And now, as regarded the navy, there occurred a little incident, not without an element in it of the deepest pathos, but demonstrating, at the outset, that one at least of our great naval traditions shone as brightly as ever. For eight years—longer than any other living admiral—Sir George Callaghan had been afloat in various responsible commands; and, in 1911, he had become Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet. Its efficiency as an instrument was due in no small measure to his personal thoroughness and enthusiasm; and the mingled feelings of pride, confidence, and anxiety, with which he had led it to its war stations, can readily be imagined. At last he was to see in action, under his very eyes, that splendid weapon, for which he had so long been responsible. But it was not to be. Just as in most recent naval campaigns conducted by other countries, it had been considered advisable for the leader in war to have come fresh from staff work at headquarters, so it had been felt in England that the admiral commanding the Fleet in action must be not only a sea-officer of high standing, but one with a more intimate knowledge of the general strategical position than it had been possible for an officer so long afloat to acquire. It was for such reasons that Admiral Sampson had been placed in charge of the American Fleet in the Spanish-American War, and Admiral Togo by the Japanese Government in the Japanese War with Russia, and, for similar considerations, it had been decided to appoint Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, still young as admirals went, to the command of the Grand Fleet.
As a former Director of Ordnance and Torpedoes, and thus familiar with every branch of munitionment; as a former Third Sea Lord in control of ship-building and equipment; and, as Second Sea Lord, responsible not only for personnel but familiar, as Deputy for the First Sea Lord, with all questions of strategy, Admiral Jellicoe, apart from his personal qualities, had had unique opportunities of studying the whole naval problem from every possible standpoint. He had proved himself in addition, during naval manoeuvres, a tactical leader of the highest order; and he was already due, later in the year, to succeed Sir George Callaghan in command of the Home Fleets. It was therefore decided—not without considerable personal reluctance on the part of Admiral Jellicoe himself—that he should at once replace Sir George Callaghan on board the fleet-flagship Iron Duke; and nothing could have been more typical of naval esprit de corps and the subservience of even the most illustrious officer to the interests of the whole service than that this incident took place without a trace of bitterness or the slightest personal jealousy. Even so, five years after Trafalgar, having never been allowed to set foot again on English soil, Collingwood had died in his cabin, content that in his long sea-exile he had served his country; and even so, having carried upon his shoulders perhaps the heaviest individual responsibilities of the war, Jellicoe himself, at the end of 1917, walked quietly out of the Admiralty to hang pictures at home.
Born on December 5, 1859, Sir John Jellicoe was in his fifty-fifth year when he stepped on board the Iron Duke as admiralissimo of the Grand Fleet. The son of a well-known captain in the mercantile marine, who lived long enough, as it is pleasant to remember, to witness his son's success, he was also related ancestrally to that Admiral Patton, who had been Second Sea Lord at the time of Trafalgar; while, in Lady Jellicoe, daughter of the late Sir Charles Cayzer, one of the Directors of the Clan Line of Steamships, he had formed, on his marriage, yet further connections with the sea. After a few years at a private school at Rottingdean, he had entered the Britannia as a cadet in 1872, and, from the first, seems without effort to have made the fullest use of his opportunities.
Passing out of the Britannia, the head of his year, with every possible prize that could be taken, he had qualified—again with three first prizes—as sub-lieutenant in 1878, being appointed a full lieutenant three years later, with three first-class certificates. Two years after this, he had taken part in the Egyptian campaign, obtaining the silver medal for the expedition, and also the Khedive's Bronze Star. Returning to Greenwich for a course in gunnery, he had obtained the £80 prize for gunnery lieutenants, and, soon afterward, had been appointed a Junior Staff Officer at the Excellent School of Gunnery at Portsmouth; and it was here that he had come into contact, and begun a lifelong friendship, with the greatest naval genius of modern times, then plain Captain Fisher, and scarcely known outside the service.
