Chapter XII: Letters to Lord Esher (2)

Of course no question as to strategic merits of a Canal, and it
ought originally to have been the scheme instead of Rosyth, but now
is it possible to make the _volte-face_? _I fear not!_ I got Rosyth
delayed 4 years as NOT being the right thing or the right place and
hoping for our Kiel Canal; but though I succeeded in the delay,
alas! I did not in the substitution. However, I will see Hankey as
you suggest. Yes, I’m quite happy, and my cry is NOT “à Berlin!”...
I’ve got some war charts that would make your mouth water!

[Sir John Fisher left the Admiralty on his birthday, Jan. 25th, 1910, and was raised to the Peerage.]

* * * * *

1910. KILVERSTONE HALL,
_February 2nd._ THETFORD.

... I’ve just got here from Cheshire, where for days running I’ve
had Paradise. 3 lovely girls in the house, a _splendid_ ball room
and music always on hand! 3 young Guardsmen there, but I held my
own!

Dancing till 4 a.m. took it out of me a bit, but it revivified me
and I renewed my strength like the Eagle!... I hope the King talked
politics with McKenna, who is very acute and would sacrifice
himself for the King. Didn’t you think McKenna excellent, the night
he dined with me, as to the course the King should pursue? You see
he knows so exactly how the Cabinet will be actuated....

There are great risks. Both political sides unscrupulous....

P.S.--Wasn’t it the Emperor Diocletian who doffed the Imperial
Purple to plant cabbages? and d--d fine cabbages, no doubt! So
don’t blackguard me for leaving the Admiralty of my own free will,
to plant roses!

* * * * *

1910.
_Feb. 18th._

... Things look ugly.... However, I’m a pure outsider! There will
be desperate efforts to supplant Wilson, so I hear from trustworthy
quarters. But McKenna will be the real loss to the Navy. The sacred
fire of efficiency burns brightly in him! and he’s a born fighter
and a good hater, which I love (as Dr. Johnson did) with all my
heart. You really _must_ come here when the weather is nicer--it’s
lovely! I’ve never known till now what joy there is in Nature. Even
beauteous woman fades in the comparison! I’ve just seen the wild
swans flying over the Lake! “The world forgetting--By the world
forgot!” is appropriate to me now!... I’ve just thought of a lovely
Preamble for my approaching “Midshipman’s Vade-Mecum” ... I rather
think it’s Blackie, though perhaps not his words:

“Four Things for a Big Life
I. A great Inspiration
II. A great Cause
III. A great Battle
IV. A great Victory

Having got those 4 things then you can preach the Gospel of Rest
and Build an Altar to Repose.”

* * * * *

1910.
_March 14th._

... I lunched with Asquith, he was _more than cordial!_ How funny
it is that I did _infinitely more_ for the Conservatives than for
the _Radicals_, and yet the Radicals have given me all I have got
and the Conservatives have only given me abuse and calumny!

The Radicals gave me my Pension and a Peerage, and yet I increased
the Radical estimates nearly ten millions! I decreased the
estimates 9 millions and reduced prospective charges by nineteen
millions sterling for the Conservatives, and they never lifted
even a little finger to help me, _but on the contrary_ have heaped
dunghill abuse on me! _How do you explain this?_

McKenna, whose life has been a burden on my account, gives me a
thing that would do for an Ascot Gold Cup with the inscription I
enclose--luckily it’s in Latin or I dare not let it be seen! (The
Craven Scholar writes to me it’s the best Latin he ever read in
his life!) I wouldn’t write all this to anyone else, but _is it
not all of it phenomenally curious?_ Well, _longo intervallo_ I
took your advice and seized an opportunity which called for my
communicating with Winston, and he sent me _by return of post_ a
most affectionate letter and says I am the one man in the world
he really loves! (Well! I really love him because he’s a great
Fighter.) What a joke if you, I and George Clarke were put on to
reform the House of Lords!

* * * * *

1910.
_March 24th._

I sent you a telegram from Ely on my way down (I caught my train by
½ a minute!) as my cogitations impelled me to suggest to you that
Asquith obviously does not see the fallacy of ----’s reasoning,
which as you very acutely observed would kill the Defence
Committee as a whole in its _guiding_, but not its administrative
or executive power, which are non-existent and inimical to its
existence. But its “_guiding_” power is England’s all-in-all, if
only its sufficiency and efficiency could be digested.

I had an immense talk with McKenna.... He was “dead on” for your
Committee. Of course the Ideal was your being President, but I
suppose the “Shifting Man” as President, according to the subject
and the Department concerned, has its merits and advantages.

* * * * *

1910.
APRIL 8TH.

Old Stead’s letter in _Standard_ on 2 keels to 1 is unsurpassable!
_It ought to be circulated in millions as a leaflet!_... What d--d
fools the Tories are not to swallow it whole--the 2 keels to 1!...
I told “the Islanders” secretly I could do more as the “mole,”
so not to put my name down--(The Mole is my _métier_! only to be
traced by upheavals!) Get Stead’s letter sent all over the Nation
as a leaflet.

I am to meet you on April 19th, Suez Canal.

