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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Silent Watchers, by Bennet Copplestone
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Silent Watchers
+       England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It
+
+
+Author: Bennet Copplestone
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2015  [eBook #48497]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILENT WATCHERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David T. Jones, Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, and the online
+Distributed Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 48497-h.htm or 48497-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48497/48497-h/48497-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48497/48497-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SILENT WATCHERS
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+                          _By the Same Author_
+                         THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS
+
+              _A series of exciting stories which reveal_
+              _the English Secret Service as it really_
+              _is—silent, unsleeping, and supremely_
+              _competent._
+
+              “William Dawson is a great creation, a sheer
+          delight. If Mr. Bennet Copplestone’s intriguing
+          book meets with half the success it deserves, the
+          inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be out-rivalled
+          in popularity by the inscrutable William
+          Dawson.”—_Daily Telegraph._
+
+                              _$1.50 Net_
+                           JITNY AND THE BOYS
+
+              “The book is full of the thoughts which make
+          us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow.
+          Yes, ‘Jitny’ has my blessing.”—_Punch._
+
+              “Motoring people could do nothing better than
+          sit down and have a spin, in imagination, by reading
+          this book. A clinking motor-car story.”
+                                         —_Daily Chronicle._
+
+                              _$1.50 Net_
+                    NEW YORK—E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+THE
+SILENT WATCHERS
+
+England’s Navy during the Great War:
+What It Is, and What We Owe to It
+
+by
+
+BENNET COPPLESTONE
+
+Author of
+“The Lost Naval Papers”
+
+      “The Navy is a matter of machines only in
+      so far as human beings can only achieve material
+      ends by material means. I look upon the ships and
+      the guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise
+      secretes its shell.”—PROLOGUE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+New York
+E. P. Dutton & Company
+681 Fifth Avenue
+
+Copyright, 1918
+By E. P. Dutton & Company
+
+All Rights Reserved
+
+First Printing, Sept., 1918
+Second Printing, Oct., 1918
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                                  NOTE
+
+         Between June, 1916, and February, 1918, I
+         contributed a good many articles and sketches on
+         Naval subjects to _The Cornhill Magazine_. They
+         were not designed upon any plan or published
+         in any settled sequence. As one article led up
+         to another, and information came to me from my
+         generously appreciative readers (many of whom
+         were in the Service), I revised those which I had
+         written and ventured to write still more. This
+         book contains my _Cornhill_ articles—revised and
+         sometimes re-written in the light of wider information
+         and kindly criticism—and several additional
+         chapters which have not previously been published
+         anywhere. I have endeavoured to weave into a
+         connected series articles and sketches which were
+         originally disconnected, and I have introduced
+         new strands to give strength to the fabric. Through
+         the whole runs a golden thread which I have
+         called THE SECRET OF THE NAVY.
+                                                        B. C.
+          _March, 1918._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   PROLOGUE AFTER THE BATTLE
+
+         I. A BAND OF BROTHERS
+        II. THE COMING OF WAR
+       III. THE GREAT VICTORY
+        IV. WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA “STUNT”
+         V. WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS AND THE RATS
+        VI. THE MEDITERRANEAN: A SUCCESS AND A FAILURE
+       VII. IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL
+      VIII. IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP
+        IX. HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”
+         X. FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
+        XI. THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”: PART I—RIO TO CORONEL
+       XII. THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”: PART II—CORONELTO JUAN FERNANDEZ
+      XIII. THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: PART I
+       XIV. THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: PART II
+
+   EPILOGUE LIEUTENANT CÆSAR
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+     THE NORTH SEA
+     THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS
+     THE SOUTH SEAS
+     HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”
+     THE “SYDNEY-EMDEN” ACTION
+     THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
+     THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION
+     THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
+     THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS
+
+
+
+
+                          THE SILENT WATCHERS
+
+
+
+
+                                PROLOGUE
+
+
+                            AFTER THE BATTLE
+
+“Cæsar,” said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a temporary Lieutenant
+R.N.V.R., who at the outbreak of war had been a classical scholar at
+Oxford, “you were in the thick of our scrap yonder off the Jutland
+coast. You were in it every blessed minute with the battle cruisers, and
+must have had a lovely time. Did you ever, Cæsar, try to write the story
+of it?”
+
+It was early in June of 1916, and a group of officers had gathered near
+the ninth hole of an abominable golf course which they had themselves
+laid out upon an island in the great land-locked bay wherein reposed
+from their labours long lines of silent ships. It was a peaceful scene.
+Few even of the battleships showed the scars of battle, though among
+them were some which the Germans claimed to be at the bottom of the sea.
+There they lay, coaled, their magazines refilled, ready at short notice
+to issue forth with every eager man and boy standing at his action
+station. And while all waited for the next call, officers went ashore,
+keen, after the restrictions upon free exercise, to stretch their
+muscles upon the infamous golf course. It was, I suppose, one of the
+very worst courses in the world. There were no prepared tees, no
+fairway, no greens. But there was much bare rock, great tufts of coarse
+grass greedy of balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destructive of
+wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there of approximately the
+regulation size. Few officers of the Grand Fleet, except those in
+Beatty’s Salt of the Earth squadrons, far to the south, had since the
+war began been privileged to play upon more gracious courses. But the
+Sea Service, which takes the rough with the smooth, with cheerful and
+profane philosophy, accepted the home-made links as a spirited triumph
+of the handy-man over forbidding nature.
+
+“Yes,” said the naval volunteer, “I tried many times, but gave up all
+attempts as hopeless. I came up here to get first-hand material, and
+have sacrificed my short battle leave to no purpose. The more I learn
+the more helplessly incapable I feel. I can describe the life of a ship,
+and make you people move and speak like live things. But a battle is too
+big for me. One might as well try to realise and set on paper the Day of
+Judgment. All I did was to write a letter to an old friend, one
+Copplestone, beseeching him to make clear to the people at home what we
+really had done. I wrote it three days after the battle. Here it is.”
+
+Lieutenant Cæsar drew a paper from his pocket and read as follows:
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“MY DEAR COPPLESTONE,—Picture to yourself our feelings. On Wednesday we
+were in the fiery hell of the greatest naval action ever fought. A real
+Battle of the Giants. Beatty’s and Hood’s battle cruisers—chaffingly
+known as the Salt of the Earth—and Evan Thomas’s squadron of four fast
+Queen Elizabeths had fought for two hours the whole German High Seas
+Fleet. Beatty, in spite of his heavy losses, had outmanœuvred Fritz’s
+battle cruisers and enveloped the German line. The Fifth Battle Squadron
+had stalled off the German Main Fleet, and led them into the net of
+Jellicoe, who, coming up, deployed between Evan Thomas and Beatty,
+though he could not see either, crossed the T of the Germans in the
+beautifullest of beautiful manœuvres, and had them for a moment as good
+as sunk. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; it is sometimes
+difficult to say Blessed be the Name of the Lord. For just when we most
+needed full visibility the mist came down thick, the light failed, and
+we were robbed of the fruits of victory when they were almost in our
+hands. It was hard, hard, bitterly hard. But we had done the utmost
+which the Fates permitted. The enemy, after being harried all night by
+destroyers, had got away home in torn rags, and we were left in supreme
+command of the North Sea, a command more complete and unchallengeable
+than at any moment since the war began. For Fritz had put out his full
+strength, all his unknown cards were on the table, we knew his strength
+and his weakness, and that he could not stand for a moment against our
+concentrated power. All this we had done, and rejoiced mightily. In the
+morning we picked up from Poldhu the German wireless claiming the battle
+as a glorious victory—at which we laughed loudly. But there was no
+laughter when in the afternoon Poldhu sent out an official message from
+our own Admiralty which, from its clumsy wording and apologetic tone,
+seemed actually to suggest that we had had the devil of a hiding. Then
+when we arrived at our bases came the newspapers with their talk of
+immense losses, and of bungling, and of the Grand Fleet’s failure! Oh,
+it was a monstrous shame! The country which depends utterly upon us for
+life and honour, and had trusted us utterly, had been struck to the
+heart. We had come back glowing, exalted by the battle, full of
+admiration for the skill of our leaders and for the serene intrepidity
+of our men. We had seen our ships go down and pay the price of sea
+command—pay it willingly and ungrudgingly as the Navy always pays.
+Nothing that the enemy had done or could do was able to hurt us, but we
+had been mortally wounded in the house of our friends. It will take
+days, weeks, perhaps months, for England and the world to be made to
+understand and to do us justice. Do what you can, old man. Don’t delay a
+minute. Get busy. You know the Navy, and love it with your whole soul.
+Collect notes and diagrams from the scores of friends whom you have in
+the Service; they will talk to you and tell you everything. I can do
+little myself. A Naval Volunteer who fought through the action in a
+turret, looking after a pair of big guns, could not himself see anything
+outside his thick steel walls. Go ahead at once, do knots, and the
+fighting Navy will remember you in its prayers.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The attention of others in the group had been drawn to the reader and
+his letter, and when Lieutenant Cæsar stopped, flushed and out of
+breath, there came a chorus of approving laughter.
+
+“This temporary gentleman is quite a literary character,” said a
+two-ring Lieutenant who had been in an exposed spotting top throughout
+the whole action, “but we’ve made a Navy man of him since he joined.
+That’s a dashed good letter, and I hope you sent it.”
+
+“Yes,” said Cæsar. “But while I was hesitating, wondering whether I
+would risk the lightning of the Higher Powers, a possible court martial,
+and the loss of my insecure wavy rings, the business was taken out of my
+hands by this same man to whom I was wanting to write. He got moving on
+his own account, and now, though the battle is only ten days old, the
+country knows the rights of what we did. When it comes to describing the
+battle itself, I make way for my betters. For what could I see? On the
+afternoon of May 31st, we were doing gun drill in my turret. Suddenly
+came an order to put lyddite into the guns and follow the Control.
+During the next two hours as the battle developed we saw nothing. We
+were just parts of a big human machine intent upon working our own
+little bit with faultless accuracy. There was no leisure to think of
+anything but the job in hand. From beginning to end I had no suggestion
+of a thrill, for a naval action in a turret is just gun drill glorified,
+as I suppose it is meant to be. The enemy is not seen; even the
+explosions of the guns are scarcely heard. I never took my
+ear-protectors from their case in my pocket. All is quiet, organised
+labour, sometimes very hard labour when for any reason one has to hoist
+the great shells by the hand purchase. It is extraordinary to think that
+I got fifty times more actual excitement out of a squadron regatta
+months ago than out of the greatest battle in naval history.”
+
+“That’s quite true,” said the Spotting Officer, “and quite to be
+expected. Battleship fighting is not thrilling except for the very few.
+For nine-tenths of the officers and men it is a quiet, almost dull
+routine of exact duties. For some of us up in exposed positions in the
+spotting tops or on the signal bridge, with big shells banging on the
+armour or bursting alongside in the sea, it becomes mighty wetting and
+very prayerful. For the still fewer, the real fighters of the ship in
+the conning tower, it must be absorbingly interesting. But for the true
+blazing rapture of battle one has to go to the destroyers. In a
+battleship one lives like a gentleman until one is dead, and takes the
+deuce of a lot of killing. In a destroyer one lives rather like a pig,
+and one dies with extraordinary suddenness. Yet the destroyer officers
+and men have their reward in a battle, for then they drink deep of the
+wine of life. I would sooner any day take the risks of destroyer work,
+tremendous though they are, just for the fun which one gets out of it.
+It was great to see our boys round up Fritz’s little lot. While you were
+in your turret, and the Sub. yonder in control of a side battery, Fritz
+massed his destroyers like Prussian infantry and tried to rush up close
+so as to strafe us with the torpedo. Before they could get fairly going,
+our destroyers dashed at them, broke up their masses, buffeted and
+hustled them about exactly like a pack of wolves worrying sheep, and
+with exactly the same result. Fritz’s destroyers either clustered
+together like sheep or scattered flying to the four winds. It was just
+the same with the light cruisers as with the destroyers. Fritz could not
+stand against us for a moment, and could not get away, for we had the
+heels of him and the guns of him. There was a deadly slaughter of
+destroyers and light cruisers going on while we were firing our heavy
+stuff over their heads. Even if we had sunk no battle cruisers or
+battleships, the German High Seas Fleet would have been crippled for
+months by the destruction of its indispensable ‘cavalry screen.’”
+
+As the Spotting Officer spoke, a Lieutenant-Commander holed out on the
+last jungle with a mashie—no one uses a putter on the Grand Fleet’s
+private golf course—and approached our group, who, while they talked,
+were busy over a picnic lunch.
+
+“If you pigs haven’t finished all the bully beef and hard tack,” said
+he, “perhaps you can spare a bite for one of the blooming ’eroes of the
+X Destroyer Flotilla.” The speaker was about twenty-seven, in rude
+health, and bore no sign of the nerve-racking strain through which he
+had passed for eighteen long-drawn hours. The young Navy is as
+unconscious of nerves as it is of indigestion. The Lieutenant-Commander,
+his hunger satisfied, lighted a pipe and joined in the talk.
+
+“It was hot work,” said he, “but great sport. We went in sixteen and
+came out a round dozen. If Fritz had known his business, I ought to be
+dead. He can shoot very well till he hears the shells screaming past his
+ears, and then his nerves go. Funny thing how wrong we’ve been about
+him. He is smart to look at, fights well in a crowd, but cracks when he
+has to act on his own without orders. When we charged his destroyers and
+ran right in he just crumpled to bits. We had a batch of him nicely
+herded up, and were laying him out in detail with guns and mouldies,
+when there came along a beastly intrusive Control Officer on a battle
+cruiser and took him out of our mouths. It was a sweet shot, though.
+Someone—I don’t know his name, or he would hear of his deuced
+interference from me—plumped a salvo of 12-inch common shell right into
+the brown of Fritz’s huddled batch. Two or three of his destroyers went
+aloft in scrap-iron, and half a dozen others were disabled. After the
+first hour his destroyers and light cruisers ceased to be on the stage;
+they had flown quadrivious—there’s an ormolu word for our classical
+volunteer—and we could have a whack at the big ships. Later, at night,
+it was fine. We ran right in upon Fritz’s after-guard of sound
+battleships and rattled them most tremendous. He let fly at us with
+every bally gun he had, from 4-inch to 14, and we were a very pretty
+mark under his searchlights. We ought to have been all laid out, but our
+loss was astonishingly small, and we strafed two of his heavy ships.
+Most of his shots went over us.”
+
+“Yes,” called out the Spotting Officer, “yes, they did, and ricochetted
+all round us in the Queen Elizabeths. There was the devil of a row. The
+firing in the main action was nothing to it. All the while you were
+charging, and our guns were masked for fear of hitting you, Fritz’s
+bonbons were screaming over our upper works and making us say our
+prayers out loud in the Spotting Tops. You’d have thought we were at
+church. I was in the devil of a funk, and could hear my teeth rattling.
+It is when one is fired on and can’t hit back that one thinks of one’s
+latter end.”
+
+“Did any of you see the _Queen Mary_ go?” asked a tall thin man with the
+three rings of a Commander. “Our little lot saw nothing of the first
+part of the battle; we were with the K.G. Fives and Orions.”
+
+“I saw her,” spoke a Gunnery Lieutenant, a small, quiet man with dreamy,
+introspective eyes—the eyes of a poet turned gunner. “I saw her. She
+was hit forrard, and went in five seconds. You all know how. It was a
+thing which won’t bear talking about. The _Invincible_ took a long time
+to sink, and was still floating bottom up when Jellicoe’s little lot
+came in to feed after we and the Salt of the Earth had eaten up most of
+the dinner. I don’t believe that half the Grand Fleet fired a shot.”
+
+There came a savage growl from officers of the main Battle Squadrons,
+who, invited to a choice banquet, had seen it all cleared away before
+their arrival. “That’s all very well,” grumbled one of them; “the four
+Q.E.s are getting a bit above themselves because they had the luck of
+the fair. They didn’t fight the High Seas Fleet by their haughty selves
+because they wanted to, you bet.”
+
+The Gunnery Lieutenant with the dreamy eyes smiled. “We certainly
+shouldn’t have chosen that day to fight them on. But if the _Queen
+Elizabeth_ herself had been with us, and we had had full
+visibility—with the horizon a hard dark line—we would have willingly
+taken on all Fritz’s 12-inch Dreadnoughts and thrown in his battle
+cruisers.”
+
+“That’s the worst of it,” grumbled the Commander, very sore still at
+having tasted only of the skim milk of the battle; “naval war is now
+only a matter of machines. The men don’t count as they did in Nelson’s
+day.”
+
+“Excuse me, sir,” remarked the Sub-Lieutenant; “may I say a word or two
+about that? I have been thinking it out.”
+
+There came a general laugh. The Sub-Lieutenant, twenty years of age,
+small and dark and with the bright black eyes of his mother—a pretty
+little lady from the Midi de la France whom his father had met and
+married in Paris—did not look like a philosopher, but he had the
+clear-thinking, logical mind of his mother’s people.
+
+“Think aloud, my son,” said the Commander. “As a living incarnation of
+l’Entente Cordiale, you are privileged above those others of the
+gun-room.”
+
+The light in the Sub’s eyes seemed to die out as his gaze turned
+inwards. He spoke slowly, carefully, sometimes injecting a word from his
+mother’s tongue which could better express his meaning. He looked all
+the while towards the sea, and seemed scarcely to be conscious of an
+audience of seniors. His last few sentences were spoken wholly in
+French.
+
+“No—naval war is a war of men, as it always was and always will be. For
+what are the machines but the material expression of the souls of the
+men? Our ships are better and faster than the German ships, our guns
+heavier and more accurate than theirs, our gunners more deadly than
+their gunners, because our Navy has the greater human soul. The Royal
+Navy is not a collection of lifeless ships and guns imposed upon men by
+some external power as the Kaiser sought to impose a fleet upon the
+Germans, a nation of landsmen. The Navy is a matter of machines only in
+so far as human beings can only achieve material ends by material means.
+I look upon the ships and guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise
+secretes its shell. They are the products of naval thought, and naval
+brains, and, above all, of that ever-expanding naval soul (_l’esprit_)
+which has been growing for a thousand years. Our ships yonder are
+materially new, the products almost of yesterday, but really they are
+old, centuries old; they are the expression of a naval soul working,
+fermenting, always growing through the centuries, always seeking to
+express itself in machinery. Naval war is an art, the art of men, and
+where in the world will one find men like ours, officers like ours? Have
+you ever thought whence come those qualities which one sees glowing
+every day in our men, from the highest Admiral to the smallest ship
+boy—have you ever thought whence they come?”
+
+He paused, still looking out to sea. His companions, all of them his
+superiors in rank and experience, stared at him in astonishment, and one
+or two laughed. But the Commander signalled for silence. “Et après,” he
+asked quietly; “d’où viennent ces qualités?” Unconsciously he had
+sloughed the current naval slang and spoke in the native language of the
+Sub.
+
+The effect was not what he had expected. At the sound of the Commander’s
+voice speaking in French the Sub-Lieutenant woke up, flushed, and
+instantly reverted to his English self. “I am sorry, sir. I got speaking
+French, in which I always think, and when I talk French I talk the most
+frightful rot.”
+
+“I am not so sure that it was rot. Your theory seems to be that we are,
+in the naval sense, the heirs of the ages, and that no nation that has
+not been through our centuries-old mill can hope to stand against us. I
+hope that you are right. It is a comforting theory.”
+
+“But isn’t that what we all think, sir, though we may not put it quite
+that way? Most of us know that our officers and men are of
+unapproachable stuff in body and mind, but we don’t seek for a reason.
+We accept it as an axiom. I’ve tried to reason the thing out because I’m
+half French; and also because I’ve been brought up among dogs and horses
+and believe thoroughly in heredity. It’s all a matter of breeding.”
+
+“The Sub’s right,” broke in the Gunnery Lieutenant with the poet’s eyes;
+“though a Sub who six months ago was a snotty who has no business to
+think of anything outside his duty. The Service would go to the devil if
+the gun-room began to talk psychology. We excuse it in this Sub here for
+the sake of the Entente Cordiale, of which he is the living embodiment;
+but had any other jawed at us in that style I would have sat upon his
+head. Of course he is right, though it isn’t our English way to see
+through things and define them as the French do. No race on earth can
+touch us for horses or dogs or prize cattle—or Navy men. It takes
+centuries to breed the boys who ran submarines through the Dardanelles
+and the Sound and stayed out in narrow enemy waters for weeks together.
+Brains and nerves and sea skill can’t be made to order even by a German
+Kaiser. Navy men should marry young and choose their women from sea
+families; and then their kids won’t need to be taught. They’ll have the
+secret of the Service in their blood.”
+
+“That’s all very fine,” observed a Marine Lieutenant reflectively; “but
+who is going to pay for it all? We can’t. I get 7_s._ 6_d._ a day, and
+shall have 11_s._ in a year or two; it sounds handsome, but would hardly
+run to a family. Few in the Navy have any private money, so how can we
+marry early?”
+
+“Of course we can’t as things go now,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant. “But
+some day even the Admiralty will discover that the English Navy will
+become a mere list of useless machines unless the English naval families
+can be kept up on the lower deck as well as in the wardroom and
+gun-room. Why, look at the names of our submarine officers whenever they
+get into the papers for honours. They are always salt of the sea, names
+which have been in the Navy List ever since there was a List. You may
+read the same names in the Trafalgar roll and back to the Dutch wars.
+Most of us were Pongos before that—shore Pongos who went afloat with
+Blake or Prince Rupert—but then we became sailors, and so remained,
+father to son. I can only go back myself to the Glorious First of June,
+but some of us here in the Grand Fleet date from the Stuarts at least.
+It is jolly fine to be of Navy blood, but not all plum jam. One has such
+a devil of a record to live up to. In my term at Dartmouth there was a
+poor little beast called Francis Drake—a real Devon Drake, a genuine
+antique—but what a load of a name to carry! Thank God, my humble name
+doesn’t shine out of the history books. And as with the officers, so
+with the seamen. Half of them come from my own country of Devon—the
+cradle of the Navy. They are in the direct line from Drake’s buccaneers.
+Most of the others come from the ancient maritime counties of the
+Channel seaboard, where the blood of everyone tingles with Navy salt.
+The Germans can build ships which are more or less accurate copies of
+our own, but they can’t breed the men. That is the whole secret.”
+
+The Lieutenant-Commander, whose war-scarred destroyer lay below
+refitting, laughed gently. “There’s a lot in all that, more than we
+often realise when we grumble at the cursed obstinacy of our old
+ratings, but even you do not go back far enough. It is the old blood of
+the Vikings and sea-pirates in us English which makes us turn to the
+sea; the rest is training. In no other way can you explain the success
+of the Fringes, the mine-sweepers, and patrols, most of them manned by
+naval volunteers who, before the war, had never served under the White
+Ensign nor seen a shot fired. What is our classical scholar here, Cæsar,
+but a naval volunteer whom Whale Island and natural intelligence have
+turned into a gunner? But as regards the regular Navy, the Navy of the
+Grand Fleet, you are right. Pick your boys from the sea families, catch
+them young, pump them full to the teeth with the Navy Spirit—_l’esprit
+marin_ of our bi-lingual Sub here—make them drunk with it. Then they
+are all right. But they must never be allowed to think of a darned thing
+except of the job in hand. The Navy has no use for men who seek to peer
+into their own souls. They might do it in action and discover blue funk.
+We want them to be no more conscious of their souls than of their
+livers. Though I admit that it is devilish difficult to forget one’s
+liver when one has been cooped up in a destroyer for a week. It is not
+nerve that Fritz lacks so much as a kindly obedient liver. He is an
+iron-gutted swine, and that is partly why he can’t run destroyers and
+submarines against us. The German liver is a thing to wonder at. Do you
+know——” but here the Lieutenant-Commander became too Rabelaisian for
+my delicate pen.
+
+The group had thinned out during this exercise in naval analysis.
+Several of the officers had resumed their heart-and-club-breaking
+struggle with the villainous golf course, but the Sub, the volunteer
+Lieutenant, and the Pongo (Marine) still sat at the feet of their
+seniors. “May I say how the Navy strikes an outsider like me?” asked
+Cæsar diffidently. Whale Island, which had forgotten all other Latin
+authors, had given him the name as appropriate to one of his learning.
+
+“Go ahead,” said the Commander generously. “All this stuff is useful
+enough for a volunteer; without the Pongos and Volunteers to swallow our
+tall stories, the Navy would fail of an audience. The snotties know too
+much.”
+
+“I was going to speak of the snotties,” said Cæsar, “who seem to me to
+be even more typical of the Service than the senior officers. They have
+all its qualities, emphasised, almost comically exaggerated. I do not
+know whether they are never young or that they never grow old, but there
+is no essential difference in age and in knowledge between a snotty six
+months out of cadet training and a Commander of six years’ standing.
+They rag after dinner with equal zest, and seem to be equally well
+versed in the profound technical details of their sea work. Perhaps it
+is that they are born full of knowledge. The snotties interest me beyond
+every type that I have met. Their manners are perfect and in startling
+contrast with those of the average public school boy of fifteen or
+sixteen—even in College at Winchester—and they combine their real
+irresponsible youthfulness with a grave mask of professional learning
+which is delightful to look upon. I have before me the vision of a child
+of fifteen with tousled yellow hair and a face as glum as a sea-boot,
+sitting opposite to me in the machine which took us back one day to the
+boat, smoking a ‘fag’ with the clumsiness which betrayed his lack of
+practice, in between bites of ‘goo’ (in this instance Turkish Delight),
+of which I had seen him consume a pound. He looked about ten years old,
+and in a husky, congested voice, due to the continual absorption of
+sticky food, he described minutely to me the method of conning a
+battleship in manœuvres and the correct amount to allow for the inertia
+of the ship when the helm is centred; he also explained the tactical
+handling of a squadron during sub-calibre firing. That snotty was a
+sheer joy, and the Navy is full of him. He’s gone himself, poor little
+chap—blown to bits by a shell which penetrated the deck.”
+
+“In time, Cæsar,” said the Commander, “by strict attention to duty you
+will become a Navy man. But we have talked enough of deep mysteries. It
+was that confounded Sub, with his French imagination, who started us.
+What I really wish someone would tell me is this: what was the ‘northern
+enterprise’ that Fritz was on when we chipped in and spoilt his little
+game?”
+
+“It does not matter,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant. “We spoilt it,
+anyhow. The dear old newspapers talk of his losses in big ships as if
+they were all that counted. What has really crippled him has been the
+wiping out of his destroyers and fast new cruisers. Without them he is
+helpless. It was a great battle, much more decisive than most people
+think, even in the Grand Fleet itself. It was as decisive by sea as the
+Marne was by land. We have destroyed Fritz’s mobility.”
+
+The men rose and looked out over the bay. There below them lay their sea
+homes, serene, invulnerable, and about them stretched the dull, dour,
+treeless landscape of their northern fastness. Their minds were as
+peaceful as the scene. As they looked a bright light from the compass
+platform of one of the battleships began to flicker through the
+sunshine—dash, dot, dot, dash. “There goes a signal,” said the
+Commander. “You are great at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my son.”
+
+The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes, and as he read grinned
+capaciously. “It is some wag with a signal lantern,” said he. “It reads:
+Question—Daddy,—what—did—you—do—in—the—Great—War?”
+
+“I wonder,” observed the Sub-Lieutenant, “what new answer the lower deck
+has found to that question. Before the battle their reply was: ‘I was
+kept doubling round the decks, sonny.’”
+
+“There goes the signal again,” said the Pongo; “and here comes the
+answer.” He read it out slowly as it flashed word after word: “‘=I
+laid the guns true, sonny.=’”
+
+“And a dashed good answer, too,” cried the Commander heartily.
+
+“That would make a grand fleet signal before a general action,” remarked
+the Gunnery Lieutenant. “I don’t care much for Nelson’s Trafalgar
+signal. It was too high-flown and sentimental for the lower deck. It was
+aimed at the history books, rather than at old tarry-breeks of the fleet
+a hundred years ago. No—there could not be a better signal than just
+‘Lay the Guns True’—carry out your orders precisely, intelligently,
+faultlessly. What do you say, my Hun of a classical volunteer?”
+
+“It could not be bettered,” said Cæsar.
+
+“I will make a note of it,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant, “against the
+day, when as a future Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet
+into action.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+                           A BAND OF BROTHERS
+      “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”—_King Henry V._
+
+My boyhood was spent in Devon, the land of Drake and the home of the
+Elizabethan Navy. A deep passion for the Sea Service is in my blood,
+though, owing to family circumstances, I was not able to indulge my
+earliest ambition to become myself one of the band of brothers who serve
+under the White Ensign. My elder brother lived and died afloat. Two of
+my sons, happier than their father, are privileged to play their parts
+in the great ships of the Fleets. So that, though not in the Service, I
+am of it, by ties of blood and by ties of the earliest association.
+Whenever I have sought to penetrate its mysteries and to interpret them
+to my fellow countrymen, my motive has never been that of mere idle
+curiosity.
+
+The Royal Navy wields, and has always wielded, a great material force,
+but the secret of its strength lies not in the machines with which it
+has equipped itself in the various stages of its development. Vast and
+terrible as are the ships and the guns, they would be of little worth if
+their design and skilful employment were not inspired by that spiritual
+force, compounded of tradition, training, devotion and discipline, which
+I call the Soul of the Navy. In the design of its weapons, in its
+mastery of their use, above all in its consummate seamanship, the Royal
+Navy has in all ages surpassed its opponents; but it has done these
+things not through some fortuitous gift of the Sea Gods, but because of
+the never-failing development of its own spirit. It has always been at a
+great price, in the sacrifice of ease and in the outpouring of the lives
+of men, that the Navy has won for itself and for us the freedom of the
+seas. Those who reckon navies in ships and guns, in weight of metal and
+in broadside fire, while leaving out of account the spirit and training
+and devotion of the men, can never understand the Soul of the Navy. For
+all these material things are the expression of the Soul; they are not
+the Soul itself.
+
+The Navy is still the old English Navy of the southern maritime counties
+of England. It has become the Navy of Great Britain, the Navy of the
+British Empire, but in spirit, and to a large extent in hereditary
+personnel, it remains the English Navy of the Narrow Seas. Many counties
+play a great part in its equipment, but to me it is always the Navy of
+my own land of Devon; officers and men are the lineal successors of
+those bold West Country seamen who in their frail barks ranged the wide
+seas hundreds of years ago and first taught to us and to the world the
+meaning of the expression “sea communications.”
+
+There is not an officer in the permanent service of the Fleets of to-day
+who was not trained in Devon. On the southern seaboard of that county,
+set upon a steep slope overlooking the mouth of the most lovely of
+rivers, stands the Naval College in which are being trained those who
+will guide our future Fleets. A little way to the west lies one of the
+greatest of naval ports and arsenals. From my county of Devon comes half
+the Navy of to-day, half the men of the Fleet, be they warrant officers,
+seamen or engineers. The atmosphere of Devon, soft and sleepy as it may
+appear to a stranger, is electric with the spirit of Drake, which is the
+spirit of Nelson, which is the spirit of the boys of Dartmouth. For
+generation after generation, in the old wooden hulks _Britannia_ and
+_Hindustan_, and afterwards in the Naval College on the heights, the
+cadets during their most impressionable years have breathed in the
+spirit of the Navy. I have often visited them there and loved them; my
+brother, who worked among them and taught them, died there, and is
+buried in the little cemetery which crowns the hill where, years ago in
+a blinding snowstorm, I stood beside his open grave and heard the Last
+Post wail above his body. I have always envied him that great privilege,
+to die in the service of the Navy and to be buried within hail of the
+boys whom he loved.
+
+The cadets of Dartmouth have learned that the Sea Service is an exacting
+and most jealous mistress who brooks no rival. They have learned that
+the Service is everything and themselves nothing. They have learned that
+only by humbly submitting themselves to be absorbed into the Service can
+they be deemed to be worthy of that Service. The discipline of the Navy
+is no cast-iron system imposed by force and punishment upon unwilling
+men; there is nothing in it of Prussian Militarism. It is rather the
+willing subordination of proud free men to the dominating interests of a
+Service to which they have dedicated their lives. The note of their
+discipline is “The Service first, last, and all the time.” The Navy
+resembles somewhat a religious Order, but in the individual
+subordination of body, heart, brains and soul there is nothing of
+servitude. The Naval officer is infinitely proud and infinitely humble.
+Infinitely proud of his Service, infinitely humble in himself. If an
+officer through error, however pardonable, loses his ship—and very
+young officers have command of ships—and in the stern, though always
+sympathetic, judgment of his fellows he must temporarily be put upon the
+shelf, he does not grumble or repine. He does not write letters to the
+papers upon his grievances. He accepts the judgment loyally, even
+proudly, and strives to merit a return to active employment. No
+fleshpots in the outer world, no honours or success in civil employment,
+ever compensate the naval officer for the loss of his career at sea.
+
+From the circumstances of their lives, so largely spent among their
+fellows at sea or in naval harbours, and from their upbringing in naval
+homes and training ships, officers and men grow into a class set apart,
+dedicated as Followers of the Sea, in whose eyes the dwellers in cities
+appear as silly chatterers and hucksterers, always seeking after some
+vain thing, be it wealth or rank or fame. The discipline of the Navy is,
+like its Soul, apart and distinct from anything which we know on land.
+It is very strict but also very human. There is nothing in it of Caste.
+“I expect,” said Drake, “the gentlemen to draw with the mariners.” Drake
+allowed of no distinction between “gentlemen” and “mariners” except that
+“gentlemen” were expected always to surpass the “mariners” in tireless
+activity, cheerful endurance of hardships, and unshakable valour in
+action. Drake could bear tenderly with the diseased grumbling of a
+scurvy-stricken mariner, but the gentleman adventurer who “groused” was
+in grievous peril of a rope and a yard arm. The gentlemen adventurers
+have given place to professional naval officers, the mariners have
+become the long-service trained seamen in their various grades who have
+given their lives to the Navy, but the spirit of Drake endures to this
+day. The Gentlemen are expected to draw with the Mariners.
+
+When a thousand lives and a great ship may be lost by the lapse from
+vigilance of one man, very strict discipline is a vital necessity. But
+as with officers so with men it is the discipline of cheerful, willing
+obedience. The spirit of the Navy is not the spirit of a Caste. It burns
+as brightly in the seaman as in the lieutenant, in the ship’s boy as in
+the midshipman, in the warrant officer as in the “Owner.” It is a
+discipline hammered out by the ceaseless fight with the sea. The Navy is
+always on active service; it is always waging an unending warfare with
+the forces of the sea; the change from a state of peace to a state of
+war means only the addition of one more foe—and if he be a gallant and
+chivalrous foe he is welcomed gladly as one worthy to kill and to be
+killed.
+
+Catch boys young, inure them to Naval discipline, and teach them the
+value of it, and to them it will become part of the essential fabric of
+their lives. A good example of how men of Naval training cling to the
+discipline of the Service as to a firm unbreakable rope was shown in
+Captain Scott’s South Polar expeditions. Some of the officers, and
+practically the whole of the crews, were lent by the Navy, but the
+expeditions themselves were under auspices which were not naval. At sea
+Captain Scott’s legal authority was that of a merchant skipper, on land
+during his exploring expeditions he had no legal authority at all. Yet
+all the officers and men, knowing that their lives depended upon willing
+subordination, agreed that the discipline both at sea and on land should
+be that of the Navy to which most of them belonged. The ships were run
+exactly as if they had flown the White Ensign, and as if their
+companions were under the Navy Act. Strict though it may be, there is
+nothing arbitrary about naval discipline, and those who have tested it
+in peace and war know its quality of infinite endurance under any
+strain.
+
+The Navy is a small Service, small in numbers, and to this very
+smallness is partly due the beauty of its Soul. For it is a picked
+Service, and only by severe selection in their youth can those be chosen
+who are worthy to remain among its permanent members. The professional
+officers and men number only some 150,000, and the great temporary war
+expansion—after the inclusion of Naval Reservists, Naval Volunteers,
+and the Division for service on land, did little more than treble the
+active list. The Navy, even then, bore upon its rolls names less than
+one-twelfth as numerous as in those legions who were drafted into the
+Army. Yet this small professional Navy, by reason of its Soul and the
+vast machines which that Soul secretes and employs with supreme
+efficiency, dominated throughout the war the seas of the whole world.
+The Navy has for so long been a wonder and a miracle that we have ceased
+to be thrilled by it; we take it for granted; but it remains no less a
+wonder and a miracle.
+
+Many causes have combined to make this little group—this few, this
+happy few, this band of brothers—the most splendid human force which
+the world has ever seen. The Naval Service is largely hereditary.
+Officers and men come from among those who have served the sea for
+generations. In the Navy List of to-day one may read names which were
+borne upon the ships’ books of hundreds of years ago. And since the
+tradition of the sea plays perhaps the greatest part in the development
+of the Naval Soul, this continuity of family service, on the lower deck
+as in the wardroom and gun room, needs first to be emphasised. The young
+son of an officer, of a warrant-officer, of a seaman, or of a marine,
+enters the Service already more than half trained. He has the spirit of
+the Service in his blood, and its collective honour is already his own
+private honour. I remember years ago a naval officer said to me
+sorrowfully, “My only son must go into the Service, and yet I fear that
+he is hardly fit for it. He is delicate, shy, almost timid. But what can
+one do?”
+
+“Is it necessary?” I asked foolishly. He stared at me: “We have served
+from father to son since the reign of Charles II.” So the boy entered
+the _Britannia_, and I heard no more of him until one morning, years
+after, I saw in an Honours List a name which I knew, that of a young
+Lieutenant who had won the rare naval V.C. in the Mediterranean. It was
+my friend’s son; blood had triumphed; the delicate, shy, almost timid
+lad had made good.
+
+The Navy catches its men when they are young, unspoiled, malleable, and
+moulds them with deft fingers as a sculptor works his clay. Officers
+enter in their early teens—now as boys at Osborne who afterwards become
+naval cadets at Dartmouth. Formerly they spent a year or two longer at
+school and entered direct as cadets to the _Britannia_. The system is
+essentially the same now as it has been for generations. The material
+must be good and young, the best of it is retained and the less good
+rejected. The best is moulded and stamped in the Dartmouth workshop, and
+emerges after the bright years of early boyhood with the naval hall mark
+upon it. The seamen enter as boys into training-ships, and they, too,
+are moulded and stamped into the naval pattern. It is a very exacting
+but a very just education. No one who has been admitted to the privilege
+of training need be rejected except by his own fault, and if he is not
+worthy to be continued in training, he is emphatically not worthy to
+serve in the Fleets.
+
+Of late years this system, which requires abundance of time for its full
+working out, has proved to be deficient in elasticity. It takes some
+seven years to make a cadet into a sub-lieutenant, while a great
+battleship can be built and equipped in little more than two years. The
+German North Sea menace caused a rapid expansion in the output of ships,
+especially of big ships, which far outstripped the training of junior
+officers needed for their service. The Osborne-Dartmouth system had not
+failed, far from it, but it was too slow for the requirements of the
+Navy under the new conditions. In order to keep up with the demand, the
+supply of naval cadets was increased and speeded up by the admission of
+young men from the public schools at the age when they had been
+accustomed to enter for permanent Army commissions. A large addition was
+also made to the roll of subalterns of Marines—who received training
+both for sea and land work—and in this way the ranks of the junior
+officers afloat were rapidly expanded. There was no departure from the
+Navy’s traditional policy of catching boys young and moulding them
+specially and exclusively for the Sea Service; the new methods were
+avowedly additional and temporary, to be modified or withdrawn when the
+need for urgent expansion had disappeared. The Navy was clearly right.
+It was obliged to make a change in its system, but it made it to as
+small an extent as would meet the conditions of the moment. The second
+best was tacked on to the first best, but the first best was retained in
+being to be reverted to exclusively as soon as might be. To catch boys
+young, preferably those with the sea tradition in their blood, to teach
+them during their most impressionable years that the Navy must always be
+to them as their father, mother and wedded wife—the exacting mistress
+which demands of them the whole of their affections, energies and
+service, to dedicate them in tender years to their Sea Goddess—this
+must always be the way to preserve, in its purest undimmed water, that
+pearl of great price, the Soul of the Navy.
+
+It follows from the circumstances of their training and life that the
+Navy is a Family of which the members are bound together by the closest
+of ties of individual friendship and association. It is a Service in
+which everybody knows everybody else, not only by name and reputation
+but by personal contact. During the long years of residence at Osborne
+and Dartmouth, and afterwards in the Fleets, at the Greenwich Naval
+College, at the Portsmouth schools of instruction, officers widely
+separated by years and rank learn to know one another and to weigh one
+another in the most just of balances—that of actual service. Those of
+us who have passed many years in the world of affairs, know that the
+only reputation worth having is that which we earn among those of our
+own profession or craft. And none of us upon land are known and weighed
+with the intimate certainty and impartiality which is possible to the
+Sea Service. We are not seen at close contact and under all conditions
+of work and play, and never in the white light which an ever-present
+peril casts upon our worth and hardihood. No fictitious reputation is
+possible in the Navy itself as it is possible in the world outside.
+Officers may, through the exercise of influence, be placed in positions
+over the heads of others of greater worth, they may be written and
+talked about by civilians in the newspapers as among the most brilliant
+in their profession—especially in time of peace—but the Navy, which
+has known them from youth to age inside and out, is not deceived. The
+Navy laughs at many of the reputations which we poor civilians
+ignorantly honour. No naval reputation is of any value whatever unless
+it be endorsed by the Navy itself. And the Navy does not talk. How many
+newspaper readers, for instance, had heard of Admiral Jellicoe before he
+was placed in command of the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of war? But the
+Navy knew all about him and endorsed the choice.
+
+What I write of officers applies with equal force to the men, to the
+long-service ratings, the petty officers and warrant officers who form
+the backbone of the Service. They, too, are caught young, drawn wherever
+possible from sea families, moulded and trained into the naval pattern,
+stamped after many years with the hall mark of the Service. It is a
+system which has bred a mutual confidence and respect between officers
+and men as unyielding as armour-plate. Before the battle of May 31st,
+1916, the Grand Fleet had gone forth looking for Fritz many times and
+finding him not. Little was expected, but if the unexpected did happen,
+then officers believed in their long-service ratings as profoundly as
+did these dear old grumblers in their leaders. Many times in the
+wardrooms of the battle squadrons the prospects of action would be
+discussed and always in the same way.
+
+“No, it’s not likely to be anything, but if it is what we’ve been
+waiting for, I have every confidence in our long-service ratings if the
+Huns are really out for blood. You know what I mean—those grizzled old
+G.L.I.s (gun-layers, first-class), and gunners’ mates and horny-handed
+old A.B.s whom we curse all day for their damned obstinacy. The Huns
+think that two years make a gunlayer; we know that even twelve years are
+not enough. Our long-service ratings would pull the country through,
+even if we hadn’t the mechanical advantage over Fritz which we actually
+possess. And the combination of the long-service ratings and the
+two-Power standard will, when we get to work upon him, give Fritz
+furiously to think.”
+
+Even when the great expansion among the big fighting ships called for a
+corresponding expansion in the crews, little essential change was made
+in the system which had bred confidence such as this. There was some
+slight dilution. Officers and men of the R.N.R. and the Naval
+Volunteers, to the extent of about 10 per cent., were drafted into the
+first-line battleships, but the cream of the professional service was
+kept for the first fighting line. For the most part the new temporary
+Navy, of admirable material drawn from our almost limitless maritime
+population, was kept at work in the Fringes of the Fleet—the
+mine-sweepers, armed liners, blockading patrols, and so on—where less
+technical navy skill was required, and where invaluable service could be
+and was done. The professional Navy has the deepest respect and
+gratitude for the devoted work discharged by its amateur auxiliaries.
+
+The Navy is a young man’s service. In no other career in life are the
+vital energies, the eager spirits, the glowing capacities of youth given
+such ample opportunities for expression. A naval officer can become a
+proud “Owner,” with an independent command of a destroyer or submarine,
+at an age when in a civil profession he would be entrusted with scanty
+responsibilities. In civil life there is a horrible waste of youth; it
+is kept down, largely left unused, by the jealousy of age. But the Navy,
+which is very wise, makes the most of every hour of it. The small craft,
+the Fringes of the Fleet as Mr. Kipling calls them, the eyes and ears
+and guardians of the big ships, the patrol boats, submarines and
+destroyers, are captained by youngsters under thirty, often under
+twenty-five. The land crushes youth, the sea allows and encourages its
+fine flower to expand. Naval warfare is directed by grave men, but is to
+an enormous extent carried on by bright boys.
+
+But the Navy which employs youth more fully than any other service, also
+uses it up more remorselessly. Unless an officer can reach the rank of
+Commander—a rank above that of a Major in the Army—when he is little
+more than thirty he has a very scanty chance in time of peace of ever
+serving afloat as a full Captain. The small ships are many in number,
+but the big ships are comparatively few. Only the best of the best can
+become Commanders at an age which enables them to reach post rank in
+that early manhood which is a necessity for the command of a modern
+super-Dreadnought. Many of those who do become Captains in the early
+forties have to eat out their hearts upon half-pay because there are not
+enough big ships in commission to go round. It is only in time of war
+that the whole of our Fleets are mobilised. Some years ago I was dining
+with several naval officers from a battle squadron which lay in the
+Firth of Forth. Beside me sat a young man looking no more than
+thirty-five, and actually little older. He was a Captain I knew, and in
+course of conversation I asked for the name of his ship. “The
+_Dreadnought_,” said he. This was the time when the name and fame of the
+first _Dreadnought_, the first all-big-gun ship which revolutionised the
+construction of the battle line, was ringing through the world. And yet
+here was this famous ship in charge of a young smooth-faced fellow,
+younger than myself, and I did not then consider that I was middle-aged!
+“Are you not rather young?” I enquired diffidently. He smiled, “We need
+to be young,” said he. Then I understood. It came home to me that the
+modern Navy, with its incredibly rapid development in machinery, must
+have in its executive officers those precious qualities of adaptability
+and quick perception, that readiness to be always learning and testing,
+seeking and finding the best new ways of solving old problems, which can
+only be found in youth. Youth is of the essence of the Navy, it always
+has been so and it probably always will be. Youth learns quickly, and
+the Naval officer is always learning. In civil life we enter our
+professions, we struggle through our examinations as doctors or lawyers
+or engineers, and then we are content to pass our lives in practice and
+forget our books. But the naval officer, whose active life is passed on
+the salt sea, is ever a student. He goes backwards and forwards between
+the sea and the schools. There is no stage and no rank at which his
+education stops. Gunnery, torpedo practice, electricity, navigation,
+naval strategy, and tactics are all rapidly progressive sciences. A few
+years, a very few years, and a whole scheme of practice becomes
+obsolete. So the naval officer needs for ever to be passing from the sea
+to the _Vernon_, or the _Excellent_, or to Greenwich, where he is kept
+up-to-date and given a perennial opportunity to develop the best that is
+in him. From fifteen to forty he is always learning, always testing,
+always growing, and then—unless his luck is very great—he has to give
+way to the rising youth of other men and rest himself unused upon the
+shelf. The highest posts are not for him. It is very remorseless the way
+in which the Navy uses and uses up its youth, and very touching the
+devoted humble way in which that youth submits to be so used up. The
+Navy is ever growing in science and in knowledge, it must always have of
+the best—the remorselessness with which it chooses only of the best,
+and the patience with which those who are not of the best submit without
+repining to its devices, are of the Soul of the Navy.
+
+Admiral Sir David Beatty became Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at
+the age of forty-five. In years of life and of service he was junior to
+half the Captains’ List. He had sprung by merit and by opportunity some
+ten years above his contemporaries at Dartmouth. First in the Soudan,
+when serving in the flotilla of gunboats, he won promotion from
+Lieutenant to Commander at the age of twenty-seven. Again at Tien-tsin
+in China, his chance came, and in 1900, while still under thirty, he
+reached the captain’s rank. When the war broke out he was a Rear-Admiral
+in command of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and was given the
+acting rank of Vice-Admiral. He is now an acting Admiral, and his
+seniors in years, and even in rank, willingly serve beneath him. Admiral
+Beatty is not a scientific sailor, and is not wedded to the Service as
+are most of his brother officers. But for the outbreak of the war he
+would probably have retired. Yet no one questions his pre-eminent
+fitness for his dazzling promotion. He has that rare indefinable quality
+of leadership of men and of war instinct which cannot be revealed except
+by war itself. When, by fortunate chance, this quality is discovered in
+an officer it is instantly recognised as beyond price, and cherished at
+its full worth.
+
+The Naval system which teaches subordination, also teaches independence.
+If to men roaming over the seas in command of ships, orders come, it is
+well; if orders do not come it is also well—they get on very well
+without them. If the entire Admiralty were wiped out by German bombs, My
+Lords and the whole staff destroyed, the Navy would, in its own
+language, “proceed” to carry on. In the middle of the political crisis
+of December 1916, when a new Naval Board of Admiralty had just been
+appointed, I asked a senior officer how the new lot were getting on. He
+said: “There isn’t any First Lord. The First Sea Lord is in bed with
+influenza. The Second Sea Lord is in bed with influenza. The Third Sea
+Lord is in bed with influenza. The Fourth Sea Lord is at work but is
+sickening for influenza. _But the Navy is all right._” That is the note
+of serene confidence which distinguishes the Sea Service. Whatever
+happens, the Navy is all right.
+
+The Navy is a poor man’s Service. It is a real profession in which the
+officers as a rule live on their pay and ask for little more. Men of
+great houses will enter the Army in time of peace and regard it as a
+mild occupation, men of money will enter for the social position which
+it may give to them. But no man of rank or of money in search of a
+“cushy job,” was ever such an ass as to look for it in the Navy. Few
+officers in the Navy—except among those who have entered in quite
+recent years—have any resources beyond their pay; many of them are born
+to it, and in their families there have been scanty opportunities for
+saving. The Admiralty, until quite recently, required that young
+officers upon entry into the Navy or the Marines should be allowed small
+specified sums until they attained in service pay the eminence of about
+11_s._ a day, and also that a complete uniform equipment should be
+provided for them; but after that initial help from home they were
+expected to make their pay suffice. And in the great majority of cases
+they did what was expected of them. Living is cheap in the Sea Service.
+Ships pay no duties upon their stores, and there are few opportunities
+afloat for the wasting of money. Mess bills in wardroom and gun-room are
+small, and must be kept small, or the captain will arise in wrath and
+ask to be informed (in writing) of the reason why. Ere now young men
+have been dismissed their ships for persistently running up too large a
+wine bill; and to be dismissed one’s ship means not only a bad mark in
+the Admiralty’s books, but loss of seniority, which in turn means an
+extra early retirement upon that exiguous half-pay which looms always
+like a dark cloud upon the naval horizon.
+
+Unhappily for its officers and the country the Navy has not been a
+married man’s service; it has been too exacting to tolerate a divided
+allegiance. Sometimes poor young things under stress of emotion have got
+married, and then has begun for them the most cruel and ageing of
+struggles—the man at sea hard put to it to keep up his position, simple
+though it be; the wife ashore in poor lodgings or in some tiny villa,
+lonely, struggling, growing old too fast for her years; children who
+rarely see their father, and whose prospects are of the gloomiest. I do
+not willingly put my pen to this picture. Young Navy men, glowing with
+health and virile energy, and the spirit of the Service, are very
+attractive creatures to whom goes out the love of women, but though
+they, too, may love, they are usually compelled to sail away. It is well
+for them then if they are as firmly wedded to the Service as the Roman
+priest is to his Church, and if they are not always as continent as the
+priest, who is so free from sin that he will dare to cast a stone at
+them? If the country and its rulers had any belief in heredity, of which
+the evidence stares at them from the eyes of every naval son born to the
+Service, they would grant to a young officer a year of leave in which to
+be married, and pay to him and to his mate a handsome subsidy for every
+splendid son whom they laid in the cradles of the Service of the future.
+
+Of late years there has been a change. The rapid expansion of the Fleets
+has brought in many young cadets of commercial families, whose parents
+have far more money than is wholly good for their sons. The Navy is not
+so completely a poor man’s service as it was even ten years ago. The
+junior officers are, some of them, too well off. Not long since, a
+senior Captain was lamenting this change in my presence. “The snotties
+now,” he groaned, “all keep motor bicycles, the sub-lieutenants are not
+happy till they own cars, and the Lieutenant-Commanders think nothing of
+getting married. All this has been the result of concentrating the
+Fleets in home waters. Germany compelled us to do it, but the Service
+was the better for the three-year Commissions on foreign stations.” All
+this is true. The junior ranks are getting richer. At sea they can spend
+little, but ashore and in harbour there are opportunities for gold to
+corrupt the higher virtues. For my part, however, I have the fullest
+confidence in the training and the example of the older officers. In
+this war there has been nothing to suggest that the young Navy is less
+devoted and self-sacrificing than the old. The wealthier boys may take
+their fling on leave—and who can blame them?—but at sea the Service
+comes first.
+
+We love that most which is most hardly won. And the Navy men love their
+Service, not because it is easy but because of the hardness of it, and
+because of the sacrifices which it exacts from them. It fastens its grip
+upon them in those first years between fifteen and twenty, and the grip
+grows ever tighter with the flight of time. It is at its very tightest
+when the dreadful hour of retirement arrives. When War broke out, in
+August 1914, it was hailed with joy by the active Navy afloat, but their
+joy was as water unto wine in comparison with that which transfigured
+the retired Navy ashore. For them at long last the impossible had
+crystallised into fact. For those who were still young enough, the
+uniforms were waiting ready in the tin boxes upstairs, and it was but a
+short step from their house doors to the decks of a King’s ship. Once
+more their gallant names could be written in the Active List of their
+Navy. They hastened back, these eager ones, and if there was no
+employment for them in their own rank, they snatched at that in any
+other rank which offered. Captains R.N. became commanders and even
+lieutenants R.N.R. in the Fringes. Admirals became temporary captains.
+There were indeed at one time no fewer than nineteen retired admirals
+serving as temporary officers R.N.R. in armed liners.
+
+If you would understand how the Navy loves the Service, how that love is
+not a part of their lives, but is their lives, reflect upon the case of
+one aged officer. I will not give his name; he would not wish it. He had
+been in retirement for nearly forty years, too old for service in his
+rank, too old possibly for service in any rank. But his pleadings for
+employment afloat softened the understanding hearts at Whitehall. He was
+allowed to rejoin and to serve as a temporary Lieutenant-Commander in an
+armed yacht which assisted the ex-Brazilian monitors sent to bombard the
+Belgian coast. There against Zeebrugge he served among kindly lads young
+enough to be his grandsons, and there with them and among them he was
+killed—the oldest officer serving afloat. And he was happy in his
+death. Not Wolfe before Quebec, not Nelson in the cockpit of the
+_Victory_, were happier or more glorious in their deaths than was that
+temporary Lieutenant-Commander (transferred at his own request from the
+retired list) who fought his last fight upon the decks of an armed yacht
+and died as he would have prayed to die.
+
+The Navy hates advertisement and scorns above all things in heaven or
+upon earth the indiscriminating praise of well-meaning civilians. I
+sadly realise that it may scorn me and this book of mine. But I will do
+my best to make amends. I will promise that never once in describing
+their deeds will I refer to Navy men as “heroes.” I will not, where I
+can possibly avoid doing so, mention the name of anyone. I will do my
+utmost at all times to write of them as men and not as “b—— angels.” I
+will, at the peril of some inconsistency, declare my conviction that
+naval officers haven’t any souls, that they are in the Service because
+they love it, and not because they care two pins for their country, that
+they are rather pleased than otherwise when rotten civilians at home get
+a bad fright from a raid. I will declare that they catch and sink German
+submarines by all manner of cunning devices, from the sheer zest of
+sport, and not because they would raise a finger to save the lives of
+silly passengers in luxurious ocean liners. I will do anything to turn
+their scorn away from me except to withdraw one word which I have
+written upon the Soul of the Navy. For upon this subject they would, I
+believe, write as I do if the gods had given to them leisure for
+philosophical analysis—which they are much too busy to bother
+about—and the knack of verbally expressing their thoughts. When I read
+a naval despatch I always groan over it as an awful throwing away of the
+most splendid opportunities. I always long to have been in the place of
+the writer, to have seen what he saw, to know what he knew, and to tell
+the world in living phrase what tremendous deeds were really done. Naval
+despatches are the baldest of documents, cold, formal, technical, most
+forbiddingly uninspiring. Whenever I ask naval officers why they do not
+put into despatches the vivid details which sometimes find their way
+into private letters they glare at me, and even their beautiful courtesy
+can scarcely keep back the sniff of contempt. “Despatches,” say they,
+“are written for the information of the Admiralty.” That is a complete
+answer under the Naval Code. The despatches, which make one groan, are
+written for the information of the Admiralty, not to thrill poor
+creatures such as you and me. A naval officer cares only for his record
+at the Admiralty and for his reputation among those of his own craft. If
+a newspaper calls Lieutenant A—— B—— a hero, and writes
+enthusiastically of his valour, he shudders as would a modest woman if
+publicly praised for her chastity. Valour goes with the Service, it is a
+part of the Soul of the Navy. It is taken for granted and is not to be
+talked or written about. And so with those other qualities that spring
+from the traditions of the Navy—the chivalry which risks British lives
+to save those of drowning enemies, the tenderness which binds up their
+wounds, the honours paid to their dead. All these things, which the
+Royal Navy never forgets and the German Navy for the most part has never
+learned, are taken for granted and are not to be talked of or written
+about.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It is inevitable from the nature of its training that the Navy should be
+intensely self-centred. If one catches a boy when he has but recently
+emerged from the nursery, teaches him throughout his active life that
+there is but one work fit for the service of man, dedicates him to it by
+the strictest discipline, cuts him off by the nature of his daily life
+from all intimate contact with or understanding of the world which moves
+upon land, his imagination will be atrophied by disuse. He will become
+absorbed into the Naval life which is a life entirely of its own, apart
+and distinct from all other lives. There is a deep gulf set between the
+Naval life and all other lives which very few indeed of the Navy ever
+seek to cross. Their attitude towards civilians is very like that of the
+law-making statesman of old who said: “The people have nothing to do
+with the laws except to obey them.” If the Navy troubled to think of
+civilians at all—it never does unless they annoy it with their futile
+chatter in Parliament and elsewhere—it would say: “Civilians have
+nothing to do with the Navy except to pay for it.” Keen as is the
+imaginative foresight of the Navy in regard to everything which concerns
+its own honour and effectiveness, it is utterly lacking in any
+sympathetic imaginative understanding of the intense civilian interest
+in itself and in its work. We poor creatures who stand outside, I who
+write and you who read, do in actual fact love the Navy only a little
+less devotedly than the Navy loves its own Service. We long to
+understand it, to help it, and to pay for it. We know what we owe to it,
+but we would ask, in all proper humility, that now and then the Navy
+would realise and appreciate the certain fact that it owes some little
+of its power and success to us.
+
+I cannot in a formula define the collective Soul of the Navy. It is a
+moral atmosphere which cannot be chemically resolved. It is a subtle and
+elusive compound of tradition, self sacrifice, early training, willing
+discipline, youth, simplicity, valour, chivalry, lack of imagination,
+and love of the Service—and the greatest of these is Love. I have tried
+to indicate what it is, how it has given to this wonderful Navy of ours
+a terrible unity, a terrible force, and an even more terrible
+intelligence; how it has transformed a body of men into a gigantic
+spiritual Power which expresses its might in the forms and means of
+naval warfare. I cannot exactly define it, but I can in a humble
+faltering way do my best to reveal it in its working.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+                           THE COMING OF WAR
+
+Our Navy has played the great game of war by sea for too many hundreds
+of years ever to under-rate its foes. It is even more true of the sea
+than of the land that the one thing sure to happen is that which is
+unexpected. Until they have measured by their own high standards the
+quality of an enemy, our officers and men rate him in valour, in sea
+skill, and in masterful ingenuity as fully the equal of themselves.
+Until August 1914 the Royal Navy had never fought the German, and had no
+standards of experience by which to assay him. The Navy had known the
+maritime nations of Europe and fought them many times, but the Germans,
+a nation of landsmen artificially converted into sailors within a single
+generation, were a problem both novel and baffling. Eighteen years
+before the War, Germany had no navy worth speaking of in comparison with
+ours; during those fateful years she built ships and guns, trained
+officers and men, and secured her sea bases on the North Sea and in the
+Baltic at a speed and with a concentrated enthusiasm which were wholly
+wonderful and admirable. “The Future of Germany lies on the water,”
+cried the Kaiser one day, and his faithful people took up the cry. “We
+here and now challenge Britain upon her chosen element.” Quite seriously
+and soberly the German Navy Law of 1900 issued this challenge, and the
+Fatherland settled down to its prodigious task with a serene confidence
+and an extraordinary energy which won for it the ungrudging respect of
+its future foes.
+
+Perhaps the Royal Navy in those early years of the twentieth century,
+and especially in 1913 and 1914, became just a little bit infected by
+the mental disease of exalting everything German, which had grown into
+an obsession among many Englishmen. At home during the War men oppressed
+by their enemy’s land power, would talk as if one German cut in two
+became two Germans. German organisation, German educational training,
+German mechanical and scientific skill are very good, but they are not
+superhuman. Their failures, like those of other folk, are fully as
+numerous as their successes. In trade they won many triumphs over us
+because British trading methods were individualistic and were totally
+lacking in national direction and support. But the Royal Navy is in
+every respect wholly distinct from every other British institution. It
+is the one and only National Service which has always declined to
+recognise in its practice the British policy of muddling through. It is
+the one Service with a mind and an iron Soul of its very own. So that
+when Germany set to work to create out of nothing a navy to compete with
+our own, she was up against a vast spiritual power which she did not
+understand, the Soul of the Navy, that unifying dominating force which
+gives to it an incomparable strength. She was up, too, against that
+experience of the sea and of sea warfare in a race of islanders which
+had been living and growing since the days of King Alfred. The wonderful
+thing is this: not that the German Navy has at no point been able to
+bear comparison with ours—in design of ships, in quality and weight of
+guns, in sea cunning, in sea training and in hardihood—but that in the
+few short years of the present century the German Navy should have been
+built at all, manned at all, trained at all.
+
+As the German Navy grew, and our ships came in contact with those of the
+Germans, especially upon foreign stations, our naval officers and men
+came to regard their future foes with much respect and even with
+admiration. We knew how great a task the Germans had set to themselves,
+and were astonished at the speed with which they made themselves
+efficient. I have often been told that during the years immediately
+before the war, the relations between English and German naval officers
+and men were more close than those between English officers and men and
+the sailors of any other navy. It became recognised that in the Germans
+we should have foemen of undoubted gallantry and of no less undoubted
+skill. There are few officers and men in our Fleets who do not know
+personally and admire their opposite numbers upon the enemy’s side, and
+though our foes have in many ways broken the rules of war as understood
+and practised by us, one never hears the Royal Navy call the Germans
+“pirates.” Expressions such as this one are left to civilians. When Mr.
+Churchill announced that the officers and crews of captured U boats
+would be treated differently from those taken in surface ships, the Navy
+strongly disapproved. To them it seemed that the responsibility for
+breaches of international law and practice lay not with naval officers
+and men, whose duty it was to carry out the orders of the superiors, but
+that it lay with the superiors who gave those orders. To retaliate upon
+subordinate officers and men for the crimes of their political chiefs
+seemed cowardly, and worse—it struck a blow at the whole fabric of
+naval discipline not only in the German but in every other Service,
+including our own. Our officers saw more clearly than did the then First
+Lord that no Naval Service can remain efficient for a day if it be
+encouraged to discriminate between the several orders conveyed to it,
+and to claim for itself a moral right to select what shall be obeyed and
+what disobeyed.
+
+Germany had no maritime traditions and a scanty seafaring population to
+assist her. Her seaboard upon the North Sea is a maze of shallows and
+sandbanks, through which devious channels leading to her naval and
+commercial bases are kept open only by continuous dredging. God has made
+Plymouth Sound, Spithead and the Firth of Forth; the Devil, it is
+alleged, has been responsible for Scapa and the Pentland Firth in
+winter; but man, German man, has made the navigable mouths of the Elbe,
+the Weser and the Ems. The Baltic is an inland sea upon which the
+coasting trade had for centuries been mainly in the hands of
+Scandinavians. Until late in the nineteenth century Germany was one of
+the least maritime of all nations; almost at a leap she sprang into the
+position of one of the greatest. It is said that peoples get the
+governments which they deserve; it is certainly true that when peoples
+are blind their governments shut their eyes. In the Country of the Blind
+the one-eyed man is not King; he is flung out for having the
+impertinence to pretend to see. In a state of blindness or of careless
+indifference we made Germany a present of Heligoland in 1890. It looked
+a poor thing, a crumbling bit of waste rock, and when the Kaiser asked
+for it he received the gift almost without discussion. Both our
+Government and Court at that time were almost rabidly pro-German. We all
+cherished so much suspicion of France and Russia that we had none left
+to spare for Germany. Heligoland was then of no great use to us, but it
+was of incalculable value to our future enemies. A German Heligoland
+fortified, equipped with airship sheds and long-distance wireless, a
+shelter for submarines, was to the new German Navy only second in value
+to the Kiel Canal. Islands do not “command” anything beyond range of
+their guns, especially when they have no harbours; but Heligoland,
+though it in no sense commanded the approach to the German bases, was an
+invaluable outpost and observation station. It is a little island of
+crumbling red rock, preserved only by man’s labour from vanishing into
+the sea; it is a mile long and less than one-third of a mile wide; it is
+28 miles from the nearest mainland. Yet when we gave to Germany this
+scrap of wasting rock, we gave her the equivalent in naval value of a
+fleet. We secured her North Sea bases from our sudden attacks, and we
+gave her an observation station from which she could direct attacks
+against ourselves.
+
+Heligoland, a free gift from us, was the first asset, a most valuable
+asset, which Germany was able to place to the credit side of her naval
+balance sheet. Other assets were rapidly acquired. In 1898 the building
+of the new navy seriously began, in 1900 was passed the famous German
+Navy Law setting forth a continuous programme of expansion, the back
+alley between the North Sea and the Baltic was cut through the isthmus
+of Schleswig-Holstein, and Germany as a Sea Power rose into being. The
+British people, at first amused and slightly contemptuous, became
+alarmed, and the Royal Navy, always watchful, never boastful, never
+undervaluing any possible opponent, settled down to deal in its own
+supremely efficient fashion with the German Menace.
+
+Neither the British people nor the Royal Navy were lacking in confidence
+in themselves, but neither the people nor the Navy—we are, perhaps, the
+least analytical race on earth—realised the immovable foundation upon
+which their confidence was based. The people were wise; they simply
+trusted to the Navy and gave to it whatever it asked. But the Navy,
+though fully alive to the value of its own traditions, training, and
+centuries-old skill, did not fully understand that the source of its own
+immense striking force was moral rather than material. Like its critics
+it thought over much in machines, and when it saw across the North Sea
+the outpouring of ships and guns and men which Germany called her Navy,
+it became not a little anxious about the result of a sudden unforeseen
+collision. It was, if anything, over anxious.
+
+But while this is true of the Navy as a whole, it is not true of the
+higher naval command. Away hidden in Whitehall, immersed in the study of
+problems for which the data were known and from which no secrets were
+hid, sat those who had taken the measure of the German efforts and
+gauged the value of them more justly than could the Germans themselves.
+They, the silent ones,—who never talked to representatives of the Press
+or inspired articles in the newspapers—knew that the German ships,
+especially the all-big-gun ships, generically but rather misleadingly
+called “Dreadnoughts,” were in nearly every class inferior copies of our
+own ships of two or three years earlier. The Royal Navy designed and
+built the first Dreadnought at Portsmouth in fifteen months, and
+preserved so rigid a secrecy about her details that she was a “mystery
+ship” till actually in commission. This lead of fifteen months, so
+skilfully and silently acquired, became in practice three years, for it
+reduced to waste paper all the German designs. The first Dreadnought was
+commissioned by us on December 11th, 1906; it was not until May 3rd,
+1910, that the Germans put into service the first _Nassaus_, which were
+inferior copies. Our lead gained in 1906 was more than maintained, and
+each batch of German designs showed that step by step they had to wait
+upon us to reveal to them the path of naval progress. With us the upward
+rush was extraordinarily rapid; with the Germans it was slow and
+halting—they were slow to grasp what we were about and were then slow
+to interpret in steel those of our intentions which they were able to
+discern. Once our Navy had adopted the revolutionary idea of the
+all-big-gun ship—the design was perhaps an evolution rather than a
+revolution—its constructors and designers developed the principle with
+the most astonishing rapidity. The original _Dreadnought_ was out of
+date in the designers’ minds within a year of her completion. After two
+or three years she was what the Americans call “a back number,” and when
+the War broke out we had in hand—some of them nearly completed—the
+great class of _Queen Elizabeths_ with 25 knots of speed and eight
+15-inch guns, vessels as superior to the first _Dreadnought_ in fighting
+force as she was herself superior to the light German battleships which
+her appearance cast upon the scrap heap. And Germany, in spite of her
+patient efforts, her system of espionage—which rarely seemed to
+discover anything of real importance—and her outpouring of gold, had
+even then as her best battleships vessels little better than our first
+_Dreadnought_. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the five
+_Queen Elizabeths_ and the five _Royal Sovereigns_ which we put into
+commission during the war, equipped with eighty 15-inch guns, could have
+taken on with ease the whole of the German battle fleet as it existed in
+August 1914. Up to the outbreak of war, at each stage in the race for
+weight of guns, power and speed, Britain remained fully two years ahead
+of Germany in quality and a great deal more than two years ahead in
+magnitude of output. During the war, as I will show later on, the
+British lead was prodigiously increased and accelerated.
