The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Sir Frederick Richards was so great a man, that he could even nullify the injurious effect of the legal supremacy of the civilian First Lord over the Board, which technically deprives it of collective administrative authority. He served, however, with two high-minded gentlemen, Lord Spencer, and Mr. Goschen who succeeded Lord Spencer.

I have had to do with three great shipbuilding programmes. The first was carried after the resignation of one member of the Board, myself; the second, by the threatened resignation of all the Naval Lords! Of the third anon.

CHAPTER XL

STEAM RESERVE

In the days of the sailing Navy, when an accident occurred, the captain knew every method by which it could be repaired, and gave directions exactly how the work was to be done. He was not necessarily able to do the work with his own hands (although I know at least one captain who could); but (what was more important) he knew how it ought to be done. Should a topsail-yard carry away, for instance, the captain would know whether to have it sawn in half longitudinally and the halves reversed; or to cut out the damaged piece and replace it with a new piece woolded on and wedged; or to fish the yard.

There was once a captain on the China station who asked the Admiralty for a baulk of timber, because his main-yard had carried away; whereupon the Admiralty officially desired to be officially informed who had carried it away, where to, and why.

In the steam Navy, it is equally necessary that a captain should be acquainted with the various methods of handling material and machinery, in order that he may be able to direct the trained artificer. One case among many which fell under my own observation illustrates the point. A cylinder having cracked, the engineer officer proposed to drill the holes for the bolts securing strengthening pieces in a row; when it was shown to him that the result would be to make the cylinder, like a sheet of postage-stamps, liable to tear; but that if he set his holes in an in-and-out pattern he would avoid that weakness. As the captain, so the admiral. Every admiral in command of a fleet should be competent to direct the execution of even the smallest repairs; for upon what seems a trifling detail may depend the safety of the ship.

Such, at least, were the considerations that induced me to apply for a dockyard appointment. And upon the 15th July, 1893, I was appointed captain of the Steam Reserve at Chatham Dockyard, under the command of Rear-Admiral George D. Morant, flying his flag in the Algiers, guardship of Reserve. Rear-Admiral Morant (now Admiral Sir G. D. Morant, K.C.B.) was a first-rate officer, of indefatigable energy, an excellent administrator, and a most charming chief.

All vessels under construction and repair were under the admiral-superintendent; I was his executive officer; and the object of appointing a sea-going officer was that details of construction should be tested in accordance with the use to which they would be put at sea. Let us say, for instance, that two ships were under construction, one which was 43 feet in the beam, and the other 65 feet. Awning stanchions of the same size were fitted to both ships; and when the awning was rigged in the larger vessel, the stanchions came home. Another advantage of sea-going knowledge was impressed upon me while I was in the Thunderer. She had some forty or fifty deck-plates, covering valves and ventilating shafts. The deck-plates and shafts were of various sizes, involving the use of a large number of spanners to fit them. These took up space and added an unnecessary weight. A seaman would have made a standard pattern with one or two spanners to fit the whole number.

It was my duty to take command in all steam trials of vessels, and tests of appliances and machinery, and to compare all work with its specification.

During 1893-4, the Magnificent was being built by Chatham in rivalry of Portsmouth, which was building her sister battleship the Majestic. It was becoming a close thing, when the Magnificent received from the manufacturers a lot of armour plates, which might have gone to the Majestic, and which enabled us to gain a lead. The Magnificent was launched by the Countess Spencer, in December, 1894. The ship was built in thirteen months from the date of laying the keel-plate; an achievement for which high credit was due to the chief constructor, Mr. J. A. Yates, and to the constructors, Mr. H. Cock and Mr. W. H. Card.

When I took the Magnificent upon her trials, Lord Wolseley, Colonel Brabazon, and Mr. Baird, American Ambassador, accompanied me as guests. We returned from the Nore in a torpedo-boat, at full speed, in the dark. In those days there were no lights in the Medway; and we jumped the spit. Lord Wolseley inquired if "we always took short cuts across the land."

