Volumes 102 & 106, The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vols. I & II
ed. Lieutenant-Commander P.K. Kemp RN (1960-1964)

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This collection of documents, selected and edited by Lieutenant Commander Peter Kemp, then Head of the Historical Section and Librarian of the Admiralty, are restricted to official papers written by (or at the instigation of) Admiral Sir John Fisher in his capacity as First Sea Lord 1904-1910. Three volumes of Fisher’s personal correspondence, edited by Professor Arthur Marder and which more vividly depict Fisher’s exuberant character, had been published in the 1950s under the title Fear God and Dread Nought. There is little overlap.

Fisher was convinced of the inevitability of war with Germany. All his volcanic energy was directed to reforming the Royal Navy and preparing it for that war. The Edwardian Royal Navy which he inherited in 1904 was, for all its swank and circumstance, a moribund organization with an administrative apathy that stretched from the Admiralty downwards. His arrival came like a thunderclap upon both the Admiralty and the Navy and his shock tactics rocked the Service to its foundations. The scale and pace of his reforming achievements were astonishing. “But the Navy was not a pleasant place while this was going on” (Churchill).

Fisher forced through four great reforms, the first three inter-related and inter-dependent. His early target was the many obsolete warships that showed the flag around remote parts of the Empire, an “arrangement that pleased the Foreign Office and the consuls’ daughters who needed tennis and waltzing partners”. But the obsolete vessels had no military value and were a waste of money and men. Their officers and men rusted for lack of training with the modern fleet. Most of these gunboats, sloops and second and third-class cruisers were brought home and scrapped.

The personnel thus saved were allocated to the nucleus crew system for the Reserve Fleet. Fighting ships in reserve were to be manned with two fifths of their normal complement to facilitate their mobilization to reinforce the active fleet in home waters at short notice.

The alliance with Japan (1902) and the French Entente (1904), together with a growing realization of the threat posed by Germany, led the Admiralty slowly and steadily to concentrate the cream of the fleet in home waters where Fisher knew the future threat to be, a redeployment that had to be achieved without upsetting political sensitivities.

Pre-eminent among Fisher’s achievements in the realm of materiel was the introduction of the all-big-gun, turbine-propelled battleship, HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and the first battle-cruiser, HMS Invincible, in 1908. The revolution in naval warfare which these ships precipitated does not require rehearsing here.

The Selborne Scheme for the common entry and training of all officers until they specialized as junior lieutenants, which Fisher as Second Sea Lord had announced on Christmas Day 1902, was well-established by the time he returned to the Admiralty in 1904. Its main purpose to close the social gap between Executive and Engineer officers took time to gain acceptance. The only amendment was the removal of Royal Marines officers from common training in 1906 because of their very distinct military training requirements.

The two volumes trace the introduction of these and other lesser reforms during Fisher’s five years at the Admiralty. Distinct from these Volume Two contains the Admiralty War Plans issued in 1907. Kemp cautions that these were war plans and not war orders. The Admiralty at this time provided only outline plans for given circumstances; commanders-in-chief were to produce their own war orders within this framework. These War Plans appear to be based on rudimentary war games played at Portsmouth Naval War College in 1905, 1906 and 1907, the scenarios for which were wholly unrealistic. They may have been hurriedly compiled to confound Lord Charles Beresford’s claim that the Admiralty had no war plans. The War Plans reflect a lack of realism and understanding of the capabilities of modern naval ships and weapons only seven years before Britain and Germany eventually went to war.

Fisher was perhaps the greatest naval administrator since St. Vincent but his reforms were achieved at a cost. Predictably, these changes were anathema for many of the Old Guard. But many modern, thinking officers were alienated by Fisher’s absolute intolerance of contrary views. Fisher made no attempt to accommodate other opinions. Men who questioned his views were enemies to be crushed. Individual critics were “damnable skunks” or “pestilent pimps”. The Admiralty had never seen the like. The cost was deep dissention throughout the officer corps of the Royal Navy. However, Winston Churchill, who recalled Fisher in 1914 for what proved a fatal experience for both men, judged Fisher as “a man truly great despite his idiosyncrasies and truly good despite his violence”.

The Fisher Papers are in the Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, RNN MSS 252, and held by the Royal Naval Museum.

Contents

Further Reading

Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Admiral of the Fleet, 2 Vols (London, 1929)
Richard Hough, First Sea Lord: An authorized biography of Admiral Lord Fisher (London, 1969)
Ruddock F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone: Admiral of the Fleet (Oxford, 1973)
Stephen Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (London, 1977)
Jan Morris, Fisher’s Face (London, 1995)
Arthur J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era 1880-1905 (London, 1940)
- Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 3 Vols (London, 1952-1959)
- From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era 1904-1919. 5 Vols. (London, 1961-1970) Vol 1. 1904-1914: The Road to War
Nicholas A Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia, South Carolina, 1999)
Jon Tersuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy 1888-1914 (London, 1989)
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, Memories (London, 1919)
- Records (London, 1919)