The Oil Reserves and Supply—The Anglo-Persian Agreement—The 1914 Estimates—The Rise of Naval Expenditure—The Canadian Ships—The Conflict over the Estimates—The Admiralty Case—A New Year’s Declaration—Final Stage of the Estimates—The European Calm and the Anglo-German Détente—Renewed Efforts for an Anglo-German Naval Agreement—British Party Strife and Irish Feuds—Aggravation of the Irish Struggle—Faction—The Curragh Episode—Parliamentary Fury—Appeals to Reason—The Buckingham Palace Conference—Visits of the British Squadrons to Kiel and Kronstadt—The Crime of Sarajevo—The Sunlit World—Origin of the Test Mobilisation—The Great Review.

During the whole of 1913 I was subjected to an ever-growing difficulty about the oil supply. We were now fully committed to oil as the sole, motive power for a large proportion of the Fleet, including all the newest and most vital units. There was great anxiety on the Board of Admiralty and in the War Staff about our oil-fuel reserves. The Second Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, vehemently pressed for very large increases in the scales contemplated. The Chief of the War Staff was concerned not only about the amount of the reserves but about the alleged danger of using so explosive a fuel in ships of war. Lastly, Lord Fisher’s Royal Commission, actuated by Admiralty disquietude, showed themselves inclined to press for a reserve equal to four years’ expected war consumption. The war consumption itself had been estimated on the most liberal scale by the Naval Staff. The expense of creating the oil reserve was however enormous. Not only had the oil to be bought in a monopoly-ridden market, but large installations of oil tanks had to be erected and land purchased for the purpose. Although this oil-fuel reserve when created was clearly, whether for peace or war, as much an asset of the State as the gold reserve in the Bank of England, we were not allowed to treat it as capital expenditure: all must be found out of the current Estimates. At the same time, the Treasury and my colleagues in the Cabinet were becoming increasingly indignant at the naval expense, which it might be contended was largely due to my precipitancy in embarking on oil-burning battleships and also in wantonly increasing the size of the guns and the speed and armour of these vessels. On the one hand, therefore, I was subjected to this ever-growing naval pressure, and on the other to a solid wall of resistance to expense. In the midst of all lay the existence of our naval power.

I had thus to fight all the year on two fronts: on one to repulse the excessive and, as I thought, extravagant demands of the Royal Commission and of my naval advisers, and on the other to wrest the necessary supplies from the Treasury and the Cabinet. I had to be very careful that arguments intended for one front did not become known to my antagonists on the other. I wrote to Lord Fisher that to prescribe a four years standard of reserves would be the death-blow to the oil policy of which he was the champion. I was forced to enter into arguments of extreme technical detail with the Second Sea Lord and the War Staff both as to the probable consumption per month of oil in the opening phases of a naval war, and secondly upon the number of months’ supply that should be in the country in each individual month. I had extreme difficulties with the Board of Admiralty in regard to the reductions which I thought necessary in both scales, and I feared for some time that I should lose the services of the Second Sea Lord. This, however, was happily averted and we finally agreed upon reduced scales which were in the end accepted by all concerned. These conclusions stood the test of war.

The reduced scales estimated a total consumption in the first ten months of war of 1,000,000 tons. The actual consumption was 800,000. At the end of the ten months we held 1,000,000 tons in reserve, or another twelve months’ supply at the current rate of expenditure, apart from further purchases which proceeded ceaselessly on the greatest scale.

During this year (1913) also I carried through the House of Commons the Bill authorising the Anglo-Persian Oil Convention. This encountered a confusing variety of oppositions—economists deprecating naval expenditure; members for mining constituencies who were especially sensible of the danger of departing from the sound basis of British coal; oil magnates who objected to a national inroad upon their monopolies; Conservatives who disapproved of State trading; partisan opponents who denounced the project as an unwarrantable gamble with public money and did not hesitate to impute actual corruption. There was always a danger of these divergent forces combining on some particular stage or point. However, we gradually threaded our way through these difficulties and by the Autumn the Convention was the law of the land. We now at any rate had an oil supply of our own.

