Chapter III Admiral von Pohl and Admiral von Tirpitz
Yesterday, September 8th, 1919 (I must put this date down because yesterday in a telegram I called von Tirpitz a liar) I got an enquiry whether it was correct that in 1909, as stated by Admiral von Tirpitz, I, as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, engineered a German Naval Scare in England in order to get bigger British Naval estimates—and that I had said this to the German Naval Attaché. I replied “Tell Tirpitz—using the immortal words of Dr. Johnson—‘you lie Sir, and you know it!’” Now, first of all, could I possibly have told the German Naval Attaché such a thing if I possessed the Machiavellian nature which is inferred by Tirpitz?
Secondly, there was a vast multitude of acute domestic enemies too closely watching me to permit any such manœuvre.
This affords an opportunity of telling you some very interesting facts about Tirpitz. They came to be known through the widow of Admiral von Pohl (who had been at the German Admiralty and commanded the German High Sea Fleet) interviewing a man who had been a prisoner at Ruhleben. He relates a conversation with Frau von Pohl, and he mentions her being an intimate friend of the German ex-Crown Princess, and as being extremely intelligent. Frau von Pohl had been reading Lord Jellicoe’s book, and said to the ex-Ruhleben prisoner: “How strange is the parallel between Germany and Britain, that in both Navies the Admirals were in a stew as to the failings of their respective fleets.” So much so on the German side, she said, that the German Fleet did not consider itself ready to fight till two months before the battle of Jutland, and the Germans till then lived in a constant fever of trepidation. These were the questions she heard. “‘Why do the English not attack? Will the English attack to-morrow?’3 These questions we asked ourselves hourly. We felt like crabs in the process of changing their shells. Apparently our secret never oozed out.” She put the inefficiency of the German Fleet all down to Tirpitz, and said that if any man deserved hanging it was he. Admiral von Pohl was supposed to have committed suicide through dejection. If all this be true, how it does once more illuminate that great Nelsonic maxim of an immediate Offensive in war! Presumably Frau von Pohl had good information; and she added: “The only reason Tirpitz was not dismissed sooner was lest the British should suspect from his fall something serious was the matter, and attack at once.”4 Part of her interview is of special interest, as it so reminded me of my deciding on Scapa Flow as the base for the fleet. For as Frau von Pohl states, its speciality was that the German Destroyers could not get to Scapa Flow and back at full speed. Their fuel arrangements were inadequate for such a distance. “My husband,” she said, “was called out by the Emperor to put things right, but was in a constant state of trepidation.” Alas! trepidation was on our side also, for in a book written by a Naval Lieutenant he says how a German submarine was supposed to have got inside Scapa.5 As a matter of fact, it was subsequently discovered that a torpedo had rolled out of its tube aboard one of our Destroyers and passed close to H.M.S. “Leda,” who quite properly reported “a torpedo has passed under my stern.” This caused all the excitement.
Admiral von Pohl succeeded Admiral von Ingenohl as Commander-in-Chief of the German High Sea Fleet. It has not much bearing on what I have been saying, but it is interesting that Frau von Pohl said that the wife of the German Minister of the Interior had told her that her husband, on November 6th, five days before the Armistice, had talked to the Emperor of the truth as to the German inferiority. The Emperor listened, first with amazement, and then with incredulity, and ultimately in a passion of rage called him a madman and an arrogant fool, and turned him out in fury from his presence. This is not quite on all fours with Ludendorff, but Ludendorff may have been confining himself strictly to the fighting condition of the Army; and without doubt he was right there, for General Plumer told me himself he had the opportunity of bearing personal testimony to the complete efficiency of the German Army at the moment of the Armistice. Plumer was, it may be observed, rightly accorded the honour of leading the British Army into Cologne.
