‘The greatest impediment to action is not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action.’

Our First Line of Defence—The Great Change of Front—Close Blockade and an Oversea Base—The New War-Plans: Distant Blockade—Manœuvre Experiments, 1912 and 1913—Prowling Squadrons—The Perils of Surprise—The Limits of Precaution—A Bolt from the Blue—Cordons—The Limits of German Morality—The Invasion Problem and the Expeditionary Force—The Invasion Committee—First Lord’s Notes—The South and East Fronts Compared—Raid or Invasion—Impossibility of Close Blockade—The Patrol Flotillas—The Coastal Watch—A Bolt from the Grey—Possible German Objectives for Raids—Assumptions and Conclusions—Difficulties of Preparation—The Initial Dangers the Greatest—Letter to a Friend—The Other Side.

The traditional war policy of the Admiralty grew up during the prolonged wars and antagonisms with France. It consisted in establishing immediately upon the outbreak of war a close blockade of the enemy’s ports and naval bases by means of flotillas of strong small craft supported by cruisers with superior battle fleets in reserve. The experience of 200 years had led all naval strategists to agree on this fundamental principle, ‘Our first line of defence is the enemy’s ports.’

When the torpedo was invented, the French tried to frustrate this well-known British policy by building large numbers of torpedo-boats, and the Admiralty, after some years, retorted by building torpedo-boat destroyers. These destroyers fulfilled two conditions: first, they were large enough to keep the seas in most weathers and to operate across the Channel for sufficient periods; secondly, their guns were heavy enough to destroy or dominate the French torpedo-boats. Thus, in spite of the advent of the torpedo, we preserved our power to maintain stronger flotillas in close proximity to the enemy’s naval bases. Meanwhile, all along the South Coast of England a series of fortified torpedo-proof harbours in the neighbourhood of our great naval establishments afforded safe, close, and convenient stations for our battle fleets and other supporting vessels when not actually at sea.

When early in the present century our potential enemy for the first time became not France, but Germany, our naval strategic front shifted from the South to the East Coast and from the Channel to the North Sea. But although the enemy, the front, and the theatre had changed, the sound principle of British naval strategy still held good. Our first line of defence was considered to be the enemy’s ports. The Admiralty policy was still a close blockade of those ports by means of stronger flotillas properly supported by cruisers and ultimately by the battle fleets.

It was not to be expected that our arrangements on this new front could rapidly reach the same degree of perfection as the conflicts of so many generations had evolved in the Channel; and so far as our naval bases were concerned, we were still in the process of transition when the great war began. More serious, however, was the effect of the change on the utility of our destroyers. Instead of operating at distances of from 20 or 60 miles across the Channel with their supporting ships close at hand in safe harbours, they were now called upon to operate in the Heligoland Bight, across 240 miles of sea, and with no suitable bases for their supporting battle fleet nearer than the Thames or the Forth. Nevertheless, the Admiralty continued to adhere to their traditional strategic principle, and their war plans up till 1911 contemplated the close blockade of the enemy’s ports immediately upon the declaration of war. Our destroyers were constructed with ever increasing sea-keeping qualities and with a great superiority of gun power. The Germans, on the other hand, adhered to the French conception of the torpedo boat as a means of attack upon our large ships. While we relied in our destroyer construction principally on gun power and sea-keeping qualities, they relied upon the torpedo and high speed in fair weather opportunities. But the much greater distances over which our destroyers had now to operate across the North Sea immensely reduced their effectiveness. Whereas across the Channel they could work in two reliefs, they required three across the North Sea. Therefore only one-third instead of one-half of our fighting flotillas could be available at any given moment. Against this third the enemy could at any moment bring his whole force. In order to carry out our old strategic policy from our Home bases we should have required flotillas at least three and probably four times as numerous as those of Germany. This superiority we had not got and were not likely to get.

Therefore from shortly before 1905 when the French agreement was signed, down to the Agadir crisis in 1911, the Admiralty made plans to capture one or other of the German islands. On this it was intended to establish an oversea base at which from the beginning of the war our blockade flotillas could be replenished and could rest, and which as war progressed would have developed into an advanced citadel of our sea power. In this way, therefore, the Admiralty would still have carried out their traditional war policy of beating the enemy’s flotillas and light craft into his ports and maintaining a constant close blockade.

These considerations were not lost upon the Germans. They greatly increased the fortifications of Heligoland, and they proceeded to fortify one after another such of the Frisian Islands as were in any way suitable for our purposes. At the same time a new and potent factor appeared upon the scene—the submarine. The submarine not only rendered the capture and maintenance of an oversea base or bases far more difficult and, as some authorities have steadfastly held, impossible, but it threatened with destruction our cruisers and battleships without whose constant support our flotillas would easily have been destroyed by the enemy’s cruisers.

