Introduction
In the following book review, Arthur Machen studies the thought of Lord Fisher, an important military leader and colorful figure of the day. This article was published only a month before the armistice which ended the First World War, so the basic question of the title was quite timely. Wisely, Machen sidestepped the veracity of Fisher’s claims that the war could have been won much earlier, while composing a delightful sketch of the eclectic thinker.
We Could Have Won the War in 1915
by
Arthur Machen
December 8, 1919
“We Could Have Won the War in 1915”
—Lord Fisher in “Records”
Outspoken Judgement on Strategy and Politics
Captain Who Fought in Tall Hat
It is impossible to review Lord Fisher’s latest book (“Records,” Hodder and Stoughton, £1 1s. net). For me it is not a book at all; it is an outrageous and most entertaining jumble of stories, opinions about everything from turbine engines to the writings of St. Paul, judgements as to the war, accounts of sermons that the author has heard, prophecies and comminations—especially comminations.
The contents are not composed; they are thrown together. The effect of reading “Records” is very similar to the effect of climbing a high hill against a higher wind. One is exhilarated but breathless.
Here is a dive into the ancient history of the Navy. It is a letter from a midshipman who was killed, aged eleven, just after Trafalgar.
We live on beef which has been ten or eleven years in a cask, and on biscuits which makes your throat cold in eating it, owing to the maggots, which are very cold when you eat them—like calf’s foot jelly—being very fat indeed!
We drink water the colour of the bark of a pear tree, with plenty of little maggots and weevils in it, and wine, which is exactly like bullocks’ blood and sawdust mixed together.
The Captain’s Lapse
Then a note as to Lord Fisher’s early naval experiences. One of his first captains was Shadwell, son of the last Vice-Chancellor of England. Captain Shadwell must have been the original of Captain Corcoran, of H.M.S. Pinafore. He used to pretend, falsely, to his steward that his champagne was a little “off”—as an excuse for giving it to the midshipmen. “He was once heard to day, ‘Damn,’ and the whole ship was upset.
Captain Shadwell had strange notions of naval uniform. On going into action against Chinese pirates:
He was dressed in white trousers, yellow waistcoat, and a blue tail coat with brass buttons, and a tall white hat with a gold stripe up the side of it, and he was waving a white umbrella to encourage us to come out of the bananas and go for the enemy.
Now for a little contemporary politics. Lord Fisher is a strong Republican. He holds that in a republic we get “Government of the People, by the People, for the People.” Sometimes; but now and then we get Government of the People by the Politicians for the Trusts.
The Discovery of Scapa
Scapa Flow. Lord Fisher discovered this anchorage on Trafalgar Day, 1904. He was thinking out the possibilities of naval war between England and Germany; he saw that a safe anchorage for the British Fleet at a certain distance from Germany was an imperatively necessary. So he got his compasses and described a circle, and “behold it came to a large inland landlocked sheet of water.”
This water was nameless, and soundings were indicated on the chart. The Hydrographer was sent for; he didn’t know the name of the water, he went to find out, and in time returned and said that he believed it was called Scapa Flow. A surveying ship was sent at once, and it was discovered that Scapa Flow was a stagnant pool guarded by a raging current.
“Wasn’t that another proof,” asks Lord Fisher, “that we are the ten lost tribes of Israel?”
Lord Fisher is of opinion that our understanding with France was brought about by “anti-democratic tendencies in High Places.” This is strange. Do anti-democratic tendencies urge a nation to ally itself with a Republican against an Autocracy?
Victory in 1915?
The author’s view of the strategy that should have been employed in the war is striking and impressive. Lord Fisher is a deadly enemy of Conscription.
He holds that we should have kept every possible man at shipbuilding. We should have equipped the Russians, cleared the Baltic of the German Navy, and landed a Russian army on the Pomeranian coast. The original British Expeditionary Force should have been landed in Antwerp in August, 1914.
If these things had been done, Lord Fisher holds that the war would have been won in 1915.
That is a high problem for the high experts. But “Records” is for all, since it is the portrait, self-painted, of one of the most extraordinary characters that the British Navy has produced. And that is saying a good deal.
The Weekly Machen
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Many thanks! This is splendid! What a vivid and fascinating selection from the “entertaining jumble”!
But how ignorant I am of “John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher” as his Wikipedia article is entitled – it looks a long, interesting ‘read’, beginning with the curiously tautological first sentence: “Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, GCB, OM, GCVO (25 January 1841 – 10 July 1920), commonly known as Jacky or Jackie Fisher, was a British Admiral of the Fleet.” He would (assuming the dates correct) have been 77 or 78 when the book appeared, and 49 days from his seventy-ninth birthday when this article was published.
Wikipedia’s External link to “Works by or about […] at the Internet Archive” shows 43 results, with scans of two copies of “Records” in the first row of six – as well as two scans of “Memories” (1919). The “Preamble” of “Records” begins “The main purpose of this second book is obvious from its title. It’s mostly a collection of ‘Records’ confirming what has already been written, and relates almost exclusively to years after 1902.” This clearly makes it a sequel and companion to “Memories”. Machen persuades me of lots of fun in store for the reader or browser!
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I use Wikipedia too; but if a digression may be allowed, here’s a reminder of how terribly tainted it can be.
Wiki Wars – Tablet Magazine
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Yes, it is convenient – especially insofar as it links sources available online which one can read for oneself, like these two books by Lord Fisher – but I would never say (without qualification) reliable!
Thanks for linking the detailed account of some contours of gross unreliability, there!
Of course, the analytical and descriptive bibliographer will add, no scan or photograph of a book or manuscript such as the Internet Archive supplies is reliable, either – one must always be able to examine a physical copy to (attempt to) get a just sense of what is going on – with that particular printed copy or manuscript!
Tangentially, Tolkien on Chaucer is fascinating in this respect – though, curiously, Tolkien relies on printed or photographic (etc.) editions of manuscripts in the works he compares in essays, there – unlike Kenneth Sisam, who seems to have devoted a good bit of time travelling around the country, when necessary, to see the manuscripts themselves (e.g., in preparing his Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose – for which Tolkien provided the glossary).
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We have been enjoying the History Undone with James Hanson series as found on YouTube with its intriguing considerations of how different subsequent history might have been had a given battle gone differently, and are now catching up on the Great War episodes – with Ypres most recently – which included the possibility of the War being over in 1915, though not as a result of the British winning it!
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Alternative history scenarios are great thought experiments. Lord Fisher is right that the war could have ended in 1925 – but as you suggest – probably not by the Allies.
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