I don’t know Wilson’s views. These are mine:--

General principle: 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. The
responsibility of the Suez Canal therefore cannot be theirs. If
this clashes with your views you had better cancel me on Committee,
for I’ll fight like Hell for the above vital War Principle!

* * * * *

1910.
_April 25th._

I congratulate you on the latest by “Historicus”; but do you
sufficiently intensify the intolerable tyranny of the permanent
Tory majority in the Lords that has meant a real single chamber
government for so many years? The Radicals are on the win and
no one can stop it. We exaggerate the consequences. The silly
thing is to have a General Election. Who gains? Everybody loses!
Certainly the Tories won’t win. Tariff Reform dead. Winston’s last
speeches have been very high class, especially where he shows how
far greater issues are settled by the Government than anything
appertaining to legislation without the House of Lords having a
voice and we have always taken those risks in the past without a
thought!

What is this about Kitchener hoisting out French as Inspector
General? Anything to get Kitchener out of England!

[King Edward VII. died on May 6th, 1910.]

1910.
_May._
_(Saturday.)_

What an _inexpressible_ sorrow!. How we both know the loss! What
a great National Calamity! And _personally_ what can I say? _What
a splendid and steadfast friend!_ No use saying any more to each
other--is it? _I really feel heart broken!_

* * * * *

1910.
_May 24th._ KILVERSTONE HALL.

... I really can’t get over the irreparable loss. _I think of
nothing else!_ Treves gave me a wonderful account of the King’s
last day. I rather think the King was coming to see me here, had
he remained at Sandringham. The Queen [Queen Alexandra] has been
very sweet to me. She stopped to notice me going up the steps of
St. George’s Chapel and so did her Sister [the Empress Marie]. I
appreciated it very much--but most of all my interview with her....
She told me she would come here to see me and how the King had
told her about me being disappointed at her not having been to
Kilverstone before. You’ll think me morbid writing like this.

I dined with Asquith, McKenna and George Murray last week in
London. If the Tories weren’t such d--d stupid idiots I should
rejoice at things being certain to go well.... My day is past. I
have no illusions. You will enjoy the roses I’ve planted when you
come here. How one’s life does change!

* * * * *

1910.
_May 27th._

... The Commonwealth Government [of Australia] have just sent a
confidential telegram to Sir George Reid to ask me to go as their
Guest to advise on the Navy. I’ve declined. I’d go as Dictator
but not as Adviser. Also they have commenced all wrong and it
would involve me in a campaign I intend to keep clear of with the
soldiers. By the wording of the telegram I expect further pressure.
Besides what a d--d fine thing to get me planted in the Antipodes!
[Kitchener and the Australians, in drawing up their scheme of
defence, forgot that Australia was an island. So do we here in
England.]

* * * * *

1910.
_June 7th._

... I can’t shake off my sense of loss in the King’s death. Though
personally it practically makes no difference of course--yet I feel
so curious a sense of isolation--which I can’t get over--and no
longer seem to care a d--n for anything!...

As you told me, it was miraculous I left the Admiralty when I did!
It was the nick of time! A. K. Wilson is doing splendidly and is
unassailable. I had much pressure to emerge the other day, but I
won’t, nor have I the heart now.

* * * * *

1910.
_August 5th._ KILVERSTONE HALL.

McKenna has just been here on his second visit (so he liked the
first, I suppose! I mention this as an inducement to you to come!)
He has shewn me various secret papers. HE IS A REAL FIGHTER, and
the Navy Haters will pass over his dead body! If our late Blessed
Master was alive I should know what to do; but I feel my hands tied
now. Perhaps a kindly Providence put us both on the Beach at the
right moment! Who knows?

“_The lights begin to twinkle on the rocks_”! I’ve told ---- and
others that the 2 keels to 1 policy is of inestimable value because
it eliminates the United States Navy, _which never ought to be
mentioned--criminal folly to do so_--Also it gives us such an ample
margin as to allow for discount!

The insidious game is to have an enquiry into Ship Designs, which
means delay and no money!

Two immense episodes are doing Damocles over the Navy just now. I
had settled to shove my colleagues over the precipice about both
of them, but as you know I left hurriedly to get in Wilson--so
incomparably good! We pushed them over the precipice about Water
Tube Boilers, the Turbine, the Dreadnought, the Scrapping [of ships
that could neither fight nor run away], the Nucleus Crews--the
Redistribution of the Fleet, &c., &c. In each and all it was
_Athanasius contra mundum_, but each and all a magnificent success;
so also these two waiting portents full of immense developments.

1. Oil Engines and internal combustion, about which I so dilated
at our dinner and bored you. Since that night (July 11th) Bloom &
Voss in Germany have received an order to build a Motor Liner for
the Atlantic Trade. _No engineers, no stokers, and no funnels,
no boilers! Only a d--d chauffeur! The economy prodigious!_ as
the Germans say “_Kolossal billig_”! But what will it be for War?
_Why! all the past pales before the prospect!!!_ I say to McKenna:
“Shove ’em over the precipice! _Shove!_” But he’s all alone, poor
devil!

