When the ship returned to Portsmouth, Fisher sat for his lieutenant’s test in the fall of 1861 and achieved the highest test score in history on the rigorous navigation portion. At this point, people began to talk in earnest about the oddly featured young lieutenant who seemed to have a knack for the sea and a kind of even, steady confidence with both his superiors and his subordinates—a rare combination in the Royal Navy of the nineteenth century. His reputation was growing; over time he would become the best-known and most discussed officer of his generation—both for good and for ill. The larger a military officer’s reputation grows, the greater the attendant jealousy from peers. Fisher saw that clearly, but never deigned to trim the sails of either his ambition or his intellect.
In 1862, as the American Civil War was unfolding, Jacky Fisher began the first of four tours of duty at Portsmouth, the massive Royal Navy training base in southern England, which was an important center for British naval innovation. He focused on developing a variety of innovative techniques revolving around gunnery and mines, including helping the Royal Navy make the shift from muzzle-loading cannon to modern breech-loaded weapons. Over the next twenty-five years, he had a significant impact on the evolution of naval weapons, and throughout the long span of his career he would draw on the technical skills he mastered at Portsmouth to drive the naval establishment forward, often at a breakneck pace. He possessed a very rare admixture of strategic vision and true technical skill.
Fisher returned to sea in 1863 as a gunnery officer in HMS Warrior, the first armored battleship in the Royal Navy. The ship carried both muzzle-loading and breech-loading guns, embodying the shift not only from sail to coal-fired engines, but also to what we would recognize today as modern, longer-range, more accurate guns. In 1864 he returned to Portsmouth and spent the next five years ashore, eventually turning his attention to torpedoes—a simple, lethal idea (underwater explosives, essentially) that created new threats to capital ships. What was called a torpedo in those days would today be referred to as a “naval mine”; today’s torpedoes are underwater missiles that are guided autonomously from onboard sonar systems. In 1869 Fisher paid a visit to Germany, where he met not only Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, but also King William I of Prussia (later Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany), whose geopolitical ambitions would create much of the orbit of Fisher’s career. He was also promoted to commander and sent to sea on several ships, including as second in command of HMS Ocean, the flagship of the British China Fleet.
By 1876 Fisher was promoted to full captain, and over the next five years assumed command of no fewer than six different warships, largely on duty in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, frequently serving as flagship to an admiral. While command of so many ships was not unheard of, his experience was notable in terms of both the quantity of command experience and the quality of results he consistently delivered. He also suffered the loss of his brother, a naval lieutenant who went down with HMS Atalanta somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean between the Caribbean and England. At the time, Fisher was in command of HMS Northampton, which was part of the force sent to search for the missing ship.
All of this groomed him sufficiently to provide the basis for his breakout command in HMS Inflexible, which he assumed in 1881. HMS Inflexible was a brand-new warship, with thick armor, electric lighting, and torpedo tubes—but was still equipped with sails, which she seldom if ever actually used for propulsion. Under Fisher, she became a perfect test bed for many of his tactical ideas. She had a number of advancements and innovations built into her, and Fisher took full advantage, driving the ship into action in the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882. Fisher went ashore and saw action during this classic “small war,” and was recognized by his superiors for his bravery. Unfortunately, this led to his contracting both malaria and dysentery, the lingering effects of which, including the sallow skin tone, would haunt him for the rest of his life. This skin tone change fueled even more rumors about his mixed parentage, which somehow contributed to the growing antagonism many of his peers felt about him.
Throughout the 1880s, Fisher spent time recovering from his illness, but the effects never truly left him. Assigned ashore for twelve years at one stretch, he poured his heart into further innovation, with a focus on armor, gunnery, and torpedoes. Many of the ideas he concocted became fundamental to the way the British would operate their ships for much of the next century. Perhaps more important, he inspired a group of officers who passionately believed in his concept of pushing for the new idea over the conservative path. This so-called Fish Pond included a brace of future Royal Navy leaders including John Jellicoe and Percy Scott.
The cult of personality that grew around him created plenty of antibodies throughout the Navy, and Fisher became a polarizing figure—albeit one with significant and ongoing support from the royal family. By 1890 this had translated into a posting as the aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria, and promotion to rear admiral. While in that role, he continued to face conservative opposition to many of his initiatives, but his steady ascent through the ranks of the Admiralty ultimately brought him sufficient power to dramatically change the Royal Navy. With the royal family now fully aware of the charming young admiral, his rise was assured.
Everywhere Fisher was stationed, he sponsored dances—ashore, in distant stations, on ornate flagships and small cutters. Whenever his ship would put into port, he would set up a program for visitors that would include not only excellent food and champagne, but also the opportunity to dance. And he was an excellent and devoted dancer, often whirling lady after lady around the floor, never tiring, and beaming the entire time. It was a manifestation of his almost manic level of energy, as well as his desire, as was said of Teddy Roosevelt, to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.
Throughout his long periods ashore, Fisher employed every trick imaginable to drive production in the way he demanded. In one famous instance, he brought his desk and chair outside into the shipyard, insisting he would not move until production speeded up to his expectations. He is said to have observed, “When you are told a thing is impossible, that there are insuperable objections, then is the time to fight like the devil.” That is an accurate summation of Jacky Fisher’s approach throughout this career, an approach that preceded and aligned with Winston Churchill’s simple dictum, “Never give in;” Churchill actually went on to qualify it—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Lord Fisher never qualified it—for Jacky this fundamental principle of “fight like the devil” in the face of resistance was simply bedrock.
As he continued to ascend, he moved through the crucial flag officer jobs, beginning with third sea lord. In this role, he was responsible for essentially designing, building, and arming the Royal Navy, with a special focus on taking new ideas to sea. He helped create the forerunner of the modern destroyer (a term he popularized), a small, fast, offensive ship that fired relatively lighter-caliber guns but could operate out in front of a formation of heavier capital ships.
One of his crucial innovations was support for advanced submarines. The initial British response to the technology was that its use was somehow underhanded and unethical. Fisher pushed the arguments for the new undersea systems relentlessly, correctly foreseeing that they would revolutionize naval warfare as surely as the shift from sail to coal and then to liquid fuels—other innovations he also championed. The use of torpedoes had evolved since the mid-nineteenth century from floating mines to propelled explosives, and Fisher was an early and dynamic advocate of higher-speed versions that could be launched from surface ships. He was among the first to see the possibilities of launching submerged torpedoes from bays built into the hulls of submarines. By coupling the stealth of the submarine with the range and explosive power of the torpedo, he created a true revolution in military affairs at sea.
Fisher’s radical, hard-driving approach to training was also notable. In an era when most ship captains and admirals were content to polish
the brass works and holystone the decks endlessly, Fisher demanded realistic and dangerous combat-oriented training. He insisted on nighttime drills, the use of real explosive charges, target ranges to measure accuracy, long hours to simulate the stress of combat, and physical fitness training to ensure readiness around the clock. All of the technical and procedural advances he drove were additive and resulted in a far higher level of overall British naval mastery at sea. Even as a senior captain and eventually as a junior member of the Admiralty, he punched well above his weight in terms of impact on the entire navy; and as he became more senior, his power to move events grew exponentially as a result.
By 1896, he was promoted to vice admiral and returned to sea as commander of the British maritime forces in the Caribbean; and after the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, a territorial dispute in eastern Africa between Britain and France, he became the commander of the prestigious, and geopolitically crucial, Mediterranean Fleet. Fisher changed the ethos of the forward-deployed British fleet from polishing the brass and obsessively painting the sides of ships to conducting high-speed, realistic war games, often at night. The shift moved from formality and “showtime” to preparing for “wartime.” His enthusiasm, energy, and inspirational drive reimagined the British fleet, preparing it for the global combat to come.
While he experienced periods of frustration and seriously considered offers to step out of the navy and work in the armaments industry (eyeing the big compensation that would have come his way), he again was promoted, this time to second sea lord—in charge of manpower and personnel, with a focus on reforming naval training. In this role, he created better career paths for both engineers and deck officers, extended shore training before sending cadets to sea, added physical fitness training, added competitive examinations as nearly the sole path to a commission, and updated the curriculum for the entire officer corps to include much more science and technology. His impact was debated throughout the fleet. In the end, as always, he had his way, and the imprint of his reforms created new intellectual capital in the officer corps that matched the changes he instituted in the ships of the fleet. We so often think of innovation as improvements in physical systems and specific equipment (torpedoes, fire control systems for gunnery, submarines, engines). But in many ways the most important innovations in any enterprise are the changes we make in how we prepare human beings to perform. Fisher was the rare leader who fully understood the need to do both.
By 1903 he briefly became commander of the large naval base at Portsmouth, with Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory as his flagship, before ascending to the pinnacle of global naval power as the first sea lord. He served in this role from 1904 to 1910, continuing to innovate while at the same time infuriating many of his bureaucratic opponents—notably Lord Charles Beresford, another senior admiral, who came to despise Fisher and conducted a significant opposition campaign, both within the navy and from a seat in Parliament. The two men’s quarrels persisted throughout the latter part of their long lives and created dangerous factions in the Royal Navy.
Most important, Fisher used his power to drive the design of two important and truly modern ship classes. The first was the all-big-gun battleship, the first of which was named HMS Dreadnought. It was so important to Fisher that he had the word carved on his tombstone. The second class of ships was the faster but more lightly armored battle cruisers. These hybrids could outgun most opponents and outrun any heavier, longer-gunned true battleships. The battle cruisers were ultimately ill fated, and several of them were ingloriously destroyed at Jutland in the First World War. The lead ship of the class, named HMS Invincible, joined the fleet in 1907. Fisher also championed and began transitioning the fleet from coal to oil and ensured that submarines became a fundamental and respected part of British war plans. After a successful tenure as first sea lord, he was made a peer, dubbed Lord Fisher, and retired on his seventieth birthday.
At the start of the First World War, Fisher was brought back by the young, headstrong, politically controversial Winston Churchill. They were perhaps too much alike. Churchill, the first lord of the Admiralty, appointed the quite willing and still vigorous seventy-four-year-old Fisher for a second stint as first sea lord in October 1914. There is an iconic photograph of the two of them—resplendent in spats, top hats, and ornate walking sticks—descending the steps of the Admiralty in late 1914. The honeymoon did not last long; the relationship deteriorated rapidly over legitimate differences in strategic approach. Churchill pushed for the Gallipoli campaign, a risky invasion of Turkey through the Dardanelles, which turned out to be a bloody disaster. Fisher, on the other hand, advocated an amphibious assault in the north from the Baltic Sea as a way to damage the German fleet, something he had been pushing for more than a decade.
The story of the final meeting to make the decision, which also finally destroyed the Churchill-Fisher relationship, is telling. It was mid-spring of 1915, and after much fierce back-and-forth, the two men were at a stalemate. Churchill passionately desired the Dardanelles invasion, having given birth to the idea, and Jacky Fisher adamantly opposed it, urging a Baltic campaign instead. The two men were similar in so many ways: impulsive, talkative, intellectually dominant, and charismatic; the collision seemed inevitable and the moment eventually came for Fisher to either knuckle under or resign in protest. It was a moment that tested the character of this seventy-four-year-old whirling dervish of a man, who had never touched failure and was more vigorous than ever, but was finally matched against a rival with similar levels of energy and enthusiasm, as well as thirty years his junior and nominally his boss.
Others around the table at that fateful meeting cleared their throats nervously in some embarrassment as the prime minister, H. H. Asquith, pondered the matter—and finally made a definitive ruling. It would be the Dardanelles campaign, not the Baltic. Jacky Fisher’s temper rose quickly. He tore himself away from the table, a strained and angry look on his face. Everyone knew he would resign. But next stood the great soldier Field Marshal Lord Herbert Kitchener, who moved to intercept the admiral on his course, and the two exchanged words—Kitchener soothing, Fisher fulminating.
In the event, Fisher pulled his coat closely around him and with a shudder returned to the table, a visible sulk on his face. He continued to believe with all his heart that he was betraying something fundamental. He knew the campaign was ill conceived, and as a result, thousands or even tens of thousands would probably needlessly die. And that is precisely how it all came out. But something in his character pulled him back to the table with the rest of the cabinet. It was not entirely his devotion to his nation, although that was part of it; nor his affection for Churchill, for that had long since worn thin. Rather Fisher returned to the table to stay in the game. His ego drove him back, as surely as it gave him enormous joy some months earlier when Churchill had called him out of retirement to return as first sea lord.
Fisher knew the Gallipoli campaign was doomed and wrong. In another few weeks he would finally resign. But not yet, and this pivotal moment in his life and career—when he came back grudgingly to the table and did not seek to force a reversal of what he knew was a flawed policy decision—would be a burden he carried for the rest of his life. It is also one of the very few instances of Jacky Fisher not carrying the day in a battle of ideas. He knew it was the beginning of the end.
Over the course of his final half decade from 1915 until his death in 1920, Fisher continued to fight for new naval ideas from a variety of public platforms. He lost his devoted wife, Kitty, in the spring of 1918—they had enjoyed a truly happy marriage by all accounts—and something went out of his life that he could not replace; he succumbed himself to prostate cancer in 1920. His funeral was the most important public naval ceremony since the death of Lord Nelson, and was essentially a state event, held at Westminster Hall. Both he and his wife were cremated after their deaths, and their ashes combined at their beloved estate in Kilverstone. Their gravesite overlooks a figurehead taken
from Fisher’s first ship, HMS Calcutta.
Fisher had a fine voyage through life, always fighting against the odds, and almost always winning. He created great change, and is remembered with great respect in the Royal Navy. And through his long, controversial, confrontational, and vastly entertaining life, he always found time to dance.
Humble beginnings and physical shortcomings were the forge of Jacky Fisher’s character. Joining the Admiralty ran through the family: both Jacky and a younger brother Frederic became admirals, and all three of Jacky’s daughters married naval officers, each of whom became an admiral, as did his only son. But he himself—despite all the success and accolades—always seemed to feel like an outsider. His DNA placed him there, in both his short stature and the features written on his face, whose sallow complexion led to derogatory nicknames and slightly condescending attitudes throughout his life. He bore it well publicly, but it always chafed inside. In the epic battles of his prime with Lord Charles Beresford—the quintessential tall, burly aristocratic British admiral (who was even accompanied everywhere by a bulldog)—Jacky often evinced a sense of being on the outside looking in, despite all his accomplishments, high rank, and public success.
The defining character conflict of Jacky Fisher’s life was the struggle between his massive ego, driven by internal insecurities, and his sincere devotion to the Royal Navy. He constantly sought to achieve success for himself alongside success for his beloved service. In most cases he was able to do both, achieving personal success while advancing the cause of the Navy—but not always.
His fierce drive to succeed made him a formidable force always. This gave him a slightly dark side, which he understood and encouraged to a certain degree. At one point he said, “I don’t like perfect angels, one doesn’t feel quite comfortable with them. One of Cecil Rhodes’s secretaries wrote his Life and left out all his defects; it was a most unreal picture. The Good stands out all the more strikingly if there is a deep shadow. I think it is called the Rembrandt Effect.”
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