Fisher and Beresford: The clash of the titans

When Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher announced his resignation as First Sea Lord in November 1909 the Navy lost its greatest ever reformer. He had taken over a sprawling, ill-focused and ill-equipped fleet in 1904 and turned it into the most powerful the world had ever seen. He was replaced by the inactive Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson (1910-11), who gave way to the invalid Sir Francis Bridgeman (1911-12), who in turn was replaced by the ineffective Prince Louis of Battenberg (1912-14). How did a country like Britain, whose only defence was its navy, come to depose so great a man and tolerate such a string of mediocrities in his place? The answer is Lord Charles Beresford.

Beresford was born in 1846 in Ireland. When his uncle Henry broke his neck in a riding accident, Beresford’s father became the fourth Marquis of Waterford. The family, now the richest in Ireland, moved into Curraghmore House, set in its thousands of acres of farms and forests. Beresford would from now on exploit to the full the family’s elevated status.

Fisher came from humbler stock. His father, William Fisher, entered the Army, served in India, and then resigned to take up coffee planting in Ceylon, at which he spectacularly failed. Before his death from a riding accident in 1866 he fathered eleven children, of whom John Fisher was the eldest. Launched into the world with no money behind him Fisher enlisted in the Navy in 1854. Beresford followed suit in 1859.

All the explanation that we need for the great clash between the two men can be found in their early careers. Fisher, after some bad experiences under a sadistic captain was taken up by Captain Shadwell, who trained him to the point where the Commander-in-Chief of the China Sea, Admiral James Hope, took him on as flag mate. From then on Fisher rose and rose, reaching the post of First Sea Lord in 1904.

Beresford’s naval career was erratic to say the least. Of his first twenty years of adult life, six had been spent as a member of Parliament. This led Rear-Admiral Sir Percy Scott to quip ‘In the Navy we knew he was not a sailor, but thought he was a politician; in the House of Commons, I have been told, they knew he was not a politician, but thought he was a sailor.’[i] None of this, though, stopped Beresford becoming Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1900. The Commander-in-Chief was then Sir John Fisher. He had arrived six months earlier than Beresford and in that short period had begun a naval revolution. Throwing aside the post-Trafalgar tradition that naval ships were a decorative appendage to the Empire, Fisher was turning the fleet into an aggressive fighting machine.

Working together

Fisher and Beresford had first worked together in 1882 at the bombardment of Alexandria, from which both emerged as heroes of the hour. But in the intervening years Fisher had honed his naval skills and sharpened his ambitions for the Navy itself, while Beresford had wandered up and down the byways of minor postings and backbench politics. His one ministerial post as Fourth Sea Lord had ended with his resignation in a fit of peak when the First Lord, Lord George Hamilton, over-ruled him in the matter of certain officers’ salaries.

In the Mediterranean Fisher and Beresford had a good working relationship. There were rows, but these were natural between two such forceful characters. Many authors make much of the remark by Fisher’s Chief of Staff that ‘[I was] a kind of a buffer between the two, Fisher writing memos for C.B., some of which I pigeon-holed and did not send on; C.B. abusing Fisher to me, which I had to discourage.’[ii] The gushing praise that each man heaped on the other both in public and in private once they were back in England is proof that there was no animus between them in 1902. And, when Fisher became Second Sea Lord that year and published his plans to turn officer education inside out (the Selborne Scheme), only one serving officer praised him in public: Beresford.

Uneasy truce

The first signs that the Royal Navy might not be big enough to contain these two men came in October 1904. On 20 October Fisher had reached the top of the Navy as he took up the post of First Sea Lord. On the night of 21-22 October, the Russian Navy mistakenly shelled some Hull fishing trawlers at Dogger Bank, so creating a major international incident. As the Navy went onto war alert Beresford, now Vice-Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Squadron, was near Gibraltar – right in the path of the southward bound Russian fleet, which was on its way to meet its doom at the Battle of Tsushima. While the Cabinet decided for peace or war, Beresford stood ready to sink the enemy fleet. Diplomacy won the day so Beresford’s one chance of war eluded him. A short while later he bragged in a letter to the Admiralty that ‘being quite satisfied with the excellence of the gunnery of the Channel Fleet’ he would have used only four battleships to stop the advancing Russians. This, he said ‘would only be chivalrous under the circumstances’.[iii] The Admiralty was not amused and issued a sharp reprimand, reminding him that there was no place for sentiment in war.

Fisher felt that the reprimand did not go far enough and recalled Beresford one month earlier than his scheduled time. When Beresford arrived back in London, Fisher called him in and asked him to take up the presidency of a committee before he next went to sea as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. When Beresford refused, Fisher threatened to rescind the Mediterranean command, at which Beresford exploded:

‘You dare to threaten me, Jacky Fisher. Who are you? I only take orders from the Board. If I have to haul my flag down on 7th February, I will resign the Service, go down to Birmingham, get into the House and turn out both you and Selborne.’[iv]

Gone were the days of the chummy collaboration at Alexandria; gone were the days of mutual respect in the Mediterranean; Beresford had now declared war on his commanding officer.

