To Arms

by Hew Strachan

  In this broad context, the redirection in naval policy achieved by Fisher in 1904–5 did not represent a change in grand strategy. That, the need to be able to defeat the navies of other industrialized powers, remained constant. Nor, more specifically, was the shift in the first instance the product of Anglo-German naval rivalry. Fisher’s primary task was to curb the mounting costs of the previous two decades, while improving efficiency. Simultaneously, however, Tsushima removed the Russian fleet as a threat for the foreseeable future and indicated the potentially decisive importance of apparently marginal technical superiority. The rapid orientation of British naval strategy and British naval construction towards Germany did not require any change in these fundamentals. In October 1906 an Admiralty memorandum declared, ‘our only potential foe now being Germany, the common-sense conclusion is that the outlying Fleets no longer require to be maintained at the strength which was admittedly necessary a year ago’.6 By 1909 Britain was effectively on a one-power standard, setting itself the target of a fleet equal to Germany’s plus 60 per cent. In terms of international relations the navy was far more continentalist than was the army.

  The single-minded attention to Germany was made possible by the Entente with France. The maintenance of the two-power standard against France and Russia had placed a potential naval war as much in the Mediterranean as in the North Sea or the Channel. By creating an Atlantic Fleet in 1904 Fisher had—in theory at any rate—allowed the six battleships at Gibraltar (which were part of the Atlantic Fleet) the option to go north to join the Channel Fleet or east to join the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta. He was thus able to halve the Mediterranean Fleet to six battleships by 1907. By 1908 Fisher was planning to leave the Mediterranean to the French in the event of war.

  Independently, the French elected in 1906 to concentrate their efforts in the Mediterranean. They did not do so because of the Entente with Britain but because their fleet was not strong enough to face the Germans in the North Sea. The success of the jeune école in challenging the primacy of the battleship left its legacy in French warship construction. At the close of the nineteenth century the torpedo boat, with its ability to sink capital ships, especially in coastal waters and at close ranges, promised to revitalize the potential of guerre de course. Camille Pelletan, the naval minister between 1902 and 1905, championed such arguments until Tsushima put the battleship back at the intellectual heart of the French navy. But the result, the six capital ships of the Danton class ordered in 1907–8, espoused rapid fire with medium guns rather than long-range fire with big guns.

  Under-armed for the North Sea, France’s battleships soon proved to be of doubtful utility for the Mediterranean as well. In 1905 Italy embarked on a programme of Dreadnought construction, providing for four in 1909 and six by 1915. Its main rival was, formally speaking, its ally, Austria-Hungary. The dual monarchy responded in kind, laying down two Dreadnoughts for its Adriatic fleet in 1910, and two more in 1912 and four in 1914. The navy’s share of the total Austro-Hungarian defence budget rose from 10 per cent to 20 per cent between 1900 and 1914.

  Although Italy and Austria-Hungary were building against each other, France had to reckon on the possibility that the two allies would act in conjunction. In late 1912 Germany established a Mediterranean division of two cruisers precisely to promote such co-operation. France ordered its first Dreadnought, the Courbet, with twelve 305 mm guns, in 1910, and in 1912 Delcassé, now minister of marine, broke the tyranny of annual parliamentary negotiations over the naval budget by setting a programme of twenty-eight battleships for completion by 1920.7 The dynamic and unstable arms race of 1912–14 was in the Mediterranean, not in the North Sea.

  The inability of either Britain or France alone to compete in this race gave purpose to their naval agreement. Qualitatively the Royal Navy could no longer treat the Mediterranean as a secondary theatre of operations, in which it could deploy its pre-Dreadnoughts. Quantitatively it had to give priority to the North Sea, as Germany’s 1912 naval law made clear. Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, wanted to pull the Mediterranean Fleet back to Gibraltar. He did not achieve that; but nor did the Committee of Imperial Defence see its wishes of 4 July 1912 implemented. The committee proposed a battle fleet at Malta of eight capital ships, in other words a one-power Mediterranean standard excluding France. At the opening of hostilities in 1914 Malta was home to four battle cruisers but no battleships. Their task was to guard the eastern basin against Austria-Hungary; the French at Toulon took on the management of Italy and the western basin. Anglo-French tactical co-operation, made possible by the preparation of a joint naval code in 1911 and by the naval talks authorized in November 1912, was in practice more fully developed for operations in the Channel than in the Mediterranean. But it was the very real strategic dependence on the other power, the broad division of areas in the Mediterranean, and the French reliance on Britain in the Atlantic approaches that made the naval commitment far less equivocal than the military.8

