The central theme of this chapter is the 1909 naval scare, sometimes known as the acceleration crisis. At the very moment at which Captain Herbert Heath arrived in Berlin, news began to break that the German Navy was secretly ordering its capital ships ahead of the published schedule [66, 67]. The strong suspicion this created was that the Reich leadership was undertaking a covert attempt to match or even overtake the Royal Navy in the number of its Dreadnought battleships. Heath reported extensively on this apparent ‘acceleration’, incurring in the process the wrath of Admiral Tirpitz, who blamed him for what he considered ‘false’ statements made by British ministers in Parliament on the German shipbuilding programme. In consequence, Heath was gradually ostracized by the German naval authorities, a process that he much resented [90]. However, far from cowing the attaché, Tirpitz's actions made Heath even more certain that his deductions about German shipbuilding were correct and he continued to report in this vein. In the end relations between Heath and the German government became so strained that virtually all facilities were denied to him. Heath left his post for a sea-going command in 1910, a mere two years into his (nominally three-year) appointment.

58. Herbert Heath, Germany N.A. Report 38/08

Berlin, 13 August 1908

Visit to Danzig

I have the honour to submit the following report of my visit to Danzig on Tuesday last.

I called on Rear Adml Schimmelman [sic] in command of the Imperial Dockyard at 10 A.M. The Admiral was very cordial in his welcome but the interview was short and the Flag Captain then took me over the dockyard. The average number of workmen employed is [2000?], the work consisting of repairs and completion of vessels up to 3rd class cruisers, there are also older vessels of a larger class in reserve.

The Ersatz Pfeil was alongside but lying very light in the water; she is due for completion by the end of this year.

My guide informed me that he was not allowed to speak about German submarines.

After lunch I went down the river in a ‘penny steamer’ accompanied by a local Englishman, but an inspection of the yards from this position did not reveal anything of importance except that Schichau appear to have completed a new large ship.

Amongst the recently catalogued manuscripts from the Admiralty Library collection are a series of ten personal journals kept by Vice Admiral George Augustus Bedford (1809–78) for the years between 1830 and 1860. Setting aside one break in the 1830s, these provide a continuous and remarkable record of nearly 30 years of Naval surveying. Bedford was a successful specialist officer who commanded surveying vessels for 20 years, was eventually appointed Assistant Hydrographer in 1863 and became Marine Advisor to the Board of Trade shortly afterwards. His career took place about as far from the quarter-deck of a flag-ship as was possible in the mid-nineteenth-century Navy; the last two decades of his sea-going service were spent in the cutter Sylvia surveying the west and northwest coasts of Ireland.

Bedford was serving in a Navy that was small in historic terms (it mustered just under 26,000 men when he took his first command), but it was a Navy which, under John Barrow, as Secretary to the Admiralty, and Frances Beaufort as Hydrographer, put real resources into exploration, surveying and associated scientific research. Beaufort's period as Hydrographer (1829–55) has been described as the ‘high noon’ of the Hydrographic Office, and it was one of remarkable achievement. Although office resources for chart production were initially small, Beaufort managed to increase these and to secure more vessels for the surveying service – including in 1841 the use of six paddle steam vessels, which helped revolutionise practice. These resources allowed comprehensive surveys to be made overseas and in home waters. These surveys produced real benefits; the number of new charts produced annually increased from 19 in 1830 to 130 in 1855, and details of revisions to existing printed charts were published from 1832 in ‘The Nautical magazine’, and from 1834 as ‘Notices to Mariners’. In 1823 charts had first been made available commercially to the rest of world, and in the year when Beaufort left office 140,000 copies from a series of 2,000 charts were sold or distributed to the fleet. Bedford never had a starring role, never took part in the high-profile exploration of the Arctic, but his methodical surveying is typical of the work which contributed to this expansion.

It is clear that as a young man Bedford was aware of the personal risk of specialising which tended to divert officers from conventional Naval practice.

The main sets of Declared Accounts are in E 351 (Exchequer, Declared Accounts in Rolls); they are handsomely written and on parchment. This list shows how accounts printed in this volume stand in the series and in relation to the one appearing in ENA. A fuller listing there extends the range to the end of Elizabeth's reign, and includes other sets of accounts.

This chapter commences with an illustration of the tensions that were beginning to bedevil Anglo-German relations. The farewell audience of the out-going naval attaché, Captain Reginald Allenby, was used by the Kaiser as a platform for expounding his manifold complaints about British policy [1]. It was into this chill that Commander (later Captain) Philip Dumas arrived as the new representative of the Royal Navy. The chapter follows his experiences, drawing especially upon his growing perception of an intense German Anglophobia [4, 14, 15, 31]. It also heralds an issue that will be of some prominence later, namely the invasion question [22]. However, Dumas's main concern upon his arrival was to investigate Germany's ability to build major warships. To this end he conducted an extensive tour of the German coasts, visiting and reporting upon various ship yards and harbours in the process [8, 9, 12, 18]. He also went to see several armaments manufacturers, including Krupp's of Essen [17]. The result of all these inspections was an important despatch outlining in great detail Germany's ability to construct large numbers of naval vessels of all types with considerable rapidity [19]. Following this, in early 1907, came a long memorandum in which Dumas examined the question of the best strategy to adopt in the event of an Anglo-German war. The attaché proposed as the most effective course a rigorous assault on German commerce through a distant blockade that would prevent both German and neutral vessels reaching the Reich [24]. Such a course, it may be noted, would be adopted in the First World War.

