Sir John Fisher and the Policy of Strategic Deterrence,1904–1908

October 1904 saw Sir John Fisher take up the post of first sea lord and senior naval adviser to the British government. This was a period of high tension and shifting relations between the major European powers. The Russo-Japanese War had been raging since February and there remained the possibility of it spreading into a broader European conflagration. At the same time Japanese successes on the battlefield exposed serious weaknesses within the Romanov empire. While this served to allay residual British fears about the imperial threat from Russia, it strengthened the position of Germany within European power politics. This accentuated existing concerns, most notably within the Foreign Office and the navy, about growing German strength. ¹ In order to counter this new threat and ultimately ensure peace, Fisher, together with a small group focused on Edward VII, sought to use Britain’s naval strength as a weapon of deterrence aimed at Wilhelmine Germany. This policy has not been fully addressed within the broad historiography of the Fisher era. Seminal works by Arthur Marder and Ruddock Mackay both picked up on certain aspects of the deterrence strategy, but dismissed them as demonstrations of Fisher’s personal idiosyncrasies. ² More recent scholarship has tended to focus attention on the economic, fiscal, and internal British political aspects of naval policy. ³ Andrew Lambert has looked at a number of aspects of the deterrence policy while addressing other issues, but has not considered the subject in detail. ⁴ The purpose of this article is to develop the argument put forward by Lambert and show how it was a central aspect of Fisherite policy aimed ultimately at avoiding conflict with Germany.

Naval deterrence had been an important tool of Victorian foreign policy, but its application had generally been ad hoc and unsystematic. The unusual susceptibility of imperial Germany to this form of pressure led Fisher to adopt it as a long-term response to the growing threat from across the North Sea. Since the late 1880s Germany had been encroaching on Britain’s pre-eminent position, particularly in the colonial and commercial spheres. German naval power was, however, entirely incapable of protecting these interests against the might of the Royal Navy. It was this weakness that led to a growing fear of a British strike to end German overseas pretentions. It was argued that ‘perfidious Albion’ was ruthless in its use of force to remove any potential threats. ⁵ The example given was that of the British attack on Copenhagen in 1807, when a pre-emptive strike destroyed the Danish fleet rather than risk it falling into the hands of the French. German fears of there being a new Copenhagen at Kiel were both widespread and deep-rooted. They extended to the very top of the German political and naval command and in part underpinned the entire German naval strategy. ⁶ The threat of a Copenhagen was part of a more general German concern over the security of the Baltic. ⁷ This region contained a number of vital strategic connections, notably the trade in iron ore from Sweden. ⁸ Losing control of the Baltic would also expose the Pomeranian and Prussian coasts to raids or amphibious assault. ⁹ These lacked either the natural or man-made defences of the German North Sea coast and were thus reliant on naval forces for their protection. The Baltic represented the weak link in German defences, something acknowledged by both sides. ¹⁰ It was here that the war of deterrence would be won or lost.

It was only a matter of months into Fisher’s tenure as first sea lord before he began to use German strategic concerns as a tool of deterrence. Britain, being allied to Japan, had serious worries that the conflict in the Far East could escalate and draw in Britain and France to support their respective partners. ¹¹ These tensions increased following the Russian Baltic Fleet’s attack on the Hull fishing fleet on 22 October 1904. The Admiralty was confident in relation to the possibility of a war with Russia and potentially France. There were, however, serious concerns that, in the words of the first lord, Germany might ‘throw her weight against us in the middle of a still undecided war between us and France and Russia in alliance’. ¹² These concerns were heightened by Fisher’s belief that much of the tension was being instigated by the kaiser, ‘who is scheming all he knows to produce war between us and Russia’. ¹³ In such circumstances Fisher felt it necessary to reaffirm Britain’s naval superiority and remind the kaiser of his own strategic problems. In late October or early November 1904 Fisher supposedly told his good friend Edward VII over dinner:

We’ll have a picnic at Kiel. We’ll just go along and put two British ships one each side of a German and say to the German, as the policeman says to the drunk, ‘Come along quietly and there’ll be no trouble, but if you don’t, then there’ll be trouble, and no mistake about it.’ ¹⁴

The king apparently reacted, ‘My God Fisher, you must be mad.’ ¹⁵ Unfortunately we have no official record of Fisher’s exact proposal, or the king’s reaction, however we do know that the issue was raised. The Earl of Selborne, the first lord of the Admiralty, wrote to Arthur Balfour, the prime minister, in December 1904, aghast at Fisher’s proposal:

To tell you the truth this is another proof that Fisher’s intellectual flaws are on the same great scale as his intellectual virtues. I told you his proposal about the German fleet at Kiel. It was no line of paradox nor said to shock. He meant it. ¹⁶

