Naval innovation: from coal to oil - Cover Story

Joint Force Quarterly, Winter, 2000 by Erik J. Dahl

The growing oil industry also played an important part. Peter Padfield sees the efforts of private firms, especially Anglo-Persian, as "a good example of the way in which British command of the sea, exercised through her world system, allowed her to exploit commercial opportunities which in turn increased her command." (12) Padfield argues that Anglo-Persian, acting as part of the British Empire, pushed the switch to oil, which drove the Royal Navy to seek higher speeds.

Although Fisher and Churchill had close personal and professional relations with senior oil executives, their correspondence reveals that military and strategic concerns, and not commercial motives, were at the root of the switch. Fisher, for example, worked closely with leaders of major companies but rejected offers to sit on corporate boards. He also did not have favorites, praising and supporting each competitor at different times. The Burmah Oil Company, for example, was an early supplier to the Admiralty, beginning in 1904 when Fisher was First Sea Lord, and was the forerunner to Anglo-Persian. Fisher also wrote flattering accounts of the chiefs of Anglo-Persian's archrival, Shell, including a description of Henri Deterding as "Napoleonic in his audacity and Cromwellian in his thoroughness." (13)

Race to the Future

Beyond the efforts of the main actors and pressures of industry and commerce, it appears that several broader historical factors in the years leading up to World War I made the time right for Britain to adopt oil. One factor was the growing Anglo-German naval race. But just as critically, by this time several decades of widespread experimentation and development of fuel oil had shown that the technology was feasible. It appeared Britain ran the risk of being left behind.

The Italian navy led the way in experimenting with oil starting in 1890, and by 1900 most of its torpedo boats were oil burning. The mixed-firing method of spraying oil on coal was routine by the early 1900s, and a liquid fuel board in the United States recommended using oil as a standalone fuel in 1904. The first oil-burning American destroyer, USS Paulding, was commissioned in 1910, and by 1911 the USS Nevada-class battleship was planned for solely oil as fuel.

By 1912 oil technology was relatively well understood. But there was no particular race to develop oil-fueled warships, and in 1914, despite the advantage of oil, only America joined Britain in moving far in that direction. The United States had ample supplies. But Fisher received regular reports that the Germans were developing oil.

To innovate and maintain a lead over an enemy was Fisher's goal. He cautioned Churchill in 1912: "The luxuries of the present are the necessities of the future. Our grandfathers never had a bathroom ... you have got to plunge for three years ahead!" A letter from Fisher demonstrates both his concern over German developments and excessive rhetoric:

The one all pervading, all absorbing thought is to get in first with motor ships before the Germans/Owing to our apathy during the last two years they are ahead with internal combustion engines! They have killed 15 men in experiments with oil engines and we have not killed one! And a ... fool of an English politician told me the other day that he thinks this creditable to us. (14)