1914 fleet review

From 1912 the Royal Navy maintained three fleets in home waters. The First Fleet was the main regular force of dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers, kept active and fully crewed by regular sailors in peacetime; the Second Fleet, generally of older vessels, was staffed by reduced crews sufficient to carry out routine maintenance, put to sea for short periods and man part of their armament; the Third Fleet was a reserve manned by skeleton crews to carry out essential maintenance only and not capable of putting to sea without additional manpower. The fleets generally held annual "grand manoeuvres" at sea as part of a training programme. In Autumn 1913 the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, ordered that the 1914 manoeuvres were to be abandoned as a cost-saving measure. Instead he ordered that a trial mobilisation be held to fully man the Second and Third Fleets. The mobilisation would test the process for bringing the reserve fleets up to war readiness and include some short exercises of manoeuvre. Germany, a great power rival of Britain, increased her strategic naval options in 1914 with the completion of the widening of the Kiel Canal to accept dreadnought battleships, allowing their direct movement between the Baltic Sea and North Sea without passing through the Danish Straits. The opening of the widened canal in late June was attended by a Royal Navy squadron. The test mobilisation of the Second and Third Fleets began on 15 July, at a time of escalating tensions in Europe following the 28 June assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but had been long-planned and the timing was coincidental. == Review ==

As part of the test mobilisation ships of the three fleets assembled at Spithead for a Fleet Review from 20 to 23 July. Also assembled were five flights (A through E) of seaplanes from the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), which had only separated from the Royal Flying Corps on 1 July. The aircraft, around 17 in total, comprised every serviceable seaplane in the RNAS at that time and included at least three Short Admiralty Type 74s and a Sopwith Bat Boat. On 18 July a flypast of 20 aeroplanes and seaplanes led by Charles Rumney Samson was made over the assembling fleet and around the airships. During the review one of the airships took the first ever aerial photograph from directly above a battleship. The other 30 vessels included torpedo boats, depot ships, submarines and auxiliary vessels.|left George V arrived at Portsmouth on 20 July aboard the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert. The vessel's captain, John Ernest Harper, served as master of the fleet for the review. The review was also attended by Churchill. Victoria and Albert left Portsmouth later on 20 July, escorted by the airships No.3 and No.4 to anchor off what is now the location of Nab Tower. The entire fleet then passed in a single line in front of the yacht for review by the king. Overhead the 17 seaplanes and two formations of aeroplanes carried out one of the earliest recorded instances of close formation flying by British aircraft, for which they had carried out several weeks of practice at Eastchurch airfield. Following the review, the vessels involved carried out four days of exercises in manoeuvring and battle practice. These were observed by some of the attendees of the Cowes Regatta, including Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the German emperor, who went on to visit George V at Buckingham Palace to seek assurances about peace between the two nations. ==Aftermath ==

After the review the First Fleet was scheduled to take part in flag-showing visits and the Second and Third Fleets to return to port and discharge their reservists. On 26 July the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg, ordered the First Fleet to remain assembled and the following day ordered the reactivation of the reserve fleets and the commencement of precautionary patrols around British harbours. The RNAS aeroplanes, under Samson, had begun a tour of southern England after the review, beginning with displays at Dorchester and the Central Flying School at Upavon. The aircraft were at Upavon on 27 July when they received an order to prepare for war and concentrate at Eastchurch. By this time the RNAS seaplanes had already commenced war-style patrols of the coast. On 27 July Austria invaded Serbia and two days later the First Fleet was ordered to its wartime base of Scapa Flow, Portland being considered at risk from surprise attack. Here, with parts of Second Fleet, it was formed into the Grand Fleet. == References ==