When a new ship was completed by the Royal Dockyards, the task of cleaning her and completing arrangements in detail was performed by working parties, which usually consisted of pensioners. The principle was that when she was taken over from the Dockyard authorities to be commissioned, she should be ready for sea. In the case of the Magnificent, for instance, when Lord Walter Kerr hoisted his flag in her, in December, 1895, she was absolutely complete in every detail: decks spotless, store-rooms labelled, hammock-hooks numbered: there was nothing for officers and men to do but to find their quarters.

An instance of the necessity of testing appliances according to sea requirements occurred when I was testing capstans. The ships were taken into deep water, so that the whole length of the cable was run out by the time the anchor touched bottom; and it was then discovered that the capstan was too weak to lift the amount of vertical chain specified.

When I was trying a torpedo-boat at full speed, the helm suddenly jammed, and the boat instantly went out of control in the neighbourhood of a number of trawlers. Luckily, she went round and round in a circle until she was stopped. She did not hit a trawler; but it was a very lively minute or two.

A party of us went to a ball at Sheerness, going thither in a tug; and intending to return the same night, we left the house at about one o'clock. There was a thick fog, and the captain of the tug declined to start. As I made it a rule to sleep in my own quarters at Chatham if I possibly could, I said I would take the tug back. As there were no lights, I found the channel by the simple method of hitting its banks; and cannoning off and on all the way, we made the passage.

In November, 1892, the Howe battleship had struck upon an uncharted rock in Ferrol harbour; and Rear-Admiral Edward Seymour (now Admiral of the Fleet Sir E. H. Seymour, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.) was appointed to inspect the salvage operations. These occupied nearly five months. Sir Edward gives a brief but interesting account of the work in his book, My Naval Career. After the Howe had been floated, she was dry-docked at Ferrol, where she remained for nearly two months, while temporary repairs were being effected. When she struck the rock, her port side forward was stove in for nearly half her length, and her after part remained resting on a "rocky shoal of hard granite." Sir Edward Seymour says "that after the ship was got into dock at Ferrol, I could stand on a temporary flooring where the bottom of the ship used to be, and holding one hand over my head could not touch where the ship's bottom plates had been driven up to." He adds that "the mud, slime and dirt covering everything as the water was cleared from below, and the bad smell were almost beyond belief."

We at Chatham could confirm the observation; for it was to Chatham that the Howe returned to be repaired. When she arrived, she was still coated with stinking mud, and we did our best to clean her. But notwithstanding our utmost diligence, a minute quantity of this virulent slime was afterwards found under the rolling-plate of the turrets. The men who slung their hammocks near the turrets fell sick of fever; and its origin was traced to the mud.

The salving of a vessel so badly injured was a fine achievement. Sir Edward Seymour brought her to Sheerness under her own steam at eight knots. We dealt with her for a few months, until she was all a-taunto again, when she was re-commissioned and went to the Mediterranean.

It is the duty of a captain of the Dockyard Reserve to make representations, through the admiral-superintendent, to the Admiralty, with regard to improvements in construction and material. My suggestions concerning water-tight doors in ships were subsequently embodied in a paper read before the Institution of Naval Architects. In the design of the first ironclads, the vessels were actually divided into water-tight compartments by bulkheads without doors or apertures. In later designs, numerous doors were cut in the bulkheads for the sake of convenience of access, which, together with the many ventilating shafts and valves, in effect nullified the system of dividing a vessel into water-tight sections. The doors themselves were hung on hinges and closed with hanks and wedges; an inefficient method. My suggestions, which were afterwards adopted, were that the number of doors should be greatly reduced; and that they should be vertical, and made to screw up and down; and that the ventilating shafts fitted with an automatic closing apparatus which did not work should be abolished.

