Can we afford Champagne?
While Laurier and his supporters had struck the first major victory with the founding of the navy itself, the messy affair of parliamentary debates had highlighted what would turn out to be Laurier's eventual downfall. Ever the people pleaser, Laurier attempted to always find what the general public wanted and follow that for policy. This might have worked generally but in the case of naval development, there was so many smaller parties working with completely different goals that it was impossible to find an agreed upon solution. The compromise eventually made pleased few however, it was passed and would have to be the foundation of the navy going forward. Laurier’s main concerns as of late would be shaping the navy into something respectable and solid before the coming election and after which, the public would decide his fate with their votes. With all of this said though, the organization of the navy had to be performed relatively quickly to help retain momentum. To further this end, Rear-Admiral Kingsmill had stayed behind in Britain after the most recent conference in order to help drum up support and attain the proper resources required for the navy itself. As he was the obvious choice for the director of the service, the responsibility fell to him to bring the service itself into a suitable state.
One of the first recruitment posters for the Royal Canadian Navy.
In order to do so under Laurier’s planned procurement of domestically built ships, the navy would have to have interim training platforms. The Admiralty would recommend ships of the Apollo class, a recommendation that Admiral Kingsmill would fully support. Kingsmill had personally commanded one of the ships of the class previously and while the protected cruisers were somewhat old, their traits well suited the operational environment of British Columbia. These cruisers were rather small, but they featured a fairly robust and reliable machinery system while also possessing rather impressive cruising radius for such a small ship, a necessity for long fisheries patrols around British Columbia’s expansive coastline. The small size of the ship worked as an advantage as it did not require a large crew, leaving more manpower potentially open for the Atlantic coast. On the other hand though, Kingsmill felt rather strongly that an Apollo class cruiser would be insufficient for the Atlantic coast given their seafaring population and generally more populated areas, the smaller cruiser might be seen as simply too small and without any impressive outward features. In order to remedy this, Kingsmill managed to convince the Admiralty to sell Canada HMS Niobe, a much larger cruiser of the Diadem class. Similar in age to Rainbow, Niobe featured a much larger hull and therefore a bigger crew compliment, seen as more worthy of defending the east coast. Also, of note was the presence of submerged torpedo tubes, something that Kingsmill had specifically requested in order to maintain some kind of torpedo training.
Due to the unexpected opposition to the naval bill and the urgent need for a ship on the west coast, Rainbow was purchased using $225,000 previously set aside by parliament from the 1907 Marine and Fisheries budget for a replacement fisheries cruiser. Niobe would be paid for after she formally commissioned into the Navy, largely so her acquisition could be included within the naval service vote. Kingsmill’s time in Britain was also spent on recruitment as this skeleton force of cruisers would need a backbone. Alongside a civilian compliment of 61 clerks and 4 messengers, the following staff were added to the Naval Service following Kingsmill’s trip to Britain:
These Royal Navy officers were originally offered to Canada on a loan however, some of them would retire from the Royal Navy and recommission within the Canadian Navy later on, providing Canada with a workable professional officer force for many years. Pay was provided at higher Canadian rates and all service was to be counted as well on their records if they wished to return to the Royal Navy at anytime, as their loan was slated to last 4 years. While Kingsmill had personally chosen some of the men, some volunteered out of a want to potentially breath life into a stalling career or were convinced to join the Canadians with a promise of a promotion at the end of their loan, although this was somewhat rare. As can be seen below in the departments organizational chart, Kingsmill was the senior naval officer within the department however, he was still below the deputy minister Desbarats and the Minister of the Naval Service/Marine and Fisheries. George J. Desbarats utilized his financial and political connections to retain his position and successfully argue for a salary increase due to his vital financial and bureaucratic work within the department, essentially leapfrogging Kingsmill in the chain of command. This greatly annoyed Kingsmill and his subordinates as anything that needed to be done had to be approved by a bureaucrat with no military experience, Lieutenant R.M.T. Stephens was irritated to the point where he threatened Kingsmill with resignation. Desbarats himself seemed to have realized the situation he had caused and thankfully, he exclusively assigned himself to civilian and administrative matters, rubber stamping whatever material Kingsmill needed and making himself scarcely seen. This bit of political backstabbing aside, Desbarats was a rather skilled and efficient administrator and his oversight over the RCN was sizable, if faint, largely only being noticed by the stamp of “seen by Minister” within the margins of documentation. One historian labeled Desbarats as the “departments ghost” as besides his personal journal constantly complaining about the weather conditions in Ottawa, not a single document can be found even showing an inking of his opinions about Canada’s naval service.
