The Victorian Navy
Winston Churchill once famously said of Admiral Sir John Rushworth Jellicoe, Commander of the Grand Fleet, that “he was the only person on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon”. There was some truth in this statement, Jellicoe’s battle fleet of 1914-1918 was the largest and most powerful battle fleet the world had ever seen and it was in peak efficiency.
Jellicoe wielded this weapon skilfully and professionally containing the threat from the German High Seas Fleet and ensuring food and supplies sufficient to fight WW I continued to flow into Britain. When he left in 1916 to become the professional head of the Royal Navy, the First Sea Lord, the Grand Fleet had gone a long way towards starving the opposition of food and munitions.
However, the battle fleet was created by a man who is not now so famous an admiral as his contemporaries Jellicoe, Beatty, or even those who defeated the Spanish Armada 325 years earlier, Drake and Hawkins.
John Arbuthnot Fisher was a visionary and reformer of considerable talent. He embraced change, and recognised new weapons and tactics. He also identified those who were stuck in the past, who could not embrace change and who would block his reforms. He never received early promotion but working within the framework of the navy as it was and with sometimes shameless self-publicity, he continued his steady climb up the ranks until he was appointed the First Sea Lord. Once there this naval revolutionary and reformer unleashed his scheme.
The Royal Navy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was not ready for war. New weapons and tactics were being developed particularly by the younger seafaring nations and many senior officers chose to ignore the new and preferred to look back at the old.
Britain watched the development of warships abroad and once they were established she was able to build a whole class of ships incorporating the new designs, outbuilding the initiating nation.
When in March 1858 the French launched the world’s first ironclad La Gloire, the admiralty at first refused to believe it was a threat, but within two years they had reassessed the situation and the vastly more powerful HMS Warrior had been launched. Clad in iron with both muzzle and breach loading guns and although rigged for sail, she was equipped with a powerful steam engine which drove her through the sea at over 14 knots. The gunnery officer was a young Lieutenant John Arbuthnot Fisher.
The Problem of Nelson
Nelson was also a problem. He had won crushing victories and therefore to the stalwarts his way was the only way. His tactics and methods had won battles. But they were the tactics of 100 years earlier applicable to relatively slow sailing ships, not the faster and more powerful ironclad, nor the all steel leviathans with steam reciprocating and then turbine engines and breech loading guns in turret that could hurl heavy shells many miles.
Many naval officers failed to see that Nelson was an innovator and a brilliant tactician and not opposed to breaking rules that did not apply or restricted his ability to defeat the enemy. Unfortunately for the Royal Navy some of the senior officers in the mid-to-late 1800s had served with Nelson, the legend, the icon. They had developed the fighting instructions and permitted no straying from them. Innovation and development were frowned upon.
With notable exceptions, the navy was not the chosen career of the brightest young people. Months of sailing in ships powered by sail or steam or for some years both, poor food and conditions, strict discipline with corporal punishment and sometimes sailing in appalling weather was not attractive.
Nepotism was rife but generally officers steadily progressed through the ranks when it was their turn, not through exceptional ability. Provided one did not dirty ones copy-book, there were enough ships around the globe to ensure that in the final years of service one would be an admiral.
The Admirals Boating Club
In the Victorian Navy, admirals commanding fleets were left very much to their own devices. Within limits, they could sail them as they wished. There were British fleets stationed all around the globe servicing the empire, decisions needed to be made and communications with London could take some time.
The pinnacle of the sea-going commands was as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet based in Valletta, Malta. Here the admiral could entertain to his heart’s content. They toured the whole of the Mediterranean Sea calling on local kings, emperors or other potentates in a series of balls, dances, polo matches or hunting.
For the men as ships turned away from sail, competitions in sail drill turned to boat drill and races, and they held regattas or coaling contests. In the 1880s the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet was Admiral Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour who earned the sobriquet ‘The Swell of the Ocean’, due to the intense rounds of receptions he held.
The priority was smartness and appearance, bright paintwork, enamelling and glorious colour. As a general rule the Commander of the ship, who was the second-in-command, would spend most of his pay on paint and cleaning materials to ensure his ship had the best appearance in the fleet, and if it was his promotion was assured.
On some ships the watertight doors on the bulkheads had been removed, smoothed down, painted and polished many times until they were no longer water-tight. Although they were impressive on the outside, many ships were infested with rats. Ships were for entertaining and showing the flag around the globe, not, it appeared, for fighting.
Gunnery – On a Warship?
Gun practice was a threat to the spotlessness of the ship and many captains chose to dump their ammunition over the side rather than fire it and dirty their ships. In the 1860s HMS Marlborough was the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet and a young Midshipman, Lord Charles Beresford wrote “We used to practice firing at a cliff in Malta harbour at a range of 100 yards,” and afterwards he would go ashore to bring back the used cannonballs. A decade later the future Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, then also a midshipman, found that gunnery practice ranges had not increased.
The success of gunnery it was believed was the skill of the sailors in bringing the ship into the best position. After all, anybody could look along the sights on the barrel and fire a gun!
At particular times throughout the 100 years of the Pax Britannica the British navy was called up to fight. In 1827 the navy fought at Navarino against the Turks in Nelsonian style with a line of battle. In the Crimean conflict of 1854-1856 the Russian navy refused to accept battle and the British navy was left to bombard ports and land defences and ferry men and material to the Crimea.
In 1882, the more modern navy of steel battleships, steam and gun turrets were required to bombard the forts in Alexandria. The bombardment was led by the ‘Swell of the Ocean’, but the most impressive ship was the brand new battleship HMS Inflexible under command of the young Captain John Arbuthnot Fisher.
The fleet fired over 3000 shells at the Alexandrian forts and the number of hits could be counted on the fingers of two hands. It was an appalling display and should have been a salutary lesson for the Lords of the Admiralty, ensuring that they radically overhauled the gunnery training. However, they were quietly satisfied simply because British shooting was found to be better than the Egyptian!
Here Comes Reform
The Royal Navy was therefore crying out for reform, but they had to wait. In May 1904 the First Lord of the Admiralty, the political head, Lord Selborne, went to make a formal offer of appointment to the position of the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the navy, to an admiral whose exceptional abilities he had recognised. He had appointed him to all the preliminary positions, which were normally accepted as stepping stones to the position of First Sea Lord.
The admiral concerned accepted the post on condition he commenced work on 21st October 1904, Trafalgar Day. That officer was Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher. “Nothing like a good omen” he said. The Navy was about to be hit by a revolutionary whirlwind.
Sources
- The Black Battlefleet: Ballard, Admiral G. A. Nautical Publishing Company 1980
- Dreadnought: Massie, R. K. Jonathon Cape 1991
- Lord Fisher Vol 1: Bacon Admiral Sir R. H. Hodder & Stoughton 1929
- Lord Fisher Vol 2: Bacon Admiral Sir R. H. Hodder & Stoughton 1929
Jeremy Drewett - Jeremy Drewett has a BA (Hons) degree in history and is a published author. Please contact author for permission to republish.
Join the Conversation