This was the situation in October, 1911, when immediately after the Agadir crisis I became First Lord and proceeded to form a new Board of Admiralty. Seeing that we had not for the time being the numerical force of destroyers able to master the destroyers of the potential enemy in his home waters, nor the power to support our flotillas with heavy ships, and having regard also to the difficulty and hazard in all the circumstances of storming and capturing one of his now fortified islands, we proceeded forthwith to revise altogether the War Plans and substitute, with the full concurrence of our principal commanders afloat, the policy of distant blockade set up in the Admiralty War Orders of 1912.

The policy of distant blockade was not adopted from choice, but from necessity. It implied no repudiation on the part of the Admiralty of their fundamental principle of aggressive naval strategy, but only a temporary abandonment of it in the face of unsolved practical difficulties; and it was intended that every effort should be made, both before and after a declaration of war, to overcome those difficulties. It was rightly foreseen that by closing the exits from the North Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, German commerce would be almost completely cut off from the world. It was expected that the economic and financial pressure resulting from such a blockade would fatally injure the German power to carry on a war. It was hoped that this pressure would compel the German fleet to come out and fight, not in his own defended waters, but at a great numerical disadvantage in the open sea. It was believed that we could continue meanwhile to enjoy the full command of the seas without danger to our sea communications or to the movement of our armies, and that the British Isles could be kept safe from invasion. There was at that time no reason to suppose that these conditions would not continue indefinitely with undiminished advantage to ourselves and increasing pressure upon the enemy. So far as all surface vessels are concerned, and certainly for the first three years of the war, these expectations were confirmed by experience.

Under these orders the Fleet was disposed strategically so as to block the exits from the North Sea by placing the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and drawing a cordon of destroyers across the Straits of Dover supported by the older battleships and protected by certain minefields. These conclusions stood the test of the war. They were never departed from in any important respect by any of the Boards of Admiralty which held office. By this means the British Navy seized and kept the effective control of all the oceans of the world.

They did not, however, secure the command of the Baltic, nor the absolute control of the North Sea. We could no longer hope to prevent the enemy from sallying out of his harbours whenever he chose. What use would he make of this liberty, at the outset or during the progress of a war? By what means could we restrict him most effectually?

We sought to probe these questions in the naval manœuvres of 1912 and 1913.

In 1912 the newly-formed Admiralty War Staff prepared, as an experiment, a plan for an immense cordon of cruisers and destroyers, supported by the Battle Fleet, from the Coast of Norway to a point on the East Coast of England. To a military eye this system appeared unsound, and indeed outside the Admiralty it was generally condemned by naval opinion. I quoted Napoleon’s scathing comment in 1808: ‘Est-ce qu’on a adopté le système des cordons? Est-ce qu’on veut empêcher le contrebande de passer au l’ennemi? Qui est-ce qui peut conseiller au Roi de faire des cordons? Après dix années de guerre doit-on revenir à ces bêtises-là?’ The cordon system was however tried, and was completely exposed and broken down. We then fell back upon a system of what I may call ‘prowling squadrons and occasional drives,’ that is to say, we recognised that we could not maintain any continuous control of the North Sea. The best we could do was to sweep it in strength at irregular intervals and for the rest await the action of the enemy. This clearly involved a considerable risk of raiding forces which might amount to ten or twenty thousand men slipping through and disembarking on our coast. I therefore called for careful individual study to be made of all the different points where such forces could be landed, and what would be the best plans for the Germans to make in each case. At the manœuvres of 1913 Sir John Jellicoe adopted several of these plans for raiding the British coast and put them into execution. He achieved so considerable a measure of success that I thought it necessary to stop the manœuvres on the third day lest we might teach the Germans as well as ourselves.

But before there could be any question of employing the war policy on which the Admiralty had decided, there was a preliminary period to be traversed of the most momentous and critical character. This period raised another set of problems before which the inconveniences of raids, or even an attempt at serious invasion, paled in gravity. Of all the dangers that menaced the British Empire, none was comparable to a surprise of the Fleet. If the Fleet or any vital part of it were caught unawares or unready and our naval preponderance destroyed, we had lost the war, and there was no limit to the evils which might have been inflicted upon us except the mercy of an all-powerful conqueror. We have seen in recent years how little completely victorious nations can be trusted to restrain their passions against a prostrate foe. Great Britain, deprived of its naval defence, could be speedily starved into utter submission to the will of the conqueror. Her Empire would be dismembered; her dominions, India and her immense African and island possessions would be shorn off or transferred to the victors. Ireland would be erected into a hostile well-armed republic on the flank of Great Britain; and the British people, reduced to a helpless condition, would be loaded with overwhelming indemnities calculated to shatter their social system, if, indeed, they were not actually reduced, in Sir Edward Grey’s mordant phrase, to the position of ‘the conscript appendage of a stronger Power.’ Less severe conditions than have since been meted out to Germany would certainly have sufficed to destroy the British Empire at a stroke for ever. The stakes were very high. If our naval defence were maintained we were safe and sure beyond the lot of any other European nation; if it failed, our doom was certain and final.