Among other proposals were the substitution of ships' names, plainly lettered, for figure-heads and scroll-work, and the abolition of the ram. At that time, our men-of-war were built with unarmoured ends, only the protective steel deck extending the whole length and breadth of the ship. It followed that if the side of a hostile vessel were pierced by the long projecting ram of a British ship, the force of her impact would strip her bows of the light construction above the protective deck, and she would remain toggled in the enemy and helpless. Far more effective, if ramming is to be done, would be the direct blow of a vertical bow. At the same time, I continued to represent the radical weakness of unarmoured ends.

In 1894, five years after the passing of the Naval Defence Act, and the elate at which the great Spencer shipbuilding programme, involving a large increase of officers and men, was begun, the serious deficiency in the personnel became manifest. The fact was, that the Naval Defence Act of 1889 had not included proper provision for manning the new ships as they came into commission; and just when the boys who ought to have been entered in 1889 would have become available as able seamen, it was discovered that they did not exist. But by that time, of course, the Government responsible for the deficiency was out of office, and, as usual, there was no one to be called to account.

In September, 1894, Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, who has performed so much invaluable service in educating the public to logical ideas upon organisation for war and problems of national defence, began to publish his excellent articles dealing with "The Command of the Sea," in which the demand for the institution of a Naval War Staff was formulated. It was for the purpose of enforcing this necessity that the Navy League was founded by "four average Englishmen" in December, 1894. Among its original supporters were Earl Roberts, V.C., Lord George Hamilton, Sir Charles Dilke, Sir John Puleston, the Master of Trinity House, Sir Charles Lawson, Mr. Joseph Cowen, Mr. Arnold-Forster, and myself.

It will be observed that the original aim of the Navy League was to ensure the fulfilment of the idea upon which the Intelligence Department was founded upon my representations in 1888. The Navy League subsequently added to itself other objects, which perhaps obscured its first purpose. The War Staff at the Admiralty was constituted in 1912, in accordance with the recommendations of the Beresford Inquiry of 1909.

In 1893, the year before the Navy League was founded, and just previous to my appointment to Chatham, I publicly advocated the institution of a Council of Defence, under the presidency of a Minister, composed of the best admirals and generals. The project was afterwards carried into execution by Mr. Balfour; but its utility was vitiated by being framed to suit the ends of party politics.

In May, 1894, the U.S. cruiser Chicago anchored off Gravesend; and at a banquet given to the American admiral and officers, I had the pleasure of renewing my old acquaintance with the American Navy, begun in 1882 at the bombardment of Alexandria. Admiral Erben flew his flag in the Chicago, and Captain Mahan was flag-captain.

It was a great pleasure to meet Captain Mahan (now Admiral Mahan), whose classic work on The Influence of Sea Power upon History came to me while I was in command of the Undaunted, and concerning which, as before related, some correspondence had passed between us.

Captain Mahan and myself contributed articles to The North American Review of November, 1894, on "The Possibilities of an Anglo-American Reunion." Captain Mahan, preferring to postpone the advocacy of a formal alliance between the two nations, looked forward to the development of such relations as would make it feasible; while I urged the conclusion of a defensive alliance for the protection of those common interests upon which depends the prosperity of the two countries. That the English-speaking nations should combine to preserve the peace of the world, has always seemed to me a reasonable aspiration, and I have said so in both countries when opportunity served.

In December, 1894, desiring to represent the interests of the Service in Parliament as soon as might be, I applied once more to the Admiralty to be permitted, according to precedent, to count my service in the Soudan campaign as time spent in the command of a ship of war; but the application was again refused. From many constituencies invitations to stand were sent to me; among them were Stockport, North Kensington, Birkenhead, Liverpool, East Toxteth, Armagh, Dublin, Cardiff, Chatham, Devonport, Pembroke and Portsmouth.