Departmental Organization chart for the Canadian Naval Service from The Seabound Coast.
While CGS Canada had taken on a group of cadets which would later become some of the first domestic Canadian officers, a much more conventional and formal program was required. As the Naval Service Act allowed for the operation of a Naval College, this was the preferred route to train large numbers of officers in order to build up the Canadian presence within the upper ranks. The college itself would be largely based off it’s counterpart in Britain, requiring cadets to be between the ages of 14-16, achieve a passing mark on a rigorous exam, must be a British subject, must be able to pay for uniforms, tuition, miscellaneous supplies and most importantly, they must speak English. This worried Minister Brodeur as the navy was already in relatively poor standing with French Canadians, but he had expected English to be the major language of the navy but not allowing any French at the college was a step too far. Brodeur pushed for at minimum, hosting the entrance exam in both English and French to give equal opportunity to cadets and smooth over some of the tensions within Quebec regarding the Navy. The minister would address this in a memorandum to the naval staff,
“It should not be forgotten that Canada is a bilingual country and that French and English are on the same footing. It follows that the instruction in national establishments should be conducted in both languages. The instructors who are appointed should be fairly conversant with French and English. If the rule suggested in the above memo were adopted, it would mean that French speaking young men would be unable to enter the service. I am sure this is not the end aimed at by the officers who prepared it. I fully realize that the use of two languages is creating inconvenience but that is not sufficient to prevent the true spirit of the constitution being carried out. I would request the Chief of Staff and Secretary to reconsider the matter with hope they will realize themselves the impossibility of carrying out their suggestion.”
As Deputy Minister Desbrants delivered the memorandum to both staff members, Rear Admiral Kingsmill had been made aware of the situation and dug in his heels, supporting the opinions of his staff. Any entrance exams after November 1911 would be English only, this would allow French speakers to have their boys educated enough to take the test in the meantime. Brodeur expressed his regret at the stubborn nature of the former RN officers and fought with them throughout 1910 and 1911 however, the College would remain English only, further tarnishing the image of the Canadian Navy within Quebec. Pivoting away from the issue of language, the college itself though would be built more off the Royal Military College in Kingston, offering a 2-year program with required service in the navy after graduation. The college itself was located in the old naval hospital within the Halifax Dockyard, largely for the proximity to the sea and the Halifax dockyard alongside cheaper running costs compared to the Kingston, Ontario location. Instructors from the Royal Navy were mixed with Canadian civilian teachers and taught a litany of topics ranging from seamanship, navigation, mechanics, engineering, mathematics, physics, naval history, geography, and chemistry alongside English, German and ironically, French lessons. An extra year of at sea training on a warship was added to the curriculum before the cadets would take their lieutenants qualification. All seemed to be going well for the college with 21 of the original class of 34 applicants passing admission.
Deputy Minister George J. Desbrants.