  In terms of grand strategy, therefore, the Royal Navy was committed to Europe, and was geared to fight one power only, Germany. But the navy’s clear strategic thrust was not carried through into operational planning.

  Since the mid-nineteenth century the Admiralty had been a model for the army in its ability to fuse civil and service authority without friction. The naval minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty, presided over a board of Sea Lords, the first of whom was responsible for the fighting and sea-going efficiency of the fleet. The Admiralty, therefore, had to function as a unit, the individual board members relying ultimately for their authority on their colleagues’ support. The Board’s operational functions were restricted to the distribution of the fleet and an indication as to the general lines of policy through war orders. It was the task of fleet and station commanders to draw up specific plans.

  Fisher upset this balance. He managed to elevate his status as the First Sea Lord from that of a primus inter pares to that of commander-in-chief of the navy, and he enjoyed the backing of the First Lord (especially, from 1908, of Reginald McKenna) in doing so. But the authority of Fisher as First Sea Lord attached to him as an individual, and a formidable one, not to his office. Furthermore, its exercise made issues that should have been resolved in more objective ways a matter of personality.

  In 1906 Fisher created the Home Fleet, and in the process began the suppression of the other two home-water commands, the Atlantic and Channel Fleets. In 1907 the latter was entrusted to an admiral as dogmatic and as volatile as Fisher himself, Lord Charles Beresford. Between 1907 and 1909, when Beresford finally hauled down his flag, the clash between the two extended to most aspects of naval change, from gunnery to submarines, from fighting instructions to neutral rights. It was fuelled by Fisher’s determination that the navy was a ‘democratic’ service, especially in comparison with the army: a belief challenged by Beresford’s pedigree as well as by his enjoyment of royal patronage. Beresford became the lightning-conductor for those opposed to Fisher’s reforms, whether within the navy or within the Conservative party (which in due course Beresford served as an MP). The Conservative leader, Arthur Balfour, sided with Fisher and so struggled to maintain a cross-party consensus on naval matters, but by March 1909 the navy was at the centre of parliamentary politics. Ultimately the dispute made Fisher’s own position as First Sea Lord unsustainable, forcing him into early retirement in January 1910.

  The feud split the navy into warring factions, becoming an end in itself rather than a vehicle for addressing Beresford’s original and quite proper concerns, the need for a naval staff, for war planning, and for clarity over the likely operational roles of the fleet.9

  Fisher’s obstinate refusal to further war planning or to foster a staff to whom he could delegate it still lacks a coherent explanation. Most leaders in the First World War rationalized their failings after the event: in this respect Fisher’s Memories are remarkably deficient. Navies encouraged authoritarianism. Captains enjoyed absolute and independ
ent power over their crews; admirals were less caught up in logistics, in the management of war, so integral to command on land, and continued to exercise direct control under fire. Fisher may, therefore, have interpreted the giving of advice by others as a trammel on his own authority. But there is also a more subtle explanation. Since the Napoleonic Wars (and even in the course of the Crimean War) the might of the Royal Navy had been exercised by its existence rather than by battle. The navy had become a player in diplomacy, not in war. Thus, for Fisher, the navy’s ultimate justification was as a deterrent. It is significant that he interpreted the debates about continentalism not as an argument about strategy, not about how the next war would be fought, but about whether the army or the navy was to have priority in defence budgets. Fisher’s bottom line was that a strong navy would keep the peace, and therefore his efforts should be devoted to technical and quantitative superiority rather than to how that superiority should be applied.