Despite Selborne’s claim that Fisher meant what he said, there is no evidence of even the most cursory study of such an attack in the Admiralty records nor of any serious attempt to convince the policymakers of its benefits. It is very clear that this proposal was, contrary to what the first lord stated, solely aimed to shock, and was intended to be spread to the widest audience possible. The most compelling evidence of this was Fisher’s willingness to recount the story of his discussion with the king to J.A. Spender. Fisher had only very recently got to know the journalist and it is inconceivable that a man famous for his secrecy would have confided in such a way to a new acquaintance. ¹⁷ Spender’s record is the only one we have of the conversation, and thus great care must be taken in assuming it to be an accurate reflection of what actually took place. Spender, however, observed that ‘rumours of these conversational exploits went round the European whispering gallery, and no doubt added to the wrath in Berlin’. This was, of course, exactly what Fisher would have intended. ¹⁸

Fisher’s conversational indiscretions were not the only thing building pressure on the German navy at this time. Throughout the late autumn of 1904 the British press suddenly embarked upon a vitriolic attack on Germany, and the German fleet in particular. ¹⁹ At first glance this appears somewhat surprising, considering Britain was standing on the brink of war with the Dual Alliance. It is perhaps telling that leading the way in this verbal assault were Arnold White in the Sunday Sun, The Outlook, which J. L. Garvin had recently taken over as editor, and the Army and Navy Gazette: all had strong connections to the first sea lord. ²⁰ These papers recommended a pre-emptive strike before the German fleet came to pose a serious challenge to British strategic interests. White stated in his editorial, ‘No such chance has existed for 50 years of destroying the naval power of Russia and Germany, and thus ensuring the peace of the world for an indefinite period of time.’ ²¹ He went on to use the example of Nelson’s attack on Copenhagen in 1801, arguing that ‘[i]n 1904 the naval situation is no less favourable to Britain than in 1801’. ²² The Army and Navy Gazette picked up the baton, stating, ‘before now we have had to wipe out of existence a fleet which we had reason to believe might be used as a weapon to our hurt’. ²³ A fortnight later, when commenting on the German criticism of its previous remarks, the paper added fuel to the fire, saying, ‘it was not the Army and Navy Gazette that demanded that the German fleet should be wiped out of existence. We merely pointed out that … the British Fleet at the present time has no particular business of importance at hand.’ ²⁴

It is virtually impossible to tie Fisher directly to this explosion of anti-German sentiment; however, the circumstantial evidence is compelling. The campaign was led by journalists who were known associates of the first sea lord, and their views tallied precisely with those Fisher had reported to Spender during this period. Two months earlier Fisher had written to Arnold White, remarking how White’s piece in the Sunday Sun offered him his ‘weekly solace’. ²⁵ Furthermore it is clear that the two men met at around the time of the articles being produced, and in a letter Fisher offered to use his patronage to try to get a ‘young friend’ of White’s an appointment aboard the royal yacht. ²⁶ Clearly none of this proves the connection, but even if one takes the view that this was merely a sudden upswell of similar opinions among likeminded people it is clear that Fisher was keen to embrace the trend. The sense that the Admiralty was cognizant of these developments was emphasized by the fleet redistribution scheme. This was being worked out towards the end of 1904 and sought to concentrate British forces in home waters. ²⁷ The gradual leaking out of the scheme served to reinforce the notion of British naval superiority and in the eyes of many added weight to the threatening rhetoric coming out of London.

In Berlin, Fisher’s messages were being read loud and clear. The vitriol being written in the British press was concerning; however, the Germans clearly felt that there was more to this than a scandal whipped up by the right-wing media. The German ambassador, Paul Metternich, felt it necessary to write privately to the chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, on 4 November to inform him of Arnold White’s article and the sentiments it reflected. The British ambassador, Sir Frank Lascelles, was called before Bülow later the same day to explain the situation. ²⁸ Publically the German chancellor was keen to calm the matter, and towards the end of November gave an interview to the Germanophile journalist John Laidlay Bashford. He was forced to explain this decision before the Reichstag on 5 December:

The reason why I received Mr. Bashford, when he expressed a desire to see me, was the undeniable and unfortunate fact that a certain number of journalists, have in the last months, been using their position in the English press to sow weeds in the field of Anglo-German relations. ²⁹

Lascelles spent much of this period on leave in England; however, before he left to return to Berlin he was summoned by the king and charged with passing on personal messages from Edward to both Bülow and the kaiser. ³⁰ The ambassador met the chancellor on Christmas Eve and was told of the German concerns over the state of relations. Bülow remarked:

the constant attacks in the English Press, which had met with no official disapproval, and the new scheme for the reorganisation of the British Navy, had given rise to the belief, which had become very prevalent in Germany, that England had the intention of attacking her. ³¹

The British, especially Lascelles, viewed the German response to these stories with barely disguised incredulity. ³² There can, however, be no doubt of the sincerity of the German reaction. The day after his meeting with the ambassador, Bülow wrote to Friedrich von Holstein, the éminence grise behind German foreign policy. He said that he ‘told Lascelles quite calmly that not only H.M. [the kaiser] but also responsible naval and military authorities had believed that England intended to attack us suddenly’. ³³ This is supported by Wilhelm’s annotations on reports by Metternich and Bülow on the ongoing crisis. On reading that Cecil Spring-Rice, a senior British diplomat, had ‘denied that there are any aggressive intentions in England against Germany’, the kaiser wrote ‘?He dares say that!’ ³⁴ By January 1905 the deterrence policy had gone full circle, with Metternich writing to Bülow that the British ‘do not realise that we fear them’. ³⁵

