First World War Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet GCB, KCMG, CVO (9 June 1859 – 7 May 1925)[1] was a Royal Navy officer.

In response Sturdee, recently sacked from his job at the Admiralty, was sent to the South Atlantic to seek out the German squadron, commanded by Graf Maximilian von Spee, which had caused the damage at Coronel.

[3] He became commanding officer of the cruiser HMS Porpoise on the Australian Station in November 1897 and became involved in managing the tensions with Germany and the United States over the Samoan Islands in 1899.

Sturdee returned to the Admiralty as assistant director of naval intelligence (foreign division) from 1 January 1900, serving as such until 16 October 1902, when he was appointed to command of the protected cruiser HMS Minerva.

[10] Appointed a member, 4th class, of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) on 21 April 1903 during King Edward's visit to Malta,[11] he became commanding officer of the armoured cruiser HMS Bedford in the Home Fleet in November 1903.

Sturdee’s pomposity and arrogance combined with his close association with Beresford earned him the enmity of Admiral Fisher, who tried hard to sabotage his career."

Draft notes in Churchill’s papers suggest that he may have been the second choice after Prince Louis of Battenberg had given what Nicholas Lambert describes as “uncharacteristically fierce resistance” to appointing his former superior Reginald Custance.

[22] Sturdee criticised the high cost of the Polyphemuses, as well as their low freeboard (making them unusable in rough seas) and vulnerability to enemy destroyers.

Christopher Bell writes that, contrary to Nicholas Lambert's claims, no final decision had been reached on “substitution” (of submersible craft for battleships) prior to the outbreak of war.

[23][24] On 9 August 1914, with Britain now at war with Germany, Churchill instructed Battenberg and Sturdee to draw up plans to seize Ameland in the Dutch Frisian Islands.

[27] Sturdee wrote two “dismissive minutes” (25 September 1914) about the Cabinet’s wishes to mine the eastern North Sea as far south as Rotterdam and Flushing.

Nicholas Lambert comments that Sturdee “a self-proclaimed naval theorist of the Mahanian school, was notorious for his monochromatic view of sea power and his dogmatic insistence that the primary objective must remain decisive victory in a fleet engagement”.

[29] Christopher Bell writes that Churchill, who had vainly urged that the three cruisers be stationed more safely further away from the German fleet, was unfairly blamed in the press.

[30] On 1 November 1914 the Royal Navy suffered a demoralising defeat when it lost two armoured cruisers commanded by Christopher Cradock at the Battle of Coronel.

However Nicholas Lambert comments that Captain Philip Dumas wrote in his diary on the day of Fisher’s return (30 October) that “the great hope here is for Sturdee & Leveson to go”.

[42] Lord Sydenham of Combe (4 October 1916) and Reginald Custance (9 October 1916) complained in letters to The Times that Churchill’s recent statements (Churchill was out of office at the time) that the German High Seas Fleet was effectively blockaded and that surplus forces should be used in offensive operations (similar to the views of naval theorist Julian Corbett) ignored the importance of seeking a decisive victory over the German Fleet.

Sturdee also complained in a private memorandum (24 Nov 1916) that Churchill’s policy was “the exact reverse of what he advocated when in office and expressed in public speeches”.

Historian Christopher Bell thinks this not quite fair – Churchill had advocated risking old, near-obsolete ships in the attack on the Dardanelles but had never suggested weakening Britain’s superiority over Germany in the North Sea.

[43] Promoted to full admiral on 17 May 1917,[44] Sturdee was appointed Grand Officer of the Italian Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus on 11 August 1917,[45] and became Commander-in-Chief, The Nore in March 1918.