blame? Was there any man of real eminence and responsibility whose devil heart conceived and willed this awful thing? One rises from the study of the causes of the Great War with a prevailing sense of the defective control of individuals upon world fortunes. It has been well said, “there is always more error than design in human affairs.” The limited minds even of the ablest men, their disputed authority, the climate of opinion in which they dwell, their transient and partial contributions to the mighty problem, that problem itself so far beyond their compass, so vast in scale and detail, so changing in its aspect—all this must surely be considered before the complete condemnation of the vanquished or the complete acquittal of the victors can be pronounced. Events also got on to certain lines, and no one could get them off again. Germany clanked obstinately, recklessly, awkwardly towards the crater and dragged us all in with her. But fierce resentment dwelt in France, and in Russia there were wheels within wheels. Could we in England perhaps by some effort, by some sacrifice of our material interests, by some compulsive gesture, at once of friendship and command, have reconciled France and Germany in time and formed that grand association on which alone the peace and glory of Europe would be safe? I cannot tell. I only know that we tried our best to steer our country through the gathering dangers of the armed peace without bringing her to war or others to war, and when these efforts failed, we drove through the tempest without bringing her to destruction.
There is no need here to trace the ancient causes of quarrel between the Germans and the French, to catalogue the conflicts with which they have scarred the centuries, nor to appraise the balance of injury or of provocation on one side or the other. When on the 18th of January, 1871, the triumph of the Germans was consolidated by the Proclamation of the German Empire in the Palace of Versailles, a new volume of European history was opened. “Europe,” it was said, “has lost a mistress and has gained a master.” A new and mighty State had come into being, sustained by an overflowing population, equipped with science and learning, organised for war and crowned with victory. France, stripped of Alsace and Lorraine, beaten, impoverished, divided and alone, condemned to a decisive and increasing numerical inferiority, fell back to ponder in shade and isolation on her departed glories.
But the chiefs of the German Empire were under no illusions as to the formidable character and implacable resolves of their prostrate antagonist. “What we gained by arms in half a year,” said Moltke, “we must protect by arms for half a century, if it is not to be torn from us again.” Bismarck, more prudent still, would never have taken Lorraine. Forced by military pressure to assume the double burden against his better judgment, he exhibited from the outset and in every act of his policy an extreme apprehension. Restrained by the opinion of the world, and the decided attitude of Great Britain, from striking down a reviving France in 1875, he devoted his whole power and genius to the construction of an elaborate system of alliances designed to secure the continued ascendancy of Germany and the maintenance of her conquests. He knew the quarrel with France was irreconcilable except at a price which Germany would never consent to pay. He understood that the abiding enmity of a terrific people would be fixed on his new-built Empire. Everything else must be subordinated to that central fact. Germany could afford no other antagonisms. In 1879 he formed an alliance with Austria. Four years later this was expanded into the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy. Roumania was brought into this system by a secret alliance in 1883. Not only must there be Insurance; there must be Reinsurance. What he feared most was a counteralliance between France and Russia; and none of these extending arrangements met this danger. His alliance with Austria indeed, if left by itself, would naturally tend to draw France and Russia together. Could he not make a league of the three Emperors—Germany, Austria, and Russia united? There at last was overwhelming strength and enduring safety. When in 1887 after six years, this supreme ideal of Bismarck was ruptured by the clash of Russian and Austrian interests in the Balkans, he turned—as the best means still open to him—to his Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. Germany, by this arrangement, secured herself against becoming the object of an aggressive combination by France and Russia. Russia on the other hand was reassured that the Austro-German alliance would not be used to undermine her position in the Balkans.
All these cautious and sapient measures were designed with the object of enabling Germany to enjoy her victory in peace. The Bismarckian system, further, always included the principle of good relations with Great Britain. This was necessary, for it was well known that Italy would never willingly commit herself to anything that would bring her into war with Great Britain, and had, as the world now knows, required this fact to be specifically stated in the original and secret text of the Triple Alliance. To this Alliance in its early years Great Britain had been wholly favourable. Thus France was left to nurse her scars alone; and Germany, assured in her predominance on the Continent, was able to take the fullest advantage of the immense industrial developments which characterised the close of the nineteenth century. The policy of Germany further encouraged France as a consolation to develop her colonial possessions in order to take her thoughts off Europe, and incidentally to promote a convenient rivalry and friction with Great Britain.
This arrangement, under which Europe lived rigidly but peacefully for twenty years, and Germany waxed in power and splendour, was ended in 1890 with the fall of Bismarck. The Iron Chancellor was gone, and new forces began to assail the system he had maintained with consummate ability so long. There was a constant danger of conflagration in the Balkans and in the Near East through Turkish misgovernment. The rising tides of pan-Slavism and the strong anti-German currents in Russia began to wash against the structure of the Reinsurance Treaty. Lastly, German ambitions grew with German prosperity. Not content with the hegemony of Europe, she sought a colonial domain. Already the greatest of military Empires, she began increasingly to turn her thoughts to the sea. The young Emperor, freed from Bismarck and finding in Count Caprivi, and the lesser men who succeeded him, complacent coadjutors, began gaily to dispense with the safeguards and precautions by which the safety of Germany had been buttressed. While the quarrel with France remained open and undying, the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia was dropped, and later on the naval rivalry with Britain was begun. These two sombre decisions rolled forward slowly as the years unfolded. Their consequences became apparent in due season. In 1892 the event against which the whole policy of Bismarck had been directed came to pass. The Dual Alliance was signed between Russia and France. Although the effects were not immediately visible, the European situation was in fact transformed. Henceforward, for the undisputed but soberly exercised predominance of Germany, there was substituted a balance of power. Two vast combinations, each disposing of enormous military resources, dwelt together at first side by side but gradually face to face.
Although the groupings of the great Powers had thus been altered sensibly to the disadvantage of Germany, there was in this alteration nothing that threatened her with war. The abiding spirit of France had never abandoned the dream of recovering the lost provinces, but the prevailing temper of the French nation was pacific, and all classes remained under the impression of the might of Germany and of the terrible consequences likely to result from war.
Moreover, the French were never sure of Russia in a purely Franco-German quarrel. True, there was the Treaty; but the Treaty to become operative required aggression on the part of Germany. What constitutes aggression? At what point in a dispute between two heavily armed parties, does one side or the other become the aggressor? At any rate there was a wide field for discretionary action on the part of Russia. Of all these matters she would be the judge, and she would be the judge at a moment when it might be said that the Russian people would be sent to die in millions over a quarrel between France and Germany in which they had no direct interest. The word of the Tsar was indeed a great assurance. But Tsars who tried to lead their nations, however honourably, into unpopular wars might disappear. The policy of a great people, if hung too directly upon the person of a single individual, was liable to be changed by his disappearance. France, therefore, could never feel certain that if on any occasion she resisted German pressure and war resulted, Russia would march.
Such was the ponderous balance which had succeeded the unquestioned ascendancy of Germany. Outside both systems rested England, secure in an overwhelming and as yet unchallenged, naval supremacy. It was evident that the position of the British Empire received added importance from the fact that adhesion to either Alliance would decide the predominance of strength. But Lord Salisbury showed no wish to exploit this favourable situation. He maintained steadily the traditional friendly attitude towards Germany combined with a cool detachment from Continental entanglements.
It had been easy for Germany to lose touch with Russia; but the alienation of England was a far longer process. So many props and ties had successively to be demolished. British suspicions of Russia in Asia, the historic antagonism to France, memories of Blenheim, of Minden and of Waterloo, the continued disputes with France in Egypt and in the Colonial sphere, the intimate business connexions between Germany and England, the relationship of the Royal Families—all these constituted a profound association between the British Empire and the leading State in that Triple Alliance. It was no part of British policy to obstruct the new-born Colonial aspirations of Germany, and in more than one instance, as at Samoa, we actively assisted them. With a complete detachment from strategic considerations, Lord Salisbury exchanged Heligoland for Zanzibar. Still even before the fall of Bismarck the Germans did not seem pleasant diplomatic comrades. They appeared always to be seeking to enlist our aid and reminding us that they were our only friend. To emphasise this they went even farther. They sought in minor ways to embroil us with France and Russia. Each year the Wilhelmstrasse looked inquiringly to the Court of St. James’s for some new service or concession which should keep Germany’s diplomatic goodwill alive for a further period. Each year they made mischief for us with France and Russia, and pointed the moral of how unpopular Great Britain was, what powerful enemies she had, and how lucky she was to find a friend in Germany. Where would she be in the councils of Europe if German assistance were withdrawn, or if Germany threw her influence into the opposing combination? These manifestations, prolonged for nearly twenty years, produced very definite sensations of estrangement in the minds of the rising generation at the British Foreign Office.
But none of these woes of diplomatists deflected the steady course of British policy. The Colonial expansion of Germany was viewed with easy indifference by the British Empire. In spite of their rivalry in trade, there grew up a far more important commercial connexion between Britain and Germany. In Europe we were each other’s best customers. Even the German Emperor’s telegram to President Kruger on the Jameson Raid in 1896, which we now know to have been no personal act but a decision of the German Government, produced only a temporary ebullition of anger. All the German outburst of rage against England during the Boer War, and such attempts as were made to form a European coalition against us, did not prevent Mr. Chamberlain in 1901 from advocating an alliance with Germany, or the British Foreign Office from proposing in the same year to make the Alliance between Britain and Japan into a Triple Alliance including Germany. During this period we had at least as serious differences with France as with Germany, and sufficient naval superiority not to be seriously disquieted by either. We stood equally clear of the Triple and of the Dual Alliance. We had no intention of being drawn into a Continental quarrel. No effort by France to regain her lost provinces appealed to the British public or to any political party. The idea of a British Army fighting in Europe amid the mighty hosts of the Continent was by all dismissed as utterly absurd. Only a menace to the very life of the British nation would stir the British Empire from its placid and tolerant detachment from Continental affairs. But that menace Germany was destined to supply.
“Among the Great Powers,” said Moltke in his Military Testament, “England necessarily requires a strong ally on the Continent. She would not find one which corresponds better to all her interests than a United Germany, that can never make claim to the command of the sea.”
From 1873 to 1900 the German Navy was avowedly not intended to provide for the possibility of “a naval war against great naval Powers.” Now in 1900 came a Fleet Law of a very different kind. “For the protection of trade and the Colonies,” declared the preamble of this document, “there is only one thing that will suffice, namely, a strong Battle Fleet.”
In order to protect German trade and commerce under existing conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Germany must possess a battle fleet of such a strength that, even for the most powerful naval adversary, a war would involve such risks as to make that Power’s own supremacy doubtful.
For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the German Fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval Power, for, as a rule, a great naval Power will not be in a position to concentrate all its forces against us. Even if it were successful in bringing against us a much superior force, the defeat of a strong German Fleet would so considerably weaken the enemy that, in spite of the victory that might be achieved, his own supremacy would no longer be assured by a fleet of sufficient strength.
For the attainment of this object, viz., protection of our trade and colonies by assuring peace with honour, Germany requires, according to the strength of the great naval Powers and with regard to our tactical formations, two double squadrons of first-class battleships, with the necessary attendant cruisers, torpedo boats, etc. Since the Fleet Law provides for only two squadrons, the construction of third and fourth squadrons is proposed. Two of these four squadrons will form one fleet. The tactical formation of the second fleet should be similar to that of the first as provided for in the Fleet Law.
And again:—
In addition to the increase of the Home Fleet an increase of the foreign service ships is also necessary.... In order to estimate the importance of an increase in our foreign service ships, it must be realised that they represent the German Navy abroad, and that to them often falls the task of gathering fruits which have ripened as a result of the naval strength of the Empire embodied in the Home Battle Fleet.
And again:—
If the necessity for so strong a Fleet for Germany be recognised, it cannot be denied that the honour and welfare of the Fatherland authoritatively demand that the Home Fleet be brought up to the requisite strength as soon as possible.
The determination of the greatest military Power on the Continent to become at the same time at least the second naval Power was an event of first magnitude in world affairs. It would, if carried into full effect, undoubtedly reproduce those situations which at previous periods in history had proved of such awful significance to the Islanders of Britain.
Hitherto all British naval arrangements had proceeded on the basis of the two-Power standard, namely, an adequate superiority over the next two strongest Powers, in those days France and Russia. The possible addition of a third European Fleet more powerful than either of these two would profoundly affect the life of Britain. If Germany was going to create a Navy avowedly measured against our own, we could not afford to remain “in splendid isolation” from the European systems. We must in these circumstances find a trustworthy friend. We found one in another island Empire situated on the other side of the globe and also in danger. In 1901 the Alliance was signed between Great Britain and Japan. Still less could we afford to have dangerous causes of quarrel open both with France and Russia. In 1902 the British Government, under Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne, definitely embarked upon the policy of settling up our differences with France. Still, before either of these steps were taken the hand was held out to Germany. She was invited to join with us in the alliance with Japan. She was invited to make a joint effort to solve the Moroccan problem. Both offers were declined.
In 1904, the war between Russia and Japan broke out. Germany sympathised mainly with Russia; England stood ready to fulfil her treaty engagements with Japan, while at the same time cultivating good relations with France. In this posture the Powers awaited the result of the Far Eastern struggle. It brought a surprise to all but one. The military and naval overthrow of Russia by Japan and the internal convulsions of the Russian State produced profound changes in the European situation. Although German influence had leaned against Japan, she felt herself enormously strengthened by the Russian collapse. Her Continental predominance was restored. Her self-assertion in every sphere became sensibly and immediately pronounced. France, on the other hand, weakened and once again, for the time being, isolated and in real danger, became increasingly anxious for an Entente with England. England, whose statesmen with penetrating eye alone in Europe had truly measured the martial power of Japan, gained remarkably in strength and security. Japan, her new ally, was triumphant: France, her ancient enemy, sought her friendship: the German fleet was still only a-building, and meanwhile all the British battleships in China seas could now be safely brought home.
The settlement of outstanding differences between England and France proceeded, and at last in 1904 the Anglo-French Agreement was signed. There were various clauses; but the essence of the compact was that the French desisted from opposition to British interests in Egypt, and Britain gave a general support to the French views about Morocco. This agreement was acclaimed by the Conservative forces in England, among whom the idea of the German menace had already taken root. It was also hailed somewhat short-sightedly by Liberal statesmen as a step to secure general peace by clearing away misunderstandings and differences with our traditional enemy. It was therefore almost universally welcomed. Only one profound observer raised his voice against it. “My mournful and supreme conviction,” said Lord Rosebery, “is that this agreement is much more likely to lead to complications than to peace.” This unwelcome comment was indignantly spurned from widely different standpoints by both British parties, and general censure fell upon its author.
Still, England and all that she stood for had left her isolation, and had reappeared in Europe on the opposite side to Germany. For the first time since 1870 Germany had to take into consideration a Power outside her system which was in no way amenable to threats, and was not unable if need be to encounter her single-handed. The gesture which was to sweep Delcassé from power in 1905, the apparition “in shining armour” which was to quell Russia in 1908, could procure no such compliance from the independent Island girt with her Fleet and mistress of the seas.
Up to this moment the Triple Alliance had on the whole been stronger than France and Russia. Although war against these two Powers would have been a formidable undertaking for Germany, Austria and Italy, its ultimate issue did not seem doubtful. But if the weight of Britain were thrown into the adverse scale and that of Italy withdrawn from the other, then for the first time since 1870 Germany could not feel certain that she was on the stronger side. Would she submit to it? Would the growing, bounding ambitions and assertions of the new German Empire consent to a situation in which, very politely no doubt, very gradually perhaps, but still very surely, the impression would be conveyed that her will was no longer the final law of Europe? If Germany and her Emperor would accept the same sort of restraint that France, Russia and England had long been accustomed to, and would live within her rights as an equal in a freer and easier world, all would be well. But would she? Would she tolerate the gathering under an independent standard of nations outside her system, strong enough to examine her claims only as the merits appealed to them, and to resist aggression without fear? The history of the next ten years was to supply the answer.
Side by side with these slowly marshalling and steadily arming antagonisms between the greatest Powers, processes of degeneration were at work in weaker Empires almost equally dangerous to peace. Forces were alive in Turkey which threatened with destruction the old regime and its abuses on which Germany had chosen to lean. The Christian States of the Balkans, growing stronger year by year, awaited an opportunity to liberate their compatriots still writhing under Turkish misrule. The growth of national sentiment in every country created fierce strains and stresses in the uneasily knit and crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Balkan States saw also in this direction kinsmen to rescue, territory to recover, and unities to achieve. Italy watched with ardent eyes the decay of Turkey and the unrest of Austria. It was certain that from all these regions of the South and of the East there would come a succession of events deeply agitating both to Russia and to Germany.
To create the unfavourable conditions for herself in which Germany afterwards brought about the war, many acts of supreme unwisdom on the part of her rulers were nevertheless still necessary. France must be kept in a state of continued apprehension. The Russian nation, not the Russian Court alone, must be stung by some violent affront inflicted in their hour of weakness. The slow, deep, restrained antagonism of the British Empire must be roused by the continuous and repeated challenge to the sea power by which it lived. Then and then only could those conditions be created under which Germany by an act of aggression would bring into being against her, a combination strong enough to resist and ultimately to overcome her might. There was still a long road to travel before the Vials of Wrath were full. For ten years we were to journey anxiously along that road.
It was for a time the fashion to write as if the British Government during these ten years were either entirely unconscious of the approaching danger or had a load of secret matters and deep forebodings on their minds hidden altogether from the thoughtless nation. In fact, however, neither of these alternatives, taken separately, was true; and there is a measure of truth in both of them taken together.
The British Government and the Parliaments out of which it sprang, did not believe in the approach of a great war, and were determined to prevent it; but at the same time the sinister hypothesis was continually present in their thoughts, and was repeatedly brought to the attention of Ministers by disquieting incidents and tendencies.
During the whole of those ten years this duality and discordance were the keynote of British politics; and those whose duty it was to watch over the safety of the country lived simultaneously in two different worlds of thought. There was the actual visible world with its peaceful activities and cosmopolitan aims; and there was a hypothetical world, a world “beneath the threshold,” as it were, a world at one moment utterly fantastic, at the next seeming about to leap into reality—a world of monstrous shadows moving in convulsive combinations through vistas of fathomless catastrophe.
CHAPTER II
MILESTONES TO ARMAGEDDON
1905–1910
‘Enmities which are unspoken and hidden are more to be feared than those which are outspoken and open.’
Cicero.
A Narrower Stage—The Victorian Calm—The Chain of Strife—Lord Salisbury Retires—Mr. Balfour and the End of an Epoch—Fall of the Conservative Government—The General Election of 1906—The Algeciras Conference—Anglo-French Military Conversations—Mr. Asquith’s Administration—The Austrian Annexations—The German Threat to Russia—The Admiralty Programme of 1909—The Growth of the German Navy—German Finance and its Implications—The Inheritance of the New German Chancellor.
If the reader is to understand this tale and the point of view from which it is told, he should follow the authors mind in each principal sphere of causation. He must not only be acquainted with the military and naval situations as they existed at the outbreak of war, but with the events which led up to them. He must be introduced to the Admirals and to the Generals; he must study the organisation of the Fleets and Armies and the outlines of their strategy by sea and land; he must not shrink even from the design of ships and cannon; he must extend his view to the groupings and slow-growing antagonisms of modern States; he must contract it to the humbler but unavoidable warfare of parties and the interplay of political forces and personalities.
The dramatis personæ of the previous Chapter have been great States and Empires and its theme their world-wide balance and combinations. Now the stage must for a while be narrowed to the limits of these islands and occupied by the political personages and factions of the time and of the hour.
In the year 1895 I had the privilege, as a young officer, of being invited to lunch with Sir William Harcourt. In the course of a conversation in which I took, I fear, none too modest a share, I asked the question, “What will happen then?” “My dear Winston,” replied the old Victorian statesman, “the experiences of a long life have convinced me that nothing ever happens.” Since that moment, as it seems to me, nothing has ever ceased happening. The growth of the great antagonisms abroad was accompanied by the progressive aggravation of party strife at home. The scale on which events have shaped themselves, has dwarfed the episodes of the Victorian era. Its small wars between great nations, its earnest disputes about superficial issues, the high, keen intellectualism of its personages, the sober, frugal, narrow limitations of their action, belong to a vanished period. The smooth river with its eddies and ripples along which we then sailed, seems inconceivably remote from the cataract down which we have been hurled and the rapids in whose turbulence we are now struggling.
I date the beginning of these violent times in our country from the Jameson Raid, in 1896. This was the herald, if not indeed the progenitor, of the South African War. From the South African War was born the Khaki Election, the Protectionist Movement, the Chinese Labour cry and the consequent furious reaction and Liberal triumph of 1906. From this sprang the violent inroads of the House of Lords upon popular Government, which by the end of 1908 had reduced the immense Liberal majority to virtual impotence, from which condition they were rescued by the Lloyd George Budget in 1909. This measure became, in its turn, on both sides, the cause of still greater provocations, and its rejection by the Lords was a constitutional outrage and political blunder almost beyond compare. It led directly to the two General Elections of 1910, to the Parliament Act, and to the Irish struggle, in which our country was brought to the very threshold of civil war. Thus we see a succession of partisan actions continuing without intermission for nearly twenty years, each injury repeated with interest, each oscillation more violent, each risk more grave, until at last it seemed that the sabre itself must be invoked to cool the blood and the passions that were rife.
In July, 1902, Lord Salisbury retired. With what seems now to have been only a brief interlude, he had been Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary since 1885. In those seventeen years the Liberal Party had never exercised any effective control upon affairs. Their brief spell in office had only been obtained by a majority of forty Irish Nationalist votes. During thirteen years the Conservatives had enjoyed homogeneous majorities of 100 to 150, and in addition there was the House of Lords. This long reign of power had now come to an end. The desire for change, the feeling that change was impending, was widespread. It was the end of an epoch.
Lord Salisbury was followed by Mr. Balfour. The new Prime Minister never had a fair chance. He succeeded only to an exhausted inheritance. Indeed, his wisest course would have been to get out of office as decently, as quietly, and, above all, as quickly as possible. He could with great propriety have declared that the 1900 Parliament had been elected on war conditions and on a war issue; that the war was now finished successfully; that the mandate was exhausted and that he must recur to the sense of the electors before proceeding farther with his task. No doubt the Liberals would have come into power, but not by a large majority; and they would have been faced by a strong, united Conservative Opposition, which in four or five years, about 1907, would have resumed effective control of the State. The solid ranks of Conservative members who acclaimed Mr. Balfour’s accession as First Minister were however in no mood to be dismissed to their constituencies when the Parliament was only two years old and had still four or five years more to run. Mr. Balfour therefore addressed himself to the duties of Government with a serene indifference to the vast alienation of public opinion and consolidation of hostile forces which were proceeding all around him.
Mr. Chamberlain, his almost all-powerful lieutenant, was under no illusions. He felt, with an acute political sensitiveness, the ever-growing strength of the tide setting against the ruling combination. But instead of pursuing courses of moderation and prudence, he was impelled by the ardour of his nature to a desperate remedy. The Government was reproached with being reactionary. The moderate Conservatives and the younger Conservatives were all urging Liberal and conciliatory processes. The Opposition was advancing hopefully towards power, heralded by a storm of angry outcry. He would show them, and show doubting or weary friends as well, how it was possible to quell indignation by violence, and from the very heart of reaction to draw the means of popular victory. He unfurled the flag of Protection.
Time, adversity and the recent Education Act had united the Liberals; Protection, or Tariff Reform as it was called, split the Conservatives. Ultimately, six Ministers resigned and fifty Conservative or Unionist members definitely withdrew their support from the Government. Among them were a number of those younger men from whom a Party should derive new force and driving power, and who are specially necessary to it during a period of opposition. The action of the Free Trade Unionists was endorsed indirectly by Lord Salisbury himself from his retirement, and was actively sustained by such pillars of the Unionist Party as Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and the Duke of Devonshire. No such formidable loss had been sustained by the Conservative Party since the expulsion of the Peelites.
But if Mr. Balfour had not felt inclined to begin his reign by an act of abdication, he was still less disposed to have power wrested from his grasp. Moreover, he regarded a Party split as the worst of domestic catastrophes, and responsibility for it as the unforgivable sin. He therefore laboured with amazing patience and coolness to preserve a semblance of unity, to calm the tempest, and to hold on as long as possible in the hope of its subsiding. With the highest subtlety and ingenuity he devised a succession of formulas designed to enable people who differed profoundly, to persuade themselves they were in agreement. When it came to the resignation of Ministers, he was careful to shed Free Trade and Protectionist blood as far as possible in equal quantities. Like Henry VIII, he decapitated Papists and burned hot Gospellers on the same day for their respective divergencies in opposite directions from his central, personal and artificial compromise.
In this unpleasant situation Mr. Balfour maintained himself for two whole years. Vain the clamour for a general election, vain the taunts of clinging to office, vain the solicitations of friends and the attempts of foes to force a crucial issue. The Prime Minister remained immovable, inexhaustible, imperturbable; and he remained Prime Minister. His clear, just mind, detached from small things, stood indifferent to the clamour about him. He pursued, as has been related, through the critical period of the Russo-Japanese War, a policy in support of Japan of the utmost firmness. He resisted all temptations, on the other hand, to make the sinking of our trawlers on the Dogger Bank by the Russian Fleet an occasion of war with Russia. He formed the Committee of Imperial Defence—the instrument of our preparedness. He carried through the agreement with France of 1904, the momentous significance of which the last chapter has explained. But in 1905 political Britain cared for none of these things. The credit of the Government fell steadily. The process of degeneration in the Conservative Party was continuous. The storm of opposition grew unceasingly, and so did the unification of all the forces opposed to the dying regime.
Late in November, 1905, Mr. Balfour tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to the King. The Government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was formed, and proceeded in January to appeal to the constituencies. This Government represented both the wings into which the Liberal Party had been divided by the Boer War. The Liberal Imperialists, so distinguished by their talents, filled some of the greatest offices. Mr. Asquith went to the Exchequer; Sir Edward Grey to the Foreign Office; Mr. Haldane became Secretary of State for War. On the other hand the Prime Minister, who himself represented the main stream of Liberal opinion, appointed Sir Robert Reid, Lord Chancellor and Mr. John Morley, Secretary of State for India. Both these statesmen, while not opposing actual war measures in South Africa, had unceasingly condemned the war; and in Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. John Burns, both of whom entered the Cabinet, were found democratic politicians who had gone even farther. The dignity of the Administration was enhanced by the venerable figures of Lord Ripon, Sir Henry Fowler, and the newly returned Viceroy of India, Lord Elgin.
The result of the polls in January, 1906, was a Liberal landslide. Never since the election following the great Reform Bill, had anything comparable occurred in British parliamentary history. In Manchester, for instance, which was one of the principal battle-grounds, Mr. Balfour and eight Conservative colleagues were dismissed and replaced by nine Liberals or Labour men. The Conservatives, after nearly twenty years of power, crept back to the House of Commons barely a hundred and fifty strong. The Liberals had gained a majority of more than one hundred over all other parties combined. Both great parties harboured deep grievances against the other; and against the wrong of the Khaki Election and its misuse, was set the counter-claim of an unfair Chinese Labour cry.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was still receiving the resounding acclamations of Liberals, peace-lovers, anti-jingoes, and anti-militarists, in every part of the country, when he was summoned by Sir Edward Grey to attend to business of a very different character. The Algeciras Conference was in its throes. When the Anglo-French Agreement on Egypt and Morocco had first been made known, the German Government accepted the situation without protest or complaint. The German Chancellor, Prince Bülow, had even declared in 1904 that there was nothing in the Agreement to which Germany could take exception. “What appears to be before us is the attempt by the method of friendly understanding to eliminate a number of points of difference which exist between England and France. We have no objection to make against this from the standpoint of German interest.” A serious agitation most embarrassing to the German Government was, however, set on foot by the Pan-German and Colonial parties. Under this pressure the attitude of the Government changed, and a year later Germany openly challenged the Agreement and looked about for an opportunity to assert her claims in Morocco. This opportunity was not long delayed.