German military preparations add further weight to the view that the Germans took the British threat seriously. The naval attaché in London was sending home reports on the aggressive stance being taken by the British. ³⁶ The kaiser accepted these claims and sought ‘to prepare unobtrusively for the possibility of an English attack in the spring’. ³⁷ The Germans felt that the naval situation was desperate. Following further explosive articles in the Naval Horizon and the Army and Navy Gazette, the kaiser summoned both the army and navy chiefs of staff to discuss how to resist a British attack. The only conceivable plan was to seize Denmark on the outbreak of war and try to hold the Belts against the British. As the chancellor outlined to Holstein, this had ‘the advantage of at least being able to protect the Baltic coast and affording our navy a better chance’. ³⁸ Such operations had previously been discussed, but ignored because of manpower concerns. Such was the fear at this time that the kaiser overruled Count Schlieffen, the army chief of staff, and ordered that troops be diverted to this end. ³⁹ The report produced by the two staffs explained:

One thing is absolutely certain. Germany cannot afford to surrender her defences against an enemy attempt to penetrate the Belt. As a result, Germany must carry out certain acts of war in the Belt, i.e. within Danish territory, and thus must violate Danish neutrality. That is unavoidable! ⁴⁰

The kaiser’s fears regarding the threat of British naval action in the Baltic had an immediate impact on German diplomatic, as well as military, policy. Wilhelm saw that the difficult Anglo-Russian relations resulting from the Russo-Japanese War presented an opportunity. He attempted to exploit the tensions to reach an agreement to keep the British out of the Baltic, effectively securing a mare clausum. As part of this the kaiser sought tacit Russian support for potential military action against Denmark. As early as October 1904 the kaiser was writing to the tsar that the British ‘danger would have to be faced in community by Russian and German together’. ⁴¹ This new Russo-German rapprochement foundered on the question of the position of Russia’s ally France. Wilhelm had insisted that the French should be kept in the dark regarding the new agreement until after it was signed. The reasons he gave are instructive. He insisted that the French would inform London, and the outcome would be ‘an instantaneous attack’ in which the British ‘enormous maritime superiority would soon make short work of my small fleet and Germany would be temporarily crippled’. ⁴² The negotiations broke down on the French issue, but the correspondence highlights the kaiser’s concerns and provides important background for the events of the following year. ⁴³ The German political, military, and diplomatic response to the 1904 crisis, political, military, and diplomatic, ably demonstrates both the ongoing fear in Berlin of British naval power and the ability of Sir John Fisher to influence German decision-making through a strategy of deterrence.

Immediate German fears that the British were planning a pre-emptive strike soon died down, but they were never far from the surface. ⁴⁴ On 3 February 1905 Arthur Lee, the civil lord of the Admiralty, in a speech in Eastleigh reported that ‘the British Navy would get its blow in first, before the other side had time even to read the papers that war had been declared’. ⁴⁵ This speech excited little interest in the British press, and where it was reported it was not perceived to be in any way unusual. ⁴⁶ Pre-existing German fears meant that across the North Sea the speech was received very differently. As soon as news reached Berlin, Lascelles was summoned by Wilhelm, who was clearly highly agitated. He told the ambassador that he would ‘probably be asked to at once lay down mines in the Elbe and increase his naval forces’. He also appears to have tried to put pressure on Lee’s position. ⁴⁷ The British government resisted this, with Balfour concluding that Lee had been ‘grossly misrepresented’ and that the Germans were ‘ludicrously sensitive’. ⁴⁸ The speech also led to the kaiser once again discussing the Danish question. He was forced to accept the dangers of military action, but ‘expressed his urgent desire for an alliance with Denmark in order to prevent thereby an English surprise attack on Kiel and the Baltic ports’. ⁴⁹ Thus, Lee’s speech, though unintentionally, maintained the pressure which Fisher had been seeking to apply on the German leadership. It is almost certain that the ideas expressed by Lee originated with the first sea lord. The two men were close at this time, and both the sentiments expressed and language used by Lee was distinctively Fisherite. ⁵⁰ These events served only to reinforce the perception of British superiority on both sides, and in doing so played directly into the hands of Fisher and his policy of deterrence.

