I hoisted my flag in H.M.S. Ramillies on 12th January 1900. She was a first-class battleship of the Royal Sovereign class, of 14,150 tons. At that time she was six or seven years old; at the time of writing, although she is no more than twenty, she has been sold for old iron; and when they took her away to break her up, she got adrift in a seaway off the Isle of Wight.
I saw the last of my old flagship as I was passing through the gut of Gibraltar, on board the R.M.S. Orvieto, on 25th November, 1913. She was being towed by a small tug to her last home, the yard of an Italian ship-knacker. I thought of the old happy days on board her, and all the sport, when she held the record in the Fleet for most of the drills and all the boat-racing.
The flag-captain was Robert S. Lowry (now Vice-Admiral Sir R. S. Lowry, K.C.B.), who had been with me in the Undaunted as commander. The commander was the Hon. Horace L. A. Hood (now Rear-Admiral Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O.). The flag-lieutenant was Maurice J. G. Cay, and the secretary, Paymaster John A. Keys (now Fleet Paymaster J. A. Keys), who was with me afterwards in my flagships.
At that time, apart from being charged with the duty of carrying into execution the orders of the commander-in-chief, an officer second in command had no individual responsibility. In other words, he had little opportunity of acquiring from his superior officer that knowledge which, in the event of war, he would require in an emergency.
Upon the adequacy of the Mediterranean Fleet depends the safety of the Empire in time of war; but although war was then waging in South Africa, although the other European Powers regarded Great Britain with open or covert hostility, and although a combination of France and Russia against this country was by no means improbable, the Mediterranean Fleet was barely sufficient to meet the French Fleet alone with any reasonable certainty of success. In other words, so far as numbers and composition were concerned, the Mediterranean Fleet was incapable of carrying into execution the duties with which it must be charged in the event of war. Under the command of Sir John Fisher, its efficiency was admirable.
The bare statement of the requirements sufficiently indicates their necessity. An increase of the supply of reserve coal, then dangerously deficient; the provision of fleet colliers, fully equipped, of distilling ships, of telegraph ships, and of hospital ships, of which until quite recently there was only one in the Navy, and that one a present from the United States; of store ships, reserve ammunition ships and parent ships for torpedo craft: thirty-four vessels in all, representing those auxiliaries without which no Fleet is adequately fitted to fulfil its duties in war. These deficiencies fall to be recorded, because, although some of them have since been supplied, it is still the habit of the authorities to neglect the provision of fleet auxiliaries, and the public are taught to believe that a squadron of battleships is self-sufficient.
The construction of submarines, which had long been the subject of experiment in France, having been begun by the United States, induced me to write to Lord Goschen, First Lord, observing that whether or not the new arm might prove valuable in war, at least it ought to be tested, and suggesting that two experimental boats should be ordered. The Admiralty shortly afterwards purchased five submarines of the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, U.S.A., of a similar design to the six Hollands of the Adder class ordered by the United States in June, 1900. The Hollands were followed by the construction in this country of the "A" class; and as everyone knows, the type was rapidly developed until Great Britain now possesses a large fleet of these vessels.
Having investigated when I was in the Undaunted the French system of nucleus crews, under which the older men and pensioners were employed to form skeleton crews for the ships in Reserve, upon the understanding that they were not to go to sea in full commission except in the event of war, I sent home a report upon the subject, indicating the advantage enjoyed by the French naval seaman, who, under the nucleus crew system, could look forward with certainty to spending the end of his career comfortably in a home port, and suggesting that a modification of the system might be introduced into our own Service. Under the British system, the ships in the Steam Reserve were then kept in order by working parties composed of men temporarily under training in the depots attached to the dockyards, an arrangement which had the disadvantage that the men who formed the crews in the event of war, would not be the men who were familiar with the ships.
Some years later, the Admiralty introduced the nucleus crew system, which differed entirely from the principle upon which was based the French method, in that a proportion of active service ratings were placed on board the ships of the Reserve, and that these crews were being constantly shifted from ship to ship. After a series of experiments, it was officially decided to man a number of ships in active commission with nucleus crews, which are officially stated to be as efficient as full crews; a state of things which is as dangerous to the national security as it is unfair to officers and men.
The accident occurring on board the French man-of-war Admiral Duperré, leading to the conclusion that if cordite were exposed to heat above a certain temperature its ignition would cause an enormously increased pressure upon the gun, induced me officially to represent the necessity of keeping ammunition at an even temperature. Several years afterwards, a large quantity of cordite distributed among the Fleet was found to be in so dangerous a condition that it was destroyed, and the ammunition chambers were equipped with cooling apparatus.