All our financial commitments, fomented by rising prices and the ever-increasing complexity and refinement of naval appliances, came remorselessly to a head at the end of 1913 when the Estimates for the new year had to be presented first to the Treasury and then to the Cabinet. Knowing that the conflict would be most severe, I warned all Admiralty departments to be well ahead with their financial work and to prepare justification for the unprecedented demands we were obliged to make. We set forth our case in a volume of some eighty pages in which we analysed minutely each vote and marshalled our reasons. The main burden of this task fell upon the Financial Secretary, Dr. Macnamara, whose long experience of Admiralty business was invaluable.

We failed to reach any agreement with the Treasury in the preliminary discussions, and the whole issue was remitted to the Cabinet at the end of November. There followed nearly five months of extreme dispute and tension, during which Naval Estimates formed the main and often the sole topic of conversation at no less than fourteen full and prolonged meetings of the Cabinet. At the outset I found myself almost in a minority of one. I was not in a position to give way on any of the essentials, especially in regard to the Battleship programme, without departing from the calculated and declared standards of strength on which the whole of our policy towards Germany depended. The Cabinet had decided in 1912 to maintain equality in the Mediterranean with the Austrian Fleet, four Dreadnoughts of which were steadily building. Moreover, the issue was complicated by the promised three Canadian Dreadnoughts. The Canadian Government had stipulated that these should be additional to the 60 per cent. standard. We had formally declared that they were indispensable, and on this assurance Sir Robert Borden was committed to a fierce party fight in Canada. As it was now clear, owing to the action of the Canadian Senate, that these ‘additional’ ‘indispensable’ ships would not be laid down in the ensuing year, I was forced to demand the earlier laying down of three at least of the battleships of the 1914–15 programme. This was a very hard matter for the Cabinet to sanction. By the middle of December it seemed to me certain that I should have to resign. The very foundations of naval policy were challenged, and the controversy was maintained by Ministerial critics specially acquainted with Admiralty business, versed in every detail of the problem and entitled to be exactly informed on every point. The Prime Minister, however, while appearing to remain impartial, so handled matters that no actual breach occurred. On several occasions when it seemed that disagreement was total and final, he prevented a decision adverse to the Admiralty by terminating the discussion; and in the middle of December, when this process could go on no longer, he adjourned the whole matter till the middle of January.

I wrote to him on December 18:—

‘Your letter is very kind, and I appreciate fully all the difficulties of the situation. But there is no chance whatever of my being able to go on, if the quota of capital ships for 1914–15 is reduced below four. Even the Daily News does not expect that. I base myself on (1) my public declarations in Parliament; (2) the 60 per cent. standard (see Minute of the Sea Lords); (3) the Cabinet decision on the Mediterranean; and (4) my obligations towards Mr. Borden. You must in this last aspect consider broad effects.

‘If on a general révirement of Naval Policy the Cabinet decide to reduce the quota, it would be indispensable that a new exponent should be chosen. I have no doubts at all about my duty.

‘My loyalty to you, my conviction of your superior judgment and superior record on naval matters, prompt me to go all possible lengths to prevent disagreement in the Cabinet. But no reduction or postponement beyond the year of the four ships is possible to me.

‘I gathered that the final decision was to stand over till we reassemble in January. But there is no hope of any alteration in my view on this cardinal point, or of the view of my naval advisers.’

To the First Sea Lord I wrote on December 26:—

‘I could not in any circumstances remain responsible if the declared programme of four ships were cut down. But my responsibility is greater than anyone else’s, and I hold my naval colleagues perfectly free to review the situation without regard to the action which I should take in the circumstances which may now be apprehended.’

Prince Louis, however, assured me that he and the other Sea Lords would not remain in their appointments in the situation described. My two political colleagues, Dr. Macnamara and Mr. Lambert, the Civil Lord, were both stalwart Radicals, but there was no doubt that they also would have declined responsibility. They had both been at the Admiralty for six or seven years, and their devotion to the interests of the Navy and of the National Defence was unquestionable. We thus all stood together.

During the interval of the Christmas holidays, which I spent in the south of France, I restated the Admiralty case in the light of all the discussions which had taken place. The closing passages of this Document may be reproduced.

No survey of British naval expenditure and no controversy arising out of it can be confined to our naval strength. It must also have regard to our military weakness compared to all the other European States that are building Navies. Even the modest establishments which Parliament has regarded as necessary have not been and are not being maintained. In 1913, when the five Great Powers of Europe have added over 50 millions to their military expenditure, when every Power in the world is increasing the numbers and efficiency of its soldiers, our regular army has dropped by 6,200 men. The Special Reserve is 20,000 short, and the Territorials are 65,000 short. Only the belief that the naval strength of the country is being effectively maintained prevents a widespread, and in important respects a well justified, alarm. If at any time we lose the confidence which the country has given to our naval administration in the last 5 years, the public attention cannot fail to be turned into channels which, apart from raising awkward questions, will lead directly to largely increased expenditure.

