THE TOO VAST ORB THE ADMIRALTY AND AUSTRALIAN NAVAL DEFENCE 1881-1913 rtal lic en C5 M. Briggs B.A. Dip. Ed. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania (Hobart, 1991) "The Weary Titan staggers under the too vast orb of its fate." Joseph Chamberlain 1902 Colonial Conference This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university and, to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. M. Briggs SUMMARY The subject of this study is the relationship between the Admiralty and the Australian colonies, and subsequently the Commonwealth of Australia, from 1881 to 1913. Of main concern is Admiralty policy; its objectives, the way in which it was determined, and the factors which shaped it. The three decades examined in this study saw fundamental changes in the relationship between the Admiralty and Australia. Federation and the growth of nationalist sentiment encouraged Australian efforts to develop a local navy. These efforts were rewarded with the establishment of the Royal Australian Navy in 1911. This period also saw major changes in Britain's strategic and economic circumstances and the decline of the Royal Navy relative to the other great navies of the world. Students of British naval policy have tended to overlook the Admiralty's relationship with colonies such as Australia, concentrating on relations with the great powers, in particular the naval race with Germany. Of those studies which do mention Australia, many have emphasized the role developing nationalist sentiment in Australia played in changing the Admiralty's policy on dominion naval defence. Historians from C.P. Lucas to Donald Gordon have implicitly or explicitly criticized Australia for pressing for a local navy in the face of cogent strategic arguments by the Admiralty. Such criticism, however, does not take into account the extent to which changes in the Admiralty's position on Australian naval defence were initiated by the Admiralty themselves as a result of changes in their strategic and financial circumstances. While it is acknowledged that developing Australian nationalism and Australian efforts to establish a local navy did influence the Admiralty's thinking on Australian naval defence, this study argues that changes in the Admiralty's attitude were primarily a response to broader changes in Britain's strategic and financial position. This study begins in the early 1880s when a series of incidents involving the Australian colonies highlighted the problems posed for Britain when the colonies established their own local naval defence forces. The upshot of these incidents was the 1887 naval agreement. While the 1887 agreement has often been linked with the Imperial Federation movement, which was active at the time, it is claimed here that the agreement was devised by the Admiralty primarily to undermine naval development in the Australian colonies. As such it formed the basis for future relations between the Admiralty and Australia until changing strategic and financial circumstances forced the Admiralty to rethink their policy of discouraging colonial naval forces. From the turn of the century the Admiralty's advice to Australia on naval matters undergoes frequent, often contradictory, changes. This study examines these changes in the context of, and as a reflection of, Britain's deteriorating strategic and financial circumstances and domestic political situation. Extensive use is made of Admiralty materials, especially the internal memoranda of the influential Naval Intelligence Department, in order to reveal the factors which shaped the Admiralty's Australian policy. The Naval Intelligence Department material has been little studied in regard to Australian naval defence. A major section of this study is devoted to examining the 1909 proposal by the Admiralty for the establishment of a Pacific Fleet. The Pacific Fleet scheme, with its provision for ocean-going colonial 'fleet units', was a major departure by the Admiralty from their policy of discouraging naval development by the colonies. It also appears at odds with the programme of fleet concentration and rationalization which the Admiralty was engaged in at the time. Perhaps because of this, and the fact the scheme was t v short-lived, being abandoned by Britain only two years after it had first been mooted, it has been ignored by historians or dismissed as an aberration not worthy of much attention. This study argues that the Pacific Fleet sheme was a genuine proposal by the Admiralty to reassert British sea power in the Pacific and it shows how a series of fortuitous events led the Admiralty to believe that a new Pacific Fleet was possible, even in the midst of the naval race with Germany. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first began researching this subject in 1986 following a suggestion by the late Professor Arthur J. Marder during a visit, some years earlier, to the University of Tasmania. It has been a long haul for a part-time student working largely in a remote part of what many would say was an already remote island. During this time I have incurred debts to a number of people. I would like to thank Dr. Richard Ely and Professor Michael Roe, my supervisors, for their advice and assistance. I would also like to thank Mr. Ray Jones, who read the earlier chapters, for his comments and encouragement. From the research point of view I am grateful for the assistance of the staffs of the Public Record Office and National Maritime Museum in London, the Australian Archives in Canberra and Melbourne, the Australian National Library, and the Libraries of the Australian National University and the University of Tasmania. I would also like to thank Mr. J. Mackenzie, the Royal Australian Navy Historical Officer, for allowing me to examine material held by the Department of Defence. CONTENTS List of Maps Abbreviations Introduction 1 1 The Containment of Colonial Naval Activism, 1881-1887 14 2 The Vindication of the Admiralty's Policy, 1887-1901 62 3 The Politics of Naval Decline, 1900-1903 96 4 Parsimony, Redistribution and a Change of Attitude to Colonial Navies, 1904-1908 145 5 A New Pacific Fleet, 1909 208 6 The Abandonment of the Pacific, 1910-1914 268 Conclusion 323 Appendices 329 Bibliography 331 MAPS The Australia Station Under the 1887 Naval Agreement page 61 The Australia Station Under the 1902 Naval Agreement page 144 The Australia Station 1913 page 267 The maps in this work are derived from that drawn by L.J. Henderson in John Bach, The Australia Station: A History of the Royal Navy in the South West Pacific, 1821-1913, Kensington, N.S.W, New South Wales University Press, 1986. ABBREVIATIONS A.A.0.(C) Australian Archives Office (Canberra) A.A.0.(M) Australian Archives Office (Melbourne) Adm Admiralty Papers B. D. British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914 ed. G. Gooch and H. Temper ley. G.B.P.D. Great Britain Parliamentary Debates G.B.P.P. Great Britain Parliamentray Papers Cab Cabinet Papers C.D.C. Colonial Defence Committee C.I.D. Committee of Imperial Defence CO Colonial Office Papers C.P.D. Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates C.P.P. Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Papers D.N.I. Director of Naval Intelligence N.M.M. National Maritime Museum (Greenwich) N.I.D. Naval Intelligence Department N.L.A. National Library of Australia (Canberra) O.D.C. Overseas Defence Committee P.R.O. Public Record Office (London) R.A.N.A. Royal Australian Naval Archives (Canberra) 1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to explore the factors which shaped the Admiralty's attitude to Australian naval defence from the early 1880s until 1913 when Australia assumed responsibility for the naval defence of its own waters. The major events in Anglo-Australian relations which form the basic narrative of this study are outlined in a number of works, notably those of Jose, Lucas and Tunsta11. 1 Of more recent vintage is Richard Preston's Canada and 'Imperial Defense' which, despite its title, deals with the other dominions as well as Canada. 2 The student of Australian defence policy is also well served, in particular by the pioneering work of Leon Atkinson and, pursuing a somewhat different purpose, the excellent recent study by Neville Meaney. 3 Admiral Creswell, the leading 'Arthur W. Jose, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918: Vol. IX, The Royal Australian Navy, (Sydney, 1928), pp. xv-xlv, C.P. Lucas, The Empire at War, Volume I, (London, 1921) and W.C.B. Tunstall, "Imperial Defence 1870-1897" and "Imperial Defence 1897-1914", The Cambridge History of the British Empire, ed. E.A. Benians et. al., (Cambridge, 1959), Vol. III, pp. 230-254 and pp. 563-604. 2 .Richard A. Preston, Canada and 'Imperial Defense', (Durham, N.C., 1967). 2 .Leon Atkinson, Australia's Defence Policy: A Study of Empire and Nation 1897-1910, (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, A.N.U., 1964). Neville Meaney, A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy 1901-1923: Volume I, The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901- 1914, (Sydney, 1976). 2 campaigner in Australia for a national navy and subsequent First Naval Member of the Australian Naval Board, has been the subject of a biography by Stephen Webster. 4 My debt to all these authors must be constantly apparent. There is to my knowledge, however, no single work devoted to the factors which shaped the Admiralty's position on Australian naval defence. Indeed the aims and motives of the Admiralty in their dealings with Australia have been of only incidental concern to historians.