Early in 1905 a French mission arrived in Fez. Their language and actions seemed to show an intention of treating Morocco as a French Protectorate, thereby ignoring the international obligations of the Treaty of Madrid. The Sultan of Morocco appealed to Germany, asking if France was authorised to speak in the name of Europe. Germany was now enabled to advance as the champion of an international agreement, which she suggested France was violating. Behind this lay the clear intention to show France that she could not afford in consequence of her agreement with Britain, to offend Germany. The action taken was of the most drastic character. The German Emperor was persuaded to go to Tangiers, and there, against his better judgment, on March 31, 1905, he delivered, in very uncompromising language chosen by his ministers, an open challenge to France. To this speech the widest circulation was given by the German Foreign Office. Hot-foot upon it (April 11 and 12) two very threatening despatches were sent to Paris and London, demanding a conference of all the Signatory Powers to the Treaty of Madrid. Every means was used by Germany to make France understand that if she refused the conference there would be war; and to make assurance doubly sure a special envoy[[1]] was sent from Berlin to Paris for that express purpose.
France was quite unprepared for war; the army was in a bad state; Russia was incapacitated; moreover, France had not a good case. The French Foreign Minister, Monsieur Delcassé, was, however, unwilling to give way. The German attitude became still more threatening; and on June 6 the French Cabinet of Monsieur Rouvier unanimously, almost at the cannon’s mouth, accepted the principle of a conference, and Monsieur Delcassé at once resigned.
So far Germany had been very successful. Under a direct threat of war she had compelled France to bow to her will, and to sacrifice the Minister who had negotiated the Agreement with Great Britain. The Rouvier Cabinet sought earnestly for some friendly solution which, while sparing France the humiliation of a conference dictated in such circumstances, would secure substantial concessions to Germany. The German Government were, however, determined to exploit their victory to the full, and not to make the situation easier for France either before or during the conference. The conference accordingly assembled at Algeciras in January, 1906.
Great Britain now appeared on the scene, apparently quite unchanged and unperturbed by her domestic convulsions. She had in no way encouraged France to refuse the conference. But if a war was to be fastened on France by Germany as the direct result of an agreement made recently in the full light of day between France and Great Britain, it was held that Great Britain could not remain indifferent. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman therefore authorised Sir Edward Grey to support France strongly at Algeciras. He also authorised, almost as the first act of what was to be an era of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform, the beginning of military conversations between the British and French General Staffs with a view to concerted action in the event of war. This was a step of profound significance and of far-reaching reactions. Henceforward the relations of the two Staffs became increasingly intimate and confidential. The minds of our military men were definitely turned into a particular channel. Mutual trust grew continually in one set of military relationships, mutual precautions in the other. However explicitly the two Governments might agree and affirm to each other that no national or political engagement was involved in these technical discussions, the fact remained that they constituted an exceedingly potent tie.
The attitude of Great Britain at Algeciras turned the scale against Germany. Russia, Spain and other signatory Powers associated themselves with France and England. Austria revealed to Germany the limits beyond which she would not go. Thus Germany found herself isolated, and what she had gained by her threats of war evaporated at the Council Board. In the end a compromise suggested by Austria, enabled Germany to withdraw without open loss of dignity. From these events, however, serious consequences flowed. Both the two systems into which Europe was divided, were crystallised and consolidated. Germany felt the need of binding Austria more closely to her. Her open attempt to terrorise France had produced a deep impression upon French public opinion. An immediate and thorough reform of the French Army was carried out, and the Entente with England was strengthened and confirmed. Algeciras was a milestone on the road to Armageddon.
The illness and death of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at the beginning of 1908 opened the way for Mr. Asquith. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had been the First Lieutenant of the late Prime Minister, and, as his chief’s strength failed, had more and more assumed the burden. He had charged himself with the conduct of the new Licensing Bill which was to be the staple of the Session of 1908, and in virtue of this task he could command the allegiance of an extreme and doctrinaire section of his Party from whom his Imperialism had previously alienated him. He resolved to ally to himself the democratic gifts and rising reputation of Mr. Lloyd George. Thus the succession passed smoothly from hand to hand. Mr. Asquith became Prime Minister; Mr. Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer and the second man in the Government. The new Cabinet, like the old, was a veiled coalition. A very distinct line of cleavage was maintained between the Radical-Pacifist elements who had followed Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and constituted the bulk both of the Cabinet and the Party on the one hand, and the Liberal Imperialist wing on the other. Mr. Asquith, as Prime Minister, had now to take an impartial position; but his heart and sympathies were always with Sir Edward Grey, the War Office and the Admiralty, and on every important occasion when he was forced to reveal himself, he definitely sided with them. He was not, however, able to give Sir Edward Grey the same effectual countenance, much as he might wish to do so, that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had done. The old chief’s word was law to the extremists of his Party. They would accept almost anything from him. They were quite sure he would do nothing more in matters of foreign policy and defence than was absolutely necessary, and that he would do it in the manner least calculated to give satisfaction to jingo sentiments. Mr. Asquith, however, had been far from “sound” about the Boer War, and was the lifelong friend of the Foreign Secretary, who had wandered even further from the straight path into patriotic pastures. He was therefore in a certain sense suspect, and every step he took in external affairs was watched with prim vigilance by the Elders. If the military conversations with France had not been authorised by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and if his political virtue could not be cited in their justification, I doubt whether they could have been begun or continued by Mr. Asquith.
Since I had crossed the Floor of the House in 1904 on the Free Trade issue, I had worked in close political association with Mr. Lloyd George. He was the first to welcome me. We sat and acted together in the period of opposition preceding Mr. Balfour’s fall, and we had been in close accord during Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s administration, in which I had served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. This association continued when I entered the new Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, and in general, though from different angles, we leaned to the side of those who would restrain the froward both in foreign policy and in armaments. It must be understood that these differences of attitude and complexion, which in varying forms reproduce themselves in every great and powerful British Administration, in no way prevented harmonious and agreeable relations between the principal personages, and our affairs proceeded amid many amenities in an atmosphere of courtesy, friendliness and goodwill.
It was not long before the next European crisis arrived. On October 5, 1908, Austria, without warning or parley, proclaimed the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These provinces of the Turkish Empire had been administered by her under the Treaty of Berlin, 1878; and the annexation only declared in form what already existed in fact. The Young Turk Revolution which had occurred in the summer, seemed to Austria likely to lead to a reassertion of Turkish sovereignty over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this she was concerned to forestall. A reasonable and patient diplomacy would probably have secured for Austria the easements which she needed. Indeed, negotiations with Russia, the Great Power most interested, had made favourable progress. But suddenly and abruptly Count Aerenthal, the Austrian Foreign Minister, interrupted the discussions by the announcement of the annexation, before the arrangements for a suitable concession to Russia had been concluded. By this essentially violent act a public affront was put upon Russia, and a personal slight upon the Russian negotiator, Monsieur Isvolsky.
A storm of anger and protest arose on all sides. England, basing herself on the words of the London Conference in 1871, “That it is an essential principle of the law of nations that no Power can free itself from the engagements of a Treaty, nor modify its stipulations except by consent of the contracting parties,” refused to recognise either the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the declaration of Bulgarian independence which had synchronised with it. Turkey protested loudly against a lawless act. An effective boycott of Austrian merchandise was organised by the Turkish Government. The Serbians mobilised their army. But it was the effect on Russia which was most serious. The bitter animosity excited against Austria throughout Russia became a penultimate cause of the Great War. In this national quarrel the personal differences of Aerenthal and Isvolsky played also their part.
Great Britain and Russia now demanded a conference, declining meanwhile to countenance what had been done. Austria, supported by Germany, refused. The danger of some violent action on the part of Serbia became acute. Sir Edward Grey, after making it clear that Great Britain would not be drawn into a war on a Balkan quarrel, laboured to restrain Serbia, to pacify Turkey, and to give full diplomatic support to Russia. The controversy dragged on till April, 1909, when it was ended in the following remarkable manner. The Austrians had determined, unless Serbia recognised the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to send an ultimatum and to declare war upon her. At this point the German Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, intervened. Russia, he insisted, should herself advise Serbia to give way. The Powers should officially recognise the annexation without a conference being summoned and without any kind of compensation to Serbia. Russia was to give her consent to this action, without previously informing the British or French Governments. If Russia did not consent, Austria would declare war on Serbia with the full and complete support of Germany. Russia, thus nakedly confronted by war both with Austria and Germany, collapsed under the threat, as France had done three years before. England was left an isolated defender of the sanctity of Treaties and the law of nations. The Teutonic triumph was complete. But it was a victory gained at a perilous cost. France, after her treatment in 1905, had begun a thorough military reorganisation. Now Russia, in 1910, made an enormous increase in her already vast army; and both Russia and France, smarting under similar experiences, closed their ranks, cemented their alliance, and set to work to construct with Russian labour and French money the new strategic railway systems of which Russia’s western frontier stood in need.
It was next the turn of Great Britain to feel the pressure of the German power.
In the spring of 1909, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. McKenna, suddenly demanded the construction of no less than six Dreadnought battleships. He based this claim on the rapid growth of the German Fleet and its expansion and acceleration under the new naval law of 1908, which was causing the Admiralty the greatest anxiety. I was still a sceptic about the danger of the European situation, and not convinced by the Admiralty case. In conjunction with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I proceeded at once to canvas this scheme and to examine the reasons by which it was supported. The conclusions which we both reached were that a programme of four ships would sufficiently meet our needs. In this process I was led to analyse minutely the character and composition of the British and German Navies, actual and prospective. I could not agree with the Admiralty contention that a dangerous situation would be reached in the year 1912. I found the Admiralty figures on this subject were exaggerated. I did not believe that the Germans were building Dreadnoughts secretly in excess of their published Fleet Laws. I held that our margin in pre-Dreadnought ships would, added to a new programme of four Dreadnoughts, assure us an adequate superiority in 1912, “the danger year” as it was then called. In any case, as the Admiralty only claimed to lay down the fifth and sixth ships in the last month of the financial year, i. e., March, 1910, these could not affect the calculations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I therefore proposed that four ships should be sanctioned for 1909, and that the additional two should be considered in relation to the programme of 1910.
Looking back on the voluminous papers of this controversy in the light of what actually happened, there can be no doubt whatever that, so far as facts and figures were concerned, we were strictly right. The gloomy Admiralty anticipations were in no respect fulfilled in the year 1912. The British margin was found to be ample in that year. There were no secret German Dreadnoughts, nor had Admiral von Tirpitz made any untrue statement in respect of major construction.
The dispute in the Cabinet gave rise to a fierce agitation outside. The process of the controversy led to a sharp rise of temperature. The actual points in dispute never came to an issue. Genuine alarm was excited throughout the country by what was for the first time widely recognised as a German menace. In the end a curious and characteristic solution was reached. The Admiralty had demanded six ships: the economists offered four: and we finally compromised on eight. However, five out of the eight were not ready before “the danger year” of 1912 had passed peacefully away.
But although the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I were right in the narrow sense, we were absolutely wrong in relation to the deep tides of destiny. The greatest credit is due to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. McKenna, for the resolute and courageous manner in which he fought his case and withstood his Party on this occasion. Little did I think, as this dispute proceeded, that when the next Cabinet crisis about the Navy arose our rôles would be reversed; and little did he think that the ships for which he contended so stoutly would eventually, when they arrived, be welcomed with open arms by me.
Whatever differences might be entertained about the exact number of ships required in a particular year, the British nation in general became conscious of the undoubted fact that Germany proposed to reinforce her unequalled army by a navy which in 1920 would be far stronger than anything up to the present possessed by Great Britain. To the Navy Law of 1900 had succeeded the amending measure of 1906; and upon the increases of 1906 had followed those of 1908. In a flamboyant speech at Reval in 1904 the German Emperor had already styled himself, “The Admiral of the Atlantic.” All sorts of sober-minded people in England began to be profoundly disquieted. What did Germany want this great navy for? Against whom, except us, could she measure it, match it, or use it? There was a deep and growing feeling, no longer confined to political and diplomatic circles, that the Prussians meant mischief, that they envied the splendour of the British Empire, and that if they saw a good chance at our expense, they would take full advantage of it. Moreover it began to be realised that it was no use trying to turn Germany from her course by abstaining from counter measures. Reluctance on our part to build ships was attributed in Germany to want of national spirit, and as another proof that the virile race should advance to replace the effete overcivilised and pacifist society which was no longer capable of sustaining its great place in the world’s affairs. No one could run his eyes down the series of figures of British and German construction for the first three years of the Liberal Administration, without feeling in presence of a dangerous, if not a malignant, design.
In 1905 Britain built 4 ships, and Germany 2.
In 1906 Britain decreased her programme to 3 ships, and Germany increased her programme to 3 ships.
In 1907 Britain further decreased her programme to 2 ships, and Germany further increased her programme to 4 ships.
These figures are monumental.
It was impossible to resist the conclusion, gradually forced on nearly every one, that if the British Navy lagged behind, the gap would be very speedily filled.
As President of the Board of Trade I was able to obtain a general view of the structure of German finance. In 1909 a most careful report was prepared by my direction on the whole of this subject. Its study was not reassuring. I circulated it to the Cabinet with the following covering minute:—
November 3, 1909.
Believing that there are practically no checks upon German naval expansion except those imposed by the increasing difficulties of getting money, I have had the enclosed report prepared with a view to showing how far those limitations are becoming effective. It is clear that they are becoming terribly effective. The overflowing expenditure of the German Empire strains and threatens every dyke by which the social and political unity of Germany is maintained. The high customs duties have been largely rendered inelastic through commercial treaties, and cannot meet the demand. The heavy duties upon food-stuffs, from which the main proportion of the customs revenue is raised, have produced a deep cleavage between the agrarians and the industrials, and the latter deem themselves quite uncompensated for the high price of food-stuffs by the most elaborate devices of protection for manufactures. The splendid possession of the State railways is under pressure being continually degraded to a mere instrument of taxation. The field of direct taxation is already largely occupied by State and local systems. The prospective inroad by the universal suffrage Parliament of the Empire upon this depleted field unites the propertied classes, whether Imperialists or State-right men, in a common apprehension, with which the governing authorities are not unsympathetic. On the other hand, the new or increased taxation on every form of popular indulgence powerfully strengthens the parties of the Left, who are themselves the opponents of expenditure on armaments and much else besides.
Meanwhile the German Imperial debt has more than doubled in the last thirteen years of unbroken peace, has risen since the foundation of the Empire to about £220,000,000, has increased in the last ten years by £105,000,000, and practically no attempt to reduce it has been made between 1880 and the present year. The effect of recurrent borrowings to meet ordinary annual expenditure has checked the beneficial process of foreign investment, and dissipated the illusion, cherished during the South African War, that Berlin might supplant London as the lending centre of the world. The credit of the German Empire has fallen to the level of that of Italy. It is unlikely that the new taxes which have been imposed with so much difficulty this year will meet the annual deficit.
These circumstances force the conclusion that a period of severe internal strain approaches in Germany. Will the tension be relieved by moderation or snapped by calculated violence? Will the policy of the German Government be to soothe the internal situation, or to find an escape from it in external adventure? There can be no doubt that both courses are open. Low as the credit of Germany has fallen, her borrowing powers are practically unlimited. But one of the two courses must be taken soon, and from that point of view it is of the greatest importance to gauge the spirit of the new administration from the outset. If it be pacific, it must soon become markedly pacific, and conversely.
W. S. C.
This is, I think, the first sinister impression that I was ever led to record.
We have now seen how within the space of five years Germany’s policy and the growth of her armaments led her to arouse and alarm most profoundly three of the greatest Powers in the world. Two of them, France and Russia, had been forced to bow to the German will by the plain threat of war. Each had been quelled by the open intention of a neighbour to use force against them to the utmost limit without compunction. Both felt they had escaped a bloody ordeal and probable disaster only by submission. The sense of past humiliation was aggravated by the fear of future affronts. The third Power—unorganised for war, but inaccessible and not to be neglected in the world’s affairs—Britain, had also been made to feel that hands were being laid upon the very foundation of her existence. Swiftly, surely, methodically, a German Navy was coming into being at our doors which must expose us to dangers only to be warded off by strenuous exertions, and by a vigilance almost as tense as that of actual war. As France and Russia increased their armies, so Britain under the same pressure increased her fleet. Henceforward the three disquieted nations will act more closely together and will not be taken by their adversary one by one. Henceforward their military arrangements will be gradually concerted. Henceforward they will consciously be facing a common danger.
Ah! foolish-diligent Germans, working so hard, thinking so deeply, marching and counter-marching on the parade grounds of the Fatherland, poring over long calculations, fuming in new found prosperity, discontented amid the splendour of mundane success, how many bulwarks to your peace and glory did you not, with your own hands, successively tear down!
“In the year 1909,” writes von Bethmann-Hollweg, then the successor of Prince von Bülow, “the situation was based on the fact that England had firmly taken its stand on the side of France and Russia in pursuit of its traditional policy of opposing whatever Continental Power for the time being was the strongest; and that Germany held fast to its naval programme, had given a definite direction to its Eastern policy, and had moreover to guard against a French antagonism that had in no wise been mitigated by its policy in later years. And if Germany saw a formidable aggravation of all the aggressive tendencies of Franco-Russian policy in England’s pronounced friendship with this Dual Alliance, England on its side had grown to see a menace in the strengthening of the German Fleet and a violation of its ancient rights in our Eastern policy. Words had already passed on both sides. The atmosphere was chilly and clouded with distrust.” Such, in his own words, was the inheritance of the new German Chancellor.
He was now to make his own contribution to the anxieties of the world.
CHAPTER III
THE CRISIS OF AGADIR
1911
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the sound of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder,
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
The Shropshire Lad, XXXV.
Agadir—The Panther—The Alarm Bells of Europe—Sir Edward Grey’s Warning—The Period of Silence—Situation in the Cabinet—Decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—His Mansion House Speech—The German Rejoinder—Naval Precautions—Effect of the Mansion House Speech on German Policy—British Apprehensions of Attack—The Naval Magazines—Vulnerable Points—The Military Situation—Sir Henry Wilson—A Talk with the German Ambassador—Count Metternich—The Old Diplomacy—Meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence, August 23—Sir Henry Wilson’s Forecast—Admiralty Views—Divergences Between the Generals and Admirals—My Memorandum of August 13—The Twentieth Day—The Fortieth Day—Plans for Army Expansion—Continued Anxiety—My Letter to Sir Edward Grey, August 30—End of the Crisis—Consequences in Germany—The Prime Minister Invites Me to Go to the Admiralty—The Ninth Chapter of Deuteronomy.
In the spring of 1911 a French expedition occupied Fez. This action, added to the growing discontent in Germany over the Moroccan question, tempted the German Government at the beginning of July to an abrupt act. The Brothers Mannesmann, a German firm at that time very active in European financial circles, claimed that they had large interests in a harbour on the Atlantic seaboard of the Moroccan Coast and in the hinterland behind it. This harbour bore the name of Agadir. Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, the German Foreign Minister, raised this point with the French. The French Government fully realised that the advantages they were gaining in Morocco, justified Germany in seeking certain colonial compensations in the Congo area. The German press on the other hand was indignant at exchanging German interests in the moderate climate of Morocco for unhealthy tropical regions of which they had already more than enough. The questions involved were complicated and intrinsically extremely unimportant. The French prepared themselves for a prolonged negotiation. So far as the harbour and hinterland of Agadir were concerned, there seemed to be no difficulty. They denied altogether the existence of any German interests there. They said there was only a sandy bay untouched by the hand of man; there was no German property on the shore, not a trading establishment, not a house; there were no German interests in the interior. But these facts could easily be ascertained by a visit of accredited representatives of both countries. Such a visit to ascertain the facts they professed themselves quite ready to arrange. They also courted a discussion of the frontier of the Congo territories.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, on the morning of July 1, without more ado, it was announced that His Imperial Majesty the German Emperor had sent his gunboat the Panther to Agadir to maintain and protect German interests. This small ship was already on its way. All the alarm bells throughout Europe began immediately to quiver. France found herself in the presence of an act which could not be explained, the purpose behind which could not be measured. Great Britain, having consulted the atlas, began to wonder what bearing a German naval base on the Atlantic coast of Africa would have upon her maritime security, “observing,” as the sailors say when they have to write official letters to each other, that such a fact must be taken in conjunction with German activities at Madeira and in the Canaries and with the food routes and trade routes from South America and South Africa which converged and passed through these waters. Europe was uneasy. France was genuinely alarmed. When Count Metternich apprised Sir Edward Grey of the German action, he was informed that the situation was so important that it must be considered by the Cabinet. On July 5th, after the Cabinet, he was told that the British Government could not disinterest themselves in Morocco, and that until Germany’s intentions were made known their attitude must remain one of reserve. From that date until July 21 not one word was spoken by the German Government. There is no doubt that the decided posture of Great Britain was a great surprise to the German Foreign Office. There ensued between the Governments what was called at the time “the period of silence.” Meanwhile the French and German newspapers carried on a lively controversy, and the British press wore a very sombre air.
It was difficult to divine from the long strings of telegrams which day after day flowed in from all the European Chancelleries, what was the real purpose behind the German action. I followed attentively the repeated discussions on the subject in the British Cabinet. Was Germany looking for a pretext of war with France, or was she merely trying by pressure and uncertainty to improve her colonial position? In the latter case the dispute would no doubt be adjusted after a period of tension, as so many had been before. The great Powers marshalled on either side, preceded and protected by an elaborate cushion of diplomatic courtesies and formalities, would display to each other their respective arrays. In the forefront would be the two principal disputants, Germany and France, and echeloned back on either side at varying distances and under veils of reserves and qualifications of different density, would be drawn up the other parties to the Triple Alliance and to what was already now beginning to be called the Triple Entente. At the proper moment these seconds or supporters would utter certain cryptic words indicative of their state of mind, as a consequence of which France or Germany would step back or forward a very small distance or perhaps move slightly to the right or to the left. When these delicate rectifications in the great balance of Europe, and indeed of the world, had been made, the formidable assembly would withdraw to their own apartments with ceremony and salutations and congratulate or condole with each other in whispers on the result. We had seen it several times before.
But even this process was not free from danger. One must think of the intercourse of the nations in those days not as if they were chessmen on the board, or puppets dressed in finery and frillings grimacing at each other in a quadrille, but as prodigious organisations of forces active or latent which, like planetary bodies, could not approach each other in space without giving rise to profound magnetic reactions. If they got too near, the lightnings would begin to flash, and beyond a certain point they might be attracted altogether from the orbits in which they were restrained and draw each other into dire collision. The task of diplomacy was to prevent such disasters; and as long as there was no conscious or subconscious purpose of war in the mind of any Power or race, diplomacy would probably succeed. But in such grave and delicate conjunctions one violent move by any party would rupture and derange the restraints upon all, and plunge Cosmos into Chaos.
I thought myself that the Germans had a certain grievance about the original Anglo-French agreement. We had received many conveniences in Egypt. France had gained great advantages in Morocco. If Germany felt her relative position prejudiced by these arrangements, there was no reason why patiently and amicably she should not advance and press her own point of view. And it seemed to me that Britain, the most withdrawn, the least committed of the Great Powers, might exercise a mitigating and a modifying influence and procure an accommodation; and that of course was what we tried to do. But if Germany’s intention were malignant, no such process would be of the slightest use. In that event a very decided word would have to be spoken, and spoken before it was too late. Nor would our withdrawing altogether from the scene have helped matters. Had we done so all our restraining influence would have vanished, and an intenser aggravation of the antagonistic forces must have occurred. Therefore I read all the papers and telegrams which began to pass with a suspicion, and I could see beneath the calm of Sir Edward Grey a growing and at some moments a grave anxiety.
The sultry obscurity of the European situation was complicated by the uncertain play of forces within our own council chamber. There again in miniature were reproduced the balances and reserves of the external diplomatic situation. The Ministers who were conducting the foreign policy of Britain, with the ponderous trident of sea power towering up behind them, were drawn entirely from the Liberal Imperialist section of the Government. They were narrowly watched and kept in equipoise by the Radical element, which included the venerable figures of Lord Morley and Lord Loreburn, on whose side the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I had usually leaned. It was clear that this equipoise might easily make it impossible for Great Britain to speak with a decided voice either on one side or the other if certain dangerous conditions supervened. We should not, therefore, either keep clear ourselves by withdrawing from the danger nor be able by resolute action to ward it off in time. In these circumstances the attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer became of peculiar importance.
For some weeks he offered no indication of what his line would be, and in our numerous conversations he gave me the impression of being sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. But on the morning of July 21, when I visited him before the Cabinet, I found a different man. His mind was made up. He saw quite clearly the course to take. He knew what to do and how and when to do it. The tenor of his statement to me was that we were drifting into war. He dwelt on the oppressive silence of Germany so far as we were concerned. He pointed out that Germany was acting as if England did not count in the matter in any way; that she had completely ignored our strong representation; that she was proceeding to put the most severe pressure on France; that a catastrophe might ensue; and that if it was to be averted we must speak with great decision, and we must speak at once. He told me that he was to address the Bankers at their Annual Dinner that evening, and that he intended to make it clear that if Germany meant war, she would find Britain against her. He showed me what he had prepared, and told me that he would show it to the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey after the Cabinet. What would they say? I said that of course they would be very much relieved; and so they were, and so was I.
The accession of Mr. Lloyd George in foreign policy to the opposite wing of the Government was decisive. We were able immediately to pursue a firm and coherent policy. That night at the Bankers’ Association the Chancellor of the Exchequer used the following words:—
I believe it is essential in the highest interests not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international goodwill except questions of the gravest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.
His City audience, whose minds were obsessed with the iniquities of the Lloyd George Budget and the fearful hardships it had inflicted upon property and wealth—little did they dream of the future—did not comprehend in any way the significance or the importance of what they heard. They took it as if it had been one of the ordinary platitudes of ministerial pronouncements upon foreign affairs. But the Chancelleries of Europe bounded together.
Four days later, at about 5.30 in the afternoon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I were walking by the fountains of Buckingham Palace. Hot-foot on our track came a messenger. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer go at once to Sir Edward Grey? Mr. Lloyd George stopped abruptly and turning to me said, “That’s my speech. The Germans may demand my resignation as they did Delcassé’s.” I said, “That will make you the most popular man in England” (he was not actually the most popular at that time). We returned as fast as we could and found Sir Edward Grey in his room at the House of Commons. His first words were: “I have just received a communication from the German Ambassador so stiff that the Fleet might be attacked at any moment. I have sent for McKenna to warn him!” He then told us briefly of the conversation he had just had with Count Metternich. The Ambassador had said that after the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer no explanation could be made by Germany. In acrid terms he had stated that if France should repel the hand offered her by the Emperor’s Government, the dignity of Germany would compel her to secure by all means full respect by France for German treaty rights. He had then read a long complaint about Mr. Lloyd George’s speech “which to say the least could have been interpreted as a warning to Germany’s address and which as a matter of fact had been interpreted by the presses of Great Britain and France as a warning bordering on menace.” Sir Edward Grey had thought it right to reply that the tone of the communication which had just been read to him, rendered it inconsistent with the dignity of His Majesty’s Government to give explanations with regard to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The First Lord arrived while we were talking, and a few minutes later hurried off to send the warning orders.
They sound so very cautious and correct, these deadly words. Soft, quiet voices purring, courteous, grave, exactly-measured phrases in large peaceful rooms. But with less warning cannons had opened fire and nations had been struck down by this same Germany. So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century. Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well guarded hitherto, at last defenceless? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilisation has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.
The Mansion House speech was a surprise to all countries: it was a thunder-clap to the German Government. All their information had led them to believe that Mr. Lloyd George would head the peace party and that British action would be neutralised. Jumping from one extreme to another, they now assumed that the British Cabinet was absolutely united, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of all others had been deliberately selected as the most Radical Minister by the British Government to make this pronouncement.[[2]] They could not understand how their representatives and agents in Great Britain could have been so profoundly misled. Their vexation proved fatal to Count Metternich, and at the first convenient opportunity he was recalled. Here was an Ambassador who, after ten years’ residence in London, could not even forecast the action of one of the most powerful Ministers on a question of this character. It will be seen from what has been written that this view was hard on Count Metternich. How could he know what Mr. Lloyd George was going to do? Until a few hours before, his colleagues did not know. Working with him in close association, I did not know. No one knew. Until his mind was definitely made up, he did not know himself.
It seems probable now that the Germans did not mean war on this occasion. But they meant to test the ground; and in so doing they were prepared to go to the very edge of the precipice. It is so easy to lose one’s balance there: a touch, a gust of wind, a momentary dizziness, and all is precipitated into the abyss. But whether in the heart of the German State there was or was not a war purpose before England’s part had been publicly declared, there was no such intention afterwards.
After the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and its sequel the German Government could not doubt that Great Britain would be against them if a war was forced upon France at this juncture. They did not immediately recede from their position, but they were most careful to avoid any fresh act of provocation; and all their further conduct of the negotiations with France tended to open in one direction or another paths of accommodation and of retreat. It remained extremely difficult for us to gauge the exact significance of the various points at issue, and throughout the months of July, August and September the situation continued obscure and oppressive. The slight yet decisive change which came over the character of German diplomacy, was scarcely perceptible, and at the same time certain precautionary military measures which were taken behind the German frontiers, so far as they were known to us, had the effect of greatly increasing our anxiety. In consequence the atmosphere in England became constantly more heavily charged with electricity as one hot summer’s day succeeded another.
Hitherto as Home Secretary I had not had any special part to play in this affair, though I had followed it with the utmost attention as a Member of the Cabinet. I was now to receive a rude shock. On the afternoon of July 27th, I attended a garden party at 10 Downing Street. There I met the Chief Commissioner of Police, Sir Edward Henry. We talked about the European situation, and I told him that it was serious. He then remarked that by an odd arrangement the Home Office was responsible, through the Metropolitan Police, for guarding the magazines at Chattenden and Lodge Hill in which all the reserves of naval cordite were stored. For many years these magazines had been protected without misadventure by a few constables. I asked what would happen if twenty determined Germans in two or three motor cars arrived well armed upon the scene one night. He said they would be able to do what they liked. I quitted the garden party.
A few minutes later I was telephoning from my room in the Home Office to the Admiralty. Who was in charge? The First Lord was with the Fleet at Cromarty; the First Sea Lord was inspecting. Both were, of course, quickly accessible by wireless or wire. In the meantime an Admiral (he shall be nameless) was in control. I demanded Marines at once to guard these magazines, vital to the Royal Navy. I knew there were plenty of marines in the depôts at Chatham and Portsmouth. The admiral replied over the telephone that the Admiralty had no responsibility and had no intention of assuming any; and it was clear from his manner that he resented the intrusion of an alarmist civilian Minister. “You refuse then to send the Marines?” After some hesitation he replied, “I refuse.” I replaced the receiver and rang up the War Office. Mr. Haldane was there. I told him that I was reinforcing and arming the police that night, and asked for a company of infantry for each magazine in addition. In a few minutes the orders were given: in a few hours the troops had moved. By the next day the cordite reserves of the navy were safe.
The incident was a small one, and perhaps my fears were unfounded. But once one had begun to view the situation in this light, it became impossible to think of anything else. All around flowed the busy life of peaceful, unsuspecting, easygoing Britain. The streets were thronged with men and women utterly devoid of any sense of danger from abroad. For nearly a thousand years no foreign army had landed on British soil. For a hundred years the safety of the homeland had never been threatened. They went about their business, their sport, their class and party fights year after year, generation after generation, in perfect confidence and considerable ignorance. All their ideas were derived from conditions of peace. All their arrangements were the result of long peace. Most of them would have been incredulous, many would have been very angry if they had been told that we might be near a tremendous war, and that perhaps within this City of London, which harboured confidingly visitors from every land, resolute foreigners might be aiming a deadly blow at the strength of the one great weapon and shield in which we trusted.
I began to make inquiries about vulnerable points. I found the far-seeing Captain Hankey, then Assistant Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, already on the move classifying them for the War Book, which project had actually been launched.[[3]] I inquired further about sabotage and espionage and counter-espionage. I came in touch with other officers working very quietly and very earnestly but in a small way and with small means. I was told about German spies and agents in the various British ports. Hitherto the Home Secretary had to sign a warrant when it was necessary to examine any particular letter passing through the Royal Mails. I now signed general warrants authorising the examination of all the correspondence of particular people upon a list, to which additions were continually made. This soon disclosed a regular and extensive system of German paid British agents. It was only in a very small part of the field of preparation that the Home Secretary had any official duty of interference, but once I got drawn in, it dominated all other interests in my mind. For seven years I was to think of little else. Liberal politics, the People’s Budget, Free Trade, Peace, Retrenchment and Reform—all the war cries of our election struggles began to seem unreal in the presence of this new preoccupation. Only Ireland held her place among the grim realities which came one after another into view. No doubt other Ministers had similar mental experiences. I am telling my own tale.
I now began to make an intensive study of the military position in Europe. I read everything with which I was supplied. I spent many hours in argument and discussion. The Secretary of State for War told his officers to tell me everything I wanted to know. The Chief of the General Staff, Sir William Nicholson, was an old friend of mine. I had served with him as a young officer on Sir William Lockhart’s staff at the end of the Tirah Expedition in 1898. He wrote fine broad appreciations and preached a clear and steady doctrine. But the man from whom I learned most was the Director of Military Operations, General Wilson (afterwards Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson). This officer had extraordinary vision and faith. He had acquired an immense and, I expect, an unequalled volume of knowledge about the Continent. He knew the French Army thoroughly. He was deeply in the secrets of the French General Staff. He had been Head of the British Staff College. For years he had been labouring with one object, that if war came we should act immediately on the side of France. He was sure that war would come sooner or later. All the threads of military information were in his hands. The whole wall of his small room was covered by a gigantic map of Belgium, across which every practicable road by which the German armies could march for the invasion of France, was painted clearly. All his holidays he spent examining these roads and the surrounding country. He could not do much in Germany: the Germans knew him too well.
One night the German ambassador, still Count Metternich, whom I had known for ten years, asked me to dine with him. We were alone, and a famous hock from the Emperor’s cellars was produced. We had a long talk about Germany and how she had grown great; about Napoleon and the part he had played in uniting her; about the Franco-German War and how it began and how it ended. I said what a pity it was that Bismarck had allowed himself to be forced by the soldiers into taking Lorraine, and how Alsace-Lorraine lay at the root of all the European armaments and rival combinations. He said these had been German provinces from remote antiquity until one day in profound peace Louis XIV had pranced over the frontier and seized them. I said their sympathies were French: he said they were mixed. I said that anyhow it kept the whole thing alive. France could never forget her lost provinces, and they never ceased to call to her. The conversation passed to a kindred but more critical subject. Was he anxious about the present situation? He said people were trying to ring Germany round and put her in a net, and that she was a strong animal to put in a net. I said, how could she be netted when she had an alliance with two other first-class Powers, Austria-Hungary and Italy? We had often stood quite alone for years at a time without getting flustered. He said it was a very different business for an island. But when you had been marched through and pillaged and oppressed so often and had only the breasts of your soldiers to stand between you and invasion, it ate into your soul. I said that Germany was frightened of nobody, and that everybody was frightened of her.
Then we came to the Navy. Surely, I said, it was a great mistake for Germany to try to rival Britain on the seas. She would never catch us up. We should build two to one or more if necessary, and at every stage antagonism would grow between the countries. Radicals and Tories, whatever they might say about each other, were all agreed on that. No British Government which jeopardised our naval supremacy could live. He said Mr. Lloyd George had told him very much the same thing; but the Germans had no thought of naval supremacy. All they wanted was a Fleet to protect their commerce and their colonies. I asked what was the use of having a weaker Fleet? It was only another hostage to fortune. He said that the Emperor was profoundly attached to his Fleet, and that it was his own creation. I could not resist saying that Moltke had pronounced a very different opinion of Germany’s true interest.
I have recorded these notes of a pleasant though careful conversation, not because they are of any importance, but because they help to show the different points of view. I learned afterwards that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in similar circumstances had spoken more explicitly, saying that he would raise a hundred millions in a single year for the British Navy if its supremacy were really challenged.
Count Metternich was a very honourable man, serving his master faithfully but labouring to preserve peace, especially peace between England and Germany. I have heard that on one occasion at Berlin in a throng of generals and princes, some one had said that the British Fleet would one day make a surprise and unprovoked attack upon Germany. Whereupon the Ambassador had replied that he had lived in England for nearly ten years, and he knew that such a thing was absolutely impossible. On this remark being received with obvious incredulity, he had drawn himself up and observed that he made it on the honour of a German officer and that he would answer for its truth with his honour. This for a moment had quelled the company.
It is customary for thoughtless people to jeer at the old diplomacy and to pretend that wars arise out of its secret machinations. When one looks at the petty subjects which have led to wars between great countries and to so many disputes, it is easy to be misled in this way. Of course such small matters are only the symptoms of the dangerous disease, and are only important for that reason. Behind them lie the interests, the passions and the destiny of mighty races of men; and long antagonisms express themselves in trifles. “Great commotions,” it was said of old, “arise out of small things, but not concerning small things.” The old diplomacy did its best to render harmless the small things: it could not do more. Nevertheless, a war postponed may be a war averted. Circumstances change, combinations change, new groupings arise, old interests are superseded by new. Many quarrels that might have led to war have been adjusted by the old diplomacy of Europe and have, in Lord Melbourne’s phrase, “blown over.” If the nations of the world, while the sense of their awful experiences is still fresh upon them, are able to devise broader and deeper guarantees of peace and build their houses on a surer foundation of brotherhood and interdependence, they will still require the courtly manners, the polite and measured phrases, the imperturbable demeanour, the secrecy and discretion of the old diplomatists of Europe. This is, however, a digression.
On August 23rd, after Parliament had risen and Ministers had dispersed, the Prime Minister convened very secretly a special meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence. He summoned the Ministers specially concerned with the foreign situation and with the fighting services, including of course the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were also the principal officers of the Army and the Navy. I was invited to attend, though the Home Office was not directly concerned. We sat all day. In the morning the Army told its tale: in the afternoon, the Navy.
General Wilson, as Director of Military Operations, stated the views of the General Staff. Standing by his enormous map, specially transported for the purpose, he unfolded, with what proved afterwards to be extreme accuracy, the German plan for attacking France in the event of a war between Germany and Austria on the one hand and France and Russia on the other. It was briefly as follows:—
In the first place the Germans would turn nearly four-fifths of their strength against France and leave only one-fifth to contain Russia. The German armies would draw up on a line from the Swiss frontier to Aix-la-Chapelle. They would then swing their right wing through Belgium, thus turning the line of fortresses by which the eastern frontiers of France were protected. This enormous swinging movement of the German right arm would require every road which led through Belgium from Luxembourg to the Belgian Meuse. There were fifteen of these roads, and three divisions would probably march along each. The Belgian Meuse flowed parallel to the march of these divisions and protected their right flank. Along this river were three important fortified passages or bridgeheads. First, nearest Germany, Liège; the last, nearest France, Namur; and midway between the two, the fort of Huy. Now arose the question, Would the Germans after seizing these bridgeheads confine themselves to the eastern side of the Belgian Meuse and use the river for their protection, or would they be able to spare and bring a large body of troops to prolong their turning movement west of the Belgian Meuse and thus advance beyond it instead of inside it? This was the only part of their plan which could not be foreseen. Would they avoid the west side of the Belgian Meuse altogether? Would they skim along it with a cavalry force only, or would they march infantry divisions or even army corps west of that river? When the time came, as we now know, they marched two whole armies. At that date, however, the most sombre apprehension did not exceed one, or at the outside two, army corps.
Overwhelming detailed evidence was adduced to show that the Germans had made every preparation for marching through Belgium. The great military camps in close proximity to the frontier, the enormous depôts, the reticulation of railways, the endless sidings, revealed with the utmost clearness and beyond all doubt their design. Liège would be taken within a few hours of the declaration of war, possibly even before it, by a rush of motor cars and cyclists from the camp at Elsenborn. That camp was now (August, 1911) crowded with troops, and inquisitive persons and ordinary country-folk were already being roughly turned back and prevented from approaching it.
What would Belgium do in the face of such an onslaught? Nothing could save Liège, but French troops might reach Namur in time to aid in its defence. For the rest the Belgian army, assuming that Belgium resisted the invader, would withdraw into the great entrenched camp and fortress of Antwerp. This extensive area, intersected by a tangle of rivers and canals and defended by three circles of forts, would become the last refuge of the Belgian monarchy and people.
The position of Holland was also examined. It was not thought that the Germans would overrun Holland as they would Belgium, but they might find it very convenient to march across the curiously shaped projection of Holland which lay between Germany and Belgium, and which in the British General Staff parlance of that time was called “the Maestricht Appendix.” They would certainly do this if any considerable body of their troops was thrown west of the Belgian Meuse.
The French plans for meeting this formidable situation were not told in detail to us; but it was clear that they hoped to forestall and rupture the German enveloping movement by a counter-offensive of their own on the greatest scale.
The number of divisions available on both sides and on all fronts when mobilisation was completed were estimated as follows:—
| French | 85 |
| German | 110 |
It was asserted that if the six British divisions were sent to take position on the extreme French left, immediately war was declared, the chances of repulsing the Germans in the first great shock of battle were favourable. Every French soldier would fight with double confidence if he knew he was not fighting alone. Upon the strength of Russia General Wilson spoke with great foresight, and the account which he gave of the slow mobilisation of the Russian Army swept away many illusions. It seemed incredible that Germany should be content to leave scarcely a score of divisions to make head against the might of Russia. But the British General Staff considered that such a decision would be well-founded. We shall see presently how the loyalty of Russia and of the Tsar, found the means by prodigious sacrifices to call back to the East vital portions of the German Army at the supreme moment. Such action could not be foreseen then, and most people have forgotten it now.
There was of course a considerable discussion and much questioning before we adjourned at 2 o’clock. When we began again at three, it was the turn of the Admiralty, and the First Sea Lord, Sir Arthur Wilson, with another map expounded his views of the policy we should pursue in the event of our being involved in such a war. He did not reveal the Admiralty war plans. Those he kept locked away in his own brain, but he indicated that they embodied the principle of a close blockade of the enemy’s ports. It was very soon apparent that a profound difference existed between the War Office and the Admiralty view. In the main the Admiralty thought that we should confine our efforts to the sea; that if our small Army were sent to the Continent it would be swallowed up among the immense hosts conflicting there, whereas if kept in ships or ready to embark for counterstrokes upon the German coast, it would draw off more than its own weight of numbers from the German fighting line. This view, which was violently combated by the Generals, did not commend itself to the bulk of those present, and on many points of detail connected with the landings of these troops the military and naval authorities were found in complete discord. The serious disagreement between the military and naval staffs in such critical times upon fundamental issues was the immediate cause of my going to the Admiralty. After the Council had separated, Mr. Haldane intimated to the Prime Minister that he would not continue to be responsible for the War Office unless a Board of Admiralty was called into being which would work in full harmony with the War Office plans, and would begin the organisation of a proper Naval War Staff. Of course I knew nothing of this, but it was destined soon to affect my fortunes in a definite manner.
I thought that the General Staff took too sanguine a view of the French Army. Knowing their partisanship for France, I feared the wish was father to the thought. It was inevitable that British military men, ardently desirous of seeing their country intervene on the side of France, and convinced that the destruction of France by Germany would imperil the whole future of Great Britain, should be inclined to overrate the relative power of the French Army and accord it brighter prospects than were actually justified. The bulk of their information was derived from French sources. The French General Staff were resolute and hopeful. The principle of the offensive was the foundation of their military art and the mainspring of the French soldier. Although according to the best information, the French pre-war Army when fully mobilised was only three-fourths as strong as the German pre-war Army, the French mobilisation from the ninth to the thirteenth day yielded a superior strength on the fighting front. High hopes were entertained by the French Generals that a daring seizure of the initiative and a vigorous offensive into Alsace-Lorraine would have the effect of rupturing the carefully thought out German plans of marching through Belgium on to Paris. These hopes were reflected in the British General Staff appreciations.
I could not share them. I had therefore prepared a memorandum for the Committee of Imperial Defence which embodied my own conclusions upon all I had learned from the General Staff. It was Dated August 13, 1911. It was, of course, only an attempt to pierce the veil of the future; to conjure up in the mind a vast imaginary situation; to balance the incalculable; to weigh the imponderable. It will be seen that I named the twentieth day of mobilisation as the date by which “the French armies will have been driven from the line of the Meuse and will be falling back on Paris and the South,” and the fortieth day as that by which “Germany should be extended at full strain both internally and on her war fronts,” and that “opportunities for the decisive trial of strength may then occur.” I am quite free to admit that these were not intended to be precise dates, but as guides to show what would probably happen. In fact, however, both these forecasts were almost literally verified three years later by the event.
I reprinted this memorandum on the 2nd of September, 1914, in order to encourage my colleagues with the hope that if the unfavourable prediction about the twentieth day had been borne out, so also would be the favourable prediction about the fortieth day. And so indeed it was.
MILITARY ASPECTS OF THE CONTINENTAL PROBLEM
Memorandum by Mr. Churchill
August 13, 1911.
The following notes have been written on the assumption ... that a decision has been arrived at to employ a British military force on the Continent of Europe. It does not prejudge that decision in any way.
It is assumed that an alliance exists between Great Britain, France, and Russia, and that these Powers are attacked by Germany and Austria.
1. The decisive military operations will be those between France and Germany. The German army is at least equal in quality to the French, and mobilises 2,200,000 against 1,700,000. The French must therefore seek for a situation of more equality. This can be found either before the full strength of the Germans has been brought to bear or after the German army has become extended. The first might be reached between the ninth and thirteenth days; the latter about the fortieth.
2. The fact that during a few days in the mobilisation period the French are equal or temporarily superior on the frontiers is of no significance, except on the assumption that France contemplates adopting a strategic offensive. The Germans will not choose the days when they themselves have least superiority for a general advance; and if the French advance, they lose at once all the advantages of their own internal communications, and by moving towards the advancing German reinforcements annul any numerical advantage they may for the moment possess. The French have therefore, at the beginning of the war, no option but to remain on the defensive, both upon their own fortress line and behind the Belgian frontier; and the choice of the day when the first main collision will commence rests with the Germans, who must be credited with the wisdom of choosing the best possible day, and cannot be forced into decisive action against their will, except by some reckless and unjustifiable movement on the part of the French.
3. A prudent survey of chances from the British point of view ought to contemplate that, when the German advance decisively begins, it will be backed by sufficient preponderance of force, and developed on a sufficiently wide front to compel the French armies to retreat from their positions behind the Belgian frontier, even though they may hold the gaps between the fortresses on the Verdun-Belfort front. No doubt a series of great battles will have been fought with varying local fortunes, and there is always a possibility of a heavy German check. But, even if the Germans were brought to a standstill, the French would not be strong enough to advance in their turn; and in any case we ought not to count on this. The balance of probability is that by the twentieth day the French armies will have been driven from the line of the Meuse and will be falling back on Paris and the south. All plans based upon the opposite assumption ask too much of fortune.
4. This is not to exclude the plan of using four or six British divisions in these great initial operations. Such a force is a material factor of significance. Its value to the French would be out of all proportion to its numerical strength. It would encourage every French soldier and make the task of the Germans in forcing the frontier much more costly. But the question which is of most practical consequence to us is what is to happen after the frontier has been forced and the invasion of France has begun. France will not be able to end the war successfully by any action on the frontiers. She will not be strong enough to invade Germany. Her only chance is to conquer Germany in France. It is this problem which should be studied before any final decision is taken.
5. The German armies in advancing through Belgium and onwards into France will be relatively weakened by all or any of the following causes:—
By the greater losses incidental to the offensive (especially if they have tested unsuccessfully the French fortress lines);
By the greater employment of soldiers necessitated by acting on exterior lines;
By having to guard their communications through Belgium and France (especially from the sea flank);
By having to invest Paris (requiring at least 500,000 men against 100,000) and to besiege or mask other places, especially along the seaboard;
By the arrival of the British army;
By the growing pressure of Russia from the thirtieth day;
And generally by the bad strategic situation to which their right-handed advance will commit them as it becomes pronounced.
All these factors will operate increasingly in proportion as the German advance continues and every day that passes.
6. Time is also required for the naval blockade to make itself felt on German commerce, industry, and food prices, as described in the Admiralty Memorandum, and for these again to react on German credit and finances already burdened with the prodigious daily cost of the war. All these pressures will develop simultaneously and progressively. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer has drawn special attention to this and to the very light structure of German industry and economic organisations.]
7. By the fortieth day Germany should be extended at full strain both internally and on her war fronts, and this strain will become daily more severe and ultimately overwhelming, unless it is relieved by decisive victories in France. If the French army has not been squandered by precipitate or desperate action, the balance of forces should be favourable after the fortieth day, and will improve steadily as time passes. For the German armies will be confronted with a situation which combines an ever-growing need for a successful offensive, with a battle-front which tends continually towards numerical equality. Opportunities for the decisive trial of strength may then occur.
8. Such a policy demands heavy and hard sacrifices from France, who must, with great constancy, expose herself to invasion, to having her provinces occupied by the enemy, and to the investment of Paris, and whose armies may be committed to retrograde or defensive operations. Whether her rulers could contemplate or her soldiers endure this trial may depend upon the military support which Great Britain can give; and this must be known beforehand, so that the French war-plans can be adjusted accordingly, and so that we may know, before we decide, what they would be prepared to do.
9. The following measures would appear to be required to enable Great Britain to take an effective part in the decisive theatre of the war:—
| Men (Approximate). | |
|---|---|
| The four divisions of the expeditionary army, with their auxiliary troops, should be sent on the outbreak of war to France | 107,000 |
| To these should be added the two remaining divisions as soon as the naval blockade is effectively established | 53,000 |
| And the 7th Division from South Africa and the Mediterranean (as soon as the colonial forces in South Africa can be embodied) | 15,000 |
| And 5,000 additional Yeomanry cavalry or light horse, with 10,000 volunteer cyclist Territorials | 15,000 |
| As we should be allies of Russia, the Anglo-Indian Army could be drawn upon so long as two native regiments were moved out of India for every British regiment. Lord Kitchener has stated that it would be possible in so grave a need, to withdraw six out of the nine field divisions from India, and this should be done immediately. This force could be brought into France by Marseilles by the fortieth day | 100,000 |
| Thus making a total force of | 290,000 |
This fine army, almost entirely composed of professional soldiers, could be assembled around (say) Tours by the fortieth day, in rear of the French left (instead of being frittered into action piecemeal), and would then become a very important factor in events. The Russian army would also by then be engaged in full force on the eastern frontiers of Germany and Austria, and the power of the three allies should then be sufficient either to hold the Germans in a position of growing difficulty or, if desirable, to assume the offensive in concert.
10. To provide meanwhile for the security of Great Britain, for unforeseeable contingencies, and for sustaining the expeditionary army with a continuous supply of volunteer drafts, it would be necessary on the outbreak—
(a) To embody the whole Territorial force.
(b) To call for volunteers for Home defence from all persons possessing military experience.
(c) To raise a compulsory levy of 500,000 men for Home defence.
This levy should be formed upon the cadres of the Territorial divisions, so as to enable a proportion of the Territorial army to be released at the end of the sixth month. The question of sending any part of the compulsory levy by compulsion to the Continent would not arise until after this force had been trained. The steady augmentation of British military strength during the progress of the war would, however, put us in a position by the end of the twelfth month to secure or re-establish British interests outside Europe, even if, through the defeat or desertion of allies, we were forced to continue the war alone.
No lesser steps would seem adequate to the scale of events.
W. S. C.
The Conference separated. Apprehension lay heavy on the minds of all who had participated in it.
The War Office hummed with secrets in those days. Not the slightest overt action could be taken. But every preparation by forethought was made and every detail was worked out on paper. The railway time-tables, or graphics as they were called, of the movement of every battalion—even where they were to drink their coffee—were prepared and settled. Thousands of maps of Northern France and Belgium were printed. The cavalry manœuvres were postponed “on account of the scarcity of water in Wiltshire and the neighbouring counties.” The press, fiercely divided on party lines, overwhelmingly pacific in tendency, without censorship, without compulsion, observed a steady universal reticence. Not a word broke the long drawn oppressive silence. The great railway strike came to an end with mysterious suddenness. Mutual concessions were made by masters and men after hearing a confidential statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In the middle of August I went to the country for a few days. I could not think of anything else but the peril of war. I did my other work as it came along, but there was only one field of interest fiercely illuminated in my mind. Sitting on a hilltop in the smiling country which stretches round Mells, the lines I have copied at the top of this chapter kept running through my mind. Whenever I recall them, they bring back to me the anxieties of those Agadir days.
From Mells I wrote the following letter to Sir Edward Grey. It speaks for itself.
Mr. Churchill to Sir Edward Grey.
30 August, 1911.
Perhaps the time is coming when decisive action will be necessary. Please consider the following policy for use if and when the Morocco negotiations fail.
Propose to France and Russia a triple alliance to safeguard (inter alia) the independence of Belgium, Holland, and Denmark.
Tell Belgium that, if her neutrality is violated, we are prepared to come to her aid and to make an alliance with France and Russia to guarantee her independence. Tell her that we will take whatever military steps will be most effective for that purpose. But the Belgian Army must take the field in concert with the British and French Armies, and Belgium must immediately garrison properly Liège and Namur. Otherwise we cannot be responsible for her fate.
Offer the same guarantee both to Holland and to Denmark contingent upon their making their utmost exertions.
We should, if necessary, aid Belgium to defend Antwerp and to feed that fortress and any army based on it. We should be prepared at the proper moment to put extreme pressure on the Dutch to keep the Scheldt open for all purposes. If the Dutch close the Scheldt, we should retaliate by a blockade of the Rhine.
It is very important to us to be able to blockade the Rhine, and it gets more important as the war goes on. On the other hand, if the Germans do not use the “Maestricht Appendix” in the first days of the war, they will not want it at all.
Let me add that I am not at all convinced about the wisdom of a close blockade, and I did not like the Admiralty statement. If the French send cruisers to Mogador and Saffi, I am of opinion that we should (for our part) move our main fleet to the north of Scotland into its war station. Our interests are European, and not Moroccan. The significance of the movement would be just as great as if we sent our two ships with the French.
Please let me know when you will be in London; and will you kindly send this letter on to the Prime Minister.
My views underwent no change in the three years of peace that followed. On the contrary they were confirmed and amplified by everything I learned. In some respects, as in the abolition of the plan of close blockade and the sending of the Fleet to its war station, I was able to carry them out. In other cases, such as the defence of Antwerp, I had not the power to do in time what I believed to be equally necessary. But I tried my best, not, as has frequently been proclaimed, upon a foolish impulse, but in pursuance of convictions reached by pondering and study. I could not help feeling a strong confidence in the truth of these convictions, when I saw how several of them were justified one after the other in that terrible and unparalleled period of convulsion. I had no doubts whatever what ought to be done in certain matters, and my only difficulty was to persuade or induce others.
The Agadir crisis came however peacefully to an end. It had terminated in the diplomatic rebuff of Germany. Once more she had disturbed all Europe by a sudden and menacing gesture. Once more she had used the harshest threats towards France. For the first time she had made British statesmen feel that sense of direct contact with the war peril which was never absent from Continental minds. The French, however, offered concessions and compensations. An intricate negotiation about the frontiers of French and German territory in West Africa, in which the “Bec de Canard” played an important part, had resulted in an agreement between the two principals. To us it seemed that France had won a considerable advantage. She was not, however, particularly pleased. Her Prime Minister, Monsieur Caillaux, who had presided during those anxious days, was dismissed from office on grounds which at the time it was very difficult to appreciate here, but which viewed in the light of subsequent events can more easily be understood. The tension in German governing circles must have been very great. The German Colonial Secretary, von Lindequist, resigned rather than sign the agreement. There is no doubt that deep and violent passions of humiliation and resentment were coursing beneath the glittering uniforms which thronged the palaces through which the Kaiser moved. And of those passions the Crown Prince made himself the exponent. The world has heaped unbounded execrations upon this unlucky being. He was probably in fact no better and no worse than the average young cavalry subaltern who had not been through the ordinary mill at a public school nor had to think about earning his living. He had a considerable personal charm, which he lavished principally upon the fair sex, but which in darker days has captivated the juvenile population of Wieringen. His flattered head was turned by the burning eyes and guttural words of great captains and statesmen and party leaders. He therefore threw himself forward into this strong favouring current, and became a power, or rather the focus of a power, with which the Kaiser was forced to reckon. Germany once more proceeded to increase her armaments by land and sea.
“It was a question,” writes von Tirpitz, “of our keeping our nerve, continuing to arm on a grand scale, avoiding all provocation, and waiting without anxiety until our sea power was established[[4]] and forced the English to let us breathe in peace.” Only to breathe in peace! What fearful apparatus was required to secure this simple act of respiration!