The spring of 1905 was a period of crisis in European relations. The ongoing war in the Far East always threatened to boil over into a broader conflagration. The Russian Baltic Fleet, which had caused so much trouble in the North Sea in the previous October, was again at the centre of the problems. By April it was refitting in Kamranh Bay in French Indo-China. This meant that the French, much to Japanese anger, had broken the established rules of neutrality by allowing the ships to stay for too long and receive too much assistance in a neutral harbour. The Japanese were putting pressure on their British allies, while London was desperate to avoid getting dragged into a war with the Dual Alliance. ⁵¹ The Germans chose this moment to test the new Entente Cordiale. On 31 March the kaiser made a speech in Tangiers supporting Moroccan independence and began to agitate for the establishment of a German naval base on the Atlantic coast. With Morocco firmly within the French sphere of influence, such manoeuvring was immediately seen in Paris as a direct challenge. The French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, took a similarly strident stance and the Germans demanded his resignation. The whole affair was engineered to drive a wedge between Britain and France, persuading the latter of the ineffectiveness of a British alliance and therefore forcing it to look towards its powerful eastern neighbour. ⁵²

Fisher quickly realized the threat that this crisis could pose to his strategy of deterrence and more broadly to British security. Any perceived German victory would undermine the future effectiveness of British deterrence and encourage Germany to adopt an even more aggressive foreign policy in the future. Thus Fisher sought to influence British policy in such a way as to increase open support for the French. To this end he wrote a letter to the foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne:

Without any question whatever the Germans would like a port on the coast of Morocco, and without doubt whatever such a port possessed by them would be vitally detrimental to us from a naval point of view and ought to be made a casus belli, unless we get Tangier, which would perhaps (but only perhaps) be a quid pro quo … This seems a golden opportunity for fighting the Germans in alliance with the French, so I earnestly hope that you will be able to bring this about. Of course I don’t pretend to be a diplomat, but it strikes me the German Emperor will greatly injure the splendid and increasing Anglo-French Entente if he is allowed to score now in any way – even if only getting rid of M. Delcassé … All I hope is that you will send a telegram to Paris that the English and French fleets are one. We could have the German Fleet, the Kiel Canal and Schleswig-Holstein within a fortnight. ⁵³

This letter is generally seen as another example of Fisher’s bizarre bellicosity, especially in the light of his ongoing correspondence relating to the threat of war with France over the Kamranh Bay incident. ⁵⁴ Furthermore, Fisher’s main contention that a German base in Morocco posed a serious danger to Britain is highly questionable, as Balfour’s rather more cool assessment in a private letter reveals. ⁵⁵ Fisher was, in truth, driving at an entirely different purpose. He was exploiting his position as the government’s chief naval adviser to deflect British policy in a direction which he favoured. As Balfour understood, the German threat from a Moroccan base was minimal. The harbours discussed were ill-suited for use by large vessels, the Germans lacked the cruisers to exploit such a base, and it would be highly vulnerable to British or French land-based attack. Fisher admitted as much to Louis Mallet, one of the growing anti-German clique in the Foreign Office, saying, ‘of course it is all rot and it would not matter to us whether the Germans got Mogador [a Moroccan Atlantic port] or not, but I am going to say so all the same’. ⁵⁶ In convincing Lansdowne of the threat, Fisher forced a hardening of British policy and sought to prevent the Germans from achieving even the smallest of victories. His allusions to Kiel and Schleswig-Holstein were thrown in for good measure, presumably in the hope that such sentiments would filter through to Berlin.

Broadly speaking this appears to have worked: Lansdowne immediately wrote to Balfour enclosing ‘the characteristic effusion from Jack Fisher’. The foreign secretary remarked:

It would be amusing to confront our colleagues with the seizure ‘of the German fleet, the Kiel Canal and Schleswig Holstein’ as a fait accompli at the next meeting. We can’t go so fast as that, but I do think that we ought to let the French gov’t– ⁵⁷

Unfortunately we do not know what he intended to tell the French, because Balfour unexpectedly arrived at Lansdowne’s country residence at Bowood before the letter was finished. It is, however, evident that a strengthening of British policy was anticipated, due at least in part to the first sea lord’s intervention.

Fisher’s politicking paid considerable dividends in the late spring of 1905, embodied by Lansdowne’s continued support of Delcassé. On a more direct level the Germans quickly picked up on renewed discussions of a British naval attack, both in the press and loose talk from more official circles. Ironically it was Admiral C.C.P. Fitzgerald, one of Fisher’s greatest opponents, who, in an article for the Deutsche Revue in May 1905, did most to raise this spectre once again. This allowed Fisher to distance himself from the pronouncements, while expressing identical sentiments. ⁵⁸ By June, Lascelles was once again trying to allay German concerns, and reported to Lansdowne on a meeting with Friedrich von Holstein:

Herr von Holstein argued that … [i]f we did not want war, what explanation could be given of the constant attacks in the press, the utterances of the Admirals and Civil Lords of the Admiralty urging the destruction of the German fleet, and, above all the offer of His Majesty’s government to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with France against Germany[?] ⁵⁹

In spite of this pressure, events were not unfolding exactly how Fisher had hoped. ⁶⁰ On 6 June, Delcassé was forced to resign, mainly because he had lost the support of the French parliament, but this still represented a victory for the Germans. ⁶¹ On 8 July the French agreed to put the whole Moroccan affair to an international conference to be held in early 1906. ⁶² The British maintained their support for the French; however, German aggression was perceived to be getting results. As Holstein quipped to Radolin, the German ambassador in Paris, the French appeared to be realizing that ‘the English ships have no wheels’. ⁶³ On another front, the situation in the Baltic was not looking good for the British. The Norwegian declaration of independence on 7 June had opened up a whole plethora of issues, few of them positive. In late July there was sudden interest in an unexpected meeting between the kaiser and his cousin the tsar. The two men diverted their summer cruises in order to meet off the island of Björkö, and their discussions were the subject of intense speculation. ⁶⁴ What was clear to all concerned was that any form of Russo-German rapprochement would seriously damage the position of France and so in turn that of Britain.

