ABSTRACT
The dramatic resignation of Britain’s first sea lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord (“Jacky”) Fisher, touched off the political crisis that brought down Henry Asquith’s Liberal government in May 1915. The most famous casualty of these events was Winston Churchill, forced to relinquish his position as first lord of the Admiralty and demoted to chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Asquith’s new coalition government. The Unionists’ animosity towards Churchill had many causes, stretching back to his defection to the Liberal Party in 1904, but in May 1915 their overriding concern was the breakdown of Churchill’s working relationship with the first sea lord, and the widespread perception that he regularly overruled his senior admirals with frequently disastrous results. The first significant blow to British naval prestige occurred on 22 September 1914, when a single German submarine sank three old armoured cruisers, Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue, in rapid succession.