Our naval standards and the programmes which give effect to them must also be examined in relation not only to Germany but to the rest of the world. We must begin by recognising how different the part played by our Navy is from that of the Navies of every other country. Alone among the great modern States we can neither defend the soil upon which we live nor subsist upon its produce. Our whole regular army is liable to be ordered abroad for the defence of India. The food of our people, the raw material of their industries, the commerce which constitutes our wealth, has to be protected as it traverses thousands of miles of sea and ocean from every quarter of the globe. Our necessary insistence upon the right of capture of private property at sea exposes British merchant ships to the danger of attack not only by enemy’s warships but by converted armed-merchantmen. The burden of responsibility laid upon the British Navy is heavy, and its weight increases year by year.

All the world is building ships of the greatest power, training officers and men, creating arsenals, and laying broad and deep the foundations of future permanent naval development and expansion. In every country powerful interests and huge industries are growing up which will render any check or cessation in the growth of Navies increasingly difficult as time passes. Besides the Great Powers, there are many small States who are buying or building great ships of war and whose vessels may by purchase, by some diplomatic combination, or by duress, be brought into the line against us. None of these Powers need, like us, Navies to defend their actual safety or independence. They build them so as to play a part in the world’s affairs. It is sport to them. It is death to us.

These possibilities were described by Lord Crewe in the House of Lords last year. It is not suggested that the whole world will turn upon us, or that our preparations should contemplate such a monstrous contingency. By a sober and modest conduct, by a skilful diplomacy we can in part disarm and in part divide the elements of potential danger. But two things must be remembered. First, that our diplomacy depends in a great part for its effectiveness upon our naval position, and that our naval strength is the one great balancing force which we can contribute to our own safety and to the peace of the world. Secondly, we are not a young people with a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves, in times when other powerful nations were paralysed by barbarism or internal war, an immense share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, often seems less reasonable to others than to us.

Further, we do not always play the humble rôle of passive unassertiveness. We have intervened regularly—as it was our duty to do, and as we could not help doing—in the affairs of Europe and of the world. We are now deeply involved in the European situation. We have responsibilities in many quarters. It is only two years ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer went to the Mansion House and delivered a speech which to save Europe from war, brought us to the very verge of it. I have myself heard the Foreign Secretary say to my predecessor that he had received so stiff a communication from the German Ambassador, that the Fleet must be placed in a condition of readiness to be attacked at any moment. The impression which those events produced in my mind is ineffaceable. I saw that even a Liberal Government, whose first and most profound resolve must always be to preserve peace, might be compelled to face the gravest and most hateful possibilities. All Governments in England will not be Liberal Governments; all Foreign Secretaries will not have the success of Sir Edward Grey. We have passed through a year of continuous anxiety and, although I believe the foundations of peace among the Great Powers have been strengthened, the causes which might lead to a general war have not been removed and often remind us of their presence. There has not been the slightest abatement of naval and military preparation. On the contrary, we are witnessing this year increases of expenditure by the Continental Powers beyond all previous experience. The world is arming as it has never armed before. Every suggestion of arrest or limitation has been brushed aside. From time to time awkward things happen, and situations occur which make it necessary that the naval force at our immediate disposal, now in this quarter now in that, should be rapidly counted up. On such occasions the responsibilities which rest on the Admiralty come home with brutal reality to the Minister at its head, and unless our naval strength is solidly, amply and unswervingly maintained, with due and fair regard to the opinions of the professional advisers of the Government, I could not feel that I was doing my duty if I did not warn the country of its danger.

The memorandum and the interval for reflection produced a certain change in the situation, and on my return to England in the middle of January, I was informed by several of my most important colleagues that they considered the Admiralty case on main essentials had been made good. The conflict, however, renewed itself with the utmost vigour. We continued to pump out documents and arguments from the Admiralty in a ceaseless stream, dealing with each new point as it was challenged. I telegraphed to Sir Robert Borden acquainting him with the crisis that was developing about the three ships to be accelerated in lieu of the Canadian Dreadnoughts, informing him of my intention to resign if unsuccessful, and invoking his aid by a full exposition of the Canadian point of view. This he most readily gave, setting forth in a masterly telegram the embarrassed position in which his Government would stand in their naval effort if no additional measure were taken by us to cover their interim default.

