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Bromance in Naples: The Wooing of Jacky Fisher, 1912
- By DAVE TURRELL
- | October 12, 2023
- Category: Churchill's Youth Explore
First Lord of the Admiralty
Road to Naples: On 25 October 1911, Prime Minister H.H. Asquith appointed Winston Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty—civilian head of the world’s most powerful navy. Ecstatic, Churchill relished his new appointment far more than his previous offices at the Board of Trade and Home Office. Asquith’s daughter Violet, who was with him on the day of his appointment, described his mood: “His whole life was invested with a new significance. He was tasting fulfilment. Never, before or since, have I seen him more completely and profoundly happy.”1
Churchill threw himself into the job with even more than his usual demonic energy and exuberance. Making full use of the Admiralty yacht Enchantress, he voyaged to inspect every one of Britain’s naval facilities. Over the next three years he would spend much of his time afloat.
This was less of a hardship than might be thought. Enchantress was a substantial steam vessel of almost 4000 tons, luxuriously appointed and carrying a crew of ninety-six. There was abundant room for Churchill and any guests he might wish to take with him, both political friends and family—a privilege of which he availed himself freely.
Strategic dilemmas
Churchill’s life was not all leisurely cruising and inspections. By March 1912 he was facing four interlocking and growing problems, two strategic and two personal.
Although recently retired as First Sea Lord, Admiral John Arbuthnot “Jacky” Fisher still exercised enormous influence. An inveterate innovator, he’d spent his career advocating updates and modernization to what he regarded as “his” navy. Recently he had relentlessly pushed for a new class of battleship, carrying 15-inch guns and cruising at 25 knots. Churchill agreed, but was aware that such a vessel could not be powered by steam. What was needed were oil-fired Diesel engines. This was a challenge for a nation with abundant coal but no oil. Tiny, ocean-bound red spots on the global map, their names familiar only to stamp collectors, represented a network of coaling stations. Churchill lacked the personal power to build a replacement supply of oil. For that he needed the political clout of the Prime Minister. That in turn required Fisher on his side.
The second strategic problem was the ever-looming prospect of war with Germany and her burgeoning luxus flotte.2 Churchill wanted to reposition the Mediterranean fleet, then based at Malta, between Gibraltar and its home base of Scapa Flow, to cover potential hostilities in the North Sea. This idea was fiercely resisted by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, then Consul-General in Egypt. Weakening Britain’s naval presence at Malta, Kitchener argued, would jeopardize the primary route to India. To overcome Kitchener’s resistance, Churchill again needed Fisher.
Personal difficulties
The personal problems were straightforward, although not easy to resolve. Both revolved around Fisher, who had retired in January 1910, his influence undiminished. Alas, Churchill and Fisher were not then on speaking terms. Winston had recently appointed three admirals without consulting him. Since none of them were his supporters, this was unforgivable to a man with Fisher’s ego. Angrily the old admiral wrote to Churchill:
I fear this must be my last communication with you on any matter at all. I am sorry for it, but I consider you have betrayed the navy in these three appointments, and what the pressure could have been to induce you to betray your trust is beyond my comprehension.3
Unfortunately, relations between Fisher and Asquith were also frosty. For most of his tenure as First Sea Lord, Fisher had been at daggers drawn with Lord Charles Beresford, who had felt he had a superior claim to the position. It was a long-drawn-out feud, based around professional jealousy and not a little childishness. By the time of his retirement, Fisher did not feel that Asquith had been sufficiently supportive and took umbrage accordingly.
Personal diplomacy
Between strategy and personalities, a Gordian knot was rapidly raveling with Fisher at its center. Churchill knew he would have to cut it sooner rather than later. He turned to something he would use many times in his career, in which he placed unshakeable faith: personal diplomacy.
A cruise on the Enchantress, with Asquith aboard, had already been scheduled to visit Malta and Kitchener in May 1912. Churchill decided to add a stop at Naples, where he knew Fisher was wintering. He wrote Fisher on May 15th, inviting him to meet on the yacht, brushing aside the source of his grievance. “I shall look forward to having a good talk with you…. If the consequences of recent appointments were what you apprehend I sh[oul]d feel your censures were not undeserved. But they will not be.”4
He followed that up with reminders and adjustments to the date on the 17th and 18th. Fisher’s sulk was still in full swing, and his response was far from encouraging. However, he grudgingly agreed to a Naples meeting on Enchantress.