To what lengths, therefore, would the Germans go to compass the destruction of the British Fleet? Taking the demonic view of their character which it was necessary to assume for the purposes of considering a war problem, what forms of attack ought we to reckon with? Of course, if Germany had no will to war, all these speculations were mere nightmares. But if she had the will and intention of making war, it was evident that there would be no difficulty in finding a pretext arising out of a dispute with France or Russia, to create a situation in which war was inevitable, and create it at the most opportune moment for herself. The wars of Frederick and of Bismarck had shown with what extraordinary rapidity and suddenness the Prussian nation was accustomed to fall upon its enemy. The Continent was a powder magazine from end to end. One single hellish spark and the vast explosion might ensue. We had seen what had happened to France in 1870. We had seen what neglect to take precautions had brought upon the Russian fleet off Port Arthur in 1904. We know now what happened to Belgium in 1914, and, not less remarkable, the demand Germany decided to make upon France on August 1, 1914, that if she wished to remain neutral while Germany attacked Russia, she must as a guarantee hand over to German garrisons her fortresses of Verdun and Toul.

Obviously, therefore, the danger of a “bolt from the Blue” was by no means fantastic. Still, might one not reasonably expect certain warnings? There would probably be some kind of dispute in progress between the great Powers enjoining particular vigilance upon the Admiralty. We might hope to get information of military and naval movements. It was almost certain that there would be financial perturbations in the Exchanges of the world indicating a rise of temperature. Could we therefore rely upon a week’s notice, or three days’ notice, or at least twenty-four hours’ notice before any blow actually fell?

In Europe, where great nations faced each other with enormous armies, there was an automatic safeguard against surprise. Decisive events could not occur till the armies were mobilised, and that took at least a fortnight. The supreme defence of France, for instance, could not therefore be overcome without a great battle in which the main strength of the French nation could be brought to bear. But no such assurance was enjoyed by the British Fleet. No naval mobilisation was necessary on either side to enable all the modern ships to attack one another. They had only to raise steam and bring the ammunition to the guns, But beyond this grim fact grew the torpedo menace. So far as gunfire alone was concerned, our principal danger was for our Fleet to be caught divided and to have one vital part destroyed without inflicting proportionate damage on the enemy. This danger was greatly reduced by wireless, which enabled the divided portions to be instantly directed to a common rendezvous and to avoid action till concentration was effected. Besides, gunfire was a game that two could play at. One could not contemplate that the main strength of the fleets would ever be allowed to come within range of each other without taking proper precautions. But the torpedo was essentially a weapon of surprise, or even treachery; and all that was true of the torpedo in a surface vessel applied with tenfold force to the torpedo of a submarine.

Obviously there were limits beyond which it was impossible to safeguard oneself. It was not simply a case of a few weeks of special precautions. The British Navy had to live its ordinary life in time of peace. It had to have its cruises and its exercises, its periods of leave and refit. Our harbours were open to the commerce of the world. Absolute security against the worst conceivable treachery was physically impossible. On the other hand, even treachery, which required the co-operation of very large numbers of people in different stations and the setting in motion of an immense and complicated apparatus, is not easy to bring about. It was ruled by the Committee of Imperial Defence, after grave debate, that the Admiralty must not assume that if it made the difference between victory and defeat, Germany would stop short of an attack on the Fleet in full peace without warning or pretext. We had to do our best to live up to this standard, and in the main I believe we succeeded. Certainly the position and condition of the British Fleet was every day considered in relation to that of Germany. I was accustomed to check our dispositions by asking the Staff from time to time, unexpectedly, ‘What happens if war with Germany begins to-day?’ I never found them without an answer which showed that we had the power to effect our main concentration before any portion of the Fleet could be brought to battle. Our Fleet did not go for its cruises to the coast of Spain until we knew that the German High Seas Fleet was having its winter refits. When we held Grand Manœuvres we were very careful to arrange the coaling and leave which followed in such a way as to secure us the power of meeting any blow which could possibly reach us in a given time. I know of no moment in the period of which I am writing up to the declaration of war in which it was physically possible for the British Fleet to have been surprised or caught dispersed and divided by any serious German force of surface vessels. An attempt in full peace to make a submarine attack upon a British squadron in harbour or exercising, or to lay mines in an area in which they might be expected to exercise, could not wholly be provided against; but in all human probability its success would only have been partial. Further, I do not believe that such treachery was ever contemplated by the German Admiralty, Government or Emperor. While trying as far as possible to guard against even the worst possibilities, my own conviction was that there would be a cause of quarrel accompanied by a crisis and a fall in markets, and followed very rapidly by a declaration of war, or by acts of war intended to be simultaneous with the declaration, but possibly occurring slightly before. What actually did happen was not unlike what I thought would happen.