Meanwhile, echoes of the controversy had found their way into the newspapers. As early as January 3, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an interview with the Daily Chronicle, had deplored the folly of expenditure upon armaments, had pointedly referred to the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill on the subject of economy, and had expressed the opinion that the state and prospects of the world were never more peaceful. The Liberal and Radical press were loud in their economy chorus, and a very strong movement against the Admiralty developed among our most influential supporters in the House of Commons. However, Parliament soon reassembled. The Irish question began to dominate attention. Eager partisans of the Home Rule cause were by no means anxious to see the Government weakened by the resignation of the entire Board of Admiralty. We were already so hard pressed in the party struggle that the defection even of a single Minister might have produced a serious effect. No one expected me to pass away in sweet silence. The prospect of a formidable naval agitation added to the Irish tension was recognised as uninviting. In order to strengthen myself with my party, I mingled actively in the Irish controversy; and in this precarious situation the whole of February and part of March passed without any ground given or taken on either side.

At last, thanks to the unwearying patience of the Prime Minister, and to his solid, silent support, the Naval Estimates were accepted practically as they stood. In all these months of bickering we had only lost three small cruisers and twelve torpedo-boats for harbour defence. Estimates were presented to Parliament for 52½ millions. We had not secured this victory without being compelled to give certain general assurances with regard to the future. I agreed, under proper reserves, to promise a substantial reduction on the Estimates of the following year. When the time came, I was not pressed to redeem this undertaking.

The spring and summer of 1914 were marked in Europe by an exceptional tranquillity. Ever since Agadir the policy of Germany towards Great Britain had not only been correct but considerate. All through the tangle of the Balkan Conferences British and German diplomacy laboured in harmony. The long distrust which had grown up in the Foreign Office, though not removed, was sensibly modified. Some at least of those who were accustomed to utter warnings began to feel the need of revising their judgment. The personalities who expressed the foreign policy of Germany seemed for the first time to be men to whom we could talk and with whom common action was possible. The peaceful solution of the Balkan difficulties afforded justification for the feeling of confidence. For months we had negotiated upon the most delicate questions on the brink of local rupture, and no rupture had come. There had been a score of opportunities had any Power wished to make war. Germany seemed, with us, to be set on peace. Although abroad the increase of armaments was proceeding with constant acceleration, although the fifty million capital tax had been levied in Germany, and that alarm bell was ringing for those that had ears to hear, a distinct feeling of optimism passed over the mind of the British Government and the House of Commons. There seemed also to be a prospect that the personal goodwill and mutual respect which had grown up between the principal people on both sides might play a useful part in the future: and some there were who looked forward to a wider combination in which Great Britain and Germany, without prejudice to their respective friendships or alliances, might together bring the two opposing European systems into harmony and give to all the anxious nations solid assurances of safety and fair play.

Naval rivalry had at the moment ceased to be a cause of friction. We were proceeding inflexibly for the third year in succession with our series of programmes according to scale and declaration. Germany had made no further increases since the beginning of 1912. It was certain that we could not be overtaken as far as capital ships were concerned. I thought that the moment was opportune to renew by another method the conversations about a naval agreement if not a naval holiday which had been interrupted in 1912. I therefore suggested to the Foreign Secretary that I should meet Admiral von Tirpitz if a convenient opportunity presented itself, and I set out in the following minute some of the points which I thought might be discussed and which, though small, if agreed upon would make for easement and stability.

In Madrid at Easter, Sir Ernest Cassel told me that he had received from Herr Ballin a statement to this effect: ‘How I wish that I could get Churchill here during the Kiel Week. Tirpitz will never allow the Chancellor to settle any naval questions, but I know he would like to have a talk with his English colleague on naval matters, and I am sure that if the subject of limiting naval armaments were ever approached in a businesslike way, some agreement would be reached.’ On the same day I received a telegram from the Admiralty, saying that the Foreign Office particularly wished a British squadron to visit German ports simultaneously with other naval visits. Personally I should like to meet Tirpitz, and I think a non-committal, friendly conversation, if it arose naturally and freely, might do good, and could not possibly do any harm. Indeed, after all I have said about a Naval Holiday, it would be difficult for me to repulse any genuine desire on his part for such a conversation. The points I wish to discuss are these:—

1st. My own Naval Holiday proposals and to show him, as I can easily do, the good faith and sound reasons on which they are based. I do not expect any agreement on these, but I would like to strip the subject of the misrepresentation and misunderstanding with which it has been surrounded, and put it on a clear basis in case circumstances should ever render it admissible.