+
+In its inmost heart, and especially in the heart of the higher command,
+the Royal Navy knew that German designers of big ships were but pale
+copyists of their own, and that the shipyards of Danzig and Stettin and
+Hamburg could not compete in speed or in quantity with its own yards and
+those of its contractors in England and Scotland. And yet knowing these
+things, there was an undercurrent of anxiety ever present both in the
+Navy and in those circles within its sphere of influence. It seemed to
+some anxious minds—especially of civilian naval students—that what was
+known could not be the whole truth, and that the Germans—belief in
+whose ingenuity and resources had become an obsession with many
+people—must have some wonderful unknown ships and still more wonderful
+guns hidden in the deep recesses behind the Frisian sandbanks. In those
+days, a year or two before August 1914, men who ought to have known
+better would talk gravely of secret shipyards where stupendous vessels
+were under construction, and of secret gunshops where the superhuman
+Krupps were at work upon designs which would change the destinies of
+nations. Anyone who has ever seen a battleship upon a building slip, and
+knows how few are the slips which can accommodate them and how few are
+the builders competent to make them, and how few can build the great
+guns and gun mountings, will smile at the idea of secret yards and
+secret construction. Details may be kept secret, as with the first
+_Dreadnought_ and with many of our super-battleships, but the main
+dimensions and purpose of a design are glaringly conspicuous to the eyes
+of the Royal Navy’s Intelligence Service. One might as well try to hide
+a Zeppelin as a battleship.
+
+As with ships so with guns. I will deal in another chapter with the
+Navy’s belief, fully justified in action, in the bigger gun—the
+straight shooting, hard hitting naval gun of ever-expanding calibre—and
+in the higher speed of ships which enables the bigger gun to be used at
+its most effective range. There was nothing new in this belief; it was
+the ripe fruit of all naval experience. Speed without hitting power is
+of little use in the battle line; hitting power without speed gives to
+an enemy the advantage of manœuvre and of escape; but speed and hitting
+power, both greater than those of an enemy, spell certain annihilation
+for him. He can neither fight nor run away. Given sufficient light and
+sea room for a fight to the finish, he must be destroyed. The North Sea
+deadlock is due to lack of room.
+
+Our guns developed in size and in power as rapidly as did our great
+ships in the capacity to carry and use them. Krupps have a very famous
+name, made famous beyond their merits by the extravagant adulation which
+for years past has been poured upon them in our own country by our own
+people. The Germans are a race of egotists, but they have never exalted
+themselves, and everything that is German, to the utterly absurd heights
+to which many fearful Englishmen have exalted them in England. Krupps
+have been bowed down to and almost worshipped as the Gods of Terror.
+Their supreme capacity for inventing and constructing the best possible
+guns has been taken as proved beyond the need of demonstration. But
+Krupps were not and are not supermen; they have had to learn their trade
+like more humble folk, and naval gun-making is not a trade which can be
+taken up one day and made perfect on the next. Krupps are good
+gun-makers, but our own naval gunshops have for years outclassed them at
+every point—in design, in size, in power, in quality, and in speed of
+production. The long wire-wound naval gun, a miracle of patient
+workmanship, is British not German. While Krupps were labouring to make
+11-inch guns which would shoot straight and not “droop” at the muzzle,
+our Navy was designing and making 12-inch and 13.5-inch weapons of far
+greater power and accuracy; when Krupps had at last achieved good
+12-inch guns, we were turning out rapidly 15-inch weapons of equal
+precision and far greater power. In naval guns Krupps lag far behind us.
+And even in land guns—well, the huge siege howitzers which battered
+Liège and Namur into powder, came not from Essen but from the Austrian
+Skoda Works at Pilsen! And among field guns, the best of the best by
+universal acclaim is the French _Soixante Quinze_, in design and
+workmanship entirely the product of French artistic skill. War is a sad
+leveller, and it has not been very kind to Krupps.
+
+Collectively, the Navy is a fount of serene knowledge and wisdom, and
+has been fully conscious of its superiority in men, in ships, and in
+guns, but individual naval officers afloat or ashore are not always
+either learned or wise. Foolish things were thought and said in 1913 and
+in 1914, which one can now recall with a smile and charitably endeavour
+to forget.
+
+The Royal Navy was, and is, as superior to that of Germany in officers
+and men as in ships and in guns. Indeed the one is the direct and
+inevitable consequence of the other. Ships and guns are not imposed upon
+the Navy by some outside intelligence; they are secretions from the
+brains and experience and traditions of the Service itself; they are the
+expressions in machinery of its Soul. One always comes back to this
+fundamental fact when making any comparison of relative values in men or
+in machines. It was the Navy’s Soul which conceived and made ready the
+ships and the guns. The officers and men are the temporary embodiment of
+that immortal Soul; it is preserved and developed in them, and through
+them is passed on to succeeding generations in the Service.
+
+Though the German Navy had not had time or opportunity to evolve within
+itself that dominant moral force which I have called a naval Soul, it
+contained both officers and men of notable fighting quality and
+efficiency. The Royal Navy no more under-rated the personality of its
+German opponents than it under-rated their ships and their guns. We
+English, though in foreign eyes we may appear to be self-satisfied, even
+bumptious, are at heart rather diffident. No nation on earth publicly
+depreciates itself as we do; no nation is so willing to proclaim its own
+weaknesses and follies and crimes. Much of this self-depreciation is
+mere humbug, little more sincere than our confession on Sunday that we
+are “miserable sinners,” but much of it is the result of our native
+diffidence. No Scotsman was ever mistrustful of himself or of his race,
+but very many Englishmen quite genuinely are. And the Navy being, as it
+always has been, English of the English, tends to be modest, even
+diffident. It is always learning, always testing itself, always seeking
+after improvement; it realises out of the fullness of its experience how
+much still remains to be learned, and becomes inevitably diffident of
+its very great knowledge and skill. No man is so modest as the genuine
+unchallengeable expert.
+
+If one cannot improvise ships and guns of the highest quality by an
+exercise of the Imperial will, still less can one improvise the officers
+and men who have to man and use them. But Germany tried to do both. The
+German Navy could not secrete its ships and guns, for there was no
+considerable German navy a score of years ago; the machines were
+designed and provided for it by Vulcan and Schichau and Krupps, and the
+personnel to fight them had to be collected and trained from out of the
+best available material. The officers were largely drawn from Prussian
+families which for generations had served in the Army, and had in their
+blood that sense of discipline and warlike fervour which are invaluable
+in the leaders of any fighting force. But they had in them also the
+ruthless temper of the German Army, which we have seen revealed in its
+frightful worst in Belgium, Serbia and Poland; they knew nothing of that
+kindly chivalrous spirit which is born out of the wide salt womb of the
+Sea Mother. Many of these officers, though lacking in the Sea Spirit,
+were highly competent at their work. Von Spee’s Pacific Squadron, which
+beat Craddock off Coronel and was a little later annihilated by Sturdee
+off the Falkland Islands, was, officer for officer and man for man,
+almost as good as our best. The German Pacific Squadron was nearer the
+realisation of the naval Soul than was any other part of the German
+Navy. Admiral von Spee was a gallant and chivalrous gentleman, and the
+captain of the _Emden_, ingenious, gay, humorous, unspoiled in success
+and undaunted in defeat, was as English in spirit as he was unlike most
+of his compatriots in sentiment. The Navy and the public at home were
+right when they acclaimed von Spee and von Müller as seamen worthy to
+rank with their own Service.
+
+The German Pacific Squadron, being on foreign service, had not only
+picked officers of outstanding merit, but also long-service crews of
+unpressed men. It was, therefore, in organisation and personnel much
+more akin to our Navy than was the High Seas Fleet at home in which the
+men were for the most part conscripts on short service (three years)
+from the Baltic, Elbe and inland provinces. In our Service the sailors
+and marines join for twenty-one years, and in actual practice frequently
+serve very much longer. They begin as children in training-ships and in
+the schools attached to Marine barracks, and often continue in middle
+life as grave men in the petty and warrant officer ranks. The Naval
+Service is the work of their lives just as it is with the commissioned
+officers. But in the German High Seas Fleet, with its three years of
+forced service, a man was no sooner half-trained than his time was up
+and he gladly made way for a raw recruit. The German crews were not of
+the Sea nor of the Service. During the war, no doubt, they became better
+trained. The experienced seamen were not discharged and the general
+level of skill arose; the best were passed into the submarines which
+alone of the Fleet were continuously at work on the sea. In our own
+Navy, in consequence of the very great increase in the number of ships,
+both large and small, the professional sailors had to be diluted by the
+calling up of Naval Reservists, and by the expansion of the Royal Naval
+Volunteer Reserve. But unlike Germany we had, fortunately for ourselves,
+an almost limitless maritime population from which to draw the new naval
+elements. Fishermen at the call of their country flocked into the
+perilous service of mine sweeping and patrolling, young men from the
+seaports readily joined the Volunteer detachments in training for the
+great ships, dilution was carried on deftly and with so clear a judgment
+that the general level of efficiency all round was almost completely
+maintained. That this was possible is not so remarkable as it sounds.
+The Royal Navy of the fighting ships, even after the war expansion,
+remained a very small select service of carefully chosen men. Half of
+its personnel was professional and perfectly trained, the second and new
+half was so mingled and stirred up with the first that the professional
+leaven permeated the whole mass. The Army which desired millions had to
+take what it could get; but the Navy, which counts its men in tens of
+thousands only, could pick and choose of the best. In the Army the old
+Regulars were either killed or swamped under the flood of new entrants;
+in the Navy the professionals remained always predominant. It was very
+characteristic of the proud exclusiveness of our Royal Navy, very
+characteristic of its haughty Soul, that the temporary officers were
+allotted rank marks which distinguished them at a glance, even of
+civilian eyes, from the regular Service.
+
+Though, as events proved, the Royal Navy need have felt little anxiety
+about the result of a fair trial of strength with its German opponents,
+there was one ever-present justification for that deeper apprehension
+with which the Navy in peace regarded an outbreak of war. It really was
+feared lest our Government should leave to the Germans the moment for
+beginning hostilities. It was feared lest while politicians were waiting
+and seeing the Germans would strike suddenly at their “selected moment,”
+and by a well-planned torpedo and submarine attack in time of supposed
+peace, would put themselves in a position of substantial advantage.
+There was undoubted ground for this fear. The German Government has not,
+and never has had, any scruples; it has no moral standards; if before a
+declaration of war it could have struck hard and successfully at our
+Fleets it would have seized the opportunity without hesitation. And
+realising this with the clarity of vision which distinguishes the Sea
+Service, the Navy feared lest its freedom of action should be fatally
+restricted at the very moment when its hands needed to be most free.
+
+A distinguished naval captain—now an admiral—once put the matter
+before me plainly from the naval point of view:
+
+“If the Germans secretly mobilise at a moment when a third of our big
+ships are out of commission or are under repair, they may not only by a
+sudden torpedo attack cripple our battle squadrons, but may open the
+seas to their own cruisers and submarines. We might, possibly should,
+recover in time to deal with an invasion, but in the meantime our
+overseas trade, on which you people depend at home for food and raw
+materials, would have been destroyed. And until we had fully recovered,
+not a man or a gun could be sent over sea to help France.”
+
+“Surely we should have some warning,” I objected.
+
+“You won’t get it from Germany,” said he gravely. “The little old man
+(Roberts) is right. Germany will strike when Germany’s hour has struck.
+If we are ready she will have no chance at all and knows it; she will
+not give us a chance to be ready. When she wants to cover a secret
+mobilisation she will invite parties of journalists, or provincial
+mayors, or village greengrocers to visit Berlin and to see for
+themselves how peaceful her intentions are!”
+
+That is how the Navy felt and talked during the months immediately
+before the War, and who shall say that their apprehensions were not well
+founded? What it feared was unquestionably possible, even probable. But
+happily for the Navy, and for these Islands and the Empire which it
+guards, those whom the gods seek to destroy they first drive mad. The
+wisdom of Germany’s rulers was by all of us immensely overrated. They
+fell into the utter blindness of unimaginative stupidity. They
+understood us so little that they thought us sure to desert our friends
+rather than risk the paint upon our ships and the skins upon our fat and
+slothful bodies. They watched us quarrelling among ourselves, talking
+savagely of fighting one another in Ireland—we went on doing these
+things until July 28th, 1914, four days before Germany attacked
+Belgium!—and failed to realise that the ancient fighting spirit was as
+strong in us as ever, however much it might seem to be smothered under
+the rubbish of politics and social luxury. And meanwhile, during those
+intensely critical weeks of July, while Parliament chattered about
+Ulster and politicians looked hungrily for the soft spots in one
+another’s throats, the Royal Navy was quietly, unostentatiously
+preparing for war. What the Navy then did,—moving in all things with
+its own silent, serene, masterful efficiency and grimly thanking God for
+the dense political gas clouds behind which it could conceal its
+movements from the enemy,—saved not only Great Britain and the Empire;
+it saved the civilisation of the world.
+
+Blindly Germany went on with her preparations for war against France and
+Russia, including in the programme the swallowing up of little Belgium,
+and left us wholly out of her calculations. The German battle Fleet,
+which had been engaged in peace manœuvres, was cruising off the
+Norwegian coast. Grand Admiral von Tirpitz had never expected us to
+intervene, and no naval preparations were made. The Germans were in no
+position to interfere with our disposition, or to move their cruisers
+upon our trade communications. But all through those later days of
+imminent crisis the English First Fleet lay mobilised at Portland,
+whither it had moved from Spithead, until one night it slipped silently
+away and disappeared into the northern mists. The Second and Third
+Fleets had been filled up and were completely ready for war in the early
+summer dawn of August 3rd. The big ships rushed to their war stations
+stretching from the Thames to the Orkneys and commanding both outlets
+from the North Sea; the destroyers and submarines swarmed in the Channel
+and off the sand-locked German bases. The hour had struck, everything
+had been done exactly as had been planned. The German Fleet crept into
+safety through the back door of the Kattegat and Kiel, and on the
+evening of August 4th, the British Government declared war.
+
+Germany, who thought to catch the Navy asleep, was herself caught. She
+had never believed that we either would or could fight for the integrity
+of Belgium. She went on blindly in her appointed way until suddenly her
+sight returned in a flash of bitter realisation that the Royal Navy,
+without firing a single shot, had won the first tremendous decisive,
+irreparable battle in the coming world’s war. Her chance of success at
+sea had disappeared for ever. Before her lay a long cruel dragging fight
+with the seas closed to her merchant ships and her whole Empire in a
+state of blockade. No wonder that then, and since, Germany’s fiercest
+passion of hate has been directed against us, and above all against that
+Royal Navy which shields us and strikes for us. Before a shot had been
+fired she saw herself outwitted, outmanœuvred, out-fought. “Gott strafe
+England!”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+                           THE GREAT VICTORY
+
+In naval warfare there are many actions but few battles. An action is
+any engagement between war vessels of any size, but a battle is a
+contest between ships of the battle-line—sometimes called “capital
+ships” upon the results of which depends the vital issues of a war.
+During the whole of the long contest with Napoleon, there were only two
+battles of this decisive kind—the Nile and Trafalgar.
+
+And although the fighting by sea and land went on for ten years after
+Trafalgar had given to us the supreme control of the world’s seas, there
+were no more naval battles. Battles at sea are very rare because, when
+fought out, they are so crushingly decisive. This characteristic feature
+of the great naval battle has been greatly emphasised by modern
+conditions. Upon land armies have outgrown the very earth itself;
+fighting frontiers have become lines of trenches; battles have become
+the mere swaying of these trench lines—a ripple here or there marks a
+success or failure—but the lines re-formed remain. Even after weeks or
+months of fighting, if the lines remain unbroken, neither side has
+reached a decision. War upon land between great forces is a long
+drawn-out agony of attrition.
+
+But while battles upon land have become much less decisive than in the
+simpler days of small armies and feeble weapons, fighting upon the sea
+has become much quicker, much more crushingly final, in its effects and
+results than in the days of our grandfathers. Speed and gun power are
+now everything. The faster and more powerful fleet—more powerful in its
+capacity for dealing accurate and destructive blows—can annihilate its
+enemy completely within the brief hours of a single day. The more
+powerful and faster his ships the less will the victor himself suffer.
+Only under one condition can a defeated fleet escape annihilation, and
+that is when the lack of light or of sea room snatches from the victor a
+final decision. If an enemy can get away under shelter of his shore
+fortifications, or within the protection of his minefields, he can defy
+pursuit; but if there be ample room and daylight Speed and Power wielded
+by men such as ours, will prevail with absolute mathematical
+certainty—the losers will be sunk, the victors will, by comparison, be
+little damaged. Every considerable engagement during the war has added
+convincing proof to the conclusions which our Navy drew from the
+decisive battle in the Sea of Tsushima between the Japanese and the
+Russians, and the not less decisive action upon a smaller scale in which
+the Americans destroyed the Spanish squadron off Santiago, Cuba. In both
+cases the losers were destroyed while the victors suffered little hurt.
+These outstanding lessons were not lost upon the Royal Navy, its
+officers had themselves seen both fights, and so in its silent way the
+Navy pressed upon its course always seeking after more speed, more gun
+power, and above all more numbers. “Only numbers can annihilate,” said
+Napoleon, and what the Emperor declared to be true of land fighting is
+the more true of fighting by sea. Only numbers can annihilate.
+
+Upon the evening of August 4th, 1914, I was sitting in a London office
+beside a ticking tape machine awaiting the message that the Germans had
+declined our ultimatum to withdraw from Belgium, and that war had been
+declared. “There will be a big sea battle this evening,” observed my
+companion. “There has been a big battle,” observed I, “but it is now
+over.” Although he and I used similar language we attached to the words
+very different meanings. He thought, as the bulk of the British people
+thought at that time, that the British and German battle fleets would
+meet and fight off the Frisian Islands. But I meant, and felt sure, that
+the last thing our Grand Fleet desired was to fight in restricted and
+dangerous waters, amid the perils of mines and submarines, when it had
+already won the greatest fight of the war without firing a shot or
+risking a single ship or man. There had been no “battle” in the popular
+sense, but there had in fact been achieved a tremendous decisive victory
+which through all the long months to follow would dominate the whole war
+by sea and by land. Our great battleships were at that moment cruising
+between Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and the Cromarty Firth on the
+north-eastern shores of Scotland. Our fastest battle cruisers were in
+the Firth of Forth together with many of the better pre-Dreadnought
+battleships which, though too slow for a fleet action, had heavy
+batteries available for a close fight in narrow waters. Many other older
+and slower battleships and cruisers were in the Thames. The narrow
+straits of Dover were thickly patrolled by destroyers and submarines,
+and more submarines and destroyers were on watch off the mouths of the
+Weser, the Jade, the Elbe and the Ems. Light cruisers hovered still
+farther to the north where the Skagerrak opens between Denmark and the
+Norwegian coast. The North Sea had become a _mare clausum_—no longer,
+as the mapmakers term it, a German Ocean, but one which at a single
+stroke had become overwhelmingly British.
+
+Take a map of the North Sea and consider with me for a moment the
+relative strengths and dispositions of the opposing battle fleets. There
+was nothing complicated or super-subtle about the Royal Navy’s plans; on
+the contrary they had that beautiful compelling simplicity which is the
+characteristic feature of all really great designs whether in war or in
+peace.
+
+There are two outlets to the North Sea, one wide to the north and west
+beyond the Shetlands, the other narrow and shallow to the south-west
+through the Straits of Dover. The Straits are only twenty-one miles
+wide; opposite the north of Scotland the Sea is 300 miles wide. But
+before German battleships or cruisers could get away towards the wide
+north-western outlet beyond the Shetlands they would have to steam some
+400 miles north of Heligoland. Except for the Pacific Squadron based
+upon Tsing-tau in the Far East and cruising upon the east and west
+coasts of Mexico, all the fleets of our enemy were at his North Sea
+ports or in the Baltic—a land-locked sheet of water which for the
+moment is out of our picture. From Heligoland to Scapa Flow in the
+Orkneys—where Admiral Jellicoe had his headquarters and where he had
+under his hand twenty-two of our most powerful battleships—is less than
+550 miles. Jellicoe had also with him large numbers of armoured and
+light cruisers. In the Firth of Forth, less than 500 miles from
+Heligoland, Admiral Beatty had five of the fastest and most powerful
+battle cruisers afloat and great quantities of lighter cruisers and
+destroyers. In the Thames, about 350 miles from Heligoland, lay most of
+our slower and less powerful pre-Dreadnought battleships and cruisers,
+vessels of a past generation in naval construction, but in their huge
+numbers and collective armaments a very formidable force to encounter in
+the narrow waters of the Straits of Dover.
+
+Three possible courses of action lay before the German Naval Staff. They
+had at their disposal seventeen battleships and battle cruisers built
+since the first _Dreadnought_ revolutionised the battle line, but, as I
+have already pointed out, these vessels, class for class and gun for
+gun, were lighter, slower, and less well armed than were the
+twenty-seven great war vessels at the disposal of Jellicoe and Beatty.
+The Germans could have tried to break away to the north with their whole
+battle fleet, escorting all their lighter cruisers, in the hope that
+while the battle fleets were engaged the cruisers might escape round the
+north of Scotland, and get upon our trade routes in the Atlantic. That
+was their first possible line of action—a desperate one, since Jellicoe
+and Beatty with much stronger forces lay upon the flank of their course
+to the north, and the preponderating strength and swiftness of our light
+and heavy cruisers would have meant, in all human probability, not only
+the utter destruction of the enemy’s battle fleet but also the wiping
+out of his would-be raiders. Our cruisers could have closed the passages
+between the Orkneys and Iceland long before the Germans could have
+reached them. This first heroic dash for the free spaces of the outer
+seas would have been so eminently gratifying to us that it is scarcely
+surprising that the Germans denied us its blissful realisation.
+
+[Illustration: THE NORTH SEA.]
+
+The second possible course, apparently less heroic but in its ultimate
+results probably as completely destructive for the enemy as the first
+course, would have been to bear south-west, hugging the shallows as
+closely as might be possible, and to endeavour to break a way through
+the Straits of Dover and the English Channel. From Heligoland to the
+Straits is over 350 miles, and we should have known all about the German
+dash long before they could have reached the Narrows. Those Narrow Seas
+are like the neck of a bottle which would have been corked most
+effectually by our serried masses of pre-Dreadnought battleships and
+cruisers interspersed by swarming hundreds of submarines and destroyers
+with their vicious torpedo stings. We can quite understand how the
+Germans, who had read Sir Percy Scott’s observations of a month or two
+before on the deadliness of submarines in narrow waters, liked a dash
+for the Straits as little as they relished a battle with Jellicoe and
+Beatty in the far north, more especially as their line of retreat would
+have been cut off by the descent from their northern fastnesses of our
+battle fleets. Not then, nor a week or two later when we were passing
+our Expeditionary Force across the Channel, did the Germans attempt to
+break through the Straits and cut us off from our Allies the French.
+
+The third course was the one which the Germans in fact took. It was the
+famous course of Brer Rabbit, to lie low and say nuffin’, and to wait
+for happier times when perchance the raids of their own submarines, and
+our losses from mines, might so far diminish our fighting strength as to
+permit them to risk a Battle of the Giants with some little prospect of
+success. And in adopting this waiting policy they did what we least
+desired and what, therefore, was the safest for them and most
+embarrassing for us. Never at any time did we attempt to prevent the
+German battle fleets from coming out. We no more blockaded them than
+Nelson a hundred years earlier blockaded the French at Toulin and Brest.
+We maintained, as Nelson did, a perpetual unsleeping watch on the
+enemy’s movements, but our desire always was the same as Nelson’s—to
+let the enemy come out far enough to give us space and time within which
+to compass his complete and final destruction.
+
+Although the Germans, by adopting a waiting policy, prevented the Royal
+Navy from fulfilling its first duty—the seeking out and destruction of
+an enemy’s fighting fleets—their inaction emphasised the completeness
+of the Victory of Brains and Soul which the Navy had won during those
+few days before the outbreak of war. It was because our mobilisation had
+been so prompt and complete, it was because the disposition of our
+fleets had been so perfectly conceived, that the Germans dared not risk
+a battle with us in the open and were unable to send out their cruisers
+to cut off our trading ships and to break our communications with
+France. Although the enemy’s fleets had not been destroyed, they had
+been rendered very largely impotent. We held, more completely than we
+did even after the crowning mercy of Trafalgar, the command of the seas
+of the world. The first great battle was bloodless but complete, it had
+won for us and for the civilised world a very great victory, and the
+Royal Navy had never in its long history more fully realised and
+revealed its tremendous unconquerable Soul.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It may be of some little interest, now that the veil of secrecy can be
+partly raised, to describe the opposing battle fleets upon which rested
+the decision of victory or defeat. Before the war it had become the
+habit of many critics, both naval and civilian, to exalt the striking
+power of the torpedo craft—both destroyers and submarines—and to talk
+of the great battleship as an obsolete monster, as some vast Mammoth at
+the mercy of a wasp with a poison sting. But the war has shown that the
+Navy was right to hold to the deep beliefs, the outcome of all past
+experience, that supremacy in the battle line means supremacy in Sea
+Control. The smaller vessels, cruisers, and mosquito craft, are vitally
+necessary for their several rôles,—without them the great ships cannot
+carry out a commercial blockade, cannot protect trade or transports,
+cannot conduct those hundreds of operations both of offence and defence
+which fall within the duties of a complete Navy. But the ultimate
+decision rests with the Battle Fleets. They are the Fount of Power.
+While they are supreme, the seas are free to the smaller active vessels;
+without such supremacy, the seas are closed to all craft, except to
+submarines and, as events have proved, to a large extent even to those
+under-water wasps.
+
+In August, 1914, our Battle Fleets available for the North Sea—and at
+the moment of supreme test no vessels, however powerful, which were not
+on the spot were of any account at all—were not at their full strength.
+The battleships were all at home—the ten Dreadnoughts, each with ten
+12-inch guns, the four Orions, the four K.G.V.s and the four Iron Dukes,
+each with their ten 13.5-inch guns far more powerful than the earlier
+Dreadnoughts,—and were all fully mobilised by August 3rd. But of our
+nine fast and invaluable battle cruisers as many as four were far away.
+The _Australia_ was at the other side of the globe, and three others had
+a short time before been despatched to the Mediterranean. Beatty had the
+_Lion_, _Queen Mary_, and _Princess Royal_, each with eight 13.5-inch
+guns and twenty-nine knots of speed, in addition to the _New Zealand_,
+and _Invincible_ each with eight 12-inch guns. The First Lord of the
+Admiralty announced quite correctly that we had mobilised thirty-one
+ships of the battle line, but actually in the North Sea at their war
+stations upon that fateful evening of August 4th—which now seems so
+long ago—Jellicoe and Beatty had twenty-seven only of first line
+ships. They were enough as it proved, but one rather grudged at
+that time, those three in the Mediterranean and the _Australia_ at
+the Antipodes. Had there been a battle of the Giants we should have
+needed them all, for only numbers can annihilate. Jellicoe had, in
+addition to those which I have reckoned, the _Lord Nelson_ and
+_Agamemnon_—pre-Dreadnoughts, each with four 12-inch guns and ten
+9.2-inch guns—useful ships but not of the first battle line.
+
+Opposed to our twenty-seven available monsters the Germans had under
+their hands eighteen completed vessels of their first line. I do not
+count in this select company the armoured cruiser _Blücher_, with her
+twelve 8-inch guns, which was sunk later on in the Dogger Bank action by
+the 13.5-inch weapons of Beatty’s great cruisers. Neither do I count the
+fine cruiser _Goeben_, a fast vessel with ten 11-inch guns which, like
+our three absent battle cruisers, was in the Mediterranean. The _Goeben_
+escaped later to the Dardanelles and ceased to be on the North Sea roll
+of the German High Seas Fleet.
+
+Germany had, then, eighteen battleships and battle cruisers, and had it
+been known to the public that our apparent superiority in available
+numbers was only 50 per cent. in the North Sea, many good people might
+have trembled for the safety of their homes and for the honour of their
+wives and daughters. But luckily they did not know, for they could with
+difficulty have been brought to understand that naval superiority rests
+more in speed and in quality and in striking power than in the mere
+numbers of ships. When I have said that numbers only can annihilate, I
+mean, of course, numbers of equal or superior ships. In quality of ships
+and especially of men, in speed and in striking power, our twenty-seven
+ships had fully double the strength of the eighteen Germans who might
+have been opposed to them in battle. None of our vessels carried
+anything smaller—for battle—than 12-inch guns, and fifteen of them
+bore within their turrets the new 13.5-inch guns of which the weight of
+shell and destructive power were more than 50 per cent. greater than
+that of the earlier 12-inch weapons. On the other hand, four of the
+German battleships (the _Nassau_ class) carried 11-inch guns and were
+fully two knots slower in speed than any of the British first line.
+Three of their battle cruisers also had 11-inch guns. While therefore we
+had guns of 12 and 13.5 inches the Germans had nothing more powerful to
+oppose to us than guns of 11 and 12 inches. Ship for ship the Germans
+were about two knots slower than ourselves, so that we always had the
+advantage of manœuvre, the choosing of the most effective range, and the
+power of preventing by our higher speed the escape of a defeated foe.
+Had the Germans come north into the open sea, we could have chosen
+absolutely, by virtue of our greater speed, gun power and numbers, the
+conditions under which an action should have been fought and how it
+should have been brought to a finish.
+
+An inch or two in the bore of a naval gun, a few feet more or less of
+length, may not seem much to some of my readers. But they should
+remember that the weight of a shell, and the weight of its explosive
+charge, vary as the _cube_ of its diameter. A 12-inch shell is a third
+heavier than one of 11 inches, while a 13.5-inch shell is more than
+one-half heavier than a 12-inch and twice as heavy as one of 11 inches
+only. The power of the bursting charge varies not as the weight, but as
+the _square_ of the weight of a shell. The Germans were very slow to
+learn the naval lesson of the superiority of the bigger gun and the
+heavier shell. It was not until after the Dogger Bank action when
+Beatty’s monstrous 13.5-inch shells broke in a terrible storm upon their
+lighter-armed battle cruisers that the truth fully came home to them.
+Had Jellicoe and Beatty fought the German Fleet in the wide spaces of
+the upper North Sea in August, 1914, we should have opposed a fighting
+efficiency in power and weight of guns of more than two to one. Rarely
+have the precious qualities of insight and foresight been more
+strikingly shown forth than in the superiority in ships, in guns, and in
+men that the Royal Navy was able to range against their German
+antagonists in those early days of August, when the fortunes of the
+Empire would have turned upon the chances of a naval battle. In the long
+contest waged between 1900 and 1914, in the bloodless war of peace, the
+spiritual force of the Navy had gained the victory; the enemy had been
+beaten, and knew it, and thenceforward for many months, until the spring
+of 1916, he abode in his tents. Whenever he did venture forth it was not
+to give battle but to kill some women, some babes, and then to scuttle
+home to proclaim the dazzling triumph which “Gott” had granted to his
+arms.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It may seem to many a fact most extraordinary that in August, 1914, not
+one of our great ships of the first class—the so-called
+“super-Dreadnoughts”—upon which we depended for the domination of the
+seas and the security of the Empire, not one was more than three years
+old. The four Orions—_Orion_, _Conqueror_, _Thunderer_ and
+_Monarch_—were completed in 1911 and 1912. The four K.G. Fives—_King
+George V_, _Centurion_, _Ajax_, and _Audacious_ in 1912 and 1913; and
+the four Iron Dukes—_Iron Duke_, _Marlborough_, _Emperor of India_ and
+_Benbow_—in 1914. All these new battleships carried ten 13.5-inch guns
+and had an effective speed of nearly 23 knots. The super-battle
+cruisers—_Lion_, _Queen Mary_ and _Princess Royal_—were completed in
+1912, carried eight 13.5-inch guns, and had a speed of over 29 knots.
+Upon these fifteen ships, not one of which was more than three years
+old, depended British Sea Power. The Germans had nothing, when the war
+broke out, which was comparable with these fifteen splendid monsters.
+Their first line battleships and battle cruisers completed in the
+corresponding years, from 1911 to 1914—their “opposite numbers” as the
+Navy calls them—were not superior in speed, design and power of guns to
+our Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers, which had already
+passed into the second class, and which, long before the war ended, had
+sunk to the third class. But the newness and overwhelming superiority of
+our true first line do not surprise those who realise that these fifteen
+great ships were the fine flower of our naval brains and soul. The new
+Navy of the three years immediately preceding the war was simply the old
+Navy writ large. As the need had arisen, so had the Navy expanded to
+meet it. The designs for these fifteen ships did not fall down from
+Heaven; they were worked out in naval brains years before they found
+their material expression in steel. The vast ships issued forth upon the
+seas, crushingly superior to anything which our enemy could put into
+commission against us, because our naval brains were superior to his and
+our naval Soul was to his as a white glowing flame to a tallow candle.
+In a sentence, while Germany was laboriously copying our Dreadnoughts we
+had cast their designs aside, and were producing at a speed, with which
+he could not compete, Orions, K.G. Fives, Iron Dukes and Lions.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The North Sea, large as it may appear upon a map, is all too small for
+the manœuvres of swift modern fleets. No part of that stretch of water
+which lies south of the Dogger Bank—say, from the Yorkshire coast to
+Jutland—is far enough removed from the German bases to allow of a sure
+and decisive fleet action. There was no possibility here of a clean
+fight to a finish. An enemy might be hammered severely, some of his
+vessels might be sunk—Beatty showed the German battle cruisers what we
+could do even in a stern chase at full speed—but he could not be
+destroyed. On the afternoon and night of May 31st-June 1st, 1916, the
+Grand Fleet had the enemy enveloped and ripe for destruction, but were
+robbed of full victory by mist and darkness and the lack of sea room.
+Nelson spoke with the Soul of the Navy when he declared that a battle
+was not won when any enemy ship was enabled to escape destruction. So
+while the divisions of the Grand Fleet, and especially the fastest
+battle cruisers of some twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots speed (about
+thirty-three miles per hour) neglected no opportunity to punish the
+enemy ships that might venture forth, what every man from Jellicoe to
+the smallest ship boy really longed and prayed for, was a brave ample
+battle in the deep wide waters of the north. Here there was room for a
+newer and greater Trafalgar, though even here the sea was none too
+spacious. Great ships, which move with the speed of a fairly fast train
+and shoot to the extreme limits of the visible horizon, really require a
+boundless Ocean in which to do their work with naval thoroughness. But
+the upper North Sea would have served, and there the Grand Fleet waited,
+ever at work though silent, ever watchfully ready for the Great Day. And
+while it waited it controlled by the mere fact of its tremendous power
+of numbers, weight, and position the destinies of the civilised world.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The task of the Royal Navy in the war would have been much simpler had
+the geography of the North Sea been designed by Providence to assist us
+in our struggle with Germany. We made the best of it, but were always
+sorely handicapped by it. The North Sea was too shallow, too well
+adapted for the promiscuous laying of mines, and too wide at its
+northern outlet for a really close blockade. Had the British Isles been
+slewed round twenty degrees further towards Norway, so that the outlet
+to the north was as narrow as that to the English Channel—and had there
+been a harbour big enough for the Grand Fleet between the Thames and the
+Firth of Forth—then our main bases could have been placed nearer to
+Germany and our striking power enormously increased. We could then have
+placed an absolute veto upon the raiding dashes which the Germans now
+and then made upon the eastern English seaboard. As the position in fact
+existed we could not place any of our first line ships further south
+than the Firth of Forth—and could place even there only our fastest
+vessels—without removing them too far from the Grand Fleet’s main
+concentration at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Invergordon in the Cromarty
+Firth was used as a rest and replenishing station. The German
+raids—what Admiral Jellicoe called their tactics of “tip and run”—were
+exasperating, but they could not be allowed to interfere with the naval
+dispositions upon which the whole safety of the Empire depended. We had
+to depend on the speed of our battle cruisers in the Firth of Forth to
+give us opportunity to intercept and punish the enemy. The German battle
+cruisers which fired upon Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools were
+nearly caught—a few minutes more of valuable time and a little less of
+sea haze would have meant their destruction. A second raid was
+anticipated and the resulting Dogger Bank action taught the enemy that
+the Navy had a long arm and long sight. For a year he digested the
+lesson, and did not try his luck again until April, 1916, when he dashed
+forth and raided Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast. The story of this raid
+is interesting. The Grand Fleet had been out a day or two before upon
+what it called a “stunt,” a parade in force of the Jutland coast and the
+entrance to the Skaggerak. It had hunted for the Germans and found them
+not, and returning to the far north re-coaled the ships. The Germans,
+with a cleverness which does them credit, launched their Lowestoft raid
+immediately after the “stunt” and before the battle cruisers,
+re-coaling, could be ready to dash forth. Even as it was they did not
+cut much time to waste. It was a dash across, a few shots, and a dash
+back.
+
+Then was made a re-disposition of the British Squadrons, not in the
+least designed to protect the east coast of England—though the enemy
+was led to believe so—but so to strengthen Beatty’s Battle Cruiser
+Squadrons that the enemy’s High Seas Fleet, when met, could be fought
+and held until Jellicoe with his battle squadrons could arrive and
+destroy it. The re-disposition consisted of two distinct movements.
+First: the pre-Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers which had
+been stationed in the Forth were sent to the Thames. Second: Admiral
+Evan-Thomas’s fifth battle squadron of five Queen Elizabeth battleships
+(built since the war began)—of twenty-five knots speed and each
+carrying eight 15-inch guns—_Queen Elizabeth_, _Barham_, _Valiant_,
+_Warspite_, and _Malaya_—were sent from Scapa to the Firth of Forth to
+reinforce Beatty and to give him a support which would enable him and
+Evan-Thomas to fight a delaying action against any force which the
+Germans could put to sea. Three of the Invincible type of battle
+cruisers were moved from the Forth to Scapa to act as Jellicoe’s advance
+guard, and to enable contact to be quickly made between Beatty and
+Jellicoe. But for this change in the Grand Fleet’s dispositions, which
+enabled the four splendid battleships—_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_
+and _Malaya_ (the _Queen Elizabeth_ was in dock)—to engage the whole
+High Seas Fleet on the afternoon of May 31st, 1916, while Beatty headed
+off the German battle cruisers and opened the way for Jellicoe’s
+enveloping movement, the Battle of Jutland could never have been fought.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+               WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA “STUNT”
+                “_So young and so untender!_”—KING LEAR
+
+For more than eighteen months the Grand Fleet had been at war. It was
+the centre of the great web of blockading patrols, mine-sweeping
+flotillas, submarine hunters, and troop-transport convoys, and yet as a
+Fleet it had never seen the enemy nor fired a shot except in practice.
+The fast battle cruisers, stationed nearest to the enemy in the Firth of
+Forth had grabbed all the sport that was going in the Bight of
+Heligoland, or in the Dogger Bank action. But though several of the
+vessels belonging to the Grand Fleet had picked up some share in the
+fighting—at the Falkland Islands and in the Dardanelles—Jellicoe with
+his splendid squadrons still waited patiently for the Day. The perils
+from submarines had been mastered, and those from mines, cast into the
+seas by a reckless enemy, had been made of little account by continuous
+sweeping. The early eagerness of officers and men had given place to a
+sedate patience. At short intervals the vast Fleet would issue forth
+and, attended by its screen of destroyers and light cruisers, would make
+a stately parade of the North Sea. All were prepared for battle when it
+came, but as the weeks passed into months and the months into years, the
+parades became practice “stunts,” stripped of all expectation of
+encountering the enemy and devoid of the smallest excitement. The Navy
+knows little of excitement or of thrills—it has too much to think about
+and to do. At Action Stations in a great ship, not one man in ten ever
+sees anything but the job immediately before him. The enemy, if enemy
+there be in sight from the spotting tops, is hidden from nine-tenths of
+the officers and crew by steel walls. So, if even a battle be devoid of
+thrills—except those painfully vamped up upon paper after the event—a
+“stunt,” without expectation of battle, becomes the most placid of sea
+exercises. I will describe such a “stunt” as faithfully as may be,
+adding thereto a little imaginary incident which will, I hope, gratify
+the reader, even though he may be assured in advance that I invented it
+for his entertainment.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It was the beginning of the afternoon watch, and the vast harbour of
+Scapa Flow was very still and sunny and silent. The hands were sitting
+about smoking, or “caulking” after their dinner, and the noisome “both
+watches” call was still some fifteen minutes away. But though everything
+appeared to be perfectly normal and sedate, an observant Officer of the
+Watch, looking through the haze within which the Fleet flagship lay
+almost invisible against the dark hills, could see a little wisp of
+colour float to her yards and remain. Forthwith up to the yards of every
+vessel in harbour ran an exactly similar hoist, and as it was dipped on
+the flagship it disappeared from sight upon all. It was the signal to
+prepare for sea, and now mark exactly how such a signal—seemingly so
+momentous to a civilian—is received by the Navy at war.
+
+If the Officer of the Watch upon a ship knows his signals he will put
+his glass back under his arm and think, “Good, I’ve got off two days’
+harbour watch keeping at least; my first and middle, too.” The signal
+hands on the bridge look at the calm sea, which will for once not drench
+them and skin their hands on the halliards, and gratefully regard the
+windless sky under which hoists will slide obediently up the mast and
+not tug savagely like a pair of dray horses. The signal bos’n turns
+purple with fierce resentment which he does not really feel, for he will
+be up all day and half the night beside the Officer of the Watch on the
+bridge running the manœuvring signals, and he loves to feel
+indispensable. There is no excitement on the mess decks, only a smile
+since sea means a period of peace of mind when parades and polishings
+are suspended, and one keeps three watches or sleeps in a turret all
+night and half the day. Besides there is deep down in the minds of all
+the hope that, in spite of a hundred duds and wash-outs and
+disappointments, this trip may just possibly lead to that glorious scrap
+that all have been longing for, and have come to regard as about as
+imminent as the Day of Judgment. The gunnery staff look important and
+the “garage men”—armourers and electricians, commonly called L.T.O.s,
+in unspeakable overalls carrying spanners and circuit-testing
+lamps—float round the turrets looking for little faults and flies in
+the amber. The bad sailors shiver, though there is hope even for them in
+the silence and calmness of the sky. There is no obvious bustle of
+preparation, for the best of reasons: there is nothing to do except to
+close sea doors and batten down; the Fleet is Already Prepared. Let the
+reader please brush from his mind any idea of excitement, any idea of
+unusualness, any idea of bustle; none of these things exist when the
+Grand Fleet puts to sea. The signal which ran up to the yards of the
+flagship and was repeated by all the vessels in the Fleet read: “Prepare
+to leave harbour,” and simply meant that the Fleet was going out,
+probably that night, and that no officer could leave his ship to go and
+dine with his friends in some other ship’s wardroom.
+
+By and by up goes another little hoist, also universally acknowledged;
+this makes the stokers and the engine room artificers, and the
+purple-ringed, harassed-looking engineer officers jump lively down below
+so as to cut the time notice for full steam down by half and be ready to
+advance the required speed by three knots or so.
+
+The sun dips and evening comes on; a glorious evening such as one only
+gets fairly far north in the spring, and a signal comes again, this
+time: “Raise steam for —— knots and report.” Now one sees smoke
+pouring forth continuously from the coal-driven ships, and every now and
+then a great gust of cold oil vapour from the aristocratic new
+battleships whose fires are fed with oil only.
+
+Dinner in the wardroom starts in a blaze of light and a buzz of talking,
+and the band plays cheerfully on the half-deck outside. The King’s
+health is drunk and the band settles down to an hour of ragtime and
+waltzes, the older men sip their port, and the younger ones drift out to
+where the gun room is already dancing lustily. Our wonderful Navy dances
+beautifully, and loves every evening after dinner to execute the most
+difficult of music-hall steps in the midst of a wild Corybantic orgie.
+In the choosing of partners age and rank count for nothing. The wardroom
+and gun room after dinner are members of one happy family.
+
+Then suddenly the scene is transformed. In the doorway of the anteroom
+and dining-room appears framed the tall form of the Owner, who in a
+dozen words tells that the Huns are out. They are in full force
+strolling merrily along a westerly course far away to the south. Already
+the battle-cruisers from the Forth are seeking touch with the enemy, and
+the light stuff and the advance destroyers, the screen of the Grand
+Fleet, have already flown from Scapa to make contact with the battle
+cruisers. Our armoured cruisers have moved out in advance and the Grand
+Fleet itself is about to go.
+
+As the wardroom gathers round the Owner, the band packs up hastily and
+vanishes down the big hatch into the barracks or Marines’ mess to stow
+its instruments and put on warm clothing. Those snotties who have the
+first watch scatter, and the remainder gather in the gun room to turn
+over the chances on the morrow which seems to their eager souls more
+mist-shrouded and promising than have most morrows during the long
+months of waiting.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Let us now shift the scene to the compass platform or Monkey’s Island of
+one of the great new oil-fired battleships of the Fifth Battle Squadron,
+one of the five ships known as Queen Elizabeths—all added to the Navy
+since the war began and all members of the most powerful and fastest
+squadron of battleships upon the seas of the world. They have a speed of
+twenty-five knots, carry eight 15-inch guns in four turrets arranged on
+the middle line, and have upon each side a battery of six 6-inch guns in
+casemates for dealing faithfully and expeditiously with enemy destroyers
+who may seek to rush in with the torpedo. As our ship passes out into
+the night, the port and starboard 6-inch batteries are fully manned and
+loaded, and up on the compass platform, in control of these batteries,
+are two young officers—a subaltern of Marines and a naval
+sub-lieutenant—to each of whom is allotted one of the batteries. One
+has charge of the port side, the other of the starboard. I have called
+the Navy a young man’s service, and here we see a practical example; for
+beneath us is the last word in super-battleships dependent for
+protection against sudden torpedo attack upon the bright eyes and cool
+trained brains of two youngsters counting not more than forty years
+between them. I will resume my description and put it in the mouth of
+one of these youthful control officers—the Marine subaltern who a year
+before had been a boy at school:
+
+“Going to the gun room I warn the Sub, my trusted friend and fellow
+control officer on the starboard side, and depart to my cabin, where I
+dress as for a motor run on a cold day. I have a great Canadian fur cap
+and gorgeous gloves which defeat the damp and cold even of the North
+Sea. As I stand on the quarter deck for a moment’s glance at the sunset,
+which I cannot hope to describe, there comes a sound, a sort of hollow
+metallic clap and a flicker of flame. They are testing electric circuits
+in the 6-inch battery, and No. 5 gun port has fired a tube. These sounds
+recur at short intervals from both sides for a couple of minutes. Then
+the gun layers are satisfied and stop. I go along the upper deck above
+the battery—which is in casemates between decks—and reach the pagoda,
+and then pass up, up, through a little steel door, above the signal
+bridge and the searchlights to the airy, roomy Monkey’s Island with the
+foremast in the middle of the floor, holding the spotting top—usually
+known as the topping spot, an inversion which ironically describes its
+exposed position in action—poised above our heads. There is a little
+charthouse forward of the mast on its raised date of the compass
+platform proper, where the High Priest busies himself between his two
+altars, the old and the new.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“Looking ahead it is already dark. The sea is still and the ships are
+dim black masses. We have already weighed—the Cable Officer’s call went
+as I passed along the upper deck—and are gliding to our station in the
+Squadron, all of which are moving away past those ships which have not
+yet begun to go out. Gradually we leave the rest of the Grand Fleet
+behind, for our great speed gives us the place of honour, and so pass
+outside and breast the swell of the open sea.
+
+“We find that the wind has risen outside the harbour, but there has not
+yet been time for a serious swell to get up. The water heaves slowly,
+breaking into a sharp clap which sets our attendant destroyers dancing
+like corks, but of which we take no notice whatever. This is one way in
+which the big ships score, though they miss the full joy of life and the
+passion for war which can be felt only in a destroyer flotilla. Our
+destroyer escort has arisen apparently from nowhere and we all plough on
+together. At intervals we tack a few points and the manœuvre is passed
+from ship to ship with flash lamps. Behind us, though we cannot see
+them, follows the rest of the Grand Fleet, in squadrons line ahead,
+trailing out up to, and beyond the horizon.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“That night watch on my first big ‘stunt’ lives in my memory. Never
+before had I been by myself in control of a battery of six 6-inch guns
+for use against light fast enemy craft, which might try the forlorn
+hazard of a dash to within easy torpedo range of about 500 yards.
+Torpedoes are useless against rapidly moving ships unless fired quite
+close up. This form of attack has been very rare, and has always failed,
+but it remains an ever-present possibility. Even in clear weather with
+the searchlights on—which are connected up to me and move with me—one
+cannot see for more than a mile at night, and a destroyer could rush in
+at full speed upon a zig-zag track to within point blank range in about
+a minute. Direct-aimed fire would fail at such a rapidly moving mark.
+One has to put up a curtain of fire, fast and furious for the charging
+vessel to run into. But there is no time to lose, no time at all.
+
+“There was a bright moon upon that first night, so everything was less
+unpleasant and nerve-racking than it might have been. Somehow in the
+Navy one seems to shed all feelings of nervousness. Perhaps this is the
+result of splendid health, the tonic sea air, and the atmosphere of
+serene competent resourcefulness which pervades the whole Service. We
+are all trained to think only of the job on hand and never of ourselves.
+
+“From the height of the compass platform there is no appearance of
+freeboard. The ship’s deck seems to lie flush with the water, and one
+sees it as a light-coloured shaped plank—such as one cut out of wood
+when a child and fitted with a toy mast. The outline is not regularly
+curved but sliced away at the forecastle with straight sides running
+back parallel with one another. ‘A’ turret is in the middle of the
+forecastle, which is very narrow; and behind it upon a higher level
+stands ‘B’ with its long glistening guns sticking out over ‘A’s’ back.
+From aloft the turrets look quite small, though each is big enough for a
+hundred men to stand comfortably on the roof. The slope upwards is
+continued by the great armoured conning tower behind and higher than ‘B’
+turret, and directly above and behind that again stands the compass
+platform. Overhead towers the draughty spotting top for the turret guns.
+Behind again, upon the same level as my platform, are the two great flat
+funnels spouting out dense clouds of oily smoke. When there is a
+following wind the spotting top is smothered with smoke, and the
+officers perched there cough and gasp and curse. It is then worthy of
+its name, for it is in truth a ‘topping spot!’
+
+“We are a very fast ship, but at this height the impression of speed is
+lost. The ship seems to plough in leisurely fashion through the black
+white-crested waves, now and then throwing up a cloud of spray as high
+as my platform, to descend crashing upon ‘A’ turret, which is none too
+dry a place to sleep in. We don’t roll appreciably, but slide up and
+down with a dignified pitch, exactly like the motion of that patent
+rocking-horse which I used to love in my old nursery.
+
+“Down below, though they are hidden from me by the deck, the gunners
+stand ready behind their casemates, waiting for my signal. The guns are
+loaded and trained, the crews stand at their stations, shells and
+cordite charges are ready to their hands. The gun-layers are connected
+up with me and are ready to respond instantly to my order.
+
+“So the watch passes; my relief comes, and I go.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“I was on watch again in the forenoon, and then one could see something
+of the Grand Fleet and realise its tremendous silent power. We had
+shortened speed so as not to leave the supporting Squadrons too far
+behind and one could see them clearly, long lines of great ships,
+stretching far beyond the visible horizon. Nearest to us was the cream
+of the Fleet, the incomparable Second Squadron—the four Orions and four
+K.G. Fives—which with their eighty 13.5-inch guns possess a
+concentrated power far beyond anything flying Fritz’s flag. Upon us of
+the Queen Elizabeths, and upon the Second Battle Squadron, rests the
+Mastery of the Seas. Far away on the port quarter could be seen the
+leading ships of the First Battle Squadron of Dreadnoughts, all ships of
+12-inch guns, all good enough for Fritz but not in the same class with
+the Orions, the K.G. Fives or with us. Away to starboard came more
+Dreadnoughts, and Royal Sovereigns—as powerful as ourselves but not so
+fast—and odd ships like the seven-turreted _Agincourt_ and the 14-inch
+gunned _Canada_. It was a great sight, one to impress Fritz and to make
+his blood turn to water.
+
+“For he could see us as we thrashed through the seas. It looked no
+larger than a breakfast sausage, and I had some difficulty in making it
+out—even after the Officer of the Watch had shown it to me. But at last
+I saw the watching Zeppelin—a mere speck thousands of feet up and
+perhaps fifty miles distant. Our seaplanes roared away, rising one after
+the other from our carrying-ships like huge seagulls, and Herr Zeppelin
+melted into the far-off background of clouds. He had seen us, and that
+was enough to keep the Germans at a very safe distance. He, or others
+like him, had seen, too, our battle cruisers which, sweeping far down to
+the south, essayed to play the hammer to our most massive anvil. In the
+evening, precisely at ten o’clock, the German Nordeich wireless sent out
+a volley of heavy chaff, assuring us that we had only dared to come out
+when satisfied that their High Seas Fleet was in the Baltic. It wasn’t
+in the Baltic; at that moment it was scuttling back to the minefields
+behind Heligoland. But what could we do? When surprise is no longer
+possible at sea, what can one do? It is all very exasperating, but
+somehow rather amusing.
+
+“We joined the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the south and swept the
+‘German Ocean’ right up to the minefields off the Elbe and Weser, and
+north to the opening of the Skaggerak. Further we could not go, for any
+foolish attempt to ‘dig out’ Fritz might have cost us half the Grand
+Fleet. Then our ’stunt’ ended, we turned and sought once more our
+northern fastnesses.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It was during the return from this big sweep of the North Sea that our
+young Marine chanced upon his baptism of fire and his first Great
+Adventure. His chance came suddenly and unexpectedly—as chances usually
+come at sea—and I will let him tell of it himself in that personal
+vivid style of his with which I cannot compete.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“The wonderful thing has happened! I have been in action! It was not a
+great battle; it was not what the hardiest evening newspaper could blaze
+upon its bills as a Naval Action in the North Sea. From first to last it
+endured for one minute and forty seconds; yet for me it was the Battle
+of the Century. For it was my own, my very own, my precious ewe lamb of
+a battle. It was fought by me on my compass platform and by my bold
+gunners in the 6-inch casemates below. All by our little selves we did
+the trick, before any horrid potentates could interfere, and the enemy
+is at the bottom of the deep blue sea—it is not really very deep and
+certainly is not blue. What I most love about my battle is that it was
+fought so quickly that no one—and especially none of those tiresome
+folks called superior officers—had any opportunity of kicking me off
+the stage. All was over, quite over, and my guns had ceased firing
+before the Owner had tumbled out of his sea cabin in the pagoda, and
+best of all before my gunnery chief had any chance to snatch the control
+away from me. He came charging up, red and panting, while the air still
+thudded with my curtain fire, and wanted to know what the devil I was
+playing at. ‘I have sunk the enemy, sir,’ I said, saluting. ‘What
+enemy?’ cried he, ‘I never saw any enemy.’ ‘He’s gone, sir,’ said I
+standing at attention. ‘I hit him with three 6-inch shells and he is
+very dead indeed.’ ‘It’s all right,’ called out the Officer of the
+Watch, laughing. ‘This young Soldier here has been and gone and sunk one
+of Fritz’s destroyers. He burst her all to pieces in a manner most
+emphatic. I call it unkind. But he always was a heartless young beast.’
+Then the Bloke, who is a very decent old fellow, cooled down, said I was
+a lucky young dog, and received my official report. He carried it off to
+the Lord High Captain—whom the Navy people call the Owner—and the
+great man was so very kind as to speak to me himself. He said that I had
+done very well and that he would make a note of my prompt attention to
+duty. I don’t suppose that I shall ever again fight so completely
+satisfying a naval battle, for I am not likely to come across another
+one small enough to keep wholly to myself.
+
+“I will tell you all about it. I was up on my platform at my watch. My
+battery of 6-inch guns was down below, all loaded with high explosive
+shell, weighing 100 lbs. each. All the gunners were ready for anything
+which might happen, but expecting nothing. So they had stood and waited
+during a hundred watches. It was greying towards dawn, but there was a
+good bit of haze and the sea was choppy. The old ship was doing her
+rocking-horse trick as usual, and also as usual I was feeling a bit
+squeamish but nothing to worry about. As the light increased I could see
+about 2,000 yards, more or less—I am not much good yet at judging sea
+distances; they look so short. The Officer of the Watch was walking up
+and down on the look-out. ‘Hullo,’ I heard him say, ‘what’s that dark
+patch yonder three points on the port bow?’ This meant thirty degrees to
+the left. I looked through my glasses and so did he, and as I could see
+nothing I switched on the big searchlight. Then there came a call from
+the Look Out near us, the dark patch changed to thick smoke, and out of
+the haze into the blaze of my searchlight slid the high forepeak of a
+destroyer. I thought it was one of our escort, and so did the Officer of
+the Watch; but as we watched the destroyer swung round, and we could see
+the whole length of her. I can’t explain how one can instantly
+distinguish enemy ships from one’s own, and can even class them and name
+them at sight. One knows them by the lines and silhouette just as one
+knows a Ford car from a Rolls-Royce. The destroyer was an enemy, plain
+even to me. She had blundered into us by mistake and was now trying hard
+to get away. I don’t know what the Officer of the Watch did—I never
+gave him a thought—my mind simply froze on to that beautiful battery of
+6-inch guns down below and on to that enemy destroyer trying to escape.
+Those two things, the battery and the enemy, filled my whole world.
+
+“Within five seconds I had called the battery, given them a range of
+2,000 yards, swung the guns on to the enemy and loosed three shells—the
+first shells which I had seen fired in any action. They all went over
+for I had not allowed for our height above the water. Then the Boche did
+an extraordinary thing. If he had gone on swinging round and dashed
+away, he might have reached cover in the haze before I could hit him.
+But his Officer of the Watch was either frightened out of his wits or
+else was a bloomin’ copper-bottomed ’ero. Instead of trying to get away,
+he swung back towards us, rang up full speed, and came charging in upon
+us so as to get home with a torpedo. It was either the maddest or the
+bravest thing which I shall ever see in my life. I ought to have been
+frightfully thrilled, but somehow I wasn’t. I felt no excitement
+whatever; you see, I was thinking all the time of directing my guns and
+had no consciousness of anything else in the world. The moment the
+destroyer charged, zig-zagging to distract our aim, I knew exactly what
+to do with him. I instantly shortened the range by 400 yards, and gave
+my gunners rapid independent fire from the whole battery. The idea was
+to put up a curtain of continuous fire about 200 yards short for him to
+run into, and to draw in the curtain as he came nearer. As he
+zig-zagged, so we followed, keeping up that wide deadly curtain slap in
+his path. There was no slouching about those beautiful long-service
+gun-layers of ours, and you should have seen the darlings pump it out. I
+have seen fast firing in practice but never anything like that. There
+was one continuous stream of shell as the six guns took up the order.
+Six-inch guns are no toys, and 100-lb. shells are a bit hefty to handle,
+yet no quick-firing cartridge loaders could have been worked faster than
+were my heavy beauties. Every ten seconds my battery spat out six great
+shells, and I steadily drew the curtain in, keeping it always dead in
+his path, but by some miracle of light or of manœuvring the enemy
+escaped destruction for a whole long minute. On came the destroyer and
+round came our ship facing her. The Officer of the Watch was swinging
+our bows towards the enemy so as to lessen the mark for his torpedo, and
+I swung my guns the opposite way as the ship turned, keeping them always
+on the charging destroyer. Away towards the enemy the sea boiled as the
+torrent of shells hit it and ricochetted for miles.
+
+“At last the end came! It seemed to have been hours since I began to
+fire, but it couldn’t really have been more than a minute; for even
+German destroyers will cover half a mile in that time. The range was
+down to 1,000 yards when he loosed a torpedo, and at that very precise
+instant a shell, ricochetting upwards, caught him close to the water
+line of his high forepeak and burst in his vitals. I saw instantly a
+great flash blaze up from his funnels as the high explosive smashed his
+engines, boilers and fires into scrap. He reared up and screamed exactly
+like a wounded horse. It sounded rather awful, though it was only the
+shriek of steam from the burst pipes; it made one feel how very live a
+thing is a ship, how in its splendid vitality it is, as Kipling says,
+more than the crew. He reared up and fell away to port, and two more of
+my shells hit him almost amidships and tore out his bottom plates like
+shredded paper. I could hear the rending crash of the explosions through
+my ear-protectors, and through the continuous roar of my own curtain
+fire. He rolled right over and was gone! He vanished so quickly that for
+a moment my shells flew screaming over the empty sea, and then I stopped
+the gunners. My battle had lasted for one minute and forty seconds!
+
+“‘But what about the torpedo?’ you will ask. I never saw it, but the
+Officer of the Watch told me that it had passed harmlessly more than a
+hundred feet away from us. ‘You sank the destroyer,’ said the Officer of
+the Watch, grinning, ‘but my masterly navigation saved the ship. So
+honours is easy, Mr. Marine. If I had had those guns of yours,’ he went
+on, ‘I would have sunk the beggar with about half that noise and half
+that expenditure of Government ammunition. I never saw such a wasteful
+performance,’ said he. But he was only pulling my leg. All the senior
+officers, from the Owner downwards, were very nice to me and said that
+for a youngster, and a Soldier at that, I hadn’t managed the affair at
+all badly.
+
+“I thought that the guns’ crews had done fine and told them so; but the
+chief gunner—a stern Marine from Eastney—shook his head sadly. No. 3
+gun had been trained five seconds late, he said, and was behind the
+others all through. He seemed to reckon the sinking of the destroyer as
+nothing in condonation of the shame No. 3 had brought upon his battery.
+I condoled with him, but he was wounded to the heart.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“The Officer of the Watch said that all the time the destroyer was
+charging she was firing small stuff at our platform with a Q.-F. gun on
+her forepeak. And I knew nothing about it! This is the simple and easy
+way in which one earns a reputation for coolness under heavy fire.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+                   WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS
+                              AND THE RATS
+
+“You missed a lot, Soldier,” said the Sub-Lieutenant to his friend the
+Marine Subaltern, “through not being here at the beginning. Now it is
+altogether too comfortable for us of the big ships; the destroyers and
+patrols get all the fun while we hang about here in harbour or put up a
+stately and entirely innocuous parade of the North Sea. No doubt we are
+Grand in our Silent Might and Keep our Unsleeping Vigil and all the rest
+of the pretty tosh which one reads in the papers—but in reality we eat
+too much for the good of our waists and do too little work for our
+princely pay. But it was very different at the beginning. Then we were
+like a herd of wild buffaloes harassed day and night by
+super-mosquitoes. When we were not on watch we were saying our prayers.
+It was a devil of a time, my son.”
+
+“I thought that you Commanded the Seas,” observed the marine, an
+innocent youth who had lately joined.
+
+The Sub-Lieutenant, dark and short, with twenty years to his age and the
+salt wisdom of five naval generations in his rich red blood, grinned
+capaciously, “So the dear simple old British Public thought. So their
+papers told them every day. We did not often get a sight of
+newspapers—there were no regular mails, as now, and none of the
+comforts of an ordered civilised life, as some ass wrote the other day
+of the Grand Fleet. What the deuce have we to do with an ordered
+civilised life! Fighting’s our job, and that’s what we want, not beastly
+comforts. While we were being chivied about by Fritz’s submarines it was
+jolly to be told that we Commanded the Seas of the World. But to me it
+sounded a bit sarcastic at a time when we had not got the length of
+commanding even the entrances to our own harbours. That’s the cold
+truth. For six months we hadn’t a submarine proof harbour in England or
+Scotland or Ireland though we looked for one pretty diligently. We
+wandered about, east and west and north, looking for some hole where the
+submarines couldn’t get in without first knocking at the door, and where
+we could lie in peace for two days together. Wherever we went it was the
+same old programme. The Zepps would smell us out and Fritz would come
+nosing around with his submarines, and we had to up anchor and be off on
+our travels once more. At sea we were all right. We cruised always at
+speed, with a destroyer patrol out on either side, so that Fritz had no
+chance to get near enough to try a shot with the torpedo. A fast moving
+ship can’t be hit except broadside on and within a range of about 400
+yards; and as we always moved twice as fast as a submerged U boat he
+never could get within sure range. He tried once or twice till the
+destroyers and light cruisers began to get him with the ram and the gun.
+Fritz must have had a good many thrilling minutes when he was fiddling
+with his rudder, his diving planes and his torpedo discharge gear and
+saw a destroyer foaming down upon him at over thirty knots. Fritz died a
+clean death in those days. I would fifty times sooner go under to the
+ram or the gun than be caught like a rat in some of the dainty traps
+we’ve been setting for a year past. We are top dog now, but I blush to
+think of those first few months. It was a most humiliating spectacle.
+Fancy fifty million pounds worth of the greatest fighting ships in the
+world scuttling about in fear of a dozen or two of footy little
+submarines any one of which we could have run up on the main derrick as
+easily as a picket boat. If I, a mere snotty in the old _Olympus_, felt
+sore in my bones what must the Owners and the Admirals have felt? Answer
+me that, Pongo?”
+
+“It’s all right now, I suppose,” said the Pongo.
+
+“Safe and dull,” replied he, “powerful dull. No chance of a battle, and
+no feeling that any day a mouldy in one’s ribs is more likely than not.
+If Fritz had had as much skill as he had pluck he would have blown up
+half the Grand Fleet. Why he didn’t I can’t imagine, except that it
+takes a hundred years to make a sailor. Our submarine officers, with
+such a target, would have downed a battleship a week easy.”
+
+“Fritz got the three Cressys.”
+
+“He simply couldn’t help,” sniffed the Sub-Lieutenant. “They asked for
+trouble; one after the other. Fritz struck a soft patch that morning
+which he is never likely to find again.”
+
+“Had the harbours no booms?”
+
+“Never a one. We had built the ships all right, but we had forgotten the
+harbours. There wasn’t one, I say, in the east or north or west which
+Fritz could not enter whenever he chose to take the risk. He could come
+in submerged, a hundred feet down, diving under the line of patrols, but
+luckily for us he couldn’t do much after he arrived except keep us busy.
+For as sure as ever he stuck up a periscope to take a sight we were on
+to him within five seconds with the small stuff, and then there was a
+chase which did one’s heart good. I’ve seen a dozen, all much alike,
+though one had a queer ending which I will tell you. It explains a lot,
+too. It shows exactly why Fritz fails when he has to depend upon
+individual nerve and judgment. He is deadly in a crowd, but pretty
+feeble when left to himself. We used to think that the Germans were a
+stolid race but they aren’t. They have nerves like red-hot wires. I have
+seen a crew come up out of a captured submarine, trembling and shivering
+and crying. I suppose that frightfulness gets over them like drink or
+drugs or assorted debauchery. Now for my story. One evening towards
+sunset in the first winter—which means six bells (about three o’clock
+in the afternoon) up here—a German submarine crept into this very
+harbour and the first we knew of it was a bit alarming. The commander
+was a good man, and if he had only kept his head, after working his way
+in submerged, he might have got one, if not two, big ships. But instead
+of creeping up close to the battleships, where they lay anchored near
+the shore, he stuck up a periscope a 1,000 yards away and blazed a
+torpedo into the brown of them. It was a forlorn, silly shot. They were
+end on to him, and the torpedo just ran between two of them and smashed
+up against the steep shore behind. The track of it on the sea was wide
+and white as a high road, and half a dozen destroyers were on to that
+submarine even before the shot had exploded against the rocks. Fritz got
+down safely—he was clever, but too darned nervous for under-water
+work—and then began a hunt which was exactly like one has seen in a
+barn when terriers are after rats. The destroyers and motor patrols were
+everywhere, and above them flew the seaplanes with observers who could
+peer down through a hundred feet of water. In a shallow harbour Fritz
+could have sunk to the bottom and lain there till after dark, but we
+have 200 fathoms here with a very steep shore and there was no bottom
+for him. A submarine can’t stand the water pressure of more than 200
+feet at the outside. He didn’t dare to fill his tanks and sink, and
+could only keep down in diving trim so long as he kept moving with his
+electric motors and held himself submerged with his horizontal planes.
+Had the motors stopped, the submarine would have come up, for in diving
+trim it was slightly lighter than the water displaced. All we had to do
+was to keep on hunting till his electric batteries had run down, and
+then he would be obliged to come up. Do you twig, Pongo?”
+
+“But he could have sunk to the bottom if he had chosen?”
+
+“Oh, yes. But then he could never have risen again. To have filled his
+tanks would have meant almost instant death. At 200 fathoms his plates
+would have crumpled like paper.”
+
+“Still I think that I should have done it.”
+
+“So should I. But Fritz didn’t. He roamed about the harbour, blind,
+keeping as deep down as he could safely go. Above him scoured the patrol
+boats and destroyers, and above them again flew the seaplanes. Now and
+then the air observers would get a sight of him and once or twice they
+dropped bombs, but this was soon stopped as the risk to our own boats
+was too great. Regarded as artillery practice bomb dropping from
+aeroplanes is simply rotten. One can’t possibly aim from a thing moving
+at fifty miles an hour. If one may believe the look outs of the
+destroyers the whole harbour crawled with periscopes, but they were
+really bully beef cans and other rubbish chucked over from the warships.
+When last seen, or believed to be seen, Fritz was blundering towards the
+line of battleships lying under the deep gloom of the shore, and then he
+vanished altogether. Night came on, the very long Northern night in
+winter, and it seemed extra specially long to us in the big ships.
+Searchlights were going all through the dark hours, the water gleamed,
+all the floating rubbish which accumulates so fast in harbour stood out
+dead black against the silvery surface, and the Officers of the Watch
+detected more periscopes than Fritz had in his whole service. The hunt
+went on without ceasing for, at any moment, Fritz’s batteries might
+peter out, and he come up. It was a bit squirmy to feel that here cooped
+up in a narrow deep sea lock were over a hundred King’s ships, and that
+somewhere below us was a desperate German submarine which couldn’t
+possibly escape, but which might blow some of us to blazes any minute.”