  External pressure, principally from the Committee of Imperial Defence, made it impossible for Fisher entirely to evade the demands for planning. But his responses were a mixture of postponement and ad hoccery. In 1907 he set up a committee at the War College to consider plans for a war with Germany, but gave it a brief with conflicting objectives and in 1908 decreed that its proposals should not be discussed with any admiral afloat. Possible breaches of confidentiality, as well as the danger that the actual circumstances of war would be different, became standard excuses for inaction.10

  The performance of Sir Arthur Wilson at the Committee of Imperial Defence on 23 August 1911 showed the deficiencies of Fisher’s personal rule. Wilson was abrasive, inarticulate, and autocratic. He was selected as Fisher’s successor because he was the potential protector of his legacy: Wilson’s seniority would enable him to control the twelve full admirals on the active list, at least five of whom belonged to the ‘syndicate of discontent’ committed to dismantling Fisher’s reforms if given the opportunity. But by 1910 Wilson had been retired three years. Furthermore, although his reputation had been gained at sea rather than in the corridors of the Admiralty, he had never commanded Dreadnoughts. Wilson survived for even less time than was intended by the stopgap nature of his appointment. His successor in November 1911, Sir Francis Bridgeman, also got the job by default. From a thin list, Bridgeman had one unusual quality in the pre–1914 navy: a willingness to delegate. But he was also subject to ill-health, and in barely a year this had provided the excuse for his replacement in December 1912 by Prince Louis of Battenberg. Battenberg was a Fisherite, both in his support for the material changes in the navy and in his fluency. However, he lacked Fisher’s dogmatism. Not the least of his attractions to Churchill was his malleability. The combination of frequent change and weak appointees ensured that the professional leadership of the Royal Navy lost its direction in the four years preceding the war.11

  Power now lay with the service’s civilian head, and from 24 October 1911 specifically with Winston Churchill, appointed in McKenna’s stead with the ostensible mission of establishing a naval general staff. Herein was justification for the navy’s belief that the verdict on continentalism was still open. The navy was to be asked to formulate coherent plans for the contingency of European war; as importantly, the creation of a staff would prevent the service’s operational roles being so subject to the personal vagaries of its First Sea Lords.

  Until 1909 the Naval Intelligence Department had functioned as a prototype staff, using the information it gathered as a basis for operational advice. The enquiry of that year into Beresford’s criticisms of Fisher had recognized the need for a fully fledged naval staff: but the committee’s main preoccupation was with the issue of personality, of the ‘Fishpond’ (as Fisher’s followers became known) against the Beresfordians, and the proposed naval staff was therefore as much a palliative for the immediate crisis as an end in itself. The upshot of the committee’s recommendations, the creation of the Navy War Council, did little to advance the cause of a naval staff. The council was given an advisory role on strategy, but it met only on the initiative of the First Sea Lord and it had no executive powers. The main effect was to emasculate the Naval Intelligence Department, alleged to be rife with Beresfordians, in order to strengthen the position of Wilson, as Fisher’s prospective successor. In October 1909 the Naval Intelligence Department lost its trade division (which had been responsible for blockade planning) and its mobilization division, leaving its functions restricted to intelligence only. Arthur Wilson castigated general staffs as appropriate to armies but not to navies.

  Nonetheless, it was the Navy War Council which Churchill used as the basis for the Admiralty War Staff, set up in January 1912. The War Staff had three divisions—operations, intelligence, and mobilization—but it ran in parallel with the Board of Admiralty rather than converged with it. It had no direct representation on the board, and it lacked executive authority, not least because the opportunity to combine the post of chief of the war staff with that of First Sea Lord was not taken. Formally the former was meant to advise the latter. In practice, he counselled the First Lord. As First Sea Lord, Sir Francis Bridgeman was given no role in the shaping of the war staff or in the appointment of its first chief. The division between the war staff and the Board of Admiralty became a means whereby the First Lord could bypass the Sea Lords, and so enhance his own profile in strictly operational and professional matters.12 Furthermore, there was no naval staff college. The naval war course, set up in 1900, was for commanders and above, and lasted only four months. A staff course for junior officers, devised in 1912, emphasized staff duties in the narrowest sense. Even if it had been more broadly conceived, it would have been too late to shape the thinking of the senior naval officers in post in 1914.13 Their preoccupation was with technology, not with doctrine.

