Churchill the Young Warrior, page 19
He was now determined to replace Admiral McKenna at the Admiralty and eager to create a naval war staff to plan for a possible war. The matter of who should become First Sea Lord was already being discussed when Asquith wrote to the leader of the House of Lords, Lord Crewe, that he was satisfied Churchill was the right person. Five weeks prior to Churchill’s thirty-seventh birthday, Parliament reassembled on October 24, 1911, when it was announced that Winston Churchill would be First Lord of the Admiralty.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE COMING WAR
ONLY AFTER IT WAS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED that he was First Lord of the Admiralty did Winston realize the full impact of the huge responsibility he had agreed to undertake. It was the challenge of defending the British Isles from attack by enemies and preventing any possibility of blockades that might result in starvation for its population. And to undertake either of them meant ensuring that Britain had enough of the types of battleships needed for the tasks, the armor, the ammunition, and personnel with all the necessary skills. Then there was the task of acquiring enough money to keep the Navy modernized, managed, and maintained.
Britain had effectively ruled the waves ever since it great hero Horatio Nelson’s victories against Napoleon’s forces at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt and the Battle of Trafalgar. What gave Winston confidence was that funding for the Fleet had so far been generous, since Britain was proud of its Royal Navy, and it had sufficient battleships to protect the British Empire, in spite of the fact that it was spread all over the world.
Now he had to draw up an analysis of the situation for the cabinet, to recommend establishing a naval war staff to prepare for war, since the Royal Navy was the sole guarantee of preserving the territory and economy of the State. His first principle was to recognize what dangers he anticipated. His second was the best means to meet those challenges, based on past events in history when Britain had been in danger from attacks. His third principle was how to use the war material he possessed in the most effective ways.
Churchill would spend the next two and a half years developing the navy and preparing it to prevent war if possible, and to win the war if not. He visited all major naval installations and the dockyards, learning important aspects of gunnery at sea, and naval strategies and battle tactics. He carefully studied new developments in Germany’s naval construction. And he particularly focused on improving morale in the British Navy.
Former British Prime Minister Balfour wrote to congratulate him on his new position, for which he saw the benefits of a new look and attitude and new skills to energize the British Navy. Within only two weeks of taking office, Winston wrote to Prime Minister Asquith on November 5, “I have come across one disconcerting fact: there is a shortage of 120 twenty-one-inch torpedoes, meaning that thirty of our best destroyers would have to go to sea without reserves of any kind other than the two they carry.” It would take until April or May at the very earliest to fill the gap, so that all reserves of ammunitions and torpedoes would be available.1
His office and home for the next two and a half years would be on board the Admiralty yacht, the Enchantress, with its staff of nearly two hundred officers and ratings. He left Cowes to inspect the dockyards and the submarine depot at Portsmouth on his first tour of inspection. Three days later he joined other naval vessels escorting King George and Queen Mary on their visit to India for the Durbar in Delhi. It was a reminder that the long sunny relaxed Edwardian era was over, and formality and public rituals had returned.
Winston’s third voyage began on November 17 when he launched the new battleship, the Centurion, at Devonport. His fourth voyage was to inspect the torpedo boat destroyer, the Falcon. He made a tour of inspection of Portsmouth Royal Naval Barracks on December 9. It was his fifth such trip in less than six weeks, and it included the Royal Navy submarine school.
He was conscious also of a need for air superiority, and always drawn to the possible uses of new technologies, as well as the continued need for naval dominance. War in the air was the most recent branch of the science of war. He had to establish principles and conditions for a naval air service, which he considered to be the most dangerous profession for a young Englishman. He wanted young and capable airmen. Whereas the army used its pilots in defensive ways, like reconnaissance, while avoiding air battles whenever possible, he envisaged naval aircraft would be used more to attack the enemy with machine-guns and drop bombs on their installations. It became part of the training of the Royal Naval Air Service.
Preparations for war also presented opportunities to develop friendships across party lines, in the hope that purely political party interests would no longer take precedence over honesty and common sense, nor create irrational biases. One friendship he attempted to make across political lines was by writing to the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, Andrew Bonar Law. It required tact, since politics were still as lethal as conflicting religions in which faith in the group was all that mattered in siding with them.
Sir John Fisher, a former Admiral of the Fleet, visited him and wrote him letters of encouragement. Winston replied eagerly and established a friendly relationship with him, too. Fisher planted in his mind the concept of a Fast Division of warships and using oil fuel instead of coal. He encouraged him to develop fifteen-inch guns for battleships. Fisher had always been an outspoken and controversial figure. He was now seventy, while Winston was little more than half his age. Some people were shocked at Winston’s instant friendship with him, but he found Fisher’s enthusiasm and zeal for naval science and technology refreshing and rewarding. He was, after all, a naval officer of considerable experience. Churchill outfitted the Royal Navy with new guns, as Fisher suggested.
The Arms Race
One “sinister and disquieting fact” that concerned him as the German navy grew rapidly by the end of 1911 was their simultaneous funding which further enlarged the already powerful German army. As Winston pointed out, it was a bureaucratic military machine supported by a “powerful Junker landlord class.” He put the idea about that, if Germany ceased its arms buildup, Britain would follow suit, “not only by words and sentiments, but by action.”
