Jellicoe was gazetted a Commander in 1891; after leaving the _Sans Pareil_ he was appointed to the _Victoria_, then one of our largest battleships, sister ship (though of later date) to the _Camperdown_. It was while he was her Commander that the accident happened during manoeuvres off Tripoli, on the Syrian Coast.
This was his second marvellous escape from death; all the more remarkable since Jellicoe was on the sick list, confined to his cabin with a sharp attack of Malta fever. The ship went down twenty minutes after she was struck, and twenty-two officers and three hundred and fifty men were drowned.
This was the most terrible disaster that has happened to the British Fleet in times of peace since the _Royal George_ foundered one night, close to shore, and disappeared beneath the waves with her entire crew, including the brave Kempenfeldt.
The _Victoria_ was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, Commander of the Mediterranean Fleet. The ships left Beyrout early in the morning of June the 22nd, 1893; they steamed in line abreast to the Syrian Coast, when the order was given to change their formation into two columns, line ahead, with an interval of six cables. The starboard column was headed by the _Victoria_ under Tryon, and the port column by the _Camperdown_ under Rear-Admiral Markham.
Tryon's flag-lieutenant was Lord Gillford, and it was he who received the fatal order to signal to the two divisions to turn sixteen points inwards, the leading ships first, the others of course following in succession.
The smallest circle in which either the _Victoria_ or the _Camperdown_ could turn was six hundred yards--about three cables length--and therefore if Tryon's orders were obeyed a collision would be inevitable between the two ships.
Both Lord Gillford and the Admiral's Staff-Commander must have realized this: every seaman on board the Fleet, when eventually the signal fluttered in the wind, knew what would happen.
The position must have been a terrible one for those on the bridge of the _Camperdown_, as well as the _Victoria_; for, not theirs to question but to obey.
But Staff-Commander Hawkins-Smith dared remind Tryon that they could not possibly turn in less than eight cables length.
