“To begin with:—When exactly 10 years previously Lord Fisher became First Sea Lord, on October 20th, 1904, that very day occurred the Dogger Bank incident with Russia, and the Prime Minister made a speech at Southampton that seemed to make war with Russia a certainty; so Lord Fisher, as First Sea Lord, immediately looked into the Forcing of the Dardanelles in the event of Russia’s movements necessitating British action in the Dardanelles. He then satisfied himself that, even with military co-operation, it was mighty hazardous, and he so represented it at that time. The proceedings of the Committee of Imperial Defence, however, will furnish full details respecting the Dardanelles, especially Field-Marshal Lord Nicholson’s remarks when Director of Military Operations, and also those of Sir N. Lyttelton when Chief of the General Staff.
“But Lord Fisher had had the great advantage of commanding a battleship under Admiral Sir Geoffrey Phipps Hornby when, during the Russo-Turkish War, that celebrated Flag Officer lay with the British Fleet near Constantinople, and Lord Fisher listened at the feet of that Naval Gamaliel when he supported Nelson’s dictum that no sailor but a fool would ever attack a fort! Nevertheless, Nelson did attack Copenhagen—was really beaten, but he bluffed the Danish Crown Prince and came out ostensibly as victor. Nelson’s Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hyde Parker, knew Nelson was beaten and signalled to him to retreat, but Nelson disobeyed orders as he did at St. Vincent and the Nile, and with equal judgment.
“We might have done the same bluff with the Turks, had promptitude and decision directed us, but procrastination, indecision, and vacillation dogged us instead. The 29th Division oscillated for weeks between France and Turkey. (See [below] my notes of the War Council Meetings of February 19th and 24th.)
“Note.—See [Mr. Churchill’s statement] at the 19th Meeting of the War Council on May 14th, 1915, that had it been known three months previously that an English army of 100,000 men would have been available for the attack on the Dardanelles, the naval attack would never have been undertaken.
“The War Council met on May 14th, 1915, and certain steps proposed to be taken by Mr. Churchill immediately afterwards, decided Lord Fisher that he could no longer support the Dardanelles operations. He could not go further in this project with Mr. Churchill, and was himself convinced that we should seize that moment to give up the Dardanelles operations. So Lord Fisher went.
“Lord Fisher’s parting with Mr. Churchill was pathetic, but it was the only way out. When the Prime Minister read to Lord Fisher Lord Kitchener’s letter to the Prime Minister attacking Lord Fisher for withdrawing the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ from certain destruction at the Dardanelles, Lord Fisher then realised how splendid had been Mr. Churchill’s support of him as to her withdrawal. A few days afterwards the German submarine that had been hovering round the British Fleet for a fortnight blew up the wooden image of the super-Dreadnought we had sent out there as a bait for the German submarines, showing how the Germans realised the ‘Queen Elizabeth’s’ value in letting all the other older battleships alone for about a fortnight till they thought they really had the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ in this wooden prototype!
“It must be emphasised on Mr. Churchill’s behalf that he had the whole Naval opinion at the Admiralty as well as the Naval opinion at the Dardanelles with him—Lord Fisher was the only dissentient.
“It must be again repeated that though Lord Fisher was so decidedly against the Dardanelles operations from the very first, yet he was very largely influenced to remain because he was convinced it was of vital importance to the nation to carry out the large building programme initiated by him, which was to enable the Navy to deal such a decisive blow in the decisive theatre (in Northern Waters) as would shorten the war—by the great projects alluded to by Mr. Churchill at the 9th meeting of the War Council on January 28th, 1915, when he described the Three Naval phases of the War, leading to our occupation of the Baltic as being the supreme end to be attained.
“Had Lord Fisher maintained his resignation on 28th January, 1915, the Dardanelles enterprise would certainly still have gone on, because it was considered a matter of vital political expediency (see Mr. Balfour’s memorandum of 24th February, 1915), but those 612 new vessels would not have been built, or they would have been so delayed as to be useless. As it was, by Lord Fisher’s leaving the Admiralty even so late as May 22nd, 1915, there was great delay in the completion of the five fast Battle Cruisers and in the laying down of further Destroyers and Submarines, and, in fact, four large Monitors (some of which had been advanced one thousand tons) that had been considerably advanced were stopped altogether for a time and the further building of fast Battle Cruisers was given up. Lord Fisher had prepared a design for a very fast Battle Cruiser carrying six 20-inch guns, and the model was completed. She was of exceptionally light draught of water and of exceptionally high speed. He had arranged for the manufacture of these 20-inch guns.
“It has also to be emphasised that that programme of new vessels owed its inception to a great plan, sketched out in secret memoranda, which it can be confidently asserted would have produced such great military results as would certainly have ended the war in 1915.