The man who contemplates all the things that may be somewhat at fault and adds up his own war deficiencies with that curious failure of judgment to realise that his enemy has got as many if not more, has neither the Napoleonic nor the Nelsonic gift of Imagination and Audacity. We know, now, how very near—within almost a few minutes of total destruction (at the time the battle-cruiser “Blucher” was sunk)—was the loss to the Germans of several even more powerful ships than the “Blucher,” more particularly the “Seydlitz.” Alas! there was a fatal doubt which prevented the continuance of the onslaught, and it was indeed too grievous that we missed by so little so great a “Might Have Been!” Well, anyhow, we won the war and it is all over. But I for one simply abominate the saying “Let bygones be bygones.” I should shoot ’em now! And seek another Voltaire.
I get the following from Lord Esher:—“In January, 1906, King Edward sent me to see Mr. Beit, who had been recently received by the German Emperor at Potsdam. The Emperor said to Beit that ‘England wanted war: not the King—not, perhaps, the Government; but influential people like Sir John Fisher.’ He said Fisher held that because the British Fleet was in perfect order, and the German Fleet was not ready, England should provoke war. Beit said he had met Fisher at Carlsbad, and had long talks with him, and that what he said to him did not convey at all the impression gathered by His Imperial Majesty. The Emperor replied: ‘He thinks it is the hour for an attack, and I am not blaming him. I quite understand his point of view; but we, too, are prepared, and if it comes to war the result will depend upon the weight you carry into action—namely, a good conscience, and I have that.... Fisher can, no doubt, land 100,000 men in Schleswig-Holstein—it would not be difficult—and the British Navy has reconnoitred the coast of Denmark with this object during the cruise of the Fleet. But Fisher forgets that it will be for me to deal with the 100,000 men when they are landed.’”
The German Emperor told another friend of mine the real spot. It was not Schleswig-Holstein—that was only a feint to be turned into a reality against the Kiel Canal if things went well. No, the real spot was the Pomeranian Coast, under a hundred miles from Berlin, where the Russian Army landed in the time of Frederick the Great. Frederick felt it was the end and sent for a bottle of poison, but he didn’t take it, as the Russian Empress died that night and peace came.
Long before I heard from Lord Esher, I had written the following note about Beit:—
A mutual friend at Carlsbad introduced me to Mr. Beit, the great South African millionaire. He adored Cecil Rhodes, and so did I. Beit, so I was told, had got it into his head that I somewhat resembled his dead friend, and he talked to me on one occasion about Rhodes until 3 a.m. after dining together. Beit begged me to come and see him on my return to London at his house in Park Lane, just then finished, but I never did for I was vastly busy then. I was troubled on all sides, like St. Paul.
“Without were fightings, and within were fears.” Fighting outside the Admiralty, and fears inside it.
He really was a dear man, was Beit.
Of course I don’t know anything about his business character. Apparently there is a character a man puts on in business, just as a man does in politics, and it may be quite different from his character as a gentleman.
Beit every year made a pilgrimage to Hamburg, to see his old mother, who lived there, and it much touched me, his devotion to her. But our bond of affection was our affection for Rhodes.
The German Emperor sent for Beit, for I gathered that Beit saw how peace was threatened. I don’t know if this was the reason of the interview. In this Imperial conversation my name turned up as Lord Esher had made a statement that by all from the German Emperor downwards I was the most hated man in Germany. The German Emperor did say to Beit that I was dangerous, and that he knew of my ideas as regards the Baltic being Germany’s vulnerable spot, and he had heard of my idea for the “Copenhagening” of the German Fleet. But this last I much doubt. He only said it because he knew it was what we ought to have done.
With regard to saying anything more of that interview I prefer to keep silent. In an Italian book, printed at Brescia in A.D. 1594, occur these words of Steven Guazzo;
“They should know,” says Anniball, “that it is no lesse admirable to know how to holde one’s peace than to know how to speake. For, as wordes well uttered shewe eloquance and learning, so silence well kept sheweth prudence and gravitie!”