+
+“Did any of you go to sleep?” asked the Pongo foolishly.
+
+The Sub-Lieutenant stared. “When it wasn’t my watch I turned in as
+usual,” he replied. “Why not?
+
+“In the morning there was no sign of Fritz, so we concluded that he had
+either sunk himself to the bottom or had somehow managed to get out of
+the harbour. In either case we should not see him more. So we just
+forgot him as we had forgotten others who had been chased and had
+escaped. But he turned up again after all. For twenty-four hours nothing
+much happened except the regular routine, though after the scare we were
+all very wide awake for more U boats, and then we had orders to proceed
+to sea. I was senior snotty of the _Olympus_, and I was on the after
+look-out platform as the ship cast loose from her moorings and moved
+away, to take her place in the line. As we got going there was a curious
+grating noise all along the bottom just as if we had been lightly
+aground; everyone was puzzled to account for it as there were heaps of
+water under us. The grating went on till we were clear of our berth, and
+then in the midst of the wide foaming wake rolled up the long thin hull
+of a submarine. A destroyer dashed up, and the forward gun was in the
+act of firing when a loud voice from her bridge called on the gunners to
+stop. ‘Don’t fire on a coffin,’ roared her commander. It was the German
+submarine, which after some thirty hours under water had become a dead
+hulk. All the air had long since been used up and the crew were lying at
+their posts—cold meat, poor devils. A beastly way to die.”
+
+“Beastly,” murmured the Marine. “War is a foul game.”
+
+“Still,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant, cheerfully, “a dead Fritz is always
+much more wholesome than a live one, and here were a score of him safely
+dead.”
+
+“But what had happened to the submarine?” asked the Marine, not being a
+sailor.
+
+“Don’t you see?” explained the Sub-Lieutenant, who had held his story to
+be artistically finished. “What a Pongo it is! Fritz had wandered about
+blind, deep down under water, until his batteries had given out. Then
+the submarine rose, fouled our bottom by the merest accident, and stuck
+there jammed against our bilge keels till the movement of the ship had
+thrown it clear. It swung to the tide with us. The chances against the
+submarine rising under one of the battleships were thousands to one, but
+chances like that have a way of coming off at sea. Nothing at sea ever
+causes surprise, my son.”
+
+The Sub-Lieutenant spoke with the assurance of a grey-haired Admiral; he
+was barely twenty years old, but he was wise with the profound salt
+wisdom of the sea and will never get any older or less wise though he
+lives to be ninety.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Though our friend the young Lieutenant of Marines was no sailor he was a
+scholar, trained in the class-rooms and playing fields, of a great
+English school. He was profoundly impressed, as all outsiders must be,
+by the engrained efficiency of the seafolk among whom he now dwelt,
+their easy mastery of the technicalities of sea craft, and their almost
+childish ignorance of everything that lay outside it. It was borne in
+upon him that they were a race apart, bred to their special work as
+terriers and racehorses are bred, the perfect product of numberless
+generations of sea fighters. It was borne in upon him, too, that no
+nation coming late to the sea, like the Germans, could, though taking an
+infinity of thought, possibly stand up against us. Sea power does not
+consist of ships but of men. For a real Navy does not so much design and
+build ships as secrete them. They are the expression in machinery of its
+brains and Soul. He arrived at this conclusion after much patient
+thought and then diffidently laid it before his experienced friend. The
+Sub-Lieutenant accepted the theory at once as beyond argument.
+
+“That’s the whole secret, my son, the secret of the Navy. Fritz can’t
+design ships; he can only copy ours, and then he can’t make much of his
+copies. Take his submarine work. He has any amount of pluck, though he
+is a dirty swine; he doesn’t fail for want of pluck but because he
+hasn’t the right kind of nerve. That is where Fritz fails and where our
+boys succeed, because they were bred to the sea and their fathers before
+them, and their fathers before that. Submarining as a sport is exactly
+like stalking elephants on foot in long grass. One has to wriggle on
+one’s belly till one gets within close range, and then make sure of a
+kill in one shot. There’s no time for a second if one misses. Fritz will
+get fairly close up, sometimes—or did before we had taken his
+measure—but not that close enough to make dead sure of a hit. He is too
+much afraid of being seen when he pops his periscope above water. So he
+comes down between two stools. He is too far off for a certain hit and
+not far enough to escape being seen. That story I told you the other day
+was an exact illustration. The moment he pops up the destroyers swoop
+down upon him, he flinches, looses off a mouldy, somehow, anyhow, and
+then gets down. That sort of thing is no bally use; one doesn’t sink
+battleships that fool way. Our men first make sure of their hit at the
+closest range, and then think about getting down—or don’t get down.
+They do their work without worrying about being sunk themselves the
+instant after. That’s just the difference between us and the Germans,
+between terriers and rats. It’s no good taking partial risks in
+submarine work; one must go the whole hog or leave it alone.
+
+“Risks are queer things,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant, reflectively. “The
+bigger they are, the less one gets hurt. Just look at the seaplanes. One
+would think that the ordinary dangers of flight were bad enough—the
+failure of a stay, the misfiring of an engine, a bad gusty wind—and so
+we thought before the war. It looked the forlornest of hopes to rush
+upon an enemy plane, shoot him down at the shortest of range, or ram him
+if one couldn’t get a kill any other way. It seemed that if two planes
+stood up to one another, both must certainly be lost. And so they would.
+Yet time and again our Flight officers have charged the German planes,
+seen them run away or drop into the sea, and come off themselves with no
+more damage than a hole or two through the wings. It’s just nerve, nerve
+and breeding. When we dash in upon Fritz with submarine or seaplanes,
+taking no count of the risks, but seeking only to kill, he almost always
+either blunders or runs. It isn’t that he lacks pluck—don’t believe
+that silly libel; Fritz is as brave as men are made—but he hasn’t the
+sporting nerve. He will take risks in the mass, but he doesn’t like them
+single; we do. He doesn’t love big game shooting, on foot, alone; we do.
+He does his best; he obeys orders up to any limit; he will fight and die
+without shrinking. But he is not a natural fighting man, and he is
+always thinking of dying. We love fighting, love it so much that we
+don’t give a thought to the dying part. We just look upon the risk as
+that which gives spice to the game.”
+
+“I believe,” said the Marine, thoughtfully, “that you have exactly
+described the difference between the races. With us fighting and dying
+are parts of one great glorious game; with Fritz they are the most
+solemn of business. We laugh all the time and sing music-hall songs;
+Fritz never smiles and sings the Wacht am Rhein. I am beginning to
+realize that our irrepressible levity is a mighty potent force, mightier
+by far than Fritz’s solemnity. The true English spirit is to be seen at
+its best and brightest in the Navy, and the Navy is always ready for the
+wildest of schoolboy rags. If I had not come to sea I might myself have
+become a solemn blighter like Fritz.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+In the wardroom that evening the Marine repeated the Sub-Lieutenant’s
+story and was assured that it was true. The Navy will pull a Soldier’s
+leg with a joyous disregard for veracity, but there is a crudity about
+its invention which soon ceases to deceive. They can invent nothing
+which approaches in wonder the marvels which happen every day.
+
+The talk then fell upon the ever-engrossing topic of submarine catching,
+and experiences flowed forth in a stream which filled the Marine with
+astonishment and admiration. He had never served an apprenticeship in a
+submarine catcher and the sea business in small sporting craft was
+altogether new to him.
+
+“It is a pity,” at last said a regular Navy Lieutenant, “that submarines
+are no good against other submarines. That is a weakness which we must
+seek to overcome if, as seems likely in the future, navies contain more
+under-water boats than any other craft.”
+
+“That is not quite true,” spoke up a grizzled Royal Naval Reserve man,
+and told a story of submarine _v._ submarine which I am not permitted to
+repeat.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“Yes,” said the Commander of the _Utopia_ (The Pongo’s ship). “Very
+clever and very ingenious. But did you ever hear how the Navy, not the
+merchant service this time, caught a submarine off the —— Lightship.
+That was finesse, if you please, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve.”
+
+Our young marine hugged himself. He had set the Navy talking, and when
+the Navy talks there come forth things which make glad the ears.
+
+“You know the —— Lightship,” went on the Commander, a sea potentate of
+thirty-five, with a passion for music-hall songs which he sang most
+divinely. “She is anchored on a shoal which lies off the entrance to one
+of the busiest of our English harbours. Though her big lantern is not
+lighted in war time the ship remains as a day mark, and two men are
+always on board of her. She is anchored on the top of a sandbank where
+at low water there are not more than twelve feet, though close by the
+channels deepen to thirty feet. A little while ago the men in the
+Lightship were interested to observe a German submarine approach at high
+water—of course submerged—and to take up a position about a hundred
+yards distant where the low-water soundings were twenty-two feet. There
+she remained on the bottom from tide to tide, watching through her
+periscope all the shipping which passed in and out of the harbour. Her
+draught in cruising trim was about fourteen feet, so that at high water
+she was completely submerged except for the periscope and at low water
+the top of her conning tower showed above the surface. At high tide she
+slipped away with the results of her observations. The incident was
+reported at once to the naval authorities and the lightship men were
+instructed to report again at once if the submarine’s performance was
+repeated. A couple of days later, under the same conditions, Fritz in
+his submarine came back and the whole programme of watchfully waiting
+was gone through again. He evidently knew the soundings to a hair and
+lay where no destroyer could quickly get at him through the difficult
+winding channels amid the sandbanks except when the tide was nearly at
+the full. Even at dead low water he could, if surprised, rise and float
+and rapidly make off to where there was depth enough to dive. He
+couldn’t be rushed, and there were three or four avenues of escape.
+Fritz had discovered a safe post of observation and seemed determined to
+make the most of it. But, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve, even the poor effete
+old Navy has brains and occasionally uses them. The night after the
+second visit an Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the lightship’s
+anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred yards east-north-east. You
+will note that the German submarine’s chosen spot was exactly one
+hundred yards west-south-west of the lightship’s old position. The
+change was so slight that it might be expected to escape notice. And so
+it did. Three days passed, and then at high tide the U boat came
+cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the lightship exactly as
+before. The only difference was that now she was upon the top of the
+shoal with barely twelve feet under her at low water instead of
+twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship winked at one another,
+for they had talked with the officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise
+to the game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully on the bottom,
+and Fritz, intent to watch the movements of ships in and out of the
+harbour, did not notice that the water was steadily falling away from
+his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and deck exposed. Far away
+a destroyer was watching, and at the correct moment, when the water
+around the U boat was too shallow to float her even in the lightest
+trim, she slipped up as near as she could approach, trained a 4-inch gun
+upon Fritz and sent in an armed boat’s crew to wish him good-day. Poor
+old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors until they were hammering
+violently upon his fore hatch and calling upon him to come out and
+surrender. He was a very sick man and did not understand at all how he
+had been caught until the whole manœuvre had been kindly explained to
+him by the Lieutenant-Commander of the destroyer, from whom I also
+received the story. ‘You see, Fritz, old son,’ observed the
+Lieutenant-Commander, ‘Admiralty charts are jolly things and you know
+all about them, but you should sometimes check them with the lead.
+Things change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come and have a drink,
+old friend, you look as if you needed something stiff.’ Fritz gulped
+down a tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out, ‘That was damned
+clever and I was a damned fool. For God’s sake don’t tell them in
+Germany how I was caught.’ ‘Not for worlds, old man,’ replied the
+Lieutenant-Commander. ‘We will say that you were nabbed while trying to
+ditch a hospital ship. There is glory for you.’”
+
+“A very nice story,” observed the Royal Naval Reserve man drily.
+
+“I believed your yarn,” said the Commander reproachfully, “and mine is
+every bit as true as yours. But no matter. Call up the band and let us
+get to real business.”
+
+Two minutes later the anteroom had emptied, and these astonishing naval
+children were out on the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently.
+Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with Subs., clerks and snotties
+from the gun room. Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the
+execution of the most complicated Russian measures. It was a strange
+scene which perhaps helps to reveal that combination of professional
+efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes the Naval Service
+unlike any other community of men and boys in the world.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+                  THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FAILURE AND ITS
+                              CONSEQUENCES
+
+War is made up of successes and failures. We English do not forget our
+successes, but we have an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds
+the recollection of our failures. Which is a very bad habit, for as
+every man realises, during his half-blind stumbles through life, failure
+is a most necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians seem able to
+bring themselves to forget that in war we ever fail of success, soldiers
+and sailors do not forget, and are always seeking to make of their
+admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which they may rise to ultimate
+victory. On land one may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for
+movements are much slower and evil results declare themselves less
+rapidly. I am now compelled to write of a failure at sea very early in
+the war, which was not retrieved, and which had a trail of most
+disastrous consequence; and I hope to do it without imputing blame to
+anyone, no blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative vision,
+which is one of our most conspicuous defects as a race.
+
+All of those who read me know that the blows which we have struck in
+France and Flanders, ever since the crowning victory of the Marne—that
+still unexplained miracle which saved western civilisation from
+ruin—are the direct consequence of the success in the North Sea of our
+mobilised fleets in August, 1914. But few know—or if they do, have
+pushed the knowledge testily from their minds—of a failure in the
+Mediterranean, also in August of 1914, a failure which at the time may
+have seemed of little account, yet out of which grew in inevitable
+melancholy sequence, a tragical train of troubles. Though we may choose
+to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably long. Nothing would be more
+unfair than to lay at the door of the Navy the blame for all the
+consequences of a failure which, it has been officially held, the
+officers on the spot did their utmost to avert. Men are only human after
+all, and the sea is a very big place. We need not censure anyone. Still,
+we should be most foolish and blind to the lessons of war if we did not
+now and then turn aside from the smug contemplation of our strategical
+and tactical victories, and seek in a humble spirit to gather
+instruction from a grievous pondering over the consequences of our
+defeats. And of this particular defeat of which I write the results have
+been gloomy beyond description—the sword in the balance which threw
+Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies, and all the blood
+and the tears with which the soil of the Near East has been soaked.
+
+When war broke out all our modern battleships were in the North Sea, but
+of our nine fast battle cruisers four were away. The _Australia_ was at
+the other side of the world, and the _Inflexible_ (flag), _Indomitable_
+and _Indefatigable_ were in the Mediterranean. We also had four armoured
+cruisers, and four light cruisers in the Mediterranean—the armoured
+_Defence_, _Duke of Edinburgh_, _Warrior_ and _Black Prince_, the light
+fast _Gloucester_ of the new “Town” class, a sister of the _Glasgow_ and
+the _Bristol_, and three other similar cruisers. The Germans had in the
+Mediterranean the battle cruiser _Goeben_, as fast, though not so
+powerfully gunned, as the three _Inflexibles_ of ours. She carried ten
+11-inch guns, while our battle cruisers were each armed with eight
+12-inch guns. The _Goeben_ had as her consort the light cruiser
+_Breslau_, one of the German Town class built in 1912, a newer and
+faster edition of the earlier Town cruisers which were under von Spee in
+the Pacific and Atlantic. She could have put up a good fight though
+probably an unsuccessful one against the _Gloucester_, but was no match
+for the _Defence_, the _Warrior_, the _Black Prince_ or _Duke of
+Edinburgh_. Our squadrons in the Mediterranean were, therefore, in
+fighting value fully three times as powerful as the German vessels. Our
+job was to catch them and to destroy them, but unfortunately we did not
+succeed in bringing them to action. The story of their evasion of us,
+and of what their escape involved is, to my mind, one of the most
+fascinating stories of the whole war.
+
+War officially began between France and Germany upon August 3rd at 6.45
+p.m. when the German Ambassador in Paris asked for his passports, and
+between Great Britain and Germany upon August 4th at 11 p.m., when our
+ultimatum in regard to Belgium was definitely rejected. But though then
+at war with Germany, England did not declare war on Austria until
+midnight of August 12th. A queer situation arose in the Mediterranean as
+the result of these gaps between the dates of active hostilities. Upon
+August 4th, the German cruisers could and did attack French territory
+without being attacked by us, and all through those fateful days of
+August 5th and 6th, when our three battle cruisers were hovering between
+Messina and the Adriatic and our four armoured cruisers were lying a
+little to the south off Syracuse, Italy was neutral, and Austria was not
+at war with us. Our naval commanders were in the highest degree anxious
+to do nothing which could in any way offend Italy—whose position as
+still a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria and Germany was
+delicate in the extreme—and were also anxious to commit no act of
+hostility towards Austria. Upon August 4th, therefore, their hands were
+tied tight; upon the 5th and 6th they were untied as against the German
+cruisers, but could not stretch into either Italian or Austrian waters.
+The German Admiral took full advantage of the freedom of movement
+allowed to him by our diplomatic bonds.
+
+Let us now come to the story of the escape of the two German cruisers,
+indicate as clearly as may be how it occurred, and suggest how the worst
+consequences of that escape might have been retrieved by instant and
+spirited action on the part of our Government at home. Naval
+responsibility, as distinct from political responsibility, ended with
+the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ and their entry into the
+Dardanelles on the way up to Constantinople which then, and for nearly
+three months afterwards, was nominally a neutral port.
+
+On July 31st, 1914, the _Goeben_, a battle cruiser armed with ten
+11-inch guns, and with a full speed of twenty-eight to twenty-nine
+knots, was at Brindisi in the territorial waters of Italy, a country
+which was then regarded by the Germans as an ally. She was joined there
+on August 1st by the _Breslau_, a light cruiser of some three knots less
+speed than the _Goeben_ and armed only with twelve 4.1-inch guns. The
+German commanders had been warned of the imminence of hostilities with
+France—and, indeed, upon that day French territory had been violated by
+German covering troops, though war had not yet been declared. The French
+Fleet was far away to the west, already busied with the transport of
+troops from Algeria and Morocco to Marseilles. Based upon Malta and in
+touch with the French was the British heavy squadron of three battle
+cruisers. The _Indefatigable_, a heavier and faster vessel than either
+of the sisters _Inflexible_ or _Indomitable_, was certainly a match for
+the _Goeben_ by herself; the three battle cruisers combined were of
+overpowering strength. Accompanying the battle cruisers was the armoured
+cruiser squadron—_Black Prince_, _Duke of Edinburgh_, _Warrior_ and
+_Defence_—together with the light cruiser _Gloucester_. The other light
+cruisers and the destroyer escort do not come directly into my picture.
+The _Gloucester_—which, as she showed later, had the heels of the
+_Breslau_ though not of the speedy _Goeben_—was despatched at once to
+the Adriatic to keep watch upon the movements of the Germans. So long as
+the Germans were in the Adriatic, the English Admiral, Sir Berkeley
+Milne, could do nothing to prevent their junction with the Austrians at
+Pola, but upon August 2nd, they both came out and went to Messina, and
+so uncovered the Straits of Otranto, which gave passage between Messina
+and the Adriatic. The English battle cruisers then steamed to the south
+and east of Sicily, bound for the Otranto Straits. Rear-Admiral
+Troubridge, in command of the English armoured cruisers, remained
+behind.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS.]
+
+Upon August 1st, the Italian Government had declared its intention to be
+neutral, and upon the 3rd the Italian authorities at Messina refused
+coal to the German ships, very much to the outspoken disgust and
+disappointment of the German Admiral who had reckoned Italy as at least
+passively benevolent. But being a man of resource, he filled his bunkers
+from those of German vessels in the harbour, and early in the morning of
+August 4th—having received news the previous evening that war had
+broken out with France, and was imminent with England—dashed at the
+Algerian coast and bombarded Phillippeville and Bona, whence troops had
+been arranged to sail for France. When one reflects upon the position of
+Admiral Souchon, within easy striking distance of three English battle
+cruisers, which at any moment might have been transformed by wireless
+orders into enemies of overwhelming power, this dash upon Phillippeville
+and Bona was an exploit which would merit an honourable mention upon any
+navy’s records. Souchon did, in the time available to him, all the
+damage that he could to his enemy’s arrangements, and then sped back to
+Messina, passing on the way the _Inflexible_ (flag), _Indomitable_, and
+_Gloucester_, which had thus got into close touch with the Germans,
+though they were not yet free to go for them. The enterprising Souchon
+had cut his time rather fine, and come near the edge of destruction; for
+though at the moment of passing the _Inflexible_ and _Indomitable_
+England was still at peace with Germany, war was declared before he
+reached the neutral refuge of Messina on August 5th. Milne’s hands were
+thus tied at the critical moment when he had both the elusive German
+cruisers under the muzzles of his hungry guns.
+
+At Messina the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ were again refused coal, and were
+ordered to be clear of the port within twenty-four hours. Italy was
+resolutely neutral; it was a severe blow. Upon the night of August
+4th-5th had come another blow—a wireless message, picked up at sea,
+that England had declared war. The position of the Germans now appeared
+to be desperate, more so to them than even to us, for Admiral Souchon
+had already been warned by the Austrians not to attempt the passage of
+the Straits of Otranto, and had also received direct orders at Messina
+from Berlin to make a break eastwards for Constantinople. His prospects
+of eluding our Squadrons and of reaching the Dardanelles must have
+seemed to him of the smallest. It is of interest to note, as revealing
+the hardy quality of Admiral Souchon, that these orders from Berlin
+reached him at midnight upon August 3rd before he made his raid upon
+Phillippeville and Bona. He might have steamed off at once towards the
+east in comparative security, for England was not yet at war and our
+battle cruisers were not yet waiting upon his doorstep. But instead of
+seeking safety in flight he struck a shrewd blow for his country and set
+back the hour of his departure for the east by three whole days. He sent
+off a wireless message to Greece asking that coal might be got ready for
+his ships near an inconspicuous island in the Ægean. Admiral Souchon may
+personally be a frightful Hun—I don’t know, I have never met him—but,
+I confess that, as a sailor, he appeals to me very strongly. In
+resource, in cool decision, and in dashing leadership he was the
+unquestioned superior of the English Admirals, whose job it was to get
+the better of him.
+
+Upon August 6th, a day big with fate for us and for South Eastern
+Europe, the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ were at Messina with steam up. They
+had again obtained coal from compatriot ships and could snap their
+fingers at Italian neutrality. Watching them was the light cruiser
+_Gloucester_, which was no match at all for the _Goeben_, and strung out
+to the north-east, guarding the passage from Messina to the Adriatic,
+were the three English battle cruisers _Inflexible_, _Indomitable_ and
+_Indefatigable_. The English armoured cruisers, _Black Prince_, _Duke of
+Edinburgh_, _Defence_ and _Warrior_, were cruising to the South of
+Syracuse. It is not contended that these four vessels could not have
+been off Messina, and could not have met and fought Souchon, when at
+last he issued forth. The contention is—and since it has been accepted
+by the Admiralty as sound, one is compelled humbly to say little—that
+none of these cruisers was sufficiently armed or armoured to risk action
+with a battle cruiser of the _Goeben’s_ class. It is urged that if Milne
+had ordered the armoured cruiser squadron to fight the _Goeben_, their
+Admiral, Troubridge, might have anticipated the fate of Cradock three
+months later at Coronel. Not one of them had a speed approaching that of
+the _Goeben_, and their twenty-two heavy guns were of 9.2-inch calibre
+as opposed to the ten 11-inch guns of the Germans. That they would have
+suffered serious loss is beyond doubt; but might they not, while dying,
+have damaged and delayed the _Goeben_ for a sufficient time to allow the
+two _Inflexibles_ and the _Indefatigable_ to come down and gobble her
+up? It is not for a layman to offer any opinion upon these high naval
+matters. But ever since the action was not fought, and the _Goeben_ and
+_Breslau_ escaped, whenever two or three naval officers are gathered
+together and the subject is discussed, the vote is always thrown upon
+the side of fighting. The Soul of the Navy revolts at the thought that
+its business is to play for safety when great risks boldly faced may
+yield great fruits of victory.
+
+The dispositions of the English Admiral were designed to meet one
+contingency only—an attempt by the Germans to pass the Straits of
+Otranto and to join the Austrians; he had evidently no suspicion that
+they had been ordered to Constantinople and took no steps to bar their
+way to the east. The handling of his two ships by Admiral Souchon was
+masterly. Until the latest minute he masked his intentions and
+completely outmanœuvred his powerful English opponents. Issuing from
+Messina on the afternoon of August 6th, he made towards the north-east
+as if about to hazard the passage to the Adriatic, and the small
+_Gloucester_, which most gallantly kept touch with far superior
+forces—she was some two knots slower than the _Goeben_, though rather
+faster than the _Breslau_—fell back before him and called up the battle
+cruisers on her wireless. Souchon did not attempt to interfere with the
+_Gloucester_, for she was doing exactly what he desired of her. He kept
+upon his course to the north-east until darkness came down, and then
+swinging suddenly eight points to starboard, pointed straight for Cape
+Matapan far off to the south-east and called for full speed. Then and
+then only he gave the order to jam the _Gloucester’s_ wireless.
+
+He did not wholly succeed, the _Gloucester’s_ warning of his change of
+route got through to the battle cruisers, but they were too far away to
+interpose their bulky veto on the German plans. For two hours the German
+ships travelled at full speed, the _Goeben_ leading, and behind them
+trailed the gallant _Gloucester_, though she had nothing bigger in her
+armoury than two 6-inch guns, and could have been sunk by a single shell
+from the _Goeben’s_ batteries. Twice she overhauled the _Breslau_ and
+fired upon her, and twice the _Goeben_ had to fall back to the aid of
+her consort and drive away the persistent English captain. The gallantry
+of the _Gloucester_ alone redeems the event from being a bitter English
+humiliation. All the while she was vainly pursuing the German vessels
+the _Gloucester_ continued her calls for help. They got through, but the
+_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ had seized too long a start. They were clear away
+for the Dardanelles and Constantinople, and were safe from effective
+pursuit.
+
+Vice-Admiral Souchon knew his Greeks and his Turks better than we did.
+He coaled his ships at the small island of Denusa in the Cyclades with
+the direct connivance of King Constantine, who had arranged for coal to
+be sent over from Syra, and ignored a formal message from the Sublime
+Porte forbidding him to pass the Dardanelles. He was confident that the
+Turks, still anxious to sit upon the fence until the safer side were
+disclosed, would not dare to fire upon him, and he was justified in his
+confidence. He steamed through the Narrows unmolested and anchored
+before Constantinople. There a telegram was handed to him from the
+Kaiser: “His Majesty sends you his acknowledgments.” One must allow that
+the Imperial congratulations were worthily bestowed. Souchon had done
+for Germany a greater service than had any of her generals or admirals
+or diplomats; he had definitely committed Turkey to the side of the
+Central Powers.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+                 If of all words of tongue and pen
+                 The saddest are “It might have been,”
+                 More sad are these we daily see,
+                 “It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”
+
+                                      —_Bret Harte_.
+
+For the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_, the Royal Navy was
+responsible, but for the consequences which grew out of that escape the
+responsibility rests upon _La haute Politique_ at home. The naval
+failure might have been retrieved within forty-eight hours had our
+Foreign Office understood the hesitating Turkish mind, and had realised
+that Souchon’s breach of the Dardanelles Convention—which bars the
+Straits to foreign warships—had brought to us a Heaven-sent opportunity
+to cut the bonds of gold and intrigue which bound the Turkish Government
+to that of Germany. Every Englishman in Constantinople expected that a
+pursuing English squadron of overwhelming power would immediately appear
+off the Turkish capital and insist upon the surrender or destruction of
+the German trespassers. Just as Souchon had passed the Dardanelles
+unmolested, so Milne with his three battle cruisers—had orders been
+sent to him—might have passed them on the day following. The Turks own
+no argument but force, and the greater force would have appeared to them
+to be the better argument. Milne, had he been permitted by the British
+Foreign Office, could have followed the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to
+Constantinople and sunk them there before the eyes of the world. Had he
+done so, the history of the war would have been very different. Upon the
+Cabinet at home must rest the eternal responsibility for not seeing and
+not seizing the finest and least hazardous opportunity that has been
+offered to us of determining by one bold stroke the course of the war.
+The three English battle cruisers could not have seized Constantinople
+any more effectively than the English Squadron, without military
+co-operation, could have seized it seven months later had it succeeded
+in forcing with its guns the passage of the Narrows. But they could have
+revealed to the vacillating Turks, as in a lightning flash, that the
+Allies had the wit to see, and the boldness to grasp the vital
+opportunities offered by war. But our Government had neither the wit nor
+the courage, the wonderful chance was allowed to slip by unused, and the
+costliest failure of the war was consummated in all its tragic fullness.
+
+All through August and September and right up to the moment when, late
+in October, Turkey was forced into the war by German pressure, our
+Foreign Office hugged the belief—God alone knows how acquired—that
+diplomatic pressure at Constantinople could counteract the display of
+successful force embodied in the frowning guns of the _Goeben_ and the
+_Breslau_. In the eyes of a non-maritime people two modern warships
+within easy gunshot of their chief city are of more pressing consequence
+than the Grand Fleet far away. Our Government accepted gladly the
+preposterous story that these German ships had been purchased by the
+Turks—with German money—and had been taken over by Turkish officers
+and crews. It is pitiful to read now the official statement issued on
+August 15th, 1914, through the newly formed Press Bureau: “The Press
+Bureau states that there is no reason to doubt that the Turkish
+Government is about to replace the German officers and crews of the
+_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ by Turkish officers and crews.” As evidence of
+Oriental good faith a photograph of the _Goeben_ flying the Turkish
+naval flag was kindly supplied for publication in English newspapers.
+What could be more convincing? Then, when the moment was ripe and there
+was no more need for the verisimilitude of photographs, came the rough
+awakening, announced as follows:
+
+“On October 29th, _without notice and without anything to show that such
+action was pending_, three Turkish torpedo craft appeared suddenly
+before Odessa. . . . The same day the cruisers _Breslau_ and _Hamidieh_
+bombarded several commercial ports in the Black Sea, including
+Novorossisk and Theodosia. In the forenoon of October 30th, the _Goeben_
+bombarded Sevastopol without causing any serious damage. By way of
+reprisals the Franco-British squadron in the Eastern Mediterranean
+carried out a demonstration against the forts at the entrance to the
+Dardanelles at daybreak on November 3rd.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+No comment which I might make could bite more deeply than the bald
+quotation describing this irruption of Turkey as “without motive and
+without anything to show that such action was pending.” _Caeci sunt
+oculi cum animus alias res agit_—The eyes are blind when the mind is
+obsessed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+              IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL
+
+                    Sunset and evening star
+                    *         *         *         *
+                    And after that the dark.
+
+During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of the British cruiser
+_Monmouth_, the senior English Naval Officer on the China Station, and
+Admiral Count von Spee, commanding the German Far-Eastern Squadron, were
+close and intimate friends.
+
+The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers and men of the two
+squadrons. The English and Germans discussed with one another the
+chances of war between their nations, and wished one another the best of
+luck when the scrap came. The German Squadron, which has since been
+destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser’s Navy. It was commanded by
+professional officers and manned by long-service ratings. It had taken
+for its model the English Navy, and it had absorbed much of the English
+naval spirit. Count von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentleman,
+and with Captain von Müller, who afterwards made the name of the _Emden_
+immortal, was worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let us always be
+just to those of our foes who, though they fight with us terribly, yet
+remain our chivalrous friends. I will tell a pretty story which will
+illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed between the English
+and German squadrons during those two years before the war.
+
+In December 1912 the _Monmouth_ was cruising in the Gulf of Pechili,
+which resembles a long flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von
+Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron off Chifu, in the neck of
+the bottle, received word from a correspondent that the second Balkan
+War had brought England and Germany within a short distance of “Der
+Tag.” Von Spee and his officers did not clink glasses to “The Day”; they
+were professionals who knew the English Navy and its incomparable power;
+they left silly boastings to civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel
+who had not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought first of his
+English friend who, in his elderly cruiser, was away up in the Gulf at
+the mercy of the German Squadron, which was as a cork in its neck. He at
+once dispatched a destroyer to find the _Monmouth’s_ captain and to warn
+him that though there might be nothing in the news it were better for
+him to get clear of the Gulf. “There may be nothing in the yarn,” he
+wrote, “I have had many scares before. But it would be well if you got
+out of the Gulf. I should be most sorry to have to sink you.” When the
+destroyer came up with the _Monmouth_ she had returned to Wei-hai-wei,
+and the message was delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an answer
+somewhat as follows: “My dear von Spee, thank you very much. I am here.
+_J’y suis, J’y reste._ I shall expect you and your guns at breakfast
+to-morrow morning.” War did not come then; when von Spee did meet and
+sink the _Monmouth_ she had another captain in command, but the story
+remains as evidence of the chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and
+skilful von Spee.
+
+In November 1913 the _Monmouth_ left the China Station, and before she
+went, upon November 6th, her crew were entertained sumptuously by von
+Spee and von Müller. She was paid off in January 1914, after reaching
+home, but was recommissioned in the following July for the test
+mobilisation, which at the moment meant so much, and which a few weeks
+later was to mean so much more. When the war broke out, the _Monmouth_,
+with her new officers and men, half of whom were naval reservists, was
+sent back to the Pacific. The armoured cruiser _Good Hope_, also
+commissioned in July, was sent with her, and the old battleship
+_Canopus_ was despatched a little later. Details of the movements of
+these and of other of our warships in the South Atlantic and Pacific are
+given in the chapters entitled “The Cruise of the _Glasgow_.” The
+_Glasgow_ had been in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of war, and was
+joined there by the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_.
+
+Meanwhile war had broken out, and we will for a few moments consider
+what resulted. The _Emden_, Captain von Müller, was at the German base
+of Tsing-tau, but Admiral von Spee, with the armoured cruisers
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, was among the German Caroline Islands far
+to the south of the China Sea. The _Dresden_ was in the West Indies and
+the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ on the West Coast of Mexico (the Pacific
+side). The Japanese Fleet undertook to keep von Spee out of China waters
+to the north, and the Australian Unit—which then was at full strength
+and included the battle cruiser _Australia_ with her eight 12-inch guns
+and the light cruisers _Melbourne_ and _Sydney_, each armed with eight
+sixes—made themselves responsible for the Australian end of the big sea
+area. The _Emden_, disguised as an English cruiser, with four
+funnels—the dummy one made of canvas—got out of Tsing-tau under the
+noses of the Japanese watchers, made off towards the Indian Ocean, and
+pursued that lively and solitary career which came to its appointed end
+at the Cocos-Keeling Islands, as will be described fully later on in
+this book. The Australian Unit, burning with zeal to fire its maiden
+guns at a substantial enemy, sought diligently for von Spee and
+requisitioned the assistance of the French armoured cruiser _Montcalm_,
+an old slow and not very useful vessel which happened to be available
+for the hunt. Von Spee was discovered in his island retreat and pursued
+as far as Fiji, but the long arm of the English Admiralty then
+interposed and upset the merry game. We were short of battle cruisers
+where we wanted them most—in the North Sea—so the _Australia_ was
+summoned home and the remaining ships of the Unit, no longer by
+themselves a match for von Spee, were ordered back to Sydney in deep
+disgust. “A little more,” declared the bold Australians, who under their
+English professional officers had been hammered into a real Naval Unit,
+“and we would have done the work which the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
+had to do later. If we had been left alone there would not have been any
+disaster off Coronel.” While one can sympathise with complaints such as
+this from eager fire-eaters, one has to accept their assertions with due
+caution. The German High Seas Fleet was at that time a more important
+objective than even von Spee. So the _Australia_ sailed for England to
+join up with the Grand Fleet, and von Spee had rest for several weeks.
+He was not very enterprising. Commerce hunting did not much appeal to
+him, though his light cruisers, the _Dresden_ and _Leipzig_, did some
+little work in that line when on their way to join their Chief at Easter
+Island where the squadron ultimately concentrated. On the way across,
+von Spee visited Samoa, from which we had torn down the German flag, but
+did no damage there. On September 22nd, he bombarded Tahiti, in the
+Society Islands, a foolish proceeding of which he repented later on when
+the Coronel action left him short of shell with no means of
+replenishment. For eight days he stayed in the Marquesas Islands taking
+in provisions, thence he went to Easter Island and Masafuera, and so to
+Valparaiso, where the Chilean Government, though neutral, was not
+unbenevolent. He was for three weeks at Easter Island (Chilean
+territory), coaling from German ships there, and in this remote spot—a
+sort of Chilean St. Kilda—remained hidden both from the Chilean
+authorities and from our South Atlantic Squadron.
+
+We must now return to the British Squadron which had been sent out to
+deal with von Spee as best it might. Cradock with such a squadron, all,
+except the light cruiser _Glasgow_, old and slow, had no means of
+bringing von Spee to action under conditions favourable to himself, or
+of refusing action when conditions were adverse. Von Spee, with his
+concentrated homogeneous squadron, all comparatively new and well-armed
+cruisers, all of about the same speed of twenty-one or twenty-two knots,
+all trained to a hair by constant work during a three years’ commission,
+had under his hand an engine of war perfect of its kind. He could be
+sure of getting the utmost out of co-operative efforts. The most
+powerful in guns of the English vessels was the battleship _Canopus_,
+which, when the action off Coronel was fought, was 200 miles away to the
+south. She bore four 12-inch guns in barbettes—in addition to twelve
+sixes—but she was fourteen years old and could not raise more than
+about thirteen to fourteen knots except for an occasional burst. Any one
+of von Spee’s ships, with 50 per cent. more speed, could have made rings
+round her. Had Cradock waited for the _Canopus_,—as he was implored to
+do by her captain, Grant,—and set the speed of his squadron by hers,
+von Spee could have fought him or evaded him exactly as he pleased. “If
+the English had kept their forces together,” wrote von Spee after
+Coronel, “then we should certainly have got the worst of it.” This was
+the modest judgment of a brave man, but it is scarcely true. If the
+English had kept their forces together von Spee need never have fought;
+they would have had not the smallest chance of getting near him except
+by his own wish. Admiral Cradock flew his flag in the armoured cruiser
+_Good Hope_, which, though of 14,000 tons and 520 feet long, had only
+two guns of bigger calibre than 6-inch. These were of 9.2 inches,
+throwing a shell of 380 lb., but the guns, like the ship, were twelve
+years old. Her speed was about seventeen knots, four or five knots less
+than that of the German cruisers she had come to chase! The _Monmouth_,
+of the “County Class,” was as obsolete as the _Good Hope_. Eleven years
+old, of nearly 10,000 tons, she carried nothing better than fourteen
+6-inch guns of bygone pattern. She may have been good for a knot or two
+more than the _Good Hope_, but her cruising and fighting speed was, of
+course, that of the flagship.
+
+The one effective ship of the whole squadron was the _Glasgow_, which
+curiously enough is the sole survivor now of the Coronel action, either
+German or English. Out of the eight warships which fought there off the
+Chilean coast on November 1st, 1914, five German and three English, the
+_Glasgow_ alone remains afloat. She is a modern light cruiser, first
+commissioned in 1911. The _Glasgow_ is light, long and lean. She showed
+that she could steam fully twenty-five knots and could fight her two
+6-inch and ten 4-inch guns most effectively. She was a match for any one
+of von Spee’s light cruisers, though unable to stand up to the
+_Scharnhorst_ or _Gneisenau_. The modern English navy has been built
+under the modern doctrine of speed and gun-power—the _Good Hope_,
+_Monmouth_, and _Canopus_, the products of a bad, stupid era in naval
+shipbuilding, had neither speed nor gun-power. The result, the
+inevitable result, was the disaster of Coronel in which the English
+ships were completely defeated and the Germans barely scratched. The
+Germans had learned the lesson which we ourselves had taught them.
+
+When one considers the two squadrons which met and fought off Coronel,
+in the light of experience cast by war, one feels no surprise that the
+action was over in fifty-two minutes. Cradock and his men, 1,600 of
+them, fought and died.
+
+                   Sunset and evening star
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+                   And after that the dark.
+
+The _Glasgow_ would also have been lost had she not been a new ship with
+speed and commanded by a man with the moral courage to use it in order
+to preserve his vessel and her crew for the further service of their
+country. Von Spee, who had the mastery of manœuvre, brought Cradock to
+action when and how he pleased, and emphasised for the hundredth time in
+naval warfare that speed and striking power and squadron training will
+win victory certainly, inevitably, and almost without hurt to the
+victors. Like the Falkland Islands action of five weeks afterwards, that
+off Coronel was a gun action. No torpedoes were used on either side.
+Probably it was one of the last purely gun actions which will be fought
+in our time.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+At the end of October the British and German squadrons were near to one
+another, though until they actually met off Coronel the British
+commanders did not know that the concentrated German Squadron was off
+the Chilean coast. Von Spee knew that an old pre-Dreadnought battleship
+had come out from England, though he was not sure of her class. He
+judged her speed to be higher than that of the _Canopus_, which, though
+powerfully armed, was so lame a duck that she would have been more of a
+hindrance than a help had Cradock joined up with her. Von Spee had an
+immense advantage in the greater handiness and cohesiveness of his
+ships. The _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ were sisters, completed in
+1907, and alike in all respects. Their shooting records were
+first-class; they were indeed the crack gunnery ships under the German
+ensign. Their sixteen 8.2-inch guns—eight each—fired shells of 275 lb.
+weight, nearly three times the weight of the 100-lb. shells fired from
+the 6-inch guns which formed the chief batteries of their opponents the
+_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_. They were three months out of dock but they
+could still steam, as they showed at Coronel, at over twenty knots in a
+heavy sea. The light cruisers _Dresden_, _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were
+not identical though very nearly alike. Their armament was the same—ten
+4.1-inch guns apiece—and their speed nearly the same. The _Dresden_ was
+the fastest as she was the newest, a sister of the famous _Emden_. None
+of the German light cruisers was so fast or so powerful as the
+_Glasgow_, but together they were much more than a match for her, just
+as the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ together were more than a match for
+the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_. When, therefore, von Spee found himself
+opposed to the British armoured cruisers he was under no anxiety; he had
+the heels of them and the guns of them; they could neither fight
+successfully with him nor escape from him. The speedy _Glasgow_ might
+escape—as in fact she did—but the _Good Hope_ and the _Monmouth_ were
+doomed from the moment when the action was joined.
+
+I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the rival squadrons at the risk
+of being wearisome since an understanding of their qualities is
+essential to an understanding of the action.
+
+On October 31st, the _Glasgow_ put into Coronel, a small coaling port
+near Concepcion and to the south of Valparaiso, which had become von
+Spee’s unofficial base. He did not remain in territorial waters for more
+than twenty-four hours at a time, but he got what he liked from German
+ships in the harbour. The _Glasgow_ kept in wireless touch with the
+_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, which were some fifty miles out at sea to
+the west, and von Spee picked up enough from the English wireless to
+know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel. At once he despatched the
+_Nürnberg_ to shadow the _Glasgow_, to stroll as it were
+unostentatiously past the little harbour, while he with the rest of the
+squadron stayed out of sight to the north. In the morning of November
+1st out came the _Glasgow_ and made for the rendezvous where she was to
+join the other cruisers and the _Otranto_, an armed liner by which they
+were accompanied. The wireless signals passing between the watching
+_Nürnberg_ and von Spee were in their turn picked up by the _Good Hope_,
+so that each squadron then knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradock,
+an English seaman of the fighting type, determined to seek out the
+Germans, though he must have suspected their superiority of force.
+Neither side actually knew the strength of the other. Cradock spread out
+his vessels fan-wise in the early afternoon and ordered them to steam in
+this fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SOUTH SEAS.]
+
+
+
+
+At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships on either side began to
+sight one another, and until they did so Cradock had no knowledge that
+he had knocked up against the whole of the German Pacific Squadron. The
+German concentration had been effected secretly and most successfully.
+When the _Scharnhorst_, von Spee’s flagship, first saw the _Glasgow_ and
+_Monmouth_ they were far off to the west-south-west and had to wait for
+more than half an hour until the _Good Hope_, which was still farther
+out to the west, could join hands with them. Meanwhile the German ships,
+which were also spread out, had concentrated on the _Scharnhorst_. They
+were the _Gneisenau_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, for the _Nürnberg_ had
+not returned from her watching duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the
+Germans were getting between his ships and the Chilean coast, and that
+he would be at a grave disadvantage by being silhouetted against the
+western sky, tried to work in towards the land. But von Spee, grasping
+his enemy’s purpose, set the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ going at
+twenty knots due south against a heavy sea and forced himself between
+Cradock and the coast. When the two light cruisers drew up, the four
+German ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers and
+between them and the land. All these preliminary manœuvres were put
+through while the two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and they
+determined the issue of the subsequent action. For von Spee, having
+thrust the English against the background of the declining sun and being
+able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this position and to
+decide absolutely the moment when the firing should begin, had
+effectively won the action before a shot had been fired. So long as the
+sun was above the horizon the German ships were lighted up and would
+have made admirable marks could Cradock have got within range. But von
+Spee had no intention of letting him get within range until the sun had
+actually set and had ceased to give light to Cradock’s gunners. His own
+men for an hour afterwards could see the English ships standing out as
+clearly as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas screen. “I
+had manœuvred,” wrote von Spee to a friend, on the day following the
+action, “so that the sun in the west could not disturb me. . . . When we
+were about five miles off I ordered the firing to commence. The battle
+had begun, and with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite
+calmly.” He might well be calm. The greater speed of his squadron had
+enabled him to outmanœuvre the English ships, and to wait until the
+sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English no mark at all. He might
+well be calm. Darkness everywhere, except in the western sky behind
+Cradock’s ships, came down very quickly, the nearly full moon was not
+yet up, the night was fine except for scuds of rain at intervals.
+Between seven and eight o’clock—between sunset and moonrise—von Spee
+had a full hour in which to do his work, and he made the fullest use of
+the time. At three minutes past seven he began to fire, when the range
+was between five and six miles, and he hit the _Good Hope_ at the second
+salvo. His consort the _Gneisenau_ did the same with the _Monmouth_. It
+was fine shooting, but not extraordinary, for the German cruisers were
+crack ships and the marks were perfect. At the third salvo both the
+_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ burst into flames forrard, and remained on
+fire, for German shell rained on them continually. They could rarely see
+to reply and never replied effectively. The _Good Hope’s_ lower deck
+guns were smothered by the sea and were, for all practical purposes, out
+of action. Yet they fought as best they could. Von Spee slowly closed in
+and the torrent of heavy shell became more and more bitter. We have no
+record of the action from the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, for not a man
+was saved from either ship. The _Glasgow_, which, after the _Otranto_
+had properly made off early in the action—she was not built for hot
+naval work—had both the _Dresden_ and the _Leipzig_ to look after,
+could tell only of her own experiences. Captain Luce in quiet sea
+service fashion has brought home to us what they were. “Though it was
+most trying to receive a great volume of fire without a chance of
+returning it adequately, all kept perfectly cool, there was no wild
+firing, and discipline was the same as at battle practice. When a target
+ceased to be visible gun-layers simultaneously ceased fire.” Yet the
+crews of active ratings and reservists struggled gamely to the end. It
+came swiftly and mercifully.
+
+We have detailed accounts of the action from the German side, of which
+the best was written by von Spee himself on the following day. There is
+nothing of boasting or vainglory about his simple story: though the man
+was German he seems to have been white all through. I have heard much of
+him from those who knew him intimately, and willingly accept his
+narrative as a plain statement of fact. Given the conditions, the speed
+and powers of the opposing squadrons, the skilful preliminary manœuvres
+of von Spee before a shot was fired, and the veil of darkness which hid
+the German ships from the luckless English gunners, the result, as von
+Spee reveals it, was inevitable. He held his fire until after sunset,
+and then closing in to about 10,000 yards—a little over five
+miles—gave the order to begin. He himself led the line in the
+_Scharnhorst_ and engaged the _Good Hope_, the _Gneisenau_ following him
+took the _Monmouth_ as her opposite number. The _Leipzig_ engaged the
+_Glasgow_, and the _Dresden_ the _Otranto_. The shell from the 8.2-inch
+batteries of the German armoured cruisers—each could use six guns on a
+broadside—got home at the second salvo and the range was kept without
+apparent difficulty. The fires which almost immediately broke out in the
+_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ gave much aid to the German gunners, who,
+when the quick darkness of the southern night came down, were spared the
+use of their searchlights. “As the two big enemy ships were in flames,”
+writes one careful German observer, “we were able to economise our
+searchlights.” Then, closing in to about 5,000 yards, von Spee poured in
+a terrific fire so rapid and sustained that he shot away nearly half his
+ammunition. After fifty-two minutes from the firing of the first shell
+the _Good Hope_ blew up. “She looked,” wrote von Spee, “like a splendid
+firework display against a dark sky. The glowing white flames, mingled
+with bright green stars, shot up to a great height.” Cradock’s flagship
+then sank, though von Spee thought for long afterwards that she was
+still afloat. The _Otranto_ had made her escape, but the _Monmouth_,
+which could not get away, and the _Glasgow_—which at any moment could
+have shown the enemy her heels—still continued the unequal fight. The
+night had become quite dark, the flames in the _Monmouth_ had burned out
+or been extinguished, and the Germans had lost sight of their prey. The
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ worked round to the south, and the
+_Leipzig_ and _Dresden_ were sent curving to the north and west, in
+order to keep the English ships away from the shelter of the land. Just
+then the light cruiser _Nürnberg_, which had been sent upon the scouting
+expedition of which I have told, arrived upon the scene of action and
+encountered the crippled _Monmouth_. Had the English cruiser been
+undamaged, she could soon have disposed of this new combatant, but she
+was listing heavily and unable to use her guns. Running up close the
+_Nürnberg_ poured in a broadside which sent the _Monmouth_ to the
+bottom. The _Glasgow_, badly damaged above water, but still full of
+speed and mettle, could do no more. The big German cruisers were coming
+up. Her captain took the only possible course. Shortly before the
+stricken _Monmouth_ disappeared under the waves he made off at full
+speed.
+
+No one was picked up, either from the _Good Hope_ or the _Monmouth_. Von
+Spee, who was not the man to neglect the rescue of his drowning enemies,
+gives an explanation. He was far from the _Good Hope_ when she blew up,
+but the _Nürnberg_ was quite close to the foundering _Monmouth_; why was
+no attempt made at rescue in her case at least? It was dark and there
+was a heavy sea running, but the risks of a rescue are not sufficient to
+excuse the absence of any attempt. The _Nürnberg_ had not been in the
+main action, she was flying up, knowing nothing of what had occurred,
+when she met and sank the _Monmouth_. Her captain saw other big ships
+approaching and thought that one of them was the _Good Hope_. This is
+von Spee’s excuse for the omission of his subordinate to put out
+boats—or even life lines—but one suspects that the captain of the
+_Nürnberg_ had a bad quarter of an hour when next he met his chief.
+
+The German squadron was undamaged, scarcely touched. Three men were
+wounded by splinters in the _Gneisenau_. That is the whole casualty
+list. One 6-inch shell went through the deck of the _Scharnhorst_ but
+did not explode—the “creature just lay down” and went to sleep. “It lay
+there,” writes von Spee, “as a kind of greeting.” The light German
+cruisers were not touched at all. But though the German squadron had
+come through the fight unharmed, it had ceased to be of much account in
+a future battle. The silly bombardment of Tahiti, and the action off
+Coronel, had so depleted the once overflowing magazines that not half
+the proper number of rounds were left for the heavy guns. No fresh
+supplies could be obtained. Von Spee could fight again, but he could not
+have won again had he been opposed to much lighter metal than that which
+overwhelmed him a few weeks later off the Falkland Islands.
+
+On the second day after the action von Spee returned to Valparaiso.
+Though his own ship had fought with the _Good Hope_ and he had seen her
+blow up he did not know for certain what had become of her. This well
+illustrates the small value of observers’ estimates of damage done to
+opponents during the confusion of even the simplest of naval fights.
+Distances are so great and light is so variable. The destruction of the
+_Monmouth_ was known, but not that of the _Good Hope_. So von Spee made
+for Valparaiso to find out if the English flagship had sought shelter
+there. Incidentally he took with him the first news of his victory, and
+the large German colony in the Chilean city burned to celebrate the
+occasion in characteristic fashion. But von Spee gave little
+encouragement. He was under no illusions. He fully realized the power of
+the English Navy and that his own existence and that of his squadron
+would speedily be determined. He “absolutely refused” to be celebrated
+as national hero, and at the German club, where he spent an hour and a
+half, declined to drink a toast directed in offensive terms against his
+English enemies. In his conduct of the fights with our ships, in his
+orders, in his private letters, Admiral von Spee stands out as a simple
+honest gentleman.
+
+He was a man not very energetic. Though forcible in action and a most
+skilful naval tactician, he does not seem to have had any plans for the
+general handling of his squadron. If an enemy turned up he fought him,
+but he did not go out of his way to seek after him. He dawdled about
+among the Pacific Islands during September and at Easter Island during
+most of October; after Coronel he lingered in and out of Valparaiso
+doing nothing. He must have known that England would not sit down in
+idle lamentation, but he did nothing to anticipate and defeat her plans
+for his destruction. His shortage of coal and ammunition caused him to
+forbid the commerce raiding which appealed to the officers of his light
+cruisers, and probably the same weakness made him reluctant to seek any
+other adventures. For five weeks he made no attempt even to raid the
+Falkland Islands, which lay helplessly expecting his stroke, and when at
+last he started out by the long safe southern route round the Horn, it
+was to walk into the mouth of the avenging English squadron which had
+been gathered there to receive him. One thing is quite certain: he heard
+no whisper of the English plans and expected to meet nothing at the
+Falkland Islands more formidable than the _Canopus_, the _Glasgow_, and
+perhaps one or two “County Class” cruisers, such as the _Cornwall_ or
+_Kent_. He never expected to be crunched in the savage jaws of two
+battle cruisers!
+
+While this kindly, rather indolent German Admiral was marking time off
+the Chilean coast, the squadron which was to avenge the blunder of
+Coronel was assembling from the ends of the earth towards the appointed
+rendezvous off the Brazilian coast. The _Bristol_, a sister of the
+_Glasgow_, had come in from a long cruise in the West Indies, during
+which she had met and exchanged harmless shots with another German
+wanderer, the _Karlsruhe_. The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were racing
+down from the north. The _Cornwall_ and _Kent_, burning to show that
+even “County” cruisers were not wholly useless in battle, and the
+armoured cruiser _Carnarvon_ were already in the South Atlantic. The
+poor old _Canopus_ and the _Glasgow_ had foregathered at Port Stanley in
+the Falkland Islands on November 8th, but were immediately ordered north
+to Montevideo to meet the other cruisers on the passage south. They left
+in accordance with these orders, but the _Canopus_ was turned back by
+wireless, so that Port Stanley might have some naval protection against
+the expected von Spee raid. Here the _Canopus_ was put aground in the
+mud, painted in futurist colours, and converted into a land fort. With
+her four 12-inch guns she could at least have made the inner harbour
+impassable to the Germans. The _Glasgow_ docked for repairs at Rio, and
+then joined the avenging squadron which had concentrated off Brazil, and
+with them swept down to the Falkland Islands which were reached upon the
+evening of December 7th. All the English ships, to which had been
+committed the destruction of von Spee, had then arrived. The stage was
+set and the curtain about to go up upon the second and final act of the
+Pacific drama. Upon the early morning of the following day, as if in
+response to a call by Fate, von Spee and his squadron arrived. After
+five weeks of delay he had at last made up his mind to strike.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+                     IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP
+
+                 Now is the winter of our discontent
+                 Made glorious summer . . .
+                 And all the clouds that lour’d
+                 In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
+
+The naval operations which culminated in the action off the Falkland
+Islands are associated vividly in my mind with two little personal
+incidents. On November 12th, 1914, a week after the distressful news had
+reached this country of the destruction by the enemy of the cruisers
+_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ off the Chilean coast, a small slip of paper
+was brought to me in an envelope which had not passed through the post.
+I will not say from whom or whence that paper came. Upon it were written
+these words: “The battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ have
+left for the South Atlantic.” That was all, twelve words, but rarely has
+news which meant so much been packed into so small a space. The German
+Sea Command would have given a very great deal for the sight of that
+scrap of paper which, when read, I burned. For it meant that two fast
+battle cruisers, each carrying eight 12-inch guns, were at that moment
+speeding south to dispose for ever of von Spee’s Pacific Squadron. The
+battle cruisers docked and coaled at Devonport on November 9th, 10th and
+11th; hundreds of humble folk like myself must have known of their
+mission and its grim purpose, yet not then nor afterwards until their
+work was done did a whisper of their sailing reach the ears of Germany.
+
+The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ coaled off St. Vincent, Cape Verde
+Islands, and again south of the Line. At the appointed rendezvous off
+Brazil they were joined by the _Carnarvon_, _Kent_, _Cornwall_, and
+_Bristol_, the armed liner _Orama_, and many colliers. Weeks had passed
+and yet no word of the English plans, even of the concentration in
+force, reached von Spee, who still thought that he had nothing more
+formidable to deal with than a few light cruisers and the old battleship
+_Canopus_.
+
+Nothing is more difficult to kill than a legend, and perhaps the most
+invulnerable of legends is that one which attributes to the German
+Secret Service a superhuman efficiency. I offer to the still faithful
+English believers two facts which in a rational world would blast that
+legend for ever: the secret mission of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
+to the Falkland Islands in November-December 1914, and the silent
+transport of the original British Expeditionary Force across the Channel
+during the first three weeks of war. And yet, I suppose, the legend will
+survive. The strongest case, says Anatole France in _Penguin Island_, is
+that which is wholly unsupported by evidence.
+
+The second incident which sticks in my mind was a scene in a big public
+hall on the evening of December 9th. Lord Rosebery was in the middle of
+a recruiting speech—chiefly addressed, as he plaintively observed, to
+an audience of baldheads—when there came a sudden interruption. Pink
+newspapers fluttered across the platform, the coat tails of the speaker
+were seized, and one of the papers thrust into his hands. We all waited
+while Lord Rosebery adjusted his glasses and read a stop-press message.
+What he found there pleased him, but he was in no hurry to impart his
+news to us. He smiled benevolently at our impatience, and deliberately
+worked us up to the desired pitch of his dramatic intensity. Then at
+last he stepped forward and read:
+
+“At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th the _Scharnhorst_, the _Gneisenau_, the
+_Nürnberg_, the _Leipzig_, and the _Dresden_ were sighted near the
+Falkland Islands by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick
+Sturdee. An action followed in the course of which the _Scharnhorst_
+(flying the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee), the _Gneisenau_, and the
+_Leipzig _ were . . . _sunk_.”
+
+At that word, pronounced with tremendous emphasis, 6,000 people jumped
+to their feet; they shouted, they cheered, they stamped upon the floor,
+they sang “Rule Britannia” till the walls swayed and the roof shuddered
+upon its joists. It was a scene less of exultation than of relief,
+relief that the faith of the British people in the long arm of the Royal
+Navy had been so fully justified. Cradock and the gallant dead of
+Coronel had been avenged. The mess had been cleaned up.
+
+“I thought,” said Lord Rosebery, as soon as the tumult had died down, “I
+thought that would wake you up.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+At Devonport the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had been loaded “to the
+utmost capacity,” not only with stores and ammunition for their own use,
+but with supplies to replenish the depleted magazines of their future
+consorts. They steamed easily well out of sight of land, except when
+they put in to coal off St. Vincent, and made the trip of 4,000 miles to
+the rendezvous near the line in a little over fourteen days. They
+cleared the Sound in the evening of November 11th, and found the other
+cruisers I have mentioned awaiting them at the appointed rendezvous off
+the Brazilian coast in the early morning of November 26th. Two days
+passed, days of sweltering tropic heat, during which the stores, brought
+by the battle cruisers, were parcelled out among the other ships and
+coal was taken in by all the ships from the attendant colliers. The
+speed of a far-cruising squadron is determined absolutely by its coal
+supplies. When voracious eaters of coal like battle cruisers undertake
+long voyages, it behoves them to cut their fighting speed of some
+twenty-eight knots down to a cruising speed of about one-half. By the
+morning of Saturday, November 28th, the now concentrated and fully
+equipped avenging Squadron was ready for its last lap of 2,500 miles to
+the Falkland Islands. The English vessels, spread out in a huge fan,
+swept down, continually searching for the enemy off the coasts of South
+America, where rumour hinted that he had taken refuge. The several ships
+steamed within the extreme range of visible signalling—so that no
+tell-tale wireless waves might crackle forth warnings to von Spee. It
+was high summer in the south and the weather glorious, though the
+temperature steadily fell as the chilly solitudes of the Falklands were
+approached. No Germans were sighted, and the Falkland Islands were
+reached before noon on December 7th. The Squadron had already been met
+at the rendezvous and joined by the light cruiser _Glasgow_. The old
+_Canopus_, so slow and useless as a battleship that she had been put
+aground on the mud of the inner harbour (Port Stanley) to protect the
+little settlement there, was found at her useful but rather inglorious
+post. Most of the vessels anchored in the large outer harbour (Port
+William) and coaling was begun at once, but though it was continued at
+dawn of the following day it was not then destined to be completed.
+
+Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had worked to perfection. The
+two great battle cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from England,
+the Squadron had secretly concentrated and then searched the South
+Atlantic, the Falkland Islands had been secured from a successful
+surprise attack which would have given much joy to our enemies, yet not
+a whisper of his fast-approaching doom had sped over the ether to von
+Spee. Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he had dawdled
+irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our ships were ready for battle, even
+the light cruiser _Glasgow_, so heavily battered in the Coronel action
+that her inside had been built up with wooden shores till it resembled
+the “Epping Forest,” after which the lower deck had christened it, and
+she had a hole as big as a church door in one side above the water-line.
+She had steamed to Rio in this unhappy plight and had been there well
+and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his men were full of fight;
+they had their hurts and their humiliation to avenge and meant to get
+their own back with interest. They did; their chance came upon the
+following day, and they used it to the full.
+
+Whitehall had done its best, and now came a benevolent Joss to put the
+crowning seal upon its work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the
+Falkland Islands will go down to history as a shining example of the
+whiteness of the Navy’s good Joss when in a mood of real benignity. We
+desired two things to round off the scheme roughed out at the Admiralty
+on November 6th: we wanted—though it was the last thing which we
+expected—we wanted the German Pacific Squadron to walk into the trap
+which had so daintily been prepared, and they came immediately, on the
+very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland Islands, at the
+actual moment when Vice-Admiral Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of
+the _Carnarvon_), with heads bent over a big chart, were discussing
+plans of search. They might have come and played havoc with the Islands
+on any morning during the previous five weeks, yet they did not come
+until December 8th, when we were just ready and most heartily anxious to
+receive them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day with what the Navy
+calls “full visibility.” We got it on December 8th. And this was a very
+wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are cursed with a vile cold
+climate, almost as cold in the summer of December as in the winter of
+June. It rains there about 230 days in the year, and even when the rain
+does not fall fog is far more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the
+Falklands is even some points more forbidding than the dreadful climate
+of Lewis in the Hebrides, which it closely resembles. Yet now and then,
+at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of them, the best of the
+year, dawned upon December 8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility
+was at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light breeze blew gently
+from the north-west. Our gunners had a full view to the horizon and a
+kindly swell to swing the gunsights upon their marks. For Sturdee and
+his gunners it was a day of days. Had von Spee come upon a wet and dull
+morning all would have been spoiled; he could have got away, his
+squadron could have scattered, and we should have had many weary weeks
+of search before compassing his destruction. But he came upon the one
+morning of the year when we were ready for him and the perfect weather
+conditions made escape impossible. Our gunnery officers from their
+spotting tops could see as far as even the great 12-inch guns could
+shoot. When the Fates mean real business there is no petty higgling
+about their methods; they ladle out Luck not in spoonfuls but with
+shovels.
+
+The Squadron which had come so far to clean up the mess of Coronel was
+commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, who had been
+plucked out of his office chair at the Admiralty—he was Director of
+Naval Intelligence—and thrown up upon the quarter-deck of the
+_Invincible_. He was the right man for the job, a cool-headed scientific
+sailor who would make full use of the power and speed of his big ships
+and yet run no risk of suffering severe damage thousands of miles away
+from a repairing base. Those who criticise his leisurely deliberation in
+the action, and the long-range fighting tactics which dragged out the
+death agony of the _Scharnhorst_ for three and a half hours and of the
+_Gneisenau_ for five, forget that to Sturdee an hour or two of time, and
+a hundred or two rounds of heavy shell, were as nothing when set against
+the possibility of damage to his battle cruisers. His business was to
+sink a very capable and well-armed enemy at the minimum of risk to his
+own ships, and so he determined to fight at a range—on the average
+about 16,000 yards (9½ land miles)—which made his gunnery rather
+ineffective and wasteful, yet certain to achieve its purpose in course
+of time.
+
+Just as von Spee at Coronel, having the advantage of greater speed and
+greater power, could do what he pleased with the _Good Hope_ and
+_Monmouth_, so Sturdee with his battle cruisers could do what he pleased
+with von Spee. The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ could steam at
+twenty-eight knots—they were clean ships—while the _Scharnhorst_ and
+the _Gneisenau_, now five months out of dock, could raise little more
+than twenty. The superiority of the English battle cruisers in guns was
+no less than in speed. Each carried eight 12-inch guns, firing a shell
+of 850 lb., while von Spee’s two armoured cruisers were armed with eight
+8.2-inch guns, firing shell of 275 lb. Sturdee, with his great advantage
+of speed, could set the range outside the effective capacity of von
+Spee’s guns, secure against anything but an accidental plunging shot
+upon his decks, while the light German 6-inch armour upon sides and
+barbettes was little protection against his own 12-inch armour-piercing
+shell. Sturdee could keep his distance and pound von Spee to bits at
+leisure. The “visibility” was perfect, space was unlimited, the Germans
+had no port of refuge, and from dawn to sunset Sturdee had sixteen hours
+of working daylight. He was in no hurry, though one may doubt if he
+expected to take so unconscionable a time as three and a half hours to
+sink the _Scharnhorst_ and five hours to dispose of the _Gneisenau_. It
+was not that Sturdee’s gunnery was bad—relatively, that is, to the
+gunnery of other ships or of other navies. The word bad suggests blame.
+But it was certainly ineffective. After the Falkland Islands action, and
+after those running fights in the North Sea between battle cruisers, it
+became dreadfully clear that naval gunnery is still in its infancy. All
+the brains and patience and mechanical ingenuity which have been
+lavished upon the problem of how to shoot accurately from a rapidly
+moving platform at a rapidly moving object, all the appliances for
+range-finding and range-keeping and spotting, leave a margin of
+guesswork in the shooting, which is a good deal bigger than the width of
+the target fired at. The ease and accuracy of land gunnery in contrast
+with the supreme difficulty and relative inaccuracy of sea gunnery were
+brought vividly before me once in conversation with a highly skilled
+naval gunner. “Take a rook rifle,” said he, “put up a target upon a
+tree, measure out a distance, sit down, and fire. You will get on to
+your target after two or three shots and then hit it five times out of
+six. You will be a land gunner with his fixed guns, his observation
+posts, his aeroplanes or kite balloons, his maps upon which he can
+measure up his ranges. Then get into a motor-car with your rook rifle,
+get a friend to drive you rapidly along a country road, and standing up
+try what sport you make of hitting the rabbits which are running and
+jumping about in the fields. That, exaggerated a bit perhaps, is sea
+gunnery. We know our own speed and our own course, but we don’t know
+exactly either the enemy’s speed or the enemy’s course; we have to
+estimate both. As he varies his course and his speed—he does both
+constantly—he throws out our calculations. It all comes down to
+range-finding and spotting, trial and error. Can you be surprised that
+naval gunnery, measured by land standards, is wasteful and ineffective?”
+“No,” said I, “I am surprised that you ever hit at all.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The English Squadron began to coal at half-past three upon that bright
+summer morning of December 8th, and the grimy operation proceeded
+vigorously until eight o’clock, when there came a sudden and most
+welcome interruption. Columns of smoke were observed far away to the
+south-east, and, presently, the funnels of two approaching vessels were
+made out. There were three others whose upper works had not yet shown
+above the horizon. Coaling was at once stopped and steam raised to full
+pressure. Never have our engineer staffs more splendidly justified their
+advance in official status than upon that day. Not only did they get
+their boilers and engines ready in the shortest possible time, but, in
+the subsequent action, they screwed out of their ships a knot or two
+more of speed than they had any right to do. The action was gained by
+speed and gun power; without the speed—the speed of clean-bottomed
+ships against those which, after five months at sea, had become
+foul—the power of the great guns could not have been fully developed.
+So, when we remember Sturdee and his master gunners and gunnery officers
+in the turrets and aloft in the spotting tops, let us also remember the
+master engineers hidden out of sight far below who gave to the gunners
+their opportunity.
+
+The battle cruisers, whose presence it was desired to conceal until the
+latest moment, poured oil upon their furnaces and, veiled in clouds of
+the densest smoke, awaited the rising of the pressure gauges. In the
+outer harbour the light cruisers collected, and from her immovable
+position upon the mud-banks the old _Canopus_ loosed a couple of pot
+shots from her big guns at the distant German at a range of six miles.
+Admiral Graf von Spee and his merry men laughed—they knew all about the
+_Canopus_. Then, when all was ready, the indomitable _Glasgow_, the
+_Kent_ (own sister to the sunken _Monmouth_), and the armoured
+_Carnarvon_ issued forth to battle. In the words of an eye-witness,
+later a prisoner, “The Germans laughed till their sides ached.” A few
+more minutes passed, and then, from under the cover of the smoke and the
+low fringes of the harbour, steamed grandly out the _Invincible_ and
+_Inflexible_, cleared for action, their huge turrets fore and aft and
+upon either beam bristling with the long 12-inch guns, their turbines
+working at the fullest pressure, the flag of Vice-Admiral Sturdee
+fluttering aloft. There was no more German laughter. Von Spee and his
+officers and men were gallant enemies, they saw instantly the moment the
+battle cruisers issued forth, overwhelming in their speed and power,
+that for themselves and for their squadron the sun had risen for the
+last time. They had come for sport, the easy capture of the Falkland
+Islands, but sport had turned upon the instant of staggering surprise to
+tragedy; nothing remained but to fight and to die as became gallant
+seamen. And so they fought, and so they died, all but a few whom we,
+more merciful than the Germans themselves at Coronel, plucked from the
+cold sea after the sinking of their ships.