2nd. I wish to take up with him the suggestion which he made in his last speech on Naval Estimates of a limitation in the size of capital ships. Even if numbers could not be touched, a limitation in the size would be a great saving, and is on every ground to be desired. This subject could only be satisfactorily explored by direct personal discussion in the first instance.

3rd. I wish to encourage him to send German ships to foreign stations by showing him how much we wish to do the same, and how readily we shall conform to any dispositions which have the effect of reducing the unwholesome concentration of fleets in Home Waters. Quite apart from the diplomatic aspect, it is bad for the discipline and organisation of both navies, and the Germans fully recognise this.

4th. I wish to discuss the abandonment of secrecy in regard to the numbers and general characteristics (apart from special inventions) of the ships, built and building, in British and German dockyards. This policy of secrecy was instituted by the British Admiralty a few years ago with the worst results for us, for we have been much less successful in keeping our secrets than the Germans. I should propose to him in principle that we gave the Naval Attachés equal and reciprocal facilities to visit the dockyards and see what was going on just as they used to do in the past. If this could be agreed upon it would go a long way to stopping the espionage on both sides which is a continued cause of suspicion and ill-feeling.

I hope, in view of the very strong feeling there is about naval expenditure and the great difficulties I have to face, my wish to put these points to Admiral von Tirpitz if a good opportunity arises, and if it is clear that he would not resent it, may not be dismissed. On the other hand, I do not wish to go to Germany for the purpose of initiating such a discussion. I would rather go for some other reason satisfactory in itself, and let the discussion of these serious questions come about only if it is clearly appropriate....

For the present I suggest that nothing should be done until the Emperor’s invitation arrives; and, secondly, until we hear what Tirpitz’s real wish is.

Sir Edward Grey was apprehensive that more harm than good might result from such a discussion, and I do not myself pronounce upon the point; but I am anxious to place the letter on record as a proof of my desire while maintaining our naval position to do all that could be done to mitigate asperity between the British and German Empires.

The strange calm of the European situation contrasted with the rising fury of party conflict at home. The quarrel between Liberals and Conservatives had taken on much of that tense bitterness and hatred belonging to Irish affairs. As it became certain that the Home Rule Bill would pass into law under the machinery of the Parliament Act, the Protestant counties of Ulster openly developed their preparations for armed resistance. In this they were supported and encouraged by the whole Conservative party. The Irish Nationalist leaders—Mr. Redmond, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Devlin and others—watched the increasing gravity of the situation in Ulster with apprehension. But there were elements behind them whose fierceness and whose violence were indescribable; and every step or gesture of moderation on the part of the Irish Parliamentary Party excited passionate anger. Between these difficulties Mr. Asquith’s Government sought to thread their way.

From the earliest discussions on the Home Rule Bill in 1909 the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I had always advocated the exclusion of Ulster on a basis of county option or some similar process. We had been met by the baffling argument that such a concession might well be made as the final means of securing a settlement, but would be fruitless till then. The time had now arrived when the Home Rule issue had reached its supreme climax, and the Cabinet was generally agreed that we could not go farther without providing effectually for the exclusion of Ulster. In March, therefore, the Irish leaders were informed that the Government had so resolved. They resisted vehemently. They had it in their power at any time to turn out the Government, and they would have been powerfully reinforced from within the Liberal Party itself. There is no doubt that the Irish leaders feared, and even expected, that any weakening of the Bill would lead to its and their repudiation by the Irish people. Confronted, however, with the undoubted fact that the Government would not shrink from being defeated and broken up on the point, they yielded. Amendments were framed which secured to any Ulster county the right to vote itself out of the Home Rule Bill until after two successive General Elections had taken place in the United Kingdom. There could be no greater practical safeguard than this. It preserved the principle of Irish unity, but it made certain that unity could never be achieved except by the free consent of the Protestant North after seeing a Dublin Parliament actually on trial for a period of at least five years.