I wish Beit could have read Stead’s splendid appreciation of Cecil Rhodes, who describes him as a Titan of intrinsic nobility and sincerity, of innate excellence of heart, and immense vitality of genius, and describes the splendid impulsiveness of his generous nature. I am told that Rhodes’s favourite quotation was from Marcus Aurelius:
“Take care always to remember you are a Roman, and let every action be done with perfect and unaffected gravity, humanity, freedom and justice.”
Stead’s opinion was that Rhodes was a practical mystic of the Cromwell type. Stead was right. Rhodes was a Cromwell. He was Cromwellian in thoroughness, he was Napoleonic in audacity, and he was Nelsonic in execution.
“Let us praise famous men.” (Ecclesiasticus, chapter 44, verse 1).
From Lord Fisher to a Friend
36, Berkeley Square.
My Dear Friend,
I was asked yesterday: Could I end the War?
I said: “Yes, by one decisive stroke!”
“What’s the stroke?” I was asked.
I replied: “Never prescribe till you are called in.”
But I said this: “Winston once told me, ‘You can see Visions! That’s why you should come back.’”
For instance, even Jellicoe was against me in sending the Battle Cruisers to gobble up von Spee at the Falkland Islands! (All were against me!) Yes! and all were against me in 1904! when the Navy was turned inside out—ships, officers and men. “A New Heaven and a New Earth!” 160 ships put on the scrap heap because they could neither fight nor run away! Vide Mr. Balfour’s speech at Manchester about this “Courageous stroke of the pen!”
We now want another Courageous Stroke! And the Stroke is ready! It’s the British Navy waiting to strike! And it would end the War!
This project of mine sounds an impossibility! but so did von Spee’s annihilation! Pitt said “I walk on Impossibilities.” All the old women of both sexes would squirm at it! They equally squirmed when I did away with 19½ millions sterling of parasites in ships, officers and men, between 1904 and 1910! They squirmed when, at one big plunge, we introduced the Turbine in the Dreadnought (the Turbine only before having been in a penny steamboat). They squirmed at my introduction of the water tube Boiler, when I put the fire where the water used to be and the water where the fire used to be! And now 82 per cent. of the Horse Power of the whole world is Turbine propulsion actuated by water tube Boilers!
They squirmed when I concentrated 88 per cent. of the British Fleet in the North Sea, and this concentration was only found out by accident, and so published to the ignorant world, by Admiral Mahan in an article in The Scientific American!
And they squirm now when I say at one stroke the War could be ended. It could be!
Yours, etc.
(Signed) Fisher.
Lord Fisher to a Privy Councillor
36, Berkeley Square,
London,
Dec. 27, 1916.
My Dear Friend,
You’ve sent me a very charming letter, though I begged you not to trouble yourself to write, but as you have written and said things I am constrained to reply, lest you should be under false impressions. I have an immense regard for Jellicoe.... Callaghan I got where he was—he was a great friend of mine—but Jellicoe was better; and Jellicoe, in spite of mutinous threats, was appointed Admiralissimo on the eve of war. I just mention all this to show what I’ve done for Jellicoe because I knew him to be a born Commander of a Fleet! Like poets, Fleet Admirals are born, not made! Nascitur non fit! Jellicoe is incomparable as the Commander of a Fleet, but to prop up an effete Administration he allowed himself to be cajoled away from his great post of duty. I enclose my letter to him.
I need hardly say how private all this is, but you are so closely associated with all the wonders we effected from October 21, 1904, onwards, that I feel bound to take you into my inmost confidence. Jellicoe retorted I had praised Beatty—so I had! See my reply thereon. I told the Dardanelles Commission (why they asked me I don’t know!) that Jellicoe had all the Nelsonic attributes except one—he is totally wanting in the great gift of Insubordination. Nelson’s greatest achievements were all solely due to his disobeying orders! But that’s another story, as Mr. Kipling would say. Wait till we meet, and I’ll astonish you on this subject! Any fool can obey orders! But it required a Nelson to disobey Sir John Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, to disregard the order to retire at Copenhagen, to go into the Battle of the Nile by night with no charts against orders, and, to crown all, to enter into the Battle of Trafalgar in a battle formation contrary to all the Sea orders of the time! Bless him! Alas! Jellicoe is saturated with Discipline! He is THE ONE MAN to command the Fleet, BUT he is not the man to stand up against a pack of lawyers clothed with Cabinet garments, and possessed with tongues that have put them where they are!