On the naval side, the recruiting of sailors had been postponed until Niobe and Rainbow arrived in Canada. This was largely due to the fact that both Halifax and Esquimalt lacked a habitable building in which to house their sailors, therefore Niobe and Rainbow were modified in order to increase crew comfort, largely being done by modernizing the onboard cooking stations, enlarging of messes/training areas, new heating units and a Marconi wireless set. While the high traffic and important areas of both dockyards were maintained, large portions of them fell into disrepair. These would eventually be repaired to demolished and replaced over the coming decades. In July of 1910, Kingsmill would once again return to Britain, this time to oversee the refitting and sea trials of both Niobe and Rainbow. To this end, Rainbow was commissioned into the Canadian Navy on August 4, 1910 and on August 20, she departed Portsmouth for Esquimalt. Due to the Panama Canal being incomplete, Rainbow traveled the entire route around South America and up the west coast of North America to reach her destination. The voyage itself was uneventful barring meeting the German cruiser Bremen off Peru, which was undergoing gunnery practice drills. After 12 weeks and 15,000 nautical miles, Rainbow arrived at Esquimalt, on November 7, 1910. Niobe was somewhat behind her sister, commissioning in Devonport on September 6, 1910 and arriving in Halifax on October 21 of the same year. This was planned to line up with the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and as Kingsmill transferred his flag from CGS Canada to Niobe in the harbor mouth of Halifax, he became the first Canadian flag officer to raise his flag on a Canadian warship.
It is relatively interesting to compare the local response to both ships’ arrival. Le Devoir responded with “the cruiser Niobe, heart of the Canadian fleet, Canadian in peacetime, imperial in wartime, arrived yesterday in Halifax.” The Conservative press in Toronto stated, “Niobe was on her way to the scrap heap” while the Halifax Herald would say, “Once more Halifax becomes a naval headquarters. The four letters planned (HMCS) looks strange but we may get accustomed to the change from the old-fashioned HMS, which Halifax once knew.” In comparison, Rainbow’s arrival was almost completely positive. Victoria Colonist added, “History was made at Esquimalt, Canada’s blue ensign flies for the first time on the dominions own fighting ship in the Pacific. The ocean of the future where some of the worlds greatest problems have been worked out. Esquimalt began its recrudescence, the revival of its former glories. The event of the Rainbows arrival was one calculated to awaken thought in the minds of all who endeavored to grasp its true significance. The Rainbow is not a fighting ship, but she is manned by fighting men, and her mission is to train men so as to make them fit to defend our country from invasion, protect our commerce on the seas and maintain the dignity of the Empire everywhere. Her coming is a proof that Canada has accepted a new responsibility in the discharge of which new burdens will have to be assumed. On this western frontier of Empire, it is all important that there shall be a naval establishment that will count for something in the hour of stress.” Most relevant and powerful of all though was from the Victoria Times. “We are told in ancient literature that the first rainbow was set in the sky as a promise of things to come. So, it may be with his majesty’s ship. She is a training craft only, but she is the first fruits on this coast of the Canadian naval policy, the necessary forerunner of the larger vessels which will add dignity to our name and prestige to our actions.” Rainbow and her crew were not subject to the amounts of verbal abuse and political mud slinging that Niobe was enduring on the East Coast. British Columbia was squarely a pro-navy province and Rainbow was welcomed with open arms. As she entered Victoria in November, crowds lined the shores and provided a rousing welcome.
As Niobe and Rainbow both arrived, the move to recruit sailors was finally undertaken. Seamen were required to be between the ages of 15-23, boys from 14-16 and stokers from 18-23. Service was mandatory for 7 years if they joined at 18 and after that, could reenlist for more 7-year periods after that. Many sailors flocked from the Royal Navy, largely due to the fact that promotions would likely be plentiful (and carry over to the Royal Navy) and mainly due to the fact that Canadian payment rates were more than double that of equivalent Royal Navy rates. The Admiralty and Canadian government also allowed pensioners and fleet reservists to reenlist or assist somehow in the Canadian Navy itself. While the start to the Canadian Navy was generally positive, the tiny Canadian Navy soon found itself wrapped in a seemingly endless sea of standard government issue red tape. HMS Niobe was the first of many thorny topics. The Conservative opposition, displeased with the sound defeat their own counter proposal received, pulled out every trick imaginable to delay the funds required for her. Rainbow made it under the political wire using funds from the Fisheries Department, the Conservatives had succeeded in tying up the money required for payment of the Niobe for over three weeks. The citizens of Halifax in particular had plenty of time to silently curse the slumbering vessel they had paid for out of their own taxes. Little did the staff know at the time though, this little scuffle would prove to be the least of their future worries.