Perhaps somewhat ironically, the meeting of the emperors in the Baltic was in no small part the result of Fisher’s deterrence policy. Despite the breakdown of Russo-German negotiations in the previous autumn, the kaiser had not given up on his hopes of an agreement between the two parties, in large part to enforce a mare clausum in the Baltic. When the two men met, Wilhelm quickly exploited the tsar’s concerns regarding British influence in Scandinavia to arrange a defensive alliance. ⁶⁵ As part of this agreement the kaiser was to continue his summer cruise, calling in at Copenhagen to convince the Danes of the new reality of a Russo-German alliance dominating the Baltic. Following his visit he reported back to his cousin that:

the actual Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Raben, and a number of persons of influence have already come to the conviction that in case of war and impending attack on the Baltic from the foreign power, the Danes expect – their inability and helplessness to uphold even the shadow of neutrality against invasion being evident – that Russia and Germany will immediately take steps to safeguard their interests by laying hand on Denmark and occupying it during the war. As this would in the same time guarantee the territory and future existence of dynasty and country, the Danes are slowly resigning themselves to this alternative … This being exactly what you wished and hoped for, I thought it better not to touch the subject with the Danes and refrain from making any allusions, as it is better to ripen in their heads and to let them draw the final conclusions … ‘Tout vient a qui sait attendre.’ ⁶⁶

This makes it very clear what the central aim of the kaiser’s Baltic diplomacy was in this period and that he felt it was achieving results. The very success of British deterrence policy in convincing the kaiser of the reality of the threat was resulting in further challenges for British diplomacy.

One of the major problems in relation to British foreign policy was that Balfour’s Unionist government was on the brink of collapse and far more concerned with internal splits and domestic issues. ⁶⁷ In light of this Fisher turned to Edward VII; the king was a close friend and they held a mutual distrust of the kaiser. Edward’s exact role in British foreign policy in this period is not particularly clear. While constitutionally he had no role in such affairs, he appears to have exerted great influence behind the scenes. ⁶⁸ His association with Fisher and the influential courtier Lord Esher was well known, and he was felt by many, including the German chancellor, to be the leader of an unofficial clique pushing a stronger foreign policy. ⁶⁹ This contention appears to be supported by the events of summer 1905. Following Delcassé’s resignation the king raised his concerns over the perceived German successes with Balfour, to little noticeable effect. ⁷⁰ The announcement of the conference on Morocco and the secret meeting at Björkö did little to reassure the king and his circle of the effectiveness of British diplomacy. Thus Edward and Fisher decided to indulge in a little gunboat diplomacy in an effort to strengthen Britain’s response to the ongoing crisis.

At the end of March 1905 a cruise of the Channel Fleet to the Baltic, visiting Kiel, Copenhagen, and Stockholm, was cancelled, presumably because of Anglo-German tensions and the uncertain situation in Scandinavia. ⁷¹ Fisher resurrected the idea of a Baltic cruise in early July, just as the tensions were reaching a peak. ⁷² He worked closely with the king in developing the programme for the cruise, ensuring it precisely fit the purpose intended. ⁷³ Fisher had little desire for subtlety and made his motivations very clear. He wrote to the historian Julian Corbett: ‘With great difficulty I’ve got our Channel Fleet up the Baltic and cruising in the North Sea. “Our drill ground should be our battle ground.” Don’t repeat that phrase, but I’ve taken means to have it whispered in the German Emperor’s ear!’ ⁷⁴ Esher confirmed this motive, writing to his son that Fisher ‘never loses a chance of irritating the Emperor’. ⁷⁵ Nor did Fisher keep his views private. Sir George Clarke, the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), mentioned to Esher that ‘[a]t lunch today J.F. intimated that he hoped the sending of the fleet to the Baltic might lead to war with Germany. This is very wild talk.’ ⁷⁶ The point was further reinforced when the schedule for the cruise was leaked from the Admiralty before the Foreign Office had communicated with the Germans. This appears to have gone down badly in Berlin, and it is very difficult not to see this as an intentional act to emphasize the message that the British fleet could go wherever it chose. ⁷⁷ The kaiser on hearing the news cabled the tsar, suggesting that ‘they want to frighten me’ and that it ‘will lend more weight to my conversation at Copenhagen’. ⁷⁸

It appears clear that the decision to send the fleet to the Baltic was taken without the full knowledge of the Cabinet. On hearing of the plans from the press, the usually well-informed Clarke wrote urgently to Balfour. He argued:

It is announced that a great British fleet is to go shortly to the Baltic … the present is not the time for the visit, which would certainly be misunderstood. Quite a large proportion of Germans really believe that we mean to strike a sudden blow at their fleet in the style of the Copenhagen performances. ⁷⁹

Two days later the Cabinet discussed whether to cancel the cruise, but decided against, presumably because of the domestic political embarrassment such a decision would cause. ⁸⁰

The Channel Fleet visited the key Baltic ports in August and September 1905, confirming the Royal Navy’s ability to bring any conflict into these confined waters. In doing so it undermined the kaiser’s ongoing efforts to turn the sea into a mare clausum and served as a reminder to both friends and potential foes of Britain’s continued interests and influence in the area. ⁸¹ The impact of the cruise was given added weight by the fact that the fleet did not use local pilots during the passage of the Belts or entry into the major ports. This was unprecedented, particularly as the fleet remained in close formation the entire time. The passage of the Belts was greeted with a mixture of admiration and amazement by senior Danish naval officers, who were ‘aghast’ that Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson even considered such a dangerous manoeuvre. ⁸² The Channel Fleet’s entry into Swinemünde in heavy fog, anchoring inshore of the German fleet, caused further consternation, this time on the part of the kaiser and the crowds that arrived to see the German battleships. ⁸³ The message behind these actions was clear for all to see: the Royal Navy could enter the Baltic at will, and in force; this was precisely what the kaiser feared most. The visit to Esbjerg, the Danish North Sea port on the German border, brought the prospect of a British amphibious attack into closer focus. It was well known to the Germans that Esbjerg would be the perfect base for either blockading the Elbe or launching an assault on Schleswig-Holstein. The kaiser unwittingly revealed his anxiety to the British military attaché in Berlin in the summer of 1906 when discussing the possibility of another cruise later that year. He said that the fleet would be welcome, but

please have a message sent to the officers not to go about on shore photographing with kodaks, like some did last year. It’s bad enough coming to a place without be invited, without going about reconnoitring. We have a proverb you know, ‘Even a worm will turn if you tread on him.’ ⁸⁴

It is unclear as to whether these were merely holiday snaps being taken by British officers, or something more useful; however, Fisher’s reaction to the kaiser’s request strongly points towards the latter. ⁸⁵ The message conveyed by the Channel Fleet’s Baltic cruise was given additional weight by the collapse of Wilhelm’s carefully drafted Björkö agreement in the face of opposition from St Petersburg. The Russian government quickly reneged on the deal agreed, being well aware of the implications it would have had on relations with the French. ⁸⁶ The kaiser’s attempts to create a mare clausum either diplomatically or militarily had failed.

In addition to the Channel Fleet cruising in the Baltic, the British Atlantic Fleet and the French Northern Squadron paid reciprocal visits to Brest and Portsmouth. The scheme was first proposed by the Admiralty in February 1905, when it was felt necessary to have a French visit to counterbalance the initial plans for a Baltic cruise. ⁸⁷ As tensions between France and Germany mounted, the visits became an important tool in demonstrating British support for France. To this end Fisher and the king were heavily involved in all of the arrangements. ⁸⁸ Edward agreed to review the French Squadron, and invited its leading officers to Windsor. ⁸⁹ The king also used the ceremonial details, for which he was renowned, to emphasize his point. He requested that the French officers be awarded a higher level of decoration than was customary, and even demanded that the British ships fly a French ensign at the mainmast. ⁹⁰ These small touches appear to have worked beautifully. Arthur Wilson, whose Channel Fleet met the French in Portsmouth before leaving for the Baltic, commented that ‘to do Jack Fisher justice, no one can touch him as a showman’. ⁹¹ In France the visits went down well, with the public appreciating the demonstration of support in a time of need. ⁹²

As a whole it is obvious that the Royal Navy was being used as Britain’s primary tool in diplomatic policy, whether directed from Whitehall or Windsor. The reciprocal Anglo-French visits were a clear signal of Britain’s ongoing support for France, and the cruise of the Channel Fleet added a thinly veiled threat to Germany’s Baltic Achilles heel. Policymakers in Berlin were keenly aware of these ‘English naval demonstrations’ and the meaning behind them. ⁹³ There could be no clearer signal of the failure of German policy either to break the Entente or to secure the Baltic.

Barely had the Channel Fleet left the Baltic when another scandal erupted, this time over the support promised by Britain to France at the height of the summer’s tensions over Morocco. In early October the French newspaper Le Matin published revelations supposedly originating from Delcassé, the former French foreign minister. Among these was a claim that British ministers had given a verbal assurance to their French counterparts that if France were attacked the British would respond by seizing the Kiel Canal and landing 100,000 men in Schleswig-Holstein; ⁹⁴ this caused outcry in Germany, and because of the lack of an official denial from either party ‘the feeling gradually strengthened that there must be solid foundation for the statement’. ⁹⁵ No archival evidence has been uncovered of any such assurance. In 1922 Lord Sanderson, who had served as permanent undersecretary of state for foreign affairs in 1905, wrote that, to his knowledge, no such undertaking had been made. He went on to add that there had been ‘a good deal of loose talk in naval circles and in some higher quarters of a possible expedition to Schleswig in the possible event of a war’. ⁹⁶ In fact there was considerably more than mere loose talk. The Admiralty had drawn up plans for naval operations against Germany, the most notable of which was an amphibious assault on Schleswig-Holstein by a large British force. ⁹⁷ While there is no direct evidence linking Fisher to the Matin revelations, it is difficult not to see his influence behind them. This suspicion is given credence by a minute written three years later by Eyre Crowe, a senior clerk at the Foreign Office. He remarked that ‘it will be remembered what an unfortunate impression was created in Berlin by Sir John Fisher’s allusion to the landing of 100,000 British troops in Jutland and the immediate destruction of the Kiel Canal’. ⁹⁸ It has been implied that Fisher’s ideas could have been communicated to the French via the king, who maintained very strong connections in Paris. ⁹⁹ Another candidate would be Charles Ottley, the director of naval intelligence, who had recently returned from a stint as naval attaché in France. Whatever the precise facts, these revelations provided a very useful boost to Fisher’s deterrence policy.