Beresford never served on the committee, nor did he go down to Birmingham to turn out Fisher and Selborne. Both men backed down. But catastrophe struck for Beresford when, on 4 December 1905, Fisher was promoted to admiral of the fleet, so extending his retirement from 1906 to 1911. By then Beresford would be 64 years old. Overnight his ambition to be First Sea Lord was irrevocably thwarted. Except, of course, if he could force Fisher out before too long. He made his first move eight days later when he wrote to his friend and co-conspirator in naval politics, Carlyon Bellairs MP. In ten pages of foolscap Beresford ranted against Fisher who he now declared ‘never was a Seaman’ and was ‘known not to have any original ideas in his head’. He continued ‘Things cannot go on as they are.’[v] He appealed to Bellairs to use the ammunition in his letter to help him bring down Fisher.

Fisher’s capacity to overlook Beresford’s outbursts is shown by the Admiralty’s July offer to Beresford of the post of commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet from early 1907. He accepted on 7 August. Two months later Fisher announced the creation of a new Home Fleet to be based at The Nore. He had taken this step in part to quell press criticism that the ships in home waters were no match for the German fleet, and in part because of his concern that the Channel Fleet (which patrolled as far south as Gibraltar) might not be in home waters at the time of a surprise attack by Germany. Gradually,  over the months of October 1906 to January 1907, the Admiralty detached more and more ships from the Channel Fleet to the Home Fleet. On 22 January 1907 Beresford informed the First Lord, Lord Tweedmouth, that he was no longer willing to accept the Channel command. Frantic negotiations between Tweedmouth, Fisher and Beresford ensued and by 28 January Beresford reaccepted the command. But, in his heart he nursed a deep grievance – a grievance that would lead him to self-destruct.

Beresford’s vendetta

Even Beresford was not so stupid as to believe that he could openly attack Fisher or the First Lord, so he to adopted more subtle techniques. Where possible he got others to do his dirty work for him. We have seen how he recruited Bellairs (who had his own personal grievances against Fisher), but he also wrote subversive letters to the Tory MP Walter Long, various retired admirals, right wing journalists and Lady Londonderry. But there was a limit to Beresford’s restraint and, when a man whom he saw as a Fisher protégée, joined the Channel Fleet in July 1907 his good sense departed him.

Rear-Admiral Sir Percy Scott was a difficult and pushy man of great ability, with a distinguished record as an innovator in naval technology. On Scott’s joining the Channel Fleet Beresford tried to lure him into his anti-Fisher camp. When Scott failed to respond, he sealed his fate. Only his ejection from the fleet would satisfy Beresford.

Beresford’s first attempt to undermine Scott occurred in October 1907 during some combined fleet exercises.  At Cromarty, Beresford set up an exercise in which Scott and his cruisers were to guard the bay until they were sure there were no enemy ships left there. Receiving no further orders Scott remained in position until the end of the exercise. Shortly afterwards he received a fleet memorandum accusing him of having ‘remained in a dangerous position’ and having failed to obey a signal to move away from the bay.[vi] Furious at this public rebuke, Scott sat down to write a letter of complaint to the Admiralty. He never completed the letter since events overtook him.

The fleets dispersed at the end of the exercises, with the Channel Fleet returning to Portland. Scott in Good Hope was delayed by a hot bearing so by the time he reached Portland on 4 November the other ships in his squadron were already there. Beresford had issued an order for the ships to be repainted by 8 November in readiness to receive the German Emperor on 11 November. The Roxburgh, at gunnery exercises when Scott arrived, asked his permission to continue. In reply Scott sent the signal ‘Paintwork appears to be more in demand than gunnery so you had better come in in time to make yourself look pretty by the 8th.’[vii] (In fact the Roxburgh’s log book shows that the ship was being painted while gunnery practice was taking place.[viii])

Beresford heard about this signal by accident three days later. Scott was commanded to present himself ‘in frock coat and sword’ on the flagship on the following day, 8 November. As he reached the quarter-deck he found himself facing Beresford and his flag staff. There Beresford publicly reprimanded the rear-admiral for having made a signal that was ‘contemptuous in tone and insubordinate in character’.[ix] He was ordered not to appear in Beresford’s presence again. Scott was not asked to explain himself nor allowed to speak. Beresford then returned to his cabin and wrote to the Admiralty alleging that Scott’s behaviour was ‘a public insult to my authority’ and demanding that the errant rear-admiral be removed from the fleet.[x] The Admiralty did not oblige him in this request.

Relations between Beresford and the Admiralty continued to be bad throughout the winter. Indeed, there is some evidence that he had more or less abandoned his command. On 11 November Beresford had been at Spithead for the German Emperor’s visit. The next time that he was with the fleet was on 17 February 1908 – an absence of 3 months and 4 days. This can only be described as curious behaviour for a man who insisted that war could come at an hour’s notice and whose official leave was 30 days beginning on 12 December.