The Second is that this Democratic Country won’t stand 99 per cent.
_at least_ of her Naval Officers being drawn from the “Upper Ten.”
It’s amazing to me that anyone should persuade himself that an
aristocratic Service can be maintained in a Democratic State. The
true democratic principle is Napoleon’s: “_La carrière ouverte aux
talents!_” The Democracy will shortly realise this, and there will
be a dangerous and mischievous agitation. The secret of successful
administration is the intelligent anticipation of agitation. Again
I say to McKenna “_Shove!!! Shove them over the precipice._” I have
the plan all cut and dried.

The pressure won’t come from inside the Navy but from outside--an
avalanche like A.D. 1788 (the French Revolution)--and will sweep
away a lot more than desirable! It is essentially a political
question rather than a Naval question proper. _It is all so easy_,
only the d--d Tory prejudices stand in the way! But I gave you a
paper about all this printed at Portsmouth, so won’t bore you with
more. I am greatly inclined to leave the Defence Committee and move
out in the open on these two vital questions on the Navy. The one
affects its fighting efficiency as much as the other. I am doing
the mole, and certain upheavals will appear shortly, but it wants a
Leader in the open!

* * * * *

1911.
_May 1st._

... I want you to think over getting the Prime Minister to
originate an enquiry for a great British Governmental Wireless
Monopoly, or rather I would say “English Speaking” Monopoly! No
one at the Admiralty or elsewhere has as yet any _the least idea_
of the _immense_ revolution both for Peace and War purposes which
will be brought about by the future development of wireless!... The
point is that this scheme wants to be engineered by the Biggest
Boss, i.e. the Prime Minister.... _Believe me_ the wireless in the
future is the soul and spirit of Peace and War, and therefore must
be in the hands of the Committee of Defence! _You can’t cut the
air!_ You can cut a telegraph cable!

* * * * *

1911.
_June 25th._ BAD NAUHEIM.

... You will see in the _Standard_ of May 29th the London
Correspondent of the _Irish Times_ lets out about Lord Fisher and
war arrangements, but as the _Standard_ in the very same issue
makes this announcement in big type: “We (Great Britain) are in the
satisfactory position of having _twice as many Dreadnoughts_ in
commission as _Germany and a number greater by one unit than the
whole of the rest of the world put together_!” I don’t think there
is the very faintest fear of war! How wonderfully Providence guides
England! Just when there is a quite natural tendency to ease down
our Naval endeavours comes AGADIR!

“Time and the Ocean and some Guiding Star
In High Cabal have made us what we are!”

“The Greatest Power on ’Airth,’” as Mr. Champ Clarke would say!
(You ought to meet Champ Clarke.) He is likely to succeed Taft as
President, _but I put my money on Woodrow Wilson_. He is Bismarck
and Moltke rolled into one!... I need not say that I remain in the
closest bonds with the Admiralty. I never did a wiser thing than
coming abroad and remaining abroad and working like a mole. _I
shall not return till July, 1912._ Most damnable efforts against
me continue in full swing: nevertheless like Gideon--“Faint
yet pursuing” is my motto.... And yet because in 1909 at the
Guildhall when our Naval supremacy had been arranged for in the
Navy Estimates of the year I said to my countrymen “Sleep quiet in
your beds!” I was vehemently vilified with malignant truculence,
and only yesterday I got a letter from an Aristocrat of the
Aristocrats, saying he had heard it stated by a Man of Eminence the
day before that I was in the pay of Germany! It is curious that I
can’t get over the personal great blank I feel in the death of our
late blessed Friend King Edward! There was something in the charm
of his heart that still chains one to his memory--some magnetic
touch!

* * * * *

1911.
_Sept. 20th._ LUCERNE.