He hoped that Asquith’s firm response to the Agadir Crisis, and Lloyd George’s strong speech about it in the Mansion House, had succeeded in stalling an outbreak of war. He viewed postponement as important, since he did not believe in the inevitability of war. And he still hoped for a more democratic approach from Germany in the meantime. But that country was still firmly divided between the Junker landlords and the people. Meanwhile, he thought that Russia’s swift recovery after its defeat in Manchuria by Japan was “a great corrective” to German aggression. He shared those thoughts with his friend, Sir Ernest Cassel, who was on his way to meet the Kaiser in Germany. If Germany would slacken its arms buildup, he said, it would be met with goodwill from England.
He wrote to Fisher three days later to inform him that flights of airplanes would shortly be attached to naval battle squadrons on a regular basis, and that the number of British submarines under construction had already begun to increase. Nevertheless, some Conservatives attacked him for not doing enough. They wanted to “show the flag.” He warned them not to encourage a further arms race, and reminded them of Napoleon’s principle of concentrating superior force in decisive war zones, rather than weakening the Navy by dispersing its strength all over the place just to make a show.
When Sir Ernest returned from his visit to the Kaiser in Berlin, he arranged a breakfast meeting with Winston and Lloyd George, and informed them that “a major German naval expansion was imminent.”2 The Kaiser had speeded up a six-year construction program, instead of the twelve new battleships which had been previously planned. Churchill advised Grey on the same day that Britain should make a firm response and invite Germany to slow down their Naval schedule to twelve years instead of six, so that “friendly relations would ensue,” and allow Britain to slow down, too.
Cassel had obtained a copy of the new German Naval Law from the Kaiser before it was published. It revealed that the Kiel Canal between the Baltic and the North Sea was to be deepened to allow bigger battleships through by 1915. It would allow twenty-five German battleships to be sent swiftly to the North Sea and endanger Britain whenever Germany chose to commence hostilities. That innovation alone would require the Royal Navy to have at least forty battleships available for protection within twenty-four hours which, of course, they did not possess.
He circulated the new German Navy Law to the cabinet on February 14, from which it was clearly evident that Britain’s naval construction now needed a substantial boost, since Germany’s new plan was to build twenty-five new battleships, twelve battle cruisers, eighteen extra small cruisers, and more than fifty submarines. Fifteen thousand more officers and men would be added to their present 86,500. By April 1914, Germany would be in possession of the biggest navy with the most modern battleships and cruisers in the world. And, as Churchill pointed out, they would be maintained on a permanent war footing.
When asked for his opinion, he informed the house on March 18 that Britain would have to build two battleships for every German one.
He continued to propose slowing down German production by mutual agreement, in order to postpone war for another year, in the hope that if money were circulated to German consumers instead, a war might be postponed still further. There seemed to be a fatalism about the buildup of German war potential which he did not share—as if they were prepared to take one huge risk for the sake of demonstrating that they could dominate Europe.
To Clementine, he wrote, “We shall be much stronger in a year.” And he waited for the Kaiser to agree to his offer of a “Naval Holiday” from construction. In the meantime, he continued his inspections of the naval dockyards at Portland, and wrote to Clementine that he had discovered more waste of money in refitting and repairing ships unnecessarily, just to provide work. “I wish I had nine lives like a cat,” he told her. Then he would have more time to be even more thorough. But he praised the Admiralty men under his command and considered himself fortunate to have them.
Winston noted that the Kaiser had still not published Germany’s new naval program. He wrote Cassel a letter intended for the Kaiser to see. It emphasized all the problems of a land war that Germany would have to face in Europe, instead of focusing on its naval buildup. Meanwhile, the king formally inspected the Fleet at Weymouth on May 9 and 10, where a demonstration showed airplanes detecting submarines below the water and other planes dropping bombs on targets. Newspaper reports now revealed that the press had come to think of Winston as a naval man rather than as a politician.
But his hopes of postponing war were shattered when the Kaiser dismissed his idea of a “Naval Holiday” out of hand and had the new German Naval Law passed in the Reichstag on May 21. Now Churchill directed all his time and energy to preparing the Royal Navy for the hazards of war with Germany. According to the Daily Express, “He is here, there, and everywhere.”
Now that the German navy laws were known to the public, Churchill felt able to seek additional Navy Estimates from Parliament by explaining the need for more warships to secure the British Isles at sea.
On August 1, he was able to inform Clementine—who had been consistently unwell—that he would see her on Sunday, when perhaps they might find a nice sandy beach where he could build fortresses in the sand. “You might explore and report,” he added.
During the remainder of the month and throughout September, he sailed around naval stations in Britain and watched firing practice and tactical exercises, inspected dockyards, observed new launchings, armaments workshops, shore installations, and studied all the latest technical improvements, including torpedo technology. He also did his best to encourage the French Ministry of Marine to strengthen France’s naval power, in order to focus Britain’s naval activities on the North Sea. And he chose not to get involved in an alliance with the French, or anyone else, that might limit Britain’s freedom to stand alone against German aggression.