+
+The German Squadron—the two armoured cruisers _Scharnhorst_ and
+_Gneisenau_, each with eight 8.2-inch guns, and the three light cruisers
+_Nürnberg_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, each armed with ten 4.1-inch
+guns—made off at full speed, and for awhile the English Squadron
+followed at the leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about twenty
+knots so as to keep together. It was at once apparent that our ships had
+the legs of the enemy, and could catch them when they pleased and could
+fight at any range and in any position which they chose to select. That
+is the crushing advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun power a
+fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if no port of refuge be available
+for him. In weight and power of guns there was no possible comparison.
+The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, which had descended from the far
+north to swab up the mess of Coronel, were at least three times as
+powerful as the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, crack gunnery ships
+though they might be. Their 12-inch guns could shoot with ease and with
+sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range beyond the full stretch
+of the German 8.2-inch weapons however deftly they might be handled.
+Their 10-inch armour upon the turrets and conning-tower was invulnerable
+against chance hits when closing in, and the armoured decks covering
+their inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The chances of
+disaster were reduced almost to nothingness by Sturdee’s tactics of the
+waiting game. When at length he gave the order to open fire he kept out
+at a distance which made the percentage of his hits small, yet still
+made those hits which he brought off tremendously effective. A bursting
+charge of lyddite in the open may do little damage, even that contained
+in a 12-inch shell, but the same charge exploded within the decks of a
+cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destructiveness.
+
+Presently the German Squadron divided, the enemy light cruisers and
+attendant transports seeking safety in flight from our light cruisers
+despatched in chase while the armoured cruisers held on pursued by the
+two battle cruisers and the armoured _Carnarvon_, whose ten guns were of
+7.5- and 6-inch calibre. The _Carnarvon_, light though she was by
+comparison with the battle cruisers, did admirable and accurate work,
+and proved in the action to be by no means a negligible consort. There
+was no hurry. A wide ocean lay before the rushing vessels, the enemy had
+no opportunity of escape so long as the day held clear and fine, and the
+English ships could close in or open out exactly as they pleased. During
+most of the fight which followed the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
+steered upon courses approximately parallel with those of the Germans,
+following them as they dodged and winded like failing hares, always
+maintaining that dominating position which in these days of steam
+corresponds with Nelson’s weather gauge. It followed from their position
+as the chasers that they could not each use more than six guns, but this
+was more than compensated for by the enemy’s inability to use more than
+four of his heavier guns in the _Scharnhorst_ or _Gneisenau_.
+
+I have met and talked with many naval officers and men who have been in
+action during the present war, and have long since ceased to put a
+question which received an invariable answer. I used to inquire “Were
+you excited or sensibly thrilled either when going into action or after
+it had begun?” This was the substance though not the words of the
+question. One does not talk in that land fashion with sailor-men. The
+answer was always the same. “Excited, thrilled, of course not. There was
+too much to do.” An action at sea is glorified drill. Every man knows
+his job perfectly and does it as perfectly as he knows how. Whether he
+be an Admiral or a ship’s boy he attends to his job and has no time to
+bother about personal feelings. Naval work is team work, the individual
+is nothing, the team is everything. This is why there is a certain
+ritual and etiquette in naval honours; personal distinctions are very
+rare and are never the result of self-seeking. There is no pot-hunting
+in the Sea Service. Not only are actions at sea free from excitement or
+thrills, but for most of those who take part in them they are blind. Not
+one in twenty of those who fight in a big ship see anything at all—not
+even the gun-layers, when the range is long and they are “following the
+Control.” Calmly and blindly our men go into action, calmly and blindly
+they fight obeying exactly their orders, calmly and blindly when Fate
+wills they go down to their deaths. In their calmness and in their
+blindness they are the perfected fruits of long centuries of naval
+discipline. The Sea Service has become highly scientific, yet in taste
+and in sentiment it has changed little since the days of Queen
+Elizabeth. The English sailor, then as now, has a catlike hatred of
+dirt, and never fights so happily as when his belly is well filled. The
+officers and men of the battle cruisers had been coaling when the enemy
+so obligingly turned up, and they had breakfasted so early that the meal
+had passed from their memories. There was plenty of time before firing
+could begin. So, while the engineers sweated below, those with more
+leisure scrubbed the black grime from their skins, and changed into
+their best and brightest uniforms to do honour to a great occasion. Then
+at noon “all hands went to dinner.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The big guns of the battle cruisers began to pick up the range of the
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ at five minutes to one, three hours after
+the chase had begun, when the distance from the enemy’s armoured
+cruisers was some 18,000 yards, say ten land miles. And while the huge
+shots fly forth seeking their prey, let us visit in spirit for a few
+minutes the spotting top of the _Invincible_, and discover for ourselves
+how it is possible to serve great guns with any approach to accuracy,
+when both the pursuing and pursued ships are travelling at high speed
+upon different courses during which the range and direction are
+continually varying. The _Invincible_ worked up at one time to
+twenty-nine knots (nearly thirty-four miles an hour), though not for
+long, since a lower speed was better suited to her purpose, and the
+firing ranges varied from 22,000 yards down to the comparatively close
+quarters of six miles, at which the _Scharnhorst_ and, later, the
+_Gneisenau_ were sent to the bottom.
+
+From the decks of the _Invincible_, when the main action opened, little
+could be seen of the chase except columns of smoke, but from the fire
+control platform one could make out through glasses the funnels and most
+of the upper works of the German cruisers. At this elevation the sea
+horizon was distant 26,000 yards (about 15½ land miles), and upon the
+day of the Falkland Islands fight “visibility” was almost perfect. When
+an enemy ship can be seen, its distance can be measured within a margin
+of error of half of one per cent.—fifty yards in ten thousand; that is
+not difficult, but since both the enemy vessel and one’s own ship are
+moving very fast, and courses are being changed as the enemy seeks to
+evade one’s fire or to direct more efficiently his own guns, the varying
+ranges have to be kept, which is much more difficult. It follows that
+three operations have to be in progress simultaneously, of which one is
+a check upon and a correction of the other two. First, all the
+range-finders have to be kept going and their readings compared;
+secondly, the course and speed of one’s own ship have to be registered
+with the closest accuracy and the corresponding speeds and courses of
+the enemy observed and estimated; thirdly, the pitching of one’s shots
+has to be watched and their errors noted as closely as may be. All this
+delicate gunnery work is perfectly mechanical but chiefly human. The
+Germans, essentially a mechanically inhuman people, try to carry the aid
+of machinery farther than we do. They fit, for example, a gyroscopic
+arrangement which automatically fires the guns at a chosen moment in the
+roll of a ship. We fire as the roll brings the wires of the sighting
+telescopes upon the object aimed at, and can shoot better when a ship is
+rolling than when she is travelling upon an even keel. We believe in
+relying mainly upon the deft eyes and hands of our gun-layers—when the
+enemy is within their range of vision—and upon control officers up
+aloft when he is not. German gunnery can be very good, but it tends to
+fall to pieces under stress of battle. Ours tends to improve in action.
+Machinery is a good servant but a bad master.
+
+As the shots are fired they are observed by the spotting officers to
+fall too short or too far over, to one side or to the other, and
+corrections are made in direction and in range so as to convert a
+“bracket” into a “straddle” and then to bring off accurate hits.
+
+When, say, the shots of one salvo fall beyond the mark and the shots of
+the next come down on the near side, the mark is said to be “bracketed.”
+When the individual shots of a salvo fall some too far and others too
+short, the mark has been “straddled.” A straddle is a closed-in bracket.
+At long ranges far more shots miss than hit, and we are dealing now with
+ranges up to ten or twelve miles. The bigger the gun the bigger the
+splash made by its shell when striking the water, and as the spotting
+officers cannot spot unless they can clearly make out the splashes,
+there is an accuracy—an ultimate effective accuracy—in big guns with
+which smaller ones cannot compete however well they may be served. For,
+ultimately, in naval gunnery, when ships are moving fast and ranges are
+changing continually, we come down to trial and error. We shoot and
+correct, correct and shoot, now and then find the mark and speedily lose
+it again, as the courses and speeds are changed. Unless we can see the
+splashes of the shells and are equipped with guns powerful enough to
+shoot fairly flat—without high elevation—we may make a great deal of
+noise and expend quantities of shell, but we shall not do much hurt to
+the enemy.
+
+The Falkland Islands action was the Royal Navy’s first experience in
+long-range war gunnery under favorable conditions of light—and it was
+rather disappointing. It revealed the immense gap which separates
+shooting in war and shooting at targets in time of peace. The battle
+cruisers sank the enemy, and suffered little damage in doing their
+appointed work, and thus achieved both the purposes which Admiral
+Sturdee had set himself and his men. But it was a wasteful exhibition,
+and showed how very difficult it is to sink even lightly armoured ships
+by gun-fire alone. Our shells at the long ranges set were falling
+steeply; their effective targets were not the sides but the decks of the
+Germans, which were not more than seventy feet wide. If one reflects
+what it means to pitch a shell at a range of ten miles upon a rapidly
+moving target seventy feet wide, one can scarcely feel surprised that
+very few shots got fairly home. We need not accept _au pied de la
+lettre_ the declaration of Lieutenant Lietzmann—a damp and unhappy
+prisoner—that the _Gneisenau_, shot at for five hours, was hit
+effectively only twenty times, nor endorse his rather savage verdict
+that the shooting of the battle cruisers was “simply disgraceful.” But
+every competent gunnery officer, in his moments of expansive candour,
+will agree that the results of the big-gun shooting were not a little
+disappointing. The Germans added to our difficulty by veiling their
+ships in smoke clouds and thus, to some extent cancelled the day’s
+“visibility.”
+
+No enemy could have fought against overwhelming odds more gallantly and
+persistently than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly trained
+long-service men. Many times, even at the long ranges at which the early
+part of the action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon the
+battle cruisers. One 8.2-inch shell from the _Scharnhorst_ wrecked the
+_Invincible’s_ wardroom and smashed all the furniture into chips except
+the piano, which still retained some wires and part of the keyboard.
+Another shell scattered the Fleet Paymaster’s money-box and strewed the
+decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless. Though the
+_Invincible_ was the leading ship, and at one time received the
+concentrated fire of both the _Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_, she did
+not suffer a single casualty. And, while she was being peppered almost
+harmlessly, her huge shells, which now and then burst inboard the doomed
+German vessels, were setting everything on fire between decks, until the
+dull red glow could be seen from miles away through the gaping holes in
+the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell.
+
+Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued, with intervals of rest
+for guns and men, till 4.16, when the _Scharnhorst_ sank. Three hours
+and twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the Germans stuck to
+their work, there was no thought of surrender; they fought so long as a
+gun could be brought to bear or a round of shell remained in their
+depleted magazines. Every man in the _Scharnhorst_ was killed or
+drowned; the action was not ended when she went down and her consort
+_Gneisenau_, steaming through the floating bodies of the poor relics of
+her company, was compelled to leave them to their fate. For nearly two
+hours longer the _Gneisenau_ kept up the fight. The battle cruisers and
+the smaller _Carnarvon_ closed in upon her, and at a range of some six
+to seven land miles smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was
+blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes past six she rolled
+over and sank. Her guns spoke up to the last. As she lay upon her side
+her end was hastened by the Germans themselves, who, feeling that she
+was about to go, opened to the sea one of the broadside torpedo flats.
+She sank with her ensign still flying. If the whole German Navy could
+live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern Pacific Squadron, that Service
+might in time develop a true Naval Soul.
+
+Those of the crew who remained afloat in the water after the _Gneisenau_
+sank were picked up by boats from the battle cruisers and the
+_Carnarvon_—we rescued 108 officers and men. Admiral Sturdee sent them
+a message of congratulation upon their rescue and of commendation upon
+their gallantry in battle, and every English sailor did his utmost to
+treat them as brothers of the sea. Officers and men lived with their
+captors as guests, not as prisoners, in wardroom and gun-room, and on
+the lower deck the English and Germans fought their battle over again in
+the best of honest fellowship. “There is nothing at all to show that we
+are prisoners of war,” wrote a young German lieutenant to his friends in
+the Fatherland, expressing in one simple sentence—though perhaps
+unconsciously—the immortal spirit of the English Sea Service. A
+defeated enemy is not a prisoner; he is an unhappy brother of the sea,
+to be dried and clothed and made much of, and to be taught with the
+kindly aid of strong drink to forget his troubles.
+
+There is little of exhilaration about a sea fight, such as that which I
+have briefly sketched. It seems, even to those who take part in it, to
+be wholly impersonal and wholly devilish. Though its result depends
+entirely upon the human element, upon the machines which men’s brains
+have secreted and which their cunning hands and eyes direct, it seems to
+most of them while in action to have become nothing loftier than a fight
+between soulless machines. One cannot wonder. The enemy ship—to those
+few of the fighting men who can see it—is a spot upon the distant
+horizon from which spit out at intervals little columns of fire and
+smoke. There is no sign of a living foe. And upon one’s own ship the
+attention of everyone is absorbed by mechanical operations—the steam
+steering gear, the fire control, the hydraulic or electric gun
+mechanism, the glowing fires down below fed by their buzzing air fans,
+the softly purring turbines. And yet, what now appears to be utterly
+inhuman and impersonal is in reality as personal and human as was
+fighting in the days of yard-arm distances and hand-to-hand boarding.
+The Admiral who, from his armoured conning-tower, orders the courses and
+maintains the distances best suited to his terrible work; the Fire
+Director watching, aiming, adjusting sights with the minute care of a
+marksman with his rifle; the officers at their telescopes spotting the
+gouts of foam thrown up by the bursting shells; the engineers intent to
+squeeze the utmost tally in revolutions out of their beloved engines;
+the stokers each man rightly feeling that upon him and his efforts
+depends the sustained speed which alone can give mastery of manœuvre;
+the seamen at their stations extinguishing fire caused by hostile
+shells; the gunners following with huge blind weapons the keen eyes
+directing them from far aloft; all these are personal and very human
+tasks. A sea fight, though it may appear to be one between machinery, is
+now as always a fight between men. Battles are fought and won by men and
+by the souls of men, by what they have thought and done in peace time as
+a preparation for war, by what they do in war as the result of their
+peace training.
+
+The whole art of successful war is the concentration upon an enemy at a
+given moment of an overwhelming force and the concentration of that
+force outside the range of his observation. Both these things were done
+by the Royal Navy between November 6th and December 8th, 1914, and their
+fruits were the shattered remains of von Spee’s squadron lying thousands
+of fathoms deep in the South Atlantic. But nothing which the Admiralty
+planned upon November 6th would have availed had not the Royal Navy
+designed and built so great a force of powerful ships that, when the
+far-off call arose, two battle cruisers could be spared to travel 7,000
+miles from the North Sea to the Falkland Islands without sensibly
+endangering the margin of safety of the Grand Fleet at home.
+
+While the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were occupying the front of the
+battle stage and disposing of the hostile stars, the English light
+cruisers were enjoying themselves in the wings in a more humble but not
+less useful play. The cruiser _Kent_ astonished everybody. She was the
+lame duck of the Squadron, a slow old creature who could with extreme
+difficulty screw out seventeen knots, so that, in the company of much
+faster boats, her armament of fourteen 6-inch guns appeared to be
+practically wasted. Yet this elderly County cruiser, so short of coal
+that her fires were fed with boats, ladders, doors, and officers’
+furniture, got herself moving at over twenty-one knots, chased and
+caught the _Nürnberg_—which ought to have been able to romp round her
+if one of her boilers had not been out of action—and sank the German
+vessel out of hand. Afterwards her officers claimed with solemn oaths
+that she had done twenty-four knots, but there are heights to which my
+credulity will not soar. One is compelled on the evidence to believe
+that she did catch the _Nürnberg_, but how she did it no one can
+explain, least of all, I fancy, her Engineer Commander himself. The
+_Leipzig_ was rapidly overhauled by the speedy _Glasgow_, who sank her
+with the aid of the _Cornwall_ and so repaid in full the debt of
+Coronel. The cruiser _Bristol_, a sister of the _Glasgow_, was sent
+after the German Squadron’s transports and colliers, and, in company
+with the armed liner _Macedonia_, “proceeded,” in naval language, “to
+destroy them.” Out of the whole German Squadron the light cruiser
+_Dresden_ (own sister to the _Emden_) alone managed to get away. She had
+turbine engines and fled without firing a shot. She passed a precarious
+hunted existence for three months, and was at last disposed of off
+Robinson Crusoe’s Island on March 14th, 1915. The _Glasgow_, still
+intent upon collecting payment for her injuries, and our aged but active
+friend the _Kent_, were in at her death, which was not very glorious. I
+will tell her story in its proper place. So ended that most dainty
+operation, the wiping out of the German Pacific Squadron and the
+cleaning up of the Mess of Coronel. Throughout, our sailors had to do
+only with clean above-water fighting. There were no nasty sneaking mines
+or submarines to hamper free movement; the fast ship and the big gun had
+full play and did their work in the business-like convincing fashion
+which the Royal Navy has taught us to expect from it.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+[For what follows I have none but German evidence, yet am loth to
+disbelieve it. I cannot bring myself to conceive it possible that the
+dull Teutonic imagination could, unaided by fact, round off in so pretty
+a fashion the story of the Falkland Islands. My naval friends laugh at
+me. They say the yarn is wholly impossible.]
+
+More than a year afterwards some fishermen upon the barren Schleswig
+coast observed a little water-worn dinghy lying upon the sand. She was
+an open boat about twelve feet long, too frail a bark in which to essay
+the crossing of the North Sea. Yet upon this little dinghy was engraved
+the name of the _Nürnberg_! Like a homing pigeon this frail scrap of
+wood and iron had wandered by itself across the world from that
+far-distant spot where its parent vessel had been sunk by the _Kent_. It
+had drifted home, empty and alone, through 7,000 miles of stormy seas. I
+like to picture to myself that Odyssey of the _Nürnberg’s_ dinghy during
+those fourteen months of lonely ocean travel. Those who know and love
+ships are very sure that they are alive. They are no soulless hulks of
+wood or steel or iron, but retain always some spiritual essence
+distilled from the personality of those who designed, built, and sailed
+them. It may be that in her dim blind way this fragment of a once fine
+cruiser, all that was left of a splendid squadron, was inspired to bring
+to her far-away northern home the news of a year-old tragedy. So she
+drifted ever northwards, scorched by months of sun and buffeted by
+months of tempest, until she came at last to rest upon her own arid
+shores. And the spirits of German sailors, which had accompanied her and
+watched over her during those long wanderings, must, when they saw her
+ground upon the Schleswig sands, have passed to their sleep content.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+                    HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”
+
+                  Forward, each gentleman and knight!
+                  Let gentle blood show generous might
+                  And chivalry redeem the fight!
+
+The Luck of the Navy is not always good. There are wardrooms in the
+Grand Fleet within which to mention any Joss except of the most devilish
+blackness may lead to blasphemy and even to blows. One can sympathise.
+Those who sped on May 31st, 1916, across 400 miles of sea and who,
+though equipped with all the paraphernalia of fire-directors,
+spotting-officers, range-fingers, control instruments, grizzled
+gun-layers and tremendous wire-wound guns, failed to get in a single
+shot at an elusive enemy, are dangerous folk to chaff. If to them had
+been vouchsafed the great chance which came to the Salt of the Earth and
+the Fifth B. S. there would not now be a German battleship afloat!
+Still, in face of blazing examples of bad Joss such as this, I will
+maintain that there are pixies sitting up aloft who have a tender regard
+for the Royal Navy and who, every now and then, ladle out to it
+toothsome morsels of unexpected, astounding, incredible Luck.
+
+For how else can one explain the action at the Falkland Islands? There
+was sheer luck in every detail of it, luck piled upon luck. Sturdee with
+his two battle-cruisers raced through 7,000 miles of ocean, from
+Plymouth to Port Stanley, and not a whisper of his coming sped over the
+wireless to von Spee. Yet hundreds knew of Sturdee’s mission—even I
+knew before he had cleared the English Channel. During five weeks, from
+the Coronel battle until December 7th, the Falkland Islands were exposed
+almost helpless to a raid by von Spee’s victorious squadron. Yet he
+delayed his coming until December 8th—the day after the _Invincible_
+and _Inflexible_ had arrived to gobble him up. As if these two miracles
+were not sufficient—a month of silence in those buzzing days of enemy
+agents and wireless telegraphy, and von Spee’s arrival off Port Stanley
+at the moment most dangerous for him and most convenient for us—the
+Fates worked for the Navy yet another. They gave to Sturdee upon
+December 8th, 1914, perfect weather, full visibility, and a quiet sea in
+a corner of ocean where rain and fog are the rule and clear weather
+almost a negligible exception. The Falkland Islands do not see half a
+dozen such days as that December 8th in the whole circuit of the year.
+Von Spee came and to Sturdee were granted a long southern summer day,
+perfect visibility, a limitless ocean of space, and a benign easy swell
+to swing the gunsights kindly upon their mark. It was a day that gunners
+pray for, sometimes dream of, but very rarely experience in battle.
+
+Less conspicuously but not less benignantly did the kindly Fates work up
+the scene for the destruction of the _Emden_. They made all their
+preparations in silence and then switched up the curtain at the moment
+chosen by themselves. In the Falkland Islands action Luck interposed to
+perfect the Navy’s long-laid plans and to add to the scheme those
+artistic touches of which man unaided is incapable. But the
+_Sydney-Emden_ action was fortuitous, quite unplanned, flung off at a
+moment when Luck might have seemed to be wholly on the side of the
+raider. The _Emden_ had destroyed 70,000 tons of shipping in seven weeks
+and vanished after each exploit upon an ocean which left no tracks. She
+seemed to be as elusive and dangerous as the Flying Dutchman. But
+perhaps her commander, von Müller, a most ingenious and gallant seaman,
+had committed that offence, which the Athenians and Eton boys call
+hubris, and had neglected to pay due homage for the good fortune which
+was poured upon him in plenty. For the Fates wearied of their sport with
+him and with us, withdrew their mantle of protection, and suddenly
+delivered the _Emden_ to the _Sydney_ with that artistic thoroughness
+which may always be seen in their carefully planned work. Luck is no
+bungler, but Luck is a most jealous mistress. If Sturdee and Glossop are
+wise they will sacrifice their dearest possessions while there is yet
+time. The _Invincible_ is at the bottom of the North Sea and the
+_Inflexible_ was mined in the Dardanelles. The _Sydney_ is a pretty
+little ship and I should grieve to see her suffer for her good luck of
+three years ago.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Take a chart of the Indian Ocean and draw a line from Fremantle in
+Australia to Colombo in Ceylon. The middle point of this line will be
+seen to lie about fifty miles east of the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Now
+draw another line from Cocos to the Sunda strait, a line which will be
+seen to bisect at right angles the Fremantle-Colombo line.   After this
+exercise in Euclid examine that point without parts and without
+magnitude, fifty miles east of Cocos, where the tracks intersect.   It
+is a very interesting point, for upon the tropical night of November
+8th, 1914, it was being approached by two hostile naval forces each of
+which was entirely ignorant of the nearness of the other. Coming up from
+Australia bound for Colombo steamed a fleet of transports under the
+charge of Captain Silver of H.M. Australian light cruiser _Melbourne_.
+Upon the left of Captain Silver, and nearest to the Cocos Islands, was
+Captain Glossop in the sister ship _Sydney_, and away to the right was a
+Japanese light cruiser. Upon the line from the Sunda strait to the Cocos
+Islands was steaming the famous raider _Emden_, with an attendant
+collier, bound upon a mission of destruction there. The _Emden_ crossed
+the head of the convoy about three hours before it reached the point of
+intersection of the two tracks, and went on to demolish the cable and
+wireless station on the Islands. Meanwhile, wholly unconscious of the
+scene-setting upon which  the  Fates  were busy, the  convoy sailed on,
+crossed the _Emden’s_ track and cut that vessel off from any chance of
+escape to the east. To the west the ocean stretches unbroken for
+limitless miles.   At half-past six in the morning the _Emden_ appeared
+off the Cocos Islands and the watching wireless operators at once sent
+out a warning to all whom it might concern that a foreign warship was in
+sight. It greatly concerned Captain Silver of the _Melbourne_, who
+ordered Captain Glossop to proceed in the _Sydney_ to the Islands in
+order to investigate. The _Sydney_ was nearest to the Islands, was a
+clean ship not three weeks out of dock, was in trim for the highest
+possible speed and, though largely manned by men in course of training,
+was in charge of experienced officers “lent” by the Royal Navy to the
+Australian Fleet Unit.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN.”]
+
+
+
+
+In the old sailing-ship days it was more common than it is now for
+fighting ships to pass close to one another without detection. Whole
+fleets used then to do it in a way which now seems always unbelievable.
+The classical example is that of Napoleon and Nelson in June, 1798. On
+the night of June 30th-July 1st, Napoleon with a huge fleet of
+transports, escorted by Admiral Brueys’ squadron, crossed the Gulf of
+Candia and reached Alexandria on the afternoon of the 1st. Nelson, who
+had been at Alexandria in search of his enemy, left on June 29th, and
+sailed slowly against adverse winds to the north. Though the French and
+British fleets covered scores of miles of sea they passed across one
+another, each without suspicion of the presence of the other. Nelson was
+very short of frigates. It is not remarkable that the British convoy and
+the _Emden_ on the night of November 8th, 1914, should so nearly have
+met without mutual detection; what is wonderful is that the _Emden_
+should have chosen the day and hour for raiding the Cocos Islands when a
+greatly superior British force was barely fifty miles distant and placed
+by accident in a position which cut off all prospects of escape. It was
+a stroke of Luck for us which exactly paralleled the occasion of von
+Spee’s raid a month later upon the Falkland Islands.
+
+By seven o’clock Glossop and the _Sydney_ were ready to leave upon their
+trip of investigation—they had no knowledge of what was before
+them—and during the next two and a quarter hours they steamed at twenty
+knots towards the distant cable station. In the meantime the _Emden_ had
+sent a boat ashore and the work of destruction of the station was
+completed by 9.20 a.m. Everything fitted exactly into its place, for the
+Fates are very pretty workmen. The _Emden_ knew nothing of the
+_Sydney’s_ coming, but as Glossop sped along his wireless receivers took
+up the distress calls from Cocos. He learned that the enemy warship had
+sent a boat ashore—and then came interruptions in the signals which
+showed that the wireless station had been raided. Naval officers do not
+get excited—they have too much of urgency upon which to concentrate
+their minds—but to those in the _Sydney_ must have come some thrills at
+the unknown prospect. Their ship and their men were new and untried in
+war. Their guns had never fired a shot except in practice. Before them
+might be the _Emden_ or the _Königsberg_ or both together. They did not
+know, but as they rushed through the slowly heaving tropic sea they
+serenely, exactly, prepared for action.
+
+The light cruiser _Sydney_, completed in 1913 for the Australian Unit,
+is very fast and powerful. She is 5,600 tons, built with the clipper
+bows and lines of a yacht, and when oil is sprayed upon her coal
+furnaces can steam at over twenty-five knots. She bears upon her deck
+eight 6-inch guns of the latest pattern, one forward, one aft, and three
+on either beam, so that she can fire simultaneously from five guns upon
+either broadside. Her lyddite shells weigh one hundred pounds each. She
+was, and is, of the fast one-calibre type of warship which, whether as
+light cruiser, battle cruiser, or heavy battleship, gives to our Navy
+its modern power of manœuvre and concentrated fighting force. Speed and
+gun-power, with the simplicity of control given by guns all of one size,
+are the doctrines upon which the New Navy has been built, and by virtue
+of which it holds the seas. The _Sydney_ was far more powerful than the
+_Emden_, whose ten guns were of 4.1-inch, firing shells of thirty-eight
+pounds weight. The German raider had been out of dock in warm waters for
+at least three and a half months, her bottom was foul, and her speed so
+much reduced that in the action which presently began she never raised
+more than sixteen knots. In speed as in gun-power she was utterly
+outclassed.
+
+Let us visit the _Sydney_ as she prepares for action on the morning of
+the fight just as she had prepared day after day in practice drill at
+sea. Before the foremast stands the armoured conning tower—exactly like
+a closed-in jam-pot—designed for the captain’s use; forward of the
+tower rises the two-storeyed bridge, the upper part of which is the
+station of the gunnery control officer; upon the mast, some fifty feet
+up, is fitted a spotting top for another officer. This distribution of
+executive control may look very pretty and scientific, but Glossop, who
+had tested it in practice, proposed to fight on a system of his own. If
+a captain is cooped up in a conning tower, with the restricted vision of
+a mediæval knight through a vizard, a gunnery lieutenant is perched on
+the upper bridge by the big range-finder, and another lieutenant is
+aloft in the spotting top, the difficulties of communication in a small
+cruiser are added to the inevitable confusion of a fight. So the
+armoured jam-pot and the crow’s nest aloft were both abandoned, and
+Glossop placed himself beside his Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly upon the
+upper bridge with nothing between their bodies and the enemy’s shot
+except a frail canvas screen. Accompanying them was a lieutenant in
+charge of certain instruments. At the back of the bridge—which measured
+some ten feet by eight—stood upon its pedestal the principal
+range-finder with a seat at the back for the operator. This
+concentration of control upon the exposed upper bridge had its risks, as
+will presently appear, but is made for simplicity and for the rapid
+working both of the ship and of her guns. Another lieutenant, Geoffrey
+Hampden, was in charge of the after control station, where also was
+fitted a range-finder. When a ship prepares for action the most unhappy
+person on board is the Second in Command—in this instance
+Lieutenant-Commander John F. Finlayson (now Commander)—who by the rules
+of the Service is condemned to safe and inglorious, though important
+duties in the lower conning tower. Here, seeing little or nothing and
+wrapped like some precious egg in cotton wool, the poor First Lieutenant
+is preserved from danger so that, if his Chief be killed or disabled, he
+at least may remain to take over command.
+
+From the upper fore bridge of the _Sydney_ we can see the guns’ crews
+standing ready behind their curved steel screens and note that as the
+ship cuts through the long ocean swell the waves break every now and
+then over the fo’c’sle and drench the gun which stands there. At 9.15
+land is sighted some ten miles distant and five minutes later a
+three-funnelled cruiser, recognised at once as the _Emden_, is seen
+running out of the port. Upon the _Sydney_ a bugle blows, and then for
+twenty minutes all is quiet orderly work at Action Quarters. To the
+_Emden_ the sudden appearance of the _Sydney_ is a complete surprise.
+Her destruction party of three officers and forty men are still ashore
+and must be left behind if their ship is to be given any, the most
+slender, chance of escape. Captain von Müller recognises the _Sydney_ at
+once as a much faster and more heavily gunned ship than his own. His one
+chance is to rush at his unexpected opponent and utilise to the utmost
+the skill of his highly trained gunners and the speed with which they
+can work their quick-firing guns. If he can overwhelm the _Sydney_ with
+a torrent of shell before she can get seriously home upon him he may
+disable her so that flight will be possible. In rapid and good gunnery,
+and in a quick bold offensive, may rest safely; there is no other
+chance. So out he comes, makes straight for the _Sydney_ as hard as he
+can go and gives her as lively a fifteen minutes as the most greedy of
+fire-eaters could desire.
+
+When the two cruisers first see one another they are 20,000 yards
+distant, but as both are closing in the range comes quickly down to
+10,500 yards (six land miles). To the astonishment both of the Captain
+and Gunnery Lieutenant of the _Sydney_, who are together looking out
+from the upper fore bridge, von Müller opens fire at this very long
+range for his small 4.1-inch guns and gets within a hundred yards at his
+first salvo. It is wonderful shooting. His next is just over and with
+the third he begins to hit. At the long range the _Emden’s_ shells fall
+steeply—at an angle of thirty degrees—rarely burst and never ricochet
+from the sea. They whine overhead in torrents, plop into the sea on all
+sides, and now and then smash on board. One reaches the upper fore
+bridge, passes within a foot of Lieutenant Rahilly’s head, strikes the
+pedestal of the big range-finder, glances off without bursting, cuts off
+the leg of the operator who is sitting behind, and finishes its career
+overboard. If that shell had burst Glossop and his Gunnery Lieutenant,
+together with their colleague at the rate-of-change instrument, must
+have been killed or seriously wounded and the Second in Command would
+have been released from his thick steel prison. Not one of them was six
+feet distant from where the shell struck in their midst. The
+range-finder is wrecked and its operator killed, but the others are
+untouched. A few minutes later two, possibly three, shells hit the after
+control, wound everyone inside, and wipe that control off the effective
+list.
+
+But meanwhile the officers of the _Sydney_ and their untried but gallant
+and steady men have not been idle. Their first salvo fired immediately
+after the _Emden_ opened is much too far, their second is rather wild
+and ragged, but with the third some hits are made. The _Sydney_ had
+fortunately just secured her range when the principal range-finder was
+wrecked and the after control scattered, and Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly
+is able to keep it by careful spotting and rate-of-change observations.
+Glossop, who has the full command given by superior speed, manœuvres so
+as to keep out to about 8,000 yards, to maintain as nearly constant a
+rate of change as is possible, and to present the smallest danger space
+to the enemy. The _Emden’s_ first effort to close in has failed, and now
+that the _Sydney’s_ 100-pound shells begin to burst well on board of her
+the _Emden’s_ one chance upon which von Müller has staked everything has
+disappeared. During the first fifteen minutes the _Sydney_ was hit ten
+times, but afterwards not at all; the _Emden_ was hit again and again
+during the long-drawn-out two hours of the hopeless struggle. After
+twenty minutes the _Emden’s_ forward funnel went and she caught fire
+aft. Her steering gear was wrecked and she became dependent upon the
+manipulation of her propellers, and the inevitable falling off in speed
+to about thirteen knots. During the early critical minutes of the action
+the _Sydney_ had the _Emden_ upon her port side, but all her casualties
+were suffered upon the starboard or disengaged side due to the steepness
+with which the German shells were falling. Once she was hit upon the
+two-inch side armour over the engine room and the shell, which this time
+burst, left a barely discernible scratch. Another shell fell at the foot
+of a starboard gun pedestal in the open space behind the shield, burst
+and wounded the gun’s crew but left the gun unhurt except for a
+spattering of a hundred tiny dents. The electric wires were not even
+cut. It is remarkable that during the whole of the action no electric
+wires in any part of the _Sydney_ were damaged. As I have told both gun
+controls of the _Sydney_ were hit during the first few minutes though
+only the after one was put out of action; the _Emden_, less fortunate,
+had both her controls totally destroyed and all the officers and men
+within them killed.
+
+After the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour the _Emden_ had lost
+two funnels and the foremast; she was badly on fire aft and amidships,
+so that at times nothing more than the top of the mainmast could be seen
+amid the clouds of steam and smoke. Her guns, now occasionally firing,
+gave out a short yellow flash by which they could be distinguished from
+the long dark red flames of the _Sydney’s_ bursting lyddite. Once she
+disappeared so completely that the cry went up from the _Sydney_ that
+she had sunk, but she appeared again, blazing, almost helpless. Glossop,
+who had been circling round to port, then drew in to a range of 5,500
+yards—which in the absence of the range-finder was wrongly estimated at
+under 5,000—and determined to try a shot with a torpedo. It was a
+difficult shot as the torpedo gunner was obliged to set his gyroscope to
+a definite angle and then wait until the rapidly turning _Emden_ came
+upon his bearing. But in spite of the difficulties it was very good; the
+torpedo ran straight for its mark and then stopped short at the distance
+of 5,000 yards for which it had been set. The torpedo crews, naturally
+enough, wanted forthwith to let off all their mouldies, just to show the
+gunners how the business should be done with, but the hard-hearted
+Glossop forbade. The moment after the one had been fired he swung the
+ship round to starboard, opened out his range, and resumed the
+distressful game of gun-pounding. The _Emden_ also went away to
+starboard for about four miles and then von Müller, finding that his
+ship was badly pierced under water as well as on fire, put about again
+and headed for the North Keeling Island, where he ran aground. The
+_Sydney_ followed, saw that her beaten enemy was irretrievably wrecked,
+and went away to deal with the _Emden’s_ collier—a captured British
+ship _Buresk_—which had hovered about during the action but upon which
+Glossop had not troubled to fire. The _Emden_ fired no torpedoes in the
+action, for though von Müller had three left his torpedo flat was put
+out of business early in the fight.
+
+Though the _Emden_ was beaten and done for, the gallantry and skill with
+which she had fought could not have been exceeded. She was caught by
+surprise, and to some extent unprepared, yet within twenty minutes of
+the _Sydney’s_ appearance upon the sky line von Müller was pouring a
+continuous rain of shell upon her at over 10,000 yards range and
+maintaining both his speed of fire and its accuracy until the
+hundred-pound shots bursting on board of him had smashed up both his
+controls, knocked down his foremast, and put nine of his ten guns out of
+action. Even then the one remaining gun continued to fire up to the
+last. The crew of the _Sydney_, exposed though many of them were upon
+the vessel’s open decks—a light cruiser has none of the protection of a
+battleship—bore themselves as their Anzac fellow-countrymen upon the
+beaches and hills of Gallipoli. At first they were rather ragged through
+over-eagerness, but they speedily settled down. The hail of shell which
+beat upon them was unceasing, but they paid as little heed to it as if
+they had passed their lives under heavy fire instead of experiencing it
+for the first time. Upon Glossop and his lieutenants on the upper
+bridge, and in the transmission room below, was suddenly thrown a new
+and urgent problem. With the principal range-finder gone and the
+after-control wrecked in the first few minutes, they were forced to
+depend upon skilful manœuvring and spotting to give accuracy to their
+guns. They solved their problem ambulando, as the Navy always does, and
+showed that they could smash up an opponent by mother wit and sea skill
+when robbed by the aid of science. It is good to be equipped with all
+the appliances which modern ingenuity has devised; it is still better to
+be able at need to dispense with them.
+
+I love to write of the cold fierce energy with which our wonderful
+centuries-old Navy goes forth to battle, but I love still more to record
+its kindly solicitude for the worthy opponents whom its energy has
+smashed up. Once a fight is over it loves to bind up the wounds of its
+foes, to drink their health in a friendly bottle, and to wish them
+better luck next time. When he had settled with the collier _Buresk_,
+and taken off all those on board of her, Glossop returned to the wreck
+of the _Emden_ lying there helpless upon the North Keeling Island. The
+foremast and funnels were gone, the brave ship was a tangle of broken
+steel fore and aft, but the mainmast still stood and upon it floated the
+naval ensign of Germany. Until that flag had been struck the _Sydney_
+could not send in a boat or deal with the crew as surrendered prisoners.
+Captain Glossop is the kindliest of men; it went against all his
+instincts to fire at that wreck upon which the forms of survivors could
+be seen moving about, but his duty compelled him to force von Müller
+into submission. For a quarter of an hour he sent messages by
+International code and Morse flag signals, but the German ensign
+remained floating aloft. As von Müller would not surrender he must be
+compelled, and compelled quickly and thoroughly. In order to make sure
+work the _Sydney_ approached to within 4,000 yards, trained four guns
+upon the _Emden_, and then when the aim was steady and certain smashed
+her from end to end. The destruction must have been frightful, and it is
+probable that von Müller’s obstinacy cost his crew greater casualties
+than the whole previous action. These last four shots did their work,
+the ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender went up. It was now
+late in the afternoon, the tropical night was approaching, and the
+_Sydney_ left the _Emden_ to steam to Direction Island some fifteen
+miles away and to carry succour to the staff of the raided cable and
+wireless station. Before leaving he sent in a boat and an assurance that
+he would bring help in the morning.
+
+Although the distance from Direction Island, where the action may be
+said to have begun, to North Keeling Island, where it ended, is only
+fifteen miles the courses followed by the fighting vessels were very
+much longer. They are shown upon the von Müller-Glossop plan, printed on
+page 193. The _Emden_ was upon the inside and the _Sydney_—whose
+greatly superior speed gave her complete mastery of manœuvre—was upon
+the outside. The _Emden’s_ course works out at approximately thirty-five
+miles and the _Sydney’s_ at fifty miles. The officers and men who are
+fighting a ship stand, as it were, in the midst of a brilliantly lighted
+stage and may receive more than their due in applause if one overlooks
+the sweating engineers, artificers, and stokers who, hidden far below,
+make possible the exploits of the stars. At no moment during the whole
+action, though ventilating fans might stop and minor pipes be cut, did
+the engines fail to give Glossop the speed for which he asked. His
+success and his very slight losses—four men killed and sixteen
+wounded—sprang entirely from his speed, which, when required, exceeded
+the twenty-five knots for which his engines were designed. When,
+therefore, we think of Glossop and Rahilly, who from that exposed upper
+bridge were manœuvring the ship and directing the guns, we must not
+forget Engineer Lieutenant-Commander Coleman and his half-naked men down
+below, who throughout that broiling day in the tropics nursed those
+engines and toiled at those fires which brought the guns to fire upon
+the enemy.
+
+True to his promise Glossop brought the _Sydney_ back to the _Emden_ at
+eleven o’clock on the morning of November 10th, having borrowed a doctor
+and two assistants from Direction Island, and then began the long
+task—which the Navy loves only less than actual battle—of rescue and
+care for the sufferers by its prowess. North Keeling Island is an
+irregular strip of rock, boulders and sand almost entirely surrounding a
+large lagoon. It is studded with cocoanut palms and infested with red
+land-crabs. An unattractive spot. The _Emden_ was aground upon the
+weatherside and the long rollers running past her stern broke into surf
+before the mainmast. Lieutenant R. C. Garsia, going out to her in one of
+the _Sydney’s_ boats, was hauled by the Germans upon her quarter-deck,
+where he found Captain von Müller, whose personal luck had held to the
+last, for he was unwounded. Von Müller readily gave his parole to be
+amenable to the _Sydney’s_ discipline if the surviving Germans were
+transshipped. The _Emden_ was in a frightful state. She was burned out
+aft, her decks were piled with the wreck of three funnels and the
+foremast, and within her small space of 3,500 tons, seven officers and
+115 men had been killed by high-explosive shell and splinters. Her
+condition may be suggested by the experience of a warrant officer of the
+_Sydney_ who, after gravely soaking in her horrors, retailed them in
+detail to his messmates. For two days thereafter the warrant officers’
+mess in the _Sydney_ lost their appetites for meat: one need say no
+more! The unwounded and slightly wounded men were first transferred to
+the boats of the _Sydney_ and _Buresk_, but for the seriously wounded
+Neil-Robertson stretchers had to be used so that they might be lowered
+over the side into boats. This had to be done during the brief lulls
+between the rollers. By five o’clock the _Emden_ was cleared of men and
+Captain von Müller went on board the _Sydney_, which made at once for
+the only possible landing place on the island in order to take off some
+Germans who had got ashore. To the surprise of everyone it was then
+discovered that several wounded men, including a doctor, had managed to
+reach the shore and were somewhere among the scrub and rocks. Night was
+fast coming on, the wounded ashore were without food and drink—except
+what could be obtained from cocoanuts—and were cut off from all
+assistance except that which the _Sydney_ could supply. The story of how
+young Lieutenant Garsia drove in through the surf after dark—at the
+imminent hazard of his whaler and her crew—hunted for hours after those
+elusive Germans, was more than once hopelessly “bushed,” and finally
+came out at the original landing place, is a pretty example of the
+Navy’s readiness to spend ease and risk life for the benefit of its
+defeated enemies. In the morning the rescue party of English sailors and
+unwounded Germans, supplied with cocoanuts and an improvised stretcher
+made of bottom boards and boathooks, at last discovered the wounded
+party, which had not left the narrow neck of land opposite the stranded
+_Emden_. Lieutenant Schal of the _Emden_, who was with them, eagerly
+seized upon the cocoanuts and cut them open for the wounded, who had
+been crying for water all night and for whom he had not been able to
+find more than one nut. The wounded German doctor had gone mad the
+previous afternoon, insisted upon drinking deeply of salt water, and so
+died. The four wounded men who remained alive were laboriously
+transferred to the _Sydney_ and the dead were covered up with sand and
+boulders. “A species of red land-crab with which the ground is infested
+made this the least one could do.” The reports of Navy men may seem to
+lack grace, but they have the supreme merit of vivid simplicity. That
+short sentence, which I have quoted, makes us realise that waterless
+crab-haunted night of German suffering more vividly than a column of
+fine writing.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE “SYDNEY-EMDEN” ACTION.]
+
+
+
+
+All was over, and the packed _Sydney_ headed away for her 1,600-mile
+voyage to Colombo. To her company of about 400 she had added 11 German
+officers and 200 men, of whom 3 officers and 53 men were wounded. The
+worst cases were laid upon her fo’c’sle and quarter-deck, the rest
+huddled in where they could. It was a trying voyage, but happily the
+weather was fine and windless, the ship as steady as is possible in the
+Indian Ocean, and the Germans well behaved; von Müller and Glossop, the
+conquered and conqueror, the guest and the host, became friendly and
+mutually respecting during those days in the _Sydney_. I like to think
+of those two, in the captain’s cabin, putting their heads together over
+sheets of paper and at last evolving the plan of the _Sydney-Emden_
+action which is printed here. Von Müller did the greater part of it,
+for, as Glossop remarked, “he had the most leisure.” A cruiser skipper
+with 400 of his own men on board and 200 prisoners, is not likely to
+lack for jobs. To the von Müller-Glossop plan I have added a few
+explanatory words, but otherwise it is as finally approved by those who
+knew most about it.
+
+Some single-ship actions remain more persistently in the public memory
+and in the history books than battles of far greater consequence. They
+are easy to describe and easy to understand. One immortal action is that
+of the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_; another is that of the _Sydney_
+and the _Emden_. It was planned wholly by the Fates which rule the Luck
+of the Navy, it was fought cleanly and fairly and skilfully on both
+sides, and the faster, more powerful ship won. I like to picture to
+myself the _Sydney_ heading for Colombo, bearing upon her crowded decks
+the captives of her bow and spear, her guns and her engines, not
+vaingloriously triumphant, but humbly thankful to the God of Battles. To
+her officers and crew their late opponents were now guests who could
+discuss with them, the one with the other, the incidents of the short
+fierce fight dispassionately as members of the same profession, though
+serving under different flags, just as Glossop and von Müller discussed
+them in the after cabin under the quarter-deck when they bent their
+heads over their collaborated plan.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+                       FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
+
+Since I have not been so foolish as to set myself the task of writing a
+history of the Naval War, I am not hampered by any trammels of
+chronological sequence. It is my purpose to select those events which
+will best illustrate the workings of the British Naval Soul, and to
+present them in such a manner and in such an order as will make for the
+greatest simplicity and force. Naval warfare, viewed in the scattered
+detail of operations taking place all over the world, is a mightily
+confusing study; but, if it be analysed and set forth in its essential
+features, the resultant picture has the clarity and atmosphere of the
+broad sea horizon itself. There is nothing in naval warfare, as waged by
+the Royal Navy, of that frightful confusion and grime and clotted horror
+which has become inseparable from the operations of huge land forces.
+Sailors live clean lives—except when the poor fellows are coaling
+ship!—and die clean deaths. They have the inestimable privilege of
+freedom both in the conception of their plans and in their execution.
+The broad distinction between land and sea service was put clearly to me
+once by a Marine officer who had known both. “At sea,” he observed, “one
+at least lives like a gentleman until one is dead.” It must be very
+difficult to live or to feel like a gentleman when one is smothered in
+the mud of Flanders’ trenches and has not had a bath for a month.
+
+Although, as I have shown, the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of war was,
+in effective battle power, of twice the strength of its German
+opponents, no time was lost in adding largely to that margin of
+strength. Mines, with which Germany recklessly sowed the seas whenever
+she could evade the watchful eyes of our cruisers and destroyers, and
+the elusive and destructively armed submarine, were perils not lightly
+to be regarded by our great ships. We took the measure of both these
+dangers in due course, but in the early months of war they caused a vast
+amount of apprehension. In addition, therefore, to dealing directly with
+these perils the whole power of our shipyards, gun shops, and
+armour-rolling mills was turned to the task of increasing the available
+margin of battle strength so as to anticipate the possibility of serious
+losses.
+
+And here we had great advantages over Germany. We not only had a far
+longer and far greater experience, both in designing and constructing
+ships and guns, but we had a larger number of yards and shops where
+battleships and battle cruisers could be completed and equipped.
+Throughout the fourteen years of the peace contest Germany had always
+been far behind us in design, in speed of construction, and in the
+volume of output. We built the first Dreadnought in little more than
+fifteen months—by preparing all the material in advance and taking a
+good deal from other ships—but our average time of completing the later
+models was rather more than two years apiece. The exalted
+super-battleships occupied about two years and three months before they
+were in commission. Germany—which so many fearful folk seriously look
+upon as superhuman in efficiency—never built an ordinary Dreadnought in
+peace time in less than two years and ten months, and always waited for
+the chance of copying our designs before she laid one down. It is
+reasonable to suppose that in the early days of war the German yards and
+gun shops worked much more rapidly than during the peace competition,
+but as our own quicker rate of construction was also enormously
+accelerated it is in the highest degree unlikely that our speed of war
+output was ever approached by our opponents. We had at the beginning far
+more skilled labour and, what is more important, far more available
+skilled labour. Since it was only by slow degrees that we enlisted a
+vast army for Continental service while Germany had to mobilise the
+whole of hers at the beginning of hostilities and to call upon the
+millions of untrained men, the drain upon our manhood was for a long
+time far less than the drain upon hers. As time went on labour became
+scarce with us, even for naval work, but it could never have been so
+scarce as with the Germans when after their immense losses they were
+driven to employ every possible trained and untrained man with the
+colours.
+
+We had yet another advantage. In August, 1914, as the result of the
+far-seeing demands of the British Admiralty we had twice as many great
+ships under construction in this country as Germany had in the whole of
+her North Sea and Baltic yards. This initial advantage was an enormous
+one, since it meant that for eighteen months Germany could make no
+effective efforts to catch up with us, and that at the end of that
+period we should inevitably have in commission an increase in battle
+strength more than twice as great as hers. The completed new lead thus
+secured early in 1916, added to the lead obtained before the outbreak of
+war, then made our position almost impregnable. We were thus free to
+concentrate much of our attention upon those smaller vessels—the
+destroyers, patrol boats, steam drifters, fast submarine catchers and
+motor boats—which were urgently needed to cope with Germany’s attacks
+upon the world’s merchant ships.
+
+Early in 1915, six months after the outbreak of War, our shipyards and
+gun shops had turned out an extraordinary quantity of finished work.
+There had been some loss in skilled labour through voluntary enlistment
+in the Army, but the men that were left worked day and night shifts in
+the most enthusiastic and uncomplaining spirit. The war was still new
+and the greatness of the Empire’s emergency had thrilled all hearts.
+Some coolness came later, as was inevitable—poor human nature has its
+cold fits as well as its hot ones—and there was even some successful
+intriguing by enemy agents in the North, but the great mass of British
+workmen remained sound at heart. The work went on, more slowly, a little
+less enthusiastically, but it went on.
+
+During the first six months we completed the great battle cruiser
+_Tiger_, a sister of the _Lion_ with her eight 13.5-inch guns, and the
+sisters fought together with those others of their class—the _Queen
+Mary_ and _Princess Royal_—in the Dogger Bank action in January, 1915.
+We took over and completed two battleships which were building for
+Turkey and under their new names of _Erin_ and _Agincourt_ they joined
+Jellicoe in the north. The second of these great vessels—ravished from
+the enemy—had fourteen 12-inch guns (set in seven turrets) and the
+other ten 13.5-inch. We completed two vast super-ships, the _Queen
+Elizabeth_ and another like to her, both with a speed of twenty-five
+knots and eight 15-inch guns apiece. The battle cruisers, _Indomitable_
+and _Indefatigable_, speeding home from the Mediterranean, had raised
+the Battle Cruiser strength in the North Sea to seven fine vessels of
+which four carried 13.5-inch guns and the three others 12-inch weapons.
+Even though the _Inflexible_ and _Invincible_ were still away—they were
+not yet back from fighting that perfect little action in which the
+German Pacific Squadron had been destroyed—we had a battle cruiser
+force against which the rival German vessels could not fight and hope to
+remain afloat.
+
+After six months, therefore, Jellicoe had received four new
+battleships—two of them by far the most powerful at that time
+afloat—and Beatty had been joined by three battle cruisers, one of them
+quite new. The Grand Fleet was the stronger for six months of work by
+seven ships.
+
+As compared with our increased strength of seven ships (five quite new),
+Germany had managed to muster no more than three. She completed two
+battleships of a speed of twenty and a half knots, each carrying ten
+12-inch guns. Neither of these vessels were more powerful than our
+original Dreadnought class and they were not to be compared with our
+King George V’s, Orions or Iron Dukes and still less with our Queen
+Elizabeths. That Germany should, six months after the war began, be
+completing battleships of a class which with us had been far surpassed
+fully four years earlier is the best possible illustration of her
+poverty in naval brains and foresight. Germany had also completed one
+battle cruiser, the _Derfflinger_, of twenty-seven knots speed and with
+eight 12-inch guns, which in her turn was not more powerful than our
+Invincibles of five years earlier date. The _Derfflinger_ could no more
+have stood up to our new _Tiger_ than the two battleships just completed
+by our enemies could have fought for half an hour with our two new Queen
+Elizabeths. So great indeed had our superiority become as early in the
+war as the beginning of 1915 that we could without serious risk afford
+to release two or three battle cruisers for the Mediterranean and to
+escort the Canadian and Australian contingents across the seas, and to
+send to the Mediterranean the mighty _Queen Elizabeth_ to flesh her
+maiden guns upon the Turkish defences of the Dardanelles. Ship guns are
+not designed to fight with land forts, and though the _Queen
+Elizabeth’s_ 15-inch shells, weighing over 1,900 lbs. apiece, may not
+have achieved very much against the defences of the Narrows, their
+smashing power and wonderful accuracy of control were fully
+demonstrated.
+
+Inconclusive though it was in actual results, the Dogger Bank action of
+January, 1915, proved to be most instructive. It showed clearly three
+things: first, that no decisive action could be fought by the big ships
+in the southern portion of the North Sea—there was not sufficient room
+to complete the destruction of the enemy. Secondly, it demonstrated the
+overwhelming power of the larger gun and the heavier shell. Thanks to
+the skill of the Navy’s engineering staffs it was also found that the
+actual speed of our battle cruisers was quite a knot faster than their
+designed speed, and since no similar advance in speed was noticeable in
+the case of the fleeing German cruisers it could be concluded that the
+training of our engineers was fully as superior to theirs as was
+unquestionably the training of our long-service seamen and gunners
+superior to that of their short-service crews. As the fleets grew larger
+our superiority in personnel tended to become more marked. We had an
+almost unlimited maritime population upon which to draw for the few
+thousands whom we needed—before the war the professional Navy was
+almost wholly recruited from the seaboards of the South of England—we
+had still as our reserves the east and west coasts of England and
+Scotland. But Germany, even before the war, could not man her fleets
+from her scanty resources of men from her seaboards, and more and more
+had to depend upon partially trained landsmen. If one adds to this
+initial disadvantage in the quality of the German sea recruits, that
+other disadvantage of tile cooping up of her fleets—sea training can
+only be acquired fully upon the open seas—while ours were continually
+at work, patrolling, cruising, practising gunnery, and so on, it will be
+seen that on the one side the personal efficiency of officers and men,
+upon which the value of machines wholly depends, tended continually to
+advance, while upon the German side it tended as continually to recede.
+It was the old story. Nelson’s sea-worn fleet, though actually smaller
+in numbers and weaker in guns than those of the French and Spaniards at
+Trafalgar, was so infinitely superior to its opponents in trained
+officers and men that the result of the battle was never for a moment in
+doubt.
+
+At the time of the Dogger Bank action, which confirmed our Navy in its
+growing conviction that Speed and Power of guns were of supreme
+importance, the Germans had no guns afloat larger in calibre than
+12-inch and seven of the ships in their first line were armed with
+weapons of 11 inches. They then mustered in all twenty big ships which
+they could place in the battle line against our available thirty-two,
+and of their twenty not more than thirteen were of a class comparable
+even with our older Dreadnoughts. They had nothing to touch our twelve
+Orions, King Georges, Iron Dukes, all with 13.5-inch guns, and upon a
+supreme eminence by themselves stood the two new Queen Elizabeths which,
+if need be, could have disposed of any half-dozen of the weaker German
+battleships. In the Jutland Battle four Queen Elizabeths—_Barham_,
+_Warspite_, _Valiant_ and _Malaya_—fought for an hour and more the
+whole High Seas Fleet. It is no wonder, then, that the Germans did not
+come out far enough for Jellicoe to get at them. And yet there were
+silly people ashore who still prattled about the inactivity of the Royal
+Navy and asked one another “what it was doing.”
+
+There is a good story told of the scorn of the professional seamen
+afloat for the querulous civilians ashore. When the _Lion_ was summoned
+to lead the battle cruisers in the Dogger Bank action she was lying in
+the Forth undergoing some slight repairs. As she got up steam a gang of
+dockyard mateys, at work upon her, pleaded anxiously to be put ashore.
+They had no stomach for a battle. But there was no time to worry about
+their feelings; they were carried into action with the ship, and when
+the shots began to fly they were contemptuously assured by the grizzled
+old sea dogs, that they were in for the time of their lives. “You wanted
+to know,” said they, “what the b——y Navy’s doing and now you’re going
+to see.”
+
+While the power of the Grand Fleet dominated the war at sea, some thirty
+supply ships and transports safely crossed the English Channel every
+day, and troops poured into Britain and France from every part of our
+wide-flung Empire. But for that silent, brooding, ever-expanding Grand
+Fleet, watching over the world’s seas from its eyries on the Scottish
+coast, not a man or a gun or a pound of stores could have been sent to
+France, not a man could have been moved from India or Australia, Canada
+or New Zealand. But for that “idle” Grand Fleet the war would have been
+over and Germany victorious before the summer and autumn of 1914 had
+passed into winter. During the war sea power, as always in naval
+history, has depended absolutely upon the power in men, in ships, and in
+guns of the first battle line.
+
+At the beginning of 1915, in addition to the completed ships which I
+have already mentioned, Great Britain had under construction three
+additional Queen Elizabeths—_Malaya_, _Barham_, and _Valiant_—all of
+twenty-five knot speed and carrying eight 15-inch guns apiece. She had
+also on the stocks in various stages of growth five Royal Sovereign
+Battleships designed for very heavy armour, with a speed of from
+twenty-one to twenty-two knots, and to be equipped with eight 15-inch
+guns each.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It will be seen how completely during the war the Royal Navy had “gone
+nap” on the ever faster ship and the ever bigger gun. Calculations might
+be partially upset by weather and visibility—as they were in the
+Jutland Battle—but even under the worst conditions speed and gun power
+came triumphantly by their own. Our fast and powerful battle cruisers,
+and our four fast and more powerful Queen Elizabeths—the name ship was
+not present—could not on that day of low visibility choose their most
+effective ranges, but the speed and power of the battle cruisers enabled
+them to outflank the enemy while the speed and hitting power of the
+_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_ and _Malaya_ held up the whole of the
+German High Seas Fleet until Jellicoe with his overwhelming squadrons
+could come to their support. Even under the worst conditions of light,
+speed and gun power had fully justified themselves.
+
+Let us for a moment consider what are the advantages and disadvantages
+of the bigger and bigger gun; the advantages of speed will be obvious to
+all. To take first the disadvantages. Big guns mean weight, and weight
+is inconsistent with speed. The bigger the gun, the heavier it is, the
+heavier its mountings, its turrets, and its ammunition. Therefore in
+order that weight may be kept down and high speed attained, the ships
+which carry big guns must carry fewer guns than those which are more
+lightly armed. The Orions, K.G. Fives, and Iron Dukes each bear ten
+13.5-inch guns within their turrets, but the battle cruisers of which
+the _Lion_ is the flagship, built for speed, can carry no more than
+eight. The Queen Elizabeth battleships, designed to carry 15-inch guns
+and to have a speed of twenty-five knots, mount eight guns only against
+the ten of the earlier and more lightly armed super-Dreadnoughts. Speed
+and weight being inconsistent, increase in speed and increase in size of
+guns can only be reconciled by reducing the number of guns carried. The
+fewer the guns carried, the fewer the salvos that can be fired at an
+enemy during a fixed time even if the rate of fire of the big guns can
+be kept so high as that of the smaller ones. When opposing ships are
+moving fast upon divergent courses, ranges are continually varying and
+the difficulty of making effective hits is very great indeed. The
+elaboration of checks and controls, which are among the most cherished
+of naval gunnery secrets, are designed to increase the proportion of
+hits to misses which must always be small even when the light is most
+favourable. If the heavy gun were no more accurate than the light one,
+then the small number of guns carried and the reduced number of salvos,
+would probably annul the benefit derived from the greater smashing power
+of the heavier shell when it did hit an enemy. The ever-expanding gun
+has, therefore, disadvantages, notable disadvantages, but as we shall
+see they are far more than outweighed by its great and conspicuous
+merits.
+
+The first overwhelming advantage of the big gun is the gain in accuracy.
+It is far more accurate than the lighter one. As the fighting range
+increases so does the elevation of a gun, needed to reach an object
+within the visible limits of the horizon, sensibly increase. But the
+bigger the gun and the heavier its shell, the flatter becomes its
+trajectory. And a flat trajectory—low elevation—means not only more
+accurate shooting, but a larger danger zone for an enemy ship. At 24,000
+yards (twelve sea miles) a 12-inch shell is falling very steeply and can
+rarely be pumped upon an enemy’s deck, but a 15-inch shell is still
+travelling upon a fairly flat path which makes it effective against the
+sides and upper works of a ship as well as against its deck. The 15-inch
+shell thus has the bigger mark. It also suffers less from deflection
+and, what is more important, maintains its speed for a much longer time
+than a lighter shell. Increased weight means increased momentum. When
+the 15-inch shell gets home upon its bigger mark at a long range it has
+still speed and weight (momentum) with which to penetrate protective
+armour. When it does hit and penetrate there is no comparison in
+destructiveness between the effect of a 15-inch shell and one of twelve
+inches. The larger shell is nearly two and a half times as heavy as the
+smaller one (1,960 lbs. against 850), and the power of the bursting
+charge of the big shell is more than six times that of the smaller one.
+Far-distant ships, big ships, can be destroyed by 15-inch shells when,
+even if occasionally hit by one of twelve inches, they would be little
+more than peppered. The big gun therefore gives to our Navy a larger
+mark, greater accuracy arising from the lower trajectory, and far
+greater destructive hitting power in comparison with the lighter guns
+carried by most of the German battleships.
+
+But the advantages of the big gun do not end here. Gunnery, in spite of
+all its elaboration of checks and controls, is largely a matter of trial
+and error. All that the checks and controls are designed to do is to
+reduce the proportion of errors; they cannot by themselves ensure
+accurate shooting. Accuracy is obtained through correcting the errors by
+actual observation of the results of shots. This is called “spotting.”
+When shells are seen to fall too short, or too far, or too much to one
+side or the other, the error in direction or elevation is at once
+corrected. But everything depends upon exact meticulous spotting, an
+almost incredibly difficult matter at the long ranges of modern sea
+fighting. Imagine oneself looking for the splash of a shell, bursting on
+contact with the sea ten or more miles away, and estimating just how far
+that splash is short or over or to one side of the object aimed at. It
+will be obvious to anyone that the position of a big splash can be
+gauged more surely than that of a small one, and that the huge splash of
+the big shell, which sends up a column of water hundreds of feet high,
+can be seen and placed by spotting officers who would be quite baffled
+if they were observing shots from 12-inch weapons. In this respect also,
+that of spotting results, the big gun with its big shell, greatly
+assists the elimination of inevitable errors and increases the
+proportion of effective hits to misses. If then we get from bigger guns
+a higher proportion of hits, and a much greater effectiveness from those
+hits, then the bigger gun has paid a handsome dividend on its cost and
+has more than compensated us for the reduction in its numbers. Where the
+useful limit will be reached one cannot say, nothing but experience in
+war can decide, but the visible horizon being limited to about fifteen
+sea miles, there must come a stage in gun expansion when increase in
+size, accuracy, and destructiveness will cease to compensate for
+smallness of numbers. And the limit will be more quickly reached when
+during an action the light does not allow the big gun to use its
+accuracy at longer ranges to the fullest advantage.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Although one’s attention is apt to be absorbed by the great ships of the
+first battle line, the ultimate Fount of naval Power, a Navy which built
+only vast battleships and cruisers would be quite unable to control the
+seas. A navy’s daily work does not consist of battles. For the main
+purposes of watching the seas, hunting submarines, blockading an enemy,
+and guarding the communications of ourselves and our Allies, and also
+for protecting our big ships against submarines and other mosquito
+attacks, we needed vast numbers of light cruisers, patrol boats,
+destroyers, armed merchant cruisers, steam drifters and so on, and these
+had to be built or adapted with as great an energy as that devoted to
+turning out the monsters of the first battle line. The construction of
+light cruisers and destroyers—the cavalry of the seas—kept pace during
+1915 and 1916 with that of the big fighting ships, while the turning out
+of the light fast craft essential for hunting down enemy submarines, far
+surpassed in speed and other building operations. At the beginning of
+the war we had 270 light mosquito vessels; at the end of 1917 we had
+3,500!
+
+Nothing like the tremendous activity in warship building during 1915 has
+ever been seen in our country. Mercantile building was to a large extent
+suspended, labour was both scarce and dear, builders could not complete
+commercial contracts at the prices named in them, the great yards became
+“controlled establishments” with priority claims both for labour and
+material. Consequently every yard which could add to the Navy’s
+strength, whether in super-battleships or cruisers, destroyers or in the
+humble mine sweeper, were put on to war work. The Clyde, typical of the
+shipbuilding rivers, was a forest of scaffolding poles from Fairfield to
+Greenock within which huge rusty hulls—to the unaccustomed eye very
+unlike new vessels—grew from day to day in the open almost with the
+speed of mushrooms. A trip down the teeming river became one of the
+sights of the city on the Clyde and, though precautions were taken to
+exclude aliens, the Germans must have known with some approach to
+accuracy the numbers and nature of the craft which were under
+construction. What was going on in the Clyde during that year of supreme
+activity, when naval brains were unhampered by Parliament or the
+Treasury, was also going on in the Tyne, at Barrow and Birkenhead, in
+the Royal Dockyards—everywhere day and night the Navy was growing at a
+speed fully three times as great as in any year in our history.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Twenty-two months after war broke out, in May of 1916, Jellicoe’s battle
+line had been strengthened during the previous twelve months by the
+addition of no less than seven great vessels. Three more Queen
+Elizabeths were finished and so were three Royal Sovereigns, and in
+addition a fine battleship, which had been building in England for
+Brazil, was taken over and completed. She was named the _Canada_, had
+twenty-three knots of speed, and was designed to carry ten 14-inch guns.
+There were thus available in the North Sea, allowing for occasional
+absences, from thirty-eight to forty-two great ships of the battle line,
+of which no fewer than eight carried 15-inch guns of the very latest
+design. This huge piling up of strength was essential not only to
+provide against possible losses but to ensure that, in spite of all
+accidents, an immense preponderance of naval power would always be
+available should Germany venture to put her fortunes to the hazard of
+battle. And accidents did occur. The coast lights had all been
+extinguished and ships at sea cruising at night were almost buried in
+darkness. As time went on it became more and more certain that a Battle
+of the Giants could have but one result.
+
+I have now carried the story of naval expansion down to the time of the
+Jutland Battle—May 31st, 1916—and will show by how much our paper
+strength had increased between August 4th, 1914, and that date, and how
+much of that strength was available when the call for battle rang out.
+It happened that none of our battle cruisers was away upon overseas
+enterprises, so that we were in good circumstances to meet the call.
+There had been added to the Fleets one battle cruiser, the _Tiger_, with
+13.5-inch guns, five Queen Elizabeth battleships with 15-inch guns,
+three Royal Sovereign battleships with 15-inch guns (_Royal Sovereign_,
+_Royal Oak_ and _Revenge_), the _Erin_ battleship with 13.5-inch guns,
+the _Canada_ battleship with 14-inch guns, and the _Agincourt_
+battleship with fourteen 12-inch guns. At the beginning of the war our
+total strength in battleships and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought and
+later more powerful types was thirty-one, so that on May 31st we had in
+and near the North Sea a full paper total of forty-two ships of the
+battle line.
+
+But the Royal Navy which is always at work upon the open seas can never
+have at any one moment its whole force available for battle. The
+squadrons composing the Fleets were, however, exceedingly powerful, far
+more than sufficient for the complete destruction of the Germans had
+they dared to fight out the action. As the battle was fought the main
+burden fell upon thirteen only of our ships—Beatty’s four Cat battle
+cruisers assisted by the _New Zealand_ and _Indefatigable_, Hood’s three
+battle cruisers of the Invincible class, and Evan-Thomas’s four Queen
+Elizabeth battleships. Jellicoe’s available main Fleet of twenty-five
+battleships, including two Royal Sovereigns with 15-inch guns, the
+_Canada_ with 14-inch guns, and twelve Orions, K.G. Fives and Iron Dukes
+with 13.5-inch guns, which was robbed of its fought-out battle by the
+enemy’s skilful withdrawal, was almost sufficient by itself to have
+eaten up the German High Seas Fleet.
