British Cruisers of the Victorian Era. Norman Friedman
time considered a gross humiliation. Grain exports did not figure in the Czar’s comments, and the Russians did not immediately build up the Black Sea Fleet. However, it must have been obvious that once they did they could exert considerably more pressure on the British in the Mediterranean.
The Suez Canal was a Franco-Egyptian venture, but once in office in 1874 Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli saw it as a vital British interest; he bought a controlling share by buying up the Egyptian Government’s holdings. Although nominally part of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire, Egypt was effectively independent, its government constantly in need of money.
Not too long after Disraeli bought the Canal shares, the Russo-Turkish crisis of 1875-77 threatened to place a Russian satellite state (Bulgaria) on the Mediterranean, within range of the Canal.1 In 1878, with Russian troops threatening Constantinople, a British battle squadron made the dangerous ascent of the Bosporus in a snowstorm. The Russians had no real Black Sea Fleet, but the British ironclads were placing themselves to shell the Russian troops if necessary (the threat forced a Russian withdrawal). This fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir Geoffrey Phipps Hornby, who had commanded the Flying Squadron, and who would be a key figure in the agitation leading to the Naval Defence Act of 1889.
Although the ascent of the Turkish straits was a great success, other aspects of the British response were not. In addition to the standing Mediterranean Fleet, the Admiralty decided to assemble a fleet to penetrate the Baltic. To so do without removing the Channel Fleet (i.e., without presenting the French with the opportunity to invade), it tried to mobilize reserve ships and form them into a Baltic fleet. Mobilization proved difficult and far too slow. Intelligence had been collected, but at the crucial moment it could not be found. It proved impossible to maintain contact with Russian cruisers, which would have preyed on British trade had war broken out.
Ultimately the need to secure the Canal helped draw the British into making Egypt a quasi-colony.2 At this time British colonies (apart from India) were generally fairly distant from anyone else’s, approachable only by sea. Egypt was a very different proposition. It was close to other European colonies in North Africa, and it could be approached through Africa. Britain and France almost went to war in 1898 because French troops probing north met British troops at Fashoda in southern Egypt, suggesting that some larger thrust was planned (war orders were drafted, and one consequence of the war scare was a supplemental naval program). In this sense Egypt was analogous to India; in both cases defence included the defence of land frontiers. In both cases the land frontiers were considerably less approachable than maps suggested to governments in London.
British seizure of Egypt without French involvement made it difficult for the British to resist attempts by other European powers to seize parts of Africa. This scramble for Africa provided colonies the Germans, previously without colonial possessions, hoped to use as bases for cruisers during the First World War. The British found themselves seizing the German colonies not because they had enormous inherent value, but to deny them as bases for use against vital British trade.
The Mediterranean became so vital that the Mediterranean Fleet became the most important British naval formation of the late nineteenth century. With French bases circling much of the Mediterranean, it faced unusual conditions which brought forth special tactical solutions, not least for cruisers. As CinC of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir John Fisher conceived many of his key ideas, which led in turn to the revolutions he pushed through at the Admiralty at the close of the period covered by this book.
Through the mid-nineteenth century the Russians drove south into Central Asia towards India. It might not be possible to overthrow British power in India by sea; the country was just too large. However, the British thought that the Russians planned to turn both Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan into vassal states, and it was conceivable that Afghans pouring across the northern frontier of India might have begun its conquest. This land threat was the substance of the ‘Great Game’ celebrated by Kipling and others. The naval aspect was that the best way for the British to counter Russian moves in Central Asia was to apply naval pressure in the one place most vital to the Russians: the Baltic.
HMS Egeria was a Fantome class sloop, the size just below corvettes (which were later rated as cruisers). This class introduced the composite construction which DNC Sir Nathaniel Barnaby later applied to the Satellite class corvettes. Built at Pembroke, Egeria was launched on 1 November 1873. Designed displacement was 894 tons, but the ships displaced 949 as completed; the difference may have been due to miscalculation involving the new type of construction (dimensions: 160ft × 31¼ft × 12½ft). Armament comprised two 7in 90cwt and two 64pdr, all muzzle-loading rifles on slides (these were the largest British warships with an all-traversing armament). One 7in was between funnel and mainmast and one on the quarterdeck, both with ports so that they could fire on the broadside. The only major armament modification was to replace wooden with iron slides after the first commission (Egeria later had her armament reduced as a surveying ship). Ships like this needed sail power for endurance. As a sloop, Egeria was slower than Barnaby’s corvettes: on trial she made 11.303kts on 1011 IHP. The class was rated at 1000nm at 10kts. Machinery comprised three cylindrical boilers and a two-cylinder compound engine (these were the first sloops with compound engines). Ballard described the class as easily handled under sail, free from yaw when running before a heavy sea, buoyant when lying-to, and stiff enough not to require any ballast. They did not hold a good lee, however. They were never faster than 11½kts even when scudding before a high wind. These sailing qualities mattered; like other Victorian sloops, they made their long passages under sail. Complement was 125. Egeria served initially on the China station (1874-81, receiving a relief crew in 1878). She grounded badly off Hainan in a fog in 1879, but was refloated successfully (she lost most of her false keel in the process). On her return she went into reserve for two years, and was then selected as a surveying ship, her 64pdrs and 7in guns replaced by four 20pdrs (to deal with pirates). She was ready in 1886, and she was not brought home until she had to be reboilered (in 1894). She was paid off at Esquimault in 1911.
The next Anglo-Russian crisis after 1878 (1885) was prompted not by a thrust towards the Turkish straits, but by a Russian probe into Afghanistan, which bordered India.3 Without a large standing army, the only response available to the British was naval. In 1878 a fleet was sent up the Bosporus while another was mobilized to enter the Baltic. In 1885 there was no Mediterranean response, but a Baltic squadron was again mobilized, this time commanded by Admiral Phipps Hornby. When the immediate threat dissipated, the squadron was retained for manoeuvres, which were intended to test new technology. By this time the Russians had invested heavily in torpedo craft, and some of the exercises tested the fleet’s ability to seize and maintain a base in the Baltic in the face of torpedoes and mines. Lessons learned deeply affected cruiser development. The 1885 exercises were considered so valuable a test of tactics and technology that they were made a nearly annual event. As in 1877-78, mobilization was not entirely successful, although there were notable improvements. For example, this time the navy was able to shadow Russian ships, precluding a major Russian offensive against British trade.
The French gained an ability to operate outside blockadable waters as they seized colonies in East Africa (such as Madagascar) and in Asia (Vietnam). Among other things, in the 1860s both the Russians and the French built second-rate armoured ships specifically to operate in Eastern waters, far from their concentrated fleets. Viable British presence in the Pacific required that cruisers be backed by armoured ships. This requirement created the first ships rated by the Royal Navy as armoured cruisers (though quite unrelated to the armoured cruisers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries).
HMS Penguin was an Osprey class composite screw sloop, Barnaby’s follow-on to the Egeria class. She had another two 64pdr guns. The embrasures for stern fire ran about half way along her poop. They are barely visible in this photograph because the hull was painted black. These ships came out light, the surplus of 35 tons being used for more coal. In effect these ships were half-scale models of contemporary composite corvettes, with