The naval reforms of Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher and the Battle of Jutland

The naval reforms of Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher and the Battle of Jutland

Sir John “Jacky” Fisher was appointed First Sea Lord in 1904 where he remained until retiring in 1910. He was reinstated into the role by First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, in 1914 before finally resigning in 1915 in protest at Churchill’s disastrous Dardanelles campaign. During his tenure as First Sea Lord, Fisher introduced many controversial reforms in the attempt to overcome the stagnating effect that nearly one hundred years of peace had on the Royal Navy - “the long calm lee of Trafalgar”

At the turn of the century the ships of the Royal Navy were dispersed over the globe looking after the interests of the British Empire with little concentration of strength of force in any single location. The Royal Navy had been successful in its peacetime functions such as in halting the slave trade but the dominance of the Royal Navy not been seriously challenged or put to the test at any point in nearly one hundred years. It appeared that the Royal Navy was without rival and Britannia did indeed rule the waves. All this was to change with the passing of the First Navy Law in Germany in 1898 and Britain was faced with the prospect of a genuine and aggressive challenge to her naval supremacy and the distinct possibility that any challenger would find the Royal Navy as unprepared for combat as the South African war had found the British Army.

Fisher was credited as being one of the first to recognise the growing threat of Germany while the eyes of the Admiralty were on France and her alliance with Russia. The Admiralty could not rule out the nightmare scenario of a coalition between France, Germany and Russia which would be more than capable of threatening Britain’s naval dominance and the increase in naval construction in Germany and Russia gave rise to the prospect of the Royal Navy being unable to defeat a combined enemy force in the event of war.

Fisher’s first step was to concentrate the major portion of the fleet in home waters and away from the periphery of the British Empire, a move which needed to be carried out slowly so as not to provoke public opinion at home or in Europe. This new distribution strategy meant that three quarters of the British fleet would be readily available against Germany and a presence could be maintained in the Mediterranean in response to lack of certainty over French and Russian diplomatic manoeuvring. The redeployment of the fleet presented the strategic advantage of being able to carry out exercises and manoeuvre where they were likely to be fighting as Fisher insisted “the battle ground should be the drill ground”  

“Flotilla defence” comprised of smaller cruisers, torpedo ships and submarines, was the cornerstone of Fisher’s policy. All of these vessels were cheaper to build than battleships and would patrol home waters allowing fleets of battleships or cruisers to be deployed quickly to wherever they were required in the world to counter an enemy threat to British interests. Wireless communication would be the key to this centralised form of command. Fisher believed that advances in technology had radically altered the effect of geography on strategy so that the concentration of British naval strength in home waters was the best way of defending the empire. After Fisher’s retirement in 1910 his successors at the Admiralty abandoned this strategy but it was implemented again by Churchill in 1914 in light of the worsening economic situation in Britain.  Britain’s place as a world industrial and economic power had seen a relative decline and a Liberal Government had been elected that was more concerned with spending on welfare than warfare. Economy and efficiency joined the threat from foreign powers in becoming the driving forces behind Fisher’s naval reforms.

Fisher introduced the nucleus crew system where ships were either fully manned and in commission or were in “reserve”.  The reserve fleet was reorganised so that reserve ships were manned by a small nucleus crew of two fifths of the usual strength of a crew comprised of the full crew minus the unskilled men thus, if there was a sudden order to mobilise, the full complement of crew could be assembled quickly. This fulfilled Fishers aim that “readiness for sudden action has to be the keynote in all we do” as well as improved financial economy.

Obsolete warships were scrapped freeing up crew to be used in the nucleus crew system, saving on repairs and maintenance costs and clearing room in over congested harbours. The training of navy personnel was overhauled under the Selbourne scheme to open officer training to a wider range of recruits and not just the upper classes. Training of naval recruits was now to take into account new technology, for example crews were drilled in the techniques of modern gunnery. Inevitably Fisher’s policies had many detractors throughout both government and the press as it was thought that lowering the presence of the Royal Navy throughout the empire would automatically lead to the lowing of British prestige. There were fears that the protection of commerce would be compromised as would the safety and security of British subjects overseas who relied on the protection of the Royal Navy. There were of course objections too from those keen to maintain class distinction and privilege but Fisher was keen to promote ability over privilege.

Although Fisher’s name is most closely associated with the Dreadnought battleship Fisher was not in favour of building these “all big gun battleships” What Fisher wanted to construct was a new type of armoured warship called the “battle cruiser” His vision was for a fast, light armoured warship, fast enough to bring battleships to action at long ranges where their gunnery would allow them to strike from a safe distance.  He wanted a ship that could take on both battleships and smaller cruisers and carry out the role of two or more of its predecessors which would have freed a vast amount of money and manpower. “Strategy” he wrote “not tradition, should govern the types of ship to be designed”