It was while still a lieutenant that, in 1886, he had received the Board of Trade Medal for gallantry in a forlorn attempt—during which he was himself shipwrecked—to save a stranded crew near Gibraltar. Becoming a commander in 1891, he had been appointed to Sir George Tryon's flagship, the ill-fated Victoria, afterward to be sunk during manoeuvres—Commander Jellicoe himself, ill in his cabin at the moment, having the narrowest escape from drowning. Six years later, he had become a captain, joining Sir Edward Seymour's flagship, the Centurion, on the China Station; and it was in China that, three years afterward, he had seen his next active service during the Boxer Rebellion. In this he had been Chief Staff Officer to Sir Edward Seymour, who commanded the Naval Brigade; and, at the Battle of Pietsang, on June 21, 1900, he had been very severely wounded. Happily he had recovered, receiving for his services the Companionship of the Bath, and, four years later, had found himself at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance—a position that he had held during the revolution produced by the appearance of the first British dreadnought. He had also been largely responsible for the immense improvement in our gunnery, associated with the name of Admiral Sir Percy Scott. In 1907 Captain Jellicoe had been promoted to the rank of Rear-Admiral, being appointed to a command in the Atlantic Fleet a little later in the same year. In 1908 he had become one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and Controller of the Navy, and, two years afterward, he had reached the vice-admirals' list and had succeeded to the command of the Atlantic Fleet. In 1911, having already been made a K.C.V.O., he had been honoured with a K.C.B. at the coronation of King George V, and, in 1912, after a short spell of service in command of the Second Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet, he had become Second Sea Lord, the position he was holding on the outbreak of war.
Such were the qualifications of the man in whose hands, on that fateful fourth of August, rested more heavily than in those of any other the destiny of our empire and of mankind. Had they proved inadequate, it is no exaggeration to say that the sun of freedom would have set for both. That they were not so is common knowledge, and the fullest justification of those who had believed in them—chief among whom was that masterful administrator, who had changed the whole aspect of our naval strategy.
Rugged of face, with hosts of detractors, and, at this time, well over seventy years of age; a prey to moods, with some defects of his qualities, and a mind too often intolerant of the weaknesses of others, it was to Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, more than to any single living man, that the navy of August 4th owed its strength. Lacking the hereditary sea-influences so strong in Sir John Jellicoe, and with none of the powerful encouragement that he himself had bestowed upon the younger admiral, Lord Fisher had risen to power by sheer mental ability united with an extraordinary force of character; although full credit must be given to Mr. Balfour who, as Prime Minister in 1902, gave Sir John Fisher, as he then was, the fullest scope for his genius.
These had included changes so radical and far-reaching, in almost every branch of naval administration, that it would be impossible here to recapitulate them; and they are already familiar to most people. Briefly, they had amounted, first, to a drastic redistribution of our whole naval forces, including the partial absorption of the Mediterranean Fleet, hitherto our strongest command, into an enormously powerful force in the home seas always ready for war; the disestablishment of overseas squadrons of no strategical importance; the remorseless scrapping of many old ships that were doing little else than eating up money; and the reduction of distant dockyards that had long ceased to have any potential significance. Hand in hand with all this, a revision of the entire system of naval education had been undertaken; the Royal Fleet Reserve had been strengthened by the inclusion of a number of seamen who had had five or more years' training; and from these were to be drawn the balance crews that, in time of war, were to bring the vessels of the Second Fleet up to their full complement.
It had further become clear, both from the lessons learned in the naval actions between Russia and Japan, and in the strong bid for an overpowering fleet then being made by Germany, that new developments in the matter of design were a problem of the most serious urgency. It had accordingly been decided to replace the very large number of differing vessels, of which the navy then consisted, by a few definite classes, each designed to fulfil in war some clearly thought-out tactical purpose; and, at the same time, in absolute secrecy, the first of the great British dreadnoughts had been laid down.