In July, 1914, he was out of office.  A telegram came to him from Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, requesting to see him urgently.  Lord Fisher refused to see him, believing that Mr. Churchill had jockeyed Mr. Reginald McKenna out of the Admiralty—­Mr. McKenna who had most bravely, nay heroically, stood by the naval estimates in face of strong Cabinet opposition.  On this ground he refused to meet Mr. Churchill.  But a telegram from Mr. McKenna followed, urging him to grant this interview, and the meeting took place, a private meeting away from London.  Mr. Churchill informed Lord Fisher of the facts of the European situation, and asked him for advice.  The facts were sufficient to convince Lord Fisher that the tug-o’-war between Germany and England had begun.  He told Mr. Churchill that he must do three things, and do them all by telegram before he left that room:  he must mobilize the Fleet, he must buy the Dreadnoughts building for Turkey, and he must appoint Admiral Jellicoe Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet.  To do either of the first two was a serious breach of Cabinet discipline; to do the last was to offend a string of Admirals senior to Admiral Jellicoe.  Mr. Churchill hesitated.  Lord Fisher insisted.  “What does it matter,” he said, “whom you offend?—­the fate of England depends on you.  Does it matter if they shoot you, or hang you, or send you to the Tower, so long as England is saved?” And Mr. Churchill did as he was bidden—­the greatest act in his life, and perhaps one of the most courageous acts in the history of statesmanship.  Lord Fisher said afterwards, “You may not like Winston, but he has got the heart of a lion.”

Thus was England saved, and Germany doomed.  Before war was declared the British Fleet held the seas, and in command of that Fleet was the quickest working brain in the Navy.

On one occasion, during the dark days of the war, I was lunching at the Admiralty with Lord Fisher, who had then been recalled to office.  He appeared rather dismal, and to divert him I said, “I’ve got some good news for you—­we are perfectly safe and Germany is beaten.”  He looked up from his plate and regarded me with lugubrious eyes.  I then told him that Lord Kitchener had been down at Knole with the Sackvilles and had spent a whole day in taking blotting-paper impressions of the beautiful mouldings of the doors for his house at Broome.  “Does that make you feel safe?” he demanded; and then, pointing to a maidservant at the sideboard, he added, “See that parlourmaid?—­well, she’s leaving; yesterday I spent two hours at Mrs. Hunt’s registry office interviewing parlourmaids.  Now, do you feel safe?”

His return to the Admiralty brought him no happiness—­save when he sent Admiral Sturdee to sea to avenge the death of Admiral Cradock.  He was perhaps too insistent on victory, a crushing and overwhelming victory, for a Fleet on which hung the whole safety of the Allies, and a Fleet which had experienced the deadly power of the submarine.  He was certainly not too old for work.  To the last, looking as if he was bowed down to the point of exhaustion by his labours, he outworked all his subordinates.  As for energy, he would have hanged I know not how many admirals if he had been in power during the last stages of the war.