Early in October Mr. Asquith invited me to stay with him in Scotland. The day after I had arrived there, on our way home from the links, he asked me quite abruptly whether I would like to go to the Admiralty. He had put the same question to me when he first became Prime Minister. This time I had no doubt what to answer. All my mind was full of the dangers of war. I accepted with alacrity. I said, “Indeed I would.” He said that Mr. Haldane was coming to see him the next day and we would talk it over together. But I saw that his mind was made up. The fading light of evening disclosed in the far distance the silhouettes of two battleships steaming slowly out of the Firth of Forth. They seemed invested with a new significance to me.
That night when I went to bed, I saw a large Bible lying on a table in my bedroom. My mind was dominated by the news I had received of the complete change in my station and of the task entrusted to me. I thought of the peril of Britain, peace-loving, unthinking, little prepared, of her power and virtue, and of her mission of good sense and fair play. I thought of mighty Germany, towering up in the splendour of her imperial state and delving down in her profound, cold, patient, ruthless calculations. I thought of the army corps I had watched tramp past, wave after wave of valiant manhood, at the Breslau manœuvres in 1907; of the thousands of strong horses dragging cannon and great howitzers up the ridges and along the roads around Wurzburg in 1910. I thought of German education and thoroughness and all that their triumphs in science and philosophy implied. I thought of the sudden and successful wars by which her power had been set up. I opened the Book at random, and in the 9th Chapter of Deuteronomy I read—
Hear, O Israel; Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven.
2. A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!
3. Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee.
4. Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.
5. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
It seemed a message full of reassurance.
CHAPTER IV
ADMIRALS ALL
“Concerning brave Captains
Our age hath made known.”
Rudyard Kipling.
At the Admiralty—The State of Business—Immediate Measures—The Two Leading Sailors—Lord Fisher of Kilverstone—His Great Reforms—His Violent Methods—The Schism in the Fleet—Difficulties of His Task—The Bacon Letters—Our Conference at Reigate Priory—A Fateful Decision—Lord Fisher’s Correspondence—Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea Lord—Deadlock Concerning the War Staff Policy—Formation of a New Board of Admiralty—The Command of the Home Fleets—Sir Arthur Wilson’s Retirement—A Digression Forward—Captain Pakenham’s Sea-going Record—Rear-Admiral Beatty—The Naval Secretary—Prince Louis of Battenberg Becomes Second Sea Lord—The War Staff—Military Education and Staff Training—Captains of Ships and Captains of War—Fifteen Years and Only Thirty Months.
Mr. McKenna and I changed guard with strict punctilio. In the morning he came over to the Home Office and I introduced him to the officials there. In the afternoon I went over to the Admiralty; he presented his Board and principal officers and departmental heads to me, and then took his leave. I knew he felt greatly his change of office, but no one would have divined it from his manner. As soon as he had gone I convened a formal meeting of the Board, at which the Secretary read the new Letters Patent constituting me its head, and I thereupon in the words of the Order-in-Council became “responsible to Crown and Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty.” I was to endeavour to discharge this responsibility for the four most memorable years of my life.
The state of Admiralty business was as follows:—The Estimates and plans for the financial year 1912–13 were far advanced: the programme had been settled and the designs of the vessels only awaited final approval. We were to lay down three battleships, one battle-cruiser, two light cruisers (“Dartmouths”), one smaller light cruiser (a “Blonde”), the usual flotilla of twenty destroyers and a number of submarines and ancillary craft. The Estimates embodying this policy had to be passed by the Cabinet at the latest by the end of February, and presented to the House of Commons in the utmost detail in March.
But a great uncertainty hung over all these plans. A continued succession of rumours and reports from many sources, and of hints and allusions in the German Press, foreshadowed a further German naval increase. This, following upon all that had gone before and coming at a moment when relations were so tense, must certainly aggravate the situation. It would inevitably compel us to take important additional counter-measures. What these counter-measures would have to be, could not be decided till the text of the new German Navy Law was known to us. It was clear, however, from the information received, that it was not only to be an increase in new construction but in the number of squadrons or vessels maintained in a state of instant and constant readiness.
In addition to these complications were a number of naval questions of prime importance which I conceived required new treatment. First, the War Plans of the Fleet, which up to that moment had been based upon the principle of close blockade. Second, the organisation of the fleets with a view to increasing their instantly ready strength. Third, measures to guard against all aspects of surprise in the event of a sudden attack. Fourth, the formation of a Naval War Staff. Fifth, the concerting of the War Plans of the Navy and the Army by close co-operation of the two departments. Sixth, further developments in design to increase the gun power of our new ships in all classes. Seventh, changes in the high commands of the Fleet and in the composition of the Board of Admiralty.
To all these matters I addressed myself in constant secret consultations with the principal persons concerned in each. For the present, however, I arrived at no important decisions, but laboured continually to check and correct the opinions with which I had arrived at the Admiralty by the expert information which on every subject was now at my disposal.
With the agreement of the Sea Lords I gave certain directions on minor points immediately. The flotilla of destroyers sanctioned in the 1911–12 Estimates would not have been let out to contract till the very end of the financial year. We now accelerated these twenty boats (the “L’s”) by four months, and thus, though we could not possibly foresee it, they were almost all fully commissioned just in time for the great review and mobilization of the Fleet which preceded the outbreak of war. I gave, moreover, certain personal directions to enable me “to sleep quietly in my bed.” The naval magazines were to be effectively guarded under the direct charge of the Admiralty. The continuous attendance of naval officers, additional to that of the resident clerks, was provided at the Admiralty, so that at any hour of the day or night, weekdays, Sundays, or holidays, there would never be a moment lost in giving the alarm; and one of the Sea Lords was always to be on duty in or near the Admiralty building to receive it. Upon the wall behind my chair I had an open case fitted, within whose folding doors spread a large chart of the North Sea. On this chart every day a Staff Officer marked with flags the position of the German Fleet. Never once was this ceremony omitted until the War broke out, and the great maps, covering the whole of one side of the War Room, began to function. I made a rule to look at my chart once every day when I first entered my room. I did this less to keep myself informed, for there were many other channels of information, than in order to inculcate in myself and those working with me a sense of ever-present danger. In this spirit we all worked.
I must now introduce the reader to the two great Admirals-of-the-Fleet, Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson, whose outstanding qualities and life’s work, afloat and at the Admiralty, added to and reacted upon by the energies and patriotism of Lord Charles Beresford, had largely made the Royal Navy what it was at this time. The names of both Fisher and Wilson must often recur in these pages, for they played decisive parts in the tale I have to tell.
I first met Lord Fisher at Biarritz in 1907. We stayed for a fortnight as the guests of a common friend. He was then First Sea Lord and in the height of his reign. We talked all day long and far into the nights. He told me wonderful stories of the Navy and of his plans—all about Dreadnoughts, all about submarines, all about the new education scheme for every branch of the Navy, all about big guns, and splendid Admirals and foolish miserable ones, and Nelson and the Bible, and finally the island of Borkum. I remembered it all. I reflected on it often. I even remembered the island of Borkum when my teacher had ceased to think so much of it. At any rate, when I returned to my duties at the Colonial Office I could have passed an examination on the policy of the then Board of Admiralty.
For at least ten years all the most important steps taken to enlarge, improve or modernise the Navy had been due to Fisher. The water-tube boiler, the “all big gun ship,” the introduction of the submarine (“Fisher’s toys,” as Lord Charles Beresford called them), the common education scheme, the system of nucleus crews for ships in reserve, and latterly—to meet the German rivalry—the concentration of the Fleets in Home Waters, the scrapping of great quantities of ships of little fighting power, the great naval programmes of 1908 and 1909, the advance from the 12–inch to the 13.5–inch gun—all in the main were his.
In carrying through these far-reaching changes he had created violent oppositions to himself in the Navy, and his own methods, in which he gloried, were of a kind to excite bitter animosities, which he returned and was eager to repay. He made it known, indeed he proclaimed, that officers of whatever rank who opposed his policies would have their professional careers ruined. As for traitors, i. e., those who struck at him openly or secretly, “their wives should be widows, their children fatherless, their homes a dunghill.” This he repeated again and again. “Ruthless, relentless and remorseless” were words always on his lips, and many grisly examples of Admirals and Captains eating out their hearts “on the beach” showed that he meant what he said. He did not hesitate to express his policy in the most unfavourable terms, as if to challenge and defy his enemies and critics. “Favouritism,” he wrote in the log of Dartmouth College, “is the secret of efficiency.” What he meant by “favouritism” was selection without regard to seniority by a discerning genius in the interests of the public; but the word “favouritism” stuck. Officers were said to be “in the fish-pond”—unlucky for them if they were not. He poured contempt upon the opinions and arguments of those who did not agree with his schemes, and abused them roundly at all times both by word and letter.
In the Royal Navy, however, there were a considerable number of officers of social influence and independent means, many of whom became hostile to Fisher. They had access to Parliament and to the Press. In sympathy with them, though not with all their methods, was a much larger body of good and proved sea officers. At the head of the whole opposition stood Lord Charles Beresford, at that time Commander-in-Chief of the Channel or principal Fleet. A deplorable schism was introduced into the Royal Navy, which spread to every squadron and to every ship. There were Fisher’s men and Beresford’s men. Whatever the First Sea Lord proposed the Commander-in-Chief opposed, and through the whole of the Service Captains and Lieutenants were encouraged to take one side or the other. The argument was conducted with technicalities and with personalities. Neither side was strong enough to crush the other. The Admiralty had its backers in the Fleet, and the Fleet had its friends in the Admiralty: both sides therefore had good information as to what was passing in the other camp. The lamentable situation thus created might easily have ruined the discipline of the Navy but for the fact that a third large body of officers resolutely refused, at whatever cost to themselves, to participate in the struggle. Silently and steadfastly they went about their work till the storms of partisanship were past. To these officers a debt is due.
There is no doubt whatever that Fisher was right in nine-tenths of what he fought for. His great reforms sustained the power of the Royal Navy at the most critical period in its history. He gave the Navy the kind of shock which the British Army received at the time of the South African War. After a long period of serene and unchallenged complacency, the mutter of distant thunder could be heard. It was Fisher who hoisted the storm-signal and beat all hands to quarters. He forced every department of the Naval Service to review its position and question its own existence. He shook them and beat them and cajoled them out of slumber into intense activity. But the Navy was not a pleasant place while this was going on. The “Band of Brothers” tradition which Nelson had handed down was for the time, but only for the time, discarded; and behind the open hostility of chieftains flourished the venomous intrigues of their followers.
I have asked myself whether all this could not have been avoided; whether we could not have had the Fisher reforms without the Fisher methods? My conviction is that Fisher was maddened by the difficulties and obstructions which he encountered, and became violent in the process of fighting so hard at every step. In the government of a great fighting service there must always be the combination of the political and professional authorities. A strong First Sea Lord, to carry out a vigorous policy, needs the assistance of a Minister, who alone can support him and defend him. The authority of both is more than doubled by their union. Each can render the other services of supreme importance when they are both effective factors. Working in harmony, they multiply each other. By the resultant concentration of combined power, no room or chance is given to faction. For good or for ill what they decide together in the interests of the Service must be loyally accepted. Unhappily, the later years of Fisher’s efforts were years in which the Admiralty was ruled by two Ministers, both of whom were desperately and even mortally ill. Although most able and most upright public men, both Lord Cawdor and Lord Tweedmouth, First Lords from 1904 to 1908, were afflicted with extreme ill-health. Moreover, neither was in the House of Commons and able himself, by exposition in the responsible Chamber, to proclaim in unquestioned accents the policy which the Admiralty would follow and which the House of Commons should ratify. When in 1908 Mr. McKenna became First Lord, there was a change. Gifted with remarkable clearness of mind and resolute courage, enjoying in the prime of life the fullest vigour of his faculties, and having acquired a strong political position in the House of Commons, he was able to supply an immediate steadying influence. But it was too late for Fisher. The Furies were upon his track. The opposition and hatreds had already grown too strong. The schism in the Navy continued, fierce and open.
The incident which is most commonly associated with the end of this part of his career is that of the “Bacon letters.” Captain Bacon was one of the ablest officers in the Navy and a strong Fisherite. In 1906 he had been serving in the Mediterranean under Lord Charles Beresford. Fisher had asked him to write to him from time to time and keep him informed of all that passed. This he did in letters in themselves of much force and value, but open to the reproach of containing criticisms of his immediate commander. This in itself might have escaped unnoticed; but the First Sea Lord used to print in beautiful and carefully considered type, letters, notes and memoranda on technical subjects for the instruction and encouragement of the faithful. Delighted at the cogency of the arguments in the Bacon letters, he had them printed in 1909 and circulated fairly widely throughout the Admiralty. A copy fell at length into hostile hands and was swiftly conveyed to a London evening newspaper. The First Sea Lord was accused of encouraging subordinates in disloyalty to their immediate commanders, and Captain Bacon himself was so grievously smitten in the opinion of the Service that he withdrew into private life and his exceptional abilities were lost to the Navy, though, as will be seen, only for a time. The episode was fatal, and at the beginning of 1910 Sir John Fisher quitted the Admiralty and passed, as every one believed, finally into retirement and the House of Lords, crowned with achievements, loaded with honours, but pursued by much obloquy, amid the triumph of his foes.
As soon as I knew for certain that I was to go to the Admiralty I sent for Fisher: he was abroad in sunshine. We had not seen each other since the dispute about the Naval Estimates of 1909. He conceived himself bound in loyalty to Mr. McKenna, but as soon as he learned that I had had nothing to do with the decision which had led to our changing offices, he hastened home. We passed three days together in the comfort of Reigate Priory.
Although my education had been mainly military, I had followed closely every detail of the naval controversies of the previous five years in the Cabinet, in Parliament, and latterly in the Committee of Imperial Defence; and I had certain main ideas of what I was going to do and what, indeed, I was sent to the Admiralty to do. I intended to prepare for an attack by Germany as if it might come next day. I intended to raise the Fleet to the highest possible strength and secure that all that strength was immediately ready. I was pledged to create a War Staff. I was resolved to have all arrangements made at once in the closest concert with the military to provide for the transportation of a British Army to France should war come. I had strong support from the War Office and the Foreign Office: I had the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer at my back. Moreover, every one who knew the crisis through which we had passed had been profoundly alarmed. In these circumstances it only remained to study the methods, and to choose the men.
I found Fisher a veritable volcano of knowledge and of inspiration; and as soon as he learnt what my main purpose was, he passed into a state of vehement eruption. It must indeed have been an agony to him to wait and idly watch from the calm Lake of Lucerne through the anxious weeks of the long-drawn Agadir crisis, with his life’s work, his beloved Navy, liable at any moment to be put to the supreme test. Once he began, he could hardly stop. I plied him with questions, and he poured out ideas. It was always a joy to me to talk to him on these great matters, but most of all was he stimulating in all that related to the design of ships. He also talked brilliantly about Admirals, but here one had to make a heavy discount on account of the feuds. My intention was to hold the balance even, and while adopting in the main the Fisher policy, to insist upon an absolute cessation of the vendetta.
Knowing pretty well, all that has been written in the preceding pages, I began our conversations with no thought of Fisher’s recall. But by the Sunday night the power of the man was deeply borne in upon me, and I had almost made up my mind to do what I did three years later, and place him again at the head of the Naval Service. It was not the outcry that I feared; that I felt strong enough at this time to face. But it was the revival and continuance of the feuds; and it was clear from his temper that this would be inevitable. Then, too, I was apprehensive of his age. I could not feel complete confidence in the poise of the mind at 71. All the way up to London the next morning I was on the brink of saying “Come and help me,” and had he by a word seemed to wish to return, I would surely have spoken. But he maintained a proper dignity, and in an hour we were in London. Other reflections supervened, adverse counsels were not lacking, and in a few days I had definitely made up my mind to look elsewhere for a First Sea Lord. I wonder whether I was right or wrong.
For a man who for so many years filled great official positions and was charged with so much secret and deadly business, Lord Fisher appeared amazingly voluminous and reckless in correspondence. When for the purposes of this work and for the satisfaction of his biographers I collected all the letters I had received from the Admiral in his own hand, they amounted when copied to upwards of 300 closely typewritten pages. In the main they repeat again and again the principal naval conceptions and doctrines with which his life had been associated. Although it would be easy to show many inconsistencies and apparent contradictions, the general message is unchanging. The letters are also presented in an entertaining guise, interspersed with felicitous and sometimes recondite quotations, with flashing phrases and images, with mordant jokes and corrosive personalities. All were dashed off red-hot as they left his mind, his strong pen galloping along in the wake of the imperious thought. He would often audaciously fling out on paper thoughts which other people would hardly admit to their own minds. It is small wonder that his turbulent passage left so many foes foaming in his wake. The wonder is that he did not shipwreck himself a score of times. The buoyancy of his genius alone supported the burden. Indeed, in the process of years the profuse and imprudent violence of his letters became, in a sense, its own protection. People came to believe that this was the breezy style appropriate to our guardians of the deep, and the old Admiral swept forward on his stormy course.
To me, in this period of preparation, the arrival of his letters was always a source of lively interest and pleasure. I was regaled with eight or ten closely-written double pages, fastened together with a little pearl pin or a scrap of silken ribbon, and containing every kind of news and counsel, varying from blistering reproach to the highest forms of inspiration and encouragement. From the very beginning his letters were couched in an affectionate and paternal style. “My beloved Winston,” they began, ending usually with a variation of “Yours to a cinder,” “Yours till Hell freezes,” or “Till charcoal sprouts,” followed by a P.S. and two or three more pages of pregnant and brilliant matter. I have found it impossible to re-read these letters without sentiments of strong regard for him, his fiery soul, his volcanic energy, his deep creative mind, his fierce outspoken hatreds, his love of England. Alas, there was a day when Hell froze and charcoal sprouted and friendship was reduced to cinders; when “My beloved Winston” had given place to “First Lord: I can no longer be your colleague.” I am glad to be able to chronicle that this was not the end of our long and intimate relationship.
Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea Lord, received me with his customary dignified simplicity. He could not, of course, be wholly unaware of the main causes which had brought me to the Admiralty. In conversation with the other Sea Lords when the well-kept secret of my appointment first reached the Admiralty, he said: “We are to have new masters: if they wish us to serve them, we will do so, and if not, they will find others to carry on the work.” I had only met him hitherto at the conferences of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and my opinions were divided between an admiration for all I heard of his character and a total disagreement with what I understood to be his strategic views. He considered the creation of a War Staff quite unnecessary: I had come to set one up. He did not approve of the War Office plans for sending an army to France in the event of war: I considered it my duty to perfect these arrangements to the smallest detail. He was, as I believed, still an advocate of a close blockade of the German ports, which to my lay or military mind the torpedo seemed already to have rendered impossible.[[5]] These were large and vital differences. He on his side probably thought we had got into an unnecessary panic over the Agadir crisis, and that we did not properly understand the strength and mobility of the British Fleet nor the true character of British strategic power. He was due to retire for age from the Service in three or four months, unless his tenure had been extended, while I, for my part, came to the Admiralty with a very clear intention to have an entirely new Board of my own choosing. In these circumstances our association was bound to be bleak.
This is, however, the moment for me to give an impression of this striking naval personality. He was, without any exception, the most selfless man I have ever met or even read of. He wanted nothing, and he feared nothing—absolutely nothing. Whether he was commanding the British Fleet or repairing an old motor-car, he was equally keen, equally interested, equally content. To step from a great office into absolute retirement, to return from retirement to the pinnacle of naval power, were transitions which produced no change in the beat of that constant heart. Everything was duty. It was not merely that nothing else mattered. There was nothing else. One did one’s duty as well as one possibly could, be it great or small, and naturally one deserved no reward. This had been the spirit in which he had lived his long life afloat, and which by his example he had spread far and wide through the ranks of the Navy. It made him seem very unsympathetic on many occasions, both to officers and men. Orders were orders, whether they terminated an officer’s professional career or led him on to fame, whether they involved the most pleasant or the most disagreeable work; and he would snap his teeth and smile his wintry smile to all complaints and to sentiment and emotion in every form. Never once did I see his composure disturbed. He never opened up, never unbent. Never once, until a very dark day for me, did I learn that my work had met with favour in his eyes.
All the same, for all his unsympathetic methods, “Tug,” as he was generally called (because he was always working, i. e., pulling, hauling, tugging), or alternatively “old ’Ard ’Art,” was greatly loved in the Fleet. Men would do hard and unpleasant work even when they doubted its necessity, because he had ordered it and it was “his way.” He had served as a midshipman in the Crimean War. Every one knew the story of his V.C., when the square broke at Tamai in the Soudan, and when he was seen, with the ammunition of his Gatling exhausted, knocking the Dervish spearmen over one after another with his fists, using the broken hilt of his sword as a sort of knuckle duster. Stories were told of his apparent insensibility to weather and climate. He would wear a thin monkey-jacket in mid-winter in the North Sea with apparent comfort while every one else was shivering in great coats. He would stand bareheaded under a tropical sun without ill effects. He had a strong inventive turn of mind, and considerable mechanical knowledge. The system of counter-mining in use for forty years in the Navy, and the masthead semaphore which continued till displaced by wireless telegraphy, were both products of his ingenuity. He was an experienced and masterly commander of a Fleet at sea. In addition to this he expressed himself with great clearness and thoroughness on paper, many of his documents being extended arguments of exact detail and widely comprehensive scope. He impressed me from the first as a man of the highest quality and stature, but, as I thought, dwelling too much in the past of naval science, not sufficiently receptive of new ideas when conditions were changing so rapidly, and, of course, tenacious and unyielding in the last degree.
After we had had several preliminary talks and I found we were not likely to reach an agreement, I sent him a minute about the creation of a Naval War Staff, which raised an unmistakable issue. He met it by a powerfully reasoned and unqualified refusal, and I then determined to form a new Board of Admiralty without delay. The Lords of the Admiralty hold quasi-ministerial appointments, and it was of course necessary to put my proposals before the Prime Minister and obtain his assent.
Mr. Churchill to the Prime Minister.
H.M.S. Enchantress,
Portsmouth.
November 5, 1911.
The enclosed memorandum from Sir A. Wilson is decisive in its opposition, not only to any particular scheme, but against the whole principle of a War Staff for the Navy. Ottley’s[[6]] rejoinder, which I also send you, shows that it would not be difficult to continue the argument. But I feel that this might easily degenerate into personal controversy, and would, in any case, be quite unavailing. I like Sir A. Wilson personally, and should be very sorry to run the risk of embittering relations which are now pleasant. I therefore propose to take no public action during his tenure.
If Wilson retires in the ordinary course in March, I shall be left without a First Sea Lord in the middle of the passage of the Estimates, and his successor will not be able to take any real responsibility for them. It is necessary, therefore, that the change should be made in January at the latest.
I could, if it were imperative, propose to you a new Board for submission to the King at once. The field of selection for the first place is narrow; and since I have, with a good deal of reluctance, abandoned the idea of bringing Fisher back, no striking appointment is possible. I may, however, just as well enjoy the advantage of reserving a final choice for another month. At present, therefore, I will only say that Prince Louis is certainly the best man to be Second Sea Lord, that I find myself in cordial agreement with him on nearly every important question of naval policy, and that he will accept the appointment gladly.... I should thus hope to start in the New Year with a united and progressive Board, and with the goodwill of both the factions whose animosities have done so much harm.
Meanwhile I am elaborating the scheme of a War Staff.
Mr. Churchill to the Prime Minister.
November 16, 1911.
I have now to put before you my proposals for a new Board of Admiralty, and the changes consequent thereupon. Having now seen all the principal officers who might be considered candidates for such a post, I pronounce decidedly in favour of Sir Francis Bridgeman as First Sea Lord. He is a fine sailor, with the full confidence of the Service afloat, and with the aptitude for working with and through a staff, well developed. If, as would no doubt be the case, he should bring Captain de Bartolomé as his Naval Assistant, I am satisfied that the work of this office would proceed smoothly and with despatch. I have discussed the principal questions of strategy, administration and finance with him, and believe that we are in general agreement on fundamental principles. If you approve, I will write to Sir Francis and enter more fully into these matters in connection with an assumption by him of these new duties.
This appointment harmonises, personally and administratively, with that of the new Second Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg, of whom I have already written to you, and of whose assistance I have the highest expectations. Rear-Admiral Briggs, the Controller and Third Sea Lord, has, after a year, just begun to acquire a complete knowledge of his very extensive department, and I do not think it necessary to transfer him at the present time. He will be the only naval member of the old Board to remain. Rear-Admiral Madden is, in any case, leaving on January 5, and I am advised from all quarters, including both the proposed First and Second Sea Lords, that the best man to fill his place is Captain Pakenham. This officer, who is very highly thought of for his intellectual attainments, has also the rare distinction of having served throughout the Russo-Japanese War, including the battle of the Tsushima.
The Home Fleet, which becomes vacant, has not, unhappily, any candidate of clear and pre-eminent qualifications. Admiral Jellicoe is not yet sufficiently in command of the confidence of the Sea Service, to justify what would necessarily be a very startling promotion. I shall, however, be taking the perfectly straightforward and unexceptionable course in placing Vice-Admiral Sir George Callaghan, the present Second in Command, who has been in almost daily control of the largest manœuvres of the Home Fleet, and who has previously been Second in Command in the Mediterranean, in the place of Sir F. Bridgeman. Sir John Jellicoe will be his Second in Command, and we shall thus be able to see what fitness he will develop for the succession.
It appears to me not merely important but necessary that these changes should operate without delay. The draft Estimates have all arrived for discussion, and a month of the most severe work, governing the whole future policy of the next two years, awaits the Board of Admiralty. This task can only be satisfactorily discharged if it is undertaken by men who come together with consenting minds, and who will find themselves responsible to the Cabinet and to Parliament for the immediate consequences of their decisions. I would therefore ask you to authorise me to approach all parties concerned without delay, and unless some unexpected hitch occurs I shall hope to submit the list to the King not later than Wednesday next. The New Board would thus be fully constituted before the end of the present month.
Afloat the decisive appointment was that of Sir John Jellicoe to be second in command of the Home Fleet. He thus in effect passed over the heads of four or five of the most important senior Admirals on the active list and became virtually designated for the supreme command in the near future.
The announcement of these changes (November 28) created a considerable sensation in the House of Commons when, late at night, they became known. All the Sea Lords, except one, had been replaced by new men. I was immediately interrogated, “Had they resigned, or been told to go?” and so on. I gave briefly such explanations as were necessary. At this time I was very strong, because most of those who knew the inner history of the Agadir crisis were troubled about the Fleet, and it was well known that I had been sent to the Admiralty to make a new and a vehement effort.
Sir Arthur Wilson and I parted on friendly, civil, but at the same time cool terms. He showed not the least resentment at the short curtailment of his tenure. He was as good-tempered and as distant as ever. Only once did he show the slightest sign of vehemence. That was when I told him that the Prime Minister was willing to submit his name to the King for a Peerage. He disengaged himself from this with much vigour. What would he do with such a thing? It would be ridiculous. However, His Majesty resolved to confer upon him the Order of Merit, and this he was finally persuaded to accept. On his last night in office he gave a dinner to the new Sea Lords in the true “band of brothers” style, and then retired to Norfolk. I could not help thinking uncomfortably of the famous Tenniel cartoon, “Dropping the Pilot,” where the inexperienced and impulsive German Emperor is depicted carelessly watching the venerable figure of Bismarck descending the ladder. Nevertheless I had acted on high public grounds and on those alone, and I fortified myself with them.
As will be seen in its proper place, Sir Arthur Wilson came back to the Admiralty three years later, and worked with Lord Fisher and me during the six months of our association in the war. When Lord Fisher resigned in May, 1915, I invited Sir Arthur to take up the duties of First Sea Lord and he consented to do so. On learning, however, a few days later that I was to leave the Admiralty, he wrote to Mr. Asquith refusing to undertake the task under any other First Lord but me. Here is his letter:—
May 19, 1915.
Dear Mr. Asquith,—
In view of the reports in the papers this morning as to the probable reconstruction of the Government, I think I ought to tell you that although I agreed to undertake the office of First Sea Lord under Mr. Churchill because it appeared to me to be the best means of maintaining continuity of policy under the unfortunate circumstances that have arisen, I am not prepared to undertake the duties under any new First Lord, as the strain under such circumstances would be far beyond my strength.