The kaiser certainly saw the Matin revelations as confirmation of his belief ‘that England wished for war – not the King – not the Ministry – but some very influential people like Sir John Fisher’. He told Alfred Beit, an Anglo-German financier, that Fisher was seeking to provoke a war in order to destroy the German fleet. When Beit remarked ‘that surely the landing of a hundred thousand men in Schleswig-Holstein was ridiculous’, the kaiser ‘replied that a hundred thousand men could easily be landed and he said that the English Navy reconnoitred the coast of Denmark with this object during the cruises of the English Fleet’. ¹⁰⁰ Similar points were made forcefully in the German press at this time. ¹⁰¹ The Germans unquestionably took this threat extremely seriously, something that is revealed in their military planning. The 1905 ‘Great War Game’ organized by the General Staff stated very clearly in its introduction that ‘[t]he situation on which this war game is based is the same that appeared months ago in the France militaire and later the Matin’. ¹⁰² It went on that:

The most interesting, if not the most important, question is how Britain would participate in the war, and if its army, as some say, would land in Jutland, where it would feel a bit lonely, or, as others would maintain, in one of the Channel ports, in order to play the unenviable role of an auxiliary army. ¹⁰³

This interest was also reflected in the documents embodying the Schlieffen plan. Although the precise nature of these documents is the subject of an intense historical debate, there can be no doubt that they took the rumours of British landings in Schleswig-Holstein seriously. In the event of such a landing the Germans were to halt their deployment against the French and turn at least part of their forces north. ¹⁰⁴ German military planning for this eventuality continued into 1906, which saw the start of a series of talks between Moltke, the chief of the German General Staff, and Captain Lütken, the permanent secretary of state of the Danish War Ministry. The major German concern was a British attack on Schleswig-Holstein using Esbjerg as a base. ¹⁰⁵ This fear also led the Germans to double the railway lines leading north into Schleswig-Holstein. ¹⁰⁶ Policymakers in Berlin clearly connected the various aspects of British deterrence policy and saw them as posing a serious threat to vital German interests. This was, of course, exactly what Fisher desired.

The Algeciras Conference on Morocco finally met in early 1906 and was preceded by a renewed increase in tension between France and Germany. The Germans had felt confident of isolating the French enough to force some concessions; however, failures in German diplomacy meant this was impossible. ¹⁰⁷ The final straw proved to be a meeting between Edward VII and Delcassé, the supposedly disgraced former French foreign minister. ¹⁰⁸ Whether or not the British Foreign Office approved this meeting is not clear, but it had the desired effect. Holstein, in a personal memorandum, recorded that the news of this meeting caused the kaiser to order a general acceptance of the French demands at Algeciras. The reasons he gave were that ‘our artillery and our navy were not in any condition to fight a war’. ¹⁰⁹ The issues revolving around German attitudes towards war at this time are still contentious, and lie beyond the scope of this article. It is, however, apparent that some within the German leadership saw Algeciras as a perfect opportunity to launch a pre-emptive war. ¹¹⁰ This pressure was resisted by the kaiser, together with Bülow and Tirpitz. One of the key concerns remained the weakness of the German navy and the threat posed by the British. This was a view shared by many in the German navy, with considerable disagreement existing about how to combat the British without seizing Denmark. ¹¹¹ Ultimately, Fisher carefully cultivated the idea that the German navy could not protect its coastlines, or even itself. This perception meant that in the eyes of the kaiser war would come with an unacceptable price. In this respect deterrence had worked.