David was nodding when he said in the Psalms: “A man full of words shall not prosper on the Earth.” They are the very ones that DO prosper! For War, my dead Friend, you want a totally differently constituted mind to that of a statesman and politician! There are great exemplars of immense minds being utter fools! They weigh everything in the Balance! I know great men who never came to a prompt decision—men who could talk a bird out of a tree!
War is Big Conceptions and Quick Decisions. Think in Oceans. Shoot at Sight! The essence of War is Violence. Moderation in War is Imbecility. All we have done this war is to imitate the Germans! We have neither been Napoleonic in Audacity nor Cromwellian in Thoroughness nor Nelsonic in execution. Always, always, always “Too Late”!
I could finish this present German submarine menace in a few weeks, but I must have POWER! My plans would be emasculated if I handed them in. I must be able to say to the men I employ: “If you don’t do what I tell you, I’ll make your wife a widow and your house a dunghill!!!” (and they know I would!)
Don’t prescribe till you’re called in! Someone else might put something else in the pill!
Heaven bless you!
When people come and sympathise with me, I always reply, with those old Romans 2,000 years ago expelled:
“Non fugimus:
Nos fugamur.”
“We are not Deserters,
We are Outcasts.”
Yours, etc.
(Signed) Fisher.
From a Privy Councillor to Lord Fisher
Jan. 8th, 1917.
My Dear Fisher,
I have always thought Jellicoe one of those rare exceptions to the general rule that no great commander is ever a good administrator. I knew you had picked him out long ago to command the Grand Fleet if war came, and it is in my mind that you had told me years ago your opinion of him as a Sea Commander so that it was what I was expecting and hoping for at the time, though I was sorry for Jellicoe superseding Callaghan when the war broke out, but I remembered your old saying, “Some day the Empire will go down because it is Buggins’s turn”! At the same time, I’m not sure that any man can stand the strain of active command under present conditions for more than 2½ years. I see no sign of tiredness about Jellicoe now, but it must be almost impossible to keep at high tension so long without losing some of the spring and dash, and it did look as if a stronger man than Jackson was wanted as First Sea Lord at the Admiralty. Of course when you were First Sea Lord and Jellicoe with the Grand Fleet it was absolutely the right combination, but as they haven’t brought you back to the Admiralty I feel Jellicoe is the man to be where he is, provided his successor is the right man too. I don’t know Beatty, so can only go by what I hear of him. I can only pray that when his day of trial comes he will come up to your high standard.
I largely agree with all you say about the politicians. No doubt our great handicap in this war is that nearly all the party leaders get their positions through qualities which serve them admirably in peace time, but are fatal in war. The great art in politics in recent years has always seemed to me to be to pretend to lead, when you are really following the public bent of the moment. All sense of right and wrong is blunted, and no one stands up for what he honestly believes in but which may not at the moment be popular. If he does, he is regarded as a fool, and a “waster,” and may get out. A habit of mind is thus formed which is wholly wanting in initiative, and in war the initiative is everything. I agree with you absolutely:—“Make up your mind, and strike! and strike hard and without mercy.” We have thrown away chance upon chance, and nothing saves us but the splendid fighting material at our disposal. I doubt whether the recent changes will bring about any great change. I trust they may, but, whatever happens, neither side can go on indefinitely. Everything points to Germany’s economic condition being very bad, and there may come a crash, but meantime the submarine warfare is most serious, and no complete answer to it is yet available.
Yours very sincerely,
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