Table Of ContentADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY
Commander in Chief, Grand Fleet, I 9 I 6-I 9
Portrait by Sir Arthur Cope: Natiollal /I,1ari/ime .~Juselim
FROM THE DREADNOUGHT
TO SCAPA FLOW
THE ROYAL NAVY
IN THE FISHER ERA, 1904-1919
VOLUME V
VICTORY AND AFTERMATH
(January 1918-June 1919)
BY
ARTHUR J. MARDER
The U"iversi!y of California, Irvine
George EaslT1Ul1l Visiting Professor
in the University of Oxford, I¢9-70
London
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK TORONTO
1970
Preface
This, the final volume of a quintuplet ('five children born in the
same labour') that began with the pre-war decade, is the story of
the Royal Navy from January 1918 until the summer of 1919:
essentially from the New Order established at the Admiralty after
J ellicoe's dismissal through the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet at
Scapa Flow. Between these terminal events we have such high
lights as the Goeben sortie, the stirring blocking expeditions against
Zeebrugge and Ostend, the High Seas Fleet sortie, the laying of
the Northern Barrage, the naval Armistice and the surrender of
the High Seas Fleet, and the negotiation of the naval terms of the
peace settlement with Germany. As an epilogue I have attempted,
in a chapter of 'Reflections', to distil some of the larger meanings
of the war and of the whole 'Fisher Era.'
The following officers did me the great kindness of answering
countless queries and of reading the manuscript and offering
valuable criticism: Admirals Sir Angus Cunninghame Graham
and Sir William James, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Gretton, Rear
Admiral W. S. Chalmers, Captains John Creswell and Stephen
Roskill, Commander W. M. Phipps Hornby, and Lieutenant
Commanders P. K. Kemp and D. W. Waters. I, of course, accept
rull responsibility for any and all errors of fact or interpretation.
I wish to thank Captain Creswell for overseeing with his usual
care and skill the preparation of the maps and charts, and Mr. N.
Atherton for the cartographic work itself.
In addition to those whose permission to examine collections of
papers was acknowledged in previous volumes, I am grateful to
the Hon. Mrs. Frances Cunnack for the use of the Wemyss Papers
and the late Mrs. Gertrude Dewar for the Dewar Papers. Warm
t hanks go to these gentlemen for their assistance of various sorts:
Admiral J. H. Godfrey, Vice-Admirals Sir Aubrey Mansergh, Sir
James Pipon, and B. C. Watson, Rear-Admiral P. N. Buckley,
Captains Lennox Boswell, E. W. Thring, and Andrew Yates,
Kapitan zur See Gerhard Bidlingmaier, Group Captain H. A.
Williamson, Commanders R. B. Mitchell, the late W. B.
Rowbotham, and I. C. M. Sanderson, FregattcnkapiHin Friedrich
Vll
PREFACE
Forstmeier, Squadron Leader L. A. Jackets, Professor Robert M.
Grant, Dr. E. K. Timings, and Messrs.J. D. Lawson and A. W. H.
Pearsall. The staffs of the Naval Historical Branch and Naval
Library, Ministry of Defence, and of the Public Record Office and
National Maritime Museum performed, as always, well above
the call of duty. My special thanks are once more due to Miss
Cathy Smith for transforming a nearly illegible manuscript into
an elegant typescript-a feat of magic.
This is a good time to acknowledge my profound indebtedness
to two friends for their unfailing support: William L. Langer,
Professor Emeritus of History at Harvard University, who was
directly responsible for my initial interest in British naval history,
and Dr. Henry Allen Moe, onetime Secretary General of the John
Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and benefactor of
scholars without peer, who made certain at various critical times
that my work would not suffer from financial anaemia. My
gratitude also goes out to my good friends in Ely House: the
Publisher, Mr. John Brown, the late Mr. John White, Promotion
Manager, my Job-like Editor, Mr. Geoffrey Hunt (who will now
begin to live), for counsel, guidance-and extraordinary patience,
and his able Assistants, successively, Miss Nesta Coxeter and Miss
Joyce Horn, tor helping me over many an obstacle. I would like
again to acknowledge the splendid support I have received at
one time or another from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the University of
California, and the University of Hawaii.