Niobe in the Halifax graveling Dock, sometime during her Canadian service. Niobe would be no stranger to this dock over her short career.
One of the first recruitment posters for the Royal Canadian Navy.
In order to do so under Laurier’s planned procurement of domestically built ships, the navy would have to have interim training platforms. The Admiralty would recommend ships of the Apollo class, a recommendation that Admiral Kingsmill would fully support. Kingsmill had personally commanded one of the ships of the class previously and while the protected cruisers were somewhat old, their traits well suited the operational environment of British Columbia. These cruisers were rather small, but they featured a fairly robust and reliable machinery system while also possessing rather impressive cruising radius for such a small ship, a necessity for long fisheries patrols around British Columbia’s expansive coastline. The small size of the ship worked as an advantage as it did not require a large crew, leaving more manpower potentially open for the Atlantic coast. On the other hand though, Kingsmill felt rather strongly that an Apollo class cruiser would be insufficient for the Atlantic coast given their seafaring population and generally more populated areas, the smaller cruiser might be seen as simply too small and without any impressive outward features. In order to remedy this, Kingsmill managed to convince the Admiralty to sell Canada HMS Niobe, a much larger cruiser of the Diadem class. Similar in age to Rainbow, Niobe featured a much larger hull and therefore a bigger crew compliment, seen as more worthy of defending the east coast. Also, of note was the presence of submerged torpedo tubes, something that Kingsmill had specifically requested in order to maintain some kind of torpedo training.
Due to the unexpected opposition to the naval bill and the urgent need for a ship on the west coast, Rainbow was purchased using $225,000 previously set aside by parliament from the 1907 Marine and Fisheries budget for a replacement fisheries cruiser. Niobe would be paid for after she formally commissioned into the Navy, largely so her acquisition could be included within the naval service vote. Kingsmill’s time in Britain was also spent on recruitment as this skeleton force of cruisers would need a backbone. Alongside a civilian compliment of 61 clerks and 4 messengers, the following staff were added to the Naval Service following Kingsmill’s trip to Britain:
These Royal Navy officers were originally offered to Canada on a loan however, some of them would retire from the Royal Navy and recommission within the Canadian Navy later on, providing Canada with a workable professional officer force for many years. Pay was provided at higher Canadian rates and all service was to be counted as well on their records if they wished to return to the Royal Navy at anytime, as their loan was slated to last 4 years. While Kingsmill had personally chosen some of the men, some volunteered out of a want to potentially breath life into a stalling career or were convinced to join the Canadians with a promise of a promotion at the end of their loan, although this was somewhat rare. As can be seen below in the departments organizational chart, Kingsmill was the senior naval officer within the department however, he was still below the deputy minister Desbarats and the Minister of the Naval Service/Marine and Fisheries. George J. Desbarats utilized his financial and political connections to retain his position and successfully argue for a salary increase due to his vital financial and bureaucratic work within the department, essentially leapfrogging Kingsmill in the chain of command. This greatly annoyed Kingsmill and his subordinates as anything that needed to be done had to be approved by a bureaucrat with no military experience, Lieutenant R.M.T. Stephens was irritated to the point where he threatened Kingsmill with resignation. Desbarats himself seemed to have realized the situation he had caused and thankfully, he exclusively assigned himself to civilian and administrative matters, rubber stamping whatever material Kingsmill needed and making himself scarcely seen. This bit of political backstabbing aside, Desbarats was a rather skilled and efficient administrator and his oversight over the RCN was sizable, if faint, largely only being noticed by the stamp of “seen by Minister” within the margins of documentation. One historian labeled Desbarats as the “departments ghost” as besides his personal journal constantly complaining about the weather conditions in Ottawa, not a single document can be found even showing an inking of his opinions about Canada’s naval service.
