Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

  Although Fisher's design committee sat for only seven weeks, it produced plans not only for the Dreadnought, but for a second new type of revolutionary and controversial warship. This was the very large, very fast, heavily gunned, but lightly armored ship originally called a large armored cruiser and eventually known as the battle cruiser. Between 1906 and 1914, ten battle cruisers were constructed in Great Britain; across the North Sea, six were built for the High Seas Fleet. From the beginning, the battle cruisers captured the public imagination. They weighed as much as battleships. Dreadnought at 17,900 tons and Invincible at 17,250 tons were the two largest warships Britain had ever built up to that time), carried 12-inch battleship guns, and were extraordinarily fast. When they put to sea, with black smoke pouring from their funnels and waves curling back from their bows, with their turrets and long gun barrels training around towards a target, they were intimidating symbols of naval power. People began to think of them in simile. Their speed and huge guns called forth the image of great jungle cats, swift and deadly, with large shining claws. Others likened them to cavalry, a highly mobile force, hanging on the flanks of battle, ready to charge in for the kill. The most famous of the battle-cruiser admirals, the brave, impetuous Beatty, handled his ships like cavalry. In the navy and in society, he and his officers radiated the glamour of hussars, appearing more dashing than the captains of the plodding dreadnought battleships, the infantry of the sea, the backbone of the fleet. But despite their speed, their power, and their glamour, their beauty was flawed, and doom rolled over them at Jutland. On a single afternoon, four of these sixteen giants, three British and one German, went to the bottom of the sea.

  Originally, these big, fast, powerful ships were intended as super-cruisers with the duties that cruisers had always had: scouting for the battle fleet, commerce raiding or hunting down enemy commerce raiders, patrol, and blockade. In sailing-ship days, the antecedent of the cruiser was the frigate. Nelson's majestic three-deck ships-of-the-line, carrying eighty to one hundred guns, were too big, too slow, and too valuable to be risked for this kind of work, and frigates-smaller, faster, more versatile-were assigned these duties.

  The frigate's first and crucial mission was to be the eyes of her admiral, observing and reporting the size and movements of the enemy fleet. Speed was essential and, by carrying three masts and spreading almost as much canvas as a ship-of-the-line, a frigate was able to thrust her lighter hull through the water much faster than a larger, heavier ship. This enabled her to approach a hostile squadron while staying just out of range, to establish its numbers, course, and speed, and to return to her own admiral to tell him what she had learned. Once battle impended, the frigate withdrew. With her lighter timbers she was too thin-skinned to lie in the line of battle and her smaller guns could not contribute much to a heavy cannonade.

  Ships evolved from wood to steel and propulsion changed from wind to steam, but admirals still needed the same information. The job of scouting was assigned to fast, lightly armored cruisers. By the 18908, British cruisers had been given a second assignment, the protection of merchant shipping. France-still the potential enemy- had provoked Admiralty concern by suddenly launching a series of big cruisers capable of 21 knots. These ships were the brainchilds of a school of French admirals who, despairing that France would ever be able to match Britain battleship for battleship, concluded that the best way to bring down the maritime colossus was to unleash a pack of swift, deadly cruisers and torpedo boats that could attack and cripple Britain's vulnerable overseas merchant trade.

  British admirals grasped the threat. Their reaction was to produce the anticruiser cruiser, a ship even faster, stronger, and more heavily gunned, to hunt down and sink anything the French sent out. These ships, designed to fight, not simply to shadow and report, were given more armor and called armored cruisers. Class after class was designed, launched, and sent to sea: six ships of the Cressy class, 12,00o tons, laid down in 1898 and 1899; four ships of the Drake class, 14,100 tons, laid down in 1899; nine ships of the County class, 9,800 tons, laid down in 1900 and 1901; six ships of the Devonshire class 10,850 tons, laid down in 1902; two ships of the Duke of Edinburgh class, 13,500 tons, laid down in 1903; four ships of the Warrior class,; 13,550 tons, laid down in 1904; and finally three ships of the Minotaur class, 14,600 tons, whose design had been completed and funded by Parliament before Fisher took office and which were laid down in January and February 1905, even as his own design committee was sitting. In all, there were thirty-five of these British armored cruisers, some of them as big as or bigger than the Royal Sovereign and Majestic-class battleships. Yet no matter how big they got or how impressive they looked, they were never expected to fight battleships. Indeed, their own survival, like that of the frigates that preceded them, lay in keeping out of range of battleship guns.

  This was Fisher's understanding and purpose too, at least in the beginning. His first battle cruisers were intended to be the ultimate in armored cruisers, so fast and heavily gunned that they could overtake and destroy any other cruiser in the world. As early as March 1902, when he was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Fisher wrote to Lord Selborne that he was working with Gard, the Chief Constructor of the Malta dockyard, on a design for an armored cruiser which would make all existing armored cruisers obsolete. Fisher called the hypothetical ship H.M.S. Perfection, and at the top of the list of her design characteristics he put "Full Power Speed of 25 knots." In his letter, he wrote gleefully: "there would be no escape from her 25 knots." Once Perfection put to sea, all other armored cruisers might as well head for the scrap heap: "A single fast armoured cruiser would lap them up like an armadillo let loose in an ant hill… The decisive factor upon which the fate of the ants will thenceforth hang will not be the efficacy of their bite, but the speed of their legs." In fact, Fisher advised Lord Selborne, he had already tested his theory in exercises at sea during his tour as Commander, North American Station, in the fast battleship Renown: "I on one occasion 'mopped up' all the cruisers one after another with my flagship the battleship Renown. The heavy swell and big seas had no corresponding effect on the big Renown as it had on the smaller… cruisers."

  The Sea Lords' response was not everything Fisher had hoped. They authorized the Warrior and Minotaur classes, big ships with 9.2-inch guns and a speed of 23 knots, two knots beneath that which Fisher had demanded for "Perfection." Meanwhile, other admiralties were experimenting. Towards the end of 1904, word reached London that Japan was laying down two large, 21-knot armored cruisers, each carrying four 12-inch guns and twelve 6-inch. In Italy, four Cuniberti-designed ships carrying two 12-inch and twelve 8-inch guns and capable of 21 knots were on the ways. Foreigners were creeping up on Perfection.

  In February 1905, once Fisher's design committee had completed the plans for the Dreadnought, Perfection appeared. No longer did Fisher have to urge his projects on the Admiralty; now he was the Admiralty. And in the Fisher era, he immediately made clear, British commerce was to be protected not by scattering armored cruisers around the world, but by building a few, immensely fast, powerful ships which could hunt down and destroy enemy cruisers wherever they fled-if necessary, "to the world's end."

  By then, of course, the potential threat had changed nationality; it was not French cruisers that worried the Admiralty, but German ocean liners, the huge, swift, blue-water greyhounds, of the North German Lloyd and Hamburg-America lines, being constructed with a capacity to carry 6-inch guns. Designed to whisk passengers across the North Atlantic in five or six days, they could easily outrun any existing British cruiser.

  Speed, then, was the preeminent requirement; speed to overtake; the enemy and speed also for the new ship's own defense: she must be able to keep out of range of battleship guns. Fisher fixed the minimum absolute margin at four knots and, since he was building the Dreadnought to steam at 21 knots, H.M.S. Perfection must be able to steam at 25 knots.

  Fisher also wanted maximum firepower. The biggest guns available were 12
-inch, already being installed on new armored cruisers and fast battleships by the Italians and Japanese. Having success-fully argued the case for the all-big-gun battleship, Fisher now demanded an all-big-gun armored cruiser. Once again, the faithful and imaginative Gard gave the Admiral what he wanted. Perfection, which was to become the Invincible-class battle cruiser, came off the drawing board with eight 12-inch guns in four twin turrets. Fisher was overjoyed. With 25-knot speed and eight 12-inch guns, here was a warship capable of destroying any vessel fast enough to catch it, and, fast enough to escape any vessel capable of destroying it. She could "mop up" a whole squadron of enemy cruisers with the greatest of ease, using her speed to establish the range and her long-range guris to sink the enemy without exposing herself to return fire.

  She had only a single flaw: her armor was too light. Like Sleeping Beauty, for whom life was serene as long as she stayed away from spindles, the Invincible and her sisters could lead happy lives as long as they stayed away from battleships. Her speed was a precious, expensive commodity and had been purchased at a heavy priee. The three vital characteristics of a warship-guns, speed, and armor-are interrelated. A designer could not have everything: if heavy guns and heavy armor were required, then speed had to be curtailed; this was the compromise built into most battleships. If a higher speed was demanded and heavy guns retained, armor had to be sacrificed. This was the case with the Invincible and her sisters. To gain four precious knots of speed, the Invincible gave up one turret and two twelve-inch guns of Dreadnought's armament. This saved two thousand tons, which could be invested in propulsion machinery. A more dangerous sacrifice was made in armor. The Dreadnought, intended to steam through a cataclysm of shell bursts, was fitted along her belt amidships with armor plate eleven inches thick, enough to stop a plunging heavy shell. Over the Invincible's vital midships spaces, the belt armor was only seven inches thick. If the battle cruiser's mission was to scout or to engage enemy cruisers, seven inches of armor would keep her safe. But if she were to be deliberately taken within range of enemy battleships, seven inches was not enough.

  What was responsible for the catastrophe that lay ahead for Britain's battle cruisers? The design flaw was their thinness of skin, but it was compounded by confusion of purpose and even confusion in nomenclature. The purpose of the battleship was always clear: to sink enemy battleships and dominate the ocean surface. But the purpose of the battle cruiser was never so clear, even from the beginning. She had the original mission of the frigate: to scout for the battle fleet. Fisher had enthusiastically endorsed the second mission acquired in the 1890s: to hunt down and destroy enemy commerce raiders. Once the ships had been given 12-inch guns-the basic armament of battleships-a third possibility began to creep into Admiralty thinking: they should be prepared to participate in a general fleet engagement. Instead of remaining as inactive as frigates, battle cruisers could form a fast auxiliary squadron operating in the van or to the rear of the main battle fleet. Possessing the same heavy long-range guns as battleships, they could reinforce the dreadnoughts by adding to the weight of metal raining down on enemy decks. Fisher described this as a fulfilment “of the great Nelsonic idea of having a squadron of very fast ships to bring on an action or to overtake and lame a retreating foe."

  A shift in nomenclature added to the confusion. Originally, the Invincible class had been announced as "large armored cruisers," a more accurate designation than the subsequent "battle cruiser." In fact, the ships were very large, very heavily gunned, very fast, armored cruisers. But because of their size and armament, naval authorities began almost immediately to count them as capital ships along with dreadnoughts, and by 1912, when the term "battle cruiser" was coined, the impression of equality was firmly fixed. If they had remained "large armored cruisers," perhaps the Admiralty and many admirals and the naval press would not have permitted thinking to drift towards the belief that battle cruisers were intended to stand up against battleships.

  Some naval experts saw the potential danger. Brassey's Naval Annual said: "The problem with] vessels of this enormous size and cost: [is that] an admiral having Invincible in his fleet will be certain to put them in the line of battle where their comparatively light protection will be a disadvantage and their high speed of no value. In short, because she looked like a battleship and carried a battleship's guns, sooner or later Invincible would be expected to fight like a battleship.

  In time, Germany began to construct similar ships. Fisher's certainty that his battle cruisers could hunt down and destroy enemy armored cruisers was valid only as long as the enemy did not also build and send out battle cruisers. Once German construction was under way, the value of the Invincible and her sisters deteriorated and the threat to them increased. Given the nature of war, admirals on both sides could be expected to employ their battle cruisers on similar missions. Thus the great ships were likely to find their way to each other. Under those circumstances, two large vessels, each one firing heavy shells capable of penetrating the light armor of its opponent, would be locked in a deadly embrace. Neither, given the high speed of both, would be able to escape. The decision would likely be quick; accurate gunnery and luck guiding a 12-inch shell into an opponent's propulsion spaces or powder magazines would end the battle suddenly.

  Lord Cawdor, Selborne's successor as First Lord, announced the tost three British battle cruisers in the House of Commons in March 1905. In addition to the new Dreadnought, Lord Cawdor declared, construction would begin on "three large armoured cruisers I.. to be delivered in thirty months." In the spring of 1906, six months after the Dreadnought, the three keels were laid, Invincible at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Inflexible and Indomitable along the Clyde near Glasgow. Fisher hovered over all three and, not surprisingly under this surveillance, they were completed on schedule and joined the fleet in 1908. Visually, they were impressive, and their speed exceeded Fisher's most extravagant dreams. In sea trials, Invincible reached 26.2 knots and later surged to 28 knots.

  The appearance of these ships provoked more frustration in Berlin. The First Sea Lord had announced the three Invincibles to the Commons without details as to their armament, saying only that they would be large, fast, armored cruisers. The Blucher, the Kaiser's first battle cruiser, was intended as the German response. She was big-at 15,500 tons, much bigger than the Deutschland-class battleships. With a speed of 25 to 26 knots, she was fast enough. But to the London circle of naval attaches, naval correspondents, and other interested parties, Fisher had leaked the false information that the Invicibles would mount the same 9.2-inch guns which the Warrior and Minotaur classes had carried. Accordingly, Tirpitz armed his Blucher with twelve 8.2-inch guns, a match, it was felt, for the British 9.2-inch. While this unfortunate ship was still up on blocks, the three British Invincibles, went to sea and their massive armament of eight 12-inch guns was revealed. Tirpitz once again had been outfoxed. Blucher was obsolete two years before she reached the water.

  When intelligence of the Invincibles true capability arrived in Berlin, Tirpitz set grimly to work. The German battle cruiser Von der Tann, 19,400 tons (2,000 heavier than the Invincible with eight 11-inch guns and 25 knots' speed, was laid down in October 1908. Britain replied in February 1909 with the Indefatigable, a bigger Invincible with the same armament and speed, but additional tons of armor spread over her sides and decks. Tirpitz came back in April and July 1909 with the Moltke and the Goeben, each 23,000 tons, with ten 11-inch guns and 27 knots speed. Seydlitz-25,000 tons, with ten 11-inch guns and 26.5 knots' speed-and Derfftinger and Lutzow-each 28,000 tons, with eight 12-inch guns and 27 knots' speed-followed. Britain's reply to Moltke and her sisters was the four "Cats," Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, and Tiger, 27,000 tons, with eight 13.5-inch guns and 28 knots' speed. (The Lion exceeded 31 knots in her trials.) All of these ships, although laid down only three to five years after the Invincible, were a hundred feet longer and 10,000 tons heavier than the earlier vessels. Most of this weight went into more propulsion machinery and bigg
er guns; armor was increased only marginally.

  The first thunderous use of battle cruisers was exactly as Fisher had envisaged. At the Battle of the Falkland Islands, December 8, 1914, two British battle cruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, engaged a squadron of smaller German cruisers under Admiral Count von Spee. Using his greater speed and the greater range of his larger guns, the British Admiral stayed mostly out of reach of the lighter German guns, while, in a textbook application of Fisher's "hunt down and mop up" theory, his ships methodically blew the German ships to pieces. At Jutland, the opposite tactics were applied and opposite results achieved. Rather than using his speed to stay out of range of enemy heavy guns, Beatty led the five ships of his Battle Cruiser Squadron in a cavalry charge straight at the German battle cruisers and, behind them, the seventeen dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet. Two of Beatty's ships, the Indefatigable and the Queen Mary, penetrated by heavy shells, blew up with the loss of almost everyone on board. Two and a half hours later, in another phase of

  the battle, the Invincible herself blew up. One thousand twenty-six men of her company were drowned; five were saved. A naval expert eulogized the battle cruisers at Jutland: "Their speed… should have kept the ships out of range of battleships and heavy guns… but when occasion arose for gallant leadership in the face of the enemy, dictates of design were brushed aside and the Invincible steamed at full speed into annihilation."