Chapter XVI The Navy in the War
Scapa Flow
Ages before the War, but after I became First Sea Lord on Trafalgar Day, 1904, I was sitting locked up in a secluded room that I had mis-appropriated at the Admiralty, looking at a chart of the North Sea, and playing with a pair of compasses, when these thoughts came into my mind! “Those d—d Germans, if dear old Tirpitz is only far-seeing enough, will multiply means of ‘dishing’ a blockade by making the life of surface ships near the coast line a burden to them by submarines and destroyers. (At this time the Germans had only one submarine, and she a failure!) Also, as their radius of action grows through the marvellous oil engine, and ’internal combustion’ changes the face of sea war, we must have our British Fleet so placed at such a distance from hostile attack that our Force off the Enemy’s Coast will cut off his marauders at daylight in the morning on their marauding return.” I put that safe distance for the British Fleet on my compasses and swept a circle, and behold it came to a large inland land-locked sheet of water, but there was no name to it on the chart and no soundings in it put on the chart. I sent for the Hydrographer, and pointing to the spot, I said: “Bring me the large scale chart. What’s its name?” He didn’t know. He would find out.
He was a d—d long time away, and I rang the bell twice and sent him word each time that I was getting angry!
When he turned up, he said it hadn’t been properly surveyed, and he believed it was called Scapa Flow! So up went a surveying ship about an hour afterwards, and discovered, though the current raged through the Pentland Firth at sometimes 14 knots, yet inside this huge secluded basin it was comparatively a stagnant pool! Wasn’t that another proof that we are the ten lost tribes of Israel? And the Fleet went there forty-eight hours before the War, and a German in the German Fleet wrote to his father to say how it had been intended to torpedo the British Fleet, but it had left unexpectedly sooner for this Northern “Unknown!” Also, he said in his letter that Jellicoe’s appointment as Admiralissimo was very painful to them as they knew of his extreme skill in the British Naval Manœuvres of 1913. Also, thirdly, he added to his Papa that it was a d—d nuisance we had bagged the two Turkish Dreadnoughts in the Tyne the very day they were ready to start, as they belonged to Germany!
The mention of Jellicoe reminds me of Yamamoto saying to me that, just before their War with Russia, he had superseded a splendid Admiral loved by his Fleet, because Togo was “just a little better!!!”
The superseded man was his own protégé, and Togo wasn’t. No wonder these Japanese fight!
Prince Fushishima, the Mikado’s brother, told me of 4,000 of a special company of the bluest blood in Japan, of whom all except four were killed in action or died of wounds—only nine were invalided for sickness. However, I remarked to him we were braver than those 4,000 Japanese, because their religion is they go to Heaven if they die for their country, and we are not so sure! He agreed with me, and gave me a lovely present.
A Pre-War Prophecy
On December the 3rd, 1908, when I was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, I hazarded a prophecy (but, of course, I was only doing the obvious!) that should we be led by our anti-Democratic tendencies in High Places, and by Secret Treaties and by Compromising Attendances of Great Military Officers at the French Manœuvres at Nancy, into a sort of tacit pledge to France to land a British Army in France in a war against Germany, then would come the biggest blow to England she would ever have experienced—not a defeat, because we never succumb—but a deadly blow to our economic resources and by the relegation of the British Navy into a “Subsidiary Service.” I said in 1908 (and told King Edward so) that the German Emperor would, in such a case, order his generals “to fight neither with small nor great,” but only with the English and wipe them out! So has it come to pass, as regards the Emperor giving these orders and his having this desire!
The original English Expeditionary Force was but a drop in the Ocean as compared with the German and French millions of soldiers, and the value, though not the gallantry of its exploits, has been greatly over-rated. It was a very long time indeed before the British Army held any considerable portion of the fighting line in France, and instead of being on the seashore, in touch with the British Fleet and with easy access to England, the British Expeditionary Force was by French directions and because of French susceptibilities, stationed far away from the sea, and sandwiched between French troops. We have always been giving in to the susceptibilities of others and having none of our own! The whole war illustrates this statement. The Naval situation in the Mediterranean perhaps exemplifies this more than any other instance!
Had the French maintained the defensive in 1915, it is unquestionable that it would have been the Germans and not the French who would have suffered the bloody losses in the regions of Artois and the Champagne.
We built up a great Army, but we wrecked our shipbuilding. We ought to have equipped Russia before we equipped our own Armies, for, had we done so, the Russians would never have sustained the appalling losses they did in pitting pikes against rifles and machine-guns. This was the real reason of the Russian Catastrophe—the appalling casualties and the inability of the old régime to supply armaments on the modern scale. Had another policy been pursued and the British Fleet, with its enormous supremacy, cleared the Baltic of the German Navy and landed a Russian Army on the Pomeranian Coast, then the War would have been won in 1915! Also, as I pointed out in November, 1914, to Lord Kitchener, we ought to have given Bulgaria all she asked of us. When later we offered her these same terms she refused us with derisive laughter!
There was no difficulty in all this, but we were pusillanimous and we procrastinated.
We did not equip Russia! WE DID NOT SOW THE NORTH SEA WITH THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF MINES, as I advocated in the Autumn of 1914, and I bought eight of the fastest ships in the world to lay them down! This sowing of the North Sea with a multitude of mines would automatically have established a Complete Blockade! Again, we did not foster Agriculture, and we almost ceased building Merchant Ships, and robbed our building yards and machine shops of the most skilled artisans and mechanics in the world to become “cannon fodder”! But a wave of unthinking Militarism swept over the country and submerged the Government, and we were in May, 1918, hard put to it to bring the American Army across the Atlantic as we were so short of shipping.
It needs not a Soldier to realise that had the British Expeditionary Force of 160,000 men been landed at Antwerp by the British Fleet in August, 1914 (instead of its occupying a small sector in the midst of the French Army in France), that the War would certainly have ended in 1915. This, in conjunction with the seizure of the Baltic by the British Fleet and the landing of a Russian Army on the Pomeranian Coast would have smashed the Germans. All this was foreshadowed in 1908, and the German Emperor kindly gave me the credit as the Instigator of the Idea so deadly to Germany.
The “Monstrous” Cruisers So Derided in Parliament
Note.—When I came to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord in October, 1914—three months after the War had begun—I obtained the very cordial concurrence and help of Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer) in an unparalleled building programme of 612 vessels of types necessary for a Big Offensive in Northern Waters (the decisive theatre of the War). Coal-burning Battleships then under construction were re-designed to burn oil, with great increase of their efficiency and speed, and the last two of these eight Battleships were scrapped (the “Renown” and “Repulse”), and, together with three new vessels—the “Courageous,” “Glorious,” and “Furious”—were arranged to have immense speed, heavy guns and unprecedented light draught of water, thus enabling them to fulfil the very work described in this letter below of absolutely disposing of hostile light cruisers and following them into shallow waters. They were also meant for service in the Baltic.
Ever since their production became known, Naval critics in both Houses of Parliament (quite ignorant of new Naval strategical and tactical requirements) have consistently crabbed these new mighty Engines of War as the emanations of a sick brain, “senile and autocratic!” Hence the value of the following letter from an eyewitness of high rank:
To Lord Fisher From a Naval Officer
December 12th, 1917.
Dear Lord Fisher,
In the late action in the Heligoland Bight the only heavy ships which could get up with the enemy were the “Repulse,” “Courageous” and “Glorious” (the “Renown” and “Furious” were elsewhere).14 They very nearly brought off an important “coup!” Without them our light cruisers would not have had a “look in,” or perhaps would have been “done in!” When public speakers desired to decry the work of the Board of which you were a Member in 1914 and 1915, and particularly that part of the work for which you were so personally responsible as this new type of heavy ship, no condemnation was too heavy to heap on your design!