+
+During the battle we lost the _Queen Mary_ with 13.5-inch guns, and the
+_Invincible_ and _Indefatigable_ with 12-inch guns, all of which were
+battle cruisers. So that after the action our total battle cruiser
+strength had declined from ten to seven, while our battleship strength
+was unimpaired.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It is not easy to be quite sure of what the Germans had managed to do
+during those twenty-two months of war. I have given them credit for
+completing every ship which it was possible for them to complete. They
+were too fully occupied with building submarines to attack our merchant
+ships, too fully occupied with guns and shells for land fighting, and
+too much hampered in regard to many essential materials by our blockade,
+to be able to effect more than the best possible. Rumour from time to
+time credited them with the construction of “surprise” ships carrying
+17-inch guns, but nothing unexpected was revealed when the clash of
+Fleets came on May 31st, 1916. Huge new battleships and huge new guns
+take us at the very least fifteen months to complete at full war
+pressure—most of them nearer two years—and the German rate of
+construction, even when unhampered by a blockade and the calling to the
+army of all available men, has always been much slower than ours. The
+British Admiralty does not work in the dark and doubtless knew fully
+what the Germans were doing.
+
+If we credit the Germans with their best possible they might have added,
+by May, 1916, four battleships and two battle cruisers to their High
+Seas Fleet as it existed early in 1915. One of the battleships was the
+_Salamis_, which was building at Stettin for Greece when the war broke
+out. She was designed for speed of twenty-three knots, and to carry ten
+14-inch guns. The other three battleships were copies of our Queen
+Elizabeths, though slower by about four knots. They were to have been
+equipped with eight 15-inch guns, though Germany had not before the war
+managed to make any naval guns larger than 12-inch. The battle cruisers
+(_Hindenburg_ and _Lützow_) were vessels of twenty-seven knots with
+eight 12-inch guns, not to be compared with our Cats and no better than
+our comparatively old class of Invincibles.
+
+The story of the _Salamis_ and its 14-inch guns forms a very precious
+piece of war history. The guns for this Greek battleship had been
+ordered in America, a country which has specialised in guns of that
+calibre. But when Germany took over the ship the guns had not been
+delivered at Stettin, and never were delivered. They had quite another
+destination and employment. Our Admiralty interposed, in its grimly
+humorous way, bought the guns in America, brought them over to this
+country, and used the weapons intended for the _Salamis_ to bombard the
+Germans at Zeebrugge and the Turks in Gallipoli. One may speculate as to
+which potentate was the more irritated by this piece of poetic
+justice—the Kaiser in Berlin or his brother-in-law “Tino” in Athens.
+
+At their utmost, therefore, the Germans could not have added more than
+five vessels to their first line (they had lost one battle cruiser),
+thus raising it at the utmost to twenty-five battleships and cruisers,
+as compared with our maximum of forty-two much more powerful and faster
+ships. Four of their battleships were the obsolete Nassaus with twelve
+11-inch guns and two of their battle cruisers (_Moltke_ and _Seydlitz_)
+were also armed with 11-inch guns. If a successful fight with our Grand
+Fleet was hopeless in August, 1914, it was still more hopeless in May,
+1916. We had not doubled our lead in actual numbers but had much more
+than doubled it in speed and power of the vessels available for a battle
+in the North Sea. In gun power we had nearly twice Germany’s strength at
+the beginning; we had not far from three times her effective strength by
+the end of May of 1916. It is indeed probable that Germany was not so
+strong in big ships and guns as I have here reckoned. She did not
+produce so many in the Jutland Battle. I can account for five battle
+cruisers and sixteen battleships (excluding pre-Dreadnoughts) making
+twenty-one in all. I have allowed her, however, the best possible, but
+long before the year 1916 it must have been brought bitterly home to the
+German Sea Command that by no device of labour, thought, and machinery
+could they produce great ships to range in battle with ours. We had
+progressed from strength to strength at so dazzling a speed that we
+could not possibly be overtaken. Had not the hare gone to sleep, the
+tortoise could never have come up with it—and the British hare had no
+intention of sleeping to oblige the German tortoise. There is every
+indication that Germany soon gave up the contest in battleships and put
+her faith in super-submarines, and in Zeppelins, the one to scout and
+raid, and the other to sink merchant vessels and so between them either
+to starve or terrify England into seeking an end of the war.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+                      THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
+                         PART I.—RIO TO CORONEL
+                     (July 27th to Nov. 1st, 1914)
+
+Everyone has heard of the light cruiser _Glasgow_, how she fought at
+Coronel, and then escaped, and is now the sole survivor among the
+warships which then represented Great Britain and Germany; how she
+fought again off the Falkland Islands, and with the aid of the
+_Cornwall_ sank the _Leipzig_; how after many days of weary search she
+discovered the _Dresden_ in shelter at Juan Fernandez, and with the
+_Kent_ finally brought that German cruiser to a last account. These
+things are known. But of her other movements and adventures between the
+declaration of war in August of 1914 and that final spectacular scene in
+Cumberland Bay, Juan Fernandez, upon March 14th, 1915, nothing has been
+written. It is a very interesting story, and I propose to write it now.
+I will relate how she began her fighting career as the forlorn solitary
+representative of English sea power in the South Atlantic, and how by
+gradual stages, as if endowed with some compelling power of magnetic
+attraction, she became the focus of a British and German naval
+concentration which at last extended over half the world. This scrap of
+a fast light cruiser, of 4,800 tons, in appearance very much like a
+large torpedo-boat destroyer, with her complement of 370 men, worthily
+played her part in the Empire’s work, which is less the fighting of
+great battles than the sleepless policing of the seas. The battleships
+and battle cruisers are the fount of power; they by their fighting might
+hold the command of the seas, but the Navy’s daily work in the outer
+oceans is done, not by huge ships of the line, but by light cruisers,
+such as the _Glasgow_, of which at the outbreak of the war we had far
+too few for our needs.
+
+In July, 1914, the _Glasgow_ was the sole representative of British sea
+power upon the Atlantic coast of South America. She had the charge of
+our interests from a point some 400 miles north of Rio, right down to
+the Falkland Islands in the cold south. She was a modern vessel of 4,800
+tons, first commissioned in 1911 by Captain Marcus Hill, and again in
+September, 1912, by Captain John Luce, and the officers and men who
+formed her company in July nearly four years ago, when the shadow of war
+hung over the world. She was well equipped to range over the thousands
+of miles of sea of which she was the solitary guardian. Her turbine
+engines, driving four screws, could propel her at a speed exceeding
+twenty-six knots (over thirty miles an hour) when her furnaces were fed
+with coal and oil; and with her two 6-inch and ten 4-inch guns of new
+pattern she was more than a match for any German light cruiser which
+might have been sent against her.
+
+Upon July 27th, 1914, while lying at Rio de Janeiro her captain received
+the first intimation that the strain in Europe might result in war
+between England and Germany. Upon July 29th the warning became more
+urgent, and upon July 31st the activity of the German merchant ships in
+the harbour showed that they also had been notified of the imminence of
+hostilities. They loaded coal and stores into certain selected vessels
+to their utmost capacity, and clearly purposed to employ them as supply
+ships for any of their cruisers which might be sent to the South
+Atlantic. At that time there were, as a matter of fact, no German
+cruisers nearer than the east coast of Mexico. The _Karlsruhe_ had just
+come out to relieve the _Dresden_, which had been conveying refugees of
+the Mexican Revolution to Kingston, Jamaica. Thence she sailed for
+Haiti, met there the _Karlsruhe_, and made the exchange of captains on
+July 27th. Both these cruisers were ordered to remain, but a third
+German cruiser in Mexican waters, the _Strassburg_, rushed away for home
+and safely got back to Germany before war was declared on August 4th.
+Thus the _Dresden_ and _Karlsruhe_ were left, and over against them in
+the West Indies lay Rear-Admiral Cradock with four “County”
+cruisers—_Suffolk_, _Essex_, _Lancaster_, and _Berwick_ (sisters of the
+_Monmouth_)—and the fast cruiser _Bristol_, a sister of the _Glasgow_.
+Though the _Glasgow_, lying alone at Rio, had many anxieties—chiefly at
+first turning upon that question of supply which governs the movements
+of war ships in the outer seas—she had no reason to expect an immediate
+descent of the _Dresden_ and _Karlsruhe_ from the north. Cradock could
+look after them if they had not the good luck to evade his attentions.
+Upon August 1st, the _Glasgow_ was cleared for war, and all luxuries and
+superfluities, all those things which make life tolerable in a small
+cruiser, were ruthlessly cast forth and put into store at Rio. She was
+well supplied with provisions and ammunition, but coal, as it always is,
+was an urgent need—not only coal for the immediate present, but for the
+indefinite future. For immediate necessities the _Glasgow_ bought up the
+cargo of a British collier in Rio, and ordered her captain to follow the
+cruiser when she sallied forth. Upon August 3rd, the warnings from home
+became definite, the _Glasgow_ coaled and took in oil till her bunkers
+were bursting, made arrangements with the English authorities in Rio for
+the transmission of telegrams to the secret base which she proposed to
+establish, and late in the evening of August 4th, crept out of Rio in
+the darkness with all lights out. During that fourth day of August the
+passing minutes seemed to stretch into years. The anchorage where the
+_Glasgow_ lay was in the outer harbour, and she was continually passed
+by German merchant steamers crowding in to seek the security of a
+neutral port. War was very near.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”]
+
+
+
+
+Captain Luce had already selected a secret base, where he hoped to be
+able to coal in shelter outside territorial waters. His collier had been
+ordered to follow as soon as permitted, and he headed off to inspect the
+barren rocks, uninhabited except by a lighthouse-keeper, which were to
+be his future link with home. His luck held, for the first ship he
+encountered was a big English steamer bound for Rio with coal for the
+Brazilian railways. In order to be upon the safe side, he commandeered
+this collier also, and made her attend him to his base. There, to his
+relief, he found that shelter from the surf could be found, and that it
+was possible to use the desolate spot as a coaling base and keep the
+supply ships outside territorial waters. He used it then and afterwards;
+so did the other cruisers, _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, which came out to
+him, so also did that large squadron months later which made of this
+place a rendezvous and an essential storehouse on the journey to the
+Falklands and to the end of von Spee. We were always most careful to
+keep on the right side of the Law.
+
+I will not give to this base of the _Glasgow_ its true name; let us call
+it the Pirates’ Lair, and restore to it the romantic flavour of
+irresponsible buccaneering which I do not doubt that it enjoyed a
+century or so earlier. In the _Glasgow’s_ day it mounted a lighthouse
+and an exceedingly inquisitive keeper whom German Junkers would have
+terrorised, but whom the kindly English, themselves to some extent
+trespassers, left unharmed to the enjoyment of his curiosity. He, lucky
+man, did not know that there was a war on.
+
+Realise, if you can, the feelings of the officers and men of this small
+English cruiser lying isolated from the world in her Pirates’ Lair.
+Their improvised base, not far from the main trade routes, might at any
+moment have been discovered—as indeed it was before very long; it was
+the territory of a neutral country, a country most friendly then and
+afterwards, but bound to observe its declaration of neutrality. They
+knew that coal and store ships from England would be sent out, but did
+not know whether they would arrive. They were in wireless touch with the
+British representatives at Rio, Pernambuco, and Montevideo, but
+authentic news came in scraps intermingled with the wildest rumour.
+They, or rather their captain, had to sort the grains of essential fact
+from the chaff of fiction. As the month of August unfolded, their news
+of the war came chiefly from German wireless, and those of us who lived
+through and remember those early weeks of war also remember that the
+news from enemy sources had no cheerful sound. For some weeks they were
+free from anxiety for supplies, provided that their base could be
+retained, yet the future was blank. I do not think that they worried
+overmuch; the worst time they had lived through was during those few
+days in Rio before war broke out, and those days immediately afterwards,
+when they were seeking those corners of their Lair least exposed to
+gales and surf. Very often coaling was impossible; more often it was
+both difficult and dangerous.
+
+It may seem strange that for many weeks—until well into September—the
+_Glasgow_ heard nothing of Cradock and his West Indies Squadron. Yet it
+was so. Cradock in the _Suffolk_ had on August 5th met the _Karlsruhe_
+coaling at sea, and signalled to the fast _Bristol_ to look after her.
+The _Bristol_ got upon the chase and fired a shot or two, but, speedy
+though she was, the _Karlsruhe_ ran away from her and was seen no more
+and heard of no more until she began her ravages upon steamers to the
+South of Pernambuco. Cradock, thinking she had gone north, and moreover
+having charge of the whole North Atlantic trade on its western side,
+became farther and farther separated from the _Glasgow_, and even went
+so far away as Halifax. Meanwhile the _Dresden_ slipped down and entered
+the _Glasgow’s_ sea area on August 9th, though her movements were not
+yet known. On the 13th Captain Luce learned that the _Monmouth_ was
+coming out to him under a captain who was his junior, so that upon
+himself would still rest the responsibility for the South Atlantic. He
+was now beginning to get some news upon which he could act, and already
+suspected that the _Dresden_ or the _Karlsruhe_, or both, had broken
+away for the south. He could hear the Telefunken wireless calls of the
+_Dresden_ to her attendant colliers from somewhere in the north a
+thousand miles away. During his cruises from the Lair he was always on
+the look out for her, and once, on the 16th, thought that he had her
+under his guns. But the warship which he had sighted proved to be a
+Brazilian, and the thirst of the _Glasgow’s_ company for battle went for
+a while unslaked. The _Dresden_, for which the _Glasgow_ was searching,
+had coaled at the Rocas Islands, there met the _Baden_, a collier of
+twelve knots, carrying 5,000 tons of coal, and together the two vessels
+made for the south and remained together until after the Falkland
+Islands action had been fought. The _Dresden_ picked up a second
+collier, the _Preussen_, and set her course for the small barren
+Trinidad Island, another old Pirates’ Lair some 500 miles from that of
+the _Glasgow_, at which she in her turn established a temporary base. At
+one moment the _Dresden_ and _Glasgow_ were not far apart, the wireless
+calls sounded near, yet they did not meet. This was on the 18th, when
+the _Glasgow_ was coaling at her base, and two days before she went
+north to join up with the _Monmouth_ off Pernambuco.
+
+This journey to the north coincided in time with the _Dresden’s_ passage
+to Trinidad Island, so that by the 20th the two cruisers were again a
+thousand miles apart, but with their positions reversed. While the
+_Glasgow_ had been going up, the _Dresden_ had been going south and
+east. For awhile we will leave the _Dresden_, which after spending two
+days under the lee of Trinidad Island went on her way to the south,
+drawing farther and farther away from the _Glasgow_ and more and more
+out of our picture. Her movements were from time to time revealed by
+captures of British ships, of which the crews were sent ashore. Her
+captain, Lüdecke, at no time made a systematic business of preying upon
+merchant traffic and upon him rests no charge of inhumanity. It may be
+that commerce raiding and murder did not please him; it may be that he
+was under orders to make his way at the leisurely gait of his collier
+_Baden_—he left the _Preussen_ behind at Trinidad Island—towards the
+Chilean coast, and the ultimate meeting with von Spee.
+
+At sea off Pernambuco on August 20th, the _Glasgow_ met the _Monmouth_,
+which had been commissioned on August 4th, mainly with naval reservists,
+and hastily despatched to the South Atlantic. Rumour still pointed to
+the presence of the _Dresden_ in the vicinity, and it seemed likely that
+she might meditate an attack upon our merchant shipping in the waters
+afterwards greatly favoured by the _Karlsruhe_. The two English cruisers
+remained in the north for a week, hearing much German wireless, which
+was that of the _Karlsruhe_, and not of the _Dresden_. On the night of
+the 27th the armed liner _Otranto_ heralded her approach, and on the
+following day the _Glasgow_ met her at the Rocas Islands. Captain Luce
+had now progressed from the command of one cruiser to the control of
+quite a squadron, three ships. Already the concentration about the small
+form of the _Glasgow_ had begun.
+
+The bigness of the sea and the difficulty of finding single vessels,
+though one may be equipped with all the aids of cable and wireless
+telegraphy, will begin to be realised. I have told how the _Dresden_
+passed the _Glasgow_ on the 18th. She had been at the Rocas Islands on
+the 14th. The _Karlsruhe_, too, had been at the Rocas Islands on the
+17th. She, also, had come south, though Cradock, with his squadron, was
+hunting for her in the north up to the far latitudes of Halifax. The two
+German cruisers, which had seemed so far away from the _Glasgow_ when
+she was at Rio calculating possibilities on August 1st, had both evaded
+the West Indies squadron and penetrated into her own slenderly guarded
+waters.
+
+Upon August 30th the _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_ were back at
+their Pirates’ Lair, which they could not leave for long, since it
+formed their rather precarious base of supply, and there they learned
+that the _Dresden_ had sunk the British steamer _Holmwood_ far to the
+south off Rio Grande do Sul and must be looked after at once, since she
+might have it in mind to raid our big shipping lines with the River
+Plate. Here on the 31st they learned also of the action in the
+Heligoland Bight, and of the German invasion of France, and of the
+retreat from Mons. The land war seemed very far off, but very ominous to
+those Keepers of the South Atlantic in their borrowed base upon a
+foreign shore thousands of miles away.
+
+My readers, especially those who are the more thoughtful, may ask how
+the _Glasgow_ was able with a clear conscience to hie away to the north
+and leave during all those weeks our big shipping trade to Brazil,
+Uruguay, and the Argentine uncovered from the raiding exploits of all
+the German liners lying there which might have issued forth as armed
+commerce raiders. The answer is that none of the German liners had any
+guns. The spectre of concealed guns which might upon the outbreak of war
+be mounted, proved to be baseless. The German liners had no guns, not
+even the _Cap Trafalgar_, sunk later, September 14th, off Trinidad
+Island by the _Carmania_. The _Cap Trafalgar’s_ guns came from the small
+German gunboat _Eber_, which had arranged a meeting with her at this
+unofficial German base. The project of arming the _Cap Trafalgar_ was
+quite a smart one, but, unfortunately for her, the first use to which
+she put her borrowed weapons was the last, and she went down in one of
+the most spirited fights of the whole war. The _Carmania_ had come down
+from the north in the train of Rear-Admiral Cradock.
+
+At the beginning of September the _Glasgow_ and the _Monmouth_ shifted
+down south, in the hope of catching the _Dresden_ at work off the River
+Plate. There they arrived on the 8th, but found no prey, though rumours
+were many, and unrewarded searches as many. The _Otranto_ came down to
+join them, and down also came the news that Cradock in his new flagship,
+the _Good Hope_, sent out to him from England, was also coming to take
+charge of the operations. Upon September 11th the _Dresden_ was reported
+to be far down towards the Straits of Magellan and for the time out of
+reach, so the _Glasgow’s_ squadron returned to its northern Lair and the
+junction with the _Good Hope_. From Cradock the officers learned that
+the _Cornwall_ and _Bristol_, with the _Carmania_ and _Macedonia_, had
+arrived on the station, and that the old battleship _Canopus_ was coming
+out. At the beginning of the war there had been one ship only in the
+South Atlantic, the _Glasgow_; now there were no fewer than five
+cruisers and three armed liners, and a battleship was on the way. One
+ship had grown into eight, was about to grow into nine, and before long
+was destined to become the focus of the most interesting concentration
+of the whole war.
+
+We have now reached September 18th, by which date the _Dresden_ was far
+off towards the Pacific. She reached an old port of refuge for whalers
+near Cape Horn, named Orange Bay, on the 5th, and rested there till the
+16th. At Punta Arenas she had picked up another collier, the _Santa
+Isabel_, and, accompanied by her pair of supply vessels passed slowly
+round the Horn. At the western end of the Magellan Straits she met with
+the Pacific liner _Ortega_, which, though fired upon and called to stop,
+pluckily bolted into a badly charted channel and conveyed the news of
+the _Dresden’s_ movements to the English squadron, which for awhile had
+lost all trace of her.
+
+It was not yet clear to Cradock, who was now in command of the Southern
+Squadron—to distinguish it from the Northern Squadron, which presently
+consisted of the armoured cruiser _Carnarvon_ (Rear-Admiral Stoddart),
+the _Defence_, the _Cornwall_, the _Kent_, the _Bristol_, and the armed
+liner _Macedonia_—it was not yet clear that the _Dresden_ was bound for
+the Pacific, and a rendezvous with von Spee. It seemed more probable
+that her intention was to prey upon shipping off the Straits of
+Magellan. In order to meet the danger, he set off with the _Good Hope_,
+_Monmouth_, _Glasgow_, and the armed liner _Otranto_ to operate in the
+far south, employing the Falkland Islands as his base. The _Glasgow’s_
+Lair of the north now remained for the use of Stoddart’s squadron.
+
+In the light of after-events one cannot but feel regret that
+the old battleship _Canopus_ was attached to the Southern
+Squadron—Cradock’s—instead of the armoured cruiser _Defence_, a much
+more useful if less powerfully armed vessel. The _Defence_ was
+comparatively new, completed in 1908, had a speed of some twenty-one to
+twenty-two knots, and was more powerful than either the _Scharnhorst_ or
+the _Gneisenau_. The three sisters, _Defence_, _Minotaur_, and
+_Shannon_, had indeed been laid down as replies to the building of the
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, and carried four 9.2-inch guns and ten
+7.5-inch as against the eight 8.2-inch and six 6-inch guns of the German
+cruisers.
+
+I have reached a point in my narrative when it becomes necessary to take
+up the story from the German side, and to indicate how it came about
+that five cruisers, which at the beginning of the war were widely
+scattered, became concentrated into the fine hard-fighting squadron
+which met Cradock at Coronel. The permanent base of the _Scharnhorst_
+and _Gneisenau_ was Tsing-tau in China, but it happened that at the end
+of July, 1914, they were more than 2,000 miles away in the Caroline
+Islands. The light cruisers _Nürnberg_ and _Leipzig_ were upon the
+western coast of Mexico, and, as I have already told, the _Dresden_ was
+off the eastern coast of Mexico. The _Emden_, which does not concern us,
+was at Tsing-tau. The _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ were kept out of
+China waters by the Japanese fleets and hunted for and chased to Fiji by
+the Australian Unit. On September 22nd von Spee bombarded Tahiti, in the
+Society Islands, at the moment when the _Dresden_, having safely passed
+through the Atlantic, was creeping up the Chilean coast and the
+_Nürnberg_ and _Leipzig_ were coming down from the north. All the German
+vessels had been ordered to concentrate at Easter Island, a small remote
+convict settlement belonging to Chili and lost in the Pacific far out
+(2,800 miles) to the west of Valparaiso.
+
+While, therefore, Cradock and his Southern Squadron were steering for
+the Falkland Islands to make of it a base for their search for the
+_Dresden_, von Spee’s cruisers were slowly concentrating upon Easter
+Island. There was no coal at the Falklands—they produce nothing except
+sheep and the most abominable weather on earth—but it was easy for us
+to direct colliers thither, and to transform the Islands into a base of
+supplies. The Germans had a far more difficult task. All through the
+operations which I am describing, and have still to describe, we were
+possessed of three great advantages. We had the coal, we had the freedom
+of communications given by ocean cables and wireless, and we had the
+sympathy of all those South American neutrals with whom we had to deal.
+Admiral von Spee and his ships were all through in great difficulties
+for coal, and would have failed entirely unless the German ships at
+South American ports had run big risks to seek out and supply him. He
+was to a large extent cut off from the outside world, for he had no
+cables, and received little information or assistance from home. The
+slowness of his movements, both before and after Coronel, may chiefly be
+explained through his lack of supplies and his ignorance of where we
+were or of what we were about to do.
+
+It is comparatively easy for me now to plot out the movements of the
+English and German vessels, and to set forth their relative positions at
+any date. But when the movements were actually in progress the admirals
+and captains on both sides were very much in the dark. Now and then
+would come a ray of light which enabled their imagination and judgment
+to work. Thus the report from the _Ortega_ that she had encountered the
+_Dresden_ with her two colliers at the Pacific entrance of the Magellan
+Straits showed that she might be bound for some German rendezvous in the
+Pacific Ocean. A day or two later came word that the _Scharnhorst_ and
+_Gneisenau_ had bombarded Tahiti, and that these two powerful cruisers,
+which had seemed to be so remote from the concern of the South Atlantic
+Squadron, were already half-way across the wide Pacific, apparently
+bound for Chili. It was also, of course, known that the _Leipzig_ and
+_Nürnberg_ were on the west coast of Mexico to the north. Any one who
+will take a chart of the Pacific and note the positions towards the end
+of September of von Spee, the _Dresden_, and the _Nürnberg_ and
+_Leipzig_, will see that the lonely dot marked as Easter Island was
+pretty nearly the only spot in the vast stretch of water towards which
+these scattered units could possibly be converging. At least so it
+seemed at the time, and, in fact, proved to be the case. The
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ reached Easter Island early in October,
+the _Nürnberg_ turned up on the 12th, and later upon the same day the
+_Dresden_ arrived with her faithful collier the _Baden_. Upon the 14th
+down came the _Leipzig_ accompanied by colliers carrying 3,000 tons of
+coal. The German concentration was complete; it had been carried through
+with very considerable skill aided by no less considerable luck. The few
+inhabitants of the lonely Easter Island, remote from trade routes,
+cables, and newspapers, regarded the German squadron with complete
+indifference. They had heard nothing of the world war, and were not
+interested in foreign warships. The island is rich in archæological
+remains. There happened to be upon it a British scientific expedition,
+but, busied over the relics of the past, the single-minded men of
+science did not take the trouble to cross the island to look at the
+German ships. They also were happy in their lack of knowledge that a war
+was on.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION.]
+
+I have anticipated events a little in order to make clear what was
+happening on the other side of the great spur of South America while
+Admiral Stoddart’s squadron was taking charge of the Brazilian,
+Uruguayan, and upper Argentine coasts, and Admiral Cradock, with the
+_Good Hope_, _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_—followed by the
+battleship _Canopus_—were pressing to the south after the _Dresden_.
+Stoddart’s little lot had been swept up from regions remote from their
+present concentration. The _Carnarvon_ had come from St. Vincent, the
+_Defence_ from the Mediterranean, where she had been Troubridge’s
+flagship in the early days of the war; the _Kent_ had been sent out from
+England, and the _Cornwall_ summoned from the West Coast of Africa. The
+_Bristol_, as we know, was from the West Indies and her fruitless hunt
+for the elusive _Karlsruhe_. The South Atlantic was now in possession of
+two considerable British squadrons, although two months earlier there
+had been nothing of ours carrying guns except the little _Glasgow_.
+
+After the news arrived from the _Ortega_ about the _Dresden’s_
+movements, Cradock took his ships down to Punta Arenas, and thence
+across to Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where he was joined by
+the _Canopus_, a slow old ship of some thirteen to fourteen knots, which
+had straggled down to him. I have never been able to reconcile the
+choice of the old _Canopus_, despite her formidable 12-inch guns, with
+my sense of what was fitting for the pursuit and destruction of German
+cruisers with a squadron speed of some twenty-one knots. From Port
+Stanley the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ were despatched round the Horn upon
+a scouting expedition which was to extend as far as Valparaiso. Already
+the Southern Squadron was beginning to suffer from its remoteness from
+the original Pirates’ Lair of the _Glasgow_. The Northern Squadron,
+collected from the corners of the earth, were receiving the supply ships
+first and skimming the cream off their cargoes before letting them loose
+for the service of their brethren in arms to the south. It was all very
+natural and inevitable, but rather irritating for those who had now to
+make the best of the knuckle end of the Admiralty’s joints.
+
+The trip round the Horn of the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ was very rough
+indeed; the English cruisers rolled continually gunwhale under, and had
+they chanced to encounter the _Dresden_—which was not then possible,
+for she was well up the Chilean coast—neither side could have fired a
+shot at the other. At Orange Bay, where they put in, they discovered
+evidence of the recent presence of the _Dresden_ in rather a curious
+way. It had long been the custom of vessels visiting that remote
+desolate spot to erect boards giving their names and the date of their
+call. Upon the notice board of the German cruiser _Bremen_, left many
+months before, was read in pencil, partially obliterated by a cautious
+afterthought, the words “Dresden, September 11th, 1914.”
+
+During the early part of October, the two cruisers _Glasgow_ and
+_Monmouth_ worked up the Chilean coast and reached Valparaiso about
+October 17th. It was an expedition rather trying to the nerves of those
+who were responsible for the safety of the ships. Perhaps the word
+“squirmy” will best describe their feelings. Already the German
+concentration had taken place at Easter Island to the west of them; they
+did not positively know of it, but suspected, and felt apprehensive lest
+their presence in Chilean waters might be reported to von Spee and
+themselves cut off and overwhelmed before they could get away. Coal and
+provisions were running short, the crew were upon half rations, and any
+imprudence might be very severely punished.
+
+During October the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ were detached from the _Good
+Hope_, and it was not until the 28th that Cradock joined up with them at
+a point several hundred miles south of Coronel, whither they had
+descended for coal and stores after their hazardous northern enterprise.
+Here also was the _Otranto_, but the _Canopus_, though steaming her
+best, had been left behind by the _Good Hope_, and was, for all
+practical purposes, of no account at all. She was 200 miles away when
+Coronel was fought. On October 28th, after receiving orders from
+Cradock, the _Glasgow_ left by herself bound north for Coronel, a small
+Chilean coaling port, there to pick up mails and telegrams from England.
+The _Glasgow_ arrived off Coronel on the 29th, but remained outside
+patrolling for forty-eight hours. The German wireless about her was very
+strong indeed, enemy ships were evidently close at hand, and at any
+moment might appear. They were indeed much nearer and more menacing than
+the _Glasgow_ knew, even at this eleventh hour before the meeting took
+place. On October 26th Admiral von Spee was at Masafuera, a small island
+off the Chilean coast, on the 27th he left for Valparaiso itself, and
+there on the 31st he learned of the arrival in the port of Coronel of
+the English cruiser _Glasgow_. The clash of fighting ships was very
+near.
+
+On October 31st the _Glasgow_ entered the harbour of Coronel, a large
+harbour to which there are two entrances, and a rendezvous off the port
+had been arranged with the rest of the squadron for November 1st. Her
+arrival was at once notified to von Spee at Valparaiso. The mails and
+telegrams were collected, and at 9.15 on the 1st the _Glasgow_ backed
+out cautiously, ready, if the Germans were in force outside, to slip
+back again into neutral waters and to take the fullest advantage of her
+twenty-four hours’ law. She emerged seeing nothing, though the enemy
+wireless was coming loudly, and met the _Good Hope_, _Monmouth_, and
+_Otranto_ at the appointed rendezvous some eighty miles out to sea. Here
+the mails and telegrams were transferred to Cradock by putting them in a
+cask and towing it across the _Good Hope’s_ bows. The sea was rough, and
+this resourceful method was much quicker and less dangerous than the
+orthodox use of a boat. Cradock spread out his four ships, fifteen miles
+apart, and steamed to the north-west at ten knots. Smoke became visible
+to the _Glasgow_ at 4.20 p.m., and as she increased speed to
+investigate, there appeared two four-funnelled armoured cruisers and one
+light cruiser with three funnels. Those four-funnelled ships were the
+_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, and until they were seen at that moment
+by the _Glasgow_ they were not positively known to have been on the
+Chilean coast. To this extent the German Admiral had taken his English
+opponents by surprise. “When we saw those damned four funnels,” said the
+officers of the _Glasgow_, “we knew that there was the devil to pay.”
+
+I have already told the story of the Coronel action and I will not tell
+it again. Von Spee held off so long as the sun behind the English gave
+them the advantage of light, and did not close in until the sun had set
+and the yellow afterglow made his opponents stand out like silhouettes.
+He could see them while they could not see him. During the action, the
+light cruiser _Glasgow_, with which I am mainly concerned, had a very
+unhappy time. The armed liner _Otranto_ cleared off, quite properly, and
+the _Glasgow_, third in the line, was exposed for more than an hour to
+the concentrated fire of the 4.1-inch guns of both the _Leipzig_ and
+_Dresden_, and afterwards, when the _Good Hope_ had blown up and the
+_Monmouth_ been disabled, for about a quarter of an hour to the 8.2-inch
+guns of the _Gneisenau_. Her gunnery officers could not see the splashes
+of their own shells, and could not correct the ranges. When darkness
+came down it was useless to continue firing blindly, and worse than
+useless, since her gun flashes gave some guidance to the enemy’s
+gunners. At the range of about 11,000 yards, a long range for the German
+4.1-inch guns, the shells were falling all around very steeply, the
+surface of the sea was churned into foam, and splinters from bursting
+shells rained over her. It is a wonderful thing that she suffered so
+little damage and that not a single man of her company was killed or
+severely wounded. Four slight wounds from splinters constituted her
+total tally of casualties. At least 600 shells, great and small, were
+fired at her, yet she was hit five times only. The most serious damage
+done was a big hole between wind and water on the port quarter near one
+of the screws. Yet even this hole did not prevent her from steaming away
+at twenty-four knots, and from covering several thousand miles before
+she was properly repaired. I think that the _Glasgow_ must be a lucky
+ship. After the _Good Hope_ had blown up and the _Monmouth_, badly hurt,
+was down by the bows and turning her stern to the seas, the _Glasgow_
+hung upon her consort’s port quarter, anxious to give help and deeply
+reluctant to leave. Yet she could do nothing. The _Monmouth_ was clearly
+doomed, and it was urgent that the _Glasgow_ should get away to warn the
+_Canopus_, then 150 miles away and pressing towards the scene of action,
+and to report the tragedy and the German concentration to the Admiralty
+at home. During that anxious waiting time, when the enemy’s shells were
+still falling thickly about her, the sea, to the _Glasgow’s_ company,
+looked very, very cold! At last, when the moon was coming up brightly,
+and further delay might have made escape impossible, the _Glasgow_
+sorrowfully turned to the west, towards the wide Pacific spaces, and
+dashed off at full speed. It was not until half an hour later, when she
+was twelve miles distant, that she counted the seventy-five flashes of
+the _Nürnberg’s_ guns which finally destroyed the _Monmouth_. I am
+afraid that the story of the cheers from the _Monmouth_ which sped the
+_Glasgow_ upon her way must be dismissed as a pretty legend. No one in
+the _Glasgow_ heard them, and no one from the _Monmouth_ survived to
+tell the tale. Captain Grant and his men of the _Canopus_ must have
+suffered agonies when they received the _Glasgow’s_ brief message. They
+had done their utmost to keep up with the _Good Hope_, and the slowness
+of their ship had been no fault of theirs. Grant had, I have been told,
+implored the Admiral to wait for him before risking an engagement.
+
+The journey to the Straits and to her junction with the _Canopus_ was a
+very anxious one for the _Glasgow’s_ company. They did their best to be
+cheerful, though cheerfulness was not easy to come by. They had
+witnessed the total defeat of an English by a German squadron, and
+before they could get down south into comparative safety the German
+ships, running down the chord of the arc which represented the
+_Glasgow’s_ course, might arrive first at the Straits. That there was no
+pursuit to the south may be explained by the one word—coal. Von Spee
+could get coal at Valparaiso or at Coronel—though the local coal was
+soft, wretched stuff—but he had no means of replenishment farther
+south. One does not realize how completely a squadron of warships is
+tied to its colliers or to its coaling bases until one tries to discover
+and explain the movements of warships cruising in the outer seas.
+
+While running down towards the Straits—for twenty-four hours she kept
+up twenty-four knots—the _Glasgow_ briefly notified the _Canopus_ of
+the disaster of Coronel and of her own intention to make for the
+Falkland Islands. Beyond this, she refrained from using the tell-tale
+wireless which might give away her position to a pursuing enemy. Upon
+the evening of the 3rd she picked up the German press story of the
+action, but kept silence upon it herself. On the morning of the 4th,
+very short of stores—her crew had been on reduced rations for a
+month—she reached the Straits and, to her great relief, found them
+empty of the enemy. She did not meet the _Canopus_ until the 6th, and
+then, with the big battleship upon her weather quarter, to keep the seas
+somewhat off that sore hole in her side, she made a fortunately easy
+passage to the Falkland Islands and entered Port Stanley at daylight
+upon November 8th. Thence the _Glasgow_ despatched her first telegram to
+the authorities at home, and at six o’clock in the evening set off with
+the _Canopus_ for the north. But that same evening came orders from
+England for the _Canopus_ to return, in order that the coaling base of
+the Falklands might be defended, so the _Glasgow_, alone once more after
+many days, pursued her solitary way towards Rio and to her meeting with
+the _Carnarvon_, _Defence_, and _Cornwall_, which were at that time
+lying off the River Plate guarding the approaches to Montevideo and
+Buenos Ayres. The _Glasgow_ had done her utmost to uphold the Flag, but
+the lot of the sole survivor of a naval disaster is always wretched. The
+one thing which counts in the eyes of English naval officers is the good
+opinion of their brethren of the sea; those of the _Glasgow_ could not
+tell until they had tested it what would be the opinion of their
+colleagues in the Service. It was very kind, very sympathetic; so
+overflowing with kindness and sympathy were those who now learned the
+details of the disaster, that the company of the _Glasgow_, sorely
+humiliated, yet full of courage and hope for the day of reckoning, never
+afterwards forgot how much they owed to it. At home men growled
+foolishly, ignorantly, sank to the baseness of writing abusive letters
+to the newspapers, and even to the _Glasgow_ herself, but the Service
+understood and sympathised, and it is the Service alone which counts.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+
+                      THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
+                   PART II.—CORONEL TO JUAN FERNANDEZ
+                 (Nov. 1st, 1914, to March 14th, 1915)
+
+We left the British cruiser _Glasgow_ off the River Plate, where she had
+arrived after her escape, sore at heart and battered in body, from the
+disaster of Coronel. The battleship _Canopus_ remained behind at Port
+Stanley to defend the newly established coaling-station at the Falkland
+Islands. Her four 12-inch guns would have made the inner harbour
+impassable to the lightly armoured cruisers of Admiral von Spee had he
+descended before the reinforcements from the north arrived; and the
+colliers, cleverly hidden in the remote creeks of the Islands, would
+have been most difficult for him to discover. It was essential to our
+plans that there should be ample stores of coal at the Falklands for the
+use of Sturdee’s punitive squadron when it should arrive, and every
+possible precaution was taken to ensure the supply. As it happened, von
+Spee did not come for five weeks. He was at his wits’ end to find coal,
+and was, moreover, short of ammunition after the bombardment of Tahiti
+and the big expenditure in the Coronel fight. So he remained pottering
+about off the Chilean coast until he had swept up enough of coal and of
+colliers to make his journey to the Falklands, and to provide for his
+return to the Lair which he had established in an inlet upon the coast.
+
+At the English Bank, off the River Plate, the _Glasgow_ had joined up
+with the _Carnarvon_, _Defence_, and _Cornwall_, and her company were
+greatly refreshed in spirit by the kindly understanding and sympathy of
+their brothers of the sea. The officers and men of the _Glasgow_, who
+had by now worked together for more than two years, had come through
+their shattering experiences with extraordinarily little loss of morale.
+They had suffered a material defeat, but their courage and confidence in
+the ultimate issue burned as brightly as ever. Even upon the night of
+the disaster, when they were seeking a safe road to the Straits,
+uncertain whether the Germans would arrive there first, they were much
+more concerned for the safety of the _Canopus_ than worried about their
+own skins. Their captain and navigating lieutenant had thrust upon them
+difficulties and anxieties of which the others were at first ignorant.
+The ship’s compasses were found to be gravely disturbed by the shocks of
+the action, their magnetism had been upset, and not until star sights
+could be taken were they able to correct the error of fully twenty
+degrees. The speed at which the cruiser travelled buried the stern
+deeply, and the water entering by the big hole blown in the port quarter
+threatened to flood a whole compartment and make it impossible for full
+speed to be maintained. The voyage to the Straits was, for those
+responsible, a period of grave anxiety. Yet through it all the officers
+and men did their work and maintained a cheerful countenance, as if to
+pass almost scatheless through a tremendous torrent of shell, and to get
+away with waggling compasses and a great hole between wind and water,
+was an experience which custom had made of little moment. No one could
+have judged from their demeanour that never before November 1st had the
+_Glasgow_ been in action, and that not until November 6th, when she had
+beside her the support of the _Canopus’s_ great guns, did she reach
+comparative safety.
+
+The _Glasgow’s_ damaged side had been shored up internally with baulks
+of timber, but if she were to become sea- and battle-worthy it was
+necessary to seek for some more permanent means of repair. So with her
+consorts she made for Rio, arriving on the 16th, and reported her
+damaged condition to the Brazilian authorities. Under the Hague
+Convention she was entitled to remain at Rio for a sufficient time to be
+made seaworthy, and the Brazilian Government interpreted the Convention
+in the most generous sense. The Government floating dock was placed at
+her disposal, and here for five days she was repaired, until with her
+torn side plating entirely renewed she was as fit as ever for the perils
+of the sea. Her engineers took the fullest advantage of those invaluable
+days; they overhauled the boilers and engines so thoroughly that when
+the bold cruiser emerged from Rio she was fresh and clean, ready to
+steam at her own full speed of some twenty-six knots, and to fight
+anything with which she could reasonably be classed in weight of metal.
+By this time the _Glasgow_ had learned of the great secret concentration
+about to take place at her old Pirates’ Lair to the north, and of those
+other concentrations which were designed to ensure the destruction of
+von Spee to whatsoever part of the wide oceans he might direct his
+ships.
+
+The disaster of Coronel had set the Admiralty bustling to very good and
+thorough purpose. No fewer than five squadrons were directed to
+concentrate for the one purpose of ridding the seas of the German
+cruisers. First came down Sturdee with the battle cruisers _Invincible_
+and _Inflexible_ to join the _Carnarvon_, _Glasgow_, _Kent_, _Cornwall_,
+and _Bristol_ at the Pirates’ Lair. Upon their arrival the armoured
+cruiser _Defence_ was ordered to the Cape to complete there a watching
+squadron ready for von Spee should he seek safety in that direction. One
+Japanese squadron remained to guard the China seas, and another of great
+power sped across the Pacific towards the Chilean coast. In Australian
+waters were the battle cruiser _Australia_ and her consorts of the Unit,
+together with the French cruiser _Montcalm_. Von Spee’s end was certain;
+what was not quite so certain was whether he would fall to the Japanese
+or to Sturdee. Our Japanese Allies fully understood that we were
+gratified at his falling to us; he had sunk our ships and was our just
+prey. Yet if he had loitered much longer off Chili, and had not at last
+ventured upon his fatal Falklands dash, the gallant Japanese would have
+had him. Luck favoured us now, as it had favoured us a month earlier
+when the _Emden_ was destroyed at the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Those who
+have read my story of the _Emden_ in Chapter IX will remember that but
+for the fortune of position which placed the _Sydney_ nearest to the
+Islands when their wireless call for help went out, the famous raider
+would in all probability have fallen to a Japanese light cruiser which
+was with the Australian convoy.
+
+The mission of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, and the secrecy with
+which it was enshrouded, is one of the most romantic episodes of the
+war. I have already dealt fully with it. But there has since come to me
+one little detail which reveals how very near we were, at one time, to a
+German discovery of the whole game. The two battle cruisers coaled at
+St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands—Portuguese territory, within which we
+had no powers of censorship—and at the Pirates’ Lair off the Brazilian
+coast. Their movements began to be talked about in Rio and the River
+Plate. Men knew of the Coronel disaster and shrewdly suspected that the
+two great ships were on their way to the South Atlantic. A description
+of their visit had been prepared, and was actually in type. It was
+intended for publication in a local South American paper. That it was
+not published, when urgent representations were made on our behalf,
+reveals how scrupulous was the consideration with which our friends of
+Brazil and the Argentine regarded our interests. There were no powers of
+censorship, the appeal was as man to man, and Englishman to Portuguese,
+and the appeal prevailed—even over the natural thirst of a journalist
+for highly interesting news. The battle cruisers coaled and passed upon
+their way, and no word of their visit went forth to Berlin or to von
+Spee.
+
+The _Glasgow_ was among the British cruisers which greeted Sturdee at
+the Pirates’ Lair, and as soon as ammunition and stores had been
+distributed and coal taken in, the voyage to the Falkland Islands began.
+The squadron arrived in the evening of December 7th, and at daybreak of
+the 8th von Spee ran upon his fate. The part played by the _Glasgow_ in
+the action was less spectacular than that which fell to the battle
+cruisers, but it was useful and has some features of interest. Among
+other things it illustrates how little is known of the course of a naval
+action—spread over hundreds of miles of sea—while it takes place, and
+for some time even after it is over.
+
+On the morning of December 8th, at eight o’clock, the approach of the
+German squadron was observed, and at this moment the English squadron
+was hard at work coaling. By 9.45 steam was up and the pursuit began.
+The _Glasgow_ was lying in the inner harbour with banked fires, ready
+for sea at two hours’ notice, but her Engineer Lieutenant-Commander
+Shrubsole and his staff so busied themselves that in little over an hour
+from the signal to raise steam she was under weigh, and an hour later
+she was moving in chase of the enemy at a higher speed than she obtained
+in her contractors’ trials when she was a brand-new ship three years
+earlier. Throughout the war the engineering staff of the Royal Navy has
+never failed to go one better than anyone had the right to expect of it.
+It has never failed to respond to any call upon its energies or its
+skill, never.
+
+In order that we may understand how the _Dresden_ was able to make her
+escape unscathed from her pursuers—she bolted without firing a shot in
+the action—I must give some few details of the position of the ships
+when the German light cruisers were ordered by von Spee to take
+themselves off as best they might. Shortly before one o’clock the
+_Glasgow_, a much faster ship than anything upon our side except the two
+battle cruisers, was two miles ahead of the flagship _Invincible_, and
+it was Sturdee’s intention to attack the _Scharnhorst_ and
+_Gneisenau_—hull down on the horizon—with his speediest ships, the
+_Invincible_, _Inflexible_, and _Glasgow_. Our three other
+cruisers—_Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and _Kent_—were well astern of the
+leaders. At 1.04 the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ turned to the
+eastward to accept battle and to cover the retreat of their light
+cruisers, which were then making off towards the south-east. Admiral
+Sturdee, seeing at once that the light cruisers might make good their
+escape unless the speedy _Glasgow_ were detached in pursuit, called up
+the _Carnarvon_ (Rear-Admiral Stoddart) to his support, and ordered
+Captain Luce in the _Glasgow_ to take charge of the job of rounding up
+and destroying the _Leipzig_, _Nürnberg_, and _Dresden_. The _Glasgow_,
+therefore, began the chase at a grave disadvantage. She first had to
+work round the stern of the _Invincible_, pass the flagship upon her
+disengaged side, and then steam off from far in the rear after the
+_Cornwall_ and _Kent_, which had already begun the pursuit. The
+_Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were a long way off, and the _Dresden_ was even
+farther. This cruiser, _Dresden_, though sister to the _Emden_, was,
+unlike her sister and the others of von Spee’s light cruisers, fitted
+with Parsons’ turbine engines. She was much the fastest of the German
+ships at the Falkland Islands, and beginning her flight with a start of
+some ten miles quickly was lost to sight beyond the horizon. The
+_Cornwall_ and _Kent_ had no chance at all of overtaking her, and the
+_Glasgow_, whose captain was the senior naval officer in command of the
+pursuing squadron of the three English cruisers, could not overtake a
+long stern chase by herself so long as the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were
+in his course and had not been disposed of. He was obliged first to make
+sure of them. Steaming at twenty-four and a half knots, the _Glasgow_
+drew away from the battle cruisers and began to overhaul the _Leipzig_
+and _Nürnberg_. She decided to attack the _Leipzig_, which was nearest
+to her, and to regulate her speed so that the _Cornwall_ and
+_Kent_—both more powerful but much slower ships than herself—would not
+be left behind. As it happened the engineering staffs of these not very
+rapid “County” cruisers rose nobly to the emergency, the _Cornwall_ was
+able to catch the _Leipzig_ and to take a large part in her destruction,
+while the _Kent_ kept on after the _Nürnberg_ and, as it proved, was
+successful in destroying her also. One of the ten boilers of the
+_Nürnberg_ had been out of action for weeks past and her speed was a
+good deal below its best.
+
+The sea is a very big place, but that portion of it contained within the
+ring of the visible horizon is very small. To those in the _Glasgow_,
+pressing on in chase of the _Leipzig_, the scene appeared strange and
+even ominous. They could see the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ far away,
+moving apparently in pursuit of themselves, but the battle cruisers
+hidden below the curve of the horizon they could not see. When firing
+from the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ ceased for a while—as it did at
+intervals—it seemed to the _Glasgow’s_ company that they were
+sandwiched between von Spee’s armoured cruisers and his light cruisers,
+and that the battle cruisers, upon which the result of the action
+depended, had disappeared into space. The telegraph room and the
+conning-tower doubtless knew what was happening, but the ship’s company
+as a whole did not. To this brevity of vision, and to this detachment
+from exact information, one must set down the extraordinarily
+conflicting stories one receives from the observers of a naval action.
+They see what is within the horizon but not what is below it, and that
+which is below is not uncommonly far more important than that which is
+above.
+
+Shortly after three o’clock the _Glasgow_ opened upon the _Leipzig_ with
+her foremost 6-inch gun at a range of about 12,000 yards (about seven
+miles), seeking to outrange the lighter 4.1-inch guns carried by the
+German cruiser. The distance closed down gradually to 10,000 yards, at
+which range the German guns could occasionally get in their work. They
+could, as the _Emden_ showed in her fight with the _Sydney_, and as was
+observed at Coronel, do effective shooting even at 11,000 yards, but
+hits were difficult to bring off, owing to the steepness of the fall of
+the shells and the narrowness of the mark aimed at. For more than an
+hour the _Glasgow_ engaged the _Leipzig_ by herself, knocking out her
+secondary control position between the funnels, and allowing the
+_Cornwall_ time to arrive and to help to finish the business with her
+fourteen 6-inch guns. At one time the range fell as low as 9,000 yards,
+the _Leipzig’s_ gunners became very accurate, and the _Glasgow_ suffered
+nearly all the casualties which overtook her in the action.
+
+About 4.20 the _Cornwall_ was able to open fire, and the _Glasgow_
+joined her, so that both ships might concentrate upon the same side of
+the _Leipzig_. Just as Admiral Sturdee in his fight with the
+_Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_ could not afford to run risks of
+damage far from a repairing base, so the _Glasgow_ and the _Cornwall_
+with several hours of daylight before them were not justified in
+allowing impatience to hazard the safety of the ships. They had to
+regard the possible use of torpedoes and to look out for dropped mines.
+Neither torpedoes nor mines were, in fact, used by the Germans, though
+at one time in the course of the action drums, mistaken for mines, were
+seen in the water and carefully avoided. They were cases in which
+cartridges were brought from the magazines, and which were thrown
+overboard after being emptied. As the afternoon drew on the weather
+turned rather misty, and the attacking ships were obliged to close in a
+little and hurry up the business. This was at half-past five.
+
+From the first the _Leipzig_ never had a chance. She was out-steamed and
+utterly out-gunned. Her opponents had between them four times her
+broadside weight of metal, and the _Cornwall_ was an armoured ship. She
+never had a chance, yet she went on, fired some 1,500 rounds—all that
+remained in her magazines after Coronel—and did not finally cease
+firing until after seven o’clock. For more than four hours her company
+had looked certain death in the face yet gallantly stood to their work.
+From first to last von Spee’s concentrated squadron played the naval
+game according to the immemorial rules, and died like gentlemen. Peace
+be to their ashes. In success and in failure they were the most gallant
+and honourable of foes. At seven o’clock the _Leipzig_ was smashed to
+pieces, she was blazing from stem to stern, she was doomed, yet gave no
+sign of surrender.
+
+At this moment, when the work of the _Glasgow_ and the _Cornwall_ had
+been done—the _Cornwall_, it should be noted, bore the heavier burden
+in this action—she was hit eighteen times, though little hurt, and
+played her part with the utmost loyalty and devotion—at this moment
+flashed the news through the ether that the _Scharnhorst_ and
+_Gneisenau_ had been sunk. The news spread, and loud cheers went up from
+the English ships. To the doomed company in the _Leipzig_ those cheers
+must have carried some hint of the utter disaster which had overtaken
+their squadron. It was not until nine o’clock (six hours after the
+_Glasgow_ had begun to fire upon her) that she made her last plunge—if
+a modern compartment ship does not blow up, she takes a powerful lot of
+shell to sink her—and the English ships did everything that they could
+to save life. The _Glasgow_ drew close up under her stern and lowered
+boats, at the same time signalling that she was trying to save life.
+There was no reply. Perhaps the signals were not read; perhaps there
+were not many left alive to make reply. The _Leipzig_, still blazing,
+rolled right over to port and disappeared. Six officers, including the
+Navigating Lieutenant-Commander, and eight men were picked up by the
+_Glasgow’s_ boats. Fourteen officers and men out of nearly 300! The
+captives were treated as honoured guests and made much of. Our officers
+and men took their gallant defeated foes to their hearts and gave them
+of their best. It was not until two days later, when news arrived that
+the _Leipzig’s_ sister and consort the _Nürnberg_ had been sunk by the
+_Kent_, that these brave men broke down. Then they wept. They cared
+little for the _Dresden_—a stranger from the North Atlantic—but the
+_Nürnberg_ was their own consort, beside whom they had sailed for years,
+and beside whom they had fought. They had hoped to the last that she
+might make good her escape from the wreck of von Spee’s squadron. When
+that last hope failed they wept. When I think of von Spee’s gallant men,
+so human in their strength and in their weakness, I cannot regard them
+as other than worthy brothers of the sea.
+
+In the Coronel action the _Glasgow_, exposed to the concentrated fire of
+the _Leipzig_ and _Dresden_ for an hour, and to the heavy guns of the
+_Gneisenau_ for some ten minutes, did not lose a single man. There were
+four slight wounds from splinters, that was all. But in her long fight
+with the _Leipzig_ alone, assisted by the powerful batteries of the
+_Cornwall_, the _Glasgow_ suffered two men killed, three men severely
+wounded, and six slightly hurt. Such are the strange chances of war.
+After Coronel, though they had seen two of their own ships go down and
+were in flight from an overwhelming enemy, the officers and men were
+wonderfully cheerful. The shrewder the buffets of Fate the stiffer
+became their tails. But after the Falklands, when success had wiped out
+the humiliation of failure, there came a nervous reaction. Defeat could
+not depress the spirit of these men, but victory, by relieving their
+minds from the long strain of the past months, made them captious and
+irritable. Perhaps their spirits were overshadowed by the prospect of
+the weary hunt for the fugitive _Dresden_.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+                 By wondrous accident perchance one may
+                 Grope out a needle in a load of hay.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”]
+
+
+
+
+Four German cruisers had been sunk, but one, the _Dresden_, had escaped,
+and the story of the next three months is the story of a search—always
+wearisome, sometimes dangerous, sometimes even absurd. The Straits of
+Magellan, the islands of Tierra del Fuego and of the Horn, and the west
+coast of the South American spur are a maze of inlets, many uncharted,
+nearly all unsurveyed. The hunt for the elusive _Dresden_ among the
+channels, creeks, and islands was far more difficult than the proverbial
+grope for a needle in a load of hay. A needle buried in hay cannot
+change its position; provided that it really be hidden in a load,
+patience and a magnet will infallibly bring it forth. The _Dresden_
+could move from one hiding place to another, no search for her could
+ever exhaust the possible hiding-places, and it was not positively known
+until after she had been run down and destroyed where she had been in
+hiding. That she was found after three weary months may be explained by
+that one word which explains so much in naval work—coal. The _Dresden_
+after her flight from the Falkland Islands action was short of coal; von
+Spee’s attendant colliers, _Baden_ and _Santa Isabel_, had been pursued
+and sunk by the _Bristol_ and the armed liner _Macedonia_, and she was
+cast upon the world without means of replenishing her bunkers. This was,
+of course, known to her pursuers, so that they expected, and expected
+rightly, that she would hang about in some secluded creek until her
+dwindling supplies drove her forth upon the seas to hunt for more. Which
+is what happened.
+
+Upon the evening of December 8th, after the _Glasgow_ and _Cornwall_ had
+disposed of the _Leipzig_, there were one English and two German
+cruisers unaccounted for. The _Kent_ had last been seen chasing the
+_Nürnberg_ towards the south-east, while the _Dresden_ was disappearing
+over the curve of the horizon to the south. Upon the following morning
+no news had come in from the _Kent_, and some anxiety was felt; it was
+necessary to find her before proceeding with the pursuit of the
+_Dresden_, and much valuable time was lost. It happened that during her
+fight with the _Nürnberg_, which she sank in a most business-like
+fashion, the _Kent’s_ aerials were shot away and she lost wireless
+contact with Sturdee’s squadron. The _Glasgow_ was ordered off to search
+for her, but fortunately the _Kent_ turned up on the morning of the 10th
+deservedly triumphant. She had performed the great feat of catching and
+sinking a vessel which on paper was much faster than herself, and she
+had done it though short of coal and at the sacrifice of everything
+wooden on board, including the wardroom furniture. She was compelled
+with the _Glasgow_ and _Cornwall_ to return to Port Stanley for coal,
+and this delay was of the utmost service to the fugitive _Dresden_.
+Though the movements of that cruiser, in the interval, were not learned
+until much later, it will be convenient if I give them now, so that the
+situation may be made clear. The _Dresden_ had owed her escape to her
+speed and to the occupation of the _Glasgow_—the only cruiser upon our
+side which could catch her—with the _Leipzig_. She got clear away,
+rounded the Horn on the 9th, and on December 10th entered the Cockburn
+Channel on the west coast of Tierra del Fuego. At Stoll Bay she passed
+the night, and her coal-bunkers being empty sent men ashore to cut
+enough wood to enable her to struggle up to Punta Arenas. She ran a
+great risk by making for so conspicuous a port, but she had no choice.
+Coal must be obtained somehow or her number would speedily go up. She
+was not entitled to get Chilean coal, for she had managed to delude the
+authorities into supplying her upon five previous occasions during the
+statutory period of three months. Once in three months a belligerent
+warship is permitted, under the Hague Rules, to coal at the ports of a
+neutral country; once she claims this privilege she is cut off from
+getting more coal from the same country for three months. But the
+_Dresden_ again managed, as she had already done four times before, to
+secure supplies illegitimately. She coaled at Punta Arenas, remained
+there for thirty-one hours—though after twenty-four hours she was
+liable to internment—and left at 10 p.m. on the 13th. It was this
+disregard for the Hague Rules which led to the destruction of the
+_Dresden_ in Chilean territorial waters at Juan Fernandez three months
+later. We held that she had broken international law deliberately many
+times, she was no longer entitled to claim its protection. She could not
+disregard it when it knocked against her convenience, and shelter
+herself under it when in need of a protective mantle. She had by her own
+violations become an outlaw.
+
+At 2.30 a.m. on the 13th, Sturdee learned that the _Dresden_ was at
+Punta Arenas. The _Bristol_, which was ready, jumped off the mark at
+once; the _Inflexible_ and the _Glasgow_, which were not quite ready,
+got off at 9.15. Thus it happened that the _Bristol_ reached Punta
+Arenas seventeen hours after the _Dresden_ had left, to vanish, as it
+were, into space, and not to be heard of again for a couple of months.
+What she did was to slip down again into the Cockburn Channel and lie at
+anchor in Hewett Bay near the southern exit. On December 26th she
+shifted her quarters to an uncharted and totally uninhabited creek,
+called the Gonzales Channel, and there she lay in idle security until
+February 4th.
+
+During the long weeks of the _Dresden’s_ stay in Hewett Bay and the
+Gonzales Channel, the English cruisers were busily hunting for her among
+the islets and inlets of the Magellan Straits, Tierra del Fuego, and the
+west coast of the South American spur. The _Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and
+_Kent_ took charge of the Magellan Straits, the _Glasgow_ and _Bristol_
+ferreted about the recesses of the west coast with the _Inflexible_
+outside of them to chase the sea-rat should she break cover for the
+open. The battle cruiser _Australia_ came in from the Pacific and with
+the “County” cruiser _Newcastle_, from Mexico, kept watch off
+Valparaiso. The _Dresden_, lying snug in the Gonzales Channel, was not
+approached except once, on December 29th, when one of the searchers was
+within twenty miles of her hiding-place. The weather was thick and she
+was not seen. The big ships did not long waste their time over the
+search. It was one better suited to light craft, for lighter craft even
+than the _Glasgow_ or _Bristol_, for which the uncharted channels often
+threatened grave dangers. Armed patrols or picket boats, of shallow
+draught, were best suited to the work, and in its later stages were
+furbished up and made available.
+
+On December 16th the battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were
+recalled to England, and the _Canopus_ went north to act as guardship at
+the precious Pirates’ Lair which has figured so often in these pages.
+The _Australia_ passed on her way to the Atlantic, across which the
+Canadian contingents were in need of convoy, and the supervision of the
+_Dresden_ search devolved upon Admiral Stoddart of the _Carnarvon_. The
+Admiral with the _Carnarvon_ and _Cornwall_ remained in and out of the
+Magellan Straits, while the captain of the _Glasgow_, with him the
+_Kent_, _Bristol_, and _Newcastle_, was put in charge of the Chilean
+Archipelago. Gradually as time went on and the _Dresden_ lay low—all
+this while in the Gonzales Channel—other ships went away upon more
+urgent duties and the chase was left to the _Glasgow_, _Kent_, and an
+armed liner _Orama_. The _Bristol_ had butted herself ashore in one of
+the unsurveyed channels and was obliged to seek a dock for repairs. The
+great concentration of which the _Glasgow_ had been the focus was over,
+she was now back at her old police work, though not upon her old
+station. She had begun the war in sole charge of the South Atlantic; the
+wheel of circumstance had brought her, with her consorts, to the charge
+of the South Pacific.
+
+Although the _Glasgow’s_ company had had many experiences of the risks
+of war, they had never felt in action the strain upon their nerves which
+was always with them day in day out during that long weary hunt for the
+_Dresden_ in the Chilean Archipelago. They explored no less than 7,000
+miles of narrow waters, for the most part uncharted, feeling their way
+by lead and by mother wit, becoming learned in the look of the towering
+rocks which shut them in, and in the kelp growing upon their sea
+margins. The channels wound among steep high cliffs, around which they
+could not see. As they worked stealthily round sharp corners, they were
+always expecting to encounter the _Dresden_ with every gun and torpedo
+tube registered upon the narrow space into which they must emerge. Their
+own guns and torpedoes were always ready for instant action, but in this
+game of hide-and-seek the advantage of surprise must always rest with
+the hidden conscious enemy. This daily strain went on through half of
+December and the whole of January and February! One cannot feel
+surprised to learn that in the view of the _Glasgow’s_ company the
+actions of Coronel and the Falklands were gay picnics when set in
+comparison with that hourly expectation throughout two and a half months
+of the sudden discovery of the _Dresden_, and that anticipated blast of
+every gun and mouldy which she could on the instant bring to bear. Added
+to this danger of sudden attack was the ever-present risk of maritime
+disaster. It is no light task to navigate for three months waters to
+which exist no sailing directions and no charts of even tolerable
+accuracy. Upon Captain Luce and upon his second in command,
+Lieutenant-Commander Wilfred Thompson, rested a load of responsibility
+which it would be difficult to overestimate.
+
+It was not until early in March that any authentic news of the movements
+of the _Dresden_ became available. Upon February 4th she had issued
+forth of the Gonzales Channel and crept stealthily up the Chilean coast.
+To the _Glasgow_ had come during the long weeks of the _Dresden’s_
+hiding many reports that she was obliged to investigate. Many times our
+own cruisers were seen by ignorant observers on shore and mistaken for
+the _Dresden_; out would flow stories which, wandering by way of South
+American ports—and sometimes by way of London itself—would come to
+rest in the _Glasgow’s_ wireless-room and increase the burden thrown
+upon her officers. More than once she was taken by shore watchers to be
+the _Dresden_, and urgently warned from home to be on the look-out for
+herself!
+
+At last the veil lifted. The _Dresden_, with her coal of Punta Arenas
+approaching exhaustion, was sighted at a certain spot well up the
+Chilean coast where had been situated von Spee’s secret Lair. The news
+was rushed out to the _Glasgow_, and since her consort, the _Kent_, was
+nearest to the designated spot this cruiser was despatched at once to
+investigate. As at the Falklands action, her engineers rose to the need
+for rapid movement. For thirty-six hours continuously she steamed
+northwards at seventeen knots, and arrived just before daybreak on the
+7th. Nothing was then in sight, nor until three o’clock in the afternoon
+of the following day, the 8th. While in misty weather the _Kent_ was
+waiting and watching out at sea, a cloud bank lifted and the _Dresden_
+was revealed. She had not been seen by us since the day of her flight,
+December 8th, exactly three months before! The _Dresden_ was a shabby
+spectacle, her paint gone, her sides raw with rust and standing high out
+of the water. She was evidently light, and almost out of coal. The
+_Kent_ at once made for her quarry, but the _Dresden_, a much faster
+ship, drew away. Foul as she was, for she had not been in dock since the
+war began, the _Kent_ was little cleaner. The _Dresden_ drew away, but
+the relentless pursuit of the indefatigable _Kent_ kept her at full
+speed for six hours, and left her with no more than enough fuel to reach
+Masafuera or Juan Fernandez. By thus forcing the _Dresden_ to burn most
+of the fuel which still remained in her bunkers, the _Kent_ performed an
+invaluable service. This was on March 8th. Juan Fernandez was judged to
+be the most likely spot in which she would take refuge, and thither the
+_Glasgow_, _Kent_, and _Orama_ foregathered, arriving at daybreak on the
+14th. In Cumberland Bay, 600 yards from the shore, the _Dresden_ lay at
+anchor; the chase was over. She had arrived at 8.30 a.m. on the 9th; she
+had been in Chilean waters for nearly five days. Yet her flag was still
+flying, and there was no evidence that she had been interned. Cumberland
+Bay is a small settlement, and there was no Chilean force present
+capable of interning a German warship.
+
+I will indicate what happened. The main facts have been told in the
+correspondence which took place later between the Chilean and British
+Governments. I will tell the story as I have myself gathered it, and as
+I interpret it.
+
+The _Dresden_ lay in neutral Chilean waters, yet her flag was flying,
+and she had trained her guns upon the English squadron which had found
+her there. There was nothing to prevent her—though liable to
+internment—from making off unless steps were taken at once to put her
+out of action. She had many times before broken the neutrality
+regulations of Chili, and was rightly held by us to be an outlaw to be
+captured or sunk at sight. Acting upon this just interpretation of the
+true meaning of neutrality, Captain Luce of the _Glasgow_, the senior
+naval officer, directed his own guns and those of the _Kent_ to be
+immediately fired upon the _Dresden_. The first broadside dismounted her
+forecastle guns and set her ablaze. She returned the fire without
+touching either of the English ships. Then, after an inglorious two and
+a half minutes, the _Dresden’s_ flag came down.
+
+Captain Lüdecke of the _Dresden_ despatched a boat conveying his
+“adjutant” to the _Glasgow_ for what he called “negotiations,” but the
+English captain declined a parley. He would accept nothing but
+unconditional surrender. Lüdecke claimed that his ship was entitled to
+remain in Cumberland Bay for repairs, that she had not been interned,
+and that his flag had been struck as a signal of negotiation and not of
+surrender. When the Englishman Luce would not talk except through the
+voices of his guns, the German adjutant went back to his ship and
+Lüdecke then blew her up. His crew had already gone ashore, and the
+preparations for destroying the _Dresden_ had been made before her
+captain entered upon his so-called “negotiations.”
+
+It was upon the whole fortunate that Lüdecke took the step of sinking
+the _Dresden_ himself. It might have caused awkward diplomatic
+complications had we taken possession of her in undoubted Chilean
+territorial waters, and yet we could not have permitted her any
+opportunity of escaping under the fiction of internment. Nothing would
+have been heard of internment if the English squadron had not turned
+up—the _Dresden_ had already made an appointment with a collier—and if
+we had not by our fire so damaged the cruiser that she could not have
+taken once more to the sea. Her self-destruction saved us a great deal
+of trouble. In the interval between the firing and the sinking of the
+_Dresden_, the Maritime Governor of Juan Fernandez suggested that the
+English should take away essential parts of the machinery and telegraph
+for a Chilean warship to do the internment business. Neither of these
+proceedings was necessary after the explosion. The _Dresden_ was at the
+bottom of Cumberland Bay, and the British Government apologised to the
+Chileans for the technical violation of territorial waters. The apology
+was accepted, and everyone was happy—not the least the officers and men
+of the _Dresden_ who, after months of aimless, hopeless wanderings,
+found themselves still alive and in a sunny land flowing with milk and
+honey. After their long stay in Tierra del Fuego the warmth of Chili
+must have seemed like paradise. The _Dresden_ yielded to the _Glasgow_
+one item of the spoils of war. After the German cruiser had sunk, a
+small pig was seen swimming about in the Bay. It had been left behind by
+its late friends, but found new ones in the _Glasgow’s_ crew. That pig
+is alive still, or was until quite recently. Grown very large, very
+hairy, and very truculent, and appropriately named von Tirpitz, it has
+been preserved from the fate which waits upon less famous pigs, and
+possesses in England a sty and a nameplate all to its distinguished
+self.
