New Crusade: The Royal Navy and British Navalism, 1884–1914, by Bradley Cesario

The study of British navalism has developed considerably since the pioneering work of W. Mark Hamilton in the 1970s. The most visible aspect of navalism, the Navy League, has since featured in important studies of associational culture, militarism and metropolitan imperialism, and significant scholarly attention has been given to the cultural and political impact of navalism. In parallel to these developments, there has in recent years been renewed interest in naval strategy before the First World War. Bradley Cesario’s book signals an important development in the study of British navalism. He makes the valuable point that navalism was in practice several distinct but related activities: cultural, technical, political and directed; and he makes the last of these the focus of his book.

‘Directed navalism’ was an elite project that sought to influence both public opinion and government ministers on specific naval policies. At the same time, it was a backroom practice that went to considerable lengths to hide its activities. Cesario divides its practitioners into three groups: Royal Navy professionals, journalists and politicians. Directed navalism emerged in the 1880s and achieved its greatest influence in the early to mid-1900s, only to decline in advance of the First World War. Cesario’s richly detailed account is informed by the private papers of directed navalism’s leading practitioners. He uncovers an evolving network of highly placed men seeking to nudge and ultimately direct government and Admiralty policy-making. Some of the ground covered is familiar, such as the role of naval scares in harnessing public opinion, and the bitter long-running feud between admirals John ‘Jackie’ Fisher and Lord Charles Beresford. Cesario nevertheless weaves a complex narrative that demonstrates the longevity and persistence of directed navalism, and therefore its limitations as well as its achievements. If his book is fundamentally about evolving backroom relationships, it remains analytical in structure and approach, drawing out directed navalism’s characteristic features, and explaining how the factors that made it successful also contributed to its downfall.

At the heart of the book is the rise and fall of the ‘Fisher system’. Cesario observes that there were three aspects to Fisher’s communications with naval writers: the use of simple stories to harness public attention, information brokering, and the strict enforcement of anonymity to ensure plausible deniability. These methods did not originate with Fisher, but he was able to cultivate and instrumentalise them to his personal advantage, up to and after his appointment in 1904 as First Sea Lord. The ultimate test of the Fisher system was his naval revolution, the landmark series of reforms to the navy’s internal organisation, strategic deployment and battleship design. His opponents—the so-called syndicate of discontent—also transcended the worlds of politics, media and the naval service, and they adopted similar methods, but they were outflanked by Fisher and his considerably more influential allies. He was also aided by the development of the ‘Fishpond’, a system of favouritism in the navy’s upper ranks that had the effect of leaving him peerless at the Admiralty. It soon after became apparent that this outcome had its drawbacks. The concerns about German naval expansion that grew in 1908–10 gained widespread public attention and raised questions about Fisher’s grasp of the situation. This development also encouraged greater scrutiny of Fisher’s backroom methods, in particular his relationship with the press. The resulting official investigations into his activities had the cumulative effect of undermining Fisher personally and directed navalism generally.

As this demonstrates, directed navalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. It is also observable in Fisher’s attitude to naval writers; his early reliance on them and his willingness to broker information with them lessened as he consolidated his control over the navy. Likewise, his early enthusiasm for the Navy League dimmed over time, as the latter’s need for clear and simple slogans sat uneasily with the First Sea Lord’s understanding of what he required of the navy. Within the service, resentment at the Fishpond grew until Fisher’s retirement, ensuring that nothing like the Fisher system re-emerged under his successors.

Notwithstanding this outcome, directed navalism was not without consequence. Fisher’s naval reforms remained largely intact. Cultural navalism, which Cesario argues was a product of directed navalism, outlived and became more successful than its progenitor. Recent scholarly assessments of the range and depth of cultural navalism’s impact on British society indicate that the comparison is not as straightforward as this suggests, but Cesario has produced an important reminder that navalism was much more than what the public read about in newspapers, and what they witnessed at Royal Navy-themed events. For its instigators and leading practitioners, navalism was primarily about their capacity to shape and give direction to public policy on the strategic function and requirements of the Royal Navy, its internal organisation, and the relationship between investment and technological innovation.