It is a pleasure to me, therefore, to be able to let you know that they have fully justified your anticipation of their success.
I trust you are quite well and will believe me,
Yours sincerely,
——.
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.”
The Dreadnought Battle Cruiser
The following imaginary dialogue I composed in 1904 to illustrate the text that “Cruisers without high speed and protection are absolutely useless”:—
“The ‘Venus,’ an Armoured Cruiser, is approaching her own Fleet at full speed!
“Admiral signals to ‘Venus’: ‘What have you seen?’
“‘Venus’ replies: ‘Four funnels hull down.’
“Admiral: ‘Well, what was behind?’
“‘Venus’ replies: ‘Cannot say; she must have four knots more speed than I had, and would have caught me in three hours, so I had to close you at full speed.’
“Admiral’s logical reply: ‘You had better pay your ship off and turn over to something that is some good; you are simply a device for wasting 400 men!’”
The deduction is:
ARMOUR IS VISION.
So we got out the “Dreadnought” Battle Cruiser on that basis, and also to fulfil that great Nelsonic idea of having a Squadron of very fast ships to bring on an Action, or overtake and lame a retreating foe. And in the great war this fast “Dreadnought” Battle Cruiser carried off all the honours. She sank the “Blücher” and others, and also Admiral von Spee at the Falkland Islands.
But the sine qua non in these great Ships must ever be that they carry the Biggest Possible Gun. It was for this reason that the 18-in. gun was introduced in the Autumn of 191415 and put on board the new Battle Cruiser “Furious”; and indeed all was completely arranged for 20-in. guns being placed in the succeeding proposed Battle Cruisers of immense speed and very light draft of water and possessing the special merit of exceeding rapid construction.
Alas! those in authority went back on it! It was precisely the same argument that made these same retrograde Lot’s wives go back from oil to coal. Coal, they said, was good enough and was so safe! Lot’s wife thought of her toasted muffins. Notice now especially that if a man is five per cent. before his time he may possibly be accounted a Genius! but if this same poor devil goes ten per cent. better, then he’s voted a Crank. Above that percentage, he is stark staring Mad.
(N.B.—I have gone through all these percentages!)
The Way to Victory — Lord Fisher to the Prime Minister
House of Lords,
June 12th, 1917.
My Dear Prime Minister,
In November, 1914, Sir John French came specially from France to attend the War Council to consider a proposal put forward by the Admiralty that the British Army should advance along the sea shore flanked by the British Fleet. Had this proposal been given effect to, the German Submarine Menace would have been deprived of much of its strength, and many Enemy Air Raids on our coast would have been far more difficult. The considerations which made me urge this proposal at that time have continuously grown stronger, and to-day I feel it my duty to press upon you the vital necessity of a joint Naval and Military operation of this kind. I do not feel justified in arguing the Military advantages which are, however, so obvious as to be patent to the whole world, nor the political advantage of getting in touch with Holland along the Scheldt, but solely from a Naval point of view the enterprise is one that ought to be undertaken with all our powers without further delay. The present occasion is peculiarly favourable, as we can call upon the support of the whole American Fleet.
Yours truly,
(Signed) Fisher.
36, Berkeley Square,
London,
July 11th, 1917.
My Dear Prime Minister,
In putting before your urgent notice the following two propositions, I have consulted no one, and seen no experts. It is the emanation of my own brain.
Owing to two years of departmental apathy and inconceivable strategical as well as tactical blunders, we are wrongly raided in the air, and being ruined under water.
I remember a very famous speech of yours where you pointed out that we had been fourteen times “Too Late!”
This letter is to persuade you against two more “Too lates”:
(1) The Air:
You want two ideas carried out:
(a) A multitude of bombing aircraft made like Ford cars (so therefore very expeditiously obtained thereby).
(b) The other type of aircraft constantly improving to get better fighting qualities.
The Air is going to win the War owing to the sad and grievous other neglects.
(2) The Water:
Here we have a very simple proposition. Now that America has joined us, we have a simply overwhelming sea preponderance!