It gives me pleasure to thank the following publishers and
individuals for their kind permission to quote from the copyright
material indicated: Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd., from the War
Mnlloirs of David Lloyd George; Cambridge University Press, from
Norman Rich and M. H. Fisher (cds.), The Holstein Papers; Cassell
,,\( (:0. Ltel., and Lord Jellicoe, from Admiral of the Fleet Earl
.Jdlinw's 'llie Submarine Peril; Peter Davies Ltd., and Stein and
Day I'll hi isl U'I'S, rrom Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet's The Sub
'11111;111' 1I1It! S/'II Power; Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd. and, for the first
tille", E. p, Dutton & Co" Inc., from The Naval Memoirs of Admiral
,,/Ih,. FII'/" Sir R/J,~er Kryes and Lady Wester Wemyss's The Life and
1,1'1/,'/,1' 0/ I,orrl Wesler Wemyss; William Heinemann Ltd., from
or
Adllliral lh(~ Fleet Lord Chatfield's The Navy and Defence; Dr.
I V(~~ IleJl(lrick, from Rear-Admiral W. S. Sims's The Victory at
viii
PREFACE
Sea; Her Majesty's Stationery Office, from Sir Julian Corbett and
Sir Henry Newbolt's History of the Great War. Naval Operations, C.
Ernest Fayle's History of the Great War. Seaborne Trade, and Sir
Walter Raleigh and H. A. jones's History of the Great War. The
War in the Air; Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. and Rear-Admiral
W. S. Chalmers, from the latter's The Life and Letters of David,
Earl Beatry; The Hogarth Press Ltd. and Mr. Denys Oglander,
from Brigadier Cecil Aspinall-Oglander's Roger Keyes; Houghton
Miffiin Company, from Elting E. Morison's Admiral Sims and the
Modern American Nal!Y; Hutchinson Publishing Group Ltd., and
for the first two titles the executors of the estate of Admiral Sir
Reginald Bacon, from Admiral Bacon's The Concise Story of the
Dover Patrol and From 1900 Onward, Admiral Sir Sydney R.
Fremantle's My Naval Career, 1880-1928, and Lieutenant
Commander J. M. Kenworthy's (Lord Strabolgi) Sailors, Statesmen
-and Others; Little, Brown and Company, from Rear-Admiral
Alfred T. Mahan's Naval Strategy; E. S. Mittler & Sohn, from the
Official German History Der Krieg zur See: Captain Otto Groos
and Admiral Walther Gladisch's Der Krieg in der Nordsee; Frederick
Muller Ltd., from Geoffrey Cousins's The Story of Scapa Flow;
Princeton University Press, from Seth P. Tillman's Anglo-American
Relations at the Paris Peace Conference; Putnam & Company, from
Robert M. Grant's U-Boats Destroyed; Sampson Low, Marston &
Co. Ltd., from Captain D. J. Munro's Scapa Flow: a Naval Retro
spect; Warner R. Schilling, from his unpublished Ph.D. disserta
tion, Admirals and Foreign Policy, 1913-1919; the University of
North Carolina Press, from Josephus Daniels's The Wilson Era:
Years oj War and After; George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., from
Admiral Karl Doenitz's Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenry Days. I
would like to repeat my sincere thanks to Lieutenant-Commander
D. W. Waters for the privilege of quoting from certain of his
restricted writings. Unpublished Crown copyright material is
published by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's
Stationery Office. As in the previous volumes I have made good
use of the pertinent articles in the Naval Review, but without citing
this restricted journal, in accordance with its long-established
policy.
Fifty years ago the naval journalist Archibald Hurd (afterwards
the author of the official study of the merchant navy in the war)
wrote:
IX
PREFACE
Who would not give a king's ransom, if he possessed it, to be in a
position to examine this country's recent naval effort with the eyes of
the historian of fifty or sixty years hence, when all that remains secret
to-day will be known of all men? It may be that even then there will be
wide differences of opinion, but the froth of contemporary controversy
will have been blown away and there will remain only the pure dis
tillate, on which the historian will feed his mind with the complete
assurance that nothing remains of prejudice, personal animosity, or
party strife, for the struggles of politicians, even in time of war, react on
*
naval policy, as indeed upon every aspect of the life of the nation.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to have chronicled the story
of the Royal Navy in 1914-18, as well as the crucially important
pre-war decade and the immediate aftermath of the war, out of
the 'pure distillate'.