In those days Mr. W. L. Wyllie (now R.A.) used to haunt the Medway and the Nore, boat-sailing and painting. He can handle a boat as well as he handles his brush; that is, to perfection. Mr. Wyllie gave me a boat which he had built with his own hands, I think out of biscuit boxes. I tried it in a basin at Chatham, accompanied by a warrant officer of the Pembroke. We were becalmed; a sudden puff came; and over we went. In memory of the disaster, I gave the warrant officer a pipe, the bowl of which was appropriately carved to represent a death's-head.

While I was at Chatham, my home was Park Gate House, Ham Common. Here I had a model farm, producing milk, eggs and poultry, which were readily sold in Richmond, whose streets and thoroughfares were greatly enlivened by the daily procession of my large and shining brass milk-cans. I was not in the sad case of Captain Edward Pellew (afterwards Lord Exmouth), who upon quitting the sea and taking a farm, in 1791, complained that the crops grew so slowly that they made his eyes ache.

During my absence a burglar entered the house. The butler, hearing a noise, rose from his bed, took a revolver, and sought for the intruder, who fled before him to the roof, whence he fell headlong through a skylight. He must have been a good deal cut, for he bled all over the place. The butler, following, also fell through the skylight; but, presumably falling through the same hole, was little damaged. Continuing the chase, he was brought up short by a wire entanglement previously set by the burglar for the butler's confusion. So he sat where he was, and continued to fire steadily in the direction he supposed the burglar to have gone, until his ammunition was all expended.

It may be interesting to recall that in September, 1893, Sir Augustus Harris was appointed manager of Drury Lane Opera House by the committee which was then organising the opera in this country. I urged his selection on account of his great administrative ability; and prevailed over the objection that he was only skilled in pantomime.

The committee had been formed to improve the opera, which was then performed at three different theatres: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and Her Majesty's; so that the available talent was scattered. Sir Augustus Harris combined the three into one at Drury Lane.

In October, 1895, occurred the death of my brother, Lord Waterford, at the age of fifty-one. He had been for long completely disabled by a bad accident in the hunting field; and although his sufferings were constant and acute, he continued staunchly to discharge his many duties to the end. He was succeeded in the marquisate by his son.

My appointment at Chatham terminated in March, 1896; and a few days later I delivered at Birmingham an address dealing with the requirements of naval defence.

CHAPTER XLI

VIEWS AND REVIEWS

The three years succeeding the termination of my appointment at Chatham were mainly occupied with questions of naval reform. The task was of my own choosing; and if, in comparison with the life I led, the existence of the early martyrs was leisured, dignified and luxurious, it is not for me to draw the parallel. The chief difficulty encountered by any reformer is not an evil but a good. It is the native virtue of the English people, which leads them to place implicit confidence in constituted authority. The advocacy of a change implies that constituted authority is failing to fulfil its duty. You cannot at the same time both trust and distrust the men in charge of affairs. Again, reform often involves expenditure; and the dislike to spend money upon an idea is natural to man. And it is the custom of constituted authority to tell the people that all is well, in fact never so well. They have all the weight of their high office behind them; and people will believe what they are told by authority in despite of the evidence of their senses.

Moreover, there are endless difficulties and disappointments inherent in the very nature of the task of the naval or military reformer. The problems of defence are highly intricate; and although the principles governing them remain unaltered, the application of those principles is constantly changing. The most skilled officers may differ one from another; and a man who is devoting his whole time and energy to benefit the Service to which he belongs, will often be disheartened by the opposition of his brother officers.

The influence of society, again, is often baneful. Society is apt to admonish a public man, especially if he be popular, perpetually telling him that he must not do this, and he must not say that, or he will injure his reputation, ruin his career, and alienate his friends; until, perhaps, he becomes so habitually terrified at what may happen, that he ends by doing nothing, and spoiling his career at the latter end after all. Public life to-day is permeated through and through with a selfish solicitude for personal immunity. But it remains the fact that he who intends to achieve a certain object, must first put aside all personal considerations. Upon going into action, a fighting man is occupied, not with speculations as to whether or not he will be hit, and if so where, but in trying to find out where and how soon and how hard he can hit the enemy. Even so, he may be beaten; but at least he will have nothing to regret; he will be able to say that if it were all to do again, he would do the same; for he will know that on any other terms his defeat would be assured.