Believe me,
Yours truly,
A. K. Wilson.
At that time I hardly seemed to have a friend in the official or Parliamentary world. All the press were throwing the blame of the Dardanelles entanglement and of many other things upon me, and I was everywhere represented as a rash, presumptuous person with whom no Board of Admiralty could work. Sir Arthur had never previously given me any sign of approval, though, of course, we had laboured together day after day. I was, therefore, astounded to learn what he had done. It came as an absolute surprise to me: and I do not mind saying that I felt as proud as a young officer mentioned for the first time in dispatches. I thought it my duty, however, to try to overcome his objections, as I knew the Prime Minister wanted him to take the post. But it was all in vain. He stuck to his opinion that he could do it with me and with nobody else. I felt deeply touched. There was nothing to be touched about, he observed, “You know all the moves on the board. I should only have to put the brake on from time to time. I could not possibly manage with anyone else.” And that was the end of it. He continued working in a subordinate position at the Admiralty till the end of the war. I hardly ever saw him afterwards; but I have preserved a memory which is very precious to me.
The new Fourth Sea Lord was an officer of singular firmness of character. He possessed a unique experience of naval war. Since Nelson himself, no British naval officer had been so long at sea in time of war on a ship of war without setting foot on land. Captain Pakenham had been fourteen months afloat in the battleship Asahi during the war between Russia and Japan. Although this vessel was frequently in harbour, he would not leave it for fear she might sail without him; and there alone, the sole European in a great ship’s company of valiant, reticent, inscrutable Japanese, he had gone through the long vigil outside Port Arthur, with its repeated episodes of minefields and bombardments, till the final battle in the Sea of Japan. Always faultlessly attired, with stiff white collar and an immovable eye-glass, he matched the Japanese with a punctilio and reserve the equal of their own, and finally captivated their martial spirit and won their unstinted and outspoken admiration. Admiral Togo has related how the English officer, as the Asahi was going into action at the last great battle, when the heavy shells had already begun to strike the ship, remained impassive alone on the open after-bridge making his notes and taking his observations of the developing action for the reports which he was to send to his Government; and acclaiming him, with Japanese chivalry, recommended him to the Emperor for the highest honour this warlike and knightly people could bestow.
The unique sea-going record in time of war on a ship of war which Captain Pakenham brought to the Admiralty has been maintained by him to this day, and to fourteen months of sea-going service with the Japanese Fleet, he may now add fifty-two months constant service with the Battle-Cruisers, during which time it is credibly reported that he never on any occasion at sea lay down to rest otherwise than fully dressed, collared and booted, ready at any moment of the night or day.
A few weeks after my arrival at the Admiralty I was told that among several officers of Flag rank who wished to see me was Rear-Admiral Beatty. I had never met him before, but I had the following impressions about him. First, that he was the youngest Flag Officer in the Fleet. Second, that he had commanded the white gunboat which had come up the Nile as close as possible to support the 21st Lancers when we made the charge at Omdurman. Third, that he had seen a lot of fighting on land with the army, and that consequently he had military as well as naval experience. Fourth, that he came of a hard-riding stock; his father had been in my own regiment, the 4th Hussars, and I had often heard him talked of when I first joined. The Admiral, I knew, was a very fine horseman, with what is called “an eye for country.” Fifth, that there was much talk in naval circles of his having been pushed on too fast. Such were the impressions aroused in my mind by the name of this officer, and I record them with minuteness because the decisions which I had the honour of taking in regard to him were most serviceable to the Royal Navy and to the British arms.
I was, however, advised about him at the Admiralty in a decisively adverse sense. He had got on too fast, he had many interests ashore. His heart it was said was not wholly in the Service. He had been offered an appointment in the Atlantic Fleet suited to his rank as Rear-Admiral. He had declined this appointment—a very serious step for a Naval Officer to take when appointments were few in proportion to candidates—and he should in consequence not be offered any further employment. It would be contrary to precedent to make a further offer. He had already been unemployed for eighteen months, and would probably be retired in the ordinary course at the expiration of the full three years’ unemployment.
But my first meeting with the Admiral induced me immediately to disregard this unfortunate advice. He became at once my Naval Secretary (or Private Secretary, as the appointment was then styled). Working thus side by side in rooms which communicated, we perpetually discussed during the next fifteen months the problems of a naval war with Germany. It became increasingly clear to me that he viewed questions of naval strategy and tactics in a different light from the average naval officer: he approached them, as it seemed to me, much more as a soldier would. His war experiences on land had illuminated the facts he had acquired in his naval training. He was no mere instrumentalist. He did not think of matériel as an end in itself but only as a means. He thought of war problems in their unity by land, sea and air. His mind had been rendered quick and supple by the situations of polo and the hunting-field, and enriched by varied experiences against the enemy on Nile gunboats, and ashore. It was with equal pleasure and profit that I discussed with him our naval problem, now from this angle, now from that; and I was increasingly struck with the shrewd and profound sagacity of his comments expressed in language singularly free from technical jargon.
I had no doubts whatever when the command of the Battle-Cruiser Squadron fell vacant in the spring of 1913, in appointing him over the heads of all to this incomparable command, the nucleus as it proved to be of the famous Battle-Cruiser Fleet—the strategic cavalry of the Royal Navy, that supreme combination of speed and power to which the thoughts of the Admiralty were continuously directed. And when two years later (February 3, 1915) I visited him on board the Lion, with the scars of victorious battle fresh upon her from the action of the Dogger Bank, I heard from his Captains and his Admirals the expression of their respectful but intense enthusiasm for their leader. Well do I remember how, as I was leaving the ship, the usually imperturbable Admiral Pakenham caught me by the sleeve, “First Lord, I wish to speak to you in private,” and the restrained passion in his voice as he said, “Nelson has come again.” Those words often recurred to my mind.
So much of my work in endeavouring to prepare the Fleet for war was dependent upon the guidance and help I received from Prince Louis of Battenberg, who, taking it as a whole, was my principal counsellor, as Second Sea Lord from January, 1912, to March, 1913 (when Sir Francis Bridgeman’s health temporarily failed), and as First Sea Lord thenceforward to the end of October, 1914, that it is necessary to give some description of this remarkable Prince and British sailor. All the more is this necessary since the accident of his parentage struck him down in the opening months of the Great War and terminated his long professional career.
Prince Louis was a child of the Royal Navy. From his earliest years he had been bred to the sea. The deck of a British warship was his home. All his interest was centred in the British Fleet. So far from his exalted rank having helped him it had hindered his career: up to a certain point no doubt it had been of assistance, but after that it had been a positive drawback. In consequence he had spent an exceptionally large proportion of his forty years’ service afloat usually in the less agreeable commands. One had heard at Malta how he used to bring his Cruiser Squadron into that small, crowded harbour at speed and then in the nick of time, with scarcely a hundred yards to spare, by dropping his anchors, checking on his cables and going full speed astern, bring it safely into station. He had a far wider knowledge of war by land and sea and of the Continent of Europe than most of the other Admirals I have known. His brother, as King of Bulgaria, had shown military aptitudes of a very high order at the Battle of Slivnitza, and he himself was deeply versed in every detail, practical and theoretic, of the British Naval Service. It was not without good reason that he had been appointed under Lord Fisher to be Head of the British Naval Intelligence Department, that vital ganglion of our organisation. He was a thoroughly trained and accomplished Staff Officer, with a gift of clear and lucid statement and all that thoroughness and patient industry which we have never underestimated in the German race.
It was recounted of him that on one occasion, when he visited Kiel with King Edward, a German Admiral in high command had reproached him with serving in the British Fleet, whereat Prince Louis, stiffening, had replied “Sir, when I joined the Royal Navy in the year 1868, the German Empire did not exist.”
The part which he played in the events with which I am dealing will be recorded as the story unfolds.
Our first labour was the creation of the War Staff. All the details of this were worked out by Prince Louis and approved by the First Sea Lord. I also resorted to Sir Douglas Haig, at that time in command at Aldershot. The general furnished me with a masterly paper setting forth the military doctrine of Staff organisation and constituting in many respects a formidable commentary on existing naval methods. Armed with these various opinions, I presented my conclusions to the public in January, 1912, in a document of which the first two paragraphs may be repeated here. They were, as will be seen, designed so far as possible to disarm the prejudices of the naval service.
1. In establishing a War Staff for the Navy it is necessary to observe the broad differences of character and circumstances which distinguish naval from military problems. War on land varies in every country according to numberless local conditions, and each new theatre, like each separate battlefield, requires a special study. A whole series of intricate arrangements must be thought out and got ready for each particular case; and these are expanded and refined continuously by every increase in the size of armies, and by every step towards the perfection of military science. The means by which superior forces can be brought to decisive points in good condition and at the right time are no whit less vital, and involve far more elaborate processes than the strategic choice of those points, or the actual conduct of the fighting. The sea, on the other hand, is all one, and, though ever changing, always the same. Every ship is self-contained and self-propelled. The problems of transport and supply, the infinite peculiarities of topography which are the increasing study of the general staffs of Europe, do not affect the naval service except in an occasional and limited degree. The main part of the British Fleet in sufficient strength to seek a general battle is always ready to proceed to sea without any mobilisation of reserves as soon as steam is raised. Ships or fleets of ships are capable of free and continuous movement for many days and nights together, and travel at least as far in an hour as an army can march in a day. Every vessel is in instant communication with its fleet and with the Admiralty, and all can be directed from the ports where they are stationed on any sea points chosen for massing, by a short and simple order. Unit efficiency, that is to say, the individual fighting power of each vessel and each man, is in the sea service for considerable periods entirely independent of all external arrangements, and unit efficiency at sea, far more even than on land, is the prime and final factor, without which the combinations of strategy and tactics are only the preliminaries of defeat, but with which even faulty dispositions can be swiftly and decisively retrieved. For these and other similar reasons a Naval War Staff does not require to be designed on the same scale or in the same form as the General Staff of the Army.
2. Naval war is at once more simple and more intense than war on land. The executive action and control of fleet and squadron Commanders is direct and personal in a far stronger degree than that of Generals in the field, especially under modern conditions. The art of handling a great fleet on important occasions with deft and sure judgment is the supreme gift of the Admiral, and practical seamanship must never be displaced from its position as the first qualification of every sailor. The formation of a War Staff does not mean the setting up of new standards of professional merit or the opening of a road of advancement to a different class of officers. It is to be the means of preparing and training those officers who arrive, or are likely to arrive, by the excellence of their sea service at stations of high responsibility, for dealing with the more extended problems which await them there. It is to be the means of sifting, developing, and applying the results of actual experience in history and present practice, and of preserving them as a general stock of reasoned opinion available as an aid and as a guide for all who are called upon to determine, in peace or war, the naval policy of the country. It is to be a brain far more comprehensive than that of any single man, however gifted, and tireless and unceasing in its action, applied continuously to the scientific and speculative study of naval strategy and preparation. It is to be an instrument capable of formulating any decision which has been taken, or may be taken, by the Executive in terms of precise and exhaustive detail.
I never ceased to labour at the formation of a true General Staff for the Navy. In May, 1914, basing myself on the report of a Committee which I had set up a year before, I drafted a fairly complete scheme for the further development of Staff training. I quote a salient passage:[[7]]
It is necessary to draw a distinction between the measures required to secure a general diffusion of military knowledge among naval officers and the definite processes by which Staff Officers are trained. The first may be called “Military Education,” and the second “War Staff Training.” They require to be treated separately and not mixed together as in the report of the Committee. Both must again be distinguished from all questions of administration, of material, and of non-military education and training. The application of fighting power can thus be separated from its development. We are not now concerned with the forging of the weapon, but only with its use.
‘As early as possible in his service the mind of the young officer must be turned to the broad principles of war by sea and land. His interest must be awakened. He must be put in touch with the right books and must be made to feel the importance of the military aspect of his profession....’
But it takes a generation to form a General Staff. No wave of the wand can create those habits of mind in seniors on which the efficiency and even the reality of a Staff depends. Young officers can be trained, but thereafter they have to rise step by step in the passage of time to positions of authority in the Service. The dead weight of professional opinion was adverse. They had got on well enough without it before. They did not want a special class of officer professing to be more brainy than the rest. Sea-time should be the main qualification, and next to that technical aptitudes. Thus when I went to the Admiralty I found that there was no moment in the career and training of a naval officer, when he was obliged to read a single book about naval war, or pass even the most rudimentary examination in naval history. The Royal Navy had made no important contribution to Naval literature. The standard work on Sea Power was written by an American Admiral.[[8]] The best accounts of British sea fighting and naval strategy were compiled by an English civilian.[[9]] ‘The Silent Service’ was not mute because it was absorbed in thought and study, but because it was weighted down by its daily routine and by its ever complicating and diversifying technique. We had competent administrators, brilliant experts of every description, unequalled navigators, good disciplinarians, fine sea-officers, brave and devoted hearts: but at the outset of the conflict we had more captains of ships than captains of war. In this will be found the explanation of many untoward events. At least fifteen years of consistent policy were required to give the Royal Navy that widely extended outlook upon war problems and of war situations without which seamanship, gunnery, instrumentalisms of every kind, devotion of the highest order, could not achieve their due reward.
Fifteen years! And we were only to have thirty months!
CHAPTER V
THE GERMAN NAVY LAW
1912
‘The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.’
Pope, Essay on Man.
The Morrow of Agadir—Mission of Sir Ernest Cassel—The New German Navy Law—The Haldane Visit to Berlin—An Imperial Mare’s Nest—The Opening of the Reichstag—A Speech at Glasgow—The Luxus Flotte—Mr. Haldane Returns—Attempt to reach a Settlement—Correspondence with Lord Fisher—Fisher’s Vision—The Navy Estimates—The Naval Holiday—Efforts at Goodwill—Consequences of German Naval Power—Von Tirpitz’ Illusions—Anglo-French Naval Conversations—The Entente strengthened—Von Tirpitz’ Unwisdom—Organisation of the Navy—The New Structure—With the Fleet—The Enchantress in Portland Harbour—The Safeguard of Freedom.
I have shown how forward the Chancellor of the Exchequer was during the crisis of Agadir in every matter that could add to the strength of the British attitude. But as soon as the danger was passed he adopted a different demeanour. He felt that an effort should be made to heal any smart from which Germany might be suffering, and to arrive at a common understanding on naval strength. We knew that a formidable new Navy Law was in preparation and would shortly be declared. If Germany had definitely made up her mind to antagonise Great Britain, we must take up the challenge; but it might be possible by friendly, sincere and intimate conversation to avert this perilous development. We were no enemies to German Colonial expansion, and we would even have taken active steps to further her wishes in this respect. Surely something could be done to break the chain of blind causation. If aiding Germany in the Colonial sphere was a means of procuring a stable situation, it was a price we were well prepared to pay. I was in full accord with this view. Apart from wider reasons, I felt I should be all the stronger in asking the Cabinet and the House of Commons for the necessary monies, if I could go hand in hand with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and testify that we had tried our best to secure a mitigation of the naval rivalry and failed. We therefore jointly consulted Sir Edward Grey, and then with the Prime Minister’s concurrence we invited Sir Ernest Cassel to go to Berlin and get into direct touch with the Emperor. Sir Ernest was qualified for this task, as he knew the Emperor well and was at the same time devoted to British interests. We armed him with a brief but pregnant memorandum, which cannot be more tersely summarized than in von Bethmann-Hollweg’s own words[[10]]: ‘Acceptance of English superiority at sea—no augmentation of the German naval programme—a reduction as far as possible of that programme—and on the part of England, no impediment to our Colonial expansion—discussion and promotion of our Colonial ambitions—proposals for mutual declarations that the two Powers would not take part in aggressive plans or combinations against one another.’ Cassel accepted the charge and started at once. He remained only two days in Berlin and came at once to me on his return. He brought with him a cordial letter from the Emperor and a fairly full statement by von Bethmann-Hollweg of the new German Navy Law. We devoured this invaluable document all night long in the Admiralty, and in the morning I wrote as follows to Sir Edward Grey:—
January 31, 1912.
Cassel returned last night, having travelled continuously from Berlin. At 10 a.m. on Monday he saw Ballin, who went forthwith to the German Chancellor, and in the afternoon he saw Ballin, Bethmann-Hollweg and the Emperor together. They all appeared deeply pleased by the overture. Bethmann-Hollweg, earnest and cordial, the Emperor ‘enchanted, almost childishly so.’ The Emperor talked a great deal on naval matters to Cassel, the details of which he was unable to follow. After much consultation the Emperor wrote out with Bethmann-Hollweg paper, ‘A,’ which Ballin transcribed. The second paper, ‘B,’ is Bethmann-Hollweg’s statement of the impending naval increases, translated by Cassel. Cassel says they did not seem to know what they wanted in regard to colonies. They did not seem to be greatly concerned about expansion. ‘There were ten large companies in Berlin importing labour into Germany.’ Over-population was not their problem. They were delighted with Cassel’s rough notes of our ideas. They are most anxious to hear from us soon....
Such is my report.
Observations.
It seems certain that the new Navy Law will be presented to the Reichstag, and that it will be agreed to, even the Socialists not resisting. The naval increases are serious, and will require new and vigorous measures on our part. The spirit may be good, but the facts are grim. I had been thinking that if the old German programme had been adhered to, we should have built 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, against their six years’ programme of 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. If their new programme stands, as I fear it must, and they build 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, we cannot build less than 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4. This maintains 60 per cent. superiority in Dreadnoughts and Dreadnought Cruisers over Germany only. It will also be 2 keels to 1 on their additional 3 ships.
The creation of a third squadron in full commission is also a serious and formidable provision. At present, owing to the fact that in the six winter months the first and second squadrons of the High Sea Fleet are congested with recruits, there is a great relief to us from the strain to which we are put by German naval power. The addition of the third squadron will make that strain continual throughout the year. The maintenance in full commission of 25 battleships, which after the next four or five years will all be Dreadnoughts, exposes us to constant danger, only to be warded off by vigilance approximating to war conditions. A further assurance against attack is at present found in the fact that several of the German Dreadnoughts are very often the wrong side of the Kiel Canal, which they cannot pass through and must therefore make a long détour. The deepening of the Canal by 1913 will extinguish this safety signal.[[11]] The fact that the defenders are always liable to be attacked while only at their ordinary average strength by an enemy at his selected moment and consequent maximum strength, means that our margins would have to be very large. Against 25 battleships we could not keep less than 40 available within twenty-four hours. This will involve additional expense.
The German increase in personnel must also be met. I had intended to ask Parliament for 2,000 more men this year and 2,000 next. I expect to have to double these quotas. On the whole the addition to our estimates consequent upon German increases will not be less than three millions a year. This is certainly not dropping the naval challenge.
I agree with you that caution is necessary. In order to meet the new German squadron, we are contemplating bringing home the Mediterranean battleships. This means relying on France in the Mediterranean,[[12]] and certainly no exchange of system[[13]] would be possible, even if desired by you.
The only chance I see is roughly this. They will announce their new programme, and we will make an immediate and effective reply. Then if they care to slow down the ‘tempo’ so that their Fleet Law is accomplished in twelve and not in six years, friendly relations would ensue, and we, though I should be reluctant to bargain about it, could slow down too. All they would have to do, would be to make their quotas biennial instead of annual. Nothing would be deranged in their plan. Twelve years of tranquillity would be assured in naval policy. The attempt ought to be made.
We laid these matters before the Cabinet, who decided that a British Cabinet Minister should go to Berlin and selected Mr. Haldane for that purpose. The ex-Emperor in his Memoirs makes a ridiculous story out of this:—
‘... a keen dispute had arisen among Ministers—especially between Churchill and Grey—as to who should go to Berlin, in the event of the achievement of the object of making Germany abandon the further development of her fleet, and affix his name to this great historical document. Churchill considered himself the right man for the job, seeing that he was the head of the Navy, but Grey and Asquith would not allow their colleague to reap the glory. Thus for a time, Grey stood in the foreground—another proof that some political purpose rather than the number of ships was the leading factor. After a while, however, it was decided that it was more fitting to Grey’s personal and official importance that he should appear only at the termination of the negotiations, to affix his name to the agreement, and ... “to get his dinner from the Emperor and to come in for his part of the festivities and fireworks,” which, in good German, means to enjoy the “Bengal light illumination.” As it had been decided that in any event Churchill was not to get this, it was necessary to choose somebody for the negotiations who was in close accord with Asquith and Grey and who, possessing their complete confidence, was willing to conduct the negotiations as far as the beginning of the “fireworks”; one, moreover, who was already known at Berlin and not a stranger to Germany. Churchill certainly qualified to this extent, for he had attended the Imperial manœuvres in Silesia and Wurtemberg on several occasions as a guest of the Emperor.’
On this it may be observed that there never was any question of my going to Berlin to negotiate about the Navy; nor did I at this time wish to go. All the British ministers concerned worked together in the utmost accord. After full discussions we authorized Sir Ernest Cassel to send the following telegram:—
Sir E. Cassel to Herr Ballin (drafted by Sir E. Cassel, the First Lord, Mr. Haldane, Sir Edward Grey).
February 3, 1912.
Spirit in which statements of German Government have been made is most cordially appreciated here. New German programme would entail serious and immediate increase of British naval expenditure which was based on assumption that existing German naval programme would be adhered to.
If the British Government are compelled to make such increase, it would make negotiations difficult if not impossible.
If, on the other hand, German naval expenditure can be adapted by an alteration of the tempo or otherwise so as to render any serious increase unnecessary to meet German programme, British Government will be prepared at once to pursue negotiations on the understanding that the point of naval expenditure is open to discussion and that there is a fair prospect of settling it favourably.
If this understanding is acceptable, the British Government will forthwith suggest the next step, as they think that the visit of a British Minister to Berlin should in the first instance be private and unofficial.
All being acceptable, the Secretary of State for War accompanied by Sir Ernest Cassel, started accordingly on February 6 for Berlin.
I had undertaken some weeks earlier to make a speech in support of the Home Rule Bill in Belfast. Violent hostility to this project developed in the inflammable capital of Ulster. Being publicly committed, I had no choice but to fulfil my engagement, though to avoid unnecessary provocation the meeting-place was changed from the Ulster Hall to a large tent which was erected in the outskirts of the city. Threats of violence and riot were loudly proclaimed on every side and nearly 10,000 troops were concentrated in the area to keep the peace. I had planned, if all went well at Belfast, to go on the next day to Glasgow to inspect some of the shipbuilding works along the Clyde, and to make a speech on the Naval position, which should state very plainly our root intentions and be the necessary counterpart of the Haldane mission. As I was waiting for the train for Ireland to leave the London railway station, I read in the late edition of the evening papers the German Emperor’s speech on the opening of the Reichstag announcing Bills for the increase both of the Army and the Navy. The new Navy Law was still a secret to the British and German nations alike, but knowing as I did its scope and character and viewing it in conjunction with the Army Bill, I sustained a strong impression at this moment of the approaching danger. One sentence, full of German self-revelation, stood out vividly. ‘It is my constant duty and care to maintain and to strengthen on land and water, the power of defence of the German people, which has no lack of young men fit to bear arms.’ It was indeed true. One thought of France with her declining birthrate peering out across her fortresses into the wide German lands and silently reflecting on these ‘young men fit to bear arms’ of whom there was indeed ‘no lack.’ My mind, skipping over the day of Irish turmoil and the worry of the speech that lay before me, fixed upon Glasgow as the place where some answer to this threat of continental domination might perhaps be provided. Once again Europe might find a safeguard against military overlordship in an island which had never been and never would be ‘lacking in trained and hardy mariners bred from their boyhood up to the service of the sea.’
Accordingly, after the Irish ordeal was over, I said at Glasgow:—
‘The purposes of British naval power are essentially defensive. We have no thoughts, and we have never had any thoughts of aggression, and we attribute no such thoughts to other great Powers. There is, however, this difference between the British naval power and the naval power of the great and friendly Empire—and I trust it may long remain the great and friendly Empire—of Germany. The British Navy is to us a necessity and, from some points of view, the German Navy is to them more in the nature of a luxury. Our naval power involves British existence. It is existence to us; it is expansion to them. We cannot menace the peace of a single Continental hamlet, no matter how great and supreme our Navy may become. But, on the other hand, the whole fortunes of our race and Empire, the whole treasure accumulated during so many centuries of sacrifice and achievement, would perish and be swept utterly away if our naval supremacy were to be impaired. It is the British Navy which makes Great Britain a great Power. But Germany was a great Power, respected and honoured all over the world, before she had a single ship....
‘If to-day our position is eminently satisfactory we owe much to the foresight and resolution of Mr. McKenna.... Whatever is needed for the safety of the country will be asked for by the Government, and granted by the representatives of the nation with universal assent. There is no need for anxiety in regard to our shipbuilding capacity. There is no chance whatever of our being overtaken in naval strength unless we want to be....
‘But what of the men ? We have to-day 135,000 men in the active service ratings of the Navy. The great bulk of them are long-service men who have begun as boys and have been trained as a lifelong profession to the naval service. We have no difficulty in recruiting for the Navy ... and there is no doubt whatever of our ability to make any increases which may be necessary, and which I think will be necessary, in the personnel of the Navy. We have great reserves of seamen in this country. There are measures which may be taken to make a greater use of our reserves than has hitherto been found possible, and I have given directions for that part of the subject to be carefully studied by the naval experts upon whom I rely. Our reserves, both from the Royal Navy and from the Mercantile Marine, are a great resource, and this island has never been, and never will be, lacking in trained and hardy mariners bred from their boyhood up to the service of the sea.
‘Whatever may happen abroad there will be no whining here, no signals of distress will be hoisted, no cries for help or succour will go up. We will face the future as our ancestors would have faced it, without disquiet, without arrogance, but in stolid and inflexible determination. We should be the first Power to welcome any retardation or slackening of naval rivalry. We should meet any such slackening not by words but by deeds.... If there are to be increases upon the Continent of Europe, we shall have no difficulty in meeting them to the satisfaction of the country. As naval competition becomes more acute, we shall have not only to increase the number of the ships we build, but the ratio which our naval strength will have to bear to other great naval Powers, so that our margin of superiority will become larger and not smaller as the strain grows greater. Thus we shall make it clear that other naval Powers, instead of overtaking us by additional efforts, will only be more outdistanced in consequence of the measures which we ourselves shall take.’
This speech created a considerable outcry in Germany, which was immediately re-echoed by a very large proportion of our own Liberal press. It appeared that the word “luxury” had a bad significance when translated into German. The ‘Luxus Flotte’ became an expression passed angrily from lip to lip in Germany. As I expected, on my return to London I found my colleagues offended. Their congratulations upon Belfast were silenced by their reproaches about Glasgow. Mr. Haldane returned two days later from Berlin, and the Cabinet was summoned to receive an account of his mission. Contrary to general expectation, however, the Secretary of State for War declared that so far from being a hindrance to him in his negotiations, the Glasgow speech had been the greatest possible help. He had in fact used almost identical arguments to von Bethmann-Hollweg the day before. He had told the Chancellor that if Germany added a third squadron we should have ‘to maintain five or even six squadrons in home waters, perhaps bringing ships from the Mediterranean to strengthen them’; that if ships were added to the existing programme we should ‘proceed at once to lay down two keels to each of the new German additions’; and that for the sake of the Navy ‘people would not complain of the addition of another shilling to the income tax.’ He described how he had read the operative passages in my speech himself to the Emperor and Von Tirpitz in proof and confirmation of what he had himself been saying during their previous discussions. This settled the matter so far as I was concerned. It was only another instance of the very manly and loyal part which Mr. Haldane took at all times and on every question connected with the preparedness of this country for war with Germany.
Mr. Haldane brought back with him the actual text of the new German Navy Law, or “Novelle” as it was called. This had been handed to him by the Emperor during the course of the discussion. It was an elaborate technical document. Mr. Haldane had had the prudence to refuse to express any opinion upon it till it had been examined by the Admiralty experts. We now subjected this document to a rigorous scrutiny. The result more than confirmed my first unfavourable impression.