These proposals were no sooner announced to Parliament than they were rejected with contumely by the Conservative opposition. We, however, embodied them in the text of the Bill and compelled the Irish Party to vote for their inclusion. We now felt that we could go forward with a clear conscience and enforce the law against all who challenged it. My own personal view had always been that I would never coerce Ulster to make her come under a Dublin Parliament, but I would do all that was necessary to prevent her stopping the rest of Ireland having the Parliament they desired. I believe this was sound and right, and in support of it I was certainly prepared to maintain the authority of Crown and Parliament under the Constitution by whatever means were necessary. I spoke in this sense at Bradford on March 14th.

It is greatly to be hoped that British political leaders will never again allow themselves to be goaded and spurred and driven by each other or by their followers into the excesses of partisanship which on both sides disgraced the year 1914, and which were themselves only the culmination of that long succession of biddings and counter-biddings for mastery to which a previous chapter has alluded. No one who has not been involved in such contentions can understand the intensity of the pressures to which public men are subjected, or the way in which every motive in their nature, good, bad and indifferent, is marshalled in the direction of further effort to secure victory. The vehemence with which great masses of men yield themselves to partisanship and follow the struggle as if it were a prize fight, their ardent enthusiasm, their glistening eyes, their swift anger, their distrust and contempt if they think they are to be baulked of their prey; the sense of wrongs mutually interchanged, the extortion and enforcement of pledges, the infectious loyalties, the praise that waits on violence, the chilling disdain, the honest disappointment, the cries of ‘treachery’ with which every proposal of compromise is hailed; the desire to keep good faith with those who follow, the sense of right being on one’s side, the harsh unreasonable actions of opponents—all these acting and reacting reciprocally upon one another tend towards the perilous climax. To fall behind is to be a laggard or a weakling, not sincere, not courageous; to get in front of the crowd, if only to command them and to deflect them, prompts often very violent action. And at a certain stage it is hardly possible to keep the contention within the limits of words or laws. Force, that final arbiter, that last soberer, may break upon the scene.

The preparations of the Ulster men continued. They declared their intention of setting up a provisional Government. They continued to develop and train their forces. They imported arms unlawfully and even by violence. It need scarcely be said that the same kind of symptoms began to manifest themselves among the Nationalists. Volunteers were enrolled by thousands, and efforts were made to procure arms.

As all this peril grew, the small military posts in the North of Ireland, particularly those containing stores of arms, became a source of preoccupation to the War Office. So also did the position of the troops in Belfast. The Orangemen would never have harmed the Royal forces. It was more than probable that the troops would fraternise with them. But the Government saw themselves confronted with a complete overturn of their authority throughout North-East Ulster. In these circumstances, military and naval precautions were indispensable. On 14th March it was determined to protect the military stores at Carrickfergus and certain other places by small reinforcements, and as it was expected that the Great Northern Railway of Ireland would refuse to carry the troops, preparations were made to send them by sea. It was also decided to move a battle squadron and a flotilla from Arosa Bay, where they were cruising, to Lamlash whence they could rapidly reach Belfast. It was thought that the popularity and influence of the Royal Navy might produce a peaceable solution, even if the Army had failed. Beyond this nothing was authorised, but the Military Commanders, seeing themselves confronted with what might well be the opening movements in a civil war, began to study plans of a much more serious character on what was the inherently improbable assumption that the British troops would be forcibly resisted and fired upon by the Orange army.

These military measures, limited though they were, and the possible consequences that might follow them, produced the greatest distress among the officers of the Army, and when on 20th March the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland and other Generals made sensational appeals to gatherings of officers at the Curragh to discharge their constitutional duty in all circumstances, they encountered very general refusals.

These shocking events caused an explosion of unparalleled fury in Parliament and shook the State to its foundations. The Conservatives accused the Government of having plotted the massacre of the loyalists of Ulster, in which design they had been frustrated only by the patriotism of the Army. The Liberals replied that the Opposition were seeking to subvert the Constitution by openly committing themselves to preparations for rebellion, and had seduced not the Army but its officers from their allegiance by propaganda. We cannot read the debates that continued at intervals through April, May and June, without wondering that our Parliamentary institutions were strong enough to survive the passions by which they were convulsed. Was it astonishing that German agents reported and German statesmen believed that England was paralysed by faction and drifting into civil war, and need not be taken into account as a factor in the European situation? How could they discern or measure the deep unspoken understandings which lay far beneath the froth and foam and fury of the storm?