Balfour’s Unionist government had finally fallen in December 1905, to be replaced by the Liberals. This did nothing to check Fisher’s pursuit of his own foreign policy aims. In early 1906 the Russian government let it be known that a visit from Edward VII to St Petersburg would be greatly welcomed. ¹¹² The new foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, was keen on a rapprochement with Russia, and this appeared to be a useful tool. In March, Fisher wrote to Grey, pressing him to allow the fleet to accompany the king on any visit. ¹¹³ The proposal faltered when Edward made it clear that he had no intension of going to Russia at that time because of the tsar’s brutal crackdown on political dissent. ¹¹⁴ Fisher still wanted to get the fleet back into the Baltic, and so he continued to pressure Grey to this end, arguing that the ‘cruise of the Channel Fleet in the Baltic is imperative for fighting training’. ¹¹⁵ This was politically very difficult for Grey, as while it had none of the diplomatic prestige of a royal visit it would be seen as tacit support for the tsar in his efforts to suppress reform, something viewed with contempt by the left wing of his party. ¹¹⁶ Despite this, Fisher succeeded in getting Foreign Office agreement for a second Baltic cruise. The fleet was to follow a similar schedule to that of 1905, calling at Swedish, Russian, and German ports. Fisher had originally intended for the fleet to visit Eckern Fjord, an important harbour just north of Kiel and the Kiel Canal on the undefended east coast of Schleswig-Holstein. Arthur Wilson, on reviewing the itinerary, argued that this was simply too provocative. He said that to go there without visiting Kiel would be like ‘driving into a man’s back yard without going to his front door’. ¹¹⁷ Fisher, grudgingly one assumes, acquiesced to Wilson’s changes.

The whole affair infuriated the kaiser, as it reinforced the German failure to close the Baltic either through naval force or through diplomacy. ¹¹⁸ His continued fears of a British Baltic invasion are revealed in a comment made only half in jest to Captain Philip Dumas, the British naval attaché, in June. In reference to the British plans to visit East Prussia ‘[h]e said laughingly “So your Fleet is going to visit Pillau and Lubeck. I suppose you are gradually reconnoitring the whole coast to see where is the best place to land?”’ ¹¹⁹ At the last minute the cruise was cancelled. Owing to the instability in Russia at the time, British diplomats were unsure that they could guarantee the safety of the officers and men who came ashore. The Russian government also had concerns as to the political effect of the visit, and seemingly felt somewhat embarrassed by the absence of a suitable fleet to meet the British. ¹²⁰

Following a series of crises, tensions between Britain and Germany reduced somewhat from the spring of 1906. This, together with the increasing domestic pressure on Fisher, meant that there was less scope for direct action aimed at deterrence in the second half of his term as first sea lord. Despite this, Fisher’s phoney war with the kaiser did continue. By early 1908 Anglo-German relations were once again somewhat strained, with one of the issues being the ongoing negotiations regarding the Baltic treaties. In response Fisher pressed hard to get the fleet back into the Baltic. This was eventually ruled out by Sir Edward Grey, but this did little to stop the first sea lord. ¹²¹ Instead, Fisher arranged for the Channel Fleet to call at the strategically sensitive port of Esbjerg as part of a large set of manoeuvres held in the North Sea. ¹²² Such was the sensitivity of the visit that Prince Henry of Prussia, the kaiser’s younger brother and the commander-in-chief of the High Seas Fleet, insisted that Captain Dumas write to Charles Beresford, commanding the fleet at Esbjerg. Prince Henry wished to convey the message that he trusted Beresford ‘to look after the German coasts during his absence’ (the German fleet was cruising in the Atlantic). Dumas went on to report that:

Having said so much H. R. H. went on ‘But what’s he doing at Esbjerg at all? He’s not there for pleasure I am sure,’ which broadly speaking, voices, in my opinion, the private thoughts certainly of the German Navy and the greater portion of the German Press. ¹²³

In June 1908 Edward VII travelled to the Baltic for a meeting with the tsar at Reval. The king was accompanied by a number of his inner circle, including Fisher. The party travelled to Russia aboard the royal yacht, passing through the Kiel Canal. Two large armoured cruisers, Minotaur and Achilles, escorted them. The presence of Fisher with two powerful warships at this strategically vital point did not go unnoticed by the Germans. The royal party was met by Prince Henry of Prussia and a large military presence, which the king was forced to inspect. ¹²⁴ Prince Henry told Fisher on their outward journey of ‘how the German Navy loved us’ and requested that the cruisers stay at Kiel. Fisher commented to the first lord, Reginald McKenna, ‘I think it’s like the cobra that licks its prey all over before it swallows it!’ ¹²⁵ On his return to London, Fisher told his journalist friend W.T. Stead that the prince had also informed him ‘[w]hat we are afraid of is another Copenhagen’. ¹²⁶ Fisher’s policy of deterrence was clearly still having an impact at the top of the German navy and monarchy, and he was more than happy to publicize this fact.

The last year and a half of Fisher’s tenure as first sea lord were dominated by his ongoing dispute with Beresford, countering the growing power of the army in defence matters, and generally responding to the increasing scrutiny of Admiralty policy. All of this left little scope for pursuing his own foreign policy goals aimed at deterrence, something exacerbated by the king’s ill health. This should not detract from the important role his actions had in shaping Anglo-German relations from 1904 onwards. The belief in Germany that Britain possessed an overwhelmingly powerful fleet which posed an existential threat to German interests was an important determining factor in policymaking in Berlin and in shaping the European power balance. Fisher did not create the anxiety over a British naval assault, the so-called ‘Copenhagen complex’, but he recognized it, and exploited it to maximum effect. He was widely considered to be ‘the strongest man in England’, and the German navy spent most of his time in office groping for a strategy to counter the perceived threat posed by ‘Radical Jack’. ¹²⁷ This is testimony enough to the success of this most Machiavellian of policies.