 |
| Sir Winston Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty, 1911-1915 |
From: The War to End All Wars by David Fromkin
On the outbreak of war, Winston Churchill briefly became a national hero in Britain. Although the Cabinet had refused him permission to do so, he had mobilized the fleet on his own responsibility in the last days of peacetime and had sent it north to Scapa Flow, where it would not be vulnerable to a German surprise attack. What he had done was probably illegal, but events had justified his actions, which in Britain were applauded on all sides.
Margot Asquith, the Prime Minister’s wife, once wondered in her diary what it was that made Winston Churchill pre-eminent. “It certainly is not his mind,” she wrote. “Certainly not his judgment—he is constantly very wrong indeed…” She concluded that: “It is of course his courage and colour—his amazing mixture of industry and enterprise. He can and does always—all ways puts himself in the pool. He never shirks, hedges, or protects himself—though he thinks of himself perpetually. He takes huge risks [original emphasis].”
Mobilizing the fleet despite the Cabinet’s decision not to do so was a huge risk that ended in triumph. In the days following Britain’s entry into the war even his bitterest political enemies wrote to Churchill to express their admiration of him. For much of the rest of his life, his proudest boast was that when war came, the fleet was ready.
At the time, his commandeering of two Turkish battleships for the Royal Navy was applauded almost as much. An illustrated page in the Tatler of 12 August 1914 reproduced a photograph of a determined-looking Churchill, with an inset of his wife, under the heading “BRAVO WINSTON! The Rapid Mobilisation and Purchase of the Two Foreign Dreadnoughts Spoke Volumes for your Work and Wisdom.”
 |
| Sultan Osman I Under Construction |
The battleships were the Reşadiye and the larger Sultan Osman I. Both had been built in British shipyards and were immensely powerful; the Osman mounted more heavy guns than any battleship ever built before. Each originally had been ordered by Brazil, but then had been built instead for the Ottoman Empire. The Reşadiye, though launched in 1913, had not been delivered because the Turks had lacked adequate modern docking facilities to accommodate her. With Churchill’s support, Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur H. Limpus, head of the British naval mission, had lobbied successfully with the Ottoman authorities to secure the contract to build docking facilities for two British firms—Vickers, and Armstrong Whitworth. The docking facilities having been completed, the Reşadiye was scheduled to leave Britain soon after the Sultan Osman I, which was to be completed in August 1914.
Churchill was aware that these vessels meant a great deal to the Ottoman Empire. They were intended to be the making of the modern Ottoman navy, and it was assumed that they would enable the empire to face Greece in the Aegean and Russia in the Black Sea. Their purchase had been made possible by patriotic public subscription throughout the empire. The tales may have been improved in the telling, but it was said that women had sold their jewelry and schoolchildren had given up their pocket-money to contribute to the popular subscription. Admiral Limpus had put out to sea from Constantinople on 27 July 1914, with ships of the Turkish navy, waiting to greet the Sultan Osman I and escort her back through the straits of the Dardanelles to the Ottoman capital, where a “navy week” had been scheduled with lavish ceremonies for the Minister of Marine, Ahmed Djemal, and for the cause of British-Ottoman friendship.
Churchill, who was reckoned the most pro-Turk member of the Asquith Cabinet, had followed with care, and had supported with enthusiasm, the mission of Admiral Limpus in Turkey ever since its inception years before. The British advisory mission to the Ottoman navy was almost as large as the similar German mission to the Ottoman army, led by the Prussian General of Cavalry, Otto Liman von Sanders. The two missions to some extent counter-balanced each other. British influence was thought to be strong in the Marine Ministry. German influence was strongest in the War Ministry. In London little was known of Middle Eastern politics, but Churchill enjoyed the rare advantage of having personally met three of the five leading figures in the Ottoman government: Talaat, Enver, and the Minister of Finance, Djavid. He therefore had been given an opportunity to learn that Britain’s conduct as naval supplier and adviser could have political repercussions in Constantinople.
The European war crisis, however, propelled the newly built Turkish vessels into significance in both London and Berlin. The Reşadiye and Sultan Osman I were battleships of the new Dreadnought class. As such,they overshadowed other surface vessels and, in a sense, rendered them obsolete. By the summer of 1914 the Royal Navy had taken delivery of only enough to give Britain a margin over Germany of seven Dreadnoughts. Since the European war was expected to be a short one, there seemed to be no time to build more of them before battle was joined and decided. The addition of the two Dreadnoughts built for Turkey would increase the power of the Royal Navy significantly. Conversely, their acquisition by the German Empire or its allies could decisively shift the balance of forces against Britain. It was not fanciful to suppose that the Reşadiye and Sultan Osman I could play a material role in determining the outcome of what was to become the First World War.
Early in the week of 27 July 1914, as the First Lord of the Admiralty took precautionary measures in the war crisis, he raised the issue of whether the two Turkish battleships could be taken by the Royal Navy. The chain of events which apparently flowed from Churchill’s initiative in this matter eventually led to him being blamed for the tragic outbreak of war in the Middle East. In turn he later attempted to defend himself by pretending that he had done no more than to carry into effect standing orders. The history of these matters has been confused ever since because both Churchill’s story and the story told by his detractors were false. . .
 |
| HMS Erin (Former Reşadiye) at Sea |
His version of the matter implied that he did not single out the Ottoman vessels, but instead issued orders applicable to all foreign warships then under construction; he wrote that the arrangements for the taking of such vessels “comprised an elaborate scheme” that had been devised years before and had been brought up to date in 1912.
This account was not true. Seizing the Turkish warships was an original idea of Churchill’s and it came to him in the summer of 1914. During the week before the war, the question of taking foreign vessels was raised for the first time on Tuesday, 28 July 1914, in an inquiry that Churchill directed to the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and to the Third Sea Lord, Sir Archibald Moore. “In case it may become necessary to acquire the two Turkish battleships that are nearing completion in British yards,” he wrote, “please formulate plans in detail showing exactly the administrative action involved in their acquisition and the prospective financial transactions.
[After consultation with the Foreign Office] the Attorney-General advised Churchill that what he was doing was not justified by statute, but that the welfare of the Commonwealth took precedence over other considerations and might excuse his temporarily detaining the vessels. A high-ranking permanent official in the Foreign Office took the same point of view that day but placed it in a broader and more practical political perspective. “I think we must let the Admiralty deal with this question as they consider necessary,” he minuted, “and afterwards make such defence of our action to Turkey as we can.”
On 31 July the Cabinet accepted Churchill’s view that he ought to take both Turkish vessels for the Royal Navy for possible use against Germany in the event of war; whereupon British sailors boarded the Sultan Osman I. The Ottoman ambassador called at the Foreign Office to ask for an explanation, but was told only that the battleship was being detained for the time being.
Toward midnight on 1 August Churchill wrote instructions to Admiral Moore, in connection with the mobilization of the fleet, to notify both Vickers and Armstrong that the Ottoman warships were to be detained and that the Admiralty proposed to enter into negotiations for their purchase.
 |
| Main Batteries of HMS Agincourt (Former Sultan Osman I) |
[Editor's Note: The two ships would subsequently have remarkably similar and unspectacular careers. Reşadiye was renamed HMS Erin and joined the Grand Fleet in September 1914. At the Battle of Jutland it was the only British battleship not to fire her main guns. After the Washington Naval Conference the ship was listed for disposal and was broken up in 1923. Sultan Osman I was renamed HMS Agincourt and also joined the Grand Fleet in September 1914. During the Battle of Jutland Agincourt fired 144 twelve-inch shells and 111 six-inch shells during the battle, although she is not known to have hit anything. She was also eventually disposed of as a result of the arms treaty.
Source: The entire text of The War to End All Wars is available on-line HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment