Difference between revisions of "Archibald Berkeley Milne, Second Baronet"

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Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne, 2nd Baronet, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., R.N. (2 June, 1855 – 5 July, 1938) was an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War.

Early Life and Career

Berkeley Milne was the younger but only surviving son of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne, first baronet (d. 1896), and his wife, Euphemia, the youngest daughter of Archibald Cochran, of Ashkirk, Roxburgh, was born at his father's official residence at the Admiralty, London, on 2 June 1855. He was a grandson of Admiral Sir David Milne. At the time of his birth his father was junior naval lord and his godfather Admiral Sir M. F. F. Berkeley was senior naval lord. After a short period at Wellington College he entered the training ship Britannia as a naval cadet in 1869 and passed out as midshipman in 1870. He served under Sir E. G. Fanshawe in the flagship Royal Alfred on the North America and West Indies station, and under Captain George Tryon in the Raleigh. He was promoted sub-lieutenant in 1875 and lieutenant in 1876, with three first-class certificates. He then joined Commodore Sullivan on the South Africa station, first in the corvette Tourmaline and then in the Active. He remained on that station for three years, being transferred to the Boadicea when Captain F. W. Richards succeeded Sullivan as commodore, but for most of the time he was lent for service on shore during the annexation of the Transkei in 1877–8 and later throughout the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He was naval aide-de-camp to Lord Chelmsford, was wounded at the battle of Ulundi, and was mentioned in dispatches. After returning to England later in the year he joined the Minotaur, the flagship of Vice-Admiral A. W. C. Hood, in the channel squadron. In June 1882 he was appointed to the Orion in the Mediterranean, and a month later, when Admiral Anthony Hoskins left the Board of Admiralty in order to bring reinforcements during the Egyptian campaign, he became his flag lieutenant in the Penelope and was at the battle of Tell al-Kebir.

On his appointment to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert in October 1882, Milne began a career as a sea courtier. He rapidly won the affection of the prince and princess of Wales, and spent eight of the next eighteen years in royal yachts, finishing as commodore and later (1903–5) rear-admiral in charge of HM yachts.

Milne was promoted commander in 1884 and captain in 1891, and in the intervals between turns of yacht duty he was commander in the channel squadron flagships Minotaur and Northumberland (1887–9) and captain of the flagship Trafalgar (1894–6), the Venus (1897–1900) in the Mediterranean, and the Jupiter (1900–04) in the channel squadron.

In his sea-going commands Milne had shown himself competent and popular, so that after reaching flag rank in April 1904, and leaving the command of HM yachts sixteen months later, he was selected to be second in command of the Atlantic Fleet (flag in the Victorious) under Admiral Sir William May (1905–6) and of the Channel Fleet (flag in the Hibernia) under Lord Charles Beresford (1908–9). Having been promoted vice-admiral in May 1908, he was then transferred for another year to the command of the 2nd division of the Home Fleet (flag in the King Edward VII) under May.

Milne was promoted admiral in September 1911, and in November 1912 he hoisted his flag in the Good Hope, soon to be replaced by the battle cruiser Inflexible, as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. His appointment did not meet with universal approval and there were some who attributed it to court influence. This was particularly true of Lord Fisher, the former first sea lord. Milne had earned Fisher's enmity because of his association with Beresford and his opposition to some of Fisher's reforms. By July 1914, when war seemed imminent, his force had been much strengthened, and included three battle cruisers, four armoured cruisers, four light cruisers, and fourteen destroyers.

The naval situation in the Mediterranean was very obscure in those critical days. It was unknown whether Italy would join her allies of the triple alliance, or even whether Austria would come in at once. The fast new German battle cruiser Goeben was at large, and it was presumed it would try to get out into the Atlantic. Milne had somewhat ambiguous orders from the Admiralty directing him to give priority to assisting the French in the transport of their troops from north Africa to metropolitan France and, if possible, bringing the Goeben to action. However, he was warned to avoid engaging superior forces except in combination with the French as part of a general battle. After the situation was somewhat clarified by the Italian declaration of neutrality, Milne was ordered to respect rigidly the neutrality of Italian waters. This would have precluded his sending warships through the narrow Strait of Messina. Later Milne was diverted from his pursuit of the Goeben by an erroneous signal announcing the commencement of hostilities against Austria. The announcement was premature, but Milne wasted time by moving north towards the entrance of the Adriatic to join Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge's cruiser squadron. Troubridge might have engaged the Goeben, but turned away, believing his orders to avoid engagement with superior forces meant the Goeben. The Admiralty had intended it to mean the Austrian fleet. Troubridge was subsequently court martialled but exonerated. The Goeben and her consort, the light cruiser Breslau, succeeded in entering the Dardanelles and, despite a fictitious sale to the Turkish government, remained under German control. The presence of the German ships at Constantinople contributed to Turkey's entry into the war on the side of Germany.

Milne was criticized in the press and elsewhere, but he had carried out his instructions: he had no reason then to anticipate any understanding between Germany and Turkey; he had no communication from the French naval authorities about the transport of the African army; he knew that the Goeben was faster than any of his ships and much more powerful than all but his battle cruisers, two of which had been ordered by the Admiralty to Gibraltar to prevent the Goeben escaping westwards; and he was uncertain until too late whether Italy would be neutral and Austria an enemy. On 29 August, 1914 Milne was nominated as Commander-in-Chief at the Nore.¹ On 30 August 1914 the Admiralty issued a statement exonerating him. Nevertheless, there were many who thought he had demonstrated a lack of imagination in interpreting his orders by not discerning that the primary threat was the Goeben and failing to concentrate all available forces in the vicinity of Messina when the Germans were reported there.

As, by diplomatic agreement, the supreme command in the Mediterranean was to be assumed by the French, and Milne was senior to the French admiral, he returned home in his flagship on 18 August. He had been offered and had accepted the command of the Nore, but this post was later filled by Sir George Callaghan, who had been relieved in command of the Grand Fleet by Sir John Jellicoe. Milne's chance for immediate employment really ended with Turkey's entry into the war—widely assumed to be a consequence of the escape of the Goeben—and Fisher's recall as first sea lord. Fisher blamed Milne for the blunders in the Mediterranean and invariably referred to him as ‘Sir Berkeley Goeben’. Milne was not employed again and was placed on the retired list at the end of the war.

In 1921 Milne published a small book, The Flight of the Goeben and the Breslau, in which he challenged Sir Julian Corbett's account in the (official) History of the Great War: Naval Operations and the implied censure of his conduct. Milne's book set forth clearly his own account and justified the official approbation which had been repeated in the Admiralty's announcement of his retirement in 1919.

Milne was an able officer, popular in the service and in London society, where his long association with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra made him well known. He was a keen fisherman and deer stalker and a good shot, and devoted much of his half-pay time to horticulture at his ancestral residence, Inveresk Gate, Musselburgh, Midlothian. He bequeathed a collection of rare shrubs and orchids to the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens.

Milne's association with the court brought him several foreign orders, as well as the CVO (1903), KCVO (1904), KCB (1909), and GCVO (1912), and he was groom-in-waiting to Edward VII and extra equerry to his three successors. He died suddenly, unmarried, at Inveresk Gate on 5 July 1938, leaving no heir to the baronetcy. He was buried at Inveresk churchyard, Musselburgh, on 8 July.

Notes

1. The Naval Who's Who 1917. p. 107.

Bibliography