AND THE BRITAIN MINE, 1900–1915 Culture, Strategy and International Law Richard Dunley Britain and the Mine, 1900–1915 Richard Dunley Britain and the Mine, 1900–1915 Culture, Strategy and International Law Richard Dunley The National Archives Kew, London, UK ISBN 978-3-319-72819-3 ISBN 978-3-319-72820-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72820-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934854 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Getty Images Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Bun and Andrea ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has its origins in a short conversation that took place following a seminar at King’s College, London in 2008. Since then it has grown out of all recognition, but at every stage this has only been possi- ble due to the help and support of colleagues and friends. I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for supporting my PhD research from which this book has developed. I am indebted to the staff of the numerous archives, libraries and other institutions I have visited whilst conducting this research. Knowing the extreme pressures felt at present across this sector makes me all the more grateful for the many archivists and librarians who have gone out of their way to share their knowledge and expertise of the collec- tions they hold. Special thanks must go to Andrew Choong and Jeremy Michell at the Brass Foundry in Woolwich, who are not only an inval- uable mine of information, but also provided me with a near constant stream of mince pies no matter the time of year I visited. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues at The National Archives for their insight and support, as I have sought to broaden out the project from my original doctoral research. Working surrounded by colleagues with such an extraordinary knowledge of the archival collections opens up many new avenues for research, and has led me to numerous discov- eries I would never have made on my own. Particular thanks must go to James Cronan, Janet Dempsey, Juliette Desplat, George Hay and Laura Tompkins. vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout my time researching for and writing this book I have benefted from a supportive network of fellow researchers. The PhD and wider naval history community at King’s College, London proved to be an essential group for discussing ideas, sharing experiences and bemoaning the ‘struggles’ of PhD life. I would particularly like to thank Andrew Breer, Stephen Cobb, Jennifer Daley, Marcus Faulkner and Catherine Scheybeler. Special mention must also go to Alan Anderson, a fellow traveller on this path. He has provided important feedback, ideas and more than occasional good humour over the course of a number of years, and I am very grateful. My PhD examiners, Matthew Seligmann and Jan Rüger, gave me extremely useful feedback, and Matthew has continued to prove a mine of information, especially on Admiralty records. I am grateful to Rear-Admiral James Goldrick and Brigadier Michael Clemmesen for their comments on the thesis, and to Palgrave’s manuscript reviewers for their helpful remarks. This book began life as a PhD project, and a special debt of grati- tude is owed to Andrew Lambert, who not only was willing to take on a troublesome student with an obscure project, but has provided essential guidance and support ever since. Finally I would like to thank my parents, and most especially Gwen, without whose support and forbearance this work would never have come to fruition. CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Mining in a Cultural Context 9 3 British Attitudes to Mining Before 1904 23 4 Mine Warfare in the Russo-Japanese War: The Royal Navy Perspective 45 5 The Russo-Japanese War: Outrage and Reaction 73 6 Mining and International Law: Britain and the Hague Conference 97 7 The Strategic Shift: The Origins of British Mine Warfare 131 8 Development and Institutionalisation: Offensive Mining 1906–1909 165 9 Strategic Flux and Technical Failure 193 ix x CONTENTS 10 The Test of Confict 225 11 War, Law and Diplomacy 267 12 Conclusion 297 Archival Sources 305 Index 309 ABBREVIATIONS ADNI Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence ADT Assistant Director of Torpedoes CID Committee of Imperial Defence COS Chief of the Admiralty War Staff DID Director Intelligence Division (Admiralty War Staff) DMO Director of Military Operations DNC Director of Naval Construction DNI Director of Naval Intelligence DNO Director of Naval Ordnance DOD Director Operations Division (Admiralty War Staff) EC Electro-Contact (Mine) EM Electro-Mechanical (Mine) FGDN Arthur J. Mardar, ed., Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States LWOS Low Water Ordinary Springs (Tide) NID Naval Intelligence Department PP Parliamentary Papers RE Royal Engineers RMA Royal Marine Artillery RMLI Royal Marine Light Infantry SOS Superintendent of Ordnance Stores xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction Human conscience, gentlemen, could not tolerate the idea that a bellig- erent should be permitted to sow mines profusely in seas frequented by the world’s merchant marines: but international law does not at present prohibit such acts, and it is to be feared that, long after the conclusion of peace, neutral vessels navigating the seas far from the scene of war will be exposed to terrible catastrophes.1 This statement, made on 27 June 1907 by Captain Charles Ottley to delegates at the Second Hague Peace Conference, was part of Britain’s concerted effort to get the use of mines banned under international law. Ottley was a torpedo offcer, who, twenty-three years previous, had invented the apparatus that allowed mines to be laid on a large scale in the open sea. Whilst serving as Director of Naval Intelligence, he devel- oped war plans which relied upon the use of mines on a scale never pre- viously envisaged. Yet, when in June 1907, he stood before the august gathering of diplomats and naval offcers he, as far as we can tell sin- cerely, pressed for the weapon to be banned. In making this statement Ottley came to embody the highly contested position which the mine occupied in the outlook of the Royal Navy, and Britain more generally, in the decade before the First World War. By the standards of the early twentieth century, the mine was not a complex piece of technology, nor was the basic concept a novel one. Yet this simple device posed a greater ideological challenge to the Royal Navy than any other item of technology. The reason for this was simple. © The Author(s) 2018 1 R. Dunley, Britain and the Mine, 1900–1915, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72820-9_1 2 R. DUNLEY The innate purpose of the weapon was mutual sea denial, the preven- tion of anyone from using a specifc area of sea for any purpose. This stood in total contradiction to the idealised view of Britain’s role as a maritime power, and the Royal Navy’s self-appointed mission as guardian of the seas. Use of the seas for both commercial and military purposes was perceived to be a basic right, guaranteed under some sense of Pax Britannica. The mine represented the antithesis of this in material form. Not merely challenging Britain’s right to exercise command of the sea, but denying it to all. The problem for the Royal Navy came from the fact that the mine proved to be an extremely effective weapon in naval combat. Events in the Russo-Japanese War in particular removed any lingering doubts about the impact mines could have on war at sea. This juxtaposition of the weapon’s obvious effectiveness with its objectionable intrinsic quality created a contested space in which the debates in the Royal Navy, the British government and the country at large took place. It is this space that is the focus of this study. In particular, it will examine the reactions of the British government to the mine in the separate spheres of strat- egy and international law, highlighting the problems and inconsisten- cies thrown up by the confict between the technology and the specifc national and organisational cultures which were dominant in this period. The feld of early twentieth-century naval history is an extremely active one, and within it considerable attention has been devoted to questions of technology.