1. Reginald Allenby, Germany N.A. Report 2/06

Berlin, 16 January 1906

Anglo-German Relations

I had the honour of being this day received in farewell audience by His Majesty the Emperor. I beg to submit the following account of the conversation which ensued.

His Majesty's manner was extremely cordial, although he was just recovering from a severe attack of influenza. He gave me the impression of being much in earnest when referring to the question of the relations between England and Germany, and appeared to keenly feel and resent the imputations in the press and elsewhere under which he suffered. His manner was very forcible when denying the right of England to interfere between Germany and France, and he inferred that his motives were of the most pacific nature.

The end of the Russian Civil War brought only temporary relief to the Mediterranean Fleet. The situation was relaxed enough in late February 1921 for Admiral de Robeck to conduct tactical exercises with four battleships and all available destroyers in the Sea of Marmora. Nevertheless, the Turkish Nationalists, ably led by Mustafa Kemal, refused to accept the punitive terms of the Treaty of Sèvres and stoutly resisted Greek attempts to expand inland from smyrna. The Greeks were confident and ready to launch an offensive towards Angora but de Robeck was less certain of their chances in the long run. Moreover, if they were defeated the British would face the dilemma of what to do if the Kemalists reached the Marmora and Dardanelles and defied the treaty provisions establishing neutral zones along the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. Furthermore, whatever the tendencies of Prime Minister Lloyd George in London, opinion in the Fleet was not uncritically pro-Greek. This was largely because the death of King Alexander in October 1920 had resulted in elections that ousted Venizelos and his party and led, after what has been termed a ‘rigged plebiscite’, to the return of King Constantine whose seemingly anti-entente and neutralist stance during the war was not forgotten [168]. Moreover, politically inspired purges of pro-Venizelos officers did little to strengthen the Greek army.

A Nationalist force under Ismet Pasha repulsed a Greek advance at Iönü in January and the Kemalists improved their diplomatic position in March at an ultimately unsuccessful peace conference in London by reaching a separate provisional agreement with the French ending the fighting in Cilicia. The Italians also agreed to evacuate the zone in Anatolia conceded to them in the Sèvres Treaty in return for economic concessions and completed their withdrawal by the end of June. In addition, of potentially great importance, the Kemalists also concluded, on 16 March in Moscow, a treaty of friendship with Soviet Russia. French and Italian forces remained with the British in occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, at least for the moment, but the implications for the future were clear. The British were likely to be left on their own should the Kemalists prevail over the Greeks.

It might be thought that some of the pieces in this Part are rather humdrum but in their ordinariness lies their interest. Two items chronicle the formality and protocol of meeting between American and British ships [159, 160]. Their stiffness is relieved by reports of lavish dinners, entertainments and hospitality [159, 160, 162, 165]. Despite obvious nationalistic rivalries, relations between the men were extremely cordial [167, 170]. There were amusing tales of how Prohibition was circumvented [162, 165]. By tacit consent, wrangles over limitation at Geneva and London [1930] did not carry over into meetings between the sailors afloat [162, 163, 165] and there was a notable absence of the suspicion and distrust which is the repeated theme of other Parts.

The British marvelled at American technical expertise and productive capacity, and even more at the largesse apparently available to the US Navy [154, 167, 170, 178, 179]. It was undeniable that the Americans were more advanced in a material sense, their ships equipped with facilities and comforts the cause of admiring remarks by British officers. In part the comparative lack of modern equipment in British ships was the result of financial stringency but it was also a cultural decision – what had been good enough for Nelson appeared to be good enough for a much later Georgian navy. The US Navy, though founded in the time of Nelson, was much more up to date, reflecting the expectations of American society; and, as there were problems at times with recruitment and retention of enlisted men, it was also incumbent on the Navy Department to ensure that the gap between civilian life and that on the ocean waves was closed, not only with home comforts but also with a more relaxed code of discipline [154, 167]. The enlisted men were well educated and their life afloat was relieved not only by comforts but also by laboursaving machinery [154, 167, 170].

Nowhere was the American identification with the leading edge of technology more apparent than in naval aviation. Senior American officers were concerned to retain control of their service's air power and believed it to be superior to the British system, where the RAF managed all aviation under the Trenchard doctrine of the indivisibility of air power.

Within a week of arrival at Plymouth, Duckworth was ordered to complete his stores for Channel service [34], but then was detained in Plymouth and Spithead and Portsmouth through the winter of 1793–94, occupied with administration – including the old issue of paint [38, 39] – transferred to Admiral Alan Gardner's command again in January [41], and then to Lord Howe's in March [46]. His documents in that time are again evidence of the many minor administrative and personnel issues he, and every other captain, had to cope with while in harbour – a supply of Bibles [36], paint, pay – a collective plea by the captains [42] – and personnel [35, 40, 43–45].