From a historical perspective we are fortunate indeed: The voyage included Asquith’s daughter Violet, a superb diarist and lifelong Churchill friend. Thanks to her diaries we can reconstruct much of the visit.
The party included an eclectic mix of colleagues, friends and family. Also on board were Naval Secretary David Beatty, Second Sea Lord Prince Louis of Battenberg, Churchill secretaries Eddie Marsh and James Masterton-Smith, Churchill’s wife Clementine and his sister-in-law Lady Gwendoline (“Goonie”) Churchill.
To Naples with love
Although the visit to Malta had been previously publicized, the newly scheduled stop at Naples was mostly withheld from the press. Neither Churchill nor Asquith wanted it widely known that they were consulting the controversial retired Admiral. Some newspapers correctly surmised the reason for the visit. Others fell for a canard that bad weather caused a stop at Naples to take on a pilot for Malta.
Enchantress duly docked at Naples on the morning of Friday, 24 May 1912, under no worse than grey skies. Fisher immediately went aboard, then dragged the party off for some unappreciated sight-seeing. Violet recalled:
Winston endured for oil’s sake, but behaved as though he were barely conscious…. As the day wore on I noticed signs of mellowing in Lord F. which I feel will turn to melting before long…. When we got back to the Enchantress Lord F. and W. were locked together in naval conclave…. I’m sure they can’t resist each other for long at close range.5
It was Violet’s final point that Winston had relied on, and it appeared to be working. It was clear, now and later, that a personal magnetism bound their two egos together. However, according to both Violet and Fisher, the real turning point came during a morning religious service. This occurred on Enchantress on either the Saturday or Sunday—the diary is ambiguous.
The turning point
The naval chaplain preached an impassioned sermon on the subject of duty. Fisher, a deeply religious man, later wrote to his son:
He [the chaplain] fixed his eyes steadfastly on me and said “No man still possessing all his powers and full of vitality has any right to say, ‘I am now going to rest, as I have had a hard life,’ for he owes a duty to his country and fellow men.” It was an arrow shot at a venture like the one that killed Ahab.6
“The chaplain must have been verbally inspired, but it was not by any human agency,” Violet noted. “I am ashamed to say that though I attended the service I have no recollection of the sermon and was quite unaware of the miracle it had wrought.”7
Churchill always believed in a form of Divine Providence which guarded over him. It had kept him safe from bullets and blades in Cuba, Afghanistan, Sudan, and South Africa. In years to come it would preserve him from shell fire in the trenches. And now it appeared, in the fortuitous choice of the chaplain’s sermon, Providence had come to his aid again.
But had it? Over a century later a cynical historian can be forgiven for wondering if, perhaps, a deferential naval chaplain might have been influenced in his selection by a quiet word from his temporal employer. We may never know. But Winston Churchill was never one to flinch from giving Divine Providence a bit of a helping shove where needed.
“You need a plough to draw”
In refusing to stand on his dignity and approaching Fisher, Churchill foreshadowed his relations with his “Big Three” partners thirty years later. He was always willing to make the first approach, whether to Stalin, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, or Molotov. Whenever a personal meeting could be arranged, it was Churchill who boarded boat or plane. So it was with the trip to Naples. His goals accomplished, Enchantress steamed out of Naples on 27 May to confront Kitchener in Malta.
Fifteen days later Churchill wrote to Fisher asking him to come out of retirement. Britain’s oil supply needed to be assured before any transition to oil. He spared no flattery, even if his metaphors were uncharacteristically mixed.”
The liquid fuel problem has got to be solved, and the natural inherent, unavoidable difficulties are such that they require the drive and enthusiasm of a big man…. No one else can do it so well…. your gifts, your force, your hopes, belong to the navy…. I claim them now—knowing full well you will not grudge them. You need a plough to draw. Your propellors are racing in the air.”8
It worked. On 30 July Churchill announced Fisher’s appointment to head the Royal Commission on Fuel and Engines. Asquith was won over to support the navy’s total conversion to oil power. On 10 February 1914 the Commission issued its final report. The following June, Churchill told the Commons the government would acquire 51% control of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP). That transaction secured Britain’s long-term oil supply. It was a financial triumph rivaling Disraeli’s purchase of Suez Canal shares. In October 1914, following the advent of war, Fisher resumed his old post of First Sea Lord.