Early in 1912, the Prime Minister set up again, under his own chairmanship, the Invasion Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence. This was virtually the Committee which had assembled during the Agadir crisis in the previous August, and henceforth down to the outbreak of the war it continued to meet not infrequently. I asked that Mr. Balfour, who had retired from the leadership of the Unionist party, should be added to the Committee. This was effected.

The main question before us was the possibility of the invasion of Great Britain by Germany; but incidentally many other aspects of a war with Germany were patiently and searchingly examined. The position which I stated on behalf of the Admiralty was briefly as follows:—

Once the Fleet was concentrated in its war station, no large army could be landed in the British Isles. ‘Large Army’ was defined for this purpose as anything over 70,000 men. More than that we guaranteed to intercept or break up while landing. Less than that could be dealt with by the British Regular Army, provided it had not left the country. But the War Office proposed to send the whole Expeditionary Force of six Divisions out of the country immediately upon the declaration of war, and to have it all in France by the thirteenth or fourteenth day. The Admiralty were unable to guarantee—though we thought it very unlikely—that smaller bodies of perhaps twenty or thirty thousand Germans might not slip across the North Sea. These would have to be met at once by well-trained troops. The Territorial Force would not be capable in the very early days of their embodiment of coping with the invaders. Some regular troops ought, therefore, to be left in the country till we saw how matters went at sea, and could measure our real position with more certainty. It would be a disastrous mistake to begin sending six Divisions, and then because of a successful raid have to interrupt the whole process and disentangle two or more Divisions from the troops in transit to make head against the raiders. We therefore argued that four Divisions only should be sent in the first instance, and that two should be left behind till we knew how we stood at sea. The presence of these two Divisions at home, together with the Territorial Force, would make it not worth while for the Germans to invade except with an army large enough to be certainly caught in transit by the Fleet. Only an army of a certain size at home could give the Navy a sufficiently big target on salt water. ‘You could not,’ as Sir Arthur Wilson pithily observed, ‘expect the Navy to play international football without a goalkeeper.’ The War Office, on the other hand, continued to demand the immediate dispatch of the whole six Divisions.

This controversy was never finally settled till the war began. It certainly afforded the means of exploring every imaginable aspect of the conditions which would arise in the first few weeks of war. Further than that no man could see. When the actual test came, both the War Office and the Admiralty abandoned their respective contentions simultaneously. Lord Kitchener decided to send only four Divisions immediately to France, while I on behalf of the Admiralty announced at the great War Council on the 5th August that as we were fully mobilised and had every ship at its war station, we would take the responsibility of guarding the island in the absence of the whole six Divisions. We thus completely changed places. The Admiralty were better than their word when it came to the point, and the War Office more cautious than their intentions. Surveying it all in retrospect, I believe Lord Kitchener’s decision was right. But it was taken freely and not under duress from the Admiralty.

While the discussions of the Invasion Committee were at their height during the spring and summer of 1913, I prepared a series of papers in support of the Admiralty view, but also designed to explore and illuminate the situations that might arise. They show the hopes and fears we felt before the event, what we thought the enemy might do against us, and the dangers we hoped to avoid ourselves. They show the kind of mental picture I was able to summon up in imagination of these tremendous episodes which were so soon to rush upon us. My intention also was to stimulate thought in the Admiralty War Staff, and to expose weak points in our arrangements. For this purpose I entered into an active discussion and correspondence with several of the ablest Admirals (notably Admiral Beatty, Admiral Lewis Bayly, and Sir Reginald Custance), seeking to have the whole matter argued out to the utmost limit possible. I caused war games to be played at the War College in which, aided by one or the other of my naval advisers, I took one side, usually the German, and forced certain situations. I also forecasted the political data necessary to a study of military and naval action on the outbreak of war.

Various papers which I prepared in 1913 were the result of this process of study and discussion. The first, entitled ‘Notes by the First Lord of the Admiralty,’ deals with the problem of raid and invasion in general terms, and shows the conditions which would prevail in a war with Germany. The second propounds the issues to be faced by the War Staff. The third records my written discussion of the problem with the First Sea Lord, while the sittings of the Invasion Committee were proceeding. The fourth and fifth were entitled ‘The Time-Table of a Nightmare’ and ‘A Bolt from the Grey,’ imaginative exercises couched in a half serious vein, but designed to disturb complacency by suggesting weak points in our arrangements and perilous possibilities. Space forbids the inclusion of these last. The first three have been subjected to a certain compression.