Through dancing with a sweet American (and indeed they are truly
delightful, especially if you have the same partner all the
evening!) I hear via a Bremen multi-millionaire that though the
most optimistic official assurances of peace emanate from Berlin
yet there is the most extreme nervousness amongst the German
business men because of the revelation to them of the French power
both financially and fightingly, so unexpected by them. I suppose
if a Pitt or a Palmerston had now been guiding our destinies we
should have war. They would say any Peace would be a bad Peace
because of the latent damnable feeling in Germany against England.
It won’t be France any more, it will be England that will be the
red rag for the German Bull! And as we _never_ were so strong as
at present, then Pitt & Co. would say the present is the time to
fight. Personally I am confident of Peace. I happen to know in a
curious way (but quite certainly) that the Germans are in a blue
funk of the British Navy and are quite assured that 942 German
merchant steamers would be “gobbled up” in the first 48 hours of
war, and also the d--d uncertainty of _when_ and _where_ a hundred
thousand troops embarked in transports and kept “in the air” might
land! N.B.--There’s a lovely spot only 90 miles from Berlin! Anyhow
they would demobilize about a million German soldiers! But I am
getting “off the line” now! I really sat down to write and tell
you of a two days’ visit paid to me here by the new American
Ambassador to Berlin. _He is a faithful friend._ He is _very,
very_ PRO-English (he has such a lovely daughter whom I have been
dancing with, A PERFECT GEM! if she don’t turn Wilhelm’s head I’ll
eat my hat!). My friend was American Ambassador at Constantinople
when I was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet--you know
it was a ticklish time then, at the worst of the Boer War and the
British Navy kept the Peace! That old Sultan [Abdul Hamid] told
me so, and gave me a 500-guinea diamond star, bless him! and he
called Lord Salisbury a d--d fool for having left him in the lurch
and for having said that “England had put her money on the wrong
horse” in backing Turkey. The Turks being the _one_ people in the
whole world to be England’s fast (and if put to it) _only_ friend!
Well, my dear Friend! Leishman saw this _then_ in 1899, and sees
it _now_, and hence we were locked up for hours in a secret room
here! It all bears immensely on the present Franco-German Crisis!
That “_greater-than-Bismarck_” who is now German Ambassador at
Constantinople (Marschall von Bieberstein), and who is the real
director of German policy (Waechter is only his factotum! as I
will prove to you presently!) sees his rear and flanks quite safe
by having the Turks in the palm of his hand (as Leishman describes
it!) and so has been led to bluff at Agadir--but those choice
words of Lloyd George upset the German apple-cart in a way it was
never upset before! (I suppose they were “written out” words and
Cabinet words, and they were d--d fine words!) Before I go on with
the next bit of my letter I must explain to you that Leishman is a
very great friend and admirer of Marschall von Bieberstein and also
of Kiderlen-Waechter, the present German Foreign Minister. When
Marschall went on his annual 4 months’ leave from Constantinople
he always had Waechter to take his place while away, who was then
the German Minister at Bucharest! Leishman is also an ardent
admirer of the German Emperor, and he is also the most intimate
friend possessed by Mr. Philander Knox, the American Secretary of
State, who has forced Leishman to Berlin when he was in Paradise
at Rome (at all events his family were!) Well! dear Friend, it’s
a good thing that Leishman loves England. I couldn’t possibly
write to Sir E. Grey what I am writing to you (I shouldn’t write
to you except that this letter goes through France only!) and it
would be simply fatal to Leishman if it ever leaked out about his
conversations with me, but his heart is with us. I knew this when
I spent many weeks at Constantinople (and we had no friends then,
1899 and 1900!). He says _our Turkish policy is the laughing stock
of Diplomacy_! “Every schoolboy knows” that we have a Mahomedan
Existence and the Turks love us, but all we do is to kick their
----! As Leishman truly says, the Germans were in the dust by the
deposition of Abdul Hamid and England was “all” to the New Turks,
but slowly Marschall has worked his way up again, and the Germans
again possess the Turks, instead of England. The Turkish Army, the
very finest fighting army in the world, was ours for the asking,
and “_Peace--perfect Peace_” in India, Egypt and Persia; but
we’ve chucked it all away because we have had d--d fools as our
Ambassadors! But how can it be otherwise unless you put in men from
outside, like for instance Bryce at Washington? Our strength is
Mahomedan, but we are too d--d Christian to see it! and fool about
Armenian atrocities and Bulgarian horrors! Tories and Radicals are
both the same. Isn’t it wonderful how we get along! I repeat again
to you my copyright lines:--

“Time and the Ocean and some Guiding Star
In High Cabal have made us what we are!”

Look at Delagoa Bay, that might have been ours--indeed _was_ ours
only we “fooled” it away! Look at Lord Granville and the Cameroons!
Well! I haven’t given Leishman away, I don’t think! The real
German _bonne bouche_ was the complete belt across Africa, but
this only if the right of pre-emption as regards the Belgian Congo
could have been acquired. I simply tremble at the consequences
if the British Redcoats are to be planted on the Vosges Frontier
[meaning the dread of Conscription and a huge Army for Continental
Warfare].

* * * * *

1911.
_October 10th._ LUCERNE.

... I yesterday had a long letter from McKenna begging me to return
and “put the gloves on again,” and in view of his arguments I am
going to do so when A. K. Wilson vanishes early next year! It is,
however, distasteful to me. I’ve had a lovely time here.

* * * * *

1911.
_October 29th._ REIGATE PRIORY, SURREY.

... I am here 3 days with Winston and many of the Cabinet. I got
a very urgent letter to come here, and I think my advice has been
fully and completely digested, but don’t say a word, please, to a
soul! I am returning direct to Lucerne on Wednesday, after Tuesday
at Kilverstone.

* * * * *

1911.
_November 9th._ LUCERNE.

These are very ticklish times indeed! I have got to be extremely
careful. I must not get between Winston and A. K. W. in any way--it
would not only be very wrong but fatal to any smooth working. So I
begged Winston not to write to me. With extreme reluctance I went
to Reigate as I did, but McKenna urged me on the grounds of the
good of the Navy, and from what Winston has since said to a friend
of mine I think I did right in going.

* * * * *

1911.
_December._ LUCERNE.

... I shouldn’t have written again so soon except for just now
seeing in a Paris paper that Sir John French, accompanied by
four Officers, had landed at Calais _en route_ to the French
Head Quarters, and expatiating on the evident intention of joint
military action! Do you remember the classic interview we had with
the late King in his Cabin? If this is on the tapis again then we
have another deep regret for the loss of that sagacious intuition!
King Edward may not have been clever, but he never failed in his
judgment on whose opinion to rely.... Of course there may be
nothing in it! Nor do I think there is the least likelihood of war.
ENGLAND IS FAR TOO STRONG! Yet I daily get letters anticipating my
early return....