+
+With the sinking of the _Dresden_ the cruise of the _Glasgow_, which I
+have set out to tell, comes to a close. She returned to the South
+Atlantic, and for a further stretch of eighteen months her officers and
+men continued their duties on board. But life must for them have become
+rather dull. There were no more Coronels, or Falkland Islands actions,
+or hunts for elusive German cruisers. Just the daily work of a light
+cruiser on patrol duty in time of war. When in the limelight they played
+their part worthily, and I do not doubt continued to play it as
+worthily, though less conspicuously, when they passed into the darkness
+of the wings, and other officers, other men, and other ships occupied in
+their turn the bright scenes upon the naval stage.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+               THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS
+                            AND REFLECTIONS
+                                 PART I
+
+It is strange how events of great national importance become associated
+in one’s mind with small personal experiences. I have told with what
+vividness I remember the receipt in November, 1914, of private news that
+the battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had left Devonport for
+the Falkland Islands, and how I heard Lord Rosebery read out Sturdee’s
+victorious dispatch to 6,000 people in St. Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow. In a
+similar way the Jutland battle became impressed upon my mind in an
+unforgettable personal fashion. On May 22nd, 1916, I learned that
+Admiral Beatty had at his disposal the four “Cats”—_Lion_, _Tiger_,
+_Queen Mary_, and _Princess Royal_—of about twenty-nine knots speed,
+and each armed with eight 13.5-inch guns, the two battle cruisers _New
+Zealand_ and _Indefatigable_, of some twenty-seven knots of speed, and
+carrying each eight 12-inch guns, and the _Queen Elizabeth_, of
+twenty-five knots, all of which were armed with eight of the new 15-inch
+guns, which were a great advance upon the earlier thirteen-point-fives.
+The ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron had all been completed since the
+war began. The _Queen Elizabeth_ herself went into dock at Rosyth for
+repairs, so that for immediate service the squadron was reduced to four
+ships—_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_.
+
+Upon the following Saturday, May 27th, I was invited to lunch in one of
+the battleships, but upon arrival at South Queensferry, I found the
+Fleet under Short Notice for sea, and no one was allowed to leave the
+ships, or to receive friends on board. It was a beautiful day, the long,
+light-coloured Cats and the Futurist-grey battleships were a most noble
+sight, but I felt too much like a Peri shut out of Paradise to be happy
+in observing them. A day or two later, Thursday, June 1st, was fixed for
+my next visit, but again the Fates were unkind. When I arrived in the
+early morning and stood upon the heights overlooking the anchorage,
+Beatty’s Fleet had gone, and, though I did not know it, had even then
+fought the Jutland battle. In the afternoon, news came with the return
+to the Forth of the damaged battleship _Warspite_ surrounded by her
+attendant destroyers. That was on the Thursday afternoon, but it was not
+until the evening of Friday that the first Admiralty message was issued,
+that famous message which will never be forgotten either by the country
+or by the Navy. The impression which it made may be simply illustrated.
+I was sitting in my drawing-room after dinner, anxiously looking for
+news both on national and personal grounds, when a newsboy shrieked
+under my window “Great Naval Disaster: Five British Battleships Sunk.”
+The news printed in the paper was not so bad as that shouted, but it was
+bad enough; it gave the impression of very heavy losses incurred for no
+compensating purpose, and turned what had really been a conspicuous
+naval success into an apology for a naval disaster. As a humble student,
+I could to some extent read between the lines of the dispatch and dimly
+perceive what had happened, but to the mass of the British public, the
+wording of that immortal document could not have been worse conceived.
+To them it seemed that the End of All Things was at hand.
+
+The story runs that the first bulletin was made up by clerks from scraps
+of messages which came over the wireless from the Grand Fleet, but in
+which the most important sentence of all was omitted. “The Germans are
+claiming a victory,” wailed the Admiralty clerks through the aerials at
+Whitehall. “What shall we say?” “Say,” snapped the Grand Fleet, “say
+that we gave them hell!” If the Admiralty had only said this, said it,
+too, in curt, blasphemous naval fashion, the public would have
+understood, and all would have been well. What a dramatic chance was
+then lost! Think what a roar of laughter and cheering would have echoed
+round the world if the first dispatch had run as follows:
+
+“We have met and fought the German Fleet, and given it hell. Beatty lost
+the _Queen Mary_ and _Indefatigable_ in the first part of the battle
+when the odds were heavily against us, but Jellicoe coming up enveloped
+the enemy, and was only prevented by mist and low visibility from
+destroying him utterly. The Germans have lost as many ships as we have,
+and are shattered beyond repair.”
+
+That message, in a few words, would have given a true impression of the
+greatest sea fight that the world has known, a fight, too, which has
+established beyond question the unchallengeable supremacy of British
+strategy, battle tactics, seamanship, discipline, and devotion to duty
+of every man and boy in the professional Navy. In the technical sense,
+it was an indecisive battle: the Germans escaped destruction. But
+morally, and in its practical results, no sea fight has been more
+decisive. Nearly two years have passed since that morning of June 1st
+when the grey dawn showed the seas empty of German ships, and though the
+High Seas Fleet has put out many times since then, it has never again
+ventured to engage us. Jutland drove sea warfare, for the Germans,
+beneath the surface, a petty war of raids upon merchant vessels, a
+war—as against neutrals—of piracy and murder. By eight o’clock on the
+evening of May 31st, 1916, the Germans had been out-fought,
+outmanœuvred, and cut off from their bases. Had the battle begun three
+hours earlier, and had visibility been as full as it had been in the
+Falkland Islands action, had there been, above all, ample sea room,
+there would not have been a German battleship afloat when the sun went
+down. There never was a luckier fleet than that one which scrambled away
+through the darkness of May 31st-June 1st, worked its way round the
+enveloping horns of Jellicoe, Beatty, and Evan-Thomas, and arrived
+gasping and shattered at Wilhelmshaven. We can pardon the Kaiser, who,
+in his relief for a crowning mercy, proclaimed the escape to be a
+glorious victory.
+
+But though the Kaiser may, after his manner, talk of victories, German
+naval officers cherish no illusions about Jutland. If one takes the
+trouble to analyse their very full dispatches, their relief at escaping
+destruction shines forth too plainly to be mistaken. Admiral Scheer got
+away, and showed himself to be a consummate master of his art. But he
+never, in his dispatches, claims that the British Fleets were defeated
+in the military sense. They were foiled, chiefly through his own skill,
+but they were not defeated. The German dispatches state definitely that
+the battle of May 31st “confirmed the old truth, that the large fighting
+ship, the ship which combines the maximum of strength in attack and
+defence, rules the seas.” The relation of strength, they say, between
+the English and German Fleets, “was roughly two to one.” They do not
+claim that this overwhelming superiority in our strength was sensibly
+reduced by the losses in the battle, nor that the large English fighting
+ships—admittedly larger, much more numerous, and more powerfully gunned
+than their own—ceased after Jutland to rule the seas. Their claim,
+critically examined, is simply that in the circumstances the German
+ships made a highly successful escape. And so indeed they did.
+
+The Jutland battle always presents itself to my mind in a series of
+clear-cut pictures. Very few of those who take part in a big naval
+battle see anything of it. They are at their stations, occupied with
+their pressing duties, and the world without is hidden from them. I try
+to imagine the various phases of the battle as they were unfolded before
+the eyes of those few in the fighting squadrons who did see. Perhaps if
+I try to paint for my readers those scenes which are vividly before me,
+I may convey to them something of what I have tried to learn myself.
+
+Let us transport ourselves to the signal bridge of Admiral Beatty’s
+flagship, the battle cruiser _Lion_, and take up station there upon the
+afternoon of May 31st, at half-past two. It is a fine afternoon, though
+hazy; the clouds lie in heavy banks, and the horizon, instead of
+appearing as a hard line, is an indefinable blend of grey sea and grey
+cloud. It is a day of “low visibility,” a day greatly favouring a weak
+fleet which desires to evade a decisive action. We have been sweeping
+the lower North Sea, and are steering towards the north-west on our way
+to rejoin Jellicoe’s main Fleet. Our flagship, _Lion_, is the leading
+vessel of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and following behind us, we
+can see the _Princess Royal_, _Queen Mary_, and _Tiger_. At a little
+distance behind the _Tiger_ appear the two ships which remain to us of
+the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, the _Indefatigable_ and _New
+Zealand_, fine powerful ships, but neither so fast nor so powerful as
+are our four Cats of the First Squadron. Some five or six miles to the
+west of us we can make out, against the afternoon sky, the huge bulk of
+the _Barham_, which, followed by her three consorts, _Valiant_,
+_Warspite_, and _Malaya_, leads the Fifth Battle Squadron of the most
+powerful fighting ships afloat. We are the spear-head of Beatty’s Fleet,
+but those great ships yonder, silhouetted against the sky, are its most
+solid shaft.
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.]
+
+Word runs round the ship that the enemy has been sighted, but since we
+know nothing of his numbers or of his quality—Jutland, though
+anticipated and worked for, was essentially a battle of encounter—our
+light cruisers fly off to make touch and find out for us. Away also
+soars seaplane, rising from the platform of our carrying ship
+_Engadine_, a clumsy-looking seagull, with its big pontoon feet, but
+very fast and very deftly handled. The seaplane flies low, for the
+clouds droop towards the sea, it is heavily fired upon, but is not hit,
+and it returns to tell us—or rather the Admiral, in his conning tower
+below—just what he wishes to learn. There is an enemy battle cruiser
+squadron immediately in front of us, consisting of five armoured ships,
+with their attendant light cruisers and destroyers. The German battle
+cruisers are: _Derfflinger_ (12-inch guns), _Lützow_ (12-inch), _Moltke_
+(11-inch), _Seydlitz_ (11-inch), and another stated by the Germans to be
+the _von der Tann_, which had more than once been reported lost. Since
+our four big battle cruisers carry 13.5-inch guns, and two other guns of
+12-inch, and the four battleships supporting us great 15-inch weapons,
+we ought to eat up the German battle cruisers if we can draw near enough
+to see them distinctly. By half-past three the two British battle
+cruiser squadrons are moving at twenty-five knots, formed up in line of
+battle, and the Fifth Battle Squadron, still some five miles away, is
+steaming at about twenty-three knots. The Germans have turned in a
+southerly direction, and are flying at full speed upon a course which is
+roughly parallel with that which we have now taken up. During the past
+hour we have come round nearly twelve points—eight points go to a right
+angle—and are now speeding away from Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet, which is
+some forty miles distant to the north and west. Since we are faster than
+Jellicoe, the gap between us and him is steadily opening out.
+
+From the signal bridge, a very exposed position, we can see the turret
+guns below us and the spotting top above. The turrets swing round, as
+the gunners inside get their directions from the gunnery-control officer
+who, in his turn, receives every few moments the results of the
+range-finding and rate-of-change observations which are being
+continually taken by petty officers charged with the duty. Further
+corrections will be made when the guns begin to shoot, and the spotting
+officers aloft watch for the splashes of the shells as they fall into
+the sea. Naval gunnery, in spite of all the brains and experience
+lavished upon it, must always be far from an exact science. One has to
+do with moving ships firing at other moving ships, many factors which go
+to a precise calculation are imperfectly known, and though the margin of
+error may be reduced by modern instruments of precision, the long
+fighting ranges of to-day make the error substantial. The lower the
+visibility, the greater becomes the gunner’s uncertainty, for neither
+range-finding nor spotting can be carried on with accuracy. Even on the
+clearest of days it is difficult to “spot” a shell-splash at more than
+14,000 yards (eight land miles), a range which is short for the huge
+naval gun. When many guns are firing, it is not easy to pick up the
+splashes of one’s own shells, and to distinguish between their
+water-bursts and the camouflage put up by an enemy.
+
+At our position upon the signal bridge, though we are there only in
+spirit, we probably feel much more of excitement than does any officer
+or man of the big ship upon which we have intruded our ghostly presence.
+Most of them can see nothing; all of them are too busy upon their duties
+to bother about personal feelings. There is an atmosphere of serene
+confidence in themselves and their ship which communicates itself even
+to outsiders like us. At 3.48 the enemy is some 18,500 yards distance,
+and visible, for the light has improved, and firing begins almost
+simultaneously from us and our opponents. The first crash from the
+_Lion’s_ two fore-turrets nearly throws us off the bridge, so sudden and
+fierce it is, and so little does its intensity seem to be subdued by our
+ear-protectors. But as other crashes follow down the line we grow
+accustomed to them, grip tightly at the hand-rail, and forget ourselves
+in the grandeur of the sight unfolding itself before us. Away, far away,
+is the enemy, hull down, smothered in smoke and by the huge gouts of
+spray thrown up by our bursting shells. He is adding to the splashes by
+firing his own side batteries into the sea to confuse the judgment of
+our spotters.
+
+At each discharge from our ship, a great cone of incandescent gas flames
+forth, cutting like a sword through the pale curtain of smoke. From the
+distant enemy ships we can see thin flashes spurt in reply, and his
+shells pitch beside us and over us, lashing our decks with sea foam and
+sometimes throwing a torrent of water over the spotting top and bridge.
+Before five minutes have passed, we are wet through, our ears are
+drumming in spite of the faithful protectors, and all sensation except
+of absorbed interest in the battle has left us. At any moment we may be
+scattered by a bursting shell, or carried to the bottom with our sunken
+ship, but we do not give a thought to the risks.
+
+While we are firing at the enemy, and he is firing at us at ranges
+varying from ten to eight miles, a fierce battle is going on between the
+lines of big ships. Light cruisers are fighting light cruisers,
+destroyers are rushing upon destroyers. At an early stage in the action,
+the German Admiral Hipper—in command of the battle cruisers—launched
+fifteen destroyers at our line, and was taught a rough lesson in the
+quality of the boys who man our T.B.D.s. Twelve of our heavier and more
+powerfully armed destroyers fell upon the German fifteen, huddled them
+into a bunch, and had started to lay them out scientifically with gun
+and torpedo, when they fled back to the shelter of their own big ships.
+Following them up, our destroyers delivered a volley of torpedoes upon
+the German battle cruisers at less than 3,000 yards distance. Probably
+no damage was done, for it is the forlornest of jobs to loose mouldies
+against fast manœuvring ships, but lack of success does not in any way
+dim the splendour of the attempt. As light cruisers and destroyers fight
+and manœuvre, the torrent of heavy shells screams over their heads,
+flying as high in their course as Alpine mountains, and dropping almost
+vertically near the lines of battle cruisers.
+
+As soon as we turned to the south in pursuit of Hipper’s advance
+squadron of battle cruisers, Admiral Evan-Thomas closed his supporting
+battleships upon us, and we can now see them clearly about two miles
+away on our starboard quarter, formed in line of battle, the flagship
+_Barham_ leading. At eight minutes past four they join in the fight,
+firing at a range of 20,000 yards (twelve miles), not an excessive
+distance for their tremendous flat-shooting 15-inch guns if the light
+were good, but too far for accuracy now that the enemy ships can be seen
+so very indistinctly. Up to now the German gunnery has been good; our
+ships have not often been seriously struck, but the shells in bunched
+salvoes have fallen very closely beside us. Our armour, though much
+thinner than that of the battleships behind us, is sufficient to keep
+off the enemy’s light shells—our 13.5-inch shells are twice the weight
+of his 11-inch, and the 15-inch shells fired by the Queen Elizabeths
+astern of us are more than twice the weight of his 12-inch. We feel
+little anxiety for our turrets, conning towers, or sides, but we notice
+how steeply his salvoes are falling at the long ranges, and are not
+without concern for our thin decks should any 12-inch shells of 850 lb.
+weight plump fairly upon them from the skies. By half-past four the
+German fire has slackened a good deal, has become ragged and inaccurate,
+showing that we are getting home with our heavy stuff, and the third
+ship in the line is seen to be on fire. All is going well, the enemy is
+outclassed in ships and in guns; we are still between him and his bases
+to the south-west, he is already becoming squeezed up against the big
+banks which stretch out one hundred miles from the Jutland coast, and
+for a while it looks as if Beatty had struck something both soft and
+good.
+
+But a few minutes make a great change. All through the last hour we have
+been steaming fast towards the main German High Seas Fleet and away from
+Jellicoe, and at 4.42 the leading German battleships can be seen upon
+the smoky horizon to the south-east. Though we do not know it yet, the
+whole High Seas Fleet is before us, including sixteen of the best German
+ships, and it were the worst of folly to go any farther towards it. We
+could, it is true, completely outflank it by continuing on our present
+course, and with our high speed might avoid being crushed in a general
+action, but we should have irrevocably separated ourselves from
+Jellicoe, and have committed a tactical mistake of the biggest kind. We
+should have divided the English forces in the face of the enemy, instead
+of concentrating them. So a quick order comes from the conning tower
+below, and away beside us runs a signal hoist. “Sixteen points,
+starboard.” Sixteen points mean a complete half-circle, and round come
+our ships, the _Lion_ leading, turning in a curve of which the diameter
+is nearly a mile, and heading now to the north, towards Jellicoe,
+instead of to the south, away from him. Our purpose now is to keep the
+Germans fully occupied until Jellicoe, who is driving his battleships at
+their fullest speed, can come down and wipe Fritz off the seas. As we
+come round, the German battle cruisers follow our manœuvre, and also
+turn through sixteen points in order to place themselves at the head of
+the enemy’s battle line.
+
+As we swing round and take up our new course, we pass between the Queen
+Elizabeths and the enemy, masking their fire, and for a few minutes we
+are exposed in the midst of a critical manœuvre to the concentrated
+salvoes of every German battleship within range. The range is long, the
+German shells fired with high elevation fall very steeply, and we are
+safe except from the ill-luck of heavy projectiles pitching upon our
+decks. From the signal bridge of the _Lion_ we can see every battle
+cruiser as it swings, or as it approaches the turning point, we can see
+the whole beautiful length of them, and we also see a sight which has
+never before been impressed upon the eyes of man. For we see two
+splendid battle cruisers struck and sink; first the _Indefatigable_, and
+then the _Queen Mary_. It is not permitted to us to describe the scene
+as actually it presented itself to our eyes.
+
+Beatty has lost two battle cruisers, one of the first class and one of
+the second. There remain to him four—the three Cats and the _New
+Zealand_; he is sorely weakened, but does not hesitate. He has two
+duties to carry out—to lead the enemy towards Jellicoe, and so dispose
+of his battle cruisers beyond the head of the German lines as powerfully
+to aid Jellicoe in completing their development. Beatty is now round,
+and round also comes the Fifth Battle Squadron, forming astern of the
+battle cruisers, and with them engaging the leading German ships. The
+enemy is some 14,000 yards distant from us in the _Lion_ (8½ miles), and
+this range changes little while Beatty is speeding first north and then
+north-east, in order to cross the “T” of the German line. We will
+continue to stand upon the _Lion’s_ bridge during the execution of this
+most spirited manœuvre, and then leave Beatty’s flagship in order to
+observe from the spotting top of a battleship how the four Queen
+Elizabeths fought the whole High Seas Fleet, while our battle cruisers
+were turning its van. What these splendid ships did, and did to
+perfection, was to stall the Germans off, and so give time both for the
+enveloping movement of Beatty and for the arrival and deployment of
+Jellicoe’s main Fleet.
+
+By five o’clock Beatty is fairly off upon his gallant adventure, and
+during the next hour, the hardest fought part of the whole battle, the
+gap between the battle cruisers and the four supporting battleships
+steadily widens. If the Germans are to be enveloped, Beatty must at the
+critical moment allow sufficient space between himself and Evan-Thomas
+for Jellicoe to deploy his big Fleet between them, and this involves on
+the part of the Commander-in-Chief a deployment in the midst of battle
+of a delicacy and accuracy only possible to a naval tactician of the
+highest order. But both Beatty and Evan-Thomas know their Jellicoe, to
+whom, at few-minute intervals, crackle from the aerials above us
+wireless messages giving with naval precision the exact courses and
+speeds of our ships and the bearings of the enemy. For an hour—up to
+the moment when we turned to the north—we ran away from Jellicoe, but
+during the next hour we steamed towards him; we know that he is pressing
+to our aid with all the speed which his panting engineers can get out of
+his squadrons. Beatty’s battle cruisers, curving round the head of the
+German line at a range of 14,000 to 12,000 yards, are firing all the
+while, and being fired at all the while, but though often hit, they are
+safer now than when they were a couple of miles more distant.
+
+We have now reached a very important phase in the battle. It is twenty
+minutes past six. At six o’clock the leading vessels of Jellicoe’s Grand
+Fleet had been sighted five miles to the north of us and his three
+battle cruisers—_Invincible_ (Admiral Hood), _Inflexible_, and
+_Indomitable_—have flown down to the help of Beatty. They come into
+action, steaming hard due south, and take station ahead of us in the
+_Lion_. By this lengthening of his line to the south Beatty has now
+completely enveloped the German battle cruisers, which turn through some
+twelve points and endeavour to wriggle out of the jaws of the trap which
+they see closing remorselessly upon them. They are followed in this turn
+by the battleships of the High Seas Fleet which, for more than an hour,
+have been faithfully hammered by Evan-Thomas’s Queen Elizabeths, and
+show up against the sky a very ragged outline. The range of the battle
+cruisers is now down to 8,000 yards, and they get well home upon
+battleships as well as upon opponents of their own class. We do not
+ourselves escape loss, for the _Invincible_, which has become the
+leading ship, is shattered by concentrated gun-fire. The gallant Hood,
+with his men, has gone to join his great naval ancestors.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+And now let us put the clock back to the hour, 4.57, when the Queen
+Elizabeths had completed their turn to the north, and had taken up
+position astern of Beatty to hold off the main German Fleet while he is
+making his enveloping rush. From the spotting top of the battleship upon
+which we have descended we get a most inspiring view, though every now
+and then we are smothered in oily smoke from the huge flat funnels below
+us, and are drenched with water which is flung up in torrents by shells
+bursting alongside. The enemy ships upon which we are firing are some
+18,000 yards distant, we can with great difficulty make them out amid
+the smoke and haze, and we wonder mightily how the keen-eyed spotting
+officers beside us can judge and correct, as they appear to be doing,
+the bursts of our shells more than ten miles distance. Our guns, and
+those of our consorts, are firing deliberately, for we do not know how
+long the battle will endure, and the supply of 15-inch shell and cordite
+cannot be unlimited in the very biggest of ships. We learn from the
+spotting officers that all our ships, except the _Valiant_, have been
+hit several times while coming into action by dropping shots, but that
+no serious harm has been done. Meanwhile the shells are falling fast
+about us, and all of our ships are repeatedly straddled. The _Warspite_
+suffered the most severely, though even she was able to go home to the
+Forth under her own steam. This is the battleship whose steering gear
+went wrong later in the action, and which turned two complete “O’s” at
+full speed. Round she went in great circles of a mile in diameter,
+spitting shots with every gun that bore upon the enemy during her wild
+gyrations. Fritz began well, but does not seem able to stand punishment.
+He rarely hits us now, though we are giving him a much better mark than
+he presents to us. For we are silhouetted against the almost clear sky
+to the west, while he—and there are a great many of him—is buried in
+mist and smoke to the east. Rarely can our range-finding officers take a
+clear observation; rarely can our spotters make sure of a correction.
+Yet every now and then we note signs that our low-flying, hard-hitting
+shells—each one of which weighs not much short of a ton!—are getting
+home upon him at least as frequently as his shots are hitting us. Three
+of his battleships are new, built since the war began, but the rest are
+just Königs and Kaisers, no better than our Dreadnoughts of half a dozen
+years ago. We would willingly take on twice our numbers of such
+battleships and fight them to a finish upon a clear summer’s day.
+
+Our battle tactics are now plain to see. They are to keep out to the
+farthest visible range, to avoid being materially damaged, and to keep
+Fritz’s battleships so fully occupied that they will have no opportunity
+of closing in upon Beatty when he completes his envelopment. We can see
+our battle cruisers some three miles away, swinging more and more round
+the head of the German line, and the enemy’s battle cruisers edging away
+in the effort to avoid being outflanked. Far away to the north appears
+the smoke of the three battle cruisers which are speeding ahead of
+Jellicoe’s main Fleet; they are getting their instructions from Beatty’s
+_Lion_, and are already making for the head of his line so as to prolong
+it, and so to complete the envelopment which is now our urgent purpose.
+Our Queen Elizabeth battleships are not hurrying either their engines or
+their guns. We are moving just fast enough to keep slightly ahead of the
+first half-dozen of the German battleships; we are pounding them
+steadily whenever a decent mark is offered us—which unhappily is not
+often—and we have seen one big ship go down smothered in smoke and
+flames. The time draws on and it is already six o’clock; we have borne
+the burden of the fight for more than an hour, though it seems but a few
+minutes since we turned more than twenty miles back to the south, and
+first gave Fritz a taste of what the Fifth Battle Squadron could do. We
+are slowing down now, and the gap between us and Beatty is widening out,
+for we know that Jellicoe is coming, and that he will deploy his three
+battle squadrons between us and our battle cruisers which, extended in a
+long line, with Hood’s _Invincible_ in front, are well round the head of
+the German ships. The whole German Fleet is curving into a long,
+close-knit spiral between us and Beatty, and, if the light will hold, we
+have it ripe for destruction. We have played our part; the issue now
+rests with Jellicoe and the gods of weather.
+
+Everything for which we and the battle cruisers have fought and
+suffered, for which we have risked and lost the _Queen Mary_ and
+_Indefatigable_, is drawing to its appointed end. Our Fifth Battle
+Squadron has nearly stopped, and has inclined four points towards the
+east, so as to allow the gap for Jellicoe’s deployment to widen out.
+Firing upon both sides has ceased. We have great work still to do, and
+are anxious to keep all the shells we yet carry for it, and the enemy is
+too heavily battered and in too grievous a peril to think of anything
+but his immediate escape. We are waiting for Jellicoe, whose squadrons
+are already beginning to deploy.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+While the Queen Elizabeths wait, ready at any moment to resume the
+action whenever and wherever their tremendous services may be called
+for, we will leave the Fifth Battle Squadron, and, flying far over the
+sea, will penetrate into the Holy of Holies, the conning tower of the
+Fleet flagship wherein stands the small, firm-lipped, eager-eyed man who
+is the brain and nerve centre of the battle. There are those who have as
+sharp a thirst for battle—Beatty has; and there are those who have been
+as patient under long-drawn-out delays and disappointments—Kitchener
+was; yet there have been few fighting men in English history who could,
+as Jellicoe can, combine enduring patience with the most burning ardour,
+and never allow the one to achieve mastery over the other. Watch him now
+in the conning tower of the _Iron Duke_. He has waited and worked during
+twenty-two months for just this moment, when the German High Seas Fleet
+have placed their cards upon the table, and he, exactly at the proper
+instant, will play his overwhelming trumps. If ever a man had excuse for
+too hasty a movement, for too great an eagerness to snatch at victory,
+Jellicoe would have one now. His eyes flash, and one may read in them
+the man’s intense anxiety not to allow one moment of unnecessary delay
+to interpose between his Fleet and the scattering enemy. Yet until the
+exact moment arrives when he can with sure hand deploy his squadrons
+into line of battle, and fit them with precision into the gap made for
+them between Beatty to the east and south and Evan-Thomas to the west
+and south, he will not give the order which, once given, cannot be
+recalled. For as soon as his Fleet has deployed, it will be largely out
+of his hands, its dispositions will have been made, and if it deploys
+too soon, the crushing opportunity will be missed, and the Germans will
+infallibly escape. So, with his divisions well in hand, he watches upon
+the chart the movements of his own and Beatty’s vessels, as the wireless
+waves report them to him, and every few minutes goes to the observation
+hoods of the conning tower, and seeks to peer through the thick haze and
+smoke which still hide from him the enveloping horns of the English
+ships, and the curving masses of the enemy. If he could see clearly his
+task would be less difficult and the culmination of his hopes less
+doubtful. But he cannot see; he has to work by wireless and by instinct,
+largely by faith, trusting to the judgment of Beatty and Evan-Thomas,
+far away, and himself subject to the ever-varying uncertainties of sea
+fighting. He goes back to the chart, upon which his staff are noting
+down the condensed essence of all the messages as they flow in, and
+then, the moment having arrived, he gives the word. Away run the signal
+flags, picked up and interpreted by every squadron flagship, and then
+repeated by every ship. The close divisions of the Grand Fleet spread
+out, melt gracefully into lines—to all appearance as easily as if they
+were battalions of infantry—they swing round to the east, the foremost
+vessel reaching out to join up with Beatty’s battle cruisers. As the
+Grand Fleet deploys, Evan-Thomas swings in his four Queen Elizabeths so
+that the _Barham_, without haste or hesitation, falls in behind the
+aftermost of Jellicoe’s battleships, and the remainder of the Fifth
+Battle Squadron completes the line, which stretches now in one long
+curve to the west and north and east of the beaten Germans. The
+deployment is complete, the whole Grand Fleet has concentrated, the
+enemy is surrounded on three sides, we are faster than he is, and more
+than twice as powerful; if the light will hold, his end has come.
+Although from the _Iron Duke_ we cannot now see the wide enveloping
+horns, yet we have lately been with them and know them. The main Fleet
+in whose centre we now steam, consists of Dreadnoughts, Orions, King
+George the Fifths, Iron Dukes (all acting as flagships), Royal
+Sovereigns, with 15-inch guns, the _Canada_, with 14-inch guns, and that
+queer Dago ship the _Agincourt_, with her seven turrets all on the
+middle line, and each containing two 12-inch guns. Not a ship in our
+battle line has been afloat for more than seven years, and most of them
+are less than three years old. The material newness of the Grand Fleet
+is a most striking testimony to the eternal youth of the Navy’s ancient
+soul.
+
+We have now concentrated in battle line the battleships of our own main
+Fleet and six battle cruisers, after allowing for our losses, and the
+Germans have, after making a similar allowance, not more than fourteen
+battleships and three battle cruisers. I do not count obsolete
+pre-Dreadnoughts. The disparity in force is greater even than is shown
+by the bare numbers, which it is not permitted to give exactly. Scarcely
+a ship of the enemy can compare in fighting force with the Queen
+Elizabeths or the Royal Sovereigns, or even with the Iron Dukes, Orions,
+and King George the Fifths. Of course he made off; he would have been a
+fool if he had not—and Admiral Scheer is far from being a fool.
+
+Our concentrated Fleet came into action at 6.17, and at this moment the
+Germans were curving in a spiral towards the south-west, seeking a way
+out of the sea lion’s jaws. They were greatly favoured by the mist and
+were handled with superb skill. They relied upon constant torpedo
+attacks to fend off our battleships, while their own big vessels worked
+themselves clear. We could never see more than four or five ships at a
+time in their van, or from eight to ten in their rear. For two hours the
+English Fleet, both battleships and battle cruisers, sought to close,
+and now and then would get well home upon the enemy at from 11,000 to
+9,000 yards, but again and again under cover of torpedo attacks and
+smoke clouds, the Germans opened out the range and evaded us. We could
+not get in our heavy blows for long enough to crush Scheer, and he could
+not get in his mosquito attacks with sufficient success wholly to stave
+us off. For us those two hours of hunting an elusive enemy amid smoke
+and fog banks were intensely exasperating; for him they must have been
+not less intensely nerve-racking. All the while we were hunting him, he
+was edging away to the south-west—“pursuing the English” was his own
+humorous description of the manœuvre—and both Jellicoe and Beatty were
+pressing down between him and the land, and endeavouring to push him
+away from his bases. All the while our battleships and battle cruisers
+were firing heavily upon any German ship which they could see, damaging
+many, and sinking one at least. The return fire was so ragged and
+ineffective that our vessels were scarcely touched, and only three men
+were wounded in the whole of Jellicoe’s main Fleet. By nine o’clock both
+Beatty and Jellicoe were far down the Jutland coast, and had turned
+towards the south-west in the expectation that daylight would reveal to
+them the German Fleet in a favourable position for ending the business.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+               THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS
+                            AND REFLECTIONS
+                                PART II
+
+At the close of my previous Chapter I took a mean advantage of my
+readers. For I broke off at the most interesting and baffling phase in
+the whole Battle of the Giants. It was easy to write of the first two
+phases—the battle-cruiser action up to the turn where the _Queen Mary_
+and _Indefatigable_ were lost, and the phase during which Beatty, though
+sorely weakened, gallantly headed off the German line, and Evan-Thomas,
+with his Fifth Battle Squadron, stalled off the Main High Seas Fleet in
+order to allow Beatty the time necessary for the execution of his
+manœuvre, and Jellicoe the time to bring up the Grand Fleet. This second
+phase of the battle was perfectly planned and perfectly executed. It
+will always stand out in the pages of English Naval History as a
+classical example of English battle tactics. I could have described
+these two phases with much more of intimate detail had the Censor
+permitted, but perhaps I gave enough to make clear what was sought to be
+done and what was, in fact, achieved.
+
+When Jellicoe had deployed his potent squadrons, fitting them in between
+Evan-Thomas and Beatty and curving round the head of the German line,
+which by then had turned back upon itself and taken the form of a
+closely knit spiral, the Germans appeared to be doomed. They were not
+enveloped in the strict sense of being surrounded—we were twice as
+strong as they were in numbers of modern ships and nearly three times as
+strong in effective gun power, yet we had not nearly sufficient numbers
+actually to surround them. A complete envelopment of an enemy fleet
+rarely, if ever, occurs at sea. But though Admiral Scheer was not
+surrounded he was in the most imminent peril of destruction. Jellicoe
+and Beatty were between his ships and the Jutland Coast, and as they
+pressed towards the south and west were pushing him away from the Wet
+Triangle and the security of his home bases. We had him outmanœuvred and
+beaten, but we did not destroy him. Why was that?
+
+No question is more difficult to answer fairly and truthfully. I have
+discussed this third critical phase of the battle with a great many
+officers who were present—and in a position to see what happened—and
+with a great many who, though not present, had means of informing
+themselves upon essential details. I have studied line by line the
+English and German dispatches and have paid more regard to what they do
+not tell than to what they do tell. It is stupid to reject Admiral
+Scheer’s dispatch as fiction; it is not, but it is coloured with the
+purpose of making the least of his tactical defeat and the most of his
+very skilful escape. Jellicoe’s dispatch is also coloured. I do not
+doubt that the statements contained in it are strictly true, but there
+are obvious omissions. By a process of examination and inquiry I have
+arrived at an answer to my question. I put it forward in all deference,
+for though I am of the Navy in blood and spirit, and have studied it all
+my life, yet I am a layman without sea training in the Service.
+
+The first point essential to an understanding is that Jellicoe’s
+deployment was not complete until late in the afternoon, 6.17 p.m.
+G.M.T., that the evening was misty, and the “visibility” poor. Had the
+encounter between Beatty’s and Hipper’s battle cruisers occurred two
+hours earlier, and had Jellicoe come into action at 4.15 instead of
+6.15, one may feel confident that there would not now be any High Seas
+German Fleet, that we could, since May 31st, 1916, have maintained a
+close blockade with fast light craft of the German North Sea and Baltic
+bases, and that the U-boat activity, which still threatens our sea
+communications and has had a profound influence on the progress of the
+war, would never have been allowed by us to develop. Upon so little, two
+hours of a day in late spring, sometimes hangs the fate of nations.
+
+The afternoon was drawing towards evening; the light was poor, the
+German lines had curved away seeking safety in flight. But there
+remained confronting us Hipper’s battle cruisers and Scheer’s faster
+battleships, supported by swarms of torpedo craft. We also had our
+destroyers, many of them, and light cruisers. There was one chance of
+safety open to Scheer, and he took it with a judgment in design and a
+skill in execution which marks him out as a great sea captain. His one
+chance was so to fend off and delay Jellicoe and Beatty by repeated
+torpedo attacks driven home, that the big English ships would not be
+able to close in upon the main German Fleet and destroy it by gun-fire
+while light remained to give a mark to the gunners. And so Scheer
+decided to “attack,” and did attack. In his dispatch he deliberately
+gives the impression—for the comfort and gratification of German
+readers—that he successfully attacked our Grand Fleet with his main
+High Seas Fleet. He was no fool of that sort. He attacked, but it was
+with torpedo craft supported by Hipper’s battle cruisers.
+
+The range of a modern torpedo, the range at which it may occasionally be
+effective, is not far short of 12,000 yards, about seven land miles.
+This, when the visibility is low, is about the extreme effective range
+for heavy guns. The guns can shoot much farther, twice as far, when the
+gunners or the fire directors up aloft can see; but gunnery without
+proper light is a highly wasteful and ineffective business. At the
+range—usually about 12,000 yards, though sometimes coming down to 9,000
+yards—to which the German torpedo attacks forced Jellicoe and Beatty to
+keep out, only some four or five enemy ships in the van could be seen at
+once; more of the rear squadron could be seen, though never more than
+eight or twelve. Our marks were usually not the hulls of the enemy’s
+ships but the elusive flashes of his guns. Scheer used his torpedo craft
+in exactly the same way as a skilful land General—in the old days of
+open fighting—used his cavalry during a retreat. He used them to cover
+by repeated charges, sometimes of single flotillas, at other times of
+heavily massed squadrons, the retirement of his main forces.
+
+If, therefore, we combine the factor of low visibility and the approach
+of sunset, with the other factor of the long range of the modern
+torpedo, we begin to understand why Jellicoe and Beatty were not able to
+close in upon their enemy and wipe him off the seas. From the English
+point of view the third phase—that critical third phase to which the
+first and second phases had led up and which, under favourable
+circumstances, would have ended with the destruction of the German
+Fleet—found us in the position of a “following” or “chasing” fleet. But
+from the German point of view the same phase found their fleet in the
+position of “attackers.” I have shown how these points of view can be
+reconciled, for while the main German Fleet was intent upon getting away
+and our main fleet was intent upon following it up and engaging it, the
+German battle cruisers, supported by swarms of torpedo craft, were
+fighting a spirited rearguard action and attacking us continually. The
+visibility was poor and mist troubled both sides. But the escape of the
+Germans was not wholly due to the difficulty of seeing them distinctly.
+If we could have closed in we should have seen his ships all right; we
+did not close in because the persistence and boldness of his torpedo
+attacks prevented us.
+
+The third phase, which lasted from 6.17 p.m. until 8.20 p.m., was fought
+generally at about 12,000 yards, though now and then the range came down
+to 9,000 yards. The Germans, fending us off with torpedo onslaughts, did
+their utmost to open out the ranges and used smoke screens to lessen
+what visibility the atmosphere permitted. Their gun-fire was so poor and
+ineffective that Jellicoe’s Main Fleet was barely scratched and three
+men only were wounded. But we cannot escape from the conclusion that
+Scheer’s rearguard tactics were successful, he did fend Jellicoe off and
+kept him from closing, and he did withdraw the bulk of his fleet from
+the jaws which during two hours were seeking to close upon it. He made
+two heavy destroyer attacks, during one of which the battleship
+_Marlborough_ was hit but was able to get back to dock under her own
+steam. The third phase of the Jutland Battle was exactly like a contest
+between two boxers—one heavy and the other light—being fought in an
+open field without ropes. The little man, continually side-stepping and
+retreating, kept the big man off; the big man could not close for fear
+of a sudden jab in his vital parts, and there were no corners to the
+ring into which the evasive light weight could be driven.
+
+If one applies this key to the English and German descriptions of the
+third phase in the Jutland Battle one becomes able to reconcile them,
+and becomes able to understand why the immensely relieved Germans claim
+their skilful escape as a gift from Heaven. They do not in their
+dispatches claim to have defeated Jellicoe, except in the restricted
+sense of having foiled his purpose of compassing their destruction. They
+got out of the battle very cheaply, whatever may have been their actual
+losses. This they realise as plainly as we do. Relief shines out of
+every line of their official story and is compressed, without reserve,
+into its concluding sentence. “Whoever had the fortune to take part in
+the battle will joyfully recognise with a thankful heart that the
+protection of the Most High was with us. It is an old historical truth
+that fortune favours the brave.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+I am afraid that I can do little to elucidate the fourth phase of the
+Battle of the Giants—the night scrimmage (one cannot call it a battle)
+during which our destroyers were seeking out the enemy ships in the
+darkness and plugging holes into them at every opportunity. And that
+dawn upon June 1st, of which so much was hoped and from which nothing
+was realised? Who can describe that? Nothing that I can write would
+approach in sublimity the German dispatch. Consider what the situation
+was. Jellicoe and Beatty had worked far down the Jutland coast and had
+partially edged their way between Scheer and the German bases. Their
+destroyers had sought out the German ships, found them and loosed
+mouldies at them, lost them again and found them again; finally had lost
+them altogether. At dawn the visibility was even lower than during the
+previous evening—only three to four miles—our destroyers were out of
+sight and touch and did not rejoin till 9 o’clock. No enemy was in
+sight, and after cruising about until 11 o’clock Jellicoe was forced to
+the conclusion that Scheer had got away round his far-stretching horns
+and was even then threading the mine fields which protected his ports of
+refuge. There was no more to be done, and the English squadrons, robbed
+of the prey upon which they had set their clutches, steamed off towards
+their northern fastnesses. There the fleet fuelled and replenished with
+ammunition, and 9.30 a.m. on June 2nd was reported ready for action. The
+German description of that dawn is a masterpiece in the art of verbal
+camouflage: “As the sun rose upon the morning of the historic First of
+June in the eastern sky, each one of us expected that the awakening sun
+would illumine the British line advancing to renew the battle. This
+expectation was not realized. The sea all round, so far as the eye could
+see, was empty. One of our airships which had been sent up reported,
+later in the morning, having seen twelve ships of a line-of-battle
+squadron coming from the southern part of the North Sea holding a
+northerly course at great speed. To the great regret of all it was then
+too late for our fleet to intercept and attack them.” The British Fleet,
+which the writer regretted not to see upon the dawn of a long day in
+late spring, was of more than twice the strength of his own. It would
+have had sixteen hours of daylight within which to devour him; yet he
+regretted its absence! The Germans must be a very simple people,
+abysmally ignorant of the sea if this sort of guff stimulates their
+vanity.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+In war the moral is far greater than the material, the psychological
+than the mechanical. One cannot begin to understand the simplest of
+actions unless one knows something of the spirit of the men who fight
+them. In sea battles, more than in contests upon land, events revolve
+round the personalities of the leaders and results depend upon the skill
+with which these leaders have gauged the problem set them, and dispose
+their forces to meet those varying phases which lead up to a conclusion.
+It is borne in upon us by hard experience that the southern part of the
+North Sea is not big enough and not deep enough to afford space for a
+first-class naval battle to be fought out to the finish. The enemy is
+too near his home bases, he can break off an action and get away before
+being overwhelmed. Yet even in the southern North Sea there is room in
+which to dispose great naval forces and in which to manœuvre them.
+Fleets are not tucked up by space as are modern armies. Jutland was a
+battle of encounter and manœuvre, not of heavy destructive fighting.
+There was a dainty deftness about the first two phases which is
+eminently pleasing to our national sea pride, and however we may growl
+at the tactical incompleteness of the battle we cannot but admit that,
+taken as a whole, it was as strategically decisive an action as has ever
+been fought by the English Navy throughout its long history. It
+re-established the old doctrine, which the course of the Sea War has
+tended to thrust out of sight, that Command of the Sea rests as
+completely as it always has done in the past upon the big fighting ships
+of the main battle line. Upon them everything else depends; the
+operations of destroyers and light cruisers, of patrols and even of
+submarines. For upon big ships depends the security of home bases.
+Surface ships alone can occupy the wide spaces of the sea and can hold
+securely the ports in one’s own country and the ports which are ravished
+from an enemy. Submarines are essentially raiders, their office is the
+obstruction of sea communications, but submarines are useless, even for
+their special work of obstruction, unless they can retire, refit, and
+replenish stores at bases made secure by the existence in effective
+being of a strong force of big fighting ships. Had Jutland been as great
+a tactical success as it was a strategical success, had it ended with
+the wiping out of the German High Seas Fleet, then, as I have already
+stated, the U-boat menace would have been scotched by the destruction of
+the protecting screen behind which the U-boats are built, refitted, and
+replenished. No small part of the German relief at the issue of Jutland
+is due to their realisation of this naval truth. They express that
+realisation in a sentence which contains the whole doctrine of the
+efficacy of the big ship as the final determinant in naval warfare.
+Admiral Scheer in his dispatch declared that the Battle of May 31st,
+1916, “confirmed the old truth that the large fighting ship, the ship
+which combines the maximum of strength in attack and defence, rules the
+seas.” They do not claim that the English superiority in strength—which
+they place at “roughly two to one”—was sensibly reduced by our losses
+in the battle, nor that the large English fighting ships—admittedly
+larger, more numerous, and more powerfully gunned than their own—ceased
+after Jutland to rule the seas. The German claim, critically considered,
+is simply that in the circumstances it was a very lucky escape for the
+German ships. And so indeed it was. It left them with the means of
+securing their bases from which could be carried on the U-boat warfare
+against our mercantile communications at sea.
+
+When the day arrives for the veil which at present enshrouds naval
+operations to be lifted, and details can be discussed freely and
+frankly, a whole literature will grow up around the Battle of the
+Giants. Strategically, I repeat—even at the risk of becoming
+tedious—it was a great success, both in its inception and in its
+practical results. Tactically its success was not complete. The Falkland
+Islands and Coronel actions were by comparison simple affairs of which
+all essential details are known. Jutland, from six o’clock in the
+evening of May 31st until dawn upon June 1st, when the opposing fleets
+had completely lost touch, the one with the other, is a puzzling
+confusing business which will take years of discussion and of
+elucidation wholly to resolve—if ever it be fully resolved. If any one
+be permitted to describe the three actions in a few words apiece one
+would say that Coronel was both strategically and tactically a brilliant
+success for the Germans. Von Spee concentrated his squadron outside the
+range of our observation, placed himself in a position of overwhelming
+tactical advantage, and won a shattering victory. At the Falkland
+Islands action we did to von Spee exactly what he had done to us at
+Coronel. This time it was the English concentration which was effected
+outside the German observation, and it was the German squadron which was
+wiped out when the tactical clash came. The first two phases of Jutland
+were, in spite of our serious losses in ships, notable tactical
+successes; they ended with Beatty round the head of the German Fleet and
+Jellicoe deployed in masterly fashion between Beatty and Evan-Thomas.
+Then we get the exasperating third phase, in which the honours of
+skilful evasion rest with the Germans, and the fourth or night phase,
+during which confusion became worse confounded until all touch was lost.
+And yet, in spite of the tactical failure of the third and fourth
+phases, the battle as a whole was so great a success that it left us
+with an unchallengeable command of the sea—a more complete command than
+even after Trafalgar. The Germans learned that they could not fight us
+in the open with the smallest hope of success. One of the direct fruits
+of Jutland was the intensified U-boat warfare against merchant shipping.
+The Germans had learned in the early part of the war that they could not
+wear down our battleship strength by under-water attacks; they learned
+at Jutland that they could not place their battleships in line against
+ours and hope to survive; nothing was left to them except to prey upon
+our lines of sea communication. And being a people in whose eyes
+everything is fair in war—their national industry—they proceeded to
+make the utmost of the form of attack which remained to them. Viewed,
+therefore, in its influence upon the progress of the war, the Battle of
+Jutland was among the most momentous in our long sea history.
+
+I have discussed the Battle of the Giants so often, and so
+remorselessly, with many officers who were present and many others who
+though not present were in a position to know much which is hidden from
+onlookers, that I fear lest I may have worn out their beautiful
+patience. There are two outstanding figures, Beatty and Jellicoe, about
+whose personalities all discussion of Jutland must revolve. They are men
+of very different types. Beatty is essentially a fighter; Jellicoe is
+essentially a student. In power of intellect and in knowledge of his
+profession Jellicoe is a dozen planes above Beatty. And yet when it
+comes to fighting, in small things and in great, Beatty has an instinct
+for the right stroke at the right moment, which in war is beyond price.
+Whether in peace or in war, Jellicoe would always be conspicuous among
+contemporaries; Beatty, unless war has given him the stage upon which to
+develop his flair for battle, would not have stood out. He got early
+chances, in the Soudan and in China; he seized them both and rushed up
+the ladder of promotion. He was promoted so quickly that he outstripped
+his technical education. As a naval strategist and tactician Jellicoe is
+the first man in his profession; Beatty is by professional training
+neither a strategist nor a tactician—he was a commander at twenty-seven
+and a captain at twenty-nine—but give him a fighting problem to be
+solved out in the open with the guns firing, and he will solve it by
+sheer instinctive genius. In the Battle of Jutland both Beatty and
+Jellicoe played their parts with consummate skill; Beatty was in the
+limelight all through, while Jellicoe was off the stage during the first
+two acts. Yet Jellicoe’s part was incomparably the more difficult, for
+upon him, though absent, the whole issue of the battle depended. His
+deployment by judgment and instinct—sight was withheld from him by the
+weather—was perfect in its timing and precision. He should have been
+crowned with the bays of a complete Victor, but the Fates were unkind.
+He was robbed of his prey when it was almost within his jaws. Do not be
+so blind and foolish as to depreciate the splendid skill and services of
+Lord Jellicoe.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+I find the writing of this second Chapter upon the Battle of the Giants
+a very difficult job. Twice I have tried and failed; this is the result
+of the third effort. My failures have been used to light the fires of my
+house. Even now I am deeply conscious of the inadequacy of my tentative
+reflections. Upon so many points one has not the data; upon so many
+others one is not allowed—no doubt properly—yet still not allowed to
+say what one knows. Though sometimes I write grave articles, many of my
+readers know that by instinct I am a story-teller, and to me narrative
+by dialogue comes more readily than a disquisition. Therefore, if you
+will permit me, I will cast the remaining portion of this chapter into
+the form of dialogue and make of it a discussion between two Admirals, a
+Captain, and myself. One of these Admirals I will call a Salt Horse, a
+man who has seen service during half a century but who has not
+specialised in a technical branch such as gunnery, or navigation, or
+torpedoes. A Salt Horse is an all-round sailor. The other Admiral I will
+call a Maker, and regard him as a highly competent technical officer in
+the design and construction of ships of war, of their guns, and of their
+armour. The Captain, a younger man, I will call a Gunner, one who has
+specialised in naval gunnery in all its branches, and one who knows the
+old methods and those which now are new and secret. These officers have
+not been drawn by me from among my own friends. They are not individuals
+but are types. Any attempts which may be made at identifying them will
+fail and justly fail—for they do not exist as individuals. Let this be
+clearly understood. They are creations of my own; I use them to give a
+sense of vividness to a narrative which tends to become tedious, and to
+bring out features in the Battle of Jutland which cannot without
+impertinence be presented directly by one, like myself, who is not
+himself a naval officer.
+
+Bennet Copplestone, an intrusive and persistent fellow, begins the
+conference by inquiring whether Beatty had, in the professional judgment
+of his brother officers, deserved Admiral Jellicoe’s praise of his “fine
+qualities of gallant leadership, firm determination, and correct
+strategic insight.” Was he as good as his public reputation? I knew, I
+said, a good deal too much of the making of newspaper reputations and
+had come to distrust them.
+
+“Beatty is a real good man,” declared the Maker. “He sticks his cap on
+one side and loves to be photographed looking like a Western American
+‘tough.’ But under all this he conceals a fine naval head and the
+sturdiest of hearts. He is a first-class leader of men. I had my own
+private doubts of him until this Jutland Battle, but now I will take off
+my hat in his presence though he is my junior.”
+
+The Maker’s colleagues nodded approval.
+
+“There was nothing much in the first part,” went on the Maker. “Any of
+us could have done it. His pursuit of the German battle cruisers up to
+their junction with the High Seas Fleet was a reconnaissance in force,
+which he was able to carry through without undue risk, because he had
+behind him the Fifth Battle Squadron. His change of course then through
+sixteen points was the only possible manœuvre in order to bring his
+fleet back towards Jellicoe and to lead the Germans into the trap
+prepared for them. So far Beatty had done nothing to distinguish him
+from any competent fleet leader. Where he showed greatness was in not
+diverging by a hair’s breadth from his plans after the loss of the
+_Indefatigable_ and the _Queen Mary_. Mind you, these losses were wholly
+unexpected, and staggering in their suddenness. He had lost these fine
+ships while fighting battle cruisers fewer in numbers and less powerful
+in guns than his own squadrons. A weaker man might have been shaken in
+nerve and lost confidence in himself and his ships. But Beatty did not
+hesitate. Although he was reduced in strength from six battle cruisers
+to four only he dashed away to head off the Germans as serenely as if he
+had suffered no losses at all. And his splendid dash had nothing in it
+of recklessness. All the while he was heading off the Germans he was
+manœuvring to give himself the advantage of light and to avoid the
+dropping shots which had killed his lost cruisers. All the while he kept
+between the Germans and Jellicoe and within touch of his supporting
+squadron of four Queen Elizabeths. Had he lost more ships he could at
+any moment have broken off the action and, sheltered by the massive
+Fifth B.S., have saved what remained. As a mixture of dash and caution I
+regard his envelopment of the German line, after losing the _Queen Mary_
+and _Indefatigable_, as a superb exhibition of sound battle tactics and
+of sublime confidence in himself and his men. But I wish that he would
+not wear his cap on one side or talk so much. He has modified both these
+ill-practices since he became Commander-in-Chief. That is one comfort.”
+
+“Nelson was a poseur,” said I, “and as theatrical as an elderly and ugly
+prima donna. He posed to the gallery in every action, and died, as it
+were, to the accompaniment of slow music. It was an amiable weakness.”
+
+“Jellicoe doesn’t pose,” growled the Maker.
+
+“Jellicoe hates advertisement,” I observed. “Whenever he used to talk to
+the gangs of newspaper men who infested the Grand Fleet, he always
+implored them to spare his own shrinking personality. It is a matter of
+temperament. Jellicoe is a genuinely modest man; Beatty is a vain one.
+They form a most interesting contrast. Life would be duller without such
+contrasts. One could give a score of examples from military and naval
+history of high merit allied both to modesty and vanity.”
+
+“That is true,” said the Maker, “but the Great Silent Sea Service
+loathes advertisement like the very devil, and it is right. The Service
+would be ruined if senior officers tried to bid against one another for
+newspaper puffs.”
+
+“Yet I have known them do it,” said I drily, and then slid away from the
+delicate topic. “Let us return to the first part of the action, and
+examine the division of the Fleet between Jellicoe and Beatty. Was this
+division, admittedly hazardous, a sound method of bringing the Germans
+to action?”
+
+The Gunner took upon himself to reply.
+
+“It is not, and never has been, possible to bring the Germans to action
+in the southern part of the North Sea except with their own consent.
+There is no room. They can always break off and retire within their
+protected waters. Steam fleets of the modern size and speed cannot force
+an action and compel it to be fought out to a finish in a smaller space
+than a real ocean. You must always think of this when criticising the
+division of our fleets. Beatty was separated from Jellicoe by nearly
+sixty miles, and strengthened by four fast Queen Elizabeth battleships
+to enable him to fight an action with a superior German Fleet. He was
+made just strong enough to fight and not too strong to scare the Germans
+away. In theory, the division of our forces within striking distance of
+the enemy was all wrong; in practice, it was the only way of persuading
+him into an action. Both sides at the end of May, 1916, wanted to bring
+off a fight at sea. Fritz wanted something which he could claim as a
+success in order to cheer up his blockaded grumblers at home, who were
+getting restive. We wanted to stop the projected German naval and
+military onslaught upon Russia in the Baltic. The wonderful thing about
+the Jutland Battle is that it appears to have achieved both objects.
+Fritz, by sinking three of our battle cruisers, has been able to delude
+a nation of landsmen into accepting a highly coloured version of a great
+naval success; and we, by making a sorry mess of his main fleet, did in
+fact clear the northern Russian flank of a grave peril. The later
+Russian successes in the South were the direct result of Jutland, and
+without those successes the subsequent Italian, French, and British
+advances could not have been pushed with anything like the effect
+secured. Regarded in this broad international way, the division of our
+fleets justified by its results the risks which it involved. What I
+don’t understand is why we suffered so much in the first part of the
+action when Beatty had six battle cruisers and four battleships against
+five battle cruisers of the enemy. He lost the _Indefatigable_ and
+_Queen Mary_ while he was in great superiority both of numbers and of
+guns. Then, when the German main fleet had come in, and he was carrying
+out an infinitely more hazardous operation in the face of a greater
+superior force, he lost nothing. If the _Indefatigable_ and _Queen Mary_
+had been lost during the second hour before Jellicoe arrived I should
+have felt no surprise—we were then deliberately risking big losses—but
+during the first hour of fighting, when we had ten ships against
+five—and five much weaker individually than our ten—we lost two fine
+battle cruisers. I confess that I am beaten. It almost looks as if at
+the beginning the German gunners were better than ours, but that they
+went to pieces later. What do you think?” He turned to the Salt Horse,
+who spoke little, but very forcibly when he could be persuaded to open
+his lips.
+
+“Everyone with Beatty, to whom I have spoken,” declared the Salt Horse,
+“agrees that the German gunnery was excellent at the beginning. We were
+straddled immediately and hit again and again while coming into action.
+Our gunners must have been a bit over-anxious until they settled down.
+We ought to have done something solid in a whole hour against five
+battle cruisers with our thirty-two 13.5-inch guns and thirty-two
+15-inch. And yet no one claims more than one enemy ship on fire. That
+means nothing. The burning gas from one big shell will make the deuce of
+a blaze. There is no explanation of our losses in the first part, and of
+Fritz’s comparative immunity, except the one which you, my dear Gunner,
+are very unwilling to accept. Fritz hit us much more often than we hit
+him. There you have it. I have spoken.” Admiral Salt Horse, a most
+abstemious man, rang the bell of the club of which we were members, and
+ordered a whisky and soda. “Just to take the taste of that admission out
+of my mouth,” he explained.
+
+The Maker of Ships and Guns smiled ruefully. “I have reckoned,” said he,
+“that the Cats fired twenty rounds per gun during the first hour and the
+Queen Elizabeths ten. That makes 640 rounds of 13.5-inch shell and 320
+rounds of 15-inch. Three per cent. of fair hits at the ranges, and in
+the conditions of light, would have been quite good. But did we score
+twenty-eight hits of big shell, or anything like it? If we had there
+would have been much more damage done than one battle cruiser on fire.
+The Salt Horse has spoken, and so have I. I also will wash the taste of
+it out of my mouth.”
+
+“You will admit,” muttered the Gunner, “that in the second part, after
+Beatty and the Queen Elizabeths had turned, our control officers and
+long-service gunners came into their own?”
+
+“Willingly,” cried Admiral Salt Horse. “Nothing could have been finer
+than the hammering which Evan-Thomas gave to the whole High Seas Fleet.
+And Beatty crumpled up his opposite numbers in first-class style. Our
+individual system, then, justified itself utterly. Fritz’s mechanical
+control went to bits when the shells began to burst about his fat ears,
+but it was painfully good while it lasted. Give Fritz his due, Master
+Gunner, it’s no use shutting our eyes to his merits.”
+
+I had listened with the keenest interest to this interchange, for though
+I should not myself have ventured to comment upon so technical a subject
+as naval gunnery, I had subconsciously felt what the old Salt Horse had
+so bluntly and almost brutally expressed.
+
+“We have arrived, then, at this,” observed I, slowly, “that during the
+first hour, up to the turn when the main High Seas Fleet joined up with
+Hipper’s battle cruisers, our squadrons got the worst of it, though they
+were of twice Fritz’s numbers and of far more than twice his strength.
+It is a beastly thing for an Englishman to say, but really you leave me
+no choice. Though I hate whisky, I must follow the example set by my
+betters.”
+
+The Master Gunner laughed. “In the Service,” said he, “we learn from our
+mistakes. At the beginning we did badly on May 31st, but afterwards we
+profited by the lesson. What more could you ask? . . . Civilians,” said
+he, aside to his colleagues, “seem to think that only English ships
+should be allowed to have guns or to learn how to use them.”
+
+“Now we have given Fritz his due,” said I, “let us get on to the second
+part of the battle, Act Two of the naval drama. You will agree that the
+handling of our damaged squadrons by Beatty and Evan-Thomas was
+magnificent, and that the execution done by us was fully up to the best
+English standards?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the grim Salt Horse, to whom I had specially appealed.
+“We will allow both. Beatty’s combination of dash and caution was beyond
+praise and the gunnery was excellent.”
+
+“None of our ships were sunk, none were seriously hit,” put in the
+Gunner. “On the other hand we certainly sank one German battle cruiser
+and one battleship, and very heavily damaged others. I don’t know how
+many. I think that we must accept as proved that not many German ships
+of the battle line were sunk in any part of the action. When badly hit
+they fell out and retired towards home, which they could always do.
+During the second part both fleets were steaming away from the German
+bases, so that a damaged enemy ship had only to stop to be left behind
+in safety. A good many ships were claimed by our officers as sunk when
+they were known to have been damaged and had disappeared; but I feel
+sure that most of them had fallen out, not been sunk.”
+
+“The outstanding feature,” cried the Maker of Guns, “was the superiority
+of our gunnery. We have always encouraged individuality in gun laying,
+and have never allowed Fire Control to supersede the eyes and hands of
+the skilled gun-layers in the turrets. Control and individual laying are
+with us complementary, not mutually exclusive. With the Germans an
+intensely mechanical control is of the essence of their system. They are
+very good up to a point, but have not elasticity enough to deal with the
+perpetual variations of range and direction when fighting ships are
+moving fast and receiving heavy punishment. Fritz beat us in the first
+part, but we, as emphatically, beat him in the second.”
+
+We then passed to a technical discussion upon naval gunnery,
+which cannot be given here in detail. I developed my thesis,
+aggravating to expert gunners, that when one passes from the one
+dimension—distance—of land shooting from a fixed gun at a fixed
+object, to the two dimensions—distance and direction—of moving guns on
+board ship firing at moving objects, the drop in accuracy is so enormous
+as to make ship gunnery frightfully ineffective and wasteful.
+I readily admitted that when one passed still further to three
+dimensions—distance, direction, and height—and essayed air gunnery,
+the wastefulness and ineffectiveness of shooting at sea were multiplied
+an hundredfold. But, as I pointed out, we were not at the moment
+discussing anti-aircraft gunnery, but the shooting of naval guns at sea
+in the Jutland Battle.
+
+Of course I brought down a storm upon my head. But my main thesis was
+not contested. It was, however, pointed out that I had not allowed
+sufficient weight to the inherent difficulties of shooting from a moving
+ship at a moving ship ten or a dozen miles away, and that instead of
+calling naval gunnery “wasteful and ineffective” I ought to be dumb with
+wonder that hits were ever brought off at all. I enjoyed myself
+thoroughly.
+
+“Don’t be hard on the poor man,” at last interposed the kindly Salt
+Horse. “He means well and can be useful to the Service sometimes though
+he has not had a naval training. The truth is,” he went on
+confidentially, “we feel rather wild about the small damage that we did
+to Fritz on May 31st: small, that is, in comparison with our
+opportunities. Our gunnery officers and gun-layers are the best in the
+world, our guns, range-finders and other instruments are unapproachable
+for precision, our system of fire direction is the best that naval
+brains can devise and is constantly being improved, and yet all through
+the war the result in effective hits has been most disappointing—don’t
+interrupt, you people, I am speaking the truth for once. Fritz’s
+shooting, except occasionally, has been even worse than ours, which
+indicates, I think, that the real inner problems of naval gunnery are
+not yet in sight of solution. You see, it is quite a new science. In the
+old days one usually fired point blank just as one might plug at a
+haystack, and the extreme range was not more than a mile and a half; but
+now that every fighting ship carries torpedo tubes we must keep out a
+very long way. I admit the apparent absurdity of the situation. Here on
+May 31st, two fleets were engaged off and on for six hours—most of the
+time more off than on—and the bag for Fritz was three big ships, and
+for us possibly four, by gun-fire. The torpedo practice was no better
+except when our destroyers got in really close. During all the third
+part of the action, when Scheer was fending us off with torpedo attacks
+he hit only one battleship, the _Marlborough_, and she was able to
+continue in action afterwards and to go home under her own steam. Yet
+upon a measured range at a fixed mark a torpedo is good up to 11,000
+yards, nearly six miles. In action, against moving ships, one cannot
+depend upon a mouldy hitting at over 500 yards, a quarter of a mile. If
+gunnery is wasteful and inefficient, what about torpedo practice in
+battle?”
+
+“What is the solution?” I asked, greatly interested.
+
+“Don’t ask me!” replied the Salt Horse. “I knew something of gunnery
+once, but now I’m on the shelf. I myself would risk the mouldies and
+fight at close quarters—we have the legs of Fritz and could choose our
+own range—but in-fighting means tremendous risks, and the dear stupid
+old public would howl for my head if the corresponding losses followed.
+The tendency at present is towards longer and longer ranges, up to the
+extreme visible limits, and the longer the range the greater the waste
+and inefficiency. Ask the Gunner there, he is more up-to-date than I
+am.”
+
+The Master Gunner growled. He had listened to Admiral Salt Horse’s
+homily with the gravest disapproval. He was a simple loyal soul; any
+criticism which seemed to question the supreme competence of his beloved
+Service was to him rank treachery. Yet he knew that the Salt Horse was
+as loyal a seaman as he was himself. It was not what was said which
+caused his troubled feelings—he would talk as freely himself before his
+colleagues—but that such things should be poured into the ears of a
+civilian! It was horrible!
+
+“After the first hour, when our gunners had settled down,” said he
+gruffly, “their practice was exceedingly good. They hit when they could
+see, which was seldom. If the light had been even tolerable no German
+ship would have got back to port.”
+
+“I agree,” cried the Maker of Guns and Ships. “We did as well as the
+light allowed. Fritz was all to pieces. The bad torpedo practice was
+Fritz’s, not ours. The worst of the gunnery was his, too. We have lots
+to learn still—as you rightly say, naval gunnery is still in its
+infancy—but we have learned a lot more than anyone else has. That is
+the one thing which matters to me.”
+
+“Have we not reached another conclusion,” I put in, diffidently,
+“namely, that big-ship actions must be indecisive unless the light be
+good and the sea space wide enough to allow of a fight to a finish? We
+can’t bring Fritz to a final action in the lower part of the North Sea
+unless we can cut him off entirely from his avenues of escape. In the
+Atlantic, a thousand miles from land, we could destroy him to the last
+ship—if our magazines held enough of shell—but as he can choose the
+battle ground, and will not fight except near to his bases, we can
+shatter him and drive him helpless into port, but we cannot wipe him off
+the seas. Is that proved?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Gunner, who had recovered his usual serenity. “In my
+opinion that is proved absolutely.”
+
+“One talks rather loosely of envelopment,” explained the Maker, “as if
+it were total instead of partial. The German Fleet was never enveloped
+or anything like it. What happened was this: As the Germans curved away
+in a spiral to the south-west our line curved in with them, roughly
+parallel, also to the south-west, keeping always between Fritz and the
+land. We were partly between him and his bases, but he could and did
+escape by getting round the horn which threatened to cut him off.”
+
+“Could not Jellicoe,” I asked, “have worked right round so as to draw a
+line across the mouths of the Elbe and Weser, and to cut Scheer
+completely off from the approaches to Wilhelmshaven?”
+
+“Not without immense risk. He would have had to pass into mine fields
+and penetrate them all through the hours of darkness. He might have lost
+half his fleet. Our trouble has always been the extravagant risk
+involved by a close pursuit. When the Germans retire to their protected
+waters we must let them go. The Grand Fleet is too vital a force to be
+needlessly risked. When Jellicoe’s final stroke failed, owing to the bad
+light and the German retirement, the battle was really over. Jellicoe’s
+blow had spent itself on the air. The Germans were almost safe except
+from our torpedo attacks, which were delivered during the night with
+splendid dash and with considerable success. But that night battle was
+the queerest business. When the sun rose the enemy had vanished. Fritz
+says that we had vanished. I suppose, strictly speaking, that we had. At
+least we were out of his sight, though unintentionally. Touch had been
+lost and the enemy had got safely home, taking most of his damaged ships
+with him. Nothing remained for us to do except to return to our northern
+bases, recoal, and refit. The Jutland Battle was indecisive in one
+sense, crushingly decisive in another. It left the German Fleet
+undestroyed, but left it impotent as a fighting force. Thereafter it
+sank into a mere guard for Fritz’s submarine bases.”
+
+“And the gunnery in the third part?” I asked with a sly glance towards
+the Gunner. He rose at the bait.
+
+“I do not doubt that, measured by the percentage of hits to rounds
+fired, Copplestone would call it wasteful and inefficient. But the Navy
+regards the gunnery in the third part as even better than in the second,
+as proving our superiority over the Germans. They were then at their
+worst while we were at our best; we rapidly improved under the test of
+battle, they as rapidly deteriorated. The facts are certain. The enemy
+ships were hit repeatedly both by our battleships and battle cruisers,
+several were seen to haul out of the line on fire, and at least one
+battleship was observed to sink. Throughout all the time—two
+hours—during which Jellicoe’s main fleet was engaged his ships were
+scarcely touched; not a single man was killed, and three only were
+wounded. Is that not good enough for you?”
+
+“You have forgotten the _Invincible_,” remarked that candid critic whom
+I have called Salt Horse. “She took station at the head of Beatty’s line
+at 6.21. Her distance from the enemy was then 8,000 yards. It was a
+gallant service, for Beatty needed support very badly, but by 6.55 the
+_Invincible_ had been destroyed. The _Iron Duke_ passed her floating
+bottom up. She must have been caught by the concentrated fire of several
+enemy ships. It was a piece of luck for Fritz; the last that he had.
+Apart from the downing of the _Invincible_, I agree that the third part
+of the battle showed our gunnery to be highly effective, and that of the
+Germans to be almost wholly innocuous. It was his torpedoes we had then
+to fear, not his guns.”
+
+“During the third part,” said the Maker, “the ranges were comparatively
+low, from 9,000 to 12,000 yards, but the visibility was so bad that
+damaged ships could always betake themselves out of sight and danger. I
+am disposed to think that most of Fritz’s sorely damaged ships did get
+home—in the absence of evidence that they did not—for we never really
+closed in during the whole of the third part of the battle. Fritz was
+continually coming and going, appearing and disappearing. His destroyer
+attacks were well delivered, and though one battleship only was hit, our
+friend the _Marlborough_, we were kept pretty busy looking after
+ourselves. Jellicoe was like a heavy-weight boxer trying to get home
+upon a little man, skipping about just beyond his reach. We had the
+speed and the guns and the superiority of position, but we couldn’t see.
