CHAPTER XXXV

ORGANISATION FOR WAR

There is nothing quite so dead as dead politics; therefore I do not

intend to dwell upon my political experiences, except in so far as they

relate to the purpose for which I entered Parliament. That purpose was

to serve the interests of the Royal Navy. Politics, as such, have

never greatly interested me; the Party system always appeared to me to

involve a sacrifice of principle; and if I am associated with the party

with which I am naturally most in sympathy, at least I may claim to

have attacked them quite as often as I have attacked their political

opponents. In return, they have often declined to support me in my

proposals; which, however, have always been supported by the public,

and which as a rule have ultimately been adopted by the authorities.

In 1885, the Parliamentary tradition which I had known ten years

previously, remained unchanged. During the succeeding generation it

became gradually transformed. Old members, like myself, will

understand what I mean. New members can have little notion of the

House of Commons their fathers knew. In one respect, at least, the

alteration is even startling. The public interest in politics and in

Parliament, once so general and so sincere, has now almost ceased to

exist. What that contemptuous indifference may portend, is another

question.

In June, 1885, the Liberal Government, having passed their Franchise

and Redistribution Bills, and having aroused general and deep

indignation concerning their conduct of {336} the Soudan campaign,

chose to resign upon an amendment to Mr. Childers's Budget. Lord

Salisbury accepted office, and wound up the session. The general

election took place during the autumn. I stood for East Marylebone, my

opponents being the Rev. J. R. Diggle and Mr. D. Grant. Mr. Diggle

apparently withdrew; for I find that my majority of 944 votes was over

Mr. Grant's poll. The main topic of my speeches was the necessity of

increasing the Fleet, and of maintaining the Union. For rumours that

Mr. Gladstone intended to bring forward a Home Rule policy were in the

air.

The result of the election was: Liberals 334, Conservatives 250, Irish

Nationalists 86; placing the Conservatives at the mercy of the Irish.

Lord Salisbury's Government were defeated upon an amendment to the

Address, brought forward by Mr. Jesse Collings, in January, 1886. Lord

Salisbury resigned, and Mr. Gladstone returned to office. Then came

his conversion to Home Rule, and the secession of the Liberal

Unionists. On 7th July, 1886, the Government were defeated on the Home

Rule Bill. At the general election which followed, the Radicals and

Home Rulers were returned in a minority of 118. I was again returned

for East Marylebone, my opponent being Professor Beesly, with an

increased majority. In the new Parliament, Lord Salisbury was Prime

Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Lord Randolph

Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr. W. H. Smith, Leader of the

House of Commons; and Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty.

It was during one of the Marylebone elections that I was visited by a

deputation of clergymen of various denominations, who solemnly assured

me that, if I persisted in supporting the proposal to open museums and

picture-galleries on Sundays, they would not vote for me.

"Gentlemen, has it ever occurred to you that I have not asked you to

vote for me?" said I. "Or that I have never in my life asked a man for

a vote?"

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They looked at one another. In the ensuing silence, I told them that

if they did not approve of me, they ought, as honest men, to vote for

my opponent. They sadly and silently departed, and I saw them no more:

nor do I know for whom were cast the votes of those men of God; but I

was returned to Parliament.

Lord Folkestone was standing for Enfield; and when I went down to speak

for him, I found bread upon the waters which returned to me after many

days, in the shape and size of a Royal Marine. While I was speaking,

there arose a tumult at the back of the hall. So far as I could make

out from the platform, a man was insisting on being heard. I called to

him to come up to the platform, where, if he had anything to say, he

could say it. Whereupon a large, resolute and aggressive person came

swiftly up to me. I thought he wanted to fight, and was ready for him.

But he seized my hands in his, shook them warmly, then turned to the

audience and told them the whole story of how I had saved his life off

the Falkland Islands, years before, when I was a lieutenant in the

_Galatea_. The ship was lying at anchor; it was a dark night; when the

Marine somehow fell overboard I had just come on board from a shooting

expedition, and my pockets were full of cartridges. I dived after the

man and seized him. Catching the end of a coil of rope I went down and

down, wondering if the other end of the rope I held was fast, until at

last I felt myself and the Marine being pulled upwards. As we came to

the surface the ship's corporal, who had jumped overboard, got hold of

us, and we were hauled in-board by the quartermaster.

The story was received with great enthusiasm, and I cannot but suppose

it contributed to win the election for my friend, none the less because

there was no real connection whatever between its subject and politics.

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 {338} 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 {339} 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 {340} 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 {341} 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 {342} 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 {343} 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 {344} 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 {345} 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 {346} 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 {347} 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 {348} 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 {349} 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.

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