Lord Fisher to a Friend.
August 22nd, 1917.
My Beloved Friend,
I am scanning the dark horizon for some faint glimmer of the end of the War. Not a sign of a glimmer! So far as the Germans are concerned, there is indisputable authority for stating that Germany is equal to a seven years’ war! Are we? So far, alas! we have had no Nelson, no Napoleon, no Pitt! The one only “substantial victory” of ours in the War (and, as Nelson wished, it was not a Victory—it was Annihilation!) was the destruction of Admiral von Spee’s Armada off the Falkland Islands.... And the above accomplished under the sole direction of a Septuagenarian First Sea Lord, who was thought mad for denuding the Grand Fleet of our fastest Battle Cruisers to send them 14,000 miles on a supposed wild goose chase.... And how I was execrated for inventing the Battle Cruisers! “Monstrous Cruisers,” they called them! To this day such asses of this kidney calumniate them, and their still more wonderful successors, the “Repulse,” “Renown,” “Furious,” “Glorious,” and “Courageous.” How would they have saved England without these Fast Battle Cruisers?... And yet, dear friend, what comes to the Author of the Scene?
The words of Montaigne!
“Qui de nous n’a sa ‘terre promise,’
Son jour d’extase,
Et sa fin en exil?”
Yours, etc.,
(Signed) Fisher.
Note.—Much talk of a recent mot at a great dinner-table, where society’s hatred of Lord Fisher was freely canvassed, and his retirement (in May 1915) much applauded. “I did not know,” remarked a statesman, “that Mr. Pitt ever put Lord Nelson on the retired list.”