Departmental Organization chart for the Canadian Naval Service from The Seabound Coast.
While CGS Canada had taken on a group of cadets which would later become some of the first domestic Canadian officers, a much more conventional and formal program was required. As the Naval Service Act allowed for the operation of a Naval College, this was the preferred route to train large numbers of officers in order to build up the Canadian presence within the upper ranks. The college itself would be largely based off it’s counterpart in Britain, requiring cadets to be between the ages of 14-16, achieve a passing mark on a rigorous exam, must be a British subject, must be able to pay for uniforms, tuition, miscellaneous supplies and most importantly, they must speak English. This worried Minister Brodeur as the navy was already in relatively poor standing with French Canadians, but he had expected English to be the major language of the navy but not allowing any French at the college was a step too far. Brodeur pushed for at minimum, hosting the entrance exam in both English and French to give equal opportunity to cadets and smooth over some of the tensions within Quebec regarding the Navy. The minister would address this in a memorandum to the naval staff,
“It should not be forgotten that Canada is a bilingual country and that French and English are on the same footing. It follows that the instruction in national establishments should be conducted in both languages. The instructors who are appointed should be fairly conversant with French and English. If the rule suggested in the above memo were adopted, it would mean that French speaking young men would be unable to enter the service. I am sure this is not the end aimed at by the officers who prepared it. I fully realize that the use of two languages is creating inconvenience but that is not sufficient to prevent the true spirit of the constitution being carried out. I would request the Chief of Staff and Secretary to reconsider the matter with hope they will realize themselves the impossibility of carrying out their suggestion.”
As Deputy Minister Desbrants delivered the memorandum to both staff members, Rear Admiral Kingsmill had been made aware of the situation and dug in his heels, supporting the opinions of his staff. Any entrance exams after November 1911 would be English only, this would allow French speakers to have their boys educated enough to take the test in the meantime. Brodeur expressed his regret at the stubborn nature of the former RN officers and fought with them throughout 1910 and 1911 however, the College would remain English only, further tarnishing the image of the Canadian Navy within Quebec. Pivoting away from the issue of language, the college itself though would be built more off the Royal Military College in Kingston, offering a 2-year program with required service in the navy after graduation. The college itself was located in the old naval hospital within the Halifax Dockyard, largely for the proximity to the sea and the Halifax dockyard alongside cheaper running costs compared to the Kingston, Ontario location. Instructors from the Royal Navy were mixed with Canadian civilian teachers and taught a litany of topics ranging from seamanship, navigation, mechanics, engineering, mathematics, physics, naval history, geography, and chemistry alongside English, German and ironically, French lessons. An extra year of at sea training on a warship was added to the curriculum before the cadets would take their lieutenants qualification. All seemed to be going well for the college with 21 of the original class of 34 applicants passing admission.
Deputy Minister George J. Desbrants.
On the naval side, the recruiting of sailors had been postponed until Niobe and Rainbow arrived in Canada. This was largely due to the fact that both Halifax and Esquimalt lacked a habitable building in which to house their sailors, therefore Niobe and Rainbow were modified in order to increase crew comfort, largely being done by modernizing the onboard cooking stations, enlarging of messes/training areas, new heating units and a Marconi wireless set. While the high traffic and important areas of both dockyards were maintained, large portions of them fell into disrepair. These would eventually be repaired to demolished and replaced over the coming decades. In July of 1910, Kingsmill would once again return to Britain, this time to oversee the refitting and sea trials of both Niobe and Rainbow. To this end, Rainbow was commissioned into the Canadian Navy on August 4, 1910 and on August 20, she departed Portsmouth for Esquimalt. Due to the Panama Canal being incomplete, Rainbow traveled the entire route around South America and up the west coast of North America to reach her destination. The voyage itself was uneventful barring meeting the German cruiser Bremen off Peru, which was undergoing gunnery practice drills. After 12 weeks and 15,000 nautical miles, Rainbow arrived at Esquimalt, on November 7, 1910. Niobe was somewhat behind her sister, commissioning in Devonport on September 6, 1910 and arriving in Halifax on October 21 of the same year. This was planned to line up with the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and as Kingsmill transferred his flag from CGS Canada to Niobe in the harbor mouth of Halifax, he became the first Canadian flag officer to raise his flag on a Canadian warship.
