The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Upon my return from Egypt in 1885, I was convinced of the superiority in guns and armour and general excellence of the French ships of war over our own, because I had utilised many opportunities of comparing the vessels of the two navies. Observation and reasoning had also taught me that in many most essential respects the British Navy was deficient. And above all, it was deficient in organisation for war. In these opinions I was confirmed by a large number of my brother officers, among whom I may mention Lord Alcester, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel, Admiral Sir Thomas M. C. Symonds, Admiral Sir Geoffrey T. Phipps Hornby, Captain E. R. Fremantle, Admiral Sir Charles G. J. B. Elliot, Vice-Admiral Sir William Montagu Dowell, Vice-Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton.

Accordingly, I enforced the necessity of reform in these matters in my public speeches, which were numerous. At that time, in the summer of 1885, I find that I was demanding a loan of twenty millions to be expended upon a shipbuilding programme.

During the previous year, 1884, there had appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, then edited by the late Mr. W. T. Stead, the famous series of articles over the signature of "One who knows the Facts," dealing with the state of the Navy, which did more than any other Press representations before or since to awaken public opinion to the true condition of our defences. It was those articles, together with articles in The Times and other newspapers, and the excellent letters of naval officers – notably those of Admiral of the Fleet Sir T. Symonds – which prepared the way for me.

International relations with both France and Russia were uneasy; and war was always a possibility. I knew that we were unprepared for war. I knew that so long as there was no department charged with the duty of representing what was required, why it was required, and how much it would cost, that we should continue to be unprepared for war. I believed it to be my duty to awaken public opinion to the danger in which the country undoubtedly stood.

Nor was I alone in this respect. Not only a number of brother officers, but many students of the subject, did their best to enlighten the nation. We were of course told that we were creating a scare; but a study of the Press of those days shows that nearly every great newspaper, irrespective of its politics, demanded the strengthening and reorganisation of our defences. Personally, I received great support from the Press. Writers on the subject of national defence were at least sure that I had, personally, nothing to gain by publishing the truth.

Indeed, I had thus early in my career, when I was a junior captain, to choose between the stormy enterprise of the reformer, and the safer course of official acquiescence and party obedience, leading to promotion and to office. In making the choice, I had to consider that as a naval officer advocating this and that in spite of the authorities, I laid myself open to the charge that such matters were none of my business, which was to obey orders. The argument is quite legitimate. On the other hand, knowing the facts of the case, clearly perceiving the danger, and (as I believed) knowing also how to remedy what was wrong, I might (and did) justly contend that my duty to Sovereign and country came before all. I admit that these things were not necessarily my business; not, at least, until I made them my business. But I may also remark that the deplorable condition of the national defences in 1885 was the result of the united negligence of the people whose business it was to maintain them, and who had no department which could supply them with the necessary information; and that, in consequence, someone had to do something. The history of England was made by persons who did what it was not their business to do, until they made it their business.

My difficulties were then, and have always been, inherent in the nature of the case. It is part of the character of the English people to trust in authority, as such; and they are quite right in principle; whose observance, however, induces them to be slow to act when authority has proved untrustworthy. Again, in order that my case should be proved beyond cavil, the supreme demonstration of war was required. It is not enough that because my recommendations were carried into execution, war was prevented; for only the few who know the facts and who are acquainted with the complex shifts of international policy, understand the value of potential armed force in the exercise of diplomacy. I may claim, indeed, I do claim, that sooner or later my recommendations have been adopted by the authorities, who thereby proved the justice of my case. Nor do I complain because they have gained the credit accruing to their action; for it must always be the man who does the thing who earns the laurel. And he who insists upon assuming the office of reformer, must make up his mind at the beginning to renounce without bitterness whatever delight he might discover in reward or fame or renown. Moreover, the credit belongs to no one man, but to the many fearless officers who urged reform, and not less to the great body of those officers of the Service who silently and loyally kept the routine going, and without whom no reforms could avail.

The whole position is of course quite illogical; as illogical as that venerable anomaly, the British Constitution, which exists entirely in the brains of the learned. A certain set of persons are selected to govern the nation by a majority of votes, those votes being allocated upon an accidental system which gives to a small number exactly the same representation as an immensely larger number. Out of that set a few are selected to form a governing committee called the Cabinet, which is virtually omnipotent so long as it continues to act more or less in accordance with the wishes of the majority which elected it. The Cabinet is, therefore, in practice, constrained to act in accordance with the known opinions of its supporters; a course of action which is a totally different thing from the course which it is theoretically supposed to follow. Theoretically, the Cabinet shapes its policy to ensure the welfare of the whole nation. Theoretically, the business of the Government is to govern. Theoretically, its members are the men in the country best fitted for the work. Sometimes they are; and in proportion as they are, they will approximate to the conventional theory and will depart from the common practice, and will do what is right instead of what is expedient. Thus every Government oscillates between pure opportunism and honest patriotism. And in the result, the only method of obtaining reform in any direction is so to persuade the public of its necessity, that the party in power will perceive that it is more to their own profit to grant than to withhold it. And in justice to the politicians, it should be added that under the existing system, many concessions must be made by the most austere statesman, if the Duke of Wellington's ultimate principle is to be observed; the principle that the King's Government must be carried on.