Are you not going to do anything with this?
Make the German Fleet fight, and you win the war!
How can you make the German Fleet fight? By undertaking on a huge scale, with an immense Armada of special rapidly-built craft, an operation that threatens the German Fleet’s existence!
That operation, on the basis in my mind, is one absolutely sure of success, because the force employed is so gigantic as to be negligible of fools.
If you sweep away the German Fleet, you sweep away all else and end the War, as then you have the Baltic clear and a straight run of some 90 miles only from the Pomeranian Coast to Berlin, and it is the Russian Army we want to enter Berlin, not the English or French.
Yours truly,
(Signed) Fisher.
Lord Fisher to a Friend
February 28th, 1918.
My Dear Friend,...
Quite recently we lost a golden opportunity of wrecking the residue of the German Fleet and wrecking the Kiel Canal, when the main German Fleet went to Riga with the German army embarked in a huge fleet of transports and so requiring all the Destroyers and Submarines of Germany to protect it.
Well, in reply to your question, this is what I would do now:
I would carry out the policy enunciated in the Print on the Baltic Project which was submitted early in the war16 and again reverted to in my letter to the Prime Minister, dated June 2nd, 1916. Sow the North Sea with mines as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa! That blocks effectually the Kiel Canal, if continued laying of these mines is always perpetually going on with damnable pertinacity! Then I guarantee to force a passage into the Baltic in combination with a great Military co-operation, but that co-operation must not be the co-operation of the Walcheren Expedition!
“Lord Chatham with his sword drawn
Was waiting for Sir Richard Strachan,
Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em!
Was waiting for the Earl of Chatham!”
It has got to be chiefly a Naval Job! And the Army will be landed by the Navy! The Navy will guarantee landing the Army on the Coast of Pomerania and elsewhere. Three feints, any of which can be turned into a Reality.
Further in detail I won’t go, but I can guarantee success.
Have I ever failed yet? It’s an egotistical question, but I never have!
What a d—d fool I should be to brag now if I wasn’t certain!
Yours, etc.,
(Signed) Fisher.
P.S.—I have heard some Idiots say that the Baltic Sea is now impregnable because of German mines in it. No earthly System of mines can possibly avoid being destroyed. We can get into the Baltic whenever we like to do so. I guarantee it.
“Sow the North Sea With Mines.” (Written in November, 1914)
The German policy of laying mines has resulted in denying our access to their harbours; has hampered our Submarines in their attempts to penetrate into German waters; and we have lost the latest type of “Dreadnought” (“Audacious”) and many other war vessels and over 70 merchant vessels of various sizes.
As we have only laid a patch of mines off Ostend (whose position we have notified), the Germans have free access to our coasts to lay fresh mines and to carry out raids and bombardments.
We have had, to our own immense disadvantage in holding up our coastwise traffic, to extinguish the navigation lights on our East Coast, so as to impede German ships laying mines. At times we have had completely to stop our traffic on the East Coast because of German mines; and the risk is so great that freights in some cases have advanced 75 per cent.—quite apart from shortness of tonnage.
The Germans have laid mines off the North of Ireland, and may further hamper movements of shipping in the Atlantic.
The German mine-laying policy has so hindered the movements of the British Fleet, by necessitating wide detours, that to deal with a raid such as the recent Hartlepool affair involves enormous risks, while at the same time the German Fleet can navigate to our coast with the utmost speed and the utmost confidence. They know that we have laid no mines, and the position, of course, of their own mines is accurately charted by them—indeed we know this as a fact. Our Fleet, on the contrary, has to confine its movements to deep water, or slowly to grope its way behind mine-sweeping vessels.
There is no option but to adopt an offensive mine-laying policy.
It is unfortunate, however, that we have only 4,900 mines at present available. On February 1st (together with 1,000 mines from Russia) we shall have 9,110, and on March 1st we shall have 11,100 mines. This number, however, is quite inadequate, but every effort is being made to get more. Also FAST Mine-Layers are being procured, as the present ones are very slow and their coal supply very small. So at present we can only go very slow in mine-laying; but carefully selected positions can be proceeded with.