It is relatively interesting to compare the local response to both ships’ arrival. Le Devoir responded with “the cruiser Niobe, heart of the Canadian fleet, Canadian in peacetime, imperial in wartime, arrived yesterday in Halifax.” The Conservative press in Toronto stated, “Niobe was on her way to the scrap heap” while the Halifax Herald would say, “Once more Halifax becomes a naval headquarters. The four letters planned (HMCS) looks strange but we may get accustomed to the change from the old-fashioned HMS, which Halifax once knew.” In comparison, Rainbow’s arrival was almost completely positive. Victoria Colonist added, “History was made at Esquimalt, Canada’s blue ensign flies for the first time on the dominions own fighting ship in the Pacific. The ocean of the future where some of the worlds greatest problems have been worked out. Esquimalt began its recrudescence, the revival of its former glories. The event of the Rainbows arrival was one calculated to awaken thought in the minds of all who endeavored to grasp its true significance. The Rainbow is not a fighting ship, but she is manned by fighting men, and her mission is to train men so as to make them fit to defend our country from invasion, protect our commerce on the seas and maintain the dignity of the Empire everywhere. Her coming is a proof that Canada has accepted a new responsibility in the discharge of which new burdens will have to be assumed. On this western frontier of Empire, it is all important that there shall be a naval establishment that will count for something in the hour of stress.” Most relevant and powerful of all though was from the Victoria Times. “We are told in ancient literature that the first rainbow was set in the sky as a promise of things to come. So, it may be with his majesty’s ship. She is a training craft only, but she is the first fruits on this coast of the Canadian naval policy, the necessary forerunner of the larger vessels which will add dignity to our name and prestige to our actions.” Rainbow and her crew were not subject to the amounts of verbal abuse and political mud slinging that Niobe was enduring on the East Coast. British Columbia was squarely a pro-navy province and Rainbow was welcomed with open arms. As she entered Victoria in November, crowds lined the shores and provided a rousing welcome.
As Niobe and Rainbow both arrived, the move to recruit sailors was finally undertaken. Seamen were required to be between the ages of 15-23, boys from 14-16 and stokers from 18-23. Service was mandatory for 7 years if they joined at 18 and after that, could reenlist for more 7-year periods after that. Many sailors flocked from the Royal Navy, largely due to the fact that promotions would likely be plentiful (and carry over to the Royal Navy) and mainly due to the fact that Canadian payment rates were more than double that of equivalent Royal Navy rates. The Admiralty and Canadian government also allowed pensioners and fleet reservists to reenlist or assist somehow in the Canadian Navy itself. While the start to the Canadian Navy was generally positive, the tiny Canadian Navy soon found itself wrapped in a seemingly endless sea of standard government issue red tape. HMS Niobe was the first of many thorny topics. The Conservative opposition, displeased with the sound defeat their own counter proposal received, pulled out every trick imaginable to delay the funds required for her. Rainbow made it under the political wire using funds from the Fisheries Department, the Conservatives had succeeded in tying up the money required for payment of the Niobe for over three weeks. The citizens of Halifax in particular had plenty of time to silently curse the slumbering vessel they had paid for out of their own taxes. Little did the staff know at the time though, this little scuffle would prove to be the least of their future worries.
Niobe in the Halifax graveling Dock, sometime during her Canadian service. Niobe would be no stranger to this dock over her short career.