‘The main feature in the new law,’ I reported to the Cabinet on February 14, ‘is the extraordinary increase in the striking force of ships of all classes immediately available throughout the year. Whereas formerly we reckoned against 17 battleships, 4 battle cruisers, and 12 small cruisers in the active battle fleet, demobilised to a great extent during the winter months, we must in future prepare against 25, 12 and 18, which are not to be subject to anything like the same degree of temporary demobilisation.... Full permanent crews are to be provided for all, or nearly all, torpedo boat destroyers, now aggregating 115, and working up to an authorised total of 144, instead of for half the number as at present. There is to be an increase on the already large provision of £750,000 in this year’s Estimates for submarines. The numbers are not stated, but from the fact that 121 additional executive officers are required for this service alone by 1920, we may infer that between 50 and 60 submarines are to be added.[[14]] We know nothing of the rate at which this construction is to be achieved. The increases in personnel are also important. Under their existing law, the Germans are working to a total of 86,500 in 1917 by annual increments of 3,500. The new law adds 15,000 officers and men, and raises the total in 1920 to 101,500.’
On March 9 I pointed out that the fundamental proposition of the negotiations from the Admiralty point of view had been that the existing Germany Navy Law should not be increased, but, if possible, reduced, whereas on the contrary a new law was certainly to be enacted providing for large and progressive increases not only in 1912 but in the five following years. Practically four-fifths of the German Navy were to be placed permanently upon a war footing. The German Government would be able to have available at all seasons of the year twenty-five, or perhaps twenty-nine, fully commissioned battleships, ‘whereas at the present time the British Government have in full commission in Home Waters only twenty-two, even counting the Atlantic Fleet.’
Thus on the fundamental proposition we encountered an unyielding attitude. Nevertheless we persevered and the discussion was transferred to the question of a mutual declaration against aggressive plans. Here Sir Edward Grey offered the following formula: ‘England will make no unprovoked attack upon Germany, and pursue no aggressive policy towards her. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject, and forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combination to which England is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has such an object.’ The German Government considered this formula inadequate and suggested through their Ambassador the following additional clause: ‘England will therefore observe at least a benevolent neutrality should war be forced upon Germany’; or, ‘England will therefore, as a matter of course, remain neutral if a war is forced upon Germany.’
This last condition would have carried us far beyond our original intention, and might well have been held to deprive us of the power to come to the aid of France in a war ‘forced,’ or alleged to be ‘forced,’ upon Germany as the result of a quarrel between Austria and Russia. It would certainly have been regarded as terminating the Entente. Moreover, even if we had taken this step the new German Navy Law was not to be withdrawn. At the most it was to be modified. Thus a complete deadlock was reached at an early stage. Still, so important did we think it to create at least a friendly spirit, and so desirous were we of placating Germany and gratifying her aspirations, that we still persisted in an endeavour to come to an arrangement beneficial to Germany in the colonial sphere. These negotiations were still progressing and had almost reached a conclusion definitely advantageous to Germany, when the war broke out.
Lord Fisher did not like the idea of a naval programme. On February 13, 1912, he wrote:—
‘I can’t support you at all in any way whatever for any two years’ or more programme. Some d——d fool has got hold of you to have made you say that! The great secret is to put off to the very last hour the ship (big or little) that you mean to build (or PERHAPS NOT BUILD HER AT ALL!). You see all your rival’s plans fully developed, their vessels started beyond recall, and then in each individual answer to each such rival vessel you plunge with a design 50 per cent. better! knowing that your rapid shipbuilding and command of money will enable you to have your vessel fit to fight as soon if not sooner than the rival vessel. Sometimes, as in one famous year, you can drop an armoured ship and put the money into acceleration of those building because you have a new design coming along, so don’t be a d——d ass and deliberately lay down a ship which you know is obsolete by some sudden vast step in old Watts’ brain! “Sufficient for the year is the programme thereof.” For God’s sake get that written up somewhere for you to look at when you get out of bed in the morning! and do please tell me the name of the born fool who hoaxed you. Is it...? He has just got a gold medal in America for advocating smaller battleships I believe.... You know Archbishop Whately proved that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed!...
‘We are asses now for not building a 16–inch gun as Sir E. Wilmot told you in the letter I sent you—but you can’t help yourself any more than you can help deliberately laying down ships for the Line of Battle that go less than 30 knots—there are certain things my beloved Winston that even God Almighty can’t help! (let alone you!). He for instance can’t help two added to two being four!...
‘The most damnable thing in the world is a servile copyist! One of the four Nelsonic attributes is “Power of Initiative”! and “Plunge” is the watchword of “Progress”! but I sicken you with my reiteration, so good-bye.’
I replied on February 19:—
‘I am delighted to see your handwriting again. I had begun to fear the well of truth and inspiration was running dry. Do not, however, shut your mind against a programme. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have been agreed on this policy ever since 1909, and I am quite certain that it can be developed so as to secure the greatest advantages without any sacrifice of elasticity. Such a programme as I have in mind will cover the whole period of the existing German Navy Law. It will deal only with the numbers of capital ships. It will be framed on certain clearly defined assumptions. It will be capable both of expansion and of diminution, of retardation and acceleration. It will not necessarily be embodied in an Act of Parliament. It will probably have to be revised after four years. It will recite certain definite facts of the existing shipbuilding situation, particularly in relation to Germany and Austria. It will be measured in relation to these facts so as to secure ample margins of superiority both in new construction and in establishment over those Powers. Unforeseen contingencies will be met by additions, but it would always be open within certain limits for England and Germany to agree upon proportionate reductions. The programme of minor construction will be entirely flexible and expressed only in terms of money.
‘At present we suffer every disadvantage: a panic and a row every year, spasmodic building, hopeless finance, total lack of foresight in regard to the labour market, and no means of bargaining with our competitors. At present we have nothing to put against their threats. Nothing, in my opinion, would more surely dishearten Germany, than the certain proof that as the result of all her present and prospective efforts she will only be more hopelessly behindhand in 1920. She would know it was not bluff because if a Liberal Government could propose it, a Tory Government would a fortiori carry it farther. The vast financial reserves of which John Bull can dispose would come into view, and would weigh in the balance with a direct and real weight. It is the uncertainty as to whether we shall throw up the sponge or not, on which the German Navy has lived and fattened. The standard will be 60 per cent. preponderance in new construction against the present law, and two keels to one for all increases above it. Sixty per cent. preponderance in men, 20 to 12 in destroyers, at least 2 to 1 in armoured cruisers, protected cruisers and their equivalents, submarines and small fry generally. This is no new idea of mine. I have been working it out ever since I came to the Admiralty, and am absolutely convinced that it is the only way of securing economy, efficiency and moral effect. Whether the plan when made should be published is a political question. How Navy Estimates should be financed is for the Treasury and the House of Commons to decide. What the Admiralty are concerned with is the maintenance of proper margins of superiority, the power to look ahead, and the power within certain prescribed limits to manœuvre.
‘Hopwood[[15]] and Sir Marcus Samuel are hard at it over oil.’
This letter mollified the admiral. On the 25th February, 1912, he wrote:—
‘I hasten to reply to your letter of February 19th just arrived, because if your Programme (which has my enthusiastic admiration) is not embodied in an Act of Parliament then all my objections vanish! An Act of Parliament (The Naval Defence Act) made us build 20 cruisers that had only 48 hours coal supply. Can I ever forget that! but Providence came along and made them useful as “Minelayers.” However ocean “tramps” at £10 a ton would have been cheaper and more effective. Sir W. White built the “County Class” and forgot the guns, but Providence came along and has made them useful for commerce protectors with their 6–inch guns and big coal supply and good speed—however a few “Mauretanias” would be far more effective than a hundred “Countys”![[16]]
‘I can only pray that your Programme will be officially published—for it is sure to leak out! It will add immensely to your reputation and influence and the moral effect will be prodigious!
‘The Key Note is 2 keels to 1 for all increases above the present German Law! 2 to 1 in Armoured Cruisers is also vital!
‘You don’t say a word of your visit to Jellicoe—but he does! He is “much impressed with your grasp of the whole business,” and as Jellicoe very seldom indeed gives praise I think you must have talked well! as well as that night we stumbled over the dockyard stores at Devonport returning from the Lion and the Monarch! (It’s a pity we didn’t have a shorthand writer!)
‘Don’t make any mistake about big submarines being obligatory!...
‘Big risks bring big success! (It was Napoleon, wasn’t it? “Risk nothing, get nothing!”) Increased surface speed is above all a necessity, and broadside torpedo discharges and the bigger gun will come automatically with the above two essentials, and they (the Big Submarines) will be Destroyers with all the advantages of the present Destroyers and—as well—the power of submergence during daylight attacks. Battle tactics will be revolutionised and England’s power will be multiplied not sevenfold but manifold! and with a radius of action of 6,000 miles ... but it wants an Isaiah to proclaim this vision!
‘For God’s sake trample on and stamp out protected Cruisers and hurry up Aviation....’
For a specimen of Fisher’s genius I commend these last few lines. Ten years of submarine development, spurred on by war on the greatest scale, were required to overtake in exact sequence the processes of that amazing vision in technical affairs. The consequences to Great Britain were, however, not so satisfactory as he forecasted.
Early in March, while the new German Navy Law was still unannounced, it was necessary to present our Estimates to the House of Commons. It would of course have been a breach of faith with the German Emperor to let any suggestion pass my lips that we already knew what the text of the Navy Law was. I was therefore obliged to make my first speech on naval matters on a purely hypothetical basis: ‘This is what we are going to do if no further increases are made in the German Fleet. Should unhappily the rumours which we hear prove true, I shall have to present a Supplementary Estimate to the House, etc.’
In this speech I laid down clearly, with the assent of the Cabinet, the principles which should govern our naval construction in the next five years, and the standards of strength we should follow in capital ships. This standard was as follows: Sixty per cent. in Dreadnoughts over Germany as long as she adhered to her present declared programme, and two keels to one for every additional ship laid down by her. Two complications of these clear principles were unavoidable. First, the two ‘Lord Nelsons’ although not Dreadnoughts were stronger in many ways, particularly in armour and subdivision, than the original Dreadnought herself. Although projected earlier, they had actually been completed later. Acting on the advice of the Naval Staff, I counted these throughout as ‘Dreadnoughts.’ On the other hand, any ships provided by the Dominions were to be additional to anything we might build ourselves. Otherwise the efforts of the Dominions would not have resulted in any accession to our naval strength, and consequently these efforts might have been discouraged. Proceeding on these lines I set out the six years of British construction at 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, against a uniform German construction of 2. These numbers were well received by the House of Commons. We were not sure whether the Germans would adhere to an offer made to Mr. Haldane to drop one of the three extra ships embodied in their new Navy Law. This, however, proved ultimately to be the case and was at any rate a tangible result of the Haldane mission. In Tirpitz’ words: ‘He (Haldane) next came out with a proposal of a certain delay in the building of the three ships; could we not distribute them over twelve years?... He only wanted a token of our readiness to meet England, more for the sake of form.... Haldane himself proposed that we should retard the rate of our increase “in order to lubricate the negotiations,” or that we should at least cancel the first of the three ships. He outlined in writing of his own accord the same principle which I had previously fixed upon in my own mind as a possible concession. I therefore sacrificed the ship.’
We therefore ‘sacrificed’ two hypothetical ships, and our programmes, which would have been increased to 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, were ultimately declared at 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4. The splendid gift of the Malaya by the Federated Malay States raised the figure of the first year from 4 to 5.
In announcing these decisions to Parliament later in the same month I made publicly and definitely those proposals for a Naval Holiday which were fruitless so far as Britain and Germany were concerned, but the principle of which has since been adopted by the English-speaking peoples of the world:—
‘Take, as an instance of this proposition I am putting forward for general consideration, the year 1913. In that year, as I apprehend, Germany will build three capital ships, and it will be necessary for us to build five in consequence.
‘Supposing we were both to take a holiday for that year and introduce a blank page into the book of misunderstanding; supposing that Germany were to build no ships that year, she would save herself between six and seven millions sterling. But that is not all. In ordinary circumstances we should not begin our ships until Germany had started hers. The three ships that she did not build would therefore automatically wipe out no fewer than five British potential super-Dreadnoughts. That is more than I expect they could hope to do in a brilliant naval action. As to the indirect results within a single year, they simply cannot be measured, not only between our two great brother nations, but to all the world. They are results immeasurable in their hope and brightness. This then is the position which we take up—that the Germans will be no gainers over us so far as naval power is concerned by any increases they may make, and no losers, on the basis I have laid down, by any diminution.’
By the beginning of April it became certain that no general arrangement for a naval holiday could be effected with Germany. The Emperor sent me a courteous message through Sir Ernest Cassel expressing his great regret, but adding that such arrangements would only be possible between allies. Herr Ballin wrote at this same time to Sir Ernest:—
‘I entirely share your opinion of C.’s (Churchill’s) speech, and believe that it is simply the unusual feature of frankness and honesty which flustered the whole world, and especially the leading parties here, and has caused a torrent of indignation in the Press. It is not easy to become all at once accustomed to such a complete change from the mystery mongering hitherto prevalent; up to now, it was thought that language was given to British and German Navy Ministers to conceal their thoughts. Suddenly, some one makes a new departure, and everybody asks disconcertedly, “What does this man want?”
‘A few friendly lines addressed to you about the report I sent would have a happy effect. [A complaint which we were reputed to have made about an alleged clandestine visit of certain German ships to the Shetland Islands.]... If he wishes it, C. can make use of this opportunity in a few quite unofficial lines addressed to you, to brush away the shadows which were created in high quarters here by the “luxury fleet” (luxus flotte) and the absence of warmth in his last speech. This will be a great help in the political negotiations. It would be too pitiful if, owing to misunderstanding and sentiment, the great work of arrangement were to be hindered ... etc., etc.’
In compliance I therefore wrote the following letter for the Emperor’s eye:—
Mr. Churchill to Sir Ernest Cassel, April 14, 1912.
I am deeply impressed by the Emperor’s great consideration. I only mentioned the incident to Ballin as an example to show the kind of anxieties and the strain to which the naval situation gives rise. I am very glad to know that it was free from all sinister significance: and I take this opportunity of saying again that we have been throughout equally innocent of any offensive design. I suppose it is difficult for either country to realise how formidable it appears to the eyes of the other. Certainly it must be almost impossible for Germany, with her splendid armies and warlike population capable of holding their native soil against all comers, and situated inland with road and railway communications on every side, to appreciate the sentiments with which an island State like Britain views the steady and remorseless development of a rival naval power of the very highest efficiency. The more we admire the wonderful work that has been done in the swift creation of German naval strength, the stronger, the deeper and the more preoccupying those sentiments become. Patience, however, and good temper accomplish much; and as the years pass many difficulties and dangers seem to settle themselves peacefully. Meanwhile there is an anxious defile to be traversed, and what will help more perhaps than anything else to make the journey safe for us all, is the sincere desire for goodwill and confidence of which Ballin’s letter and its enclosure are a powerful testimony.
The growth of the German Navy produced its inevitable consequences. The British Fleet for safety’s sake had to be concentrated in Home Waters. The first concentration had been made by Lord Fisher in 1904. This had effected the reduction of very large numbers of small old vessels which were scattered about the world ‘showing the flag’ and the formation in their place of stronger, better, more homogeneous squadrons at home. This measure was also a great and wise economy of money. A few months later the British battleships were recalled from China. The more distant oceans had thus been abandoned. But now a further measure of concentration was required. We saw ourselves compelled to withdraw the battleships from the Mediterranean. Only by this measure could the trained men be obtained to form the Third Battle Squadron in full commission in Home Waters. It was decided by the Cabinet that we must still maintain a powerful force in the Mediterranean, and ultimately, four battle cruisers and an armoured cruiser squadron were accordingly based on Malta. It was further decided that a Dreadnought battle squadron should also be developed in the Mediterranean by the year 1916 equal in strength to that of the growing Austrian battle fleet. These decisions were taken with the deliberate object of regaining our complete independence. But the withdrawal—even if only for a few years—of the battleships from the Mediterranean was a noteworthy event. It made us appear to be dependent upon the French Fleet in those waters. The French also at the same time redisposed their forces. Under the growing pressure of German armaments Britain transferred her whole Battle Fleet to the North Sea, and France moved all her heavy ships into the Mediterranean. And the sense of mutual reliance grew swiftly between both navies.
It is astonishing that Admiral Von Tirpitz should never have comprehended what the consequences of his policy must be. Even after the war he could write:—
‘In order to estimate the strength of the trump card which our fleet put in the hands of an energetic diplomacy at this time, one must remember that in consequence of the concentration of the English forces which we had caused in the North Sea, the English control of the Mediterranean and Far-Eastern waters had practically ceased.’
The only ‘trump card’ which Germany secured by this policy was the driving of Britain and France closer and closer together. From the moment that the Fleets of France and Britain were disposed in this new way our common naval interests became very important. And the moral claims which France could make upon Great Britain if attacked by Germany, whatever we had stipulated to the contrary, were enormously extended. Indeed my anxiety was aroused to try to prevent this necessary recall of our ships from tying us up too tightly with France and depriving us of that liberty of choice on which our power to stop a war might well depend.
When in August, 1912, the Cabinet decided that naval conversations should take place between the French and British Admiralties, similar to those which had been held since 1906 between the General Staffs, I set forth this point as clearly as possible in a minute which I addressed to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and we did our utmost to safeguard ourselves.
August 23, 1912.
Sir Edward Grey,
Prime Minister.
The point I am anxious to safeguard is our freedom of choice if the occasion arises, and consequent power to influence French policy beforehand. That freedom will be sensibly impaired if the French can say that they have denuded their Atlantic seaboard, and concentrated in the Mediterranean on the faith of naval arrangements made with us. This will not be true. If we did not exist, the French could not make better dispositions than at present. They are not strong enough to face Germany alone, still less to maintain themselves in two theatres. They therefore rightly concentrate their Navy in the Mediterranean where it can be safe and superior and can assure their African communications. Neither is it true that we are relying on France to maintain our position in the Mediterranean.... If France did not exist, we should make no other disposition of our forces.
Circumstances might arise which in my judgment would make it desirable and right for us to come to the aid of France with all our force by land and sea. But we ask nothing in return. If we were attacked by Germany, we should not make it a charge of bad faith against the French that they left us to fight it out alone; and nothing in naval and military arrangements ought to have the effect of exposing us to such a charge if, when the time comes, we decide to stand out.
This is my view, and I am sure I am in line with you on the principle. I am not at all particular how it is to be given effect to, and I make no point about what document it is set forth in. But [consider] how tremendous would be the weapon which France would possess to compel our intervention, if she could say, ‘On the advice of and by arrangement with your naval authorities we have left our Northern coasts defenceless. We cannot possibly come back in time.’ Indeed [I added somewhat inconsequently], it would probably be decisive whatever is written down now. Every one must feel who knows the facts that we have the obligations of an alliance without its advantages, and above all without its precise definitions.
W.S.C.
The difficulty proved a real one. The technical naval discussions could only be conducted on the basis that the French Fleet should be concentrated in the Mediterranean, and that in case of a war in which both countries took part, it would fall to the British fleet to defend the Northern and Western coasts of France. The French, as I had foreseen, naturally raised the point that if Great Britain did not take part in the war, their Northern and Western coasts would be completely exposed. We however, while recognising the difficulty, steadfastly declined to allow the naval arrangements to bind us in any political sense. It was eventually agreed that if there was a menace of war, the two Governments should consult together and concert beforehand what common action, if any, they should take. The French were obliged to accept this position and to affirm definitely that the naval conversations did not involve any obligation of common action. This was the best we could do for ourselves and for them.
I commend these discussions and the document I have printed above to German eyes. The German Naval Minister exults in a policy which has had the effect of uniting in common defence against Germany, in spite of themselves, two powerful Fleets till then rivals. The British Ministers so far from welcoming this consolidation of forces in the opposite balance to Germany, are anxious to preserve their freedom of action and reluctant to become entangled with continental Powers. Germany was, in fact, forging a coalition against herself, and Britain was seeking to save her from the consequences of her unwisdom. It is not often that one can show so plainly the workings of events. But all was lost on Admiral von Tirpitz.
This sincere, wrongheaded, purblind old Prussian firmly believed that the growth of his beloved navy was inducing in British minds an increasing fear of war, whereas it simply produced naval rejoinders and diplomatic reactions which strengthened the forces and closed the ranks of the Entente. It is almost pathetic to read the foolish sentences in which on page after page of his Memoirs he describes how much Anglo-German relations were improved in 1912, 1913 and 1914 through the realisation by the British people of Germany’s great and growing naval power. He notices that the violent agitations against German naval expansion which swept England in 1904 and again in 1908 were succeeded by a comparatively calm period in which both Powers were building peacefully and politely against each other. This he thinks was a proof that his treatment was succeeding, and that all friction was passing away—another dose or two and it would be gone altogether. The violent agitations in England were, however, the symptom of doubt and differences of opinion in our national life about whether the German menace was real or not, and whether the right measures were being taken to meet it. As doubts and differences on these points were gradually replaced by general agreement among the leading men in all parties to meet a grave danger, the agitations subsided. The excitement in the Press and in Parliament, the warning speeches and counter-speeches were not intended for foreign consumption. England was not trying to make an impression upon Germany. She was trying to make up her own mind: and in proportion as this mind arrived at solid and final conclusions, silence was again restored. But it was not the silence of sleep. With every rivet that von Tirpitz drove into his ships of war, he united British opinion throughout wide circles of the most powerful people in every walk of life and in every part of the Empire. The hammers that clanged at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven were forging the coalition of nations by which Germany was to be resisted and finally overthrown. Every threatening gesture that she made, every attempt to shock or shake the loosely knit structure of the Entente made it close and fit together more tightly. Thus Tirpitz:—
‘British statesmen naturally did not stress the fact in their conversations with Germans that it was mainly the presence of our nearly completed fleet in the North Sea that had produced their respectful tone, and had lessened the probability of a British attack. Of course they only spoke of their peaceful inclinations and not so much of the facts which strengthened these inclinations.’ And again (p. 192): ‘Seventeen years of fleet-building had, it is true, improved the prospects of an acceptable peace with England.’
Is it possible to be further from the truth than this? There never had been any probability or possibility of a British attack on Germany. Why should we attack Germany for building ships when we could ourselves build more ships quicker and cheaper? Why incur the guilt, cost and hazard of war, when a complete remedy was obvious and easy? But the ‘respectful tone’ was that of men who felt how serious the position had become, and were anxious to avoid any responsibility for causing a crisis. It was not restraint imposed by fear of the ‘nearly completed fleet in the North Sea,’ but the calm resulting from resolve to be prepared.
The organisation of a Fleet differs throughout from that of an Army. Armies only keep a small proportion of their soldiers in regular service. These form the framework of the battalions, train the recruits and keep guard in times of peace. When the order is given to mobilise, all the men who have been already trained but are living at home in civil life are called up as they are wanted: and then and not till then the Army is ready to fight.
Navies on the other hand were in the main always ready. The British Navy had all its best ships fully and permanently manned with whole-time men (called active service ratings). Measured by quality nearly the whole of its power was therefore constantly available. Measured even by numbers nearly three-quarters of the ships could go into action without calling out the Reserves. Only the oldest and most obsolete ships were manned in time of war by the Naval Reserve, i.e. men who had left the Navy and had returned to civil life. These obsolete vessels were the only part of the Fleet which had to be ‘mobilised’ like the armies of Europe.
Thus mobilisation, which is the foundation of all great armies, plays only a very small part in fleets. Every ship that really counted was always ready to steam and fight as soon as an order reached her.
The organisation of the British Home Fleets when I came to the Admiralty seemed to a mind accustomed to military symmetry to leave much to be desired. The terminology was misleading and confused. The word ‘Division’ was used in three different senses, sometimes tactical and sometimes administrative. The battle units were uneven in numbers. The degree of readiness and efficiency of the different squadrons was not apparent from the classes in which they were grouped. In consultation with Sir Francis Bridgeman, Prince Louis and Admiral Troubridge, the first Chief of the new War Staff, I designed a new and symmetrical organisation for the Fleets.
All the ships available for Home Defence were divided into the First, Second and Third Fleets, comprising eight battle squadrons of eight battleships each, together with their attendant cruiser squadrons, flotillas and auxiliaries. The First Fleet comprised a Fleet Flagship and four battle squadrons of ships ‘in full commission’ manned entirely with active service ratings, and therefore always ready. To form this Fleet it was necessary to base the former ‘Atlantic Fleet’ on Home Ports instead of on Gibraltar, and to base the battleships hitherto in the Mediterranean on Gibraltar instead of Malta. By this concentration an additional battle squadron of strong ships (King Edwards) was always ready in Home waters. The Second Fleet consisted of two battle squadrons, also fully manned with active service ratings but having about 40 per cent. of these learning and requalifying in the gunnery, torpedo and other schools. This Fleet was termed, ‘in active commission’ because it could fight at any moment; but to realise its highest efficiency, it required to touch at its Home Ports, and march on board its balance crews from the schools. In all these six battle squadrons, containing with their cruiser squadrons every modern and middle-aged ship in the Navy, there was not to be found a single reservist. No mobilisation was therefore necessary to bring the whole of this force into action. The Third Fleet also consisted of two battle squadrons and five cruiser squadrons of our oldest ships. These were only manned by care and maintenance parties and required the Reserves to be called out before they could put to sea. In order to accelerate the mobilisation of the leading battle squadrons and certain cruisers of the Third Fleet a special class of the Reserve was now formed called the ‘Immediate Reserve,’ who received higher pay and periodical training, and were liable to be called up in advance of general mobilisation.
Germany was adding a third squadron to the High Sea Fleet, thus increasing her always ready strength from 17 to 25. We in reply, by the measures set out above and various others too technical for description here, raised our always ready Fleet from 33 battleships to 49, and other forces in like proportion. On mobilisation the German figures would rise to 38; and the British at first to 57, and ultimately, as the new organisation was completed, to 65.
The reader will not be able to understand the issues involved in the completion and mobilisation of the Fleets on the eve of the war unless this organisation is mastered.
We made a great assembly of the Navy this spring of 1912 at Portland. The flags of a dozen admirals, the broad pennants of as many commodores and the pennants of a hundred and fifty ships were flying together. The King came in the Royal Yacht, the Admiralty flag at the fore, the Standard at the main, and the Jack at the mizzen, and bided among his sailors for four days. One day there is a long cruise out into mist, dense, utterly baffling—the whole Fleet steaming together all invisible, keeping station by weird siren screamings and hootings. It seemed incredible that no harm would befall. And then suddenly the fog lifted and the distant targets could be distinguished and the whole long line of battleships, coming one after another into view, burst into tremendous flares of flame and hurled their shells with deafening detonations while the water rose in tall fountains. The Fleet returns—three battle squadrons abreast, cruisers and flotillas disposed ahead and astern. The speed is raised to twenty knots. Streaks of white foam appear at the bows of every vessel. The land draws near. The broad bay already embraces this swiftly moving gigantic armada. The ships in their formation already fill the bay. The foreign officers I have with me on the Enchantress bridge stare anxiously. We still steam fast. Five minutes more and the van of the Fleet will be aground. Four minutes, three minutes. There! At last. The signal! A string of bright flags falls from the Neptune’s halyards. Every anchor falls together; their cables roar through the hawser holes; every propeller whirls astern. In a hundred and fifty yards every ship is stationary. Look along the lines, miles this way and miles that, they might have been drawn with a ruler. The foreign observers gasped.
These were great days. From dawn to midnight, day after day, one’s whole mind was absorbed by the fascination and novelty of the problems which came crowding forward. And all the time there was a sense of power to act, to form, to organise: all the ablest officers in the Navy standing ready, loyal and eager, with argument, guidance, information; every one feeling a sense that a great danger had passed very near us; that there was a breathing space before it would return; that we must be even better prepared next time. Saturdays, Sundays and any other spare day I spent always with the Fleets at Portsmouth or at Portland or Devonport, or with the Flotillas at Harwich. Officers of every rank came on board to lunch or dine and discussion proceeded without ceasing on every aspect of naval war and administration.
The Admiralty yacht Enchantress was now to become largely my office, almost my home; and my work my sole occupation and amusement. In all I spent eight months afloat in the three years before the war. I visited every dockyard, shipyard and naval establishment in the British Isles and in the Mediterranean and every important ship. I examined for myself every point of strategic importance and every piece of Admiralty property. I got to know what everything looked like and where everything was, and how one thing fitted into another. In the end I could put my hand on anything that was wanted and knew thoroughly the current state of our naval affairs.