In July, 1884, Lord Northbrook, the First Lord of the Admiralty in Mr. Gladstone's administration, publicly declared that if he had £3,000,000 to spend upon the Navy, that force was so sufficient and so efficient that he would not know on what to spend the money. Before the end of the year he was compelled to find out how to spend £5,500,000, and to spend them. From a Liberal Government the Salisbury Government of 1886 inherited the completing of the Northbrook shipbuilding programme; whose provisions were based, not upon any intelligible scheme of preparation for war but, upon the Russian war-scare. Those who were acquainted with the real posture of affairs were not deluded by the mere haphazard expenditure of a few millions, voted in order to soothe public opinion.

Nor did ministers themselves deny the total inadequacy of their measures. In March, 1886, when the Liberal administration was still in power, I brought forward in the House of Commons an amendment empowering the Government to expend an additional sum of over £5,000,000 upon the construction of 35 cruisers, three armoured cruisers, and 21 torpedo craft; pointing out at the same time that the expenditure would provide employment for a large number of unemployed workmen, both skilled and unskilled. Of course the amendment was defeated; but it is significant that the necessity of such an increase was virtually admitted by the Government spokesmen. I also urged the abolition of 69 useless vessels of war, which I specified, and the expenditure of the money saved in their maintenance, upon new vessels.

At that time, it was nearly impossible to obtain accurate official information with regard to naval affairs. I asked for a return of the relative strength of the Fleets of this and other countries; which was granted; and which aroused considerable comment in the Press. The return has since been issued every year; first in my name, then in the name of Sir Charles Dilke, and at present in the name of Mr. Dickenson.

But the first half of the year 1886 was consumed with the Home Rule Bill. Turn to the files of the time, and you shall see precisely the same arguments, declarations, denunciations, intrigues and rumours of intrigues, charges and counter-charges which were repeated in 1893, and which are being reiterated all over again as if they had just been discovered, in this year of grace 1913. We who stood to our guns in 1886 know them by heart. We have been denounced as traitors and rebels because we stand by Ulster, for so long, that we are beginning to think we shall escape hanging at the latter end of it.

I know my countrymen, both of north and south, for I am of both; and they know me. Isaac Butt once asked me to lead the Home Rule party; because, he said, my brother Waterford was widely respected and popular, and was thoroughly acquainted with the Irish question, of which I also had a sufficient knowledge. I might have accepted the invitation, had I believed that Home Rule was what my countrymen needed. But it was not. The settlement of the land question was and is the only cure for Irish ills. Mr. Wyndham with his Land Act did more for Ireland than any Government that ever was; and I say it, who have lost a great part of my income under the operation of the Act.

Not that the Irish would have obtained the Wyndham Act, had they not been incorrigibly intractable. By demanding a great deal more than they wanted, which they called Home Rule, they got what they did want, which was the land. Their avidity for the land never diminished; whereas the cry for Home Rule died down; until, by one of the inconsistencies of Irish politics which so bewilder the Englishman, it was revived by John Finton Lalor and Michael Davitt, who welded the two aspirations together. In order to rid themselves of the Home Rule spectre, the English Government conceded the land. And then, owing to another unexpected twist, they found the spectre wasn't laid after all. For the English had not learned that so long as they permit Ireland to be so superbly over-represented, so long will they have trouble. Sure, they'll learn the lesson some day, if God will; for there's no lack of teaching, the way it is. In the meantime, it is hard for the English people to argue against what appears to be the demand of the majority of the Irish people.

But so far was the Government in power in 1912 from understanding or attempting to understand Irishmen, that the defence of the Home Rule Bill was constantly relegated to two eminent descendants of an interesting Asiatic race; who, however distinguished in their own walk of life, could never in any circumstances know or care anything whatsoever about Ireland. The Ulstermen, at least, resented the proceeding.

One of the Nationalists attacked me with great ferocity in the House. He accused my family for generations past of having committed atrocious crimes, and asserted that I myself had entered Parliament for the sole purpose of escaping active service in case of war with a foreign Power.

"Why did you say all those things?" said I to him in the lobby afterwards.

"Sure, Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're an Irishman, and ye'll understand I didn't mean a word of it."

Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill having been rejected in 1886, Lord Salisbury returned to power with a majority that defied Mr. Parnell and his friends, and so there was no more Home Rule for a while. 'Tis the pure morality of the Home Rule demand that moves the political conscience; and that the morality always acts upon that sensitive organ when there is a controlling Irish vote, and not at any other time, is of course a mere coincidence.

In August, 1886, I was appointed junior lord at the Admiralty, succeeding Captain James E. Erskine.

"No doubt you'll try to do a number of things, but you'll run up against a dead wall. Your sole business will be to sign papers," said Captain Erskine, and so departed.

I speedily discovered that there was at the Admiralty no such thing as organisation for war. It was not in the distribution of business. Lest I should seem to exaggerate, I quote the testimony of the late Sir John Briggs, Reader to the Lords and Chief Clerk of the Admiralty. Referring to the period with which I am dealing, Sir John Briggs writes as follows (Naval Administrations, 1827 to 1892. Sampson Low. 1897):

"During my Admiralty experience of forty-four years, I may safely affirm that no measures were devised, nor no practical arrangements thought out, to meet the numerous duties which devolve upon the Admiralty, and which at once present themselves at the very beginning of a war with a first-class naval Power; on the contrary, there had been unqualified apprehension on the mere rumour of war, especially among the naval members, arising from their consciousness of the inadequacy of the Fleet to meet the various duties it would be required to discharge in such an eventuality."

The fact was that after Trafalgar this country had attained to so supreme a dominance upon all seas, with so high a degree of sea-training acquired in independent commands, that organisation for war was taken for granted. We were living on the Nelson tradition. The change came with the advent of steam, which altered certain essential conditions of sea warfare. The use of steam involved a new organisation. Other nations recognised its necessity. We did not. Nor was it that the distinguished naval officers composing successive Boards of Admiralty neglected their duty, for organisation for war did not form part of their duty, as they conceived it. Moreover, they were wholly occupied with the vast labour of routine business, which developed upon them when the old Navy Board was abolished. The Navy Board, in the old wars, was charged with the provision of all matters of supply, leaving the Lords Commissioners free to conduct war.

That there existed no department charged with the duty of constantly representing what was required in ships, men, stores, docks, under peace conditions, or what would be required under war conditions, was obvious enough. But in the course of the execution of my duties as junior lord, it immediately became equally clear that the Navy was deficient in those very matters and things concerning which it would have been the business of such a department to report. Among them was coal, which was in my charge. Not only was there an immense deficiency in the war reserve of coal, but there was no plan for supplying it.

What my friends used to call my "craze," which they regarded as an amiable form of lunacy, for organisation for war, showed me that without it, all naval force, though it were twice as powerful, would be practically wasted in the event of emergency.

I went to the First Lord and asked him if it would be in order for me to draw up a memorandum on any subject to be laid before the Board. Lord George Hamilton, with his invariable courtesy, replied that any such paper would be gladly considered.

Within six weeks of my appointment to the Admiralty, I had drawn my Memorandum on War Organisation calling attention to the necessity of creating a Naval Intelligence Department at the Admiralty.

In that document, it was represented:

1. That although recent events had revealed approximately our deficiencies in the event of war with a second-rate maritime Power, no measures had been taken to prepare a plan showing how the requirements were to be met.

2. That other countries possessed departments charged with the duty of preparing plans of campaign and of organising their every detail so that they could be instantly carried into execution.

3. That the deficiencies in the numbers of the personnel known to be required, were such and such.

4. That the Medical stores were deficient in such and such respects. (They were kept in bulk, so that in the event of war, the medical stores would have had to be selected and distributed: a system I was able to alter.)

5. That there existed no organisation of any kind with regard to the use of merchant shipping in war for the transport of coal, ammunition, and stores, and for hospital ships.

6. That there existed no organisation for rapidly mobilising the reserves.

7. That in order rightly to fulfil these requirements, there must be designed plans of campaign to meet all probable contingencies.

8. That in order to obtain such plans of campaign, there should be created a new department charged with the duty of drawing them up.

There followed a detailed scheme for a new Intelligence Department, at an increased expense of no more than £2251.

The Memorandum concluded as follows:

"1. Can it be denied that the gravest and most certain danger exists to the country if the facts stated in this paper are true?

"2. Can it be denied that these facts are true?

"3. If not, should not immediate steps be taken to minimise the danger?"

The Memorandum was laid before the Board. My colleagues came to the unanimous conclusion that my statements were exaggerated; and also that, as a junior, I was meddling with high matters which were not my business; as indeed I was. Having been thus defeated, I asked the permission of Lord George Hamilton to show the Memorandum to Lord Salisbury, and received it.

Lord Salisbury very kindly read the document then and there from beginning to end. He pointed out to me that, on the face of it, I lacked the experience required to give force to my representations, and that I had not even commanded a ship of war in a Fleet.