I enclose you a letter from ----, received a little time ago. He
is a very eminent Civil Engineer. There is a “dead set” being
made to get the Midshipmen under the new scheme to rebel against
“engineering”! ----, ---- & Co. are persistently at it through
their friends in the Fleet, and calling those Midshipmen who go in
for engineering--“Greasers.” The inevitable result of the present
young officers of the Navy disparaging and slighting this chief
necessary qualification of engineering in these engineering days
will be to force the throwing open of entry as officers in the
Navy _to all classes of the population_ and adopting State paid
Education and support till the pay is sufficient to support!

* * * * *

1911.
_December 24th._

... I have had a hectic time with four hurricanes crossing the
Channel and balancing on the tight-rope with one end held by
Winston and the other by McKenna, but they both held tight and I am
all right. Without doubt McKenna is a patriot to have encouraged
ME to help Winston as he has done! I have not heard what the
War Staff is doing. It does not trouble me. My sole object was
to ensure Jellicoe being Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet on
December 19th, 1913, and that is being done by his being appointed
Second-in-Command of the Home Fleet, and he will automatically
be C.-in-C. in two years from that date. All the recent changes
revolved round Jellicoe, and NO ONE sees it!

* * * * *

1912.
_Jan. 3rd._ NAPLES.

... I fully agree with you about the Navy want of first-class
Intellects. Concentration and Discipline combine to cramp the Sea
Officer.... Great views don’t get grasped. Winston urges me to
come back, but he forgets the greatest of all the great Napoleonic
sayings: “_J’ordonne, ou je me tais._” Besides, you see, I was the
First Violin. However, Winston is splendidly receptive. I can’t
possibly write what has happened, _but he is a brave man_. And as
16 Admirals have been scrapped I am more popular than ever!!! A
lovely woman two days ago sent me this riddle: “Why are you like
Holland?” “Because you lie low and are dammed all round.” But there
it is. Jellicoe will be Admiralissimo when Armageddon comes along,
and _everything that was done revolved round that_, and _no one has
seen it_. He has all the attributes of Nelson, and his age.

[_By kind permission of “The Daily Express.”_

THE ANNIVERSARY OF TRAFALGAR.

NELSON (_in Trafalgar Square_):--“I was on my way down to lend them a hand myself, but if Jacky Fisher’s taking on the job there’s no need for me to be nervous, I’ll get back on my pedestal.”

Nelson looking up Sir John Fisher on his first day as First Sea Lord, Trafalgar Day, 1904.]

* * * * *

1912.
_March 7th._ NAPLES.

You nearly saw me to-day, as a King’s Messenger roused me out the
day before yesterday with papers I really thought I could not
cope with by letter; but as obviously the object was to avoid the
gossip my appearance in London would cause I did my best with
my pen. But I see clearly I am in the middle of the whirlpool
again and must force what I feel a great disinclination for and
participate once more in the fight. I have had strangely intimate
opportunities of learning the very inside of German feeling
towards England. _It is bitterly intense and widespread._ Without
any doubt whatever the Germans thought they were going to squeeze
France out of Morocco. You can take that as a fact, no matter what
lies are told by the German Foreign Minister; and Clemenceau’s
unpublished speech would have proved it, but he said enough. And
how treacherous to England was M. Caillaux.--What a dirty business!
Anyhow, as a German Admiral of _high repute_ wrote confidentially
and privately a few days since: “German public opinion is roused
in a way I had not before thought possible.” And as far as I can
make out, the very worst possible thing was Haldane’s visit--a
British Cabinet Minister crawling up the back stairs of the German
Foreign Office in carpet slippers! and judging from all that is
told me, it has made the Germans worse than ever, and for a variety
of quite opposite reasons, all producing the same result. Any more
Heligolands would mean certain war. It’s very peculiar how we have
left our impregnable position we occupied before Haldane’s visit,
to take up a most humiliating, weak and dangerous one.

* * * * *

1912.
_April 2nd._

... As you say, Winston has done splendidly. He and I last
November discussed every brick of his speech in Devonport Dockyard
while visiting the 33-knot _Lion_-Dreadnought by night alone
together, and don’t accuse me of too much egotism, but he stopped
dramatically on the Dockyard stones and said to me “You’re a
Great Man!”... We are lagging behind in out-Dreadnoughting the
Dreadnought! A plunge of course--a huge plunge--but so was the
Dreadnought--so was the Turbine--so was the water-tube boiler, and
last of all so was the 13½-inch gun which now holds the field, and
the whole Board of Admiralty (bar Jellicoe) and all the experts
dead against it--but we plunged! So it is now--we want more
speed--less armour--a 15-inch gun--more sub-division--oil only--and
chauffeurs instead of Engineers and Stokers, and a Dreadnought
that will go round the world without requiring to replenish fuel!
The _Non-Pareil_! Winston says he’ll call her the “Fisher!” _I owe
more than I can say to McKenna._ I owe nearly as much to Winston
for scrapping a dozen Admirals on December 5th last so as to get
Jellicoe 2nd in Command of the Home Fleet. If war comes before
1914, then Jellicoe will be Nelson at the Battle of St. Vincent: if
it comes in 1914 then he’ll be Nelson at Trafalgar!...

