Jellicoe dismissed

At about six in the evening on 24 December 1917 Admiral John Jellicoe, for a year First Sea Lord, that is, the professional head of the Royal Navy, received at the Admiralty a letter from his political superior, the First Lord of the Admiralty Eric Geddes. The letter was marked personal and strictly confidential. As Jellicoe later noted, it gave no reasons, merely stating that Geddes considered a change desirable. Geddes added that he was still in the building and could talk, but Jellicoe did not go to see him. He consulted only the Third Sea Lord, Rear-Admiral Lionel Halsey, and replied that he would do what was best for the Navy. That same evening he left on leave, and his duties were taken over by the Deputy First Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss. The British chronology of the war records Jellicoe’s departure under 26 December and Wemyss’s appointment under 27 December. Those dates, however, concern the formalities and the announcement of the change, because the dismissal was settled by the Christmas Eve letter.

Why Jellicoe had to go

Prime Minister David Lloyd George had wanted to get rid of Jellicoe for months. He regarded him as a pessimist who had resisted the introduction of convoys for too long, and who in June had argued to the politicians that, unless the Belgian coast was captured, the shortage of shipping might make it impossible to continue the war in 1918. In the summer, however, removing the commander of the fleet at Jutland was politically impossible. Lloyd George then confined himself to putting Geddes, a railwayman and organiser, into the Admiralty in place of Edward Carson. In the autumn Jellicoe came under fierce attack from the press, above all the newspapers of Lord Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth). Edward Carson, still a member of the War Cabinet, publicly defended him on 20 November, saying that he himself, who had worked with him, was a better judge of his abilities than “some writer in Fleet Street”.

Meanwhile Geddes reorganised the Admiralty. In the autumn he brought Wemyss, until then commander of the fleet in Egyptian waters and the Indian Ocean, to London and made him Jellicoe’s deputy, and he put Rear-Admiral Roger Keyes at the head of a new planning division. Wemyss recalled that Jellicoe was unable to delegate any responsibility to him, and in December the two clashed over the defence of the Strait of Dover. Wemyss and Keyes believed, on the basis of intelligence, that German submarines were passing almost unhindered over Admiral Reginald Bacon’s net barrage at Dover, and wanted him removed. Jellicoe defended Bacon as the best man for the post. On top of this came two defeats in the North Sea: on 17 October and 12 December the Germans destroyed convoys bound for Norway.

According to Lloyd George’s memoirs, on 21 December Geddes offered at a meeting of the government to leave the Admiralty and take charge of the coordination of Allied transport. In the afternoon he came to Downing Street and explained to the Prime Minister and Andrew Bonar Law that he could not give of his best as long as Jellicoe remained First Sea Lord. Both politicians agreed that a change was desirable. On the evening of 22 December Geddes summoned Wemyss and offered him Jellicoe’s post. Wemyss accepted it, as he wrote, without joy and out of a sense of duty. Jellicoe told it differently. According to him, the government had decided as late as 24 December, after a speech by General Jan Smuts, to keep Geddes at the Admiralty, and the letter of dismissal arrived that same evening. Jellicoe suspected that Northcliffe had put pressure on the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister on Geddes.

Christmas at the Admiralty

On Christmas Day Geddes drove to Sandringham, ate Christmas dinner with the royal family and obtained George V’s consent to the change. In the evening he wrote to Jellicoe asking whether he would accept a peerage. Jellicoe and his wife at first wanted to refuse, but the admiral eventually agreed. As he explained, he did so for the sake of the Navy, which received few honours, in order to have a platform in the House of Lords in case of wrong decisions concerning the fleet, and for his children, because history might conclude that he had been rightly thrown out, since he had received no recognition.

The other Sea Lords learnt of it all only on 25 December. Halsey, with Jellicoe’s consent, gathered them in the evening, and all were indignant that their chief had been thrown out without warning. They drafted a letter to Geddes demanding an explanation, but it was not sent. The First Lord met them and disputed their right to ask such questions, although he agreed to talk “as man to man”. The admirals came away from this conversation convinced that at an earlier meeting with the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and Carson, too, had considered the change desirable. In the last days of December they considered resigning collectively, but Jellicoe advised them against this step, arguing that Geddes would appoint in their place compliant men who did not know the Admiralty. The Sea Lords stayed. The Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Henry Oliver, did leave, however.

Geddes and Wemyss, meanwhile, went to Rosyth to see the commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty. Beatty, on cool terms with Jellicoe since Jutland, first wrote to him that he had received the news from the newspapers with consternation, but after talking with Geddes he did not get in touch for a month. On 27 December the Admiralty announced that “the King has been graciously pleased to confer a peerage on Sir John Jellicoe in recognition of his very distinguished services”. That same day Wemyss became First Sea Lord.

What came next

The new leadership quickly settled the Dover question. Bacon was removed, and at the turn of the year Keyes took over the command at Dover, and in April 1918 he led the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend. The way Jellicoe had been treated long caused anger in the Navy. In March 1918 in the House of Commons Carson declared that the War Cabinet had not been consulted about his removal, and Geddes apologised if he had hurt the admiral’s feelings. He explained that he had chosen a letter because he considered it the gentlest way of conveying such news. Jellicoe had already been made Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa in January 1918.