Fisher went to extraordinary lengths in defending the construction of Dreadnought battleships between 1906 and 1908 in face of strong opposition. The reasons for this were twofold. Firstly, Fisher’s project to build his preferred battle cruisers had been refused by the Admiralty and so he saw that it was to his advantage to push for the construction of Dreadnoughts instead, a project to which the admiralty agreed to, persuaded by Fisher’s exaggeration of the German threat. Fisher would remark “half a loaf is better than no loaf” on the subject but it was his belief that battle cruisers would eventually be adopted – if he could maintain his construction budget which he could only do by continuing to build Dreadnoughts. Secondly, Fisher was keen to create a sustainable working partnership between private ship building industry and armament firms and the navy. From Fisher’s perspective the priority was to feed the ship building industry with enough money to keep it solvent. Private companies could build ships faster than the royal dockyards, employed civilian talent, were not subject to unionism or strikes (he hoped competition from the private sector would help to curb militancy) and in a period of conflict could produce new ships while the royal dockyards repaired damaged ships.

Fisher’s critics pointed out that the introduction of the Dreadnought “rendered all existing battleships obsolete” therefore ruining the advantage that Britain held in terms of numbers of pre-Dreadnought ships and so allowing other countries, Germany in particular, get on equal terms with Britain. A newspaper of the day pointed out that the Dreadnought construction deepened the rivalry with Germany and it deplored the cost of construction of these new battleships. Fisher, however, knew that these ships were inevitable and that the Russians, the Japanese and Germans were all known to be planning the construction of “all big gun battleships” of their own. The Dreadnoughts were constructed with other technological advances in mind such as long range gunnery and the threat from torpedoes and it was the advent of long range shooting rather than Dreadnought herself that rendered other ships obsolete.

Although Fisher believed in carrying out fleet exercises in the waters in which they were most likely to face combat, cost was a limiting factor. Fuel economy was of major concern with HMS Dreadnought, for example, consuming 306 tons of coal per hour. Fuel consumption depended on various factors such as the speed at which the ship was travelling and the weather, and the changed location of naval operations from those of peacetime meant sailing in the hostile and difficult weather conditions of the North Sea in winter, weather conditions where ships were likely to sustain damage. These ships were intended to travel at high speeds and were of the latest and most complex naval technology and so new and extended facilities were needed in which maintenance, servicing and repairs could be carried out.

In May 1916 the British fleet was to meet its greatest challenge in over century at the Battle of Jutland but, rather than giving the Royal Navy the much desired victory in the style of Trafalgar, the result of the battle was inconclusive – the German fleet fled the battlefield and the British fleet under Admiral John Jellicoe failed to give pursuit so neither side could claim a decisive victory, although both sides did so initially. The British fleet was superior in numbers and more heavily armed yet suffered greater losses than the German fleet leading Admiral David Beatty to comment “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today” and, less famously, “something wrong with the system”

Despite Fisher’s naval reforms, the new technology available to the British fleet and the training of crew, the overwhelming problem for the British at the Battle of Jutland was that the German navy did not behave as the Admiralty had predicted they would. Admiralty planning was based on German intelligence which suggested that the Germans believed their fleet would be able to win a decisive battle at medium range. This belief led the Royal Navy to fail to implement gunnery appropriate to action involving frequent changes of course and long range shooting or indeed any other variation of tactical conditions, in short, those real life tactical conditions that were actually faced in battle.

British tactics can be summed up in the following statement by Naval Historian Jon Sumida -

“In 1912, the Admiralty adopted a secret tactical system that was supposed to enable a British battle fleet to destroy a German opponent through five minutes shooting at medium range. The quick destruction of the Germans was to be followed by a simultaneous turn away by the British, which would counter the threat of enemy torpedoes. Belief in this scheme interfered with the development of equipment and methods suitable to battle fleet action that involved long range and manoeuvre while shooting, which set the stage for much that went wrong for the Royal Navy at the battle of Jutland”

It should be noted though that it was not until Fisher had left office that the focus on gunnery switched from long range to medium range

Instead of being a vindicator for Fisher’s naval reforms the Battle of Jutland appears at first to have been a missed opportunity for the navy and to a certain extent Admiral Beatty was correct, there were undoubtedly issues with both the British ships and the system in which they were operating. Fisher had recognised the opportunities given by new technologies and used his reforms to reorganise the navy so as to exploit them but unfortunately battle scenarios were based round the premise that it would be a decisive battle fought in a short war and the problem of sustained operations was not explored and neither was the possibility that the German fleet would deviate from what was expected of them. Despite naval intelligence, Fisher could not have predicted what the German fleet was going to do any more than Jellicoe could have done on the day of battle.

Overall Fishers reforms were to the betterment of the navy. They allowed the navy to maintain an effective system of defence at an affordable cost where capability was more important than presence and his duplicity in promoting the Dreadnought revolution allowed him to maintain his naval construction budget to fund ship building throughout the long duration of the war. He made best use of the resources available to him at the time and embraced new technology. Ultimately the Grand Fleet passed the real test which was to survive the “long watch” of more than four years of war without surrendering naval superiority.  Although in terms of losses at the battle of Jutland the Royal Navy came off worse, strategically little had changed in terms of control of the seas with the Royal Navy remaining pre-eminent.