He now spent his time and imagination on making naval personnel more comfortable and contented in their jobs and leisure time, by increasing the pay of lower ranks and improving recreation facilities on shore. He allocated funding for a football field in Harwich, a canteen and a reading room, billiard tables and bowling alleys, and ensured that sailors had places to stay overnight when ashore. But he had continual battles for funds with the Chancellor of the Exchequer over increasing sailors’ pay, since Lloyd George protested at squandering money. Then, soon afterwards, the need for even more money arose.
While preparing the Navy Estimates for 1913–14, Winston’s analysis of improvements in the German navy showed that a new German battle cruiser had superior armor which had to be matched in the constant struggle to compete with and overcome enhanced specifications; where new enemy armor required better shells to penetrate it, and better enemy shells or bullets required better armor to resist them. He also noticed that Austria-Hungary planned to build three extra battleships. Since they would certainly ally themselves with Germany, it would mean having to take further measures to compete for naval superiority.3
Pressures of work soon affected Winston’s private life, when he was obliged to cancel some of his plans to be with Clementine. He had to keep offering apologies and providing explanations for his absences. One situation that kept them apart was his flying lessons at Eastchurch naval station and aerodrome on the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. Flying was a young man’s game, full of thrills and prone to fatal accidents in the fragile aircraft with simple instruments that didn’t always work as they should. He would soon be forty in 1913. But the pilots were excited that the First Lord would want to be trained by them on how to fly dangerous airplanes. And his enthusiasm was as keen as theirs.
His cousin wrote anxiously to him, “Really, I consider that you owe it to your wife, family and friends to desist.” But Winston continued, although he knew it was a dangerous pastime. Sometimes he went up ten times a day, and spent weekends at Sheerness to do so.4
Clementine was in London, doing what was necessary to move from their Eccleston Square home to the official residence at Admiralty House in Whitehall, where the rooms were more spacious and looked out over the Horse Guards Parade or St. james Park. And she joined him whenever possible on HMS Enchantress. He would always write to her soon after she left, to say how much he already missed her. Despite her anxiety at his flying, he continued it at Eastchurch and also at Hendon Aerodrome.
But they did manage to escape for a long holiday that summer. They were joined by Asquith and his wife and daughter. They took a train to Venice, then joined the Enchantress to sail on her through the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, where they visited Malta, Sicily, and Corsica. He discussed the defense of the Mediterranean with General Kitchener in Malta, but the two of them were still wary of each other.
Back in Britain, Winston tried again to make sense out of the Irish problem and Home Rule, which never satisfied anyone. He did his best to persuade the Ulstermen to sweep their problems away and out of their lives and into history. He discussed the situations afterwards at Balmoral with the King and Bonar Law. He had always respected British common sense, but this was one case where it would not prevail against so many emotional issues that were alternately bottled up or flaunted, and argued about from both directions; north and south, Protestant and Catholic, and the previous humiliation from one side set against a new one from the other. But he continued his efforts for a more peaceful Ireland, which was now even more important than before because of the looming dangers of war in which Britain could so easily be stabbed in the back by enemies in Ireland.
The Irish problem seemed insoluble, and he was convinced that, left to their own devices, there would be civil war with the north and south tearing each other apart to the last man, woman, and child. Each side would stop at nothing just to have its own way. Moreover, its abrasiveness was causing divisions in England, where some families refused to talk to each other.
In order to reduce naval costs for the traditional Grand Manoeuvres of 1914, and also to test Royal Navy strength, he organized a less costly but fully mobilized maneuver of the Third Fleet in the North Sea. As he explained to Prince Louis of Battenberg—a Lord of the Admiralty—it was an opportunity to rehearse naval actions there, instead of leaving things to chance in the event of hostilities with the German Navy.
Meanwhile, he continued his flying lessons in the autumn, in order to run up the necessary hours required for a flying license. He talked as much as possible with the airmen about the possibilities of aerial combat and bombing, and the training needed for it. He flew in an airship from Sheerness over the Medway and Chatham in October. “They let me steer for a whole hour myself,” he wrote to Clementine. He also flew in a seaplane. Despite the relatively primitive aircraft, he believed absolutely in the future of aviation, and considered possibilities for air supremacy over any enemies.
Jennie
Although Jennie had been largely instrumental in arranging Winston’s marriage, she had hoped to see more of him after their wedding, not less—it seemed to be a natural mark of possessiveness in mothers. But now she had a different problem to contend with: it was George, whom she had now finally lost to the celebrated actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, ever since Jennie’s own play had been tried out for a fortnight at the Haymarket Theatre and Mrs. Pat had been her leading lady.
My dear George, Mr. Wheeler brought me your message. The d.n. will be made absolute on Monday and I understand that you are going to be married on Tues. You need not fear what I may say for I shall not willingly speak of you. And we are not likely ever to meet. This is the real parting of the ways. But for the sake of some of the happy days we had together—should you ever be in trouble and wanted to knock at my door it would not be shut to you. I am returning you my engagement and wedding rings—I say goodbye—a long, long goodbye. Jennie.