"You must have more experience, on the face of it," he repeated.

And he observed that, practically, what I was asking him to do, was to set my opinion above the opinion of my senior officers at the Admiralty, and their predecessors.

I replied that, since he put the matter in that way, although it might sound egotistical, I did ask him to do that very thing; but I begged him, before deciding that I was in the wrong, to consult with three admirals, whom I named.

A week later, I saw Lord Salisbury again. He told me that in my main contentions, I was right; that he was sure I should be glad to hear that the three admirals had agreed with them; and that the Board of Admiralty had decided to form a new department upon the lines I had suggested.

The new Naval Intelligence Department was then formed.

The Director was Captain William H. Hall. His assistants were Captain R. N. Custance (now Admiral Sir Reginald N. Custance, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.) and Captain S. M. Eardley-Wilmot (now Rear-Admiral Sir S. M. Eardley-Wilmot).

There was already in existence a Foreign Intelligence Committee, whose business it was to collect information concerning the activities of foreign naval Powers. In my scheme the new department was an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Committee, which was to form Section 1, while the duties of Section 2 were "To organise war preparations, including naval mobilisation and the making out of plans for naval campaigns to meet all the contingencies considered probable in a war with different countries, corrected frequently and periodically." The whole of the department was to be placed under an officer of flag rank; a part of my recommendations which was not carried into effect until 1912, when the War Staff was instituted at the Admiralty.

It will be observed that, although I designated the new department the Intelligence Department, it was in fact planned to combine Intelligence duties proper with the duties of a War Staff. What I desired was a department which reported "frequently and periodically" upon requirements. But as it was impossible to know what those requirements would be without plans of campaign which specified them, the same department was charged with the duty of designing such plans.

In the result, that particular and inestimably important office was gradually dropped. The department became an Intelligence Department alone. The First Sea Lord was charged with the duty of preparation and organisation for war. After various changes in the distribution of business, it was again discovered that there was no organisation for war; that the First Sea Lord, though (as I said in 1886) he had a head as big as a battleship, could not accomplish the work by himself; and a War Staff, affiliated to the Intelligence Department, was constituted in 1912.

In other words, twenty-six years elapsed before my scheme was carried into full execution.

On the 13th October, 1886, the substance of my confidential Memorandum on Organisation for War was published in the Pall Mall Gazette. It was stolen from the Admiralty by an Admiralty messenger, who was employed by both the First Sea Lord and myself. The contents of several other confidential documents having been published, suspicion fell upon the messenger, and a snare was laid for him. An electric contact was made with a certain drawer in the desk of the First Sea Lord, communicating with an alarm in another quarter of the building. Upon leaving his room, the First Sea Lord told the messenger to admit no one during his absence, as he had left unlocked a drawer containing confidential documents. A little after, the alarm rang, and the messenger was discovered seated at the desk, making a copy of the documents in question. He was arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE TWENTY-ONE MILLION

In January, 1887, my routine work at the Admiralty was varied by a trip in the new submarine Nautilus to the bottom of Tilbury Dock, which was very nearly the last voyage of the party in this world. The owners of the boat, Mr. Edward Wolseley and Mr. C. E. Lyon, had invited several guests, among whom was Mr. William White (afterwards Sir William Henry White, K.C.B., F.R.S., etc.), together with some officials of the Admiralty. The theory was that by pushing air cylinders to project from each side of the boat, her buoyancy would be so increased that she would rise to the surface. We sank gently to the bottom and stayed there. The cylinders were pushed out, and still we remained there. I was looking through the glass scuttle, and, although in a submarine the motion or rising or sinking is not felt by those within, I knew that we had not moved, because I could see that the muddy particles suspended in the water remained stationary. The Thames mud had us fast. In this emergency, I suggested rolling her by moving the people quickly from side to side. The expedient succeeded, none too soon; for by the time she came to the surface, the air was very foul.

During the same month, Mr. William White, Chief Constructor to the Admiralty, read a paper at the Mansion House dealing with the design of modern men-of-war, which marked an era in shipbuilding. Sir William White restored to the ship of war that symmetry and beauty of design which had been lost during the transition from sails to steam. The transition vessels were nightmares. Sir William White designed ships. A man of genius, of a refined and beautiful nature, a loyal servant of the Admiralty, to which he devoted talents which, applied outside the Service, would have gained him wealth, his recent death was a great loss to his country. The later Victorian Navy is his splendid monument: and it may yet be that history will designate those noble ships as the finest type of steam vessels of war.

About the same time, I brought forward another motion in the House of Commons, to abolish obsolete vessels, of which I specified fifty-nine, and to utilise the money saved in their maintenance, in new construction. The scheme was carried into execution by degrees.