In all these scenes I played a prominent and a vehement part, but I never doubted for a moment the strength of the foundation on which we rested. I felt sure in my own mind that, now that the sting was out of the Home Rule Bill, nothing in the nature of civil war would arise. On the contrary I hoped for a settlement with the Conservative Party not only upon the Home Rule Bill with Ulster excluded, but also on other topics which ever since 1909 had been common ground between some of those who were disputing so angrily. I felt, however, that the Irish crisis must move forward to its climax, and that a reasonable settlement could only be reached in the recoil.

On the 28th April I closed a partisan reply to a violent attack with the following direct appeal to Sir Edward Carson:—

‘I adhere to my Bradford speech ... but I will venture to ask the House once more at this moment in our differences and quarrels to consider whither it is we may find ourselves going.... Apart from the dangers which this controversy and this Debate clearly show exist at home, look at the consequences abroad.

‘Anxiety is caused in every friendly country by the belief that for the time being Great Britain cannot act. The high mission of this country is thought to be in abeyance, and the balance of Europe appears in many quarters for the time being to be deranged. Of course, foreign countries never really understand us in these islands. They do not know what we know, that at a touch of external difficulties or menace all these fierce internal controversies would disappear for the time being, and we should be brought into line and into tune. But why is it that men are so constituted that they can only lay aside their own domestic quarrels under the impulse of what I will call a higher principle of hatred?...

‘Why cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Edward Carson) say boldly, “Give me the Amendments to this Home Rule Bill which I ask for, to safeguard the dignity and the interests of Protestant Ulster, and I in return will use all my influence and goodwill to make Ireland an integral unit in a federal system”?’

These words gave the debate an entirely new turn. The Prime Minister said the next day, ‘The First Lord’s proposal was made on his own account, but I am heartily in sympathy with it.’ Mr. Balfour declared that it had ‘the promise and the potency of a settlement which would avoid this final and irreparable catastrophe of civil war.’ Later, Sir Edward Carson, after laying stress on the gravity of the crisis and the weakening it entailed on the position of Great Britain abroad, declared that he would not quarrel with the matter or the manner of my proposal, and that ‘he was not very far from the First Lord.’ If Home Rule passed, his most earnest hope would be that it might be such a success that Ulster might come under it, and that mutual confidence and good will might arise in Ireland, rendering Ulster a stronger unit in the federal scheme. These potent indications were not comprehended on the Continent.

During the whole of May and June the party warfare proceeded in its most strident form, but underneath the surface negotiations for a settlement between the two great parties were steadily persisted in. These eventuated on the 20th July in a summons by the King to the leaders of the Conservative, Liberal and Irish parties to meet in conference at Buckingham Palace. When this conference was in its most critical stage I wrote the following letter to Sir Edward Grey: the wording is curious in view of the fact that I had then no idea of what the next forty-eight hours was to produce. On this I am content to rest so far as the Irish question before the war is concerned.

... Failing an Irish agreement there ought to be a British decision. Carson and Redmond, whatever their wishes, may be unable to agree about Tyrone; they may think it worth a war; and from their point of view it may be worth a war. But that is hardly the position of the forty millions who dwell in Great Britain; and their interests must, when all is said and done, be our chief and final care. In foreign affairs you would proceed by two stages. First you would labour to stop Austria and Russia going to war; second, if that failed, you would try to prevent England, France, Germany and Italy being drawn in. Exactly what you would do in Europe, is right in this domestic danger, with the difference that in Europe the second step would only hope to limit and localise the conflict, whereas at home the second step—if practicable and adopted—would prevent the local conflict.

The conference therefore should labour to reduce the difference to the smallest definite limits possible. At that point, if no agreement had been reached, the Speaker should be asked to propose a partition; and we should offer the Unionist leaders to accept it if they will....

I want peace by splitting the outstanding differences, if possible with Irish acquiescence, but if necessary over the heads of both Irish parties.

At the end of June the simultaneous British naval visits to Kronstadt and Kiel took place. For the first time for several years some of the finest ships of the British and German Navies lay at their moorings at Kiel side by side surrounded by liners, yachts and pleasure craft of every kind. Undue curiosity in technical matters was banned by mutual agreement. There were races, there were banquets, there were speeches. There was sunshine, there was the Emperor. Officers and men fraternised and entertained each other afloat and ashore. Together they strolled arm in arm through the hospitable town, or dined with all good will in mess and wardroom. Together they stood bareheaded at the funeral of a German officer killed in flying an English seaplane.