+That is the explanation of the indecisiveness of the third part of the
+Jutland battle, that part which, with decent luck, would have ended
+Fritz’s business. Our gunnery was then top-hole. Take the typical case
+of the flagship _Iron Duke_. She got a sight of a _Koenig_ at 12,000
+yards (seven miles), straddled her at once, and began to hit at the
+second salvo. That is real gunnery, not much waste about it either of
+time or shell. Then towards sunset the _Lion_, _Princess Royal_, and
+_New Zealand_ engaged two battleships and two battle cruisers at 10,000
+yards. Within eighteen minutes three of the Germans had been set on
+fire, two were listing heavily, and the three burning ones were only
+saved by becoming hidden in smoke and mist. That is the way to get on to
+a target and to hold on. I agree with our old friend Salt Horse that the
+long ranges during the first part of the action, 18,000 to 20,000
+yards—and even more for the _Queen Elizabeth_—are altogether too long
+for accuracy unless the conditions are perfect. The distances are well
+within the power of the big-calibre guns which we mount, but are out of
+harmony with the English naval spirit. We like to see our enemy
+distinctly and to get within real punishing distance of him. Compare our
+harmless performance during the first part with the beautiful whacking
+which we gave Fritz in the third whenever we could see him. The nearer
+we get to Fritz the better our gunners become and the more completely
+his system goes to bits. Which is just what one would expect. Our
+long-service gunners can lay by sight against any ships in the world and
+beat them to rags, but when it comes to blind laying directed from the
+spotting tops much of the advantage of individual nerve and training is
+lost. Like Salt Horse, I am all for in-fighting, at 10,000 yards or
+less, and believe that our gun-layers can simply smother Fritz if they
+are allowed to get him plainly on the wires of their sighting
+telescopes.”
+
+“There is not a petty officer gunlayer who wouldn’t agree with you,”
+remarked the Gunner thoughtfully, “but the young scientific Gunnery
+Lieutenants would shake their heads. For what would become of the
+beautiful fire-direction system which they have been building up for
+years past if we are to run in close and pound in the good old fashion?
+Ten thousand yards to a modern 15-inch gun is almost point blank.”
+
+“Our business is to sink the enemy in the shortest possible time,” cried
+Admiral Salt Horse, “and to fight in the fashion best suited to what
+Copplestone here rightly calls the Soul of the Navy. Long-range fighting
+is all very well when one can’t do anything else—during a chase, for
+example—but when one can close in to a really effective distance, then,
+I say, close in and take the risks. In the Jutland Battle we lost two
+battle cruisers at long range and one only after the ranges had
+shortened. Fritz shot well at long range, but got worse and worse as we
+drew nearer to him, until at the end his gunnery simply did not count.
+Our ancestors had a similar problem to solve, and solved it at the
+Battle of the Saints in brutal fashion by breaking the French line and
+fighting at close quarters. There is a lot to be learned from the
+Jutland Battle, though it is not for an old dog like me to draw the
+lessons. But what does seem to shout at one is that the way to fight a
+German is to close in upon him and to knock the moral stuffing out of
+him. The destroyers always do it and so do our submarines. I am told
+that the way the destroyers charged battleships by night, and rounded up
+the enemy’s light stuff by day, was a liberal education in naval
+psychology. We are at our best when the risks are greatest—it is the
+sporting instinct of the race that sustains us. But Fritz, who is no
+sportsman, and has a good deal more of imagination than our lower deck,
+cracks when the strain upon his nerves passes the critical point. Our
+young officers and men have no nerves; Fritz has more than is good for
+him; let us take advantage of his moral weakness and hustle him beyond
+the point when he cracks. He is a landsman artificially made into a
+seaman; our men are seamen born. In a battleship action the personal
+factor tends to be over-borne by the immensity of the fighting
+instruments, but it is there all the time and is the one thing which
+really counts. We give it full scope in the destroyers, submarines, and
+light cruisers; let us give it full scope in the big ships of the battle
+line. Let our MEN get at Fritz; don’t seek to convert them into mere
+parts of a machine, give their individuality the fullest play; you need
+then have no fear lest their work should prove wasteful or ineffective.”
+
+The Master Gunner, a man ten years younger than old Salt Horse, smiled
+and said, “I am afraid that the gunnery problem has become too
+complicated to yield to your pleasing solution. A few years ago it would
+have been considered a futile waste of shell to fight at over 10,000
+yards, but the growth in the size of our guns and in our methods of
+using them have made us at least as accurate at 20,000 yards as we used
+to be at 10,000. At from 9,000 to 12,000 in good light we are now
+terrific. All my sympathies are on your side; the Navy has always loved
+to draw more closely to the enemy, and maybe our instincts should be our
+guide. I can’t say. If we could have a big-ship action every month the
+problem would soon be solved. Our trouble is that we don’t get enough of
+the Real Thing. You may be very sure that if our officers and men were
+told to run in upon Fritz and to smash him, at the ranges which are now
+short, they would welcome the order with enthusiasm. The quality and
+training of our sea personnel is glorious, incomparable. I live in
+wonder at it.”
+
+“And so do I,” cried the Maker, a man not ready to display enthusiasm.
+“One has lived with the professional Navy so long that one comes to take
+its superb qualities for granted; one needs to see the English Navy in
+action to be aroused to its merits. On May 31st very few of those in
+Evan-Thomas’s or Jellicoe’s squadrons had been under fire—Beatty’s men
+had, of course, more than once. If they showed any defect it was due to
+some slight over-eagerness. But this soon passed. In a big-ship action
+not one man in a hundred has any opportunity of personal
+distinction—which is an uncommonly good thing for the Navy. We have no
+use for pot-hunters and advertisers. We want every man to do his little
+bit, devotedly, perfectly, without any thought of attracting attention.
+Ours is team work. If men are saturated through and through with this
+spirit of common devotion to duty they sacrifice themselves as a matter
+of course when the call comes. More than once fire penetrated to the
+magazines of ships. The men who instantly rolled upon the blazing bags
+of cordite, and extinguished the flames with their bodies, did not wait
+for orders nor did they expect to be mentioned in dispatches. It was
+just their job. But what I did like was Jellicoe’s special mention of
+his engineers. These men, upon whose faithful efficiency everything
+depends, who, buried in the bowels of ships, carry us into action and
+maintain us there, who are the first to die when a ship sinks and the
+last to be remembered in Honours lists, these men are of more real
+account than almost all those others of us who prance in our decorations
+upon the public stage. If the conning tower is the brain of a ship, the
+engine-room is its heart. When Jellicoe was speeding up to join Beatty
+and Evan-Thomas his whole fleet maintained a speed in excess of the
+trial speeds of some of the older vessels. Think what skilful devotion
+this simple fact reveals, what minute attention day in day out for
+months and years, so that in the hour of need no mechanical gadget may
+fail of its duty. And as with Jellicoe’s Fleet so all through the war.
+Whenever the engine-rooms have been tested up to breaking strain they
+have always, always, stood up to the test. I think less of the splendid
+work done by destroyer flotillas, by combatant officers and men in the
+big ships, by all those who have manned and directed the light cruisers.
+Their work was done within sight; that of the engine-rooms was hidden.”
+
+“I wish that the big public could hear you,” I said, “the big public
+whose heart is always in the right place though its head is always
+damned ignorant and often damned silly.”
+
+The Maker of Guns and Ships turned on me, this calm, cold man whom I had
+thought a stranger to emotion. “And whose fault is that? You are a bit
+of an ass, Copplestone, and inconveniently inquisitive. But you can be
+useful sometimes. When you come to write of the war at sea, do not wrap
+yourself up in a tangle of strategy and tactics of which you know very
+little. Stick to the broad human issues. Reveal the men who fight rather
+than the ships which are fought with. Think of the Navy as a Service of
+flesh and blood and soul, no less than of brains and heart. If you will
+do this, and write as well as you know how to do, the public will not
+remain either damned ignorant or damned silly.”
+
+“I will do my best,” said I, humbly.
+
+
+
+
+                                EPILOGUE
+
+
+                            LIEUTENANT CÆSAR
+
+               Now in the names of all the gods at once,
+               Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
+               That he is grown so great?
+
+When the war is over and tens of thousands of young men, who have drunk
+deep of the wine of life, are thrown back upon ginger ale, what will be
+the effect upon their heads and stomachs? I do not know; I have no data,
+except in the one instance of my friend, Lieutenant Cæsar, R.N.V.R.
+
+I must write of him with much delicacy and restraint, for his friendship
+is too rich a privilege to be imperilled. His sense of humour is
+dangerously subtle. Cæsar is twenty-three, and I am—well, fully twice
+his age—yet he bears himself as if he were infinitely my senior in
+years and experience. And he is right. What in all my toll of wasted
+years can be set beside those crowded twenty-two months of his, now
+ended and done with? The fire of his life glowed during those months
+with the white intensity of an electric arc; in a moment it went black
+when the current was cut off; he was left groping in the darkness for
+matches and tallow candles. I dare not sympathise with him openly,
+though I feel deeply, for he would laugh and call me a silly old
+buffer—a term which I dread above all others.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The variegated career of Lieutenant Cæsar fills me with the deepest
+envy. When the war broke out he was a classical scholar at Oxford, one
+of the bright spirits of his year. His first in Greats, his prospects of
+the Ireland, his almost certain Fellowship—he threw them up. The Army
+had no interest for him, but to the Navy he was bound by links of family
+association. To the Navy therefore he turned, and prevailed upon a
+somewhat reluctant Admiralty to gazette him as a Sub-Lieutenant in the
+Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. “A classical scholar,” argued Whitehall,
+“is about as much use to us as a ruddy poet. What can this young man do
+away from his books?” Cæsar rapidly marshalled his poor accomplishments.
+He could row—no use, we are in the steam and petrol age; he had been a
+sergeant of O.T.C.—no thanks, try the Royal Naval Division; he could
+drive a motor-car and was a tolerable engineer. At last some faint
+impression was made. Did he understand the engines of a motor-boat? It
+appeared that he did; was, in fact, a mildly enthusiastic member of the
+Royal Motor Boat Club at Southampton. “Now you’re talking,” said
+Whitehall. “Why didn’t you say this at once instead of wasting our time
+over your useless frillings?” The official wheels stirred, and within
+two or three weeks Cæsar found himself gazetted, and dropped into a fine
+big motor patrol boat, which the Admiralty had commandeered and turned
+to the protection of battleships from submarines. At that time we had
+not a safe harbour anywhere except on the South Coast, where they did
+not happen to be wanted. For many months Cæsar patrolled by night and
+day deep cold harbours on the east coast of Scotland, hunting
+periscopes. It was an arduous but exhilarating service. His immediate
+chief, a Lieutenant R.N.V.R., was a benevolent American, the late owner
+of the boat. He had handed her over without payment in return for a
+lieutenant’s commission. “I was once,” he declared, “a two-striper in
+Uncle Sam’s Navy. I got too rich for my health, chucked the Service, and
+have been eating myself out of shape. Take the boat but, for God’s sake,
+give me the job of running her. She’s too pretty for your thumb-crushing
+blacksmiths to spoil.” When reminded that he was an alien, he treated
+the objection as the thinnest of evasive pleas. “King George is my man;
+there are no diamonds in his garters,” he wrote.
+
+The Lords of the Admiralty, who never in their sheltered lives had read
+such letters as now poured in upon them, gasped, collapsed, and gave to
+the benevolent neutral all that he asked.
+
+Cæsar worshipped the big motor-boat and her astonishing commander. His
+first love wrapped itself round the twin engines, two of them,
+six-cylinders each, 120 horse-power. They were ducks of engines which
+never gave any trouble, because Cæsar and the two American engineers—I
+had almost written nurses—were always on the watch to detect the least
+whimper of pain. But though he never neglected his beloved engines, the
+mysterious fascinations of the three-pounder gun in the bows gradually
+vanquished his mature heart. Her deft breech mechanism, her rapid
+loading, the sweet, kindly way she slipped to and fro in her cradle,
+became charms before which he succumbed utterly. Cæsar and the gun’s
+high-priest, a petty officer gunlayer, became the closest of friends,
+and the pair of them would spend hours daily cleaning and oiling their
+precious toy. The American lieutenant had his own bizarre notions of
+discipline—he thought nothing of addressing the petty officer as “old
+horse”; but he worked as hard as Cæsar himself, kept everyone in the
+best of spirits through the vilest spells of weather, and was a
+perpetual fount of ingenious plans for the undoing of Fritz. The _Mighty
+Buzzer_—named from her throbbing exhaust—was a happy ship.
+
+The _Buzzer’s_ career as a king’s ship was brief, and her death
+glorious. One night, or rather early morning, she was far out in the
+misty jaws of a Highland loch, within which temporarily rested many
+great battle-cruisers. Cæsar despised these vast and potent vessels.
+“What use are they?” he would ask of his chief. “There is nothing for
+them to fight, and they would all have been sunk long ago but for us.”
+Fast motor-boats, with 120 horse-power engines, twenty-five knots of
+speed—thirty at a pinch, untruthfully claimed the Lieutenant—and
+beautiful 3-pounder guns were in Cæsar’s view, the last word in naval
+equipment. The Lieutenant would shake his head gravely at his Sub’s
+exuberant ignorance. “They are gay old guys just now,” he would reply,
+“and feeling pretty cheap. But some day they will get busy and knock
+spots off Fritz’s hide. You Britishers are darned slow, but when you do
+fetch a gun it’s time to shin up trees. The Germs have stirred up the
+British Lion real proper and, I guess, wish now they’d let him stay
+asleep.”
+
+The _Buzzer_ had chased many a German submarine, compelling it to dive
+deeply and become harmless, but never yet had Cæsar been privileged to
+see one close. Upon this misty morning of her demise, when he gained
+fame, she was farther out to sea than usual, and was cruising at about
+the spot where enterprising U-boats were wont to come up to take a
+bearing. I am writing of the days before our harbour defences had
+chilled their enterprise into inanition. Cæsar was on watch, and stood
+at the wheel amidships. The petty officer and a blue-jacket were
+stationed at the gun forward. Our friend’s senses were very much alert,
+for he took his duties with the utmost seriousness. Near his boat the
+sea heaved and swirled, and as he saw a queer wave pile up he became, if
+possible, even more alert and called to his watch to stand by. The sea
+went on swirling, the surface broke suddenly, and up swooped the hood
+and thin tube of a periscope. It was less than fifty yards away, and for
+a moment the lenses did not include the _Buzzer_ within their field of
+vision. For Cæsar, his watch on deck, and the sleepers below, the next
+few seconds were packed with incident. Round came the _Buzzer_ pointing
+straight for the periscope, the exhaust roared as Cæsar called for full
+speed, and the gun crashed out. Away went periscope and tube, wiped off
+by the spreading cone of the explosion, as if they were no more
+substantial than a bullrush, and up shot the _Buzzer’s_ bows as Cæsar
+drove her keel violently upon the top of the conning tower of the rising
+U-boat. Keel and conning-tower ripped together; there was a tremendous
+rush of air-bubbles, followed by oil, and the U-boat was no more. She
+had gone, and the _Buzzer_, with six feet of her tender bottom torn off,
+was in the act to follow. As she cocked up her stern to dive after her
+prey there was just time to get officers and crew into lifebelts and to
+signal for help. Cæsar met in the water his commanding officer, who,
+though nearly hurled through his cabin walls by the shock, and entirely
+ignorant of the cataclysm in which he had been involved, was cheerful as
+ever. “Sakes,” he gasped, when he had cleared mouth and nose of salt
+water, “when you Britishers do get busy, things—sort of—hum.”
+
+A destroyer rushing down picked up the swimmers and heard their story.
+The evidence was considered sufficient, for oil still spread over the
+sea, and there were no rocks within miles to have ripped out the
+_Buzzer’s_ keel, so another U-boat was credited to the Royal Navy and
+Cæsar became a lieutenant. It was a proud day for him.
+
+But he had lost his ship, and was for a time out of a job. The new
+harbour defences were under way and fast motor-boats were for a while
+less in demand. The Admiralty solved the problem of his future. “This
+young man,” it observed, “is nothing better than a temporary lieutenant
+of the Volunteer Reserve, but he is not wholly without intelligence and
+has a pretty hand with a gun. We will teach him something useful.” So
+the order was issued that Lieutenant Cæsar should proceed to Whale
+Island, there to be instructed in the mysteries of naval gunnery. “You
+will have to work at Whale Island,” warned the captain of his flotilla,
+“and don’t you forget it. It is not like Oxford.” This to reduce Cæsar
+to the proper level of humility.
+
+Up to this stage in his career Lieutenant Cæsar, though temporarily
+serving in the Royal Navy, knew nothing whatever about it. His status
+was defined for me once by a sergeant of Marines: “A temporary
+gentleman, sir, ’ere to-day and gone to-morrow, and good riddance, sir.”
+Upon land the corps and regiments have been swamped by temporaries, but
+at sea the Regular Navy remains in full possession. In the barracks at
+Whale Island, where Cæsar was assigned quarters, he felt like a very
+small schoolboy newly joining a very large school. His fellow-pupils
+were R.N.R. men, mercantile brass-bounders with mates’ and masters’
+certificates, and R.N.V.R.’s drawn from diverse classes. To him they
+seemed a queer lot. He lay low and studied them, finding most of them
+wholly ignorant of everything which he knew, but profoundly versed in
+things which he didn’t. The instructors of the Regular Service gave him
+his first definite contact with the Navy. “My original impression of
+them,” he told me, laughing, “was that they were all mad. I had come to
+learn gunnery, but for a whole week they insisted upon teaching me squad
+drill, about the most derisory version of drill which I have ever seen.
+Picture us, a mob of mates out of liners and volunteers out of workshops
+and technical schools, trailing rifles round the square at Whale Island,
+feeling dazed and helpless, and wondering if we had brought up by
+mistake at a lunatic asylum. After the first week, during which Whale
+Island indulged its pathetic belief that its true _métier_ is squad
+drill, we were all right. We got busy at the guns, and found plenty to
+learn.” It was at Whale Island that he received the name of Cæsar, the
+one Latin author of which his messmates had any recollection. During the
+first month of his training he daily cursed Winchester and Oxford for
+the frightful gaps which they had left in his educational equipment. He
+could acquire languages with anyone, but mathematics, that essential key
+to the mysteries of gunnery, gave him endless trouble. But he had a
+keenly tempered brain and limitless persistence. Slowly at first, more
+rapidly later, he made up on his contemporaries, and when after two
+months of the toughest work of his life he gained a first-class
+certificate, he felt that at last he had tasted a real success.
+
+Time brings its revenges. As a Sub in a motor-boat he had affected to
+think slightingly of the great battle-cruisers which his small craft
+protected, but now that he was transferred to one of the new Cats of the
+First Battle Cruiser Squadron his views violently changed. Battleships
+were all very well, they had huge guns and tremendous armour, but when
+it came to speed and persistent aggressiveness what were these sea
+monsters in comparison with the Cats? Why nothing, of course. Which
+shows that Cæsar was becoming a Navyman. Put a naval officer into the
+veriest tub which can keep herself afloat with difficulty, and steam
+five knots in a tideway, and he will exalt her into the most efficient
+craft beneath the White Ensign. For she is His Ship.
+
+Lieutenant Cæsar very quickly became at one with his new ship, and
+entered into his kingdom. Whether upon the loading platform of a turret
+or in control of a side battery, he serenely took up his place and felt
+that he had expanded to fill it adequately. His tone became obtrusively
+professional. When I asked for some details of his hardships and his
+thrills, he sneered at me most rudely. “There are no hardships,” he
+declared; “we live and grow fat, and there is not a thrill to the whole
+war. My motor-boat was a desperate buccaneer in comparison with these
+stately Founts of Power. Every week or two we do a Silent Might parade
+in the North Sea, but nothing ever happens.” This was after the Dogger
+Bank action for which he was too late, and before the Jutland Battle. He
+wrote to me many veiled accounts of the North Sea stunts upon which the
+battle-cruisers were persistently engaged, but always insisted that they
+were void of excitement.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“Dismiss from your landsman’s mind,” he would write—Cæsar was now a
+sailor among sailors—“all idea of thrills. There aren’t any. When the
+hoist Prepare to Leave Harbour goes up on the flagship, and black smoke
+begins to pour from every funnel in the Squadron, there is no excitement
+and no preparation—for we are already fully prepared. We go out with
+our attendant destroyers and light cruisers and scour at will over the
+‘German Ocean’ looking for Fritz, that we may fall upon him. But he is
+too cunning for us. I wish that we had some scouting airships.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+This wish of Lieutenant Cæsar is, I believe, shared by every officer in
+the Grand Fleet from the Commander-in-Chief downwards. Airships cannot
+fight airships or sea ships, and are of very little use as destructive
+agents, but they are bright gems in the firmament of scouts.
+
+I asked Cæsar why he did not keep notes of his manifold experiences. “It
+is against orders,” answered he sorrowfully. “We are not allowed to keep
+a diary, and I have a rotten memory for those intimate details which
+give life to a story. If I could keep notes I would set up in business
+as a naval Boyd Cable.” But I am afraid that Cæsar was reckoning without
+the Naval Censor, a savage, hungry lion beside whom his brother of the
+Military Department is a complacent lamb. Cæsar has a pretty pen, but
+his hands are in shackles.
+
+Cæsar bent his keen eyes upon those with whom he was associated, studied
+their strength and weakness, and delivered judgment, intolerant in its
+youthful sureness.
+
+“The young lieutenants,” he wrote, “are wonderful. Profoundly and
+serenely competent at their own work, but irresponsible as children in
+everything else. Their ideas of chaff and ragging never arise above
+those of the fifth form. Whenever they speak of the Empire they mean the
+one in Leicester Square. Shore leave for them means a bust at the
+Trocadero, with a music-hall to follow, preferably with a pretty girl.
+Their notions of shore life are of the earth earthy, not to say fleshy,
+but at sea work they approach the divine. There is not a two-striper in
+my wardroom who could not with complete confidence and complete
+competence take the Grand Fleet into action. But of education, as you or
+I understand the word, they have none. The Navy has been their strictly
+intensive life since they left school at about thirteen. Of art, or
+literature, or music—except in the crudest forms—they know nothing,
+and care nothing. And this makes their early retirement the more
+tragical. They go out, nine-tenths of them, before they reach forty
+without mental or artistic resources. The Navy is a remorseless user up
+of youth. Those who remain afloat, especially those without combatant
+responsibilities, tend to degenerate into S.O.B.s.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+I will not translate; Cæsar is too young and too clever to be
+sympathetic towards those of middle age.
+
+One afternoon in spring Lieutenant Cæsar was plunged without warning
+into the Jutland Battle. He and his like were placidly waiting at action
+stations in their turrets, when the order came to put live shell into
+the guns. For six hours he remained in his turret, serving his two
+13.5-inch guns, but seeing nothing of what passed outside his thick
+steel walls. When I implored him to recount to me his experiences, he
+protested that he had none.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“You might as well ask a sardine, hermetically sealed in a tin, to
+describe a fire in a grocer’s shop,” wrote he. “I was that sardine, and
+so were nearly all of us. Those in the conning tower saw something, and
+so did the officers in the spotting top when they were not being
+smothered by smoke and by water thrown up by bursting shells. But as for
+the rest of us—don’t you believe the stories told you by eye-witnesses
+of naval battles. They are all second or third hand, and rubbish at
+that. When I have sorted the thing out from all those who did see, and
+collated the discrepant accounts, I will give you my conclusions, but I
+shall not be allowed to write them. For a literary man the Navy is a
+rotten service.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Cæsar at this time wrote rather crossly. He had, I think, visualised
+himself as the writer some day of an immortal story of the greatest
+naval battle in history. Now that he had been through it, he knew as
+little of it at first hand as a heavy gunner in France does of the
+advancing infantry whose path forward he is cutting out.
+
+The isolation of a busy turret in action may be realised when one learns
+that Cæsar knew nothing of the loss of the _Queen Mary_,
+_Indefatigable_, or _Invincible_ until hours after they had gone to the
+bottom. He had heard nothing even of damage suffered by his own ship
+until, a grimy figure in frowsy overalls, he crawled through the roof of
+his big sardine tin and met in the darkness one of his friends who had
+been in the spotting top.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“There was a frightful row going on as we sat there on the turret’s
+roof,” wrote Cæsar to me. “Our destroyers were charging in upon Fritz’s
+flying ships, which with searchlights and guns of all calibres were
+seeking to defend themselves. We could not fire for our destroyers were
+in the way. The horizon flamed like the aurora borealis, and now and
+then big shells, ricochetting, would scream over us. I enjoyed myself
+fine, and had no wish to seek safety in my turret, of which I was
+heartily sick. That is the only part of the action which I saw, and the
+details were buried in confusion and darkness. All the rest of the day I
+had been serving two hungry guns with shells and cordite, and firing
+them into unknown space. I was too intent on my duties to be bored, but
+I did not get the least bit of a thrill until I climbed out on the roof.
+Still I am glad to have been in the Battle, and, I love my big wise
+guns.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+It was while his battle-cruiser was being refitted, and when he had just
+returned from a few days’ leave, that the wheel of his destiny made
+another turn. He was hauled struggling and kicking out of his turret as
+one plucks a periwinkle from its shell, and cast into a destroyer
+attached to the North Sea patrol. He had, as I have told, an easy knack
+of picking up languages. To a solid knowledge of German he had added in
+past vacations more than a speaking acquaintance with the Scandinavian
+tongues—Norse, Danish, and Swedish—and his industry was now turned to
+his undoing. Naval gunners were more plentiful than boarding officers
+who could converse with the benevolent and unbenevolent neutral, and
+Cæsar’s unfortunate accomplishments clearly indicated him for a new job.
+At first he was furious, but became quickly reconciled. For, as he
+argued, fighting on a grand scale is over, Fritz has had such a
+gruelling that he won’t come out any more; North Sea stunts will seem
+very tame after that day out by the Jutland coast; patrolling the upper
+waters of the North Sea cannot be quite dull, and cross-examining
+Scandinavian pirates may become positively exciting. So Cæsar settled
+down in his destroyer, in so far as any one can settle down in such an
+uneasy craft.
+
+Cæsar now formed part of the inner and closer meshes of the North Sea
+blockade designed to intercept those ships which had penetrated the more
+widely spread net outside. Many of the masters whom he interviewed
+claimed to have a British safe-conduct, but Cæsar was not to be bluffed.
+With a rough and chocolate-hued skin he had acquired the peremptory air
+of a Sea God.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+“It is rather good fun sometimes,” he wrote to me. “We can’t search big
+ships on the high seas at all thoroughly, and we don’t want to send them
+all into port for examination, so we work a Black List. I have a list
+from the War Trade Department of firms which are not allowed to ship to
+neutral countries, and of all suspected enemy agents in those countries.
+The Norse, Danish and Dutch skippers are very decent and do their best
+to help, but the Swedes are horrid blighters. Whenever there is any
+doubt at all we send ships into port to be thoroughly examined there.
+You may take it that not much gets through now. Next to a complete
+blockade of all sea traffic for neutral ports—which I don’t suppose the
+politicians can stomach—our Black List system seems to be the goods. I
+get good fun with these merchant skippers, and am becoming quite a
+linguist, but the work is less exciting than I had hoped. It is amusing
+to see a 7,000-ton tramp escorted into port by a twenty-foot motor-boat
+which she could sling up on her davits, but even this sight becomes a
+matter of course after a while. I have seen something of war from three
+aspects, and seem to have exhausted sensations. They are greatly
+overrated.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+But Lieutenant Cæsar was destined to have one more experience before war
+had used him up and relaid him upon the shelf from which he was plucked
+in September, 1914. A destroyer upon patrol duty is still a fighting
+vessel, and fights joyfully whenever she can snatch a plausible
+opportunity. Cæsar had sunk a submarine, served through the Jutland
+Battle, and assisted to stop the holes in the British blockade, but he
+had not yet known what fighting really means. That is reserved for
+destroyers in action. One afternoon he was cruising not far from the
+Dogger Bank, when the sound of light guns was heard a few miles off
+towards the east. The Lieut.-Commander in charge of our unit in H.M.S.
+_Blockade_ obeyed the Napoleonic rule and steered at once for the guns.
+In about ten minutes a group of small craft wreathed in smoke, lighted
+up at short intervals by gun flashes, appeared on the horizon, and
+roaring at her full speed of 34 knots the British destroyer swept down
+upon them. Presently seven trawlers were made out firing with their
+small guns at two German torpedo boats, which with torpedo and
+23-pounder weapons were intent upon destroying them. One trawler was
+blown sky-high while Cæsar’s ship was yet half a mile distant, and
+another rolled over shattered by German shell. “It was a pretty sight,”
+said Cæsar, when I visited him in hospital, and learned to my deep joy
+that he was out of danger. “When we got within a quarter of a mile we
+edged to starboard to give the torpedo tubes a clear bearing on the port
+bow. A shell or two flew over us, but the layers at the tubes took no
+notice. They waited till we were quite close, not more than two hundred
+yards, and then loosed a torpedo. I have never seen anything so quick
+and smart. I saw the mouldy drop and start, and then a huge column of
+water spouted up, blotting out entirely the nearest German boat. The
+water fell and set us tossing wildly, but I kept my feet and could see
+that German destroyer shut up exactly like a clasp-knife. She had been
+bust up amidships, her bow and stern almost kissed one another, and she
+went down vertically. The other turned to fly, firing heavily upon us,
+but our boys had her in their grip. We had three fine guns, 4-inch
+semi-automatics. We hit her full on the starboard quarter as she turned,
+and then raked her the whole length of her deck. I did not see the end,
+for earth and sky crashed all round me, and I went to sleep. When I
+awoke I was lying below, my right leg felt dead, but there was no pain,
+and from the horrid vibration running through the vessel I knew that we
+were at full speed.
+
+“‘Did we get the other one?’ I asked of my servant, whom I saw beside
+me. ‘She sunk proper, sir,’ said he. ‘You, sir, are the only casualty we
+’ad.’ It was an honour which I found it difficult to appreciate. ‘What’s
+the damage?’ I muttered. ‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he replied diffidently,
+’that your right leg is blowed away.’ Then I fainted, and did not come
+round again till I was in hospital here. My leg is gone at the knee; I
+lost a lot of blood, and should have lost my life but for the tourniquet
+which the Owner himself whipped round my thigh. They have whittled the
+stump shipshape here, and I am to have a new leg of the most fashionable
+design. The doctors say that I shall not know the difference when I get
+used to it, and shall be able to play golf and even tennis. Golf and
+tennis! Good games, but they seem a bit tame after the life I’ve led for
+the last two years.” Cæsar fell silent, and I gripped his hand.
+
+“It isn’t as if you were in the Regular Service,” I murmured. “It isn’t
+your career that’s gone. That is still to come. You’ve done your bit,
+Cæsar, old man.”
+
+His eyes glittered and a tear welled over and rolled down his cheek.
+That was all, the only sign of weakness and of regret for the lost leg
+and the lost opportunities for further service. When he spoke again it
+was the old cheerful Cæsar whom I knew. “It seems funny. A month or two
+hence I shall be back at Oxford, reading philosophy and all sorts of
+absurd rubbish for my First in Greats. From Oxford I came, and to Oxford
+I shall return; these two years of life will seem like a dream. A few
+years hence I shall have nothing but my medal and my wooden leg to
+remind me of them. It has been a good time, Copplestone—a devilish good
+time. I have done my bit, but I wasn’t cut out for a fighting man. There
+is too much preparation and too little real business. I should have
+exhausted the thing and got bored. In time I should have become an
+S.O.B. like some of those others. No, Copplestone, I have nothing to
+regret, not even the lost leg. It is better to go out like this than to
+wait till the end of the war, and then to be among the Not Wanteds.”
+
+“They’ve made you a Lieutenant-Commander,” I said slowly.
+
+“Two and a half stripes,” he murmured. “They look pretty, but they are
+only the wavy ones, not the real article. I was never anything but a
+‘tempory blighter, ’ere to-day and gone to-morrow, and good riddance.’
+It was decent of them to think of me, but stripes are no use to me now.
+I shall be at Oxford with the other cripples, and the weak hearts, and
+the aliens, and the conscientious objectors—what do the dregs of Oxford
+know of stripes?”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+I saw as much as I could of Cæsar during the weeks that followed. His
+mental processes interested me hugely. He has an enviable faculty of
+concentrating upon the job in hand to the complete exclusion of
+everything outside. He forgot Oxford in the Service, and now seemed to
+have almost forgotten the Service in his return to Oxford, and to what
+he calls civilisation. He was greatly taken up with the design for his
+wooden leg. I met him after his first visit to Roehampton to be
+measured, and found him bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Such legs and
+arms!” cried he. “They are almost better than meat and bone ones. I saw
+a Tommy with a shorter stump than mine jumping hurdles and learning to
+kick. He was a professional footballer once. Another with a wooden arm
+could write and even draw. In a month or two’s time, when my stump is
+healed solid and I have learnt the tricks of my new leg, it will be a
+great sport exercising it and trying to find out what it can’t do. A new
+interest in life.”
+
+“You seem rather to like having a leg blown off,” I said, wondering.
+
+He is extraordinarily exuberant. I looked for depression after a month
+in hospital, but looked in vain. He builds up a future with as much zest
+as a youthful architect executes his first commission. The First in
+Greats is “off”; Cæsar says that he has not time to bother about such
+things. “I shall read History and modern French and Russian literature.
+History will do for my Final Schools, and Literature for my play. I
+shall learn Russian. Then when I have taken my degree I shall go in for
+the Foreign Office. My wooden leg will actually help me to a nomination,
+and the exam. is nothing. It’s not a bad idea; I thought of it last
+night.”
+
+“You don’t take long over a decision,” I remarked.
+
+“I never did,” said he calmly.
+
+When he returned to Oxford early in November he urged me to pay him a
+visit. I was in London a week or two later and having twenty-four hours
+to spare ran up to Oxford, established myself at the Clarendon, and
+summoned Cæsar to dine with me. All through the meal wonder grew upon
+me. For my very charming guest was an undergraduate in his fourth year,
+bearing no trace of having been anything else. We talked of Balzac,
+Anatole France, and Turgeniev. I listened politely to Cæsar’s views upon
+German and Russian Church music. I learned that the scarcity of Turkish
+cigarettes was causing him distress, that his rooms were delightful, and
+that Oxford was a desert swept clear of his old friends. The war was
+never once referred to. His conversation abounded in slang with which I
+was not familiar—I come from the other shop. It was an insufferable
+evening, and I saw Cæsar hobble away upon his crutches with positive
+relief. He could use his leg a little, but the stump was still rather
+sore. That hobble was the one natural and human thing about him.
+
+I passed a wretched night, came to a desperate resolution early in the
+morning, and carried it out about nine o’clock. Cæsar was in his
+“delightful rooms.” They certainly had a pleasant aspect, but the
+furniture disgusted me; it might have been selected by a late-Victorian
+poet. I looked for a book or a picture which might connect Cæsar with
+the R.N.V.R., and looked in vain. He was busy trampling upon the best
+two years of his life and forgetting that he had ever been a man. It
+should not be. Presently he came in from his bedroom and began to talk
+in the manner of the night before but I cut him short. “Cæsar,” I said
+brutally, “you are no better than an ass. Look at these rooms. Is this
+the place for a man who has lived and fought in a motor-boat, a
+battle-cruiser, and a T.B.D.? You have sunk a German submarine, served
+in the Jutland Battle, and lost a leg in your country’s service. Hug
+these things to your soul, don’t throw them away. Brood upon them, write
+about them, for the love of Heaven don’t try to forget them.”
+
+I saw his eyes light up, but he said nothing. His lips began to twitch
+and, knowing him as I did, I should have heeded their warning. But
+unchecked I drivelled on:
+
+“Are you the man to shrink from an effort because of pain? Did you
+grouse when your leg was blown off? Wring all you can out of the future.
+Read History, join the F.O., study Russian. But do these things in a
+manner worthy of Lieutenant-Commander Cæsar, and don’t try to revive the
+puling Oxford spark that you were two years ago before the war came to
+sweep the rubbish out of you.”
+
+He gave a clumsy leap, tripped over his new leg, and fell into a chair.
+Lying there he laughed and laughed and laughed. How he laughed! Not
+loud, but deeply, thoroughly, persistently, as if to make up for a long
+abstinence.
+
+“Confound you!” I growled. “What the deuce are you laughing at?”
+
+“You,” said Cæsar simply.
+
+At the word the truth surged over me in a shameful flood. That
+preposterous dinner with its babble of Balzac and Turgeniev, Church
+music, and Turkish cigarettes. These rooms stripped of all reminders of
+two strenuous years of war. That Oxford accent and the intolerable
+Oxford slang. “Cæsar,” I shouted, joining in his exuberant laughter,
+“you have been pulling my leg all the time.”
+
+“All the time,” said he. “My bedroom is full of stuff that I cleared out
+of here. Last night, Copplestone, your ever-lengthening face was a
+lovely study, and I have wondered ever since how I kept in my laughter.”
+
+“You young villain,” cried I, overjoyed to find that Cæsar was still my
+bright friend of the R.N.V.R. “How shall I ever get even with you?”
+
+“I owe you some reparation,” said he, “and here it is.” He hobbled over
+to his desk and drew out a great roll of paper. “This is the first
+instalment; there are lots more to come. For the last month I have been
+trying to remember, not to forget. I am writing of everything that I
+have done and seen and heard and felt during those two splendid years.
+Everything. It will run to reams of paper and months of time. When it is
+finished you shall have it all. Take it, saturate yourself in it, add
+your spells to it. We will stir up the compound of Copplestone and Cæsar
+until it ferments, and then distil from the mass a Great Work. It shall
+be ours, Copplestone—yours and mine. Will you have me as your partner.”
+
+“With the greatest pleasure in life,” I cried.
+
+We discussed our plans in full detail, and parted the best of friends.
+Cæsar is rekindling the ashes of a life which I had thought to be
+extinguished; soon there will be a great and glowing fire of realised
+memory which will keep warm the years that are to come. He has solved
+the problem of his immediate future. But what of those others, those
+tens of thousands, who when the war is over will seek for some means to
+keep alive the fires which years of war have lighted in their hearts?
+Are they to be merged, lost, in the old life as it was lived before
+1914? Are they to degenerate slowly but surely into S.O.B.s, intent only
+upon earning a living somehow, playing bad golf, or looking on at
+football matches? I do not know, I have no data, and it is rather
+painful to indulge oneself in speculation.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+This sketch was published a year ago. Two months after I had visited
+Cæsar at Oxford he called upon me in London. He was in uniform, and
+explained that he had quickly grown tired of sick leave and had recalled
+himself to Service. “I can’t go to sea again,” said he, “with this
+timber toe, but I am at least good for an office job ashore.” But Cæsar
+was not made to fit the stool of any office, and when I last heard from
+him was an observer in the R.N.A.S.
+
+In this fashion he has rounded off his experiences, and basely failed
+me, his friend and biographer, of the scanty data with which to answer
+the question set forth in the first sentence of this chapter.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.
+
+Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.
+
+Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Silent Watchers, by Bennet Copplestone</title>
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Silent Watchers, by Bennet Copplestone</h1>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
+and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.  If you are not
+located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Title: The Silent Watchers</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>       England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Author: Bennet Copplestone</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 15, 2015  [eBook #48497]</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILENT WATCHERS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by David T. Jones, Al Haines, Cindy Beyer,<br />
+    and the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdpcanada.net/)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:250px;height:377px;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'>THE SILENT WATCHERS</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='it'>By the Same Author</span></p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;font-size:1.2em;'>THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.8em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>A series of exciting stories which reveal</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>the English Secret Service as it really</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>is—silent, unsleeping, and supremely</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>competent.</span></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<div class='blockquoter8'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“William Dawson is a great creation, a sheer</p>
+<p class='line0'>delight. If Mr. Bennet Copplestone’s intriguing</p>
+<p class='line0'>book meets with half the success it deserves, the</p>
+<p class='line0'>inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be out-rivalled</p>
+<p class='line0'>in popularity by the inscrutable William</p>
+<p class='line0'>Dawson.”—<span class='it'>Daily Telegraph.</span></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:.5em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>$1.50 Net</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>JITNY AND THE BOYS</p>
+
+<div class='blockquoter8'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“The book is full of the thoughts which make</p>
+<p class='line0'>us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow.</p>
+<p class='line0'>Yes, ‘Jitny’ has my blessing.”—<span class='it'>Punch.</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Motoring people could do nothing better than</p>
+<p class='line0'>sit down and have a spin, in imagination, by reading</p>
+<p class='line0'>this book. A clinking motor-car story.”</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2em;'>—<span class='it'>Daily Chronicle.</span></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:.5em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>$1.50 Net</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:.5em;'><span class='sc'>New York—E. P. Dutton &amp; Company</span></p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:1.5em;'><span class='sc'>THE</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:2.5em;'><span class='sc'>Silent Watchers</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0'><span class='it'>England’s Navy during the Great War:</span></p>
+<p class='line0'><span class='it'>What It Is, and What We Owe to It</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'><span class='sc'>By</span></p>
+<p class='line0'>BENNET COPPLESTONE</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>AUTHOR OF</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.6em;'>“THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS”</p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';fs:.6em;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“The Navy is a matter of machines only in</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>so far as human beings can only achieve material</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>ends by material means. I look upon the ships and</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>the guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.6em;'>secretes its shell.”—<span class='sc'>Prologue.</span></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0001' style='width:90px;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0' style='margin-bottom:.3em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='sc'>New York</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.3em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='sc'>681 Fifth Avenue</span></p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:4em;font-size:.9em;'>Copyright, 1918</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0'><span class='sc'>By</span> E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY</p>
+<hr class='tbk100'/>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>All Rights Reserved</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:10em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>First Printing, Sept., 1918</span></p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>Second Printing, Oct., 1918</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:10em;font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>Printed in the United States of America</span></p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.2em;'>NOTE</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0'>Between June, 1916, and February, 1918, I</p>
+<p class='line0'>contributed a good many articles and sketches on</p>
+<p class='line0'>Naval subjects to <span class='it'>The Cornhill Magazine</span>. They</p>
+<p class='line0'>were not designed upon any plan or published</p>
+<p class='line0'>in any settled sequence. As one article led up</p>
+<p class='line0'>to another, and information came to me from my</p>
+<p class='line0'>generously appreciative readers (many of whom</p>
+<p class='line0'>were in the Service), I revised those which I had</p>
+<p class='line0'>written and ventured to write still more. This</p>
+<p class='line0'>book contains my <span class='it'>Cornhill</span> articles—revised and</p>
+<p class='line0'>sometimes re-written in the light of wider information</p>
+<p class='line0'>and kindly criticism—and several additional</p>
+<p class='line0'>chapters which have not previously been published</p>
+<p class='line0'>anywhere. I have endeavoured to weave into a</p>
+<p class='line0'>connected series articles and sketches which were</p>
+<p class='line0'>originally disconnected, and I have introduced</p>
+<p class='line0'>new strands to give strength to the fabric. Through</p>
+<p class='line0'>the whole runs a golden thread which I have</p>
+<p class='line0'>called <span class='sc'>The Secret of the Navy</span>.</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2em;'>B. C.</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:left;margin-left:1em;font-size:.9em;'><span class='it'>March, 1918.</span></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.0em;'>CONTENTS</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>PROLOGUE <a href='#chP'><span class='sc'>After the Battle</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>I. <a href='#ch01'><span class='sc'>A Band of Brothers</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>II. <a href='#ch02'><span class='sc'>The Coming of War</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>III. <a href='#ch03'><span class='sc'>The Great Victory</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>IV. <a href='#ch04'><span class='sc'>With the Grand Fleet: A North Sea “Stunt”</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>V. <a href='#ch05'><span class='sc'>With the Grand Fleet: The Terriers and the Rats</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>VI. <a href='#ch06'><span class='sc'>The Mediterranean: A Success and a Failure</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>VII. <a href='#ch07'><span class='sc'>In the South Seas: The Disaster off Coronel</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>VIII. <a href='#ch08'><span class='sc'>In the South Seas: Cleaning Up</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>IX. <a href='#ch09'><span class='sc'>How the “Sydney” Met the “Emden”</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>X.<a href='#ch10'><span class='sc'>From Strength to Strength</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>XI. <a href='#ch11'><span class='sc'>The Cruise of the “Glasgow”: Part I—Rio to Coronel</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>XII. <a href='#ch12'><span class='sc'>The Cruise of the “Glasgow”: Part II—Coronelto Juan Fernandez</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>XIII. <a href='#ch13'><span class='sc'>The Battle of the Giants: Part I</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>XIV.<a href='#ch14'><span class='sc'>The Battle of the Giants: Part II</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'>EPILOGUE <a href='#chE'><span class='sc'>Lieutenant Cæsar</span></a></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.2em;'>LIST OF MAPS</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-67'><span class='sc'>The North Sea</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-119'><span class='sc'>The Mediterranean Operations</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-139'><span class='sc'>The South Seas</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-178'><span class='sc'>How the “Sydney” Met the “Emden”</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-193'><span class='sc'>The “Sydney-Emden” Action</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-219'><span class='sc'>The Cruise of the “Glasgow”</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-231'><span class='sc'>The Pacific: von Spee’s Concentration</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-253'><span class='sc'>The Cruise of the “Glasgow”</span></a></p>
+<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;'><a href='#illo-271'><span class='sc'>The Battle of the Giants</span></a></p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.3em;'>THE SILENT WATCHERS</p>
+
+<div><h1 id='chP'>PROLOGUE</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>AFTER THE BATTLE</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Cæsar,” said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a
+temporary Lieutenant R.N.V.R., who at the outbreak
+of war had been a classical scholar at
+Oxford, “you were in the thick of our scrap
+yonder off the Jutland coast. You were in it
+every blessed minute with the battle cruisers,
+and must have had a lovely time. Did you ever,
+Cæsar, try to write the story of it?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was early in June of 1916, and a group
+of officers had gathered near the ninth hole of
+an abominable golf course which they had themselves
+laid out upon an island in the great land-locked
+bay wherein reposed from their labours long lines
+of silent ships. It was a peaceful scene. Few
+even of the battleships showed the scars of battle,
+though among them were some which the Germans
+claimed to be at the bottom of the sea. There
+they lay, coaled, their magazines refilled, ready
+at short notice to issue forth with every eager
+man and boy standing at his action station. And
+while all waited for the next call, officers went
+ashore, keen, after the restrictions upon free
+exercise, to stretch their muscles upon the infamous
+golf course. It was, I suppose, one of the very
+worst courses in the world. There were no prepared
+tees, no fairway, no greens. But there was
+much bare rock, great tufts of coarse grass greedy
+of balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destructive
+of wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there
+of approximately the regulation size. Few officers
+of the Grand Fleet, except those in Beatty’s Salt
+of the Earth squadrons, far to the south, had
+since the war began been privileged to play upon
+more gracious courses. But the Sea Service,
+which takes the rough with the smooth, with
+cheerful and profane philosophy, accepted the
+home-made links as a spirited triumph of the
+handy-man over forbidding nature.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said the naval volunteer, “I tried many
+times, but gave up all attempts as hopeless. I
+came up here to get first-hand material, and have
+sacrificed my short battle leave to no purpose.
+The more I learn the more helplessly incapable I
+feel. I can describe the life of a ship, and make
+you people move and speak like live things. But
+a battle is too big for me. One might as well try
+to realise and set on paper the Day of Judgment.
+All I did was to write a letter to an old friend, one
+Copplestone, beseeching him to make clear to the
+people at home what we really had done. I
+wrote it three days after the battle. Here it is.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Lieutenant Cæsar drew a paper from his pocket
+and read as follows:</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Copplestone</span>,—Picture to yourself
+our feelings. On Wednesday we were in the fiery
+hell of the greatest naval action ever fought. A
+real Battle of the Giants. Beatty’s and Hood’s
+battle cruisers—chaffingly known as the Salt of
+the Earth—and Evan Thomas’s squadron of four
+fast Queen Elizabeths had fought for two hours
+the whole German High Seas Fleet. Beatty, in
+spite of his heavy losses, had outmanœuvred
+Fritz’s battle cruisers and enveloped the German
+line. The Fifth Battle Squadron had stalled off
+the German Main Fleet, and led them into the net
+of Jellicoe, who, coming up, deployed between
+Evan Thomas and Beatty, though he could not
+see either, crossed the T of the Germans in the
+beautifullest of beautiful manœuvres, and had them
+for a moment as good as sunk. But the Lord
+giveth and the Lord taketh away; it is sometimes
+difficult to say Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
+For just when we most needed full visibility the
+mist came down thick, the light failed, and we
+were robbed of the fruits of victory when they
+were almost in our hands. It was hard, hard,
+bitterly hard. But we had done the utmost
+which the Fates permitted. The enemy, after
+being harried all night by destroyers, had got
+away home in torn rags, and we were left in supreme
+command of the North Sea, a command more
+complete and unchallengeable than at any moment
+since the war began. For Fritz had put out his
+full strength, all his unknown cards were on the
+table, we knew his strength and his weakness, and
+that he could not stand for a moment against our
+concentrated power. All this we had done, and
+rejoiced mightily. In the morning we picked up
+from Poldhu the German wireless claiming the
+battle as a glorious victory—at which we laughed
+loudly. But there was no laughter when in the
+afternoon Poldhu sent out an official message
+from our own Admiralty which, from its clumsy
+wording and apologetic tone, seemed actually
+to suggest that we had had the devil of a hiding.
+Then when we arrived at our bases came the
+newspapers with their talk of immense losses,
+and of bungling, and of the Grand Fleet’s failure!
+Oh, it was a monstrous shame! The country
+which depends utterly upon us for life and honour,
+and had trusted us utterly, had been struck to
+the heart. We had come back glowing, exalted
+by the battle, full of admiration for the skill of
+our leaders and for the serene intrepidity of our
+men. We had seen our ships go down and pay
+the price of sea command—pay it willingly and
+ungrudgingly as the Navy always pays. Nothing
+that the enemy had done or could do was able to
+hurt us, but we had been mortally wounded in the
+house of our friends. It will take days, weeks,
+perhaps months, for England and the world to be
+made to understand and to do us justice. Do
+what you can, old man. Don’t delay a minute.
+Get busy. You know the Navy, and love it with
+your whole soul. Collect notes and diagrams from
+the scores of friends whom you have in the Service;
+they will talk to you and tell you everything. I
+can do little myself. A Naval Volunteer who
+fought through the action in a turret, looking
+after a pair of big guns, could not himself see
+anything outside his thick steel walls. Go ahead
+at once, do knots, and the fighting Navy will
+remember you in its prayers.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The attention of others in the group had been
+drawn to the reader and his letter, and when
+Lieutenant Cæsar stopped, flushed and out of
+breath, there came a chorus of approving laughter.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“This temporary gentleman is quite a literary
+character,” said a two-ring Lieutenant who had
+been in an exposed spotting top throughout the
+whole action, “but we’ve made a Navy man of
+him since he joined. That’s a dashed good letter,
+and I hope you sent it.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said Cæsar. “But while I was hesitating,
+wondering whether I would risk the lightning
+of the Higher Powers, a possible court martial,
+and the loss of my insecure wavy rings, the business
+was taken out of my hands by this same man
+to whom I was wanting to write. He got moving
+on his own account, and now, though the battle
+is only ten days old, the country knows the rights
+of what we did. When it comes to describing
+the battle itself, I make way for my betters. For
+what could I see? On the afternoon of May 31st,
+we were doing gun drill in my turret. Suddenly
+came an order to put lyddite into the guns and
+follow the Control. During the next two hours
+as the battle developed we saw nothing. We were
+just parts of a big human machine intent upon
+working our own little bit with faultless accuracy.
+There was no leisure to think of anything but the
+job in hand. From beginning to end I had no
+suggestion of a thrill, for a naval action in a turret
+is just gun drill glorified, as I suppose it is meant
+to be. The enemy is not seen; even the explosions
+of the guns are scarcely heard. I never took my
+ear-protectors from their case in my pocket. All
+is quiet, organised labour, sometimes very hard
+labour when for any reason one has to hoist the
+great shells by the hand purchase. It is extraordinary
+to think that I got fifty times more actual
+excitement out of a squadron regatta months
+ago than out of the greatest battle in naval history.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That’s quite true,” said the Spotting Officer,
+“and quite to be expected. Battleship fighting is
+not thrilling except for the very few. For nine-tenths
+of the officers and men it is a quiet, almost
+dull routine of exact duties. For some of us up
+in exposed positions in the spotting tops or on the
+signal bridge, with big shells banging on the
+armour or bursting alongside in the sea, it becomes
+mighty wetting and very prayerful. For the still
+fewer, the real fighters of the ship in the conning
+tower, it must be absorbingly interesting. But
+for the true blazing rapture of battle one has to
+go to the destroyers. In a battleship one lives
+like a gentleman until one is dead, and takes the
+deuce of a lot of killing. In a destroyer one lives
+rather like a pig, and one dies with extraordinary
+suddenness. Yet the destroyer officers and men
+have their reward in a battle, for then they drink
+deep of the wine of life. I would sooner any day
+take the risks of destroyer work, tremendous
+though they are, just for the fun which one gets
+out of it. It was great to see our boys round up
+Fritz’s little lot. While you were in your turret,
+and the Sub. yonder in control of a side battery,
+Fritz massed his destroyers like Prussian infantry
+and tried to rush up close so as to strafe us with
+the torpedo. Before they could get fairly going,
+our destroyers dashed at them, broke up their
+masses, buffeted and hustled them about exactly
+like a pack of wolves worrying sheep, and with
+exactly the same result. Fritz’s destroyers either
+clustered together like sheep or scattered flying
+to the four winds. It was just the same with the
+light cruisers as with the destroyers. Fritz could
+not stand against us for a moment, and could not
+get away, for we had the heels of him and the
+guns of him. There was a deadly slaughter of
+destroyers and light cruisers going on while we
+were firing our heavy stuff over their heads. Even
+if we had sunk no battle cruisers or battleships,
+the German High Seas Fleet would have been
+crippled for months by the destruction of its
+indispensable ‘cavalry screen.’ ”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As the Spotting Officer spoke, a Lieutenant-Commander
+holed out on the last jungle with a
+mashie—no one uses a putter on the Grand Fleet’s
+private golf course—and approached our group,
+who, while they talked, were busy over a picnic
+lunch.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“If you pigs haven’t finished all the bully beef
+and hard tack,” said he, “perhaps you can spare
+a bite for one of the blooming ’eroes of the X
+Destroyer Flotilla.” The speaker was about
+twenty-seven, in rude health, and bore no sign of
+the nerve-racking strain through which he had
+passed for eighteen long-drawn hours. The young
+Navy is as unconscious of nerves as it is of indigestion.
+The Lieutenant-Commander, his hunger satisfied,
+lighted a pipe and joined in the talk.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It was hot work,” said he, “but great sport.
+We went in sixteen and came out a round dozen.
+If Fritz had known his business, I ought to be
+dead. He can shoot very well till he hears the
+shells screaming past his ears, and then his nerves
+go. Funny thing how wrong we’ve been about
+him. He is smart to look at, fights well in a
+crowd, but cracks when he has to act on his own
+without orders. When we charged his destroyers
+and ran right in he just crumpled to bits. We
+had a batch of him nicely herded up, and were
+laying him out in detail with guns and mouldies,
+when there came along a beastly intrusive Control
+Officer on a battle cruiser and took him out of
+our mouths. It was a sweet shot, though. Someone—I
+don’t know his name, or he would hear of
+his deuced interference from me—plumped a salvo
+of 12-⁠inch common shell right into the brown of
+Fritz’s huddled batch. Two or three of his
+destroyers went aloft in scrap-iron, and half a
+dozen others were disabled. After the first hour
+his destroyers and light cruisers ceased to be on
+the stage; they had flown quadrivious—there’s an
+ormolu word for our classical volunteer—and we
+could have a whack at the big ships. Later, at
+night, it was fine. We ran right in upon Fritz’s
+after-guard of sound battleships and rattled them
+most tremendous. He let fly at us with every
+bally gun he had, from 4-⁠inch to 14, and we were
+a very pretty mark under his searchlights. We
+ought to have been all laid out, but our loss was
+astonishingly small, and we strafed two of his
+heavy ships. Most of his shots went over us.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” called out the Spotting Officer, “yes,
+they did, and ricochetted all round us in the
+Queen Elizabeths. There was the devil of a row.
+The firing in the main action was nothing to it.
+All the while you were charging, and our guns
+were masked for fear of hitting you, Fritz’s bonbons
+were screaming over our upper works and making
+us say our prayers out loud in the Spotting Tops.
+You’d have thought we were at church. I was
+in the devil of a funk, and could hear my teeth
+rattling. It is when one is fired on and can’t hit
+back that one thinks of one’s latter end.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Did any of you see the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> go?”
+asked a tall thin man with the three rings of a
+Commander. “Our little lot saw nothing of the
+first part of the battle; we were with the K.G.
+Fives and Orions.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I saw her,” spoke a Gunnery Lieutenant, a
+small, quiet man with dreamy, introspective eyes—the
+eyes of a poet turned gunner. “I saw her.
+She was hit forrard, and went in five seconds.
+You all know how. It was a thing which won’t
+bear talking about. The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> took a long
+time to sink, and was still floating bottom up
+when Jellicoe’s little lot came in to feed after we
+and the Salt of the Earth had eaten up most of
+the dinner. I don’t believe that half the Grand
+Fleet fired a shot.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There came a savage growl from officers of the
+main Battle Squadrons, who, invited to a choice
+banquet, had seen it all cleared away before their
+arrival. “That’s all very well,” grumbled one
+of them; “the four Q.E.s are getting a bit above
+themselves because they had the luck of the fair.
+They didn’t fight the High Seas Fleet by their
+haughty selves because they wanted to, you bet.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Gunnery Lieutenant with the dreamy eyes
+smiled. “We certainly shouldn’t have chosen that
+day to fight them on. But if the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span>
+herself had been with us, and we had had full
+visibility—with the horizon a hard dark line—we
+would have willingly taken on all Fritz’s 12-⁠inch
+Dreadnoughts and thrown in his battle cruisers.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That’s the worst of it,” grumbled the Commander,
+very sore still at having tasted only of
+the skim milk of the battle; “naval war is now
+only a matter of machines. The men don’t count
+as they did in Nelson’s day.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Excuse me, sir,” remarked the Sub-Lieutenant;
+“may I say a word or two about that? I have
+been thinking it out.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There came a general laugh. The Sub-Lieutenant,
+twenty years of age, small and dark and with
+the bright black eyes of his mother—a pretty little
+lady from the Midi de la France whom his father
+had met and married in Paris—did not look like a
+philosopher, but he had the clear-thinking, logical
+mind of his mother’s people.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Think aloud, my son,” said the Commander.
+“As a living incarnation of l’Entente Cordiale, you
+are privileged above those others of the gun-room.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The light in the Sub’s eyes seemed to die out
+as his gaze turned inwards. He spoke slowly,
+carefully, sometimes injecting a word from his
+mother’s tongue which could better express his
+meaning. He looked all the while towards the
+sea, and seemed scarcely to be conscious of an
+audience of seniors. His last few sentences were
+spoken wholly in French.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“No—naval war is a war of men, as it always
+was and always will be. For what are the machines
+but the material expression of the souls of the
+men? Our ships are better and faster than the
+German ships, our guns heavier and more accurate
+than theirs, our gunners more deadly than their
+gunners, because our Navy has the greater human
+soul. The Royal Navy is not a collection of
+lifeless ships and guns imposed upon men by
+some external power as the Kaiser sought to impose
+a fleet upon the Germans, a nation of landsmen.
+The Navy is a matter of machines only in so far
+as human beings can only achieve material ends
+by material means. I look upon the ships and
+guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise
+secretes its shell. They are the products of naval
+thought, and naval brains, and, above all, of that
+ever-expanding naval soul (<span class='it'>l’esprit</span>) which has been
+growing for a thousand years. Our ships yonder
+are materially new, the products almost of yesterday,
+but really they are old, centuries old; they
+are the expression of a naval soul working, fermenting,
+always growing through the centuries,
+always seeking to express itself in machinery.
+Naval war is an art, the art of men, and where
+in the world will one find men like ours, officers
+like ours? Have you ever thought whence come
+those qualities which one sees glowing every day
+in our men, from the highest Admiral to the
+smallest ship boy—have you ever thought whence
+they come?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>He paused, still looking out to sea. His companions,
+all of them his superiors in rank and
+experience, stared at him in astonishment, and one
+or two laughed. But the Commander signalled
+for silence. “Et après,” he asked quietly; “d’où
+viennent ces qualités?” Unconsciously he had
+sloughed the current naval slang and spoke in the
+native language of the Sub.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The effect was not what he had expected. At
+the sound of the Commander’s voice speaking in
+French the Sub-Lieutenant woke up, flushed, and
+instantly reverted to his English self. “I am
+sorry, sir. I got speaking French, in which I
+always think, and when I talk French I talk the
+most frightful rot.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I am not so sure that it was rot. Your theory
+seems to be that we are, in the naval sense, the
+heirs of the ages, and that no nation that has
+not been through our centuries-old mill can hope
+to stand against us. I hope that you are right.
+It is a comforting theory.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“But isn’t that what we all think, sir, though
+we may not put it quite that way? Most of us
+know that our officers and men are of unapproachable
+stuff in body and mind, but we don’t seek
+for a reason. We accept it as an axiom. I’ve
+tried to reason the thing out because I’m half
+French; and also because I’ve been brought up
+among dogs and horses and believe thoroughly in
+heredity. It’s all a matter of breeding.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“The Sub’s right,” broke in the Gunnery
+Lieutenant with the poet’s eyes; “though a Sub
+who six months ago was a snotty who has no business
+to think of anything outside his duty. The Service
+would go to the devil if the gun-room began to
+talk psychology. We excuse it in this Sub here
+for the sake of the Entente Cordiale, of which he
+is the living embodiment; but had any other
+jawed at us in that style I would have sat upon
+his head. Of course he is right, though it isn’t
+our English way to see through things and define
+them as the French do. No race on earth can
+touch us for horses or dogs or prize cattle—or
+Navy men. It takes centuries to breed the boys
+who ran submarines through the Dardanelles and
+the Sound and stayed out in narrow enemy waters
+for weeks together. Brains and nerves and sea
+skill can’t be made to order even by a German
+Kaiser. Navy men should marry young and
+choose their women from sea families; and then
+their kids won’t need to be taught. They’ll have
+the secret of the Service in their blood.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That’s all very fine,” observed a Marine
+Lieutenant reflectively; “but who is going to
+pay for it all? We can’t. I get 7<span class='it'>s.</span> 6<span class='it'>d.</span> a day,
+and shall have 11<span class='it'>s.</span> in a year or two; it sounds
+handsome, but would hardly run to a family.
+Few in the Navy have any private money, so how
+can we marry early?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Of course we can’t as things go now,” said
+the Gunnery Lieutenant. “But some day even
+the Admiralty will discover that the English Navy
+will become a mere list of useless machines unless
+the English naval families can be kept up on
+the lower deck as well as in the wardroom and
+gun-room. Why, look at the names of our submarine
+officers whenever they get into the papers
+for honours. They are always salt of the sea,
+names which have been in the Navy List ever
+since there was a List. You may read the same
+names in the Trafalgar roll and back to the Dutch
+wars. Most of us were Pongos before that—shore
+Pongos who went afloat with Blake or Prince
+Rupert—but then we became sailors, and so
+remained, father to son. I can only go back
+myself to the Glorious First of June, but some of
+us here in the Grand Fleet date from the Stuarts
+at least. It is jolly fine to be of Navy blood,
+but not all plum jam. One has such a devil of
+a record to live up to. In my term at Dartmouth
+there was a poor little beast called Francis Drake—a
+real Devon Drake, a genuine antique—but
+what a load of a name to carry! Thank God, my
+humble name doesn’t shine out of the history
+books. And as with the officers, so with the seamen.
+Half of them come from my own country
+of Devon—the cradle of the Navy. They are in
+the direct line from Drake’s buccaneers. Most
+of the others come from the ancient maritime
+counties of the Channel seaboard, where the blood
+of everyone tingles with Navy salt. The Germans
+can build ships which are more or less accurate
+copies of our own, but they can’t breed the men.
+That is the whole secret.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Lieutenant-Commander, whose war-scarred
+destroyer lay below refitting, laughed gently.
+“There’s a lot in all that, more than we often
+realise when we grumble at the cursed obstinacy
+of our old ratings, but even you do not go back
+far enough. It is the old blood of the Vikings
+and sea-pirates in us English which makes us
+turn to the sea; the rest is training. In no other
+way can you explain the success of the Fringes,
+the mine-sweepers, and patrols, most of them
+manned by naval volunteers who, before the war,
+had never served under the White Ensign nor
+seen a shot fired. What is our classical scholar
+here, Cæsar, but a naval volunteer whom Whale
+Island and natural intelligence have turned into a
+gunner? But as regards the regular Navy, the
+Navy of the Grand Fleet, you are right. Pick
+your boys from the sea families, catch them young,
+pump them full to the teeth with the Navy Spirit—<span class='it'>l’esprit
+marin</span> of our bi-lingual Sub here—make
+them drunk with it. Then they are all right.
+But they must never be allowed to think of a
+darned thing except of the job in hand. The Navy
+has no use for men who seek to peer into their
+own souls. They might do it in action and discover
+blue funk. We want them to be no more
+conscious of their souls than of their livers. Though
+I admit that it is devilish difficult to forget one’s
+liver when one has been cooped up in a destroyer
+for a week. It is not nerve that Fritz lacks so
+much as a kindly obedient liver. He is an iron-gutted
+swine, and that is partly why he can’t
+run destroyers and submarines against us. The
+German liver is a thing to wonder at. Do you
+know——” but here the Lieutenant-Commander
+became too Rabelaisian for my delicate pen.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The group had thinned out during this exercise
+in naval analysis. Several of the officers had
+resumed their heart-and-club-breaking struggle
+with the villainous golf course, but the Sub, the
+volunteer Lieutenant, and the Pongo (Marine)
+still sat at the feet of their seniors. “May I say
+how the Navy strikes an outsider like me?”
+asked Cæsar diffidently. Whale Island, which
+had forgotten all other Latin authors, had given
+him the name as appropriate to one of his learning.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Go ahead,” said the Commander generously.
+“All this stuff is useful enough for a volunteer;
+without the Pongos and Volunteers to swallow
+our tall stories, the Navy would fail of an audience.
+The snotties know too much.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I was going to speak of the snotties,” said
+Cæsar, “who seem to me to be even more typical
+of the Service than the senior officers. They have
+all its qualities, emphasised, almost comically
+exaggerated. I do not know whether they are
+never young or that they never grow old, but there
+is no essential difference in age and in knowledge
+between a snotty six months out of cadet training
+and a Commander of six years’ standing. They
+rag after dinner with equal zest, and seem to be
+equally well versed in the profound technical
+details of their sea work. Perhaps it is that they
+are born full of knowledge. The snotties interest
+me beyond every type that I have met. Their
+manners are perfect and in startling contrast with
+those of the average public school boy of fifteen
+or sixteen—even in College at Winchester—and
+they combine their real irresponsible youthfulness
+with a grave mask of professional learning which
+is delightful to look upon. I have before me the
+vision of a child of fifteen with tousled yellow
+hair and a face as glum as a sea-boot, sitting
+opposite to me in the machine which took us
+back one day to the boat, smoking a ‘fag’ with
+the clumsiness which betrayed his lack of practice,
+in between bites of ‘goo’ (in this instance Turkish
+Delight), of which I had seen him consume a
+pound. He looked about ten years old, and in a
+husky, congested voice, due to the continual
+absorption of sticky food, he described minutely
+to me the method of conning a battleship in
+manœuvres and the correct amount to allow for
+the inertia of the ship when the helm is centred;
+he also explained the tactical handling of a squadron
+during sub-calibre firing. That snotty was a sheer
+joy, and the Navy is full of him. He’s gone
+himself, poor little chap—blown to bits by a shell
+which penetrated the deck.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“In time, Cæsar,” said the Commander, “by
+strict attention to duty you will become a Navy
+man. But we have talked enough of deep mysteries.
+It was that confounded Sub, with his
+French imagination, who started us. What I
+really wish someone would tell me is this: what
+was the ‘northern enterprise’ that Fritz was
+on when we chipped in and spoilt his little
+game?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It does not matter,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant.
+“We spoilt it, anyhow. The dear old
+newspapers talk of his losses in big ships as if
+they were all that counted. What has really
+crippled him has been the wiping out of his destroyers
+and fast new cruisers. Without them he
+is helpless. It was a great battle, much more
+decisive than most people think, even in the
+Grand Fleet itself. It was as decisive by sea as
+the Marne was by land. We have destroyed
+Fritz’s mobility.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The men rose and looked out over the bay.
+There below them lay their sea homes, serene,
+invulnerable, and about them stretched the dull,
+dour, treeless landscape of their northern fastness.
+Their minds were as peaceful as the scene. As they
+looked a bright light from the compass platform
+of one of the battleships began to flicker through
+the sunshine—dash, dot, dot, dash. “There goes
+a signal,” said the Commander. “You are great
+at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my
+son.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes,
+and as he read grinned capaciously. “It is some
+wag with a signal lantern,” said he. “It reads:
+Question—Daddy,—what—did—you—do—in—the—Great—War?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I wonder,” observed the Sub-Lieutenant, “what
+new answer the lower deck has found to that
+question. Before the battle their reply was: ‘I
+was kept doubling round the decks, sonny.’ ”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“There goes the signal again,” said the Pongo;
+“and here comes the answer.” He read it out
+slowly as it flashed word after word: “ ‘<span class='sc'>I laid
+the guns true, sonny.</span>’ ”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“And a dashed good answer, too,” cried the
+Commander heartily.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That would make a grand fleet signal before a
+general action,” remarked the Gunnery Lieutenant.
