Prelude to Dreadnought: Battleship Development in the Royal Navy, 1889-1905
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Prelude to Dreadnought: Battleship Development in the Royal Navy, 1889-1905 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John D.P. Winters, M.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Professor John F. Guilmartin, Advisor Professor Alan Beyerchen Professor Jennifer Siegel Copyright by John D.P. Winters 2010 Abstract The Royal Navy went through an important period of growth and development between 1889, with the passage of the Naval Defense Act, and 1905, when construction on the Dreadnought commenced. Though the pre-Dreadnought era of ship design and construction is often seen as a period characterized by resistance to change and self- satisfied indifference to the value of new technology for naval warfare, it was instead a period of cautious, measured and successful adaptation of new technology, which produced powerful and effective battleships. The Royal Navy was able to do this because it had developed a systemic method for designing ships and incorporating new technology into those designs. The system was able to effectively decide on the role the battleship would fill within the broader context of naval operations. It decided how to balance the competing demands of the capabilities that were wanted to fill that role in an environment of strict limits on space, weight and money available. The system also evaluated new technology and determined what filled the Navy’s needs and produced better ships. The period between the Naval Defense Act in 1889 and the Dreadnought in 1905 is a vastly underappreciated period in the history of the Royal Navy. It was not a period of failure for the Royal Navy, as least so far as ship design and technological advancement were concerned, that can be dismissed as something that “Jackie” Fisher needed to fix. The Royal Navy had its failures at that time, to be sure. However, the failure effectively design its ships and to grapple ii with new technology and adapt and adopt it for its ships, most importantly, its battleships, was not one of them. iii Dedication This is dedicated to my ever-patient wife, Janine iv Acknowledgments I wish to thank my advisor, Dr. J.F. Guilmartin, for his encouragement, support and assistance on this project. It would not have been successful without his tireless efforts. Dr. Alan Beyerchen and Dr. Jennifer Siegel have my thanks for their many suggestions, which both enhanced my understanding of the subject and made this a much better work than it would have been otherwise. The Mershon Center for International Security Studies generously provided funding for research travel. I would also like to thank The National Archives of the United Kingdom and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, United Kingdom, particularly the archivists at the Brass Foundry Repository at Woolwich for assistance in finding a wealth of important information. v Vita 1989………………………………………... B.A. Oberlin College 2003…………………………………………M. A. The Ohio State University 2008-2009…………………………………..Instructor in History, Wright State University 2000 to Present…………………………...…Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: History Area of Emphasis: Military History Minor Field: Modern European History Minor Field: World History vi Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………........................ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………iv Acknowledgment…………………………………………………………….v Vita………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Figures……………………………………………………………..viii Introduction…………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: Strategic Background…………………………………………...22 Chapter 2: Setting the Battleship Pattern: Implicit Thinking and the Guiding Hand of William White……………………………60 Chapter 3: Integrating New Technology: What is “Better?”………………113 Chapter 4: Steady Grown, Continued Improvement…………...………….175 Chapter 5: Under Pressure but Resilient: Successful Adaptation to Changing Circumstances …………………………………213 Conclusion………………………………………………………...…...….264 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….270 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 An old style turret (Coles type)…………………………...76 Figure 2 A barbet………………………………………………...…76 Figure 3 A modern barbet-turret…………………………………….77 viii Introduction Introduction The history of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the decades before World War I is often implicitly broken into two parts. The first part consists of the two or three decades before 1905, during which the Royal Navy stagnated. The personnel, particularly the officers, basked in past glories of the age of “wooden ships and iron men.” The senior leadership hated “dirty” machinery, was dedicated to spit and polish as an end and not a means, and was given to reminiscing about the days of their youth under sail. At best, they moved only slowly to modernize, and at worst, they obstructed the adoption of new technology for their warships. While the Royal Navy remained the world’s premier military force at sea, it did so only because of its enormous head start; it did little to continue to earn the honor. The second part of this story consists of the decade after 1905, when Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher was appointed First Sea Lord and began dragging the Royal Navy kicking and screaming into the 20th century with a series of reforms. The most prominent of these was the construction of the H.M.S. Dreadnought, the first all big gun battleship, which was adopted as the new pattern for all future battleships. Fisher forced the Navy out of its complacency, and to embrace new technology and its consequences for naval warfare. Under Fisher, the Navy reformed itself into a force capable of fighting and 1 winning a naval war against a determined opponent. The two periods are sharply juxtaposed as consisting of drift and activity, of self-satisfied decline and renewed vigor.1 There is some truth in this slight oversimplification. It is accurate in that, to a certain extent, the Royal Navy before Fisher’s term as First Sea Lord was bogged down and lacked energy and direction. It was particularly weak in its thinking, planning, and education, and it used its resources inefficiently.2 For example, it had only just begun to restructure officer training and adapt to the changes caused by the shifts in economic and military power of the late 19th century.3 Overall, it was a self-satisfied and somewhat 1 The work of historian Arthur Marder is the archetype for this narrative, though many other historians have used and contributed to it. See: Arthur Marder, British Naval Policy 1880-1905, the Anatomy of British Sea Power (London: Putnam and Co., 1940); Arthur Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought, the Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 3 vols. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1952-1959); Arthur Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-1970). 2 See, for example, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game, Jutland and British Naval Command (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996); Geoffrey Till, “Introduction: British Naval Thinking, a Contradiction in Terms?,” pp. 1-18, N. A. M. Rodger, “The Idea of Naval Strategy in Britain in the 18th and Nineteenth Centuries,” pp. 19-33, Andrew Lambert, “The Development of Education in the Royal Navy: 1854-1914,” pp. 34-59, all in Geoffrey Till, ed., The Development of British Naval Thinking, Essays in Memory of Bryan Ranft (London: Routledge, 2006); Jon Sumida, In Defense of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889-1914 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Allen Lane, 1976); Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy (London: Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1959); Peter Padfield, Rule Britannia, (London: Routledge, 1981). Marder’s Anatomy of British Sea Power, while it has some problems as discussed below, is also a reasonable example of the types of issues the Royal Navy had. 3 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Allen Lane, 1976); George Monger, The End of Isolation (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963); John Gooch, “The Weary Titan: Strategy and Policy in Great Britain, 1890-1918,” in The Making of Strategy, Rulers, States, and War, ed. Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 285-287; 2 lethargic organization. Fisher injected energy and direction into the Royal Navy. He accelerated the reorganization of the fleet, and changed policies and procedures that had been pursued solely out of institutional inertia. He streamlined the decision-making process and did push the Navy into adopting new technology much more quickly. Fisher also brought conflict and division with his arrogance and disregard for others’ opinions, but he did make drastic and essential improvements to the Royal Navy. However, the idea that Fisher upended an organization that built new ships with little regard for technological changes and avoided new technology on principle is incorrect, as is the notion that there was no real system and little direction in the decision- making process that produced the Royal Navy’s ships until Fisher intervened. This study corrects both of those perceptions, and shows the leadership of the Navy in a much more positive way. The Royal Navy’s leaders were far from being reactionary technophobes, but were instead cautious professionals who understood the value of new technology but also understood its potential limits. The leadership of the Navy demanded, at times very strongly, that the efficacy of new technology be proven before it was introduced into Naval vessels. The Navy weighed potential advantages carefully against the need to have dependable, reliable weapons systems. Its leaders had enormous responsibilities—the security of Great Britain and the Empire—and were not about to take chances on their ability defend it. Similarly, the Navy had a system in place to develop battleships and their related sub-systems that worked well.