Again, I’ve had quite affectionate letters from three important
Admirals. Why should I come home and filch their credit? All this
is to explain to you why I keep abroad, as you ask me what are my
future plans. Your letter in _The Times_ on the German Book quite
excellent. Bernstorff’s book is even more popular in Germany:
“The War Between England and Germany”--with the picture of the
“Dreadnought” with all her guns trained for action! Every little
petty German newspaper is dead-on for war with England! _that I can
assure you of!_ So _anything_ would kindle a war!... The banner
unfurled on October 21st, 1904, by the d--d scoundrel who on that
day became First Sea Lord had inscribed on it:

“_The fighting efficiency of the Fleet_”
and
“_Its instant readiness for War_.”

and, as Winston bravely said, that is now the case and no credit to himself, but he ought to have gone further back than McKenna for the credit. _It was Balfour!_ He saw me through--no one else would allow 160 ships to be scrapped, &c., &c., &c. But you’ve had enough!

* * * * *

1912.
_April 25th._

... When I was a Delegate at the Hague Conference of 1899--the
first Conference--I had very animated conversations, which,
however, to my lasting regret it was deemed inexpedient to place
on record (on account of their violence, I believe!), regarding
“Trading with the Enemy.” I stated the primordial fact that “_The
Essence of War is Violence; Moderation in War is Imbecility_.”
And then in my remarks I went on to observe, as is stated by Mr.
Norman Angell in the “Great Illusion,” where he holds me up as a
Terror! and as misguided--perhaps I went a little too far when I
said I would boil the prisoners in oil and murder the innocent in
cold blood, &c., &c., &c. ... but it’s quite silly not to make
War damnable to the whole mass of your enemy’s population, which
of course is the secret of maintaining the right of Capture of
Private Property at Sea. As you say, it must be proclaimed in the
most public and most authoritative manner that direct and indirect
trade between Great Britain, _including every part of the British
Empire_, and Germany must cease in time of war.... When war does
come _“Might is Right!” and the Admiralty will know what to do!_
Nevertheless, it is a most serious drawback not making public
to the world beforehand what we mean by War! It is astounding
how even very great men don’t understand War! You must go to the
Foreigner to appreciate our Surpassing Predominance as a Nation.
I was closeted for two hours lately--in a locked room--with a
great Foreign Ambassador, who quoted great names to me as being in
agreement with him that never in the History of the World was the
British Nation (as at the present moment) surpassed in power! And
therefore we could do what we liked!... I fully agree with you that
the schemes of the General Staff of the British Army are grotesque.
Their projects last August, had we gone to war, were wild in the
extreme. You will remember a famous interview we two had with
King Edward in his Cabin on board the Royal Yacht--how he stamped
on the idea (that then enthused the War Office mind) of England
once more engaged in a great Continental War! “Marlboroughs Cheap
To-day!” was the kettle of fish advertised by the Militarists!

I walked the sands of Scheveningen with General Gross von
Schwartzhoff in June, 1899. The German Emperor said he
(Schwartzhoff) was a greater than Moltke. He was the Military
German Delegate at the Hague Conference; he was designated as
Chief of the General Staff at Berlin, but he was burnt to death
in China instead. I had done him a very good turn indeed, so he
opened his heart to me. There was no German Navy then. We were
doing Fashoda; and he expatiated on the _rôle_ of the British
Army--how the absolute supremacy of the British Navy gave it such
inordinate power far beyond its numerical strength, because 200,000
men embarked in transports, and God only knowing where they might
be put ashore, was a weapon of enormous influence, and capable
of deadly blows--occupying perhaps Antwerp, Flushing, &c. (but,
of course, he only was thinking of the Cotentin Peninsula), or
landing 90 miles from Berlin on that 14 miles of sandy beach [in
Pomerania], impossible of defence against a battle fleet sweeping
with devastating shells the flat country for miles, like a mower’s
scythe--no fortifications able to withstand projectiles of 1,450 lb.

Yes! you are _so_ right! the average man is incapable of a _wide_
survey! he looks through a pinhole and only sees just a little bit
much magnified! Napoleon and Cromwell! Where are they?

* * * * *

1912.
_April 29th._ NAPLES.

... You say to me--“Come home!”--you remind me of “_personal
influence_.” I KNOW IT! Three days ago I was invited to name one
of three week-ends in June to meet two very great men at a country
house--no one else. Day before yesterday Winston Churchill asks
me. Hardly a week passes without such similar pressure from most
influential quarters--“_Why don’t I come home and smash and
pulverize?_” Of course, they one and all exaggerate--that in ten
minutes I could “_sweep the board_” and so on! I know exactly what
I can do. I’ve been fighting 50 years! _But I don’t want a personal
victory!_

... I am going to take my body and what little money I have ... to
the United States in the near future. It would be no use my coming
home. _The mischief is done!_... From patriotic motives I’ve given
Winston of my very best in the replies going to him this day from
Brindisi by King’s Messenger, as regards designs and policy and
fighting measures.

