First Lord of the Admiralty

“ Amongst the 13 First Lords of the Admiralty I have had to deal with (and with nine of them I was very intimately associated) I should like to record that in my opinion Lord George Hamilton and Lord Spencer had the toughest jobs, because of the constitution of their respective Boards of Admiralty; and yet neither of them received the credit each of them deserved for his most successful administration. With both of them their tact was unsurpassable. They had to deal with extremely able colleagues, and my experience is that it is not a good thing to have a lot of able men associated together. ”

“ It would be easy to supply his place; and his successors should have his best wishes. He then retired to the country, where, as was reported and may easily be believed, he vented his ill humour in furious invectives against the King. The Treasurership of the Navy was given to the Speaker Littleton. The Earl of Bridgewater, a nobleman of very fair character and of some experience in business, became First Lord of the Admiralty. ”

“ With K. K. at the War Office and Jack Fisher at the Admiralty British householder may sleep in his bed o' nights unafraid.
By another happy concatenation of circumstance Admiralty is represented in both Houses. With Winsome Winston in the Commons and Jack Fisher in the Lords, the Navy will have a good show. Only doubt is whether First Sea Lord will think it worth while to devote to Parliamentary duties the measure of time exacted from First Lord of Admiralty. Essentially a man of action, he has little patience with custom of talking round a matter. ”

“ So far as the Navy is concerned, the tendency of these “Thinking Establishments” on shore is to convert splendid Sea Officers into very indifferent Clerks. The Admiralty is filled with Sea Officers now who ought to be afloat; and the splendid civilian element—incomparable in its talent and in its efficiency—is swamped. Before the war, when I was First Sea Lord, when I left the Admiralty at 8 p.m., prior to some approaching Grand Manœuvres, I left it to my friend Flint, one of the Higher Division Clerks, to mobilize the fleet by a wireless message from the roof of the Admiralty ”

“ Any one who will contrast the British navy of to-day with the British navy as it might and would have been under the administration, say, of such a First Lord of the Admiralty as the present Duke of Somerset proved himself in every department of the naval service five-and-twenty years ago, will understand the recent outcry in England for a safer and more powerful fleet. ”

“ To be a good Admiral, a man does not need to be a good sailor. That’s a common mistake. He wants good sailors under him. He is the Conceptionist. However, to resume. At that time I was “Pooh-Bah” at the Admiralty; the First Lord was in a trance, and the Financial Secretary had locomotor ataxy. I was First Sea Lord, and I acted for both the Financial Secretary and the First Lord in their absence. ”

“ If we were to believe some of the critics the British Navy is directed by a set of doddering old gentlemen who are afraid to let it go at the Germans and cannot even safeguard our commerce from attack. The truth, as expounded by the FIRST LORD, is quite different. Despite the jeremiads of superannuated sailors and political longshoremen, the Admiralty is not going to Davy Jones's locker, but under its present chiefs, who have, with very few exceptions, seen service in this War, maintains and supplements its glorious record. ”

“ A Naval War Staff at the Admiralty is a very excellent organisation for cutting out and arranging foreign newspaper clippings in such an intelligent disposition as will enable the First Sea Lord to take in at a glance who is likely amongst the foreigners to be the biggest fool or the greatest poltroon, who will be opposed to his own trusted and personally selected Nelson who commands the British Fleet. ”

“ The Superb and Thames have just made their appearance, with the signal for the enemy being out of port. I think it is a good thing to have drawn them this way, as I trust the first Levanter will bring us ships from the Mediterranean. Captain Ferris goes by this opportunity, and has promised to forward this immediately to you. He will be heard of at the Admiralty, or at the Adelphi Hotel. Great praise is due for the brave defence of his ship.
10th July 1801.
It is incalculable how much I have on my hands, night [Pg 390] and day; but, thank God! my health is good, though my anxiety is great. ”

“ The aircraft belonged to the War Office; why on earth couldn’t I mind my own business? I didn’t want the Admiralty building and our wireless on the roof of it to be bombed; so it was my business (the War Office was125 as safe as a church, the Germans would never bomb that establishment!) .
Recently I fortuned to meet Mr. Holt Thomas, and he brought to my recollection what was quite a famous meeting at the Admiralty. Soon after I became First Sea Lord on October 31st, 1914, I had called together at the Admiralty a Great Company of all interested in the air ”

“ But finding himself the one solitary person dissenting from the project in the War Council, and knowing it to be of vital importance that he should personally see to the completion of the great shipbuilding programme of 612 vessels initiated on his recent advent to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, also being confident that all these vessels could only be finished rapidly if he remained, Lord Fisher allowed himself to be persuaded by Lord Kitchener on January 28th, 1915, to continue as First Sea Lord. ”

“ This is only one sample. Every blessed item of the military organisation is similarly rotten! Why? Because the military system of entry and education is rotten.
181
* * * * * 1904.
July 28th.
... We have a new scheme for a reorganisation of the whole Admiralty and have got the Order in Council for it! The new scheme gives the First Sea Lord nothing to do, except think and send for Idlers! It also resuscitates the old titles of Sea Lords dating from A.D. 1613, but which some silly ass 100 years ago altered to Naval Lords. ”

“ The board of admiralty, as at present constituted, comprises five lords commissioners of the admiralty, who decide collectively on all important questions. Besides this collective or corporate action, each commissioner has special duties assigned to him. There are two civil or political lords, and three naval or sea lords. The first lord, who is always a cabinet minister, besides a general control, has the management of naval estimates, finance, political affairs, slave-trade prevention, appointments, and promotions. ”