I recall vividly my first voyage from Portsmouth to Portland, where the Fleet lay. A grey afternoon was drawing to a close. As I saw the Fleet for the first time drawing out of the haze a friend reminded me of ‘that far-off line of storm-beaten ships on which the eyes of the grand Army had never looked,’ but which had in their day ‘stood between Napoleon and the dominion of the world.’ In Portland harbour the yacht lay surrounded by the great ships; the whole harbour was alive with the goings and comings of launches and small craft of every kind, and as night fell ten thousand lights from sea and shore sprang into being and every masthead twinkled as the ships and squadrons conversed with one another. Who could fail to work for such a service? Who could fail when the very darkness seemed loaded with the menace of approaching war?
For consider these ships, so vast in themselves, yet so small, so easily lost to sight on the surface of the waters. Sufficient at the moment, we trusted, for their task, but yet only a score or so. They were all we had. On them, as we conceived, floated the might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire. All our long history built up century after century, all our great affairs in every part of the globe, all the means of livelihood and safety of our faithful, industrious, active population depended upon them. Open the sea-cocks and let them sink beneath the surface, as another Fleet was one day to do in another British harbour far to the North, and in a few minutes—half an hour at the most—the whole outlook of the world would be changed. The British Empire would dissolve like a dream; each isolated community struggling forward by itself; the central power of union broken; mighty provinces, whole Empires in themselves, drifting hopelessly out of control and falling a prey to others; and Europe after one sudden convulsion passing into the iron grip and rule of the Teuton and of all that the Teutonic system meant. There would only be left far off across the Atlantic unarmed, unready, and as yet uninstructed America to maintain, single-handed, law and freedom among men.
Guard them well, admirals and captains, hardy tars and tall marines; guard them well and guide them true.
CHAPTER VI
THE ROMANCE OF DESIGN
‘For a scrutiny so minute as to bring an object under an untrue angle of vision, is a poorer guide to a man’s judgment, than the most rapid and sweeping glance which sees things in their true proportions.’
Kinglake.
The Big Punch—The 15–inch Gun—An Anxious Decision—The Design of a Battleship—Gun-power and Speed—The Argument for the Fast Division—The Fifth Turret—Liquid Fuel—The Oil Problem—Financial Entanglements—The Royal Commission on Oil Supplies—The Anglo-Persian Convention—A Golden Reward—The Fast Division at Jutland—Swifter Destroyers—Cruiser Design—Correspondence with Lord Fisher—The Light Armoured Cruisers—The Arethusa.
Until I got to the Admiralty I had never properly appreciated the service which Mr. McKenna and Lord Fisher had rendered to the Fleet in 1909 by their big leap forward from the 12–inch to the 13·5–inch gun. To illustrate this I set out the weight of the shell fired by the principal guns in the British and German navies:—
| The 1–inch gun fires a | 1–pound shot. |
| The 2–inch gun fires a | 6–pound shot. |
| The 3–inch gun fires a | 12– or 15–pound shot. |
| The 4–inch gun fires a | 28 to 32–pound shot. |
| The 5–inch gun fires a | 50–pound shot. |
| The 6–inch[[17]] gun fires a | 100–pound shot. |
| The 7·5–inch gun fires a | 200–pound shot. |
| The 9·2–inch gun fires a | 380–pound shot. |
| The 10–inch gun fires a | 500–pound shot. |
| The British 12–inch gun fires a 850–pound shot. | |
| The German 12–inch gun fires approximately a 1,000–pound shot, but this is asking a lot of the gun. | |
| The 13·5–inch gun fired a 1,250–pound shot; and its later marks fired a 1,400–pound shot. | |
The increase of 1½ inch in the calibre of the gun was enough to raise the British shell from 850 pounds to 1,400 pounds. No fewer than twelve ships were actually building on the slips for the Royal Navy armed with these splendid weapons, quite unsurpassed at that time in the world, and firing a projectile nearly half as heavy again as the biggest fired by the German Fleet.
I immediately sought to go one size better. I mentioned this to Lord Fisher at Reigate, and he hurled himself into its advocacy with tremendous passion. ‘Nothing less than the 15–inch gun could be looked at for all the battleships and battle-cruisers of the new programme. To achieve the supply of this gun was the equivalent of a great victory at sea; to shrink from the endeavour was treason to the Empire. What was it that enabled Jack Johnson to knock out his opponents? It was the big punch. And where were those miserable men with bevies of futile pop-guns crowding up their ships?’ No one who has not experienced it has any idea of the passion and eloquence of this old lion when thoroughly roused on a technical question. I resolved to make a great effort to secure the prize, but the difficulties and the risks were very great, and looking back upon it one feels that they were only justified by success. Enlarging the gun meant enlarging the ships, and enlarging the ships meant increasing the cost. Moreover, the redesign must cause no delay and the guns must be ready as soon as the turrets were ready. No such thing as a modern 15–inch gun existed. None had ever been made. The advance to the 13·5–inch had in itself been a great stride. Its power was greater; its accuracy was greater; its life was much longer. Could the British designers repeat this triumph on a still larger scale and in a still more intense form? The Ordnance Board were set to work and they rapidly produced a design. Armstrongs were consulted in deadly secrecy, and they undertook to execute it. I had anxious conferences with these experts, with whose science I was of course wholly unacquainted, to see what sort of men they were and how they really felt about it. They were all for it. One did not need to be an expert in ballistics to discern that. The Director of Naval Ordnance Rear-Admiral Moore was ready to stake his professional existence upon it. But after all there could not be absolute certainty. We knew the 13·5–inch well. All sorts of new stresses might develop in the 15–inch model. If only we could make a trial gun and test it thoroughly before giving the orders for the whole of the guns of all the five ships, there would be no risk; but then we should lose an entire year, and five great vessels would go into the line of battle carrying an inferior weapon to that which we had it in our power to give them. Several there were of the responsible authorities consulted who thought it would be more prudent to lose the year. For, after all, if the guns had failed, the ships would have been fearfully marred. I hardly remember ever to have had more anxiety about any administrative decision than this.
I went back to Lord Fisher. He was steadfast and even violent. So I hardened my heart and took the plunge. The whole outfit of guns was ordered forthwith. We arranged that one gun should be hurried on four months in front of the others by exceptional efforts so as to be able to test it for range and accuracy and to get out the range tables and other complex devices which depended upon actual firing results. From this moment we were irrevocably committed to the whole armament, and every detail in these vessels, extending to thousands of parts, was redesigned to fit them. Fancy if they failed. What a disaster. What an exposure. No excuse would be accepted. It would all be brought home to me—‘rash, inexperienced,’ ‘before he had been there a month,’ ‘altering all the plans of his predecessors’ and producing ‘this ghastly fiasco,’ ‘the mutilation of all the ships of the year.’ What could I have said? Moreover, although the decision, once taken, was irrevocable, a long period of suspense—fourteen or fifteen months at least—was unavoidable. However, I dissembled my misgivings. I wrote to the First Sea Lord that ‘Risks have to be run in peace as well as in war, and courage in design now may win a battle later on.’
But everything turned out all right. British gunnery science proved exact and true, and British workmanship as sound as a bell and punctual to the day. The first gun was known in the Elswick shops as ‘the hush and push gun,’ and was invariably described in all official documents as ‘the 14–inch experimental.’ It proved a brilliant success. It hurled a 1,920–pound projectile 35,000 yards; it achieved remarkable accuracy at all ranges without shortening its existence by straining itself in any way. No doubt I was unduly anxious; but when I saw the gun fired for the first time a year later and knew that all was well, I felt as if I had been delivered from a great peril.
In one of those nightmare novels that used to appear from time to time before the war, I read in 1913 of a great battle in which, to the amazement of the defeated British Fleet, the German new vessels opened fire with a terrible, unheard-of 15–inch gun. There was a real satisfaction in feeling that anyhow this boot was on the other leg.
The gun dominated the ship, and was the decisive cause of all the changes we then made in design. The following was in those days the recipe in very unexpert language for making a battleship:—
You take the largest possible number of the best possible guns that can be fired in combination from one vessel as a single battery. You group them conveniently by pairs in turrets. You put the turrets so that there is the widest possible arc of fire for every gun and the least possible blast interference. This regulates the position of the turrets and the spacing between them. You draw a line around the arrangement of turrets thus arrived at, which gives you the deck of the ship. You then build a hull to carry this deck or great gun platform. It must be very big and very long. Next you see what room you have got inside this hull for engines to drive it, and from this and from the length you get the speed. Last of all you decide on the armour.
All these calculations and considerations act and react upon one another at every stage, and the manner in which the Royal Corps of Constructors can juggle with these factors, and the facility with which the great chiefs and masters of battleship design like Sir Philip Watts and Sir Eustace Tennyson-D’Eyncourt and their faithful confederate Sir Henry Oram, the Chief Engineer, were able to speak on these matters were marvellous beyond belief. In a few hours, or at most in a few days, one could be told the effect of an alteration in any one set of conditions upon every other set of conditions. On this vast process of juggling and higgling we now embarked.
From the beginning there appeared a ship carrying ten 15–inch guns, and therefore at least 600 feet long with room inside her for engines which would drive her 21 knots and capacity to carry armour which on the armoured belt, the turrets and the conning tower would reach the thickness unprecedented in the British Service of 13 inches. For less armour you could have more speed: for less speed you could have more armour, and so on within very considerable limits. But now a new idea began to dawn. Eight 15–inch guns would fire a simultaneous broadside of approximately 16,000 lb. Ten of the latest 13·5–inch would only fire 14,000 lb. Therefore, we could get for eight 15–inch guns a punch substantially greater than that of ten 13·5–inch. Nor did the superiority end there. With the increased size of the shell came a far greater increase in the capacity of the bursting charge. It was not quite a geometric progression, because other considerations intervened; but it was in that order of ideas. There was no doubt about the punch. On the other hand, look at the speed. Twenty-one knots was all very well in its way, but suppose we could get a much greater speed. Suppose we could cram into the hull a horse-power sufficient to drive these terrific vessels, already possessing guns and armour superior to that of the heaviest battleship, at speeds hitherto only obtained by the lightly armoured 12–inch gun battle-cruisers, should we not have introduced a new element into naval war?
And here we leave the region of material. I have built the process up stage by stage as it was argued out, but of course all the processes proceeded in simultaneous relation, and the result was to show a great possibility. Something like the ship described above could be made if it were wanted. Was it wanted? Was it the right thing to make? Was its tactical value sufficient to justify the increase in cost and all the changes in design? We must turn for the answer to the tactical sphere.
Here I felt able to see a little more clearly. As cannot be too often repeated, war is all one; and the same principles of thought which are true in any form are true mutatis mutandis in every other form. Obviously in creating an Army or an Air Force or a squadron of battleships you must first of all have regard to their highest tactical employment, namely, decisive battle. Let us, therefore, first of all visualise the battle. Let us try to imagine what its conditions will be; what we shall have to meet and what would help us most to win. The first naval idea of our supreme battle at this time was that it would be fought about something: somebody would want to be going somewhere and somebody else would try to stop him. One of the Fleets would be proceeding in a certain direction and the other Fleet would come along and try to prevent it. However they might approach, the battle would soon resolve itself into two lines of ships steaming along parallel and bringing all their broadsides to bear upon each other. Of course if one Fleet is much stronger than the other, has heavier guns and shoots better, the opposite line begins to get the worst of it. Ships begin to burn and blow up and fall out of the line, and every one that falls out increases the burden of fire upon the remainder. The Fleet which has more ships in it also has a tail which overlaps the enemy, and a good many ships in this tail can concentrate their fire upon the rear ships of the enemy, so that these unlucky vessels have not only to fight the ships opposite to them, but have to bear the fire of a number of others firing obliquely at them from behind. But smashing up the tail of an enemy’s Fleet is a poor way of preventing him from achieving his objective, i.e. going where he wants to go. It is not comparable to smashing up his head. Injuries at the head of the line tend to throw the whole line into confusion, whereas injuries at the tail only result in the ships dropping astern without causing other complications. Therefore the Admiralissimo will always try to draw a little ahead if he possibly can and bring his van nearer and nearer to the enemy and gradually, if he can, force that enemy to turn off, so that he can then curl round him. This well-known manœuvre is called ‘Crossing the T,’ and Admiral Togo had used it in the battle of the Sea of Japan.
If the speeds of the Fleets are equal, how can this be done? The heads of both lines will be abreast and the fire will only be given and returned ship for ship.
But suppose you have a division of ships in your Fleet which go much faster than any of your other ships or of your enemy’s ships. These ships will be certainly able to draw ahead and curl round the head of the enemy’s line. More than that, as they draw ahead they will repeat in a much more effective fashion the advantage of an overlapping tail, because the ships at the head of the enemy’s line will have to bear the fire of the overlapping ships as well as the fire of those which are lying opposite to them, and therefore two or three ships might be firing on every one of the leading ships of the enemy, thus smashing to pieces the head of the enemy’s line and throwing his whole formation into confusion.
Here then in simple outline is the famous argument for the Fast Division. A squadron of ships possessing a definite superiority of speed could be so disposed in the approaching formation of your own Fleet as to enable you, whichever way the enemy might deploy, to double the fire after certain interval upon the head of his line, and also to envelop it and cross it and so force him into a circular movement and bring him to bay once and for all without hope of escape.
Hitherto in all our battle plans this rôle had been assigned to the battle-cruisers. Their speed would certainly enable them to get there. But we must imagine that they would also be met by the enemy’s battle-cruisers, whereupon, as they say in the reports of the House of Commons ‘debate arising,’ they might easily fight a separate action of their own without relation to the supreme conflict. Further, the battle-cruisers, our beautiful ‘Cats,’ as their squadron was irreverently called,[[18]] had thin skins compared to the enemy’s strongest battleships, which presumably would head his line. It is a rough game to pit battle-cruisers against battleships with only seven or nine inches of armour against twelve or thirteen, and probably with a weaker gun-power as well.[[19]]
Suppose, however, we could make a division of ships fast enough to seize the advantageous position and yet as strong in gun-power and armour as any battleship afloat. Should we not have scored almost with certainty an inestimable and a decisive advantage? The First Sea Lord, Sir Francis Bridgeman, fresh from the command of the Home Fleet, and most of his principal officers, certainly thought so. The Fast Division was the dream of their battle plans. But could we get such ships? Could they be designed and constructed? And here we came back again to Sir Philip Watts and Sir Henry Oram and the Ordnance Board and the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors.
At this stage the War College were asked to work out on the tactical board the number of knots superiority in speed required in a Fast Division in order to ensure this Division being able to manœuvre around the German Fleet as it would be in the years 1914 and 1915.
The answer was that if the Fast Division could steam in company 25 knots or better, they could do all that was necessary. We therefore wanted 4 or 5 knots additional speed. How were we to get it? With every knot the amount of horse-power required is progressively greater. Our new ship would steam 21 knots, but to steam 25 to 26 she wanted 50,000 horse-power. Fifty thousand horse-power meant more boilers, and where could they be put? Why, obviously they could be put where the fifth turret would go, and having regard to the increased punch of the 15–inch gun we could spare the fifth turret.
But even this would not suffice. We could not get the power required to drive these ships at 25 knots except by the use of oil fuel.
The advantages conferred by liquid fuel were inestimable. First, speed. In equal ships oil gave a large excess of speed over coal. It enabled that speed to be attained with far greater rapidity. It gave forty per cent. greater radius of action for the same weight of coal. It enabled a fleet to refuel at sea with great facility. An oil-burning fleet can, if need be and in calm weather, keep its station at sea, nourishing itself from tankers without having to send a quarter of its strength continually into harbour to coal, wasting fuel on the homeward and outward journey. The ordeal of coaling ship exhausted the whole ship’s company. In war-time it robbed them of their brief period of rest; it subjected everyone to extreme discomfort. With oil, a few pipes were connected with the shore or with a tanker and the ship sucked in its fuel with hardly a man having to lift a finger. Less than half the number of stokers was needed to tend and clean the oil furnaces. Oil could be stowed in spare places in a ship from which it would be impossible to bring coal. As a coal ship used up her coal, increasingly large numbers of men had to be taken, if necessary from the guns, to shovel the coal from remote and inconvenient bunkers to bunkers nearer to the furnaces or to the furnaces themselves, thus weakening the fighting efficiency of the ship perhaps at the most critical moment in the battle. For instance, nearly a hundred men were continually occupied in the Lion shovelling coal from one steel chamber to another without ever seeing the light either of day or of the furnace fires. The use of oil made it possible in every type of vessel to have more gun-power and more speed for less size or less cost. It alone made it possible to realise the high speeds in certain types which were vital to their tactical purpose. All these advantages were obtained simply by burning oil instead of coal under the boilers. Should it at any time become possible to abolish boilers altogether and explode the oil in the cylinders of internal combustion engines, every advantage would be multiplied tenfold.
On my arrival at the Admiralty we had already built or building 56 destroyers solely dependent on oil and 74 submarines which could only be driven by oil; and a proportion of oil was used to spray the coal furnaces of nearly all ships. We were not, however, dependent upon oil to such an extent as to make its supply a serious naval problem. To build any large additional number of oil-burning ships meant basing our naval supremacy upon oil. But oil was not found in appreciable quantities in our islands. If we required it we must carry it by sea in peace or war from distant countries. We had, on the other hand, the finest supply of the best steam coal in the world, safe in our mines under our own hand.
To change the foundation of the Navy from British coal to foreign oil was a formidable decision in itself. If it were taken it must raise a whole series of intricate problems all requiring heavy initial expense. First there must be accumulated in Great Britain an enormous oil reserve large enough to enable us to fight for many months if necessary without bringing in a single cargo of oil. To contain this reserve enormous installations of tanks must be erected near the various naval ports. Would they not be very vulnerable? Could they be protected? Could they be concealed or disguised? The word ‘camouflage’ was not then known. Fleets of tankers had to be built to convey the oil from the distant oilfields across the oceans to the British Isles, and others of a different pattern to take it from our naval harbours to the fleets at sea.
Owing to the systems of finance by which we had bound ourselves, we were not allowed to borrow even for capital or ‘once for all’ expenditure. Every penny must be won from Parliament year by year, and constituted a definite addition to the inevitably rising and already fiercely challenged Naval Estimates. And beyond these difficulties loomed up the more intangible problems of markets and monopolies. The oil supplies of the world were in the hands of vast oil trusts under foreign control. To commit the Navy irrevocably to oil was indeed ‘to take arms against a sea of troubles.’ Wave after wave, dark with storm, crested with foam, surged towards the harbour in which we still sheltered. Should we drive out into the teeth of the gale, or should we bide contented where we were? Yet beyond the breakers was a great hope. If we overcame the difficulties and surmounted the risks, we should be able to raise the whole power and efficiency of the Navy to a definitely higher level; better ships, better crews, higher economies, more intense forms of war power—in a word, mastery itself was the prize of the venture. A year gained over a rival might make the difference. Forward, then!
The three programmes of 1912, 1913 and 1914 comprised the greatest additions in power and cost ever made to the Royal Navy. With the lamentable exception of the battleships of 1913—and these were afterwards corrected—they did not contain a coal-burning ship. Submarines, destroyers, light cruisers, fast battleships—all were based irrevocably on oil. The fateful plunge was taken when it was decided to create the Fast Division. Then, for the first time, the supreme ships of the Navy, on which our life depended, were fed by oil and could only be fed by oil. The decision to drive the smaller craft by oil followed naturally upon this. The camel once swallowed, the gnats went down easily enough.
A decision like this involved our national safety as much as a battle at sea. It was as anxious and as harassing as any hazard in war. It was war in a certain sense raging under a surface of unbroken peace. Compare it with the decision to attempt to force the Dardanelles with the old surplus vessels of a fleet which had already proved its supremacy. The oil decision was vital; the Dardanelles decision was subsidiary. The first touched our existence; the second our superfluities. Having succeeded in the first, it did not seem difficult when the time came to attempt the second. I did not understand that in war the power of a civilian Minister to carry through a plan or policy is greatly diminished. He cannot draw his strength year by year from Parliament. He cannot be sure of being allowed to finish what he has begun. The loyalties of peace are replaced by the jealous passions of war. The Parliamentary safeguards are in abeyance. Explanation and debate may be impossible or may be denied. I learnt this later on.
I shall show presently the difficulties into which these decisions to create a fast division of battleships and to rely upon oil led me into during the years 1913 and 1914. Nor can I deny that colleagues who could not foresee the extra expense which they involved had grounds of complaint. Battleships were at that time assumed to cost two and a quarter millions each. The Queen Elizabeth class of fast battleships cost over three millions each. The expenditure of upwards of ten millions was required to create the oil reserve, with its tanks and its tankers, though a proportion of this would have been needed in any case. On more than one occasion I feared I should succumb. I had, however, the unfailing support of the Prime Minister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer whose duty it was to be my most severe critic was also my most friendly colleague. And so it all went through. Fortune rewarded the continuous and steadfast facing of these difficulties by the Board of Admiralty and brought us a prize from fairyland far beyond our brightest hopes.
An unbroken series of consequences conducted us to the Anglo-Persian Oil Convention. The first step was to set up a Royal Commission on Oil Supply. Lord Fisher was invited and induced to preside over this by the following letter:—
Mr. Churchill to Lord Fisher.
June 11, 1912.
We are too good friends (I hope) and the matters with which we are concerned are too serious (I’m sure) for anything but plain language.
This liquid fuel problem has got to be solved, and the natural, inherent, unavoidable difficulties are such that they require the drive and enthusiasm of a big man. I want you for this, viz. to crack the nut. No one else can do it so well. Perhaps no one else can do it at all. I will put you in a position where you can crack the nut, if indeed it is crackable. But this means that you will have to give your life and strength, and I don’t know what I have to give in exchange or in return. You have got to find the oil: to show how it can be stored cheaply: how it can be purchased regularly and cheaply in peace; and with absolute certainty in war. Then by all means develop its application in the best possible way to existing and prospective ships. But on the other hand, your Royal Commission will be advisory and not executive. It will assemble facts and state conclusions. It cannot touch policy or action. That would not be fair to those on whom I must now rely. Nor would you wish it. Its report must be secret from the public, and its work separate from the Admiralty. I cannot have Moore’s position[[20]] eclipsed by a kind of Committee of Public Safety on Designs. The field of practical policy must be reserved for the immediately responsible officers. Research however authoritative lies outside. All this I know you will concur in.
Then as to personnel. I do not care a d——n whom you choose to assist you, so long as (1) the representative character of the Committee is maintained, and (2) the old controversies are not needlessly revived. Let us then go into names specifically.
Further, ‘Step by step’ is a valuable precept. When you have solved the riddle, you will find a very hushed attentive audience. But the riddle will not be solved unless you are willing—for the glory of God—to expend yourself upon its toils.
I recognise it is little enough I can offer you. But your gifts, your force, your hopes, belong to the Navy, with or without return; and as your most sincere admirer, and as the head of the Naval Service, I claim them now, knowing well you will not grudge them. You need a plough to draw. Your propellers are racing in air.
Simultaneously with the setting up of this Commission we pursued our own Admiralty search for oil. On the advice of Sir Francis Hopwood and Sir Frederick Black[[21]] I sent Admiral Slade with an expert Committee to the Persian Gulf to examine the oil fields on the spot. These gentlemen were also the Admiralty representatives on the Royal Commission. To them the principal credit for the achievement is due. At the later financial stage the Governor of the Bank of England, afterwards Lord Cunliffe, and the director of the Anglo-Persian and Royal Burmah Oil Companies were most serviceable. All through 1912 and 1913 our efforts were unceasing.
Thus each link forged the next. From the original desire to enlarge the gun we were led on step by step to the Fast Division, and in order to get the Fast Division we were forced to rely for vital units of the Fleet upon oil fuel. This led to the general adoption of oil fuel and to all the provisions which were needed to build up a great oil reserve. This led to enormous expense and to tremendous opposition on the Naval Estimates. Yet it was absolutely impossible to turn back. We could only fight our way forward, and finally we found our way to the Anglo-Persian Oil agreement and contract which for an initial investment of two millions of public money (subsequently increased to five millions) has not only secured to the Navy of a very substantial proportion of its oil supply, but has led to the acquisition by the Government of a controlling share in oil properties and interests which are at present valued at scores of millions sterling and also to very considerable economies, which are still continuing, in the purchase price of Admiralty oil.
All forecasts in this speculative market are subject to revision. The figures set out below are recent and authoritative.[[22]]
On this basis it may be said that the aggregate profits, realised and potential, of this investment may be estimated at a sum not merely sufficient to pay for all the programme of ships, great and small of that year and for the whole pre-war oil fuel installation; but are such that we may not unreasonably expect that one day we shall be entitled also to claim that the mighty fleets laid down in 1912, 1913 and 1914, the greatest ever built by any power in an equal period, were added to the British Navy without costing a single penny to the taxpayer.
Such is the story of the creation of a Fast Division of five famous battleships, the Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, Barham, Valiant and Malaya, all oil-driven, each capable of steaming a minimum of 25 knots, mounting eight 15–inch guns and protected by 13 inches of armour. It is permissible to look ahead and see what happened to these ships in the Battle of Jutland. Let us take the accounts of the enemy.
Says Tirpitz (vol. II, p. 284): ‘In the further course of the fight,’ i.e. after the destruction of the Indefatigable and Queen Mary, ‘the English were strongly reinforced by five[[23]] of their newest ships of the Queen Elizabeth class, only completed during the war; these vessels, driven exclusively by oil-fuel, possessed such a high speed that they were able to take part in the cruiser engagement—they attached themselves to the English cruisers and joined in the battle at long range.’
The First Gunnery Officer of the Derfflinger is more explicit:
Meanwhile we saw that the enemy were being reinforced. Behind the battle cruiser line approached four big ships. We soon identified these as of the Queen Elizabeth class. There had been much talk in our fleet of these ships. They were ships of the line with the colossal armament of eight 15–inch guns, 28,000 tons displacement and a speed of twenty-five knots. Their speed, therefore, was scarcely inferior to ours (twenty-six knots), but they fired a shell more than twice as heavy as ours. They engaged at portentous range ... (p. 164).[[24]]
As we were altering course to N.N.W. we caught sight of the head of our Third Squadron, the proud ships of the König class. Everyone now breathed more freely. While we had been engaged by the English Fifth Battle Squadron with its 15–inch guns in addition to the Battle Cruiser Squadron we had felt rather uncomfortable. (p. 167).
After the gradual disappearance of the four battle cruisers we were still faced with the four powerful ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron, Malaya, Valiant, Barham, and Warspite.
These ships cannot have developed very high speed in this phase of the battle, for they soon came within range of our Third Squadron, and were engaged by the ships at the head of the line, particularly the flagship, the König. In this way the four English battleships at one time and another came under the fire of at least nine German ships, five battle cruisers and from four to five battleships. According to my gunnery log, we were firing after 7.16 p.m. at the second battleship from the right, the one immediately astern of the leader. At these great ranges I fired armour-piercing shell.
The second phase passed without any important events as far as we were concerned. In a sense this part of the action, fought against a numerically inferior but more powerfully armed enemy, who kept us under fire at ranges at which we were helpless, was highly depressing, nerve-racking and exasperating. Our only means of defence was to leave the line for a short time when we saw that the enemy had our range. As this manœuvre was imperceptible to the enemy, we extricated ourselves at regular intervals from the hail of fire. (p. 173).
We may now turn to the smaller vessels.
There was no difficulty whatever in settling the design of the destroyers. The Admiralty had vacillated about destroyers in previous years. In 1908 they built large fast 33–knot Tribals burning oil, and then, worried by the oil problem and shocked at the expense, reverted for two years to 27–knot coal-burning flotillas (Acastas and Acherons). I was too late to stop the last bevy of these inferior vessels, but I gave directions to design the new flotilla to realise 35 knots speed without giving up anything in gun-power, torpedoes or seaworthiness. I proposed to the Board that if money ran short we should take sixteen of these rather than twenty of the others. Building slow destroyers! One might as well breed slow racehorses.