* * * * *

1912.
_May 15th._

... Well! as you say, every blessed thing at Weymouth [the Fleet
Inspection] _absolutely_ dates from 1909, except the aviation, and
even that I pressed to its present condition dead against great
opposition, but I wrote so strongly that ---- took the bit between
his teeth on that subject! And you ask me the question “How goes it
for the future!”

Well! Lloyd George is the real man, and so far judging from his
most intimate conversation with me, _all is well!_... A propos
of all this I’ve been specially invited to meet four people of
importance at a week-end meeting--_no others_. I was asked twice
before--and again now repeated; but I think it best to abstain. I
think you will approve of my not going. I have declined to go with
W. C. in the Admiralty Yacht.

* * * * *

1912.
_May 19th._ NAPLES.

I have a letter from W. C. this morning that he and the Prime
Minister have decided to come direct here to Naples to spend a
few days, and a telegram has just come saying they arrive on May
23rd.... I suppose the coming Supplementary Estimates and also
types of new ships about which I am in deadly antagonism with every
living soul at the Admiralty, and one of the consequences has been
that a great Admiralty official has got the boot!!! So Winston is
right when he writes to me this morning that in all vital points
I have had my way! He adds: “The Future of the Navy rests in the
hands of men in whom your confidence is as strong as mine ... and
no change of Government would carry with it any change of policy in
this respect.”

* * * * *

1912. KILVERSTONE HALL,
_June 30th._ THETFORD.

My plot is working exactly as forecast. By and by you’ll say it’s
the best thing I ever did. The Prime Minister and Winston would not
listen at Naples to my urgent cry “Increase your margin!” They have
got to recruit without stint and build 8 “Mastodons” instead of 4.
Wait and see!

The recruiting HAS begun. The 8 will follow.

We want 8
We won’t wait.

No other course but that now in progress would have done it. I
don’t mind personal obloquy, but it’s a bit hard to undergo my
friends’ doubts of me; but the clouds will roll by.... I’ve got all
my “working bees” round me here of the Royal Commission [on Oil and
the Internal Combustion engine]. We shall stagger humanity!

1912.
_July 6th._ KILVERSTONE HALL.

... Really all my thoughts are with my Royal Commission. I expect
you will see that the course of action will inevitably result
in what I ventured to indicate _if only_ the Admiralty will keep
their backs to the wall of the irreducible margin required in
Home Waters. The only pity was that dear old ---- said we were
sufficiently strong for two years or more, which of course is quite
true, but his saying so may prevent Lloyd George being hustled (_as
he otherwise would have been_). Luckily I prevented ---- saying
even more of our present great preponderance--but let us hope
“All’s well that ends well.” Ian Hamilton came in most effectively
with his witnessing the armoured Cruiser “Suffolk” laden with
a Battalion of the Malta Garrison being twice torpedoed by a
submarine.

* * * * *

1912.
_July 15th._

... This instant the news has come to me that there are
750 eligible and selected candidates for 60 vacancies for
Boy-Artificers in the Navy at the approaching examination! When I
introduced this scheme 8 years ago every man’s hand was against me,
and the whole weight of Trades Unionism inside the House of Commons
and out of it was organised against me.... We were dominated by the
Engineers! We had to accept Engine Room artificers for the Navy
who had been brought up on making bicycles! _Now_, these boys are
suckled on the marine engine! and they have knocked out the old lot
completely. Our very best Engine Room artificers now in the Navy
are these boys! Not one of my colleagues or anyone else supported
me! _Do you wonder that I don’t care a d--n what anyone says?_
The man you are going to see on Wednesday--how has he recognised
that we are at this moment stronger than the Triple Alliance? The
leaders of both political parties--how have they recognised that
19 millions sterling of public money _actually allocated_ was
saved and the re-arrangement of British Sea Power so stealthily
carried out that not a sign appeared of any remark by either our
own or by any Foreign Diplomatists, until an obscure article in
the _Scientific American_ by Admiral Mahan stated that of a sudden
he (Mahan) had discovered that 88 per cent. of the Sea Power of
England was concentrated on Germany? But the most ludicrous thing
of all is that up to this very moment no one has really recognised
that the Dreadnought caused such a deepening and dredging of German
harbours and their approaches, and a new Kiel Canal, as to cripple
Germany up to A.D. 1915, and make their coasts accessible, which
were previously denied to our ships because of their heavy draught
for service in all the world!

* * * * *

1912.
_August 2nd._

At the Defence Committee yesterday ... we had a regular set-to with
Lloyd George (supported by Harcourt and Morley chiefly) against
the provision of defence for Cromarty as a shelter anchorage for
the Fleet, and the Prime Minister adjourned the discussion to
the Cabinet as the temperature got hot! As you know, I’ve always
been “dead on” for Cromarty and hated Rosyth, which is an unsafe
anchorage--the whole Fleet in jeopardy the other day--and there’s
that beastly bridge which, if blown up, makes the egress very risky
without examination.... Also Cromarty is strategically better than
Rosyth.... Also Lloyd George had a row about the airships--Seely’s
Sub-Committee. We _must_ have airships.