If, then, these pages record in brief the continual endeavours of those who made it their business to represent to the nation the requirements of Imperial defence, it is for the purpose of once more exemplifying the defects in our system which periodically expose the country and the Empire to dangers from without and panics from within, and involve them in a series of false economies alternating with spasms of wasteful expenditure. The remedy advocated was the constitution of a body whose duty it should be to represent requirements. Such a body was not created until 1912. In the meantime, more money was spent than would purchase security, which was not always obtained. Nor have we yet produced what is the first essential of national security, the feeling of the officers and men of the fighting services that they are being justly treated by the nation in the matter of pay and pension and proper administrative treatment.

In 1896, the most pressing need of the Navy was for more officers and men. As already explained, the failure to enter the number required to man the ships of the Naval Defence Act of 1889, had now become manifest. Battleships are a showy asset; the absence of men is not noticed by the public; therefore the politician builds the ships and omits the men. In an address delivered before the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in July, 1896, I stated that the deficiency in the personnel was 27,562 men, including a deficiency of 5000 in engine-room ratings. A resolution urging the necessity of an immediate increase in the personnel was passed by the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and was sent to the First Lord, Mr. Goschen.

The First Lord replied to the resolution, stating that the increase in the personnel since 1889 had been 31,360. These figures, however, included the whole of the numbers borne, without distinction of the numbers available for sea service, and represented the numbers voted, irrespective of deaths or retirements. The true increase was estimated by me, upon the evidence of the Navy Estimates, at 17,262; and the total number required at 105,000.

A good deal of public interest having been aroused on the subject, Mr. Goschen stated in the House that it would be his duty next year "to propose such a number of men for the Navy and Reserves as we judge to be rendered necessary by the extension of the Fleet."

The increase of personnel was provided accordingly. Here is one instance among many, of a responsible statesman declaring in all good faith that matters were perfectly satisfactory as they were; being obliged by the insistence of outside representations to examine requirements; and then discovering that these were in fact what had been represented. Mr. Goschen was necessarily dependent upon the advice of the Sea Lords; but the Sea Lords themselves were immersed in the mass of routine work involved in keeping the machine going. The business of supply and the business of organisation for war were confused together; with the inevitable result that organisation for war was neglected.

The personnel was increased in 1897-8 by 6300 (numbers voted). In the following year, 1898-9, my estimate of 105,000 men was passed, the numbers voted being 106,390; and, excepting intervals of false economy, continued to rise until they now (1913) stand at 146,000.

The proposals with regard to the personnel were supported by (among others) Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, who, in a letter to The Times of 2nd April, 1897, stated that "an ex-Controller of the Navy said to me when I was at the Admiralty, 'Your building programme is ahead of the manning.' And he was right, more particularly in officers." Sir R. Vesey Hamilton was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty from January, 1889, the year of the Naval Defence Act, to September, 1891. His testimony is therefore authoritative. It was, of course, no fault of Sir Vesey Hamilton that the personnel was deficient.

It is not too much to say that owing to the omission from that Act of the requisite increase in the personnel, the Navy has been short of men ever since.

In December, 1896, I suggested in a letter to the Press that promotion to flag-rank should take place at an earlier age in order that officers might gain the necessary experience while still in the vigour of youth. Officers who remain too long in a subordinate position are liable to have the faculty of initiative taken out of them, and to fall into the habit of thinking that things will last their time. The services of old and experienced officers are of course invaluable; but officers should acquire the knowledge of the duties of an admiral (upon whom in modern warfare all depends) as early in life as possible. Progressive pay for all ranks from lieutenants upwards, was also advocated.

The requirements of the time were set forth by me in an article contributed to The Nineteenth Century of February, 1897. Briefly, these were as follows: