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ADMIRAL Sir John Fisher rarely explained his strategic views in writing, and papers of his that do exist on this subject date for the most part from the period before he became First Sea Lord.(1) The paucity of formal expositions of his strategic views and his known disengagement from the preparation of written war plans, have given some historians the impression that he had little interest in, or no capacity for, the conceptualization of strategy. Fisher, in their view, was too preoccupied with "materiel policy."(2) Arthur Marder, for example,(3) believed it was Fisher's instinctive response to the challenge of a rapidly expanding German Navy that motivated him to improve the war readiness of the fighting fleet by concentrating naval resources in home waters, reequipping the battle fleet with new model armoured warships, and other administrative reforms intended to enhance the war readiness of ships in reserve.(4) "The efficiency and strength of the Navy, one ready for war at a moment's notice," Marder declared, was Fisher's "megalomania."(5)
Of the three initiatives just mentioned, Fisher's innovation in capital ship design has attracted by far the most attention. Historians generally accept that Fisher possessed a genius for anticipating inevitable changes in warship design resulting from advances in naval technology.(6) The testimony to this vision was the building of HMS Dreadnought, a warship of revolutionary design that seemed overnight to render all previous battleships obsolete.(7) Fisher's "prescience," it is argued, enabled the Royal Navy to steal a march over its rivals in the impending race to reequip navies with modern battleships.(8) The inference that Fisher's principal objective had been simply to equip the Royal Navy with a larger number of modern battleships in order to win a fleet action in the North Sea against the German High Sea Fleet, reinforces the idea that Fisher was a purely conventional and rather unimaginative strategist.(9) Again, where he did make some departures from traditional Admiralty policy, such as the decision in November 1904 to scrap a large number of gunboats and trade protection cruisers, this is usually construed by historians as further evidence of his determination to "build up the Royal Navy's strength in home waters" and improve the fighting efficiency of the battle fleet--at any cost--even at the price of losing...