Indispensable nemesis
The fight over the deployment of the Mediterranean Fleet was a fierce one. While most of the cabinet were sympathetic to Fisher and Churchill’s wishes, Reginald McKenna, the former First Lord, dug in his heels. Malta needed protection, he argued. It was important both symbolically and strategically. In the end something of a compromise was reached. A greatly reduced force was left in Malta while the remainder was split between Gibraltar and the North Sea.
On 4 August 1914, Churchill’s midnight telegram, “Commence hostilities against Germany,” was signaled from the Admiralty. By then the Grand Fleet was oil-fired, mobilized and in place. Ironically it was Kitchener who later told Churchill: “Well, there is one thing at any rate they cannot take from you. The Fleet was ready.”9
By the time of the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, four Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were in service. Built to Fisher’s and Churchill’s exacting specifications, they proved formidable. Their 15-inch guns were able to engage at a range of 19,000 yards—beyond the reach of any German guns at that time.
Ultimately, however, Churchill might have reflected that Divine Providence is not lightly to be mocked. In wooing Jacky Fisher back into the fold, he had solved his immediate problems. But he had also unknowingly embraced his nemesis. In 1912 Fisher was unquestionably indispensable to Churchill. In 1915 he would be the catalyst for Winston’s personal catastrophe – the Dardanelles.
The author
Dave Turrell is happily retired from a lifetime career in Information Technology. He is a longtime Churchill bibliophile and collector, and is proud to have been a deputy editor of Finest Hour. His days are spent in arranging his books on his own plan and, even on the rare occasions where he cannot be friends with them, he is at least content to make their acquaintance.
Thanks, Patrizio Giangreco
This revealing essay on Winston Churchill’s early statesmanship came about purely by accident. We owe thanks to our colleague, the Churchill scholar Patrizio Giangreco of Naples, who brought the subject to our attention. He came upon a conundrum in the Italian translation of Frank Brennand’s The Young Churchill (1972), one of many unprepossessing paperbacks issued after Churchill’s death.10
In the Italian edition, Mr. Giangreco noticed a confusing account of the Fisher-Churchill Naples meeting. Brennand hazily describes the 1912 visit and the religious service aboard Enchantress, which influenced Fisher to end his fuming retirement and to take charge of converting the Royal Navy from coal to oil. The account carries no date, but follows Brennand’s explanation of events in 1914, not 1912. Brennand’s account is accurate enough, but the confusing sequence drew our colleague’s attention. With the help of Patrizio Giangreco and Andrew Roberts, we investigated and came upon this interesting story.
Patrizio Giangreco has contributed two reviews of Italian books to the Churchill Project: L’arma Segreta del Duce, by Mimmo Franzinelli (with Andrew M. Garvey); and Mistero Churchill, by Roberto Festorazzi (both 2015). He assisted our research into the forged Churchill-Mussolini letters, and helped us to translate “Dundee Election 1910,” by the great Italian journalist Luigi Barzini (2017). —RML
Endnotes
1 Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill As I Knew Him, (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1965), 237.
2 The Germans applied this derisive comment after Churchill said in 1912: “The British Navy is to us a necessity and, from some points of view, the German Navy is to them more in the nature of a luxury. Our naval power involves British existence. It is existence to us; it is expansion to them.” Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta, 2016), 225.
3 Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 2 vols. (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1929), II: 148.
4 Randolph S. Churchill, The Churchill Documents, vol. 3, Early Years in Politics 1901-1907 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2007), 1553.
5 Bonham Carter, 253.
6 Bacon, 153.
7 Bonham Carter, 254.
8 Barry Gough, Churchill and Fisher: Titans at the Admiralty (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2017), 179.
9 Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 2, 1915 (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1923), 344-45.
10 Frank Brennand, Winston S. Churchill (London: New English Library, 1965), 192 pages, with line-art illustrations and a passable brief biography. The first seventeen chapters through 1930, with no line-art, were reissued as The Young Churchill (London: New English Library 1972). Italian translation, 1972.
An interesting evaluation of personal relationships