“ At the same time, I’m not sure that any man can stand the strain of active command under present conditions for more than 21⁄2 years. I see no sign of tiredness about Jellicoe now, but it must be almost impossible to keep at high tension so long without losing some of the spring and dash, and it did40 look as if a stronger man than Jackson was wanted as First Sea Lord at the Admiralty. ”

“ Like Moses, he was a great Commissariat Officer, but he was not a Napoleon or a Moltke; he was a Carnot in excelsis, and he was the facile dupe of his own failings. But “Speak well of those who treat you well.” I went to him one evening at 5 p.m., with Mr. Churchill’s knowledge, and said to him as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty that if his53 myrmidons did not cease that same night from seducing men from the private shipyards to become “Cannon-fodder” I was going to resign at 6 p.m. I explained to him the egregious folly of not pressing on our shipbuilding to its utmost limits. ”

“ The Admiralty should never engage itself to lock up a single vessel even—not even a torpedo-boat, or submarine—anywhere on any consideration whatever. The whole principle of Sea fighting is to be free to go anywhere with every d—d thing the Navy possesses. The Admiralty should engage to do their best but to reserve entire freedom of action. ”

“ Only by mutiny did the Admiralty yield to our demands. What I did I would do again! We took our risks in the Thames against the guns that were levelled at us; we've taken our risks down here against the French to help save your squadron, and we've done it. The men have done it, because they've been loyal to the flag, and from first to last set to make the Admiralty and the people know they have rights which must be cherished. ”

“ He therefore refused to be thwarted in his efforts to render to his country the great service that he considered to be in his power, and Sir Charles Napier's removal from the command of the Baltic fleet, in January, 1855, gave him an opportunity of offering to use that power under conditions that would relieve the Admiralty of all direct responsibility in the event of his failure. "I am much gratified," he said in another letter to Sir James Graham, "to learn that her most gracious Majesty has been pleased to reserve the high dignity of Admiral of the Fleet as a reward for services. ”

“ If these are the fruits, I don’t think there is much wrong with the government of the Navy. (Cheers.) Figs don’t grow on thistles. (Laughter and cheers.) But a gentleman of fine feeling has lately said that the recent Admiralty administration has been attended with the devil’s own luck. (Laughter.) That interesting personality (laughter) —his luck is due to one thing, and one thing only—hesitates at nothing to gain his object. That is what the Board of Admiralty have done, and our object has been the fighting efficiency of the Fleet and its instant readiness for war ”

“ For the moment, it would be safe to build against Germany only. But we cannot build for the moment: the Board of Admiralty are the trustees of future generations of their countrymen, who may not enjoy the same comparatively serene sky as ourselves. The ships we lay down this year may have their influence on the international situation twenty years hence, when Germany—or whoever our most likely antagonist may then be—may have the opportunity of the co-operation (even if only temporary) of another great naval Power. ”

“ For it is well to consider, that a scold resembles a snow-ball—it always gathers weight as it rolls along. Thus the Admiralty send down, by post or by telegraph, a rap on the knuckles to the old admiral—very moderate as naval things go, but such as, in civil life, would make a sober citizen frantic, though it merely squeezes out a growl from the venerable commander-in-chief. Straightway he rings for the secretary, and issues a smartish general order, in which the wretched captain of the offending ship catches the reprimand, with a most usurious allowance of interest. ”

“ With a promptness inconceivable, his lordship planned every species of precautionary defence, while engaged in executing his offensive operations: and it is anxiously hoped, that his excellent defensive arrangements, made on this occasion, though happily not then needed, will be carefully treasured in the archives of the Admiralty, for immediate adoption, should any attempt ever be made, by a rash and powerful enemy, to approach the British shores; who may thus be vanquished, by our immortal hero, in a future and even distant age. ”

“ At first called ‘Keeper and Governor’ of the king’s ships, later, ‘Clerk of the king’s ships,’ this official held, sometimes really and sometimes nominally, the control of naval organisation until the formation of the Navy Board in 1546. His duties included all those now performed by a multitude of highly placed Admiralty officials. If a man of energy, experience, and capacity, his name stands foremost in the maintenance of the royal fleets during peace and their preparation for war ”

“ At length I rejoice, my dear Admiral. You have been the guardian angel of my country; by your wise, temperate, and loyal conduct you have been the first cause of the plans which have been formed against the demon of the Continent. He was on the point of succeeding; folly and the want of confidence in some have made them doubt the success of the good cause. You have shared my anxiety, but it is now all over; two couriers have arrived this night from the head-quarters of the Emperor and the Prince. War was declared on the 24th of July; Austria is with us ”

“ But the secrets of the Admiralty in this war have not been timidly or unintelligently kept. In spite of the tradition of ‘the Silent Service’—which only means that ‘the Navy doesn’t advertise’—there is no general feeling against telling the truth and the whole truth, when it can be done to the advantage of the country. Those in power have been for the most part in favour of ‘taking the lid off’ when the right time has come ”

“ If the stronger character is a layman, he may be ignorant of, or see no danger in waiving, naval traditions that are embodied in no statute or regulation, but are not embodied simply because their cogency has never been questioned. In other words, the autocracy of the Admiralty is a necessity of executive administration, but can only be exercised safely if its enforcement is continuously tested by professional opinion.
How many people, I often wonder, really appreciate how singular a body is that which is made up of admirals, captains, commanders, and lieutenants of the Royal Navy? ”

“ He is even said not to have been a man of business; yet the Admiralty was a place which can scarcely be managed by an idler, and the Secretaryship of State, in this country, can never be a sinecure. He had certainly one quality which is remarkable for conciliation, and without which no minister, let his talents be what they may, has ever been personally popular; he was a man of great affability, and of shrewd wit. ”