We must certainly look forward to a big extension of German mine-laying in the Bristol Channel and English Channel and elsewhere, in view of Admiral Tirpitz’s recent statements in regard to attacking our commerce.
Neutral vessels now pick up Pilots at the German island of Sylt, and take goods unimpeded to German ports—ostensibly carrying cotton, but more probably copper, etc., and thus circumventing our economic pressure.17
This would be at once stopped effectually by a mine-laying policy.
Nor could any German vessels get out to sea at speed as at present; they would have to go slow, preceded by mine-sweeping vessels, and so would be exposed to attack by our Submarines.
A Birthday Letter. Lord Fisher to a Friend
January 25th, 1918.
My Dear Friend,
A letter to-day on my birthday from an eminent Engineer, cheers me up by saying that never has France been so vigorously governed as she is now by her present Prime Minister, Clemenceau, and that he is my age, 77.
The Conduct of the War, both by Sea and Land, has been perilously effete and wanting in Imagination and Audacity since May, 1915.
I know these words of mine give you the stomachache, but so did Jeremiah the Jews when he kept on telling them in his chapter v., verse 31:
“The prophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests [the unfit] bear rule by their means,
And my people love to have it so,
And what will ye do in the end thereof?”
(Why! Send for Jephthah!)
“And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead”
(who came supplicating, asking him to come back as their captain)
“Did ye not hate me and expel me?
And why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?”
And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah:
“We turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us and fight!”
By Sea, when the German Fleet took the German Army to Riga, we had a wonderful sure certainty of destroying the German Fleet and the Kiel Canal, but we let it slip because there were risks. (As if war could be conducted without risks!) Considered Rashness in war is Prudence, and Prudence in war is usually a synonym for imbecility!
Observe the Mediterranean! The whole Sea Power of France and Italy is collected in the Mediterranean to fight the puny Austrian Fleet, but they haven’t fought it. Not only that, but hundreds of vessels of the English Navy are perforce out in the Mediterranean to aid them; and yet the German ships, “Goeben” and “Breslau,” known to be fast, powerful and efficient, emerge from the Dardanelles with impunity and massacre two of our Monitors—never meant to be out there and totally unfitted for such service—and two obsolete British Destroyers have to put up a fight! But God intervened and sent the “Goeben” and “Breslau” on top of mines. It was thus the act of God and not the act of our Sea Fools that kept these two powerful German ships from going to the coast of Syria, where they would have played Hell with Allenby and our Palestine Army.
We have pandered to our Allies from the very beginning of the War, and yet practically we find most of the money and have found four million soldiers, and a thousand millions sterling lent to Russia have been lent in vain.
You know as well as I do that our Expeditionary Force should have been sent in August, 1914, to Antwerp and not to France; we should then have held the Belgian Coast and the Scheldt, but this was too tame—we were all singing:
“Malbrook s’en va-t’en guerre!”
The Baltic Project was scoffed at, though it had the impregnable sanction of Frederick the Great, and the project was turned down in November, 1914; and now the Germans, because of their possession of the Baltic as a German lake, are going to annex all the Islands they want that command Russia and Sweden, and the Russian Fleet, with its splendid “Dreadnoughts” and Destroyers disappear and eight British Submarines have been sunk. Ichabod!
Yours truly,
Fisher.
The German Submarine Menace. Lord Fisher to a Friend
March 2nd, 1918.
My Dear “Mr. Faithful,”
You write anxious to have some connected statement in regard to the whole history of the German Submarine Menace.
Now, the first observation thereon is the oft-repeated indisputable statement that no private person whatever can hope to fight successfully any Public Department. So even if you had the most conclusive evidence of effete apathy such as at first characterised the dealing with this German Submarine Menace, yet you would to the World at large be completely refuted by a rejoinder in Parliament of departmental facts. Nevertheless here is a bit of Naval History.
In December, 1915, the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) unexpectedly came up to me in the Lobby of the House of Commons, and said he was anxious to consult me about Naval affairs, and he would take an early opportunity of seeing me! However, he must have been put off this for I never saw him. A month afterwards I pressed him in writing to see Sir John Jellicoe in regard to the paucity both of suitable apparatus and of suitable measures to cope with the German Submarine Menace; after much opposition the Prime Minister himself sent for Sir John Jellicoe and he appeared before the War Council. This is my Memorandum at that time, dated February 7th, 1916:
Memorandum
“I have just heard that, notwithstanding the opposition to it, Sir John Jellicoe will attend the War Council at 11.30 a.m. next Friday. That he may have strength and power to overcome all ‘the wiles of the Devil’ is my fervent prayer.
“That there has been signal failure since May, 1915, to continue the Great Push previous to that date of building fast Destroyers, fast Submarines, Mine Sweepers and small Craft generally is absolutely indisputable.
“Above all, it was criminal folly and inexcusable on the part of the Admiralty to allow skilled workmen (20,000 of them) to be taken away from shipyards. Also it was inexcusable and weak to give up the Admiralty command of steel and other shipbuilding materials.
“Kitchener instantly cancelled the order to take men from the shipyards when it was attempted by his subordinates while I was First Sea Lord. He saw the folly of it!
“Again, deferring the shipbuilding that was in progress was fatuous. I saw myself two fast Monitors (each of them a thousand tons advanced) from which all the workmen had been called off. A few months afterwards there was feverish and wasteful haste to complete them. So was it with the five fast big Battle Cruisers of very light draught of water. All similarly delayed.
“Well! Jellicoe, a ‘No Talker,’ at the War Council was opposed to a mass of ‘All Talkers,’ so he did not make a good fight; but when he got back to the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow he remembered himself and wrote a most excellent Memorandum, which put himself right.
“However, a wordy war is no use; nothing but a cataclysm will stop our ‘Facilis descensus Averni.’”
We must by some political miracle swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram and have a fresh lot. In Parliament we have nothing but the suggestio falsi and the suppressio veri! A little bit of truth skilfully disguised:
“A truth that’s told with bad intent,
Beats any lie you can invent.”
In reply to your question with reference to Mr. Bonar Law’s corrected statement in Hansard, the Printer’s date at the bottom of the Submarine Paper,18 sent to the Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty is January, 1914, seven months before the War.
Yours always,
Fisher.
Lord Fisher to Sir Maurice Hankey, K.C.B., Secretary to the War Cabinet
19, St. James’s Square.
My Dear Hankey,
In reply to your inquiry, my five points of peace (as regards Sea war only) are:
(1) The German High Sea Fleet to be delivered up intact.
(2) Ditto, every German Submarine.
(3) Ditto, Heligoland.
(4) Ditto, the two flanking islands of Sylt and Borkum.
(5) No spot of German Territory in the wide world to be permitted! It would infallibly be a Submarine Base.
Yours,
(Signed) Fisher,
October 21st, 1918.
(Trafalgar Day).
Why we were not as relentless in carrying out our Peace requirements at Sea as on Land is positively incomprehensible.
The German Fleet was not turned over and was afterwards sunk at pleasure by the German crews. I don’t feel at all sure that every German submarine, complete and incomplete, was handed over. Every oil engine ought to have been cleared out of Germany. Through some extraordinary chain of reasoning, absolutely incomprehensible, the three Islands of Heligoland, Sylt and Borkum were not claimed and occupied. In view of the prodigious development of Aircraft it was imperative that these Islands should be in the possession of England.
All this to me is absolutely astounding. The British Fleet won the War, and the British Fleet didn’t get a single thing it ought to have, excepting the everlasting stigma amongst our Allies, of being fools, in allowing the German Fleet to be sunk under our noses, because we mistook the Germans for gentlemen.