It was the return of the warm spring weather that seems to have impelled Beresford into action again – and this time, all caution gone – his target was Fisher. On 1 May Beresford, in full view of royalty and society, attempted to avoid shaking Fisher’s hand at the Royal Academy dinner. A few days later he cut Fisher at the Royal levée, this time in the presence of  Winston Churchill (President of the Board of Trade) and Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer). No action was taken and the King cursed his government as ‘a pack of cowards’.[xi]

The King’s reaction expressed the views of many in politics and society. But one man was edging towards action: the new First Lord, Reginald McKenna, who had taken up his post on 12 April. On 28 May he asked the Cabinet for permission to dismiss Beresford, but the Cabinet demurred and simply asked McKenna to ask Beresford to detail his complaints. This left Beresford free to depart on his disaster-strewn fleet visit to Norway and subsequent North Sea exercises. While at Christiania (Oslo today) in June, Beresford four times clashed with Scott. On the first occasion he reprimanded Scott for trying to release a stuck kedge anchor with a cutter (Scott said he had done it before) and for failing to be on the bridge during the operation (Scott said he was there). The  next incident came on 21 June when Scott decorated his ship with the words ‘LEVE KONGEN” (Long live the King) in huge letters made of men dressed in white. The Norwegian royals were delighted by the gesture and the Queen took a photograph. But Beresford scowled. He did more than scowl. He wrote a letter of complaint to the Admiralty, accusing Scott of having put him in ‘a very false position’.[xii] Why? Because he, Beresford, had ordered all the sailors to be dressed in blue.

Events were now moving fast and, before the Admiralty had even received Beresford’s letter, the sky finally fell in on their obstreperous admiral. After leaving Norway the fleet was exercising in the North Sea on 1 July. Beresford wished the Squadron to reverse its direction, so he ordered Good Hope to turn 180-degrees to port. Had this order been executed, the Argyll and the Good Hope would almost certainly have collided, so Scott turned to starboard. This was accepted practice and no one questioned Scott’s action – not even Beresford.

It was an article in The Times on 7 July that turned a routine action into a cause célèbre. Beresford read the article as implying that his signal had been dangerous. He turned to Bellairs to stir things up, and stir things up he did. The very next day The Times near enough called for Beresford’s dismissal since his bad relations with Scott  ‘set a deplorable example of indiscipline and insubordination to the Fleet’.[xiii]

Dismissal

McKenna now had the backing that he needed to sack Beresford, even if the Admiralty and Cabinet moved slowly. On 19 December Beresford  finally received the letter that informed him that he was to be relieved of his command on 24 March 1909.

After landing for the last time Beresford sent a 2000 word letter on the state of the Navy to the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and demanded (with menaces) an enquiry. Asquith, always a man to give way to threats, conceded a Cabinet enquiry. Beresford and others submitted 246 pages of documents and the committee heard evidence that produced 328 pages of transcripts. They concluded that Beresford’s accusation that the Admiralty had not provided ‘a sufficient margin of superiority’ at all times during his command was without foundation.

But, critically, the Enquiry failed to include any emphatic words in support of Fisher or McKenna. This was enough for Beresford to declare himself the victor. Within days of the report’s publication he was on the warpath once more. By now Fisher was fatally weakened and even his most loyal friends urged retirement upon him. On 25 January 1910 – his sixty-ninth birthday – he duly relinquished his post and was raised to the peerage as Baron Fisher of Kilverstone.

Fisher’s resurrection and Beresford’s banishment

There was, though, a strange sequel. At the start of the First World War the First Sea Lord was Prince Louis of Battenberg. German born but naturalised as a young boy, he had spent all his life in the Royal Navy. His loyalty to Britain was unquestionable. Yet it was questioned – most notably by the renegade Beresford himself – and Battenberg was driven from office by the mob at the end of October. Winston Churchill, the First Lord, called back Fisher, so making him one of the very few men to have twice been First Sea Lord. Beresford, it should be noted, was never offered any official post at any time in the war. He was persona non grata in Downing Street and Whitehall. He broke two First Sea Lords, but never for one moment did he gain from his despicable actions.

Richard Freeman’s Admiral Insubordinate: The Life and Times of Lord Beresford is published as a Kindle book by Endeavour Press Ltd. Also available in paperback from Amazon. 

[i] Scott, S P Fifty Years in the Royal Navy. John Murray 1919, p. 202, fn 1.

[ii] King Hall, L (ed) Sea Saga. Victor Gollanz 1935, p. 313.

[iii] Marder, A J British Naval Policy 1880-1905. Cassell 1940, p. 440.

[iv] King-Hall’s Diary, 3 March 1905. http://www.kinghallconnections.com/

[v] Beresford to Bellairs, 12 Dec 1905. McGill Bellairs archive.

[vi] Churchill College Archives FISR 5/16 FP 4265.

[vii] Padfield, P Aim Straight: A Biography of Admiral Sir Percy Scott. Hodder & Stoughton 1966 p. 164.

[viii] Roxburgh log book 4 Nov 1907. TNA ADM 53/25785.

[ix] New York Times, 12 Nov 1907.

[x] Beresford to the Admiralty, 8 Nov 1907. TNA ADM 116/3108.

[xi] Magnus, P M King Edward VII. John Murray 1964, p. 370.

[xii] Beresford to the Secretary of the Admiralty, 11 Aug 1908. TNA ADM 116/3108.

[xiii] The Times, 8 July 1908.