HMS Victoria (1887) - The Collision

The Collision

The British Mediterranean Fleet was one of the most powerful in the world at the time. The Royal Navy saw the Mediterranean as a vital sea route between Britain and India, under constant threat from the navies of France and Italy, and concentrated an impressive force in it. On 22 June 1893, the bulk of the fleet, 11 ironclads (eight battleships and three large cruisers), were on their annual summer exercises off Tripoli in Lebanon.

Tryon was a strict disciplinarian who believed that the best way of keeping his crews taut and efficient was by continuous fleet evolutions, which before the invention of wireless were signalled by flags, semaphore and signal lamp. He had gained a reputation as a daring and highly proficient handler of his ships. His speciality was a new system (the "TA" system) by which complex manoeuvres could be handled by only a few simple signals, but which required his ships' captains to use their initiative; a quality which had become blunted by decades of naval peace since Trafalgar, and which was unwelcome in a hierarchical navy which deified Admiral Horatio Nelson while misunderstanding what he had stood for. A taciturn and difficult man for his subordinate officers to deal with, Tryon deliberately avoided making his intentions known to them in advance, so as to train them to be adept in handling unpredictable situations.