The cruisers were much more difficult. The duties of a British cruiser are very varied: now scouting for the Battle Fleet; now convoying merchantmen; now fighting an action with another cruiser squadron; now showing the flag in distant or tropical oceans. In an effort to produce a type which would combine all these requirements, the purity of design had been lost and a number of compromise ships, whose types melted into one another, were afloat or building. They ranged from the strong, heavily gunned and well armoured vessels like the Minotaur through lighter but still armoured variants of the ‘County’ class cruisers down to unarmoured but large ships like the Dartmouths (the ‘Town’ class), and the little vessels of 3,350 tons like the Blonde. Altogether there were nine distinct classes. It was time to classify and clarify thought and simplify nomenclature on this subject. The large armoured cruisers were already superseded by the battle-cruiser. They still remained a very powerful force, numbering no less than thirty-five vessels. We would call them ‘Cruisers.’ All the rest should be called ‘Light Cruisers.’ For the future we would build only battle-cruisers (or fast battleships) and light cruisers. The future evolution of the battle cruiser was well defined and depended on the numbers and character of any that might be laid down by Germany. Our lead in battle cruisers (9 to 4) and the creation of the fast division of battleships made it possible to delay decision on this type; but the light cruiser was urgent and even vital. We required a very large number of small fast vessels to protect the Battle Fleet from torpedo attack, to screen it and within certain limits to scout for it. After hearing many arguments, I proposed to the Board that we should concentrate on this type, to exclude all consideration of the requirements of the distant seas, and to build vessels for attendance on the Battle Fleets in home waters and for that duty alone.
Now arose the question of design. Should the new light cruiser be the smallest of the cruisers or the biggest of the destroyers? We had already in existence a few unarmoured light cruisers carrying 4–inch guns called the Blondes. We had also an experimental destroyer of enormous size, nearly 2,000 tons and about 36 knots speed, called the Swift. In between these were eight hybrid vessels called ‘Scouts’ representing weakness and confusion of thought: they had neither speed to run nor guns to fight; they steamed only 24 knots and mounted only a litter of 12–pounders; they carried no armour, but they ate up men and money. Whatever happened we must avoid a feeble compromise like that. I therefore called for designs of an improved Swift and an improved Blonde. The main object of both these types was to rupture a torpedo attack on the Battle Fleet, scout for it, and otherwise protect it. But destroyers were now being freely armed with 4–inch guns firing a 32–lb. shell capable of inflicting very serious injury on an unarmoured vessel. We must therefore have some protection, if not to keep out the shell at any rate to keep the bulk of the explosion outside the vessel. We must also have high speed and guns sufficient to punish even the biggest destroyers cruelly.
The constructors and engineers toiled and schemed, and in a few weeks Sir Philip Watts and Sir Henry Oram, par nobile fratrum, produced two joint alternative designs, the super-Blonde and the super-Swift. Both these vessels showed far higher qualities than anything previously achieved for their size and cost; but both were dependent upon oil only. I remitted these designs to a conference of Cruiser Admirals. I could feel opinion turning to the super-Blonde. I wrote to Fisher on the 12th January, 1912:—
January 12, 1912.
In sustained rumination about super-Swifts, two types emerging.
(1) The super-Swift. 37 knots. Six 4–inch—600 tons of oil. £250,000. I want her to be superior at every point to all T.B.D.’s. Speed she has, and stronger armament, and superior stability. But it is alleged by Briggs[[25]] (Advocatus Diaboli—a very necessary functionary) that she will be as flimsy as the destroyers, and a bigger target. So I have tried to find her a thicker skin—not much, but enough to flash off a 12–pounder or even a 4–inch shell. I can get from Admiral Watts 2–inch tensile steel round all vitals with great strengthening of the general structure of the vessel for 160 tons, £2,200, and three-quarters of a knot speed. The speed would come back as the oil was used up. I think it is a great advance. What do you feel?
(2) Do you know the Active? She is a Blonde. The super-Active, or Frenzy, Mania, and Delirium type, now in question, will be 3,500 tons, 30 knots, 40,000 h.p., ten 4–inch guns and 290 tons of armour distributed in 2–inch plates round vitals. She is therefore much smaller than the Dartmouths, £65,000 cheaper (£285,000 as against £350,000), about the same price or size as the Actives, but 4·7 knots faster (? in smooth water) and with 2–inch protection as against nothing.
Now if all this bears test, how about chucking the two Dartmouths and the Blonde in the programme, and substituting four Frenzies, all of a kind, the gain being one additional ship, four 30–knot cruiserlets or cruiserkins, and the cost being an extra £170,000. What is your view?
Fisher wrote on the 16th January:—
‘Of course there can be no moment’s doubt that you ought to chuck the two Dartmouths and the Blonde and take four Frenzies in lieu. I hope you won’t hesitate!’
He did not approve of them, however.
‘You are forced,’ he said, ‘by the general consensus of opinion to have these useless warships and this therefore is your wisest choice. I say to you deliberately that aviation has entirely dispensed with the necessity for this type. What you do want is the super-Swift—all oil—and don’t fiddle about armour; it really is so VERY silly! There is only ONE defence and that is SPEED! for all small vessels (except those who go under water).
‘The super-Swift is MAINLY wanted for the submarine. The submarine has no horizon. The Swift tells her where the enemy is and then flees for her life with 40 knots speed!
‘The super-Lion, the super-Swift and the super-Submarine—all else is wasted money!
‘The luxuries of the present are the necessities of the future. Our grandfathers never had a bath-room.... You have got to plunge for three years ahead! And THE ONE thing is to keep Foreign Admiralties running after you! It’s Hell for them!
‘The Germans are going to have a motor battleship before us and a cruiser that will make the circuit of the world without having to replenish her fuel!
‘What an Alabama!
‘The most damnable person for you to have any dealings with is a Naval Expert! Sea fighting is pure common sense. The first of all its necessities is SPEED, so as to be able to fight—
When you like
Where you like
and How you like.
Therefore the super-Lion, the super-Swift and the super-Submarine are the only three types for fighting (speed being THE characteristic of each of these types). Aviation has wiped out the intermediate types. No armour for anything but the super-Lion and there restricted! Cost £1,995,000; speed over 30 knots; all oil; 10 “improved” guns; and you’ll make the Germans “squirm”!
And again:
‘You had better adopt 2 keels to 1! You have it now. It will be safe; it will be popular; it will head off the approaching German naval increase. Above all remember Keble in The Christian Year.
‘“The dusky hues of glorious War!”
‘There is always the risk of a (bad Admiral) before a second A. K. Wilson comes along to supersede him! How that picture of old ‘ard ‘eart (as the sailors call him) rises before me now!... Three big fleets that had never seen each other came from three different quarters to meet him off Cape St. Vincent—in sight of Trafalgar. When each was many hundreds of miles away from him he ordered them by “wireless” exactly what to do, and that huge phalanx met together at his prescribed second of time without a signal or a sound and steamed a solid mass at 14 knots and dropped their anchors with one splash! Are we going to look at his like again?
‘So you had better have 2 keels to 1!
‘“The dusky hues of glorious War.” What a hymn for The Christian Year by a Saint like Keble!’
On the 14th January he wrote:—
‘I yesterday had an illuminating letter from Jellicoe.... He has all the Nelsonic attributes.... He writes to me of new designs. His one, one, one cry is SPEED! Do lay that to heart! Do remember the receipt for jugged hare in Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery Book! “First catch your hare!”... Also he advocates the “improved” gun and the far bigger ship and (it) will COST LESS.
‘“It’s your money we want,” as those Tariff Reform asses say!... Take my advice—2 keels to 1!’
The Cruiser Admirals however plumped for the Super-Blonde. Meanwhile, between the hammer and the anvil, Sir Philip Watts had scraped together another inch of armour, making 3 inches in all, and Sir Henry Oram guaranteed 30 or even 31 knots of speed.
Now for the guns. The proverbial three alternatives presented themselves. We could have ten 4–inch (32–lb. shell) or five 6–inch (100–lb. shell), or we could compromise on a blend of the two. The Cruiser Admirals’ Committee finally agreed on a compromise. Six 4–inch guns were to be mounted on the superstructure forward and two 6–inch on the main deck aft. It was denied that this arrangement was a compromise. It must be judged in relation to what the ship would have to do. When advancing to attack destroyers she could fire a large number of 32–lb. shots, each sufficient to wound them grievously; when retreating from a larger cruiser she could strike back with her two 6–inch guns. I personally insisted upon the two 6–inch. The Navy would never recognise these vessels as cruisers if they did not carry metal of that weight. The ultimate evolution of this type in subsequent years was to a uniform armament of five 6–inch.
We must now admit that this was right, but they were big guns to put in so small a ship, and many doubted whether the platform would be sufficiently stable. For the value then of the two Dartmouths and one Blonde which had been previously proposed, plus something scraped from other incidentals of the programme, plus a hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be too severe, we were able to lay down no less than eight of these new vessels. I presented them to Parliament in the following words:—
‘They are described as Light Armoured Cruisers, and they will in fact be the smallest, cheapest and fastest vessels protected by vertical armour ever projected for the British Navy. They are designed for attendance on the Battle Fleet. They are designed to be its eyes and ears by night and day; to watch over it in movement and at rest. They will be strong enough and fast enough to overhaul and cut down any torpedo boat destroyer afloat, and generally they will be available for the purposes of observation and reconnaissance.’
Judged by its popularity in peace and war this type may claim success. In the three programmes of 1912, 1913 and 1914, 8, 8, and 6 of them were built respectively, and after the war began no fewer than 18 more were built. The first eight fired their torpedoes from the deck as if they were destroyers. I put the greatest pressure on the constructors to give them underwater torpedo tubes, but they could not manage it in 1912. In 1913 this had been achieved, and was continued in all other vessels of this class. Such were the advantages of speed in Light Cruisers that not one of these vessels, nor the C Class, nor D Class which were their successors, although frequently engaged with the enemy, was ever sunk by gunfire. The first of these vessels from which the class was named was the Arethusa, and under the broad pennant of Commodore Tyrwhitt she established on an unchallengeable foundation the glories claimed of old for that ship.
Come, all you gallant seamen bold,
Whose hearts are cast in honour’s mould;
I will to you a tale unfold
Of the saucy Arethusa.
Such were the characteristics of the new vessels with which we proceeded to equip the Royal Navy in the programme of 1912.
CHAPTER VII
THE NORTH SEA FRONT
‘The greatest impediment to action is not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action.’
Pericles.
Our First Line of Defence—The Great Change of Front—Close Blockade and an Oversea Base—The New War-Plans: Distant Blockade—Manœuvre Experiments, 1912 and 1913—Prowling Squadrons—The Perils of Surprise—The Limits of Precaution—A Bolt from the Blue—Cordons—The Limits of German Morality—The Invasion Problem and the Expeditionary Force—The Invasion Committee—First Lord’s Notes—The South and East Fronts Compared—Raid or Invasion—Impossibility of Close Blockade—The Patrol Flotillas—The Coastal Watch—A Bolt from the Grey—Possible German Objectives for Raids—Assumptions and Conclusions—Difficulties of Preparation—The Initial Dangers the Greatest—Letter to a Friend—The Other Side.
The traditional war policy of the Admiralty grew up during the prolonged wars and antagonisms with France. It consisted in establishing immediately upon the outbreak of war a close blockade of the enemy’s ports and naval bases by means of flotillas of strong small craft supported by cruisers with superior battle fleets in reserve. The experience of 200 years had led all naval strategists to agree on this fundamental principle, ‘Our first line of defence is the enemy’s ports.’
When the torpedo was invented, the French tried to frustrate this well-known British policy by building large numbers of torpedo-boats, and the Admiralty, after some years, retorted by building torpedo-boat destroyers. These destroyers fulfilled two conditions: first, they were large enough to keep the seas in most weathers and to operate across the Channel for sufficient periods; secondly, their guns were heavy enough to destroy or dominate the French torpedo-boats. Thus, in spite of the advent of the torpedo, we preserved our power to maintain stronger flotillas in close proximity to the enemy’s naval bases. Meanwhile, all along the South Coast of England a series of fortified torpedo-proof harbours in the neighbourhood of our great naval establishments afforded safe, close, and convenient stations for our battle fleets and other supporting vessels when not actually at sea.
When early in the present century our potential enemy for the first time became not France, but Germany, our naval strategic front shifted from the South to the East Coast and from the Channel to the North Sea. But although the enemy, the front, and the theatre had changed, the sound principle of British naval strategy still held good. Our first line of defence was considered to be the enemy’s ports. The Admiralty policy was still a close blockade of those ports by means of stronger flotillas properly supported by cruisers and ultimately by the battle fleets.
It was not to be expected that our arrangements on this new front could rapidly reach the same degree of perfection as the conflicts of so many generations had evolved in the Channel; and so far as our naval bases were concerned, we were still in the process of transition when the great war began. More serious, however, was the effect of the change on the utility of our destroyers. Instead of operating at distances of from 20 or 60 miles across the Channel with their supporting ships close at hand in safe harbours, they were now called upon to operate in the Heligoland Bight, across 240 miles of sea, and with no suitable bases for their supporting battle fleet nearer than the Thames or the Forth. Nevertheless, the Admiralty continued to adhere to their traditional strategic principle, and their war plans up till 1911 contemplated the close blockade of the enemy’s ports immediately upon the declaration of war. Our destroyers were constructed with ever increasing sea-keeping qualities and with a great superiority of gun power. The Germans, on the other hand, adhered to the French conception of the torpedo boat as a means of attack upon our large ships. While we relied in our destroyer construction principally on gun power and sea-keeping qualities, they relied upon the torpedo and high speed in fair weather opportunities. But the much greater distances over which our destroyers had now to operate across the North Sea immensely reduced their effectiveness. Whereas across the Channel they could work in two reliefs, they required three across the North Sea. Therefore only one-third instead of one-half of our fighting flotillas could be available at any given moment. Against this third the enemy could at any moment bring his whole force. In order to carry out our old strategic policy from our Home bases we should have required flotillas at least three and probably four times as numerous as those of Germany. This superiority we had not got and were not likely to get.
Therefore from shortly before 1905 when the French agreement was signed, down to the Agadir crisis in 1911, the Admiralty made plans to capture one or other of the German islands. On this it was intended to establish an oversea base at which from the beginning of the war our blockade flotillas could be replenished and could rest, and which as war progressed would have developed into an advanced citadel of our sea power. In this way, therefore, the Admiralty would still have carried out their traditional war policy of beating the enemy’s flotillas and light craft into his ports and maintaining a constant close blockade.
These considerations were not lost upon the Germans. They greatly increased the fortifications of Heligoland, and they proceeded to fortify one after another such of the Frisian Islands as were in any way suitable for our purposes. At the same time a new and potent factor appeared upon the scene—the submarine. The submarine not only rendered the capture and maintenance of an oversea base or bases far more difficult and, as some authorities have steadfastly held, impossible, but it threatened with destruction our cruisers and battleships without whose constant support our flotillas would easily have been destroyed by the enemy’s cruisers.
This was the situation in October, 1911, when immediately after the Agadir crisis I became First Lord and proceeded to form a new Board of Admiralty. Seeing that we had not for the time being the numerical force of destroyers able to master the destroyers of the potential enemy in his home waters, nor the power to support our flotillas with heavy ships, and having regard also to the difficulty and hazard in all the circumstances of storming and capturing one of his now fortified islands, we proceeded forthwith to revise altogether the War Plans and substitute, with the full concurrence of our principal commanders afloat, the policy of distant blockade set up in the Admiralty War Orders of 1912.
The policy of distant blockade was not adopted from choice, but from necessity. It implied no repudiation on the part of the Admiralty of their fundamental principle of aggressive naval strategy, but only a temporary abandonment of it in the face of unsolved practical difficulties; and it was intended that every effort should be made, both before and after a declaration of war, to overcome those difficulties. It was rightly foreseen that by closing the exits from the North Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, German commerce would be almost completely cut off from the world. It was expected that the economic and financial pressure resulting from such a blockade would fatally injure the German power to carry on a war. It was hoped that this pressure would compel the German fleet to come out and fight, not in his own defended waters, but at a great numerical disadvantage in the open sea. It was believed that we could continue meanwhile to enjoy the full command of the seas without danger to our sea communications or to the movement of our armies, and that the British Isles could be kept safe from invasion. There was at that time no reason to suppose that these conditions would not continue indefinitely with undiminished advantage to ourselves and increasing pressure upon the enemy. So far as all surface vessels are concerned, and certainly for the first three years of the war, these expectations were confirmed by experience.
Under these orders the Fleet was disposed strategically so as to block the exits from the North Sea by placing the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and drawing a cordon of destroyers across the Straits of Dover supported by the older battleships and protected by certain minefields. These conclusions stood the test of the war. They were never departed from in any important respect by any of the Boards of Admiralty which held office. By this means the British Navy seized and kept the effective control of all the oceans of the world.
They did not, however, secure the command of the Baltic, nor the absolute control of the North Sea. We could no longer hope to prevent the enemy from sallying out of his harbours whenever he chose. What use would he make of this liberty, at the outset or during the progress of a war? By what means could we restrict him most effectually?
We sought to probe these questions in the naval manœuvres of 1912 and 1913.
In 1912 the newly-formed Admiralty War Staff prepared, as an experiment, a plan for an immense cordon of cruisers and destroyers, supported by the Battle Fleet, from the Coast of Norway to a point on the East Coast of England. To a military eye this system appeared unsound, and indeed outside the Admiralty it was generally condemned by naval opinion. I quoted Napoleon’s scathing comment in 1808: ‘Est-ce qu’on a adopté le système des cordons? Est-ce qu’on veut empêcher le contrebande de passer au l’ennemi? Qui est-ce qui peut conseiller au Roi de faire des cordons? Après dix années de guerre doit-on revenir à ces bêtises-là?’ The cordon system was however tried, and was completely exposed and broken down. We then fell back upon a system of what I may call ‘prowling squadrons and occasional drives,’ that is to say, we recognised that we could not maintain any continuous control of the North Sea. The best we could do was to sweep it in strength at irregular intervals and for the rest await the action of the enemy. This clearly involved a considerable risk of raiding forces which might amount to ten or twenty thousand men slipping through and disembarking on our coast. I therefore called for careful individual study to be made of all the different points where such forces could be landed, and what would be the best plans for the Germans to make in each case. At the manœuvres of 1913 Sir John Jellicoe adopted several of these plans for raiding the British coast and put them into execution. He achieved so considerable a measure of success that I thought it necessary to stop the manœuvres on the third day lest we might teach the Germans as well as ourselves.
But before there could be any question of employing the war policy on which the Admiralty had decided, there was a preliminary period to be traversed of the most momentous and critical character. This period raised another set of problems before which the inconveniences of raids, or even an attempt at serious invasion, paled in gravity. Of all the dangers that menaced the British Empire, none was comparable to a surprise of the Fleet. If the Fleet or any vital part of it were caught unawares or unready and our naval preponderance destroyed, we had lost the war, and there was no limit to the evils which might have been inflicted upon us except the mercy of an all-powerful conqueror. We have seen in recent years how little completely victorious nations can be trusted to restrain their passions against a prostrate foe. Great Britain, deprived of its naval defence, could be speedily starved into utter submission to the will of the conqueror. Her Empire would be dismembered; her dominions, India and her immense African and island possessions would be shorn off or transferred to the victors. Ireland would be erected into a hostile well-armed republic on the flank of Great Britain; and the British people, reduced to a helpless condition, would be loaded with overwhelming indemnities calculated to shatter their social system, if, indeed, they were not actually reduced, in Sir Edward Grey’s mordant phrase, to the position of ‘the conscript appendage of a stronger Power.’ Less severe conditions than have since been meted out to Germany would certainly have sufficed to destroy the British Empire at a stroke for ever. The stakes were very high. If our naval defence were maintained we were safe and sure beyond the lot of any other European nation; if it failed, our doom was certain and final.
To what lengths, therefore, would the Germans go to compass the destruction of the British Fleet? Taking the demonic view of their character which it was necessary to assume for the purposes of considering a war problem, what forms of attack ought we to reckon with? Of course, if Germany had no will to war, all these speculations were mere nightmares. But if she had the will and intention of making war, it was evident that there would be no difficulty in finding a pretext arising out of a dispute with France or Russia, to create a situation in which war was inevitable, and create it at the most opportune moment for herself. The wars of Frederick and of Bismarck had shown with what extraordinary rapidity and suddenness the Prussian nation was accustomed to fall upon its enemy. The Continent was a powder magazine from end to end. One single hellish spark and the vast explosion might ensue. We had seen what had happened to France in 1870. We had seen what neglect to take precautions had brought upon the Russian fleet off Port Arthur in 1904. We know now what happened to Belgium in 1914, and, not less remarkable, the demand Germany decided to make upon France on August 1, 1914, that if she wished to remain neutral while Germany attacked Russia, she must as a guarantee hand over to German garrisons her fortresses of Verdun and Toul.
Obviously, therefore, the danger of a “bolt from the Blue” was by no means fantastic. Still, might one not reasonably expect certain warnings? There would probably be some kind of dispute in progress between the great Powers enjoining particular vigilance upon the Admiralty. We might hope to get information of military and naval movements. It was almost certain that there would be financial perturbations in the Exchanges of the world indicating a rise of temperature. Could we therefore rely upon a week’s notice, or three days’ notice, or at least twenty-four hours’ notice before any blow actually fell?
In Europe, where great nations faced each other with enormous armies, there was an automatic safeguard against surprise. Decisive events could not occur till the armies were mobilised, and that took at least a fortnight. The supreme defence of France, for instance, could not therefore be overcome without a great battle in which the main strength of the French nation could be brought to bear. But no such assurance was enjoyed by the British Fleet. No naval mobilisation was necessary on either side to enable all the modern ships to attack one another. They had only to raise steam and bring the ammunition to the guns, But beyond this grim fact grew the torpedo menace. So far as gunfire alone was concerned, our principal danger was for our Fleet to be caught divided and to have one vital part destroyed without inflicting proportionate damage on the enemy. This danger was greatly reduced by wireless, which enabled the divided portions to be instantly directed to a common rendezvous and to avoid action till concentration was effected. Besides, gunfire was a game that two could play at. One could not contemplate that the main strength of the fleets would ever be allowed to come within range of each other without taking proper precautions. But the torpedo was essentially a weapon of surprise, or even treachery; and all that was true of the torpedo in a surface vessel applied with tenfold force to the torpedo of a submarine.
Obviously there were limits beyond which it was impossible to safeguard oneself. It was not simply a case of a few weeks of special precautions. The British Navy had to live its ordinary life in time of peace. It had to have its cruises and its exercises, its periods of leave and refit. Our harbours were open to the commerce of the world. Absolute security against the worst conceivable treachery was physically impossible. On the other hand, even treachery, which required the co-operation of very large numbers of people in different stations and the setting in motion of an immense and complicated apparatus, is not easy to bring about. It was ruled by the Committee of Imperial Defence, after grave debate, that the Admiralty must not assume that if it made the difference between victory and defeat, Germany would stop short of an attack on the Fleet in full peace without warning or pretext. We had to do our best to live up to this standard, and in the main I believe we succeeded. Certainly the position and condition of the British Fleet was every day considered in relation to that of Germany. I was accustomed to check our dispositions by asking the Staff from time to time, unexpectedly, ‘What happens if war with Germany begins to-day?’ I never found them without an answer which showed that we had the power to effect our main concentration before any portion of the Fleet could be brought to battle. Our Fleet did not go for its cruises to the coast of Spain until we knew that the German High Seas Fleet was having its winter refits. When we held Grand Manœuvres we were very careful to arrange the coaling and leave which followed in such a way as to secure us the power of meeting any blow which could possibly reach us in a given time. I know of no moment in the period of which I am writing up to the declaration of war in which it was physically possible for the British Fleet to have been surprised or caught dispersed and divided by any serious German force of surface vessels. An attempt in full peace to make a submarine attack upon a British squadron in harbour or exercising, or to lay mines in an area in which they might be expected to exercise, could not wholly be provided against; but in all human probability its success would only have been partial. Further, I do not believe that such treachery was ever contemplated by the German Admiralty, Government or Emperor. While trying as far as possible to guard against even the worst possibilities, my own conviction was that there would be a cause of quarrel accompanied by a crisis and a fall in markets, and followed very rapidly by a declaration of war, or by acts of war intended to be simultaneous with the declaration, but possibly occurring slightly before. What actually did happen was not unlike what I thought would happen.
Early in 1912, the Prime Minister set up again, under his own chairmanship, the Invasion Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence. This was virtually the Committee which had assembled during the Agadir crisis in the previous August, and henceforth down to the outbreak of the war it continued to meet not infrequently. I asked that Mr. Balfour, who had retired from the leadership of the Unionist party, should be added to the Committee. This was effected.
The main question before us was the possibility of the invasion of Great Britain by Germany; but incidentally many other aspects of a war with Germany were patiently and searchingly examined. The position which I stated on behalf of the Admiralty was briefly as follows:—
Once the Fleet was concentrated in its war station, no large army could be landed in the British Isles. ‘Large Army’ was defined for this purpose as anything over 70,000 men. More than that we guaranteed to intercept or break up while landing. Less than that could be dealt with by the British Regular Army, provided it had not left the country. But the War Office proposed to send the whole Expeditionary Force of six Divisions out of the country immediately upon the declaration of war, and to have it all in France by the thirteenth or fourteenth day. The Admiralty were unable to guarantee—though we thought it very unlikely—that smaller bodies of perhaps twenty or thirty thousand Germans might not slip across the North Sea. These would have to be met at once by well-trained troops. The Territorial Force would not be capable in the very early days of their embodiment of coping with the invaders. Some regular troops ought, therefore, to be left in the country till we saw how matters went at sea, and could measure our real position with more certainty. It would be a disastrous mistake to begin sending six Divisions, and then because of a successful raid have to interrupt the whole process and disentangle two or more Divisions from the troops in transit to make head against the raiders. We therefore argued that four Divisions only should be sent in the first instance, and that two should be left behind till we knew how we stood at sea. The presence of these two Divisions at home, together with the Territorial Force, would make it not worth while for the Germans to invade except with an army large enough to be certainly caught in transit by the Fleet. Only an army of a certain size at home could give the Navy a sufficiently big target on salt water. ‘You could not,’ as Sir Arthur Wilson pithily observed, ‘expect the Navy to play international football without a goalkeeper.’ The War Office, on the other hand, continued to demand the immediate dispatch of the whole six Divisions.
This controversy was never finally settled till the war began. It certainly afforded the means of exploring every imaginable aspect of the conditions which would arise in the first few weeks of war. Further than that no man could see. When the actual test came, both the War Office and the Admiralty abandoned their respective contentions simultaneously. Lord Kitchener decided to send only four Divisions immediately to France, while I on behalf of the Admiralty announced at the great War Council on the 5th August that as we were fully mobilised and had every ship at its war station, we would take the responsibility of guarding the island in the absence of the whole six Divisions. We thus completely changed places. The Admiralty were better than their word when it came to the point, and the War Office more cautious than their intentions. Surveying it all in retrospect, I believe Lord Kitchener’s decision was right. But it was taken freely and not under duress from the Admiralty.
While the discussions of the Invasion Committee were at their height during the spring and summer of 1913, I prepared a series of papers in support of the Admiralty view, but also designed to explore and illuminate the situations that might arise. They show the hopes and fears we felt before the event, what we thought the enemy might do against us, and the dangers we hoped to avoid ourselves. They show the kind of mental picture I was able to summon up in imagination of these tremendous episodes which were so soon to rush upon us. My intention also was to stimulate thought in the Admiralty War Staff, and to expose weak points in our arrangements. For this purpose I entered into an active discussion and correspondence with several of the ablest Admirals (notably Admiral Beatty, Admiral Lewis Bayly, and Sir Reginald Custance), seeking to have the whole matter argued out to the utmost limit possible. I caused war games to be played at the War College in which, aided by one or the other of my naval advisers, I took one side, usually the German, and forced certain situations. I also forecasted the political data necessary to a study of military and naval action on the outbreak of war.
Various papers which I prepared in 1913 were the result of this process of study and discussion. The first, entitled ‘Notes by the First Lord of the Admiralty,’ deals with the problem of raid and invasion in general terms, and shows the conditions which would prevail in a war with Germany. The second propounds the issues to be faced by the War Staff. The third records my written discussion of the problem with the First Sea Lord, while the sittings of the Invasion Committee were proceeding. The fourth and fifth were entitled ‘The Time-Table of a Nightmare’ and ‘A Bolt from the Grey,’ imaginative exercises couched in a half serious vein, but designed to disturb complacency by suggesting weak points in our arrangements and perilous possibilities. Space forbids the inclusion of these last. The first three have been subjected to a certain compression.