The Miracle of the Peace
(that took place at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month!) only equalled by the Destruction of Sennacherib’s Army, on the night described in the 25th verse of the 19th chapter of Second Book of Kings! The heading of the chapter is “An Angel slayeth the Assyrians.”
“That night the Angel of the Lord went forth... in the morning behold they were all dead corpses!”
A Cabinet Minister, in an article (after the Armistice) in a newspaper, stated that the Allies were at their last gasp when the Armistice occurred as it did as a Miracle! for Marshal Foch had been foiled on the strategic flank by the inability of the American Army to advance and the unavoidable consequences of want of experience in a new Army (immense but inexperienced—they were slaughtered in hecatombs and died like flies!) and so the American advance on the Verdun flank was held up, and Haig therefore had to batter away instead (and well he did it!). And though the British Army entered Mons, yet the German Army was efficient, was undemoralised, and had immense lines of resistance in its rear before reaching the Rhine! There was no Waterloo, no Sedan, no Trafalgar (though there could have been one on October 21st, 1918, for the German Naval Mutiny was known! Sir E. Geddes said so in a Mansion House Speech on November 9th, 1918). There was no Napoleon—no Nelson! but “The Angel of the Lord went forth....”
Lord Fisher to a Friend
March 27th, 1918.
My Dear Blank,
It has been a most disastrous war for one simple reason—that our Navy, with a sea supremacy quite unexampled in the history of the world (we are five times stronger than the enemy) has been relegated into being a “Subsidiary Service!”...
What crashes we have had
Tirpitz—Sunk.
Joffre—Stranded.
Kitchener—Drowned.
Lord French— }
Lord Jellicoe— } Made Viscounts.
Lord Devonport— }
Fisher—Marooned.
Sir W. Robertson—The “Eastern Command” in Timbuctoo.
Bethmann-Hollweg—}
Asquith— } Torpedoed.
Heaven bless you! I am here walking 10 miles a day! and eating my heart out!
And a host of minor prophets promoted. (We don’t shoot now! we promote!)
Yours, etc.,
(Signed) Fisher.
27/3/18.
To Lord Fisher From an Admirer
21st November, 1918.
Dear Lord Fisher,
We are just back after taking part in the most wonderful episode of the war, and my heart is very full, and I feel that the extraordinary surrender of the Flower of the German Fleet is so much due to your marvellous work and insight—in giving England the Fleet she has—that I must write you!
I suppose the world will never again see such a sight—a line of 14 heavy, modern, capital ships, with their guns fore and aft in securing position, in perfect order and keeping good station, quietly giving themselves up without a blow or a murmur. Surely such a humiliating and ignominious end could never have been even thought of in all history past or present.
Had I been in a private ship I would have used every endeavour to get you up to see the final fulfilment of your life’s work. As it is, I can’t think it was very gracious of the authorities not to have ensured your presence. But history will give you your due.
Forgive this effusion, and please don’t bother to answer it. But I realise that to-day’s victory was yours, and it is iniquitous that you were not here to see it.
Your affectionate and devoted admirer,
——.
To Lord Fisher From Admiral Moresby
Fareham,
July 9th, 1918.
Dear old Friend,
Just a line. One of our “Article writing” Admirals sent me one of them on the progress of the war! Your name was not mentioned, nor your services alluded to! I returned it, saying it was the play without Hamlet. You might be wrong, or despised, but you could not be ignored. With our Navy revolutionised, Osborne created, obsolete cruisers scrapped, naval base shifted from Portland to Rosyth, Dreadnoughts and Battle Cruisers invented, Falkland Islands victory, and so on, he might as well talk of Rome without Cæsar. He replied and said you were an Enigma, and that covered it all! There is some truth in this, for such are all born leaders of men, from our Master, the greatest Enigma of all (who made thee thyself, who gave thee power to do these things), down to all who can see what is going on on the other side of the hill....
Yours ever,
(Signed) J. Moresby.