Pre WWI

The Mine and Mine Warfare in the Royal Navy Prior to 1914.[1]

By Martin Kelly

University of Portsmouth HMS Vernon Postgraduate Research Group

Between 1870 and 1914 many new technologies emerged in naval warfare which required all major navies to rethink much of their way of fighting.  In the Royal Navy, almost any subject that was not related directly to gunnery was consigned to being evaluated, and taught at HMS Vernon.   One amongst these was the sea mine, although its gestation as a potential weapon stretches back long before 1870. 

Prior to 1905, two potential tactical uses for the mine were envisaged: broadcasting (free floating contact mines strewn in advance of an approaching fleet), and shore operated defensive barricades (moored mines activated from shore by an observer, on the proximity of an enemy ship,).  Both concepts had considerable limitations, particularly the danger of the first to friendly, as well as enemy shipping.[2]

Following some limited enthusiasm, the Royal Navy had almost abandoned any thoughts of the use of mines with the prevailing view that they were more suited to smaller navies.  This was until their successful use by both sides in the Russo – Japanese War of 1904-5, as reported to the Admiralty extensively by the British Naval Attaché to Japan. [3]  However, the deciding naval engagement  in this particular conflict was the clash of the two fleets at the Battle of Tsushima and Admiral Togo, by sinking six of the eight Russian battleships, achieved an outcome comparable to Nelson’s at Trafalgar.  This served to reinforce the idea amongst the ultra-conservative officers of the Royal Navy that a capital ship battle would alone decide any future conflict, and naval money should not be wasted on new technology like mines.[4]

Admiral Sir John Fisher, who as a radical First Sea Lord was the instigator and driving force introducing many modernising changes into the Royal Navy, lost an enthusiasm he had espoused for mining in his previous post as Commander in Chief Mediterranean.[5]   When, in 1908, he produced his first naval plans for war with Germany there were only two paragraphs concerning mining and, particularly, no mention of potential defensive use of mines by the enemy when consideration was given to offensive operations against the Fresian Islands, and in the Baltic.[6] 

This position changed slightly as war approached and the intelligence revealed the threat that German mining posed.  In 1910, in the wake of HMS Vernon conducting experiments on the use of Grimsby Trawlers for minesweeping, the Trawler Reserve was formed; by 1913 it was reported that 95 crews had enrolled.[7]  HMS Vernon was also conducting some training in the laying of mines on the few vessels that had been converted for this role but, despite calls from the establishment to improve both sweeping and laying resources, the Royal Navy was woefully underprepared when the war commenced.[8] 

[1] For a thorough but concise coverage of this subject see The Royal Navy and Mine Warfare 1868-1914 by Peter F Halvorden in the Journal of Strategic Studies 27:4 2004 685-707

[2] Sueter,  The evolution of the submarine Boat, Mine and Torpedo 1907, 276-7

[3] Falk: Togo and the rise of Japanese Sea Power p 314, 320,323

[4] Halfordson, 704

[5] Halvorden, 691

[6] Paul Kennedy, The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880-1914. 123.

[7] ADM 189/33 Annual Report of the Torpedo School 1913, dated 20 February 1914.  77.

[8] Poland: the torpedomen, 60-61; Halvorden,  702-703

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