John Arbnot Fischer

On January 25, 1841, British militarist John Arbnot Fisher was born. One of the most outstanding reformers and administrators in the history of the Royal Navy, he conducted extensive exploration of various areas of the British Navy. Through his efforts, the British Navy was able to ensure maritime superiority in the First World War, thus achieving the final victory.

"The essence of war is violence, and the moderation in war is imbecility! It became a famous motto of his, and any reform measures he took in the Navy faithfully fulfilled this motto, and the origin of any success or failure in these reforms, and the praise and criticism he received therefrom, was still this saying.

Fisher was born into a military family in Ceylon. He joined the Royal Navy as a young sailor at the age of 13 and served Nelson's flagship HMS Victory in Portsmouth on June 12, 1854 at the famous Battle of Trafalgar. He soon participated in the Crimean War (1853-1856), followed by the occupation of Canton in the Second Opium War (December 1857) and the Dagu Fort Attack on June 20, 1859, which ended in defeat for the British Army, the only major defeat of the British Navy in the 19th century. In the Navy, Fisher was quite accomplished in artillery and torpedo warfare, and gradually showed his outstanding talents, playing a major role in revising the Shooting Model.

In 1872, he was assigned to the Royal Naval Artillery School known as the HMS Excellent. In 1874, Fisher was promoted to captain at the age of 33. Soon after, in 1876, he created an independent organization known as the HMS Vernon to train in torpedo and mine warfare.

In 1882, he participated in the shelling of Alexandria Port in Egypt. He commanded the famous center turret battleship Inflexible (at that time, China used to call it "Infrexibai" in the Qing Dynasty, and the turret configurations of the two ships "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" were based on the design of the ship). A total of 88 rounds of 16-inch giant artillery shells were fired, demonstrating its extremely high artillery level.

At a public rally in September 1882, Captain Fisher preached that Britain must change the status quo of the Navy's use of coal as power fuel and should use new oil fuels. He insisted that oil as a power fuel would give Britain a decisive strategic advantage in the future competition to control the ocean. He cited a large number of facts. Oil-powered warships have no black smoke and will not expose their targets, while coal-burning warships have long smoke tails that can be seen ten kilometers away. It takes 4 to 9 hours for coal-burning power units to reach maximum horsepower, while it only takes 5 minutes for oil-burning power units to reach maximum horsepower. Providing fuel to warships requires only 12 people to work for 12 hours, while providing coal with the same energy requires 500 people to work for 5 days. To get the same horsepower thrust, a fuel engine only requires 1/3 of the workload of a coal-fired engine, and the daily consumption is only 1/4 of that of coal. This is very critical for a fleet, whether it is a merchant fleet or a naval fleet. The radius of activity of oil-powered fleets is about four times that of coal-powered fleets.

In 1890, Fisher was promoted to Rear Admiral and served as Superintendent of Naval Shipbuilding in Portsmouth. During this period, he created a new type of lightning destroyer, the originator of future destroyers, to counter the growing new threats arising from the birth and popularization of torpedo weapons, and to break France's plan to use large-scale light torpedo ships to control the English Channel.

From 1892 to 1897, Fisher was appointed as the Third Sea Lord to oversee the naval audit. During this period, he broke with tradition and practiced reforms. At the same time, he fully demonstrated his unusual energy and unique temperament in his work. For example, when he took office at the Admiralty, he hung a sign around his neck saying: "I have no work to do!"¡»¡£

1897-1899 In 1899, he returned to the front line to serve as commander of naval stations in North America and the Western Indian Ocean. In 1899, he participated in the first Hague Peace Conference as an interest representative of the British Navy. In the same year, after he was promoted to Vice Admiral, he served as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. In 1902 Fisher returned to the Admiralty to serve as Second Sea Lord for personnel, education, training and recruitment, and received the rank of Admiral. During this tenure, one of the most famous reforms he carried out was that he broke the class gap between ordinary officers and engineer officers under great traditional pressure, and achieved a balanced personnel adjustment between the two departments, allowing officers to have a more comprehensive understanding of modern ships. Fisher was a gifted naval theorist, manager, and competent strategist, a master of using propaganda and public opinion to chart his own path. He was eager to fight without asking who his opponent was. Before the war, he roared that the German fleet should be eliminated by "Copenhagen"(referring to the British raid on Copenhagen in 1807 to prevent Denmark from joining the Napoleonic Continental Alliance). He also said that submarines should have been sent to Toulon the first day of the war to sink the French fleet. Regarding the blockade of Britain by German submarines, he wrote a letter to Tirpitz in 1916 without jealousy,"I will not blame you for submarine warfare. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but the fools in our Admiralty don't believe me." "In military history, he was in the same category as Alfred von Tirpitz, the father of the German Ocean Fleet, Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov, the father of the Soviet Ocean Fleet, and Heyman George Rikover, the father of the U.S. Nuclear Fleet. But he was not a tactician. After the Battle of Jutland, he learned that his beloved battle-cruiser had suffered heavy losses and was so angry that he scolded David Beatty for betraying his trust.