Gibbon commemorated the completion of the last volume of his
Decline and Fall oj Rome in a famous passage in his autobiography:
' ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery
of freedom ..• But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober
melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken
my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion .. .' I am
no Gibbon; but for this remark I confess a fellow feeling.
ARTHUR]. MARDER
Oxford
September 1969
• 'The Confessions of the Admirals', Fortnightly Review, December 1919.
x
Abbreviations Used in the Text
(whether official or in common Service usage)
A.C.N.S. Assistant Chief of Naval Staff
A.D.O.D. Assistant Director of the Operations Division
A.P. shell Armour-piercing shell
AjS Anti-Submarine
A.S.D. Anti-Submarine Division
B.C. Battle Cruiser
B.S. Battle Squadron
C.I.G.S. Chief of the Imperial General Staff
C.M.B. Coastal Motor Boat
C.N.S. Chief of the Naval Staff
C.O.S. Chief of Staff to a Flag Officer Commanding*
D.A.S.D. Director of the Anti-Submarine Division
D.C.I.G.S. Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff
D.C.N.S. Deputy Chief of Naval Staff
D.M.I. Director of Military Intelligence, War Office
D.N.C. Director of Naval Construction
D.N.I. Director of Naval Intelligencet
D.N.O. Director of Naval Ordnance
D.O.D. Director of the Operations Division
D.ofP. Director of the Plans Division
D.T.S.D. Director of the Training and Staff Duties Division
D.IS.L. Deputy First Sea Lord
G.F. Grand Fleet
H.S.F. High Seas Fleet
I.W.C. Imperial War Cabinet
L.G. Light Cruiser
M.L. Motor Launch
* Also, prior to May 1917, Chief of the Admiralty War Staff.
t The pre-war title, revived in 1918. 'D.I.D.' (Director of the Intelligence Division)
was the official title, 1912-18.
Xl
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE TEXT
N.I.D. Naval Intelligence Division
R.A.F. Royal Air Force
R.F.C. Royal Flying Corps
R.N.A.S. Royal Naval Air Service
S.N.O. Senior Naval Officer
S.O. Senior Officer
T.B.D. Destroyer
T.S.D. Training and Staff Duties Division
W.C. War Cabinet
WIT Wireless telegraphy
xii
Contents
pag'
PREFACE vii
PART I. THE WEMYSS-GEDDES REGIME
January 19lB-November 191B
CHAPTER I. THE NAVAL DECISION MAKERS
1. BOARD AND NAVAL STAFF CHANGES 3
Wemyss becomes First Sea Lord-His background, assets, and
methods-The other naval members of the Board-Altera
tions in Naval Staff organization-Distribution of duties
between naval members belonging to the Staff-The most
significant result of the new organization-Clarification of
Board responsibility for operations.
2. RESULTS 9
The New Order is a great success-Richmond's appointment
as D.T.S.D.-Harmony at the Admiralty-Relations be
tween Wemyss and Beatty-Geddes on the improved efficiency
of the Navy.
CHAPTER II. MEDITERRANEAN PROBLEMS
I. THE GOEBEN SORTIE 12
The possible objectives of a sortie--Precautions against a
sortie--Hayes-Sadler separates the two battleships at Mudros
-Distribution of the Aegean Squadron-Fremantle's orders
-The German plan-The sortie--The Breslau is mined-
The Goeben turns back--She is stuck fast at Nagara-The sub
marine and air attempts to sink her-Her subsequent career
-The fiasco disgusts Wemyss-Public reaction.
2. THE BLACK SEA FLEET 20
The command situation in the Mediterranean-Establish
ment of an Allied Naval Council-The threat of a German
seizure of the Russian Black Sea Fleet-The problem posed by
the Austrian Fleet in the Adriatic-The Aegean problem
The French solution to both strategic problems-British
opinion of the Italian Fleet-The Allied Naval Council pro
poses a solution to both problems, 26-27 April-The Italians
will not play-The battle is continued at the Supreme War
Council, Abbeville, I May-The Italians continue to drag
their feet-Wemyss suggests an 'Admiralissimo' for the Medi
terranean-The heated discussion at the Supreme War
Council, Versailles, I~June--Italian obstructionism worsens
-Allied complaints-Revival in September of the Admiral
issimo scheme.
Xlll