  When war began, the Admiralty, Britain’s naval ministry, was also the navy’s operational headquarters. The scene in the ‘war room’ on 1 August 1914 was ‘wild, thousands of telegrams littered about & no-one keeping a proper record of them’. With only thirty-three officers on the war staff, twenty-eight more had to be drafted in—three of them from half pay and fourteen from retirement. The room became overcrowded, and the intelligence section was moved out and so divided from operations. The movements of British and foreign ships were handled by different sections, even if they were potential enemies in the same waters.14

  The growth of the fleet and the expansion of its complement in the late 1890s had not been accompanied by a commensurate growth in the navy’s bureaucracy. Tight Treasury control had inculcated a painstaking and laborious approach to paperwork among senior officers.15 The chief of the War Staff, Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee, gained operational authority by default, far too much administrative responsibility being centralized on his superior, Battenberg. But Sturdee was not a natural chief of staff: he failed to involve his subordinates, preferring instead to go ‘about looking very important & mysterious’.16 An informal ‘war staff group’ emerged, consisting of Churchill, Battenberg, and Sturdee, but it had no staff of its own, and each of its members was preoccupied with other duties. The departmental responsibilities of the junior Sea Lords, whose co-ordination was the duty of the First Lord, were neglected.

  Churchill had not resolved the naval cult of the personality; indeed, he did his best to become that personality himself. His energy and high profile were matched by an assumption of technical and professional competence which was not warranted. He used the advice of juniors against their seniors. The Sea Lords became disgruntled, and in November 1913 came close to resignation en masse: Sir John Jellicoe, a Second Sea Lord before the war, likened the board to a volcano.17 In August 1914 Churchill brought back the twice-retired Sir Arthur Wilson as a strategic adviser, and by November Wilson was part of the ‘war staff group’; the First Lord’s pugnacity was tickled by Wilson’s enthusiasm for seizing Heligoland, a scheme which appalled Wilson’s service colleagues.18 Churchill’s high profile made him the obvious butt
for any deficiencies in the navy, whether warranted or not; he was distrusted by the Conservatives, and his Antwerp escapade in September 1914 reinforced doubts about his judgement. By late October 1914 Churchill’s projection of himself was beginning to rebound. Fortuitously, however, Battenberg was neither fully fit nor fully British (at least in the popular view). Battenberg’s departure deflected the opprobrium from the First Lord to the First Sea Lord, and the recall of Fisher in Battenberg’s stead was calculated to redound to Churchill’s political credit. But within the service the reshuffle reopened Fisher’s vendetta with those whom he construed to be Beresford’s supporters, including Sturdee. Furthermore, Churchill, who had maintained a correspondence with Fisher in the latter’s retirement, had overestimated his ability to manage the First Sea Lord. Fisher back in an executive role was different from Fisher as conspiratorial adviser. Now the Royal Navy had two strong personalities at the helm, each equally convinced of the correctness of his own judgements. The fact that Fisher rose early in the morning, whereas Churchill’s creative period was late at night, may have served to avoid direct confrontation, but it did not aid the already difficult problem of co-ordination. Sir David Beatty, commanding the battle cruiser squadron, was not sanguine: ‘Two very strong and clever men, one old, wily and of vast experience, one young, self-assertive with great self-satisfaction but unstable. They cannot work together; they cannot both run the show.’19

  Beatty was writing in December 1914: by then the operational inconveniences of Admiralty control and of the lack of a fully fledged naval staff were already clear. Not yet so evident were the technical deficiencies in the Royal Navy, and in Fisher’s great construction programme, which the presence of a naval staff might have obviated.20