* * * * *

1912.
_August 7th._

I still hate Rosyth and fortifications and East Coast Docks and
said so the other day! but what we devise at Cromarty is for
another purpose--to fend off German Cruisers possibly by an
accident of fog or stupidity getting loose on our small craft
taking their ease or re-fuelling in Cromarty (Oil will change all
this in time, but as yet we have for years coal-fed vessels to deal
with).... I’ve got enthusiastic colleagues on the oil business!
They’re all bitten! Internal Combustion Engine Rabies!

* * * * *

1912.
_September._

... What an ass I was to come home! but it was next door to
impossible to resist the pressure put on me, and then can you think
it was wise of me to plunge once more into so vast a business as
future motor Battleships? Changing the face of the Navy, and, as
Lloyd George said to me last Friday, getting the Coal of England as
my mortal enemy!

* * * * *

1912.
_Sept. 14th._

_This Royal Commission_ [on oil] is a wonder! We have our first
meeting on September 24th, and practically it is finished though it
will go on for years and years and never submit a Report! You will
love the _modus operandi_ when some day I expound it to you!... In
the second week of December we have an illustration on the scale
of 12 inches to a foot of producing oil from coal. Twenty-five
tons a day will be produced as an example. All that is required
is to treble the retorting plant of all gas works in the United
Kingdom where there is a Mayor and Corporation, and to treble their
“through put” of coal! We get two million tons of oil that way! We
only want one million.

I addressed the Directors of the S.E. & Chatham Railway last
Tuesday, and hope I persuaded them to build a motor vessel of 24
knots between Calais and Dover, and proved to them they could save
an hour between Paris and London--the whole side of the vessel
falls down and makes a gangway on to a huge pontoon at Calais
and Dover and all the passengers march straight out (“Every man
straight before him,” like the Israelites did at Jericho, and the
walls fell down before them!) No more climbing up Mont Blanc up a
narrow precipitous gangway from the steamer to the jetty in the
rain, and an old woman blocking you with her parcels and umbrella
jammed by the stanchions, and they ask her for her ticket and she
don’t know which pocket it’s in! and the rain going down your
neck all the time! A glass roof goes over the motor vessel--she
has no funnels, and her telescopic wireless masts wind down by a
2 h.p. motor so as not to go through the glass roof. But all this
is nothing to H.M.S. “Incomparable”--a 25 knot battleship that
will go round the whole earth without refuelling!... The plans of
her will be finished next Monday, and I wrote last night to say I
proposed in my capacity as a private British Citizen to go over in
three weeks’ time in the White Star “Adriatic” to get Borden [the
Canadian Prime Minister] to build her at Quebec. The Building Yard
put up there by Vickers is under a guarantee to build a Dreadnought
in Canada in May and the great Dreadnought Dock left Barrow for
Quebec on August 31st. No English Government would ever make this
plunge, which is why I propose going to Canada--to that great man,
Borden--and take the Vickers people to make their bargain for
building.

* * * * *

1912.
_Sept. 20th._

... My idea now is to raise a syndicate to build the “Non-Pareil”!
A few millionaires would suffice, and I know sufficient of them
to do it. All the drawings and designs quite ready. The one _all
pervading, all absorbing_ thought is to get in first with motor
ships before the Germans! Owing to our apathy during the last two
years they are ahead with internal combustion engines! _They have
killed 15 men in experiments with oil engines and we have not
killed one!_ And a d--d fool of an English politician told me the
other day that he thinks this creditable to us!

Without any doubt (I have it from an eye-witness of part of the
machinery for her at Nuremberg) a big German oil engine Cruiser
is under weigh! We must press forward.... These d--d politics are
barring the way.... “_What!_” (say these trembling idiots) “ANOTHER
_Dreadnought Revolution!_” and these boneless fools chatter with
fear like apes when they see an elephant! The imagination cannot
picture that “_a greater than the Dreadnought is here!_” Imagine a
silhouette presenting a target 33 per cent. less than any living
or projected Battleship! No funnels--no masts--no smoke--she
carries over 5,000 tons of oil, enough to take her round the world
without refuelling! Imagine what that means! Ten motor boats
carried on board in an armoured pit in the middle of her, where
the funnels and the boilers used to be. Two of these motor boats
are over 60 feet long and go 45 knots! and carry 21-inch Torpedoes
that go five miles! Imagine these let loose in a sea fight![15]
Imagine projectiles far over a ton weight! going over a mile or
more further than even the 13½-inch gun can carry, and that gun
has rightly staggered humanity!--Yes! that 13½-inch gun that all
my colleagues (bar one! and he is our future Nelson! [Jellicoe])
thought me mad to force through against unanimous disapproval! _and
see where we are now in consequence!_ We shall have 16 British
Dreadnoughts with the 13½-inch gun before the Germans _have one!!!_
So it will be with the “Non-Pareil”! WE HAVE GOT TO HAVE HER ...
_I’ve worked harder over this job than in all my life before!_[16]

* * * * *

1912.
DEC. 29TH.

... I’m getting sick of England and want to get back to Naples and
the sun! and the “_dolce far niente_!” What fools we all are to
work like we do! Till we drop!