During his service under Admiral Lord Howe, Duckworth evidently acquired copies of several documents which it is perhaps unlikely a captain would normally obtain – an Admiralty background letter addressed to Admiral Sir Peter Parker [47], and even a copy of the instructions from the Admiralty to Lord Howe [50]. He was employed, along with other captains, in checking on the condition and numbers of the French fleet at Brest [52], and eventually Orion formed a unit of Howe's fleet which intercepted that French fleet and its convoy in the western Atlantic.

It is odd, however, that no written material survives from the six weeks before the battle, when presumably Orion was at sea with the fleet. In later stints of blockading Brest, frequent, even daily, reports were made and demanded; presumably Howe did not require them, or perhaps did not think of asking for them. This alteration is a mark of the change in and systematisation of the blockading system between the start of the war and its later phases.

Duckworth composed a report on his activities during the battle which resulted (‘First of June’ for want of a geographical designation), which appeared several years later in the Naval Chronicle. There are in fact three of these reports. That included here is the most detailed, and clearly was based on the log maintained during the fighting. It may or may not be by Duckworth himself, though one would suppose he had authorised it, and supervised it, at least.

Like its immediate predecessor, this seventh Naval Miscellany clearly reveals how wide ranging and varied were the responsibilities of British seamen in the service of the Crown. The period covered extends from the late thirteenth century, when there was nothing in existence which could truly be called a navy, to the second half of the twentieth century when the Royal Navy faced all manner of new challenges, including the possibility of nuclear war.

Contributions dealing with the earliest periods are concerned only with what are now thought of as home waters [I and II both dealing with campaigns against Scotland]. We move on to voyages to Iceland [III], in the Baltic [IV], and thereafter to the high seas in general. Even more than the ever wider geographical spread of Naval activity, the topics covered show how deeply maritime affairs became woven into British life in time of peace as well as war. The ships of the Cinque Ports and the other harbours along the south and east coasts of England which transported Edward I's armies and their victuals and equipment to Scotland [I] were everyday merchantmen, many no larger than a modern yacht. Without their help the King's ambitious campaigns would have foundered. The documents printed also shed light on the shipping of the period, its design and construction and the number of vessels which could be pressed into royal service. Changes by the sixteenth century are made clear by comparing this contribution with that relating to Lord Lisle's expedition of 1544 [II]. The log of the voyage of the Marigold [III] just over a century later says much about contemporary seamanship and the way in which governments by then saw the fisheries as one of their legitimate concerns.

The voyages of the Raven and the Investigator [VI, VII] not only indicate the professionalism of the surveying and chart-making activities of the Hydrographic Office but also the value of those activities for the economic development of the areas concerned. The difficulties of organising such expeditions in areas little known at the time are vividly portrayed. However, the largest group of contributions is concerned with various aspects of the Royal Navy as a fighting force in the defence of the realm.

On 30 October 1918, Admiral Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorpe, Commander-in-Chief of British naval forces in the Mediterranean, concluded an armistice with representatives of the Ottoman Empire at Mudros, the island off the Dardanelles that had served as a British base since the operations in 1915. Marines and Indian troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula and occupied the fortifications that had defied the British and French in 1915 and minesweepers set to work to clear channels through the formidable minefields. Finally, on 12 November at midday, Calthorpe, flying his flag in the dreadnought Superb in company with her sister ship Temeraire, the semi-dreadnoughts Lord Nelson and Agamemnon, 5 British cruisers and 18 destroyers (3 Australian), led a British squadron through the Dardanelles. The British were followed at half-hourly intervals by a French squadron (5 battleships, 2 armoured cruisers, 6 destroyers), an Italian squadron (2 battleships, a cruiser, 3 destroyers) and a Greek squadron (armoured cruiser, 3 destroyers). The British and Indian troops occupying the forts were paraded as the allied ships passed. The Allied Fleets cruised through the Sea of Marmora during the night and anchored off Constantinople at 08.00 Local Time on 13 November. The British quickly left for the Gulf of Ismid which would be their main base for the present.

Calthorpe and the Allies were immediately faced with the problem of what lay beyond Constantinople and the Bosphorus in the Black Sea. A week after their arrival off Constantinople on Admiralty orders British and Allied warships began to fan out to ports along the Black Sea to show the flag and to take steps to expedite carrying out the naval provisions of the armistice with Turkey and Germany. The collapse of Russia and the Bolshevik seizure of power in late 1917 had led to German and Austrian forces penetrating deeply into Russian territory including the occupation of the Crimea and major naval base of Sevastopol. The fate of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, once a relatively formidable force that had enjoyed a fair measure of success in the Black Sea until the revolution and collapse, had been a matter of concern to the Allies who feared the Germans and their Allies would seize some or all of the ships and employ them in the Mediterranean.