In the midst of these festivities, on the 28th June, arrived the news of the murder of the Archduke Charles at Sarajevo. The Emperor was out sailing when he received it. He came on shore in noticeable agitation, and that same evening, cancelling his other arrangements, quitted Kiel.

Like many others, I often summon up in my memory the impression of those July days. The world on the verge of its catastrophe was very brilliant. Nations and Empires crowned with princes and potentates rose majestically on every side, lapped in the accumulated treasures of the long peace. All were fitted and fastened—it seemed securely—into an immense cantilever. The two mighty European systems faced each other glittering and clanking in their panoply, but with a tranquil gaze. A polite, discreet, pacific, and on the whole sincere diplomacy spread its web of connections over both. A sentence in a dispatch, an observation by an ambassador, a cryptic phrase in a Parliament seemed sufficient to adjust from day to day the balance of the prodigious structure. Words counted, and even whispers. A nod could be made to tell. Were we after all to achieve world security and universal peace by a marvellous system of combinations in equipoise and of armaments in equation, of checks and counter-checks on violent action ever more complex and more delicate? Would Europe thus marshalled, thus grouped, thus related, unite into one universal and glorious organism capable of receiving and enjoying in undreamed of abundance the bounty which nature and science stood hand in hand to give? The old world in its sunset was fair to see.

But there was a strange temper in the air. Unsatisfied by material prosperity the nations turned restlessly towards strife internal or external. National passions, unduly exalted in the decline of religion, burned beneath the surface of nearly every land with fierce if shrouded fires. Almost one might think the world wished to suffer. Certainly men were everywhere eager to dare. On all sides the military preparations, precautions and counter precautions had reached their height. France had her Three Years’ military service; Russia her growing strategic Railways. The Ancient Empire of the Hapsburgs, newly smitten by the bombs of Sarajevo, was a prey to intolerable racial stresses and profound processes of decay. Italy faced Turkey; Turkey confronted Greece; Greece, Serbia and Roumania stood against Bulgaria. Britain was rent by faction and seemed almost negligible. America was three thousand miles away. Germany, her fifty million capital tax expended on munitions, her army increases completed, the Kiel Canal open for Dreadnought battleships that very month, looked fixedly upon the scene and her gaze became suddenly a glare.

In the autumn of 1913, when I was revolving the next year’s Admiralty policy in the light of the coming Estimates, I had sent the following minute to the First Sea Lord:—

We have now had manœuvres in the North Sea on the largest scale for two years running, and we have obtained a great deal of valuable data which requires to be studied. It does not therefore seem necessary to supplement the ordinary tactical exercises of the year 1914–15 by Grand Manœuvres. A saving of nearly £200,000 could apparently be effected in coal and oil consumption, and a certain measure of relief would be accorded to the Estimates in an exceptionally heavy year.

In these circumstances I am drawn to the conclusion that it would be better to have no Grand Manœuvres in 1914–15, but to substitute instead a mobilisation of the Third Fleet. The whole of the Royal Fleet Reserve, and the whole of the Reserve officers could be mobilised and trained together for a week or ten days. The Third Fleet ships would be given the exact complements they would have in war, and the whole mobilisation system would be subjected to a real test. The balance Fleet Reservists could be carefully tested as to quality, and trained either afloat or ashore. I should anticipate that this would not cost more than £100,000, in which case there would still be a saving on the fuel of the manœuvres. While the Third Fleet ships were mobilised the First Fleet ships would rest, and thus plenty of officers would be available for the training of the reservists on shore, and possibly, if need be, for their peace training afloat. This last would, of course, reveal what shortage exists. A very large staff would be employed at all the mobilising centres to report upon the whole workings of the mobilisation. The schools and training establishments would be closed temporarily according to the mobilisation orders, and the whole process of putting the Navy on a war footing, so far as the Third Fleet was concerned, would be carried out. I should not propose to complete the Second Fleet, as we know all about that.

At another time in the year I should desire to see mobilised the whole of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and put them afloat on First Fleet ships for a week as additional to complements.

Please put forward definite proposals, with estimates, for carrying out the above policy, and at the same time let me have your opinion upon it.