+“I don’t care much for Nelson’s Trafalgar signal.
+It was too high-flown and sentimental for the
+lower deck. It was aimed at the history books,
+rather than at old tarry-breeks of the fleet a
+hundred years ago. No—there could not be a
+better signal than just ‘Lay the Guns True’—carry
+out your orders precisely, intelligently, faultlessly.
+What do you say, my Hun of a classical
+volunteer?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It could not be bettered,” said Cæsar.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I will make a note of it,” said the Gunnery
+Lieutenant, “against the day, when as a future
+Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet into
+action.”</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch01'>CHAPTER I</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>A BAND OF BROTHERS</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.9em;'>“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”—<span class='it'>King Henry V.</span></p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>My boyhood was spent in Devon, the land of
+Drake and the home of the Elizabethan Navy.
+A deep passion for the Sea Service is in my blood,
+though, owing to family circumstances, I was
+not able to indulge my earliest ambition to become
+myself one of the band of brothers who serve under
+the White Ensign. My elder brother lived and
+died afloat. Two of my sons, happier than their
+father, are privileged to play their parts in the
+great ships of the Fleets. So that, though not
+in the Service, I am of it, by ties of blood and
+by ties of the earliest association. Whenever I
+have sought to penetrate its mysteries and to
+interpret them to my fellow countrymen, my
+motive has never been that of mere idle curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Royal Navy wields, and has always wielded,
+a great material force, but the secret of its strength
+lies not in the machines with which it has equipped
+itself in the various stages of its development.
+Vast and terrible as are the ships and the guns,
+they would be of little worth if their design and
+skilful employment were not inspired by that
+spiritual force, compounded of tradition, training,
+devotion and discipline, which I call the Soul of
+the Navy. In the design of its weapons, in its
+mastery of their use, above all in its consummate
+seamanship, the Royal Navy has in all ages surpassed
+its opponents; but it has done these things
+not through some fortuitous gift of the Sea Gods,
+but because of the never-failing development of
+its own spirit. It has always been at a great
+price, in the sacrifice of ease and in the outpouring
+of the lives of men, that the Navy has won
+for itself and for us the freedom of the seas.
+Those who reckon navies in ships and guns, in
+weight of metal and in broadside fire, while
+leaving out of account the spirit and training
+and devotion of the men, can never understand
+the Soul of the Navy. For all these material
+things are the expression of the Soul; they are
+not the Soul itself.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy is still the old English Navy of the
+southern maritime counties of England. It has
+become the Navy of Great Britain, the Navy of
+the British Empire, but in spirit, and to a large
+extent in hereditary personnel, it remains the
+English Navy of the Narrow Seas. Many counties
+play a great part in its equipment, but to me
+it is always the Navy of my own land of Devon;
+officers and men are the lineal successors of those
+bold West Country seamen who in their frail
+barks ranged the wide seas hundreds of years ago
+and first taught to us and to the world the meaning
+of the expression “sea communications.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There is not an officer in the permanent service
+of the Fleets of to-day who was not trained in
+Devon. On the southern seaboard of that county,
+set upon a steep slope overlooking the mouth of
+the most lovely of rivers, stands the Naval College
+in which are being trained those who will guide
+our future Fleets. A little way to the west lies one
+of the greatest of naval ports and arsenals. From
+my county of Devon comes half the Navy of
+to-day, half the men of the Fleet, be they warrant
+officers, seamen or engineers. The atmosphere
+of Devon, soft and sleepy as it may appear to a
+stranger, is electric with the spirit of Drake,
+which is the spirit of Nelson, which is the spirit
+of the boys of Dartmouth. For generation after
+generation, in the old wooden hulks <span class='it'>Britannia</span>
+and <span class='it'>Hindustan</span>, and afterwards in the Naval
+College on the heights, the cadets during their
+most impressionable years have breathed in the
+spirit of the Navy. I have often visited them
+there and loved them; my brother, who worked
+among them and taught them, died there, and
+is buried in the little cemetery which crowns the
+hill where, years ago in a blinding snowstorm, I
+stood beside his open grave and heard the Last
+Post wail above his body. I have always envied
+him that great privilege, to die in the service of
+the Navy and to be buried within hail of the boys
+whom he loved.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The cadets of Dartmouth have learned that the
+Sea Service is an exacting and most jealous mistress
+who brooks no rival. They have learned that
+the Service is everything and themselves nothing.
+They have learned that only by humbly submitting
+themselves to be absorbed into the Service can
+they be deemed to be worthy of that Service.
+The discipline of the Navy is no cast-iron system
+imposed by force and punishment upon unwilling
+men; there is nothing in it of Prussian Militarism.
+It is rather the willing subordination of proud
+free men to the dominating interests of a Service
+to which they have dedicated their lives. The
+note of their discipline is “The Service first, last,
+and all the time.” The Navy resembles somewhat
+a religious Order, but in the individual subordination
+of body, heart, brains and soul there is nothing
+of servitude. The Naval officer is infinitely proud
+and infinitely humble. Infinitely proud of his
+Service, infinitely humble in himself. If an officer
+through error, however pardonable, loses his
+ship—and very young officers have command of
+ships—and in the stern, though always sympathetic,
+judgment of his fellows he must temporarily
+be put upon the shelf, he does not grumble or
+repine. He does not write letters to the papers
+upon his grievances. He accepts the judgment
+loyally, even proudly, and strives to merit a
+return to active employment. No fleshpots in
+the outer world, no honours or success in civil
+employment, ever compensate the naval officer
+for the loss of his career at sea.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>From the circumstances of their lives, so largely
+spent among their fellows at sea or in naval
+harbours, and from their upbringing in naval
+homes and training ships, officers and men grow
+into a class set apart, dedicated as Followers of
+the Sea, in whose eyes the dwellers in cities appear
+as silly chatterers and hucksterers, always seeking
+after some vain thing, be it wealth or rank or
+fame. The discipline of the Navy is, like its
+Soul, apart and distinct from anything which we
+know on land. It is very strict but also very
+human. There is nothing in it of Caste. “I
+expect,” said Drake, “the gentlemen to draw
+with the mariners.” Drake allowed of no distinction
+between “gentlemen” and “mariners”
+except that “gentlemen” were expected always
+to surpass the “mariners” in tireless activity,
+cheerful endurance of hardships, and unshakable
+valour in action. Drake could bear tenderly with
+the diseased grumbling of a scurvy-stricken mariner,
+but the gentleman adventurer who “groused”
+was in grievous peril of a rope and a yard arm.
+The gentlemen adventurers have given place to
+professional naval officers, the mariners have become
+the long-service trained seamen in their
+various grades who have given their lives to the
+Navy, but the spirit of Drake endures to this
+day. The Gentlemen are expected to draw with
+the Mariners.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When a thousand lives and a great ship may be
+lost by the lapse from vigilance of one man, very
+strict discipline is a vital necessity. But as with
+officers so with men it is the discipline of cheerful,
+willing obedience. The spirit of the Navy is
+not the spirit of a Caste. It burns as brightly in
+the seaman as in the lieutenant, in the ship’s
+boy as in the midshipman, in the warrant officer
+as in the “Owner.” It is a discipline hammered
+out by the ceaseless fight with the sea. The Navy
+is always on active service; it is always waging
+an unending warfare with the forces of the sea;
+the change from a state of peace to a state of war
+means only the addition of one more foe—and
+if he be a gallant and chivalrous foe he is welcomed
+gladly as one worthy to kill and to be
+killed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Catch boys young, inure them to Naval discipline,
+and teach them the value of it, and to
+them it will become part of the essential fabric of
+their lives. A good example of how men of Naval
+training cling to the discipline of the Service as
+to a firm unbreakable rope was shown in Captain
+Scott’s South Polar expeditions. Some of
+the officers, and practically the whole of the crews,
+were lent by the Navy, but the expeditions themselves
+were under auspices which were not naval.
+At sea Captain Scott’s legal authority was that of a
+merchant skipper, on land during his exploring
+expeditions he had no legal authority at all. Yet
+all the officers and men, knowing that their lives
+depended upon willing subordination, agreed that
+the discipline both at sea and on land should be
+that of the Navy to which most of them belonged.
+The ships were run exactly as if they had flown
+the White Ensign, and as if their companions were
+under the Navy Act. Strict though it may be,
+there is nothing arbitrary about naval discipline,
+and those who have tested it in peace and war
+know its quality of infinite endurance under any
+strain.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy is a small Service, small in numbers,
+and to this very smallness is partly due the beauty
+of its Soul. For it is a picked Service, and only
+by severe selection in their youth can those be
+chosen who are worthy to remain among its
+permanent members. The professional officers and
+men number only some 150,000, and the great
+temporary war expansion—after the inclusion of
+Naval Reservists, Naval Volunteers, and the
+Division for service on land, did little more than
+treble the active list. The Navy, even then,
+bore upon its rolls names less than one-twelfth
+as numerous as in those legions who were drafted
+into the Army. Yet this small professional Navy,
+by reason of its Soul and the vast machines
+which that Soul secretes and employs with supreme
+efficiency, dominated throughout the war
+the seas of the whole world. The Navy has
+for so long been a wonder and a miracle that we
+have ceased to be thrilled by it; we take it for
+granted; but it remains no less a wonder and a
+miracle.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Many causes have combined to make this little
+group—this few, this happy few, this band of
+brothers—the most splendid human force which
+the world has ever seen. The Naval Service is
+largely hereditary. Officers and men come from
+among those who have served the sea for generations.
+In the Navy List of to-day one may read
+names which were borne upon the ships’ books
+of hundreds of years ago. And since the tradition
+of the sea plays perhaps the greatest part in the
+development of the Naval Soul, this continuity
+of family service, on the lower deck as in the
+wardroom and gun room, needs first to be emphasised.
+The young son of an officer, of a warrant-officer,
+of a seaman, or of a marine, enters the
+Service already more than half trained. He has
+the spirit of the Service in his blood, and its collective
+honour is already his own private honour.
+I remember years ago a naval officer said to me
+sorrowfully, “My only son must go into the
+Service, and yet I fear that he is hardly fit for
+it. He is delicate, shy, almost timid. But what
+can one do?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Is it necessary?” I asked foolishly. He stared
+at me: “We have served from father to son
+since the reign of Charles II.” So the boy entered
+the <span class='it'>Britannia</span>, and I heard no more of
+him until one morning, years after, I saw in an
+Honours List a name which I knew, that of a
+young Lieutenant who had won the rare naval
+V.C. in the Mediterranean. It was my friend’s
+son; blood had triumphed; the delicate, shy,
+almost timid lad had made good.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy catches its men when they are young,
+unspoiled, malleable, and moulds them with deft
+fingers as a sculptor works his clay. Officers
+enter in their early teens—now as boys at Osborne
+who afterwards become naval cadets at Dartmouth.
+Formerly they spent a year or two
+longer at school and entered direct as cadets to
+the <span class='it'>Britannia</span>. The system is essentially the same
+now as it has been for generations. The material
+must be good and young, the best of it is retained
+and the less good rejected. The best is
+moulded and stamped in the Dartmouth workshop,
+and emerges after the bright years of early
+boyhood with the naval hall mark upon it. The
+seamen enter as boys into training-ships, and
+they, too, are moulded and stamped into the naval
+pattern. It is a very exacting but a very just
+education. No one who has been admitted to
+the privilege of training need be rejected except
+by his own fault, and if he is not worthy to be
+continued in training, he is emphatically not
+worthy to serve in the Fleets.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Of late years this system, which requires abundance
+of time for its full working out, has proved
+to be deficient in elasticity. It takes some seven
+years to make a cadet into a sub-lieutenant, while
+a great battleship can be built and equipped in
+little more than two years. The German North
+Sea menace caused a rapid expansion in the output
+of ships, especially of big ships, which far
+outstripped the training of junior officers needed
+for their service. The Osborne-Dartmouth system
+had not failed, far from it, but it was too slow
+for the requirements of the Navy under the new
+conditions. In order to keep up with the demand,
+the supply of naval cadets was increased and
+speeded up by the admission of young men from
+the public schools at the age when they had been
+accustomed to enter for permanent Army commissions.
+A large addition was also made to the
+roll of subalterns of Marines—who received training
+both for sea and land work—and in this way the
+ranks of the junior officers afloat were rapidly
+expanded. There was no departure from the
+Navy’s traditional policy of catching boys young
+and moulding them specially and exclusively for
+the Sea Service; the new methods were avowedly
+additional and temporary, to be modified or
+withdrawn when the need for urgent expansion
+had disappeared. The Navy was clearly right.
+It was obliged to make a change in its system, but
+it made it to as small an extent as would meet the
+conditions of the moment. The second best was
+tacked on to the first best, but the first best was
+retained in being to be reverted to exclusively as
+soon as might be. To catch boys young, preferably
+those with the sea tradition in their blood,
+to teach them during their most impressionable
+years that the Navy must always be to them as
+their father, mother and wedded wife—the exacting
+mistress which demands of them the whole of
+their affections, energies and service, to dedicate
+them in tender years to their Sea Goddess—this
+must always be the way to preserve, in its purest
+undimmed water, that pearl of great price, the
+Soul of the Navy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It follows from the circumstances of their
+training and life that the Navy is a Family of
+which the members are bound together by the
+closest of ties of individual friendship and association.
+It is a Service in which everybody knows
+everybody else, not only by name and reputation
+but by personal contact. During the long years
+of residence at Osborne and Dartmouth, and
+afterwards in the Fleets, at the Greenwich Naval
+College, at the Portsmouth schools of instruction,
+officers widely separated by years and rank learn
+to know one another and to weigh one another in
+the most just of balances—that of actual service.
+Those of us who have passed many years in the
+world of affairs, know that the only reputation
+worth having is that which we earn among those
+of our own profession or craft. And none of us
+upon land are known and weighed with the intimate
+certainty and impartiality which is possible to the
+Sea Service. We are not seen at close contact
+and under all conditions of work and play, and
+never in the white light which an ever-present
+peril casts upon our worth and hardihood. No
+fictitious reputation is possible in the Navy itself
+as it is possible in the world outside. Officers
+may, through the exercise of influence, be placed
+in positions over the heads of others of greater
+worth, they may be written and talked about by
+civilians in the newspapers as among the most
+brilliant in their profession—especially in time of
+peace—but the Navy, which has known them
+from youth to age inside and out, is not deceived.
+The Navy laughs at many of the reputations
+which we poor civilians ignorantly honour. No
+naval reputation is of any value whatever unless
+it be endorsed by the Navy itself. And the Navy
+does not talk. How many newspaper readers,
+for instance, had heard of Admiral Jellicoe before
+he was placed in command of the Grand Fleet at
+the outbreak of war? But the Navy knew all
+about him and endorsed the choice.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>What I write of officers applies with equal force
+to the men, to the long-service ratings, the petty
+officers and warrant officers who form the backbone
+of the Service. They, too, are caught young,
+drawn wherever possible from sea families, moulded
+and trained into the naval pattern, stamped after
+many years with the hall mark of the Service.
+It is a system which has bred a mutual confidence
+and respect between officers and men as unyielding
+as armour-plate. Before the battle of May 31st,
+1916, the Grand Fleet had gone forth looking for
+Fritz many times and finding him not. Little
+was expected, but if the unexpected did happen,
+then officers believed in their long-service ratings
+as profoundly as did these dear old grumblers in
+their leaders. Many times in the wardrooms of
+the battle squadrons the prospects of action
+would be discussed and always in the same way.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“No, it’s not likely to be anything, but if it
+is what we’ve been waiting for, I have every
+confidence in our long-service ratings if the Huns
+are really out for blood. You know what I mean—those
+grizzled old G.L.I.s (gun-layers, first-class),
+and gunners’ mates and horny-handed old A.B.s
+whom we curse all day for their damned obstinacy.
+The Huns think that two years make
+a gunlayer; we know that even twelve years are
+not enough. Our long-service ratings would pull
+the country through, even if we hadn’t the mechanical
+advantage over Fritz which we actually
+possess. And the combination of the long-service
+ratings and the two-Power standard will, when we
+get to work upon him, give Fritz furiously to
+think.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Even when the great expansion among the big
+fighting ships called for a corresponding expansion
+in the crews, little essential change was made in
+the system which had bred confidence such as
+this. There was some slight dilution. Officers
+and men of the R.N.R. and the Naval Volunteers,
+to the extent of about 10 per cent., were drafted
+into the first-line battleships, but the cream of the
+professional service was kept for the first fighting
+line. For the most part the new temporary
+Navy, of admirable material drawn from our
+almost limitless maritime population, was kept
+at work in the Fringes of the Fleet—the mine-sweepers,
+armed liners, blockading patrols, and
+so on—where less technical navy skill was required,
+and where invaluable service could be and was
+done. The professional Navy has the deepest
+respect and gratitude for the devoted work discharged
+by its amateur auxiliaries.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy is a young man’s service. In no
+other career in life are the vital energies, the
+eager spirits, the glowing capacities of youth
+given such ample opportunities for expression. A
+naval officer can become a proud “Owner,” with
+an independent command of a destroyer or submarine,
+at an age when in a civil profession he
+would be entrusted with scanty responsibilities.
+In civil life there is a horrible waste of youth; it
+is kept down, largely left unused, by the jealousy
+of age. But the Navy, which is very wise, makes
+the most of every hour of it. The small craft, the
+Fringes of the Fleet as Mr. Kipling calls them,
+the eyes and ears and guardians of the big ships,
+the patrol boats, submarines and destroyers, are
+captained by youngsters under thirty, often under
+twenty-five. The land crushes youth, the sea
+allows and encourages its fine flower to expand.
+Naval warfare is directed by grave men, but is
+to an enormous extent carried on by bright boys.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But the Navy which employs youth more fully
+than any other service, also uses it up more remorselessly.
+Unless an officer can reach the rank
+of Commander—a rank above that of a Major
+in the Army—when he is little more than thirty
+he has a very scanty chance in time of peace
+of ever serving afloat as a full Captain. The
+small ships are many in number, but the big
+ships are comparatively few. Only the best of
+the best can become Commanders at an age which
+enables them to reach post rank in that early
+manhood which is a necessity for the command
+of a modern super-Dreadnought. Many of those
+who do become Captains in the early forties have
+to eat out their hearts upon half-pay because there
+are not enough big ships in commission to go
+round. It is only in time of war that the whole
+of our Fleets are mobilised. Some years ago I
+was dining with several naval officers from a
+battle squadron which lay in the Firth of Forth.
+Beside me sat a young man looking no more
+than thirty-five, and actually little older. He was
+a Captain I knew, and in course of conversation I
+asked for the name of his ship. “The <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span>,”
+said he. This was the time when the
+name and fame of the first <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span>, the first
+all-big-gun ship which revolutionised the construction
+of the battle line, was ringing through
+the world. And yet here was this famous ship
+in charge of a young smooth-faced fellow, younger
+than myself, and I did not then consider that I
+was middle-aged! “Are you not rather young?”
+I enquired diffidently. He smiled, “We need to
+be young,” said he. Then I understood. It
+came home to me that the modern Navy, with
+its incredibly rapid development in machinery,
+must have in its executive officers those precious
+qualities of adaptability and quick perception,
+that readiness to be always learning and testing,
+seeking and finding the best new ways of solving
+old problems, which can only be found in youth.
+Youth is of the essence of the Navy, it always has
+been so and it probably always will be. Youth
+learns quickly, and the Naval officer is always
+learning. In civil life we enter our professions,
+we struggle through our examinations as doctors
+or lawyers or engineers, and then we are content
+to pass our lives in practice and forget our books.
+But the naval officer, whose active life is passed
+on the salt sea, is ever a student. He goes backwards
+and forwards between the sea and the
+schools. There is no stage and no rank at which
+his education stops. Gunnery, torpedo practice,
+electricity, navigation, naval strategy, and tactics
+are all rapidly progressive sciences. A few years,
+a very few years, and a whole scheme of practice
+becomes obsolete. So the naval officer needs for
+ever to be passing from the sea to the <span class='it'>Vernon</span>, or
+the <span class='it'>Excellent</span>, or to Greenwich, where he is kept
+up-to-date and given a perennial opportunity to
+develop the best that is in him. From fifteen to
+forty he is always learning, always testing, always
+growing, and then—unless his luck is very great—he
+has to give way to the rising youth of other
+men and rest himself unused upon the shelf. The
+highest posts are not for him. It is very remorseless
+the way in which the Navy uses and uses up
+its youth, and very touching the devoted humble
+way in which that youth submits to be so used
+up. The Navy is ever growing in science and in
+knowledge, it must always have of the best—the
+remorselessness with which it chooses only of
+the best, and the patience with which those who
+are not of the best submit without repining to
+its devices, are of the Soul of the Navy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Admiral Sir David Beatty became Commander-in-Chief
+of the Grand Fleet at the age of forty-five.
+In years of life and of service he was junior to
+half the Captains’ List. He had sprung by merit
+and by opportunity some ten years above his
+contemporaries at Dartmouth. First in the Soudan,
+when serving in the flotilla of gunboats, he won
+promotion from Lieutenant to Commander at the
+age of twenty-seven. Again at Tien-tsin in China,
+his chance came, and in 1900, while still under
+thirty, he reached the captain’s rank. When the
+war broke out he was a Rear-Admiral in command
+of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and was
+given the acting rank of Vice-Admiral. He is
+now an acting Admiral, and his seniors in years,
+and even in rank, willingly serve beneath him.
+Admiral Beatty is not a scientific sailor, and is
+not wedded to the Service as are most of his
+brother officers. But for the outbreak of the war he
+would probably have retired. Yet no one questions
+his pre-eminent fitness for his dazzling
+promotion. He has that rare indefinable quality
+of leadership of men and of war instinct which
+cannot be revealed except by war itself. When,
+by fortunate chance, this quality is discovered in
+an officer it is instantly recognised as beyond price,
+and cherished at its full worth.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Naval system which teaches subordination,
+also teaches independence. If to men roaming
+over the seas in command of ships, orders come, it
+is well; if orders do not come it is also well—they
+get on very well without them. If the entire
+Admiralty were wiped out by German bombs,
+My Lords and the whole staff destroyed, the Navy
+would, in its own language, “proceed” to carry
+on. In the middle of the political crisis of December
+1916, when a new Naval Board of Admiralty
+had just been appointed, I asked a senior officer
+how the new lot were getting on. He said:
+“There isn’t any First Lord. The First Sea Lord
+is in bed with influenza. The Second Sea Lord is
+in bed with influenza. The Third Sea Lord is in
+bed with influenza. The Fourth Sea Lord is at
+work but is sickening for influenza. <span class='it'>But the Navy
+is all right.</span>” That is the note of serene confidence
+which distinguishes the Sea Service. Whatever
+happens, the Navy is all right.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy is a poor man’s Service. It is a real
+profession in which the officers as a rule live on
+their pay and ask for little more. Men of great
+houses will enter the Army in time of peace and
+regard it as a mild occupation, men of money will
+enter for the social position which it may give to
+them. But no man of rank or of money in search
+of a “cushy job,” was ever such an ass as to
+look for it in the Navy. Few officers in the Navy—except
+among those who have entered in quite
+recent years—have any resources beyond their
+pay; many of them are born to it, and in their
+families there have been scanty opportunities for
+saving. The Admiralty, until quite recently, required
+that young officers upon entry into the Navy
+or the Marines should be allowed small specified
+sums until they attained in service pay the eminence
+of about 11<span class='it'>s.</span> a day, and also that a complete
+uniform equipment should be provided for
+them; but after that initial help from home
+they were expected to make their pay suffice. And
+in the great majority of cases they did what was
+expected of them. Living is cheap in the Sea
+Service. Ships pay no duties upon their stores,
+and there are few opportunities afloat for the
+wasting of money. Mess bills in wardroom and
+gun-room are small, and must be kept small,
+or the captain will arise in wrath and ask to be
+informed (in writing) of the reason why. Ere
+now young men have been dismissed their ships
+for persistently running up too large a wine bill;
+and to be dismissed one’s ship means not only a
+bad mark in the Admiralty’s books, but loss of
+seniority, which in turn means an extra early
+retirement upon that exiguous half-pay which looms
+always like a dark cloud upon the naval horizon.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Unhappily for its officers and the country the
+Navy has not been a married man’s service; it
+has been too exacting to tolerate a divided allegiance.
+Sometimes poor young things under stress
+of emotion have got married, and then has begun
+for them the most cruel and ageing of struggles—the
+man at sea hard put to it to keep up his position,
+simple though it be; the wife ashore in poor
+lodgings or in some tiny villa, lonely, struggling,
+growing old too fast for her years; children who
+rarely see their father, and whose prospects are
+of the gloomiest. I do not willingly put my pen
+to this picture. Young Navy men, glowing with
+health and virile energy, and the spirit of the
+Service, are very attractive creatures to whom
+goes out the love of women, but though they, too,
+may love, they are usually compelled to sail away.
+It is well for them then if they are as firmly
+wedded to the Service as the Roman priest is to
+his Church, and if they are not always as continent
+as the priest, who is so free from sin that he will
+dare to cast a stone at them? If the country
+and its rulers had any belief in heredity, of which
+the evidence stares at them from the eyes of every
+naval son born to the Service, they would grant
+to a young officer a year of leave in which to be
+married, and pay to him and to his mate a handsome
+subsidy for every splendid son whom they
+laid in the cradles of the Service of the future.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Of late years there has been a change. The rapid
+expansion of the Fleets has brought in many young
+cadets of commercial families, whose parents have
+far more money than is wholly good for their sons.
+The Navy is not so completely a poor man’s service
+as it was even ten years ago. The junior officers
+are, some of them, too well off. Not long since, a
+senior Captain was lamenting this change in my
+presence. “The snotties now,” he groaned, “all
+keep motor bicycles, the sub-lieutenants are not
+happy till they own cars, and the Lieutenant-Commanders
+think nothing of getting married.
+All this has been the result of concentrating the
+Fleets in home waters. Germany compelled us
+to do it, but the Service was the better for the
+three-year Commissions on foreign stations.” All
+this is true. The junior ranks are getting richer.
+At sea they can spend little, but ashore and in
+harbour there are opportunities for gold to corrupt
+the higher virtues. For my part, however, I have
+the fullest confidence in the training and the example
+of the older officers. In this war there has been
+nothing to suggest that the young Navy is less
+devoted and self-sacrificing than the old. The
+wealthier boys may take their fling on leave—and
+who can blame them?—but at sea the Service
+comes first.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We love that most which is most hardly won.
+And the Navy men love their Service, not because
+it is easy but because of the hardness of it, and
+because of the sacrifices which it exacts from them.
+It fastens its grip upon them in those first years
+between fifteen and twenty, and the grip grows
+ever tighter with the flight of time. It is at its
+very tightest when the dreadful hour of retirement
+arrives. When War broke out, in August 1914,
+it was hailed with joy by the active Navy afloat,
+but their joy was as water unto wine in comparison
+with that which transfigured the retired Navy
+ashore. For them at long last the impossible had
+crystallised into fact. For those who were still
+young enough, the uniforms were waiting ready
+in the tin boxes upstairs, and it was but a short
+step from their house doors to the decks of a
+King’s ship. Once more their gallant names
+could be written in the Active List of their Navy.
+They hastened back, these eager ones, and if
+there was no employment for them in their own
+rank, they snatched at that in any other rank
+which offered. Captains R.N. became commanders
+and even lieutenants R.N.R. in the Fringes.
+Admirals became temporary captains. There were
+indeed at one time no fewer than nineteen retired
+admirals serving as temporary officers R.N.R. in
+armed liners.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If you would understand how the Navy loves
+the Service, how that love is not a part of their
+lives, but is their lives, reflect upon the case of one
+aged officer. I will not give his name; he would
+not wish it. He had been in retirement for nearly
+forty years, too old for service in his rank, too old
+possibly for service in any rank. But his pleadings
+for employment afloat softened the understanding
+hearts at Whitehall. He was allowed to rejoin
+and to serve as a temporary Lieutenant-Commander
+in an armed yacht which assisted the
+ex-Brazilian monitors sent to bombard the Belgian
+coast. There against Zeebrugge he served among
+kindly lads young enough to be his grandsons,
+and there with them and among them he was
+killed—the oldest officer serving afloat. And he
+was happy in his death. Not Wolfe before Quebec,
+not Nelson in the cockpit of the <span class='it'>Victory</span>, were
+happier or more glorious in their deaths than was
+that temporary Lieutenant-Commander (transferred
+at his own request from the retired list)
+who fought his last fight upon the decks of an
+armed yacht and died as he would have prayed
+to die.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Navy hates advertisement and scorns above
+all things in heaven or upon earth the indiscriminating
+praise of well-meaning civilians. I sadly
+realise that it may scorn me and this book of
+mine. But I will do my best to make amends. I
+will promise that never once in describing their
+deeds will I refer to Navy men as “heroes.” I
+will not, where I can possibly avoid doing so,
+mention the name of anyone. I will do my
+utmost at all times to write of them as men and
+not as “b—— angels.” I will, at the peril of
+some inconsistency, declare my conviction that
+naval officers haven’t any souls, that they are in
+the Service because they love it, and not because
+they care two pins for their country, that they
+are rather pleased than otherwise when rotten
+civilians at home get a bad fright from a raid. I
+will declare that they catch and sink German
+submarines by all manner of cunning devices,
+from the sheer zest of sport, and not because they
+would raise a finger to save the lives of silly passengers
+in luxurious ocean liners. I will do anything
+to turn their scorn away from me except to
+withdraw one word which I have written upon
+the Soul of the Navy. For upon this subject they
+would, I believe, write as I do if the gods had
+given to them leisure for philosophical analysis—which
+they are much too busy to bother about—and
+the knack of verbally expressing their thoughts.
+When I read a naval despatch I always groan
+over it as an awful throwing away of the most
+splendid opportunities. I always long to have
+been in the place of the writer, to have seen what
+he saw, to know what he knew, and to tell the
+world in living phrase what tremendous deeds
+were really done. Naval despatches are the baldest
+of documents, cold, formal, technical, most forbiddingly
+uninspiring. Whenever I ask naval
+officers why they do not put into despatches the
+vivid details which sometimes find their way into
+private letters they glare at me, and even their
+beautiful courtesy can scarcely keep back the
+sniff of contempt. “Despatches,” say they, “are
+written for the information of the Admiralty.”
+That is a complete answer under the Naval Code.
+The despatches, which make one groan, are written
+for the information of the Admiralty, not to thrill
+poor creatures such as you and me. A naval
+officer cares only for his record at the Admiralty
+and for his reputation among those of his own
+craft. If a newspaper calls Lieutenant A—— B——
+a hero, and writes enthusiastically of his valour,
+he shudders as would a modest woman if publicly
+praised for her chastity. Valour goes with the
+Service, it is a part of the Soul of the Navy. It is
+taken for granted and is not to be talked or written
+about. And so with those other qualities that
+spring from the traditions of the Navy—the
+chivalry which risks British lives to save those of
+drowning enemies, the tenderness which binds up
+their wounds, the honours paid to their dead.
+All these things, which the Royal Navy never
+forgets and the German Navy for the most part
+has never learned, are taken for granted and
+are not to be talked of or written about.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It is inevitable from the nature of its training
+that the Navy should be intensely self-centred.
+If one catches a boy when he has but recently
+emerged from the nursery, teaches him throughout
+his active life that there is but one work fit for
+the service of man, dedicates him to it by the
+strictest discipline, cuts him off by the nature
+of his daily life from all intimate contact with or
+understanding of the world which moves upon
+land, his imagination will be atrophied by disuse.
+He will become absorbed into the Naval life which
+is a life entirely of its own, apart and distinct
+from all other lives. There is a deep gulf set
+between the Naval life and all other lives which
+very few indeed of the Navy ever seek to cross.
+Their attitude towards civilians is very like that
+of the law-making statesman of old who said:
+“The people have nothing to do with the laws
+except to obey them.” If the Navy troubled to
+think of civilians at all—it never does unless they
+annoy it with their futile chatter in Parliament
+and elsewhere—it would say: “Civilians have
+nothing to do with the Navy except to pay for
+it.” Keen as is the imaginative foresight of the
+Navy in regard to everything which concerns its
+own honour and effectiveness, it is utterly lacking
+in any sympathetic imaginative understanding of
+the intense civilian interest in itself and in its
+work. We poor creatures who stand outside, I
+who write and you who read, do in actual fact
+love the Navy only a little less devotedly than the
+Navy loves its own Service. We long to understand
+it, to help it, and to pay for it. We know
+what we owe to it, but we would ask, in all proper
+humility, that now and then the Navy would
+realise and appreciate the certain fact that it
+owes some little of its power and success to us.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I cannot in a formula define the collective Soul
+of the Navy. It is a moral atmosphere which cannot
+be chemically resolved. It is a subtle and elusive
+compound of tradition, self sacrifice, early training,
+willing discipline, youth, simplicity, valour, chivalry,
+lack of imagination, and love of the Service—and
+the greatest of these is Love. I have tried to
+indicate what it is, how it has given to this wonderful
+Navy of ours a terrible unity, a terrible force,
+and an even more terrible intelligence; how it
+has transformed a body of men into a gigantic
+spiritual Power which expresses its might in the
+forms and means of naval warfare. I cannot
+exactly define it, but I can in a humble faltering
+way do my best to reveal it in its working.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch02'>CHAPTER II</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>THE COMING OF WAR</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Our Navy has played the great game of war by
+sea for too many hundreds of years ever to under-rate
+its foes. It is even more true of the sea than
+of the land that the one thing sure to happen is
+that which is unexpected. Until they have measured
+by their own high standards the quality
+of an enemy, our officers and men rate him in
+valour, in sea skill, and in masterful ingenuity as
+fully the equal of themselves. Until August 1914
+the Royal Navy had never fought the German,
+and had no standards of experience by which to
+assay him. The Navy had known the maritime
+nations of Europe and fought them many times,
+but the Germans, a nation of landsmen artificially
+converted into sailors within a single generation,
+were a problem both novel and baffling. Eighteen
+years before the War, Germany had no navy
+worth speaking of in comparison with ours; during
+those fateful years she built ships and guns, trained
+officers and men, and secured her sea bases on
+the North Sea and in the Baltic at a speed and
+with a concentrated enthusiasm which were wholly
+wonderful and admirable. “The Future of Germany
+lies on the water,” cried the Kaiser one day,
+and his faithful people took up the cry. “We
+here and now challenge Britain upon her chosen
+element.” Quite seriously and soberly the German
+Navy Law of 1900 issued this challenge, and the
+Fatherland settled down to its prodigious task
+with a serene confidence and an extraordinary
+energy which won for it the ungrudging respect
+of its future foes.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Perhaps the Royal Navy in those early years
+of the twentieth century, and especially in 1913
+and 1914, became just a little bit infected by the
+mental disease of exalting everything German,
+which had grown into an obsession among many
+Englishmen. At home during the War men
+oppressed by their enemy’s land power, would
+talk as if one German cut in two became two
+Germans. German organisation, German educational
+training, German mechanical and scientific
+skill are very good, but they are not superhuman.
+Their failures, like those of other folk, are fully
+as numerous as their successes. In trade they
+won many triumphs over us because British
+trading methods were individualistic and were
+totally lacking in national direction and support.
+But the Royal Navy is in every respect wholly
+distinct from every other British institution. It
+is the one and only National Service which has
+always declined to recognise in its practice the
+British policy of muddling through. It is the one
+Service with a mind and an iron Soul of its very
+own. So that when Germany set to work to
+create out of nothing a navy to compete with our
+own, she was up against a vast spiritual power
+which she did not understand, the Soul of the
+Navy, that unifying dominating force which gives
+to it an incomparable strength. She was up, too,
+against that experience of the sea and of sea
+warfare in a race of islanders which had been living
+and growing since the days of King Alfred. The
+wonderful thing is this: not that the German Navy
+has at no point been able to bear comparison with
+ours—in design of ships, in quality and weight of
+guns, in sea cunning, in sea training and in hardihood—but
+that in the few short years of the
+present century the German Navy should have
+been built at all, manned at all, trained at all.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As the German Navy grew, and our ships came
+in contact with those of the Germans, especially
+upon foreign stations, our naval officers and men
+came to regard their future foes with much respect
+and even with admiration. We knew how great a
+task the Germans had set to themselves, and were
+astonished at the speed with which they made
+themselves efficient. I have often been told that
+during the years immediately before the war, the
+relations between English and German naval officers
+and men were more close than those between
+English officers and men and the sailors
+of any other navy. It became recognised that
+in the Germans we should have foemen of undoubted
+gallantry and of no less undoubted skill.
+There are few officers and men in our Fleets who
+do not know personally and admire their opposite
+numbers upon the enemy’s side, and though our
+foes have in many ways broken the rules of war
+as understood and practised by us, one never
+hears the Royal Navy call the Germans “pirates.”
+Expressions such as this one are left to civilians.
+When Mr. Churchill announced that the officers
+and crews of captured U boats would be treated
+differently from those taken in surface ships, the
+Navy strongly disapproved. To them it seemed
+that the responsibility for breaches of international
+law and practice lay not with naval officers and
+men, whose duty it was to carry out the orders
+of the superiors, but that it lay with the superiors
+who gave those orders. To retaliate upon subordinate
+officers and men for the crimes of their
+political chiefs seemed cowardly, and worse—it
+struck a blow at the whole fabric of naval discipline
+not only in the German but in every other Service,
+including our own. Our officers saw more clearly
+than did the then First Lord that no Naval Service
+can remain efficient for a day if it be encouraged
+to discriminate between the several orders conveyed
+to it, and to claim for itself a moral right
+to select what shall be obeyed and what disobeyed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Germany had no maritime traditions and a
+scanty seafaring population to assist her. Her
+seaboard upon the North Sea is a maze of shallows
+and sandbanks, through which devious channels
+leading to her naval and commercial bases are
+kept open only by continuous dredging. God has
+made Plymouth Sound, Spithead and the Firth of
+Forth; the Devil, it is alleged, has been responsible
+for Scapa and the Pentland Firth in winter; but
+man, German man, has made the navigable mouths
+of the Elbe, the Weser and the Ems. The Baltic
+is an inland sea upon which the coasting trade had
+for centuries been mainly in the hands of Scandinavians.
+Until late in the nineteenth century
+Germany was one of the least maritime of all
+nations; almost at a leap she sprang into the
+position of one of the greatest. It is said that
+peoples get the governments which they deserve;
+it is certainly true that when peoples are blind
+their governments shut their eyes. In the Country
+of the Blind the one-eyed man is not King; he is
+flung out for having the impertinence to pretend
+to see. In a state of blindness or of careless
+indifference we made Germany a present of Heligoland
+in 1890. It looked a poor thing, a crumbling
+bit of waste rock, and when the Kaiser asked for
+it he received the gift almost without discussion.
+Both our Government and Court at that time
+were almost rabidly pro-German. We all cherished
+so much suspicion of France and Russia that we
+had none left to spare for Germany. Heligoland
+was then of no great use to us, but it was of incalculable
+value to our future enemies. A German
+Heligoland fortified, equipped with airship sheds
+and long-distance wireless, a shelter for submarines,
+was to the new German Navy only second in
+value to the Kiel Canal. Islands do not “command”
+anything beyond range of their guns,
+especially when they have no harbours; but
+Heligoland, though it in no sense commanded the
+approach to the German bases, was an invaluable
+outpost and observation station. It is a little
+island of crumbling red rock, preserved only by
+man’s labour from vanishing into the sea; it is
+a mile long and less than one-third of a mile wide;
+it is 28 miles from the nearest mainland. Yet
+when we gave to Germany this scrap of wasting
+rock, we gave her the equivalent in naval value
+of a fleet. We secured her North Sea bases
+from our sudden attacks, and we gave her an
+observation station from which she could direct
+attacks against ourselves.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Heligoland, a free gift from us, was the first
+asset, a most valuable asset, which Germany was
+able to place to the credit side of her naval balance
+sheet. Other assets were rapidly acquired. In
+1898 the building of the new navy seriously began,
+in 1900 was passed the famous German Navy
+Law setting forth a continuous programme of
+expansion, the back alley between the North Sea
+and the Baltic was cut through the isthmus of
+Schleswig-Holstein, and Germany as a Sea Power
+rose into being. The British people, at first
+amused and slightly contemptuous, became alarmed,
+and the Royal Navy, always watchful, never
+boastful, never undervaluing any possible opponent,
+settled down to deal in its own supremely
+efficient fashion with the German Menace.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Neither the British people nor the Royal Navy
+were lacking in confidence in themselves, but
+neither the people nor the Navy—we are, perhaps,
+the least analytical race on earth—realised the
+immovable foundation upon which their confidence
+was based. The people were wise; they simply
+trusted to the Navy and gave to it whatever it
+asked. But the Navy, though fully alive to the
+value of its own traditions, training, and centuries-old
+skill, did not fully understand that the source
+of its own immense striking force was moral rather
+than material. Like its critics it thought over
+much in machines, and when it saw across the
+North Sea the outpouring of ships and guns and
+men which Germany called her Navy, it became
+not a little anxious about the result of a sudden
+unforeseen collision. It was, if anything, over
+anxious.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But while this is true of the Navy as a whole,
+it is not true of the higher naval command. Away
+hidden in Whitehall, immersed in the study of
+problems for which the data were known and
+from which no secrets were hid, sat those who had
+taken the measure of the German efforts and
+gauged the value of them more justly than could
+the Germans themselves. They, the silent ones,—who
+never talked to representatives of the Press
+or inspired articles in the newspapers—knew that
+the German ships, especially the all-big-gun ships,
+generically but rather misleadingly called “Dreadnoughts,”
+were in nearly every class inferior copies
+of our own ships of two or three years earlier.
+The Royal Navy designed and built the first
+Dreadnought at Portsmouth in fifteen months,
+and preserved so rigid a secrecy about her details
+that she was a “mystery ship” till actually in
+commission. This lead of fifteen months, so skilfully
+and silently acquired, became in practice
+three years, for it reduced to waste paper all the
+German designs. The first Dreadnought was commissioned
+by us on December 11th, 1906; it
+was not until May 3rd, 1910, that the Germans
+put into service the first <span class='it'>Nassaus</span>, which were
+inferior copies. Our lead gained in 1906 was
+more than maintained, and each batch of German
+designs showed that step by step they had to
+wait upon us to reveal to them the path of naval
+progress. With us the upward rush was extraordinarily
+rapid; with the Germans it was slow
+and halting—they were slow to grasp what we
+were about and were then slow to interpret in
+steel those of our intentions which they were able
+to discern. Once our Navy had adopted the
+revolutionary idea of the all-big-gun ship—the
+design was perhaps an evolution rather than a
+revolution—its constructors and designers developed
+the principle with the most astonishing
+rapidity. The original <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span> was out of
+date in the designers’ minds within a year of her
+completion. After two or three years she was what
+the Americans call “a back number,” and when
+the War broke out we had in hand—some of
+them nearly completed—the great class of <span class='it'>Queen
+Elizabeths</span> with 25 knots of speed and eight 15-⁠inch
+guns, vessels as superior to the first <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span>
+in fighting force as she was herself superior to
+the light German battleships which her appearance
+cast upon the scrap heap. And Germany, in
+spite of her patient efforts, her system of espionage—which
+rarely seemed to discover anything of
+real importance—and her outpouring of gold,
+had even then as her best battleships vessels little
+better than our first <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span>. It is scarcely
+an exaggeration to say that the five <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeths</span>
+and the five <span class='it'>Royal Sovereigns</span> which we put
+into commission during the war, equipped with
+eighty 15-⁠inch guns, could have taken on with
+ease the whole of the German battle fleet as it
+existed in August 1914. Up to the outbreak of
+war, at each stage in the race for weight of guns,
+power and speed, Britain remained fully two
+years ahead of Germany in quality and a great
+deal more than two years ahead in magnitude of
+output. During the war, as I will show later on,
+the British lead was prodigiously increased and
+accelerated.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In its inmost heart, and especially in the heart
+of the higher command, the Royal Navy knew
+that German designers of big ships were but pale
+copyists of their own, and that the shipyards of
+Danzig and Stettin and Hamburg could not
+compete in speed or in quantity with its own
+yards and those of its contractors in England
+and Scotland. And yet knowing these things,
+there was an undercurrent of anxiety ever present
+both in the Navy and in those circles within its
+sphere of influence. It seemed to some anxious
+minds—especially of civilian naval students—that
+what was known could not be the whole truth, and
+that the Germans—belief in whose ingenuity and
+resources had become an obsession with many
+people—must have some wonderful unknown ships
+and still more wonderful guns hidden in the deep
+recesses behind the Frisian sandbanks. In those
+days, a year or two before August 1914, men who
+ought to have known better would talk gravely of
+secret shipyards where stupendous vessels were
+under construction, and of secret gunshops where
+the superhuman Krupps were at work upon designs
+which would change the destinies of nations.
+Anyone who has ever seen a battleship upon a
+building slip, and knows how few are the slips
+which can accommodate them and how few are
+the builders competent to make them, and how
+few can build the great guns and gun mountings,
+will smile at the idea of secret yards and secret
+construction. Details may be kept secret, as
+with the first <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span> and with many of our
+super-battleships, but the main dimensions and
+purpose of a design are glaringly conspicuous to
+the eyes of the Royal Navy’s Intelligence Service.
+One might as well try to hide a Zeppelin as a
+battleship.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As with ships so with guns. I will deal in
+another chapter with the Navy’s belief, fully
+justified in action, in the bigger gun—the straight
+shooting, hard hitting naval gun of ever-expanding
+calibre—and in the higher speed of ships which
+enables the bigger gun to be used at its most
+effective range. There was nothing new in this
+belief; it was the ripe fruit of all naval experience.
+Speed without hitting power is of little use in the
+battle line; hitting power without speed gives
+to an enemy the advantage of manœuvre and
+of escape; but speed and hitting power, both
+greater than those of an enemy, spell certain
+annihilation for him. He can neither fight nor
+run away. Given sufficient light and sea room
+for a fight to the finish, he must be destroyed.
+The North Sea deadlock is due to lack of room.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Our guns developed in size and in power as
+rapidly as did our great ships in the capacity to
+carry and use them. Krupps have a very famous
+name, made famous beyond their merits by the
+extravagant adulation which for years past has
+been poured upon them in our own country by
+our own people. The Germans are a race of
+egotists, but they have never exalted themselves,
+and everything that is German, to the utterly
+absurd heights to which many fearful Englishmen
+have exalted them in England. Krupps have
+been bowed down to and almost worshipped as
+the Gods of Terror. Their supreme capacity for
+inventing and constructing the best possible guns
+has been taken as proved beyond the need of demonstration.
+But Krupps were not and are not supermen;
+they have had to learn their trade like
+more humble folk, and naval gun-making is not a
+trade which can be taken up one day and made
+perfect on the next. Krupps are good gun-makers,
+but our own naval gunshops have for
+years outclassed them at every point—in design,
+in size, in power, in quality, and in speed of
+production. The long wire-wound naval gun, a
+miracle of patient workmanship, is British not
+German. While Krupps were labouring to make
+11-⁠inch guns which would shoot straight and not
+“droop” at the muzzle, our Navy was designing
+and making 12-⁠inch and 13.5-⁠inch weapons of
+far greater power and accuracy; when Krupps
+had at last achieved good 12-⁠inch guns, we were
+turning out rapidly 15-⁠inch weapons of equal
+precision and far greater power. In naval guns
+Krupps lag far behind us. And even in land
+guns—well, the huge siege howitzers which battered
+Liège and Namur into powder, came not
+from Essen but from the Austrian Skoda Works at
+Pilsen! And among field guns, the best of the
+best by universal acclaim is the French <span class='it'>Soixante
+Quinze</span>, in design and workmanship entirely the
+product of French artistic skill. War is a sad
+leveller, and it has not been very kind to Krupps.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Collectively, the Navy is a fount of serene
+knowledge and wisdom, and has been fully conscious
+of its superiority in men, in ships, and in
+guns, but individual naval officers afloat or ashore
+are not always either learned or wise. Foolish
+things were thought and said in 1913 and in 1914,
+which one can now recall with a smile and charitably
+endeavour to forget.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Royal Navy was, and is, as superior to
+that of Germany in officers and men as in ships
+and in guns. Indeed the one is the direct and
+inevitable consequence of the other. Ships and
+guns are not imposed upon the Navy by some
+outside intelligence; they are secretions from
+the brains and experience and traditions of the
+Service itself; they are the expressions in machinery
+of its Soul. One always comes back to
+this fundamental fact when making any comparison
+of relative values in men or in machines. It
+was the Navy’s Soul which conceived and made
+ready the ships and the guns. The officers and
+men are the temporary embodiment of that immortal
+Soul; it is preserved and developed in
+them, and through them is passed on to succeeding
+generations in the Service.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Though the German Navy had not had time
+or opportunity to evolve within itself that dominant
+moral force which I have called a naval Soul, it
+contained both officers and men of notable fighting
+quality and efficiency. The Royal Navy no more
+under-rated the personality of its German opponents
+than it under-rated their ships and their
+guns. We English, though in foreign eyes we
+may appear to be self-satisfied, even bumptious,
+are at heart rather diffident. No nation on earth
+publicly depreciates itself as we do; no nation
+is so willing to proclaim its own weaknesses and
+follies and crimes. Much of this self-depreciation
+is mere humbug, little more sincere than our
+confession on Sunday that we are “miserable
+sinners,” but much of it is the result of our native
+diffidence. No Scotsman was ever mistrustful of
+himself or of his race, but very many Englishmen
+quite genuinely are. And the Navy being, as it
+always has been, English of the English, tends
+to be modest, even diffident. It is always learning,
+always testing itself, always seeking after improvement;
+it realises out of the fullness of its experience
+how much still remains to be learned,
+and becomes inevitably diffident of its very great
+knowledge and skill. No man is so modest as
+the genuine unchallengeable expert.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If one cannot improvise ships and guns of the
+highest quality by an exercise of the Imperial will,
+still less can one improvise the officers and men
+who have to man and use them. But Germany
+tried to do both. The German Navy could not
+secrete its ships and guns, for there was no considerable
+German navy a score of years ago; the
+machines were designed and provided for it by
+Vulcan and Schichau and Krupps, and the personnel
+to fight them had to be collected and trained
+from out of the best available material. The
+officers were largely drawn from Prussian families
+which for generations had served in the Army, and
+had in their blood that sense of discipline and
+warlike fervour which are invaluable in the leaders
+of any fighting force. But they had in them also
+the ruthless temper of the German Army, which
+we have seen revealed in its frightful worst in
+Belgium, Serbia and Poland; they knew nothing
+of that kindly chivalrous spirit which is born out
+of the wide salt womb of the Sea Mother. Many
+of these officers, though lacking in the Sea Spirit,
+were highly competent at their work. Von Spee’s
+Pacific Squadron, which beat Craddock off Coronel
+and was a little later annihilated by Sturdee off
+the Falkland Islands, was, officer for officer and
+man for man, almost as good as our best. The
+German Pacific Squadron was nearer the realisation
+of the naval Soul than was any other part
+of the German Navy. Admiral von Spee was a
+gallant and chivalrous gentleman, and the captain
+of the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, ingenious, gay, humorous, unspoiled
+in success and undaunted in defeat, was as English
+in spirit as he was unlike most of his compatriots
+in sentiment. The Navy and the public at home
+were right when they acclaimed von Spee and
+von Müller as seamen worthy to rank with their
+own Service.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The German Pacific Squadron, being on foreign
+service, had not only picked officers of outstanding
+merit, but also long-service crews of unpressed
+men. It was, therefore, in organisation and personnel
+much more akin to our Navy than was
+the High Seas Fleet at home in which the men
+were for the most part conscripts on short service
+(three years) from the Baltic, Elbe and inland
+provinces. In our Service the sailors and marines
+join for twenty-one years, and in actual practice
+frequently serve very much longer. They begin
+as children in training-ships and in the schools
+attached to Marine barracks, and often continue
+in middle life as grave men in the petty and
+warrant officer ranks. The Naval Service is the
+work of their lives just as it is with the commissioned
+officers. But in the German High Seas
+Fleet, with its three years of forced service, a
+man was no sooner half-trained than his time
+was up and he gladly made way for a raw recruit.
+The German crews were not of the Sea nor of the
+Service. During the war, no doubt, they became
+better trained. The experienced seamen were not
+discharged and the general level of skill arose;
+the best were passed into the submarines which
+alone of the Fleet were continuously at work on
+the sea. In our own Navy, in consequence of
+the very great increase in the number of ships,
+both large and small, the professional sailors had
+to be diluted by the calling up of Naval Reservists,
+and by the expansion of the Royal Naval Volunteer
+Reserve. But unlike Germany we had, fortunately
+for ourselves, an almost limitless maritime population
+from which to draw the new naval elements.
+Fishermen at the call of their country flocked into
+the perilous service of mine sweeping and patrolling,
+young men from the seaports readily joined
+the Volunteer detachments in training for the
+great ships, dilution was carried on deftly and with
+so clear a judgment that the general level of
+efficiency all round was almost completely maintained.
+That this was possible is not so remarkable
+as it sounds. The Royal Navy of the fighting
+ships, even after the war expansion, remained a
+very small select service of carefully chosen men.
+Half of its personnel was professional and perfectly
+trained, the second and new half was so
+mingled and stirred up with the first that the
+professional leaven permeated the whole mass.
+The Army which desired millions had to take what
+it could get; but the Navy, which counts its men
+in tens of thousands only, could pick and choose
+of the best. In the Army the old Regulars were
+either killed or swamped under the flood of new
+entrants; in the Navy the professionals remained
+always predominant. It was very characteristic
+of the proud exclusiveness of our Royal Navy,
+very characteristic of its haughty Soul, that the
+temporary officers were allotted rank marks which
+distinguished them at a glance, even of civilian
+eyes, from the regular Service.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Though, as events proved, the Royal Navy need
+have felt little anxiety about the result of a fair
+trial of strength with its German opponents, there
+was one ever-present justification for that deeper
+apprehension with which the Navy in peace
+regarded an outbreak of war. It really was feared
+lest our Government should leave to the Germans
+the moment for beginning hostilities. It was
+feared lest while politicians were waiting and seeing
+the Germans would strike suddenly at their
+“selected moment,” and by a well-planned torpedo
+and submarine attack in time of supposed peace,
+would put themselves in a position of substantial
+advantage. There was undoubted ground for this
+fear. The German Government has not, and never
+has had, any scruples; it has no moral standards;
+if before a declaration of war it could have struck
+hard and successfully at our Fleets it would have
+seized the opportunity without hesitation. And
+realising this with the clarity of vision which
+distinguishes the Sea Service, the Navy feared
+lest its freedom of action should be fatally restricted
+at the very moment when its hands needed to be
+most free.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>A distinguished naval captain—now an admiral—once
+put the matter before me plainly from the
+naval point of view:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“If the Germans secretly mobilise at a moment
+when a third of our big ships are out of commission
+or are under repair, they may not only
+by a sudden torpedo attack cripple our battle
+squadrons, but may open the seas to their own
+cruisers and submarines. We might, possibly
+should, recover in time to deal with an invasion,
+but in the meantime our overseas trade, on which
+you people depend at home for food and raw
+materials, would have been destroyed. And until
+we had fully recovered, not a man or a gun could
+be sent over sea to help France.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Surely we should have some warning,” I
+objected.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You won’t get it from Germany,” said he
+gravely. “The little old man (Roberts) is right.
+Germany will strike when Germany’s hour has
+struck. If we are ready she will have no chance
+at all and knows it; she will not give us a chance
+to be ready. When she wants to cover a secret
+mobilisation she will invite parties of journalists,
+or provincial mayors, or village greengrocers to
+visit Berlin and to see for themselves how peaceful
+her intentions are!”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>That is how the Navy felt and talked during
+the months immediately before the War, and who
+shall say that their apprehensions were not well
+founded? What it feared was unquestionably possible,
+even probable. But happily for the Navy,
+and for these Islands and the Empire which it
+guards, those whom the gods seek to destroy
+they first drive mad. The wisdom of Germany’s
+rulers was by all of us immensely overrated.
+They fell into the utter blindness of unimaginative
+stupidity. They understood us so little that they
+thought us sure to desert our friends rather than
+risk the paint upon our ships and the skins upon
+our fat and slothful bodies. They watched us
+quarrelling among ourselves, talking savagely of
+fighting one another in Ireland—we went on
+doing these things until July 28th, 1914, four days
+before Germany attacked Belgium!—and failed
+to realise that the ancient fighting spirit was as
+strong in us as ever, however much it might seem
+to be smothered under the rubbish of politics and
+social luxury. And meanwhile, during those intensely
+critical weeks of July, while Parliament
+chattered about Ulster and politicians looked
+hungrily for the soft spots in one another’s throats,
+the Royal Navy was quietly, unostentatiously
+preparing for war. What the Navy then did,—moving
+in all things with its own silent, serene,
+masterful efficiency and grimly thanking God for
+the dense political gas clouds behind which it
+could conceal its movements from the enemy,—saved
+not only Great Britain and the Empire;
+it saved the civilisation of the world.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Blindly Germany went on with her preparations
+for war against France and Russia, including in
+the programme the swallowing up of little Belgium,
+and left us wholly out of her calculations. The
+German battle Fleet, which had been engaged
+in peace manœuvres, was cruising off the Norwegian
+coast. Grand Admiral von Tirpitz had never
+expected us to intervene, and no naval preparations
+were made. The Germans were in no position to
+interfere with our disposition, or to move their
+cruisers upon our trade communications. But all
+through those later days of imminent crisis the
+English First Fleet lay mobilised at Portland,
+whither it had moved from Spithead, until one
+night it slipped silently away and disappeared into
+the northern mists. The Second and Third Fleets
+had been filled up and were completely ready for
+war in the early summer dawn of August 3rd.
+The big ships rushed to their war stations stretching
+from the Thames to the Orkneys and commanding
+both outlets from the North Sea; the
+destroyers and submarines swarmed in the Channel
+and off the sand-locked German bases. The hour
+had struck, everything had been done exactly as
+had been planned. The German Fleet crept into
+safety through the back door of the Kattegat and
+Kiel, and on the evening of August 4th, the British
+Government declared war.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Germany, who thought to catch the Navy asleep,
+was herself caught. She had never believed that
+we either would or could fight for the integrity of
+Belgium. She went on blindly in her appointed
+way until suddenly her sight returned in a flash
+of bitter realisation that the Royal Navy, without
+firing a single shot, had won the first tremendous
+decisive, irreparable battle in the coming world’s
+war. Her chance of success at sea had disappeared
+for ever. Before her lay a long cruel dragging
+fight with the seas closed to her merchant ships
+and her whole Empire in a state of blockade.
+No wonder that then, and since, Germany’s fiercest
+passion of hate has been directed against us, and
+above all against that Royal Navy which shields
+us and strikes for us. Before a shot had been
+fired she saw herself outwitted, outmanœuvred,
+out-fought. “Gott strafe England!”</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch03'>CHAPTER III</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>THE GREAT VICTORY</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In naval warfare there are many actions but few
+battles. An action is any engagement between
+war vessels of any size, but a battle is a contest
+between ships of the battle-line—sometimes called
+“capital ships” upon the results of which depends
+the vital issues of a war. During the whole
+of the long contest with Napoleon, there were only
+two battles of this decisive kind—the Nile and
+Trafalgar.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>And although the fighting by sea and land
+went on for ten years after Trafalgar had given
+to us the supreme control of the world’s seas,
+there were no more naval battles. Battles at
+sea are very rare because, when fought out, they
+are so crushingly decisive. This characteristic
+feature of the great naval battle has been greatly
+emphasised by modern conditions. Upon land
+armies have outgrown the very earth itself; fighting
+frontiers have become lines of trenches; battles
+have become the mere swaying of these trench
+lines—a ripple here or there marks a success or
+failure—but the lines re-formed remain. Even
+after weeks or months of fighting, if the lines
+remain unbroken, neither side has reached a
+decision. War upon land between great forces is
+a long drawn-out agony of attrition.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But while battles upon land have become much
+less decisive than in the simpler days of small
+armies and feeble weapons, fighting upon the
+sea has become much quicker, much more crushingly
+final, in its effects and results than in the
+days of our grandfathers. Speed and gun power
+are now everything. The faster and more powerful
+fleet—more powerful in its capacity for dealing
+accurate and destructive blows—can annihilate
+its enemy completely within the brief hours of a
+single day. The more powerful and faster his
+ships the less will the victor himself suffer. Only
+under one condition can a defeated fleet escape
+annihilation, and that is when the lack of light or
+of sea room snatches from the victor a final decision.
+If an enemy can get away under shelter
+of his shore fortifications, or within the protection
+of his minefields, he can defy pursuit; but if
+there be ample room and daylight Speed and Power
+wielded by men such as ours, will prevail with
+absolute mathematical certainty—the losers will
+be sunk, the victors will, by comparison, be little
+damaged. Every considerable engagement during
+the war has added convincing proof to the conclusions
+which our Navy drew from the decisive
+battle in the Sea of Tsushima between the Japanese
+and the Russians, and the not less decisive action
+upon a smaller scale in which the Americans
+destroyed the Spanish squadron off Santiago, Cuba.
+In both cases the losers were destroyed while the
+victors suffered little hurt. These outstanding
+lessons were not lost upon the Royal Navy, its
+officers had themselves seen both fights, and so
+in its silent way the Navy pressed upon its course
+always seeking after more speed, more gun power,
+and above all more numbers. “Only numbers
+can annihilate,” said Napoleon, and what the
+Emperor declared to be true of land fighting is
+the more true of fighting by sea. Only numbers
+can annihilate.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon the evening of August 4th, 1914, I was
+sitting in a London office beside a ticking tape
+machine awaiting the message that the Germans
+had declined our ultimatum to withdraw from
+Belgium, and that war had been declared. “There
+will be a big sea battle this evening,” observed my
+companion. “There has been a big battle,” observed
+I, “but it is now over.” Although he
+and I used similar language we attached to the
+words very different meanings. He thought, as
+the bulk of the British people thought at that
+time, that the British and German battle fleets
+would meet and fight off the Frisian Islands. But
+I meant, and felt sure, that the last thing our
+Grand Fleet desired was to fight in restricted and
+dangerous waters, amid the perils of mines and
+submarines, when it had already won the greatest
+fight of the war without firing a shot or risking a
+single ship or man. There had been no “battle”
+in the popular sense, but there had in fact been
+achieved a tremendous decisive victory which
+through all the long months to follow would
+dominate the whole war by sea and by land. Our
+great battleships were at that moment cruising
+between Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and the
+Cromarty Firth on the north-eastern shores of
+Scotland. Our fastest battle cruisers were in the
+Firth of Forth together with many of the better
+pre-Dreadnought battleships which, though too
+slow for a fleet action, had heavy batteries available
+for a close fight in narrow waters. Many other
+older and slower battleships and cruisers were in
+the Thames. The narrow straits of Dover were
+thickly patrolled by destroyers and submarines,
+and more submarines and destroyers were on
+watch off the mouths of the Weser, the Jade, the
+Elbe and the Ems. Light cruisers hovered still
+farther to the north where the Skagerrak opens
+between Denmark and the Norwegian coast. The
+North Sea had become a <span class='it'>mare clausum</span>—no longer,
+as the mapmakers term it, a German Ocean, but
+one which at a single stroke had become overwhelmingly
+British.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Take a map of the North Sea and consider with
+me for a moment the relative strengths and dispositions
+of the opposing battle fleets. There
+was nothing complicated or super-subtle about
+the Royal Navy’s plans; on the contrary they
+had that beautiful compelling simplicity which is
+the characteristic feature of all really great designs
+whether in war or in peace.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There are two outlets to the North Sea, one wide
+to the north and west beyond the Shetlands, the
+other narrow and shallow to the south-west through
+the Straits of Dover. The Straits are only twenty-one
+miles wide; opposite the north of Scotland
+the Sea is 300 miles wide. But before German
+battleships or cruisers could get away towards
+the wide north-western outlet beyond the Shetlands
+they would have to steam some 400 miles
+north of Heligoland. Except for the Pacific Squadron
+based upon Tsing-tau in the Far East and
+cruising upon the east and west coasts of Mexico,
+all the fleets of our enemy were at his North
+Sea ports or in the Baltic—a land-locked sheet
+of water which for the moment is out of our
+picture. From Heligoland to Scapa Flow in the
+Orkneys—where Admiral Jellicoe had his headquarters
+and where he had under his hand twenty-two
+of our most powerful battleships—is less than
+550 miles. Jellicoe had also with him large numbers
+of armoured and light cruisers. In the Firth
+of Forth, less than 500 miles from Heligoland,
+Admiral Beatty had five of the fastest and most
+powerful battle cruisers afloat and great quantities
+of lighter cruisers and destroyers. In the
+Thames, about 350 miles from Heligoland, lay
+most of our slower and less powerful pre-Dreadnought
+battleships and cruisers, vessels of a past
+generation in naval construction, but in their
+huge numbers and collective armaments a very
+formidable force to encounter in the narrow waters
+of the Straits of Dover.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Three possible courses of action lay before the
+German Naval Staff. They had at their disposal
+seventeen battleships and battle cruisers built
+since the first <span class='it'>Dreadnought</span> revolutionised the battle
+line, but, as I have already pointed out, these
+vessels, class for class and gun for gun, were
+lighter, slower, and less well armed than were the
+twenty-seven great war vessels at the disposal
+of Jellicoe and Beatty. The Germans could have
+tried to break away to the north with their whole
+battle fleet, escorting all their lighter cruisers, in
+the hope that while the battle fleets were engaged
+the cruisers might escape round the north of Scotland,
+and get upon our trade routes in the Atlantic.
+That was their first possible line of action—a
+desperate one, since Jellicoe and Beatty with
+much stronger forces lay upon the flank of their
+course to the north, and the preponderating strength
+and swiftness of our light and heavy cruisers would
+have meant, in all human probability, not only
+the utter destruction of the enemy’s battle fleet
+but also the wiping out of his would-be raiders.
+Our cruisers could have closed the passages between
+the Orkneys and Iceland long before the Germans
+could have reached them. This first heroic dash
+for the free spaces of the outer seas would have
+been so eminently gratifying to us that it is scarcely
+surprising that the Germans denied us its blissful
+realisation.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-67.jpg' alt='' id='illo-67' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE NORTH SEA.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The second possible course, apparently less
+heroic but in its ultimate results probably as
+completely destructive for the enemy as the first
+course, would have been to bear south-west, hugging
+the shallows as closely as might be possible, and
+to endeavour to break a way through the Straits
+of Dover and the English Channel. From Heligoland
+to the Straits is over 350 miles, and we should
+have known all about the German dash long
+before they could have reached the Narrows.
+Those Narrow Seas are like the neck of a bottle
+which would have been corked most effectually
+by our serried masses of pre-Dreadnought battleships
+and cruisers interspersed by swarming hundreds
+of submarines and destroyers with their
+vicious torpedo stings. We can quite understand
+how the Germans, who had read Sir Percy Scott’s
+observations of a month or two before on the
+deadliness of submarines in narrow waters, liked
+a dash for the Straits as little as they relished
+a battle with Jellicoe and Beatty in the far north,
+more especially as their line of retreat would have
+been cut off by the descent from their northern
+fastnesses of our battle fleets. Not then, nor a
+week or two later when we were passing our
+Expeditionary Force across the Channel, did the
+Germans attempt to break through the Straits
+and cut us off from our Allies the French.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The third course was the one which the Germans
+in fact took. It was the famous course of Brer
+Rabbit, to lie low and say nuffin’, and to wait for
+happier times when perchance the raids of their
+own submarines, and our losses from mines, might
+so far diminish our fighting strength as to permit
+them to risk a Battle of the Giants with some
+little prospect of success. And in adopting this
+waiting policy they did what we least desired and
+what, therefore, was the safest for them and most
+embarrassing for us. Never at any time did we
+attempt to prevent the German battle fleets from
+coming out. We no more blockaded them than
+Nelson a hundred years earlier blockaded the
+French at Toulin and Brest. We maintained,
+as Nelson did, a perpetual unsleeping watch on
+the enemy’s movements, but our desire always
+was the same as Nelson’s—to let the enemy come
+out far enough to give us space and time within
+which to compass his complete and final destruction.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Although the Germans, by adopting a waiting
+policy, prevented the Royal Navy from fulfilling
+its first duty—the seeking out and destruction of
+an enemy’s fighting fleets—their inaction emphasised
+the completeness of the Victory of Brains
+and Soul which the Navy had won during those
+few days before the outbreak of war. It was
+because our mobilisation had been so prompt and
+complete, it was because the disposition of our
+fleets had been so perfectly conceived, that the
+Germans dared not risk a battle with us in the
+open and were unable to send out their cruisers
+to cut off our trading ships and to break our
+communications with France. Although the
+enemy’s fleets had not been destroyed, they had
+been rendered very largely impotent. We held,
+more completely than we did even after the crowning
+mercy of Trafalgar, the command of the seas
+of the world. The first great battle was bloodless
+but complete, it had won for us and for the
+civilised world a very great victory, and the
+Royal Navy had never in its long history more
+fully realised and revealed its tremendous unconquerable
+Soul.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It may be of some little interest, now that the
+veil of secrecy can be partly raised, to describe
+the opposing battle fleets upon which rested the
+decision of victory or defeat. Before the war it
+had become the habit of many critics, both naval
+and civilian, to exalt the striking power of the
+torpedo craft—both destroyers and submarines—and
+to talk of the great battleship as an obsolete
+monster, as some vast Mammoth at the mercy of
+a wasp with a poison sting. But the war has
+shown that the Navy was right to hold to the deep
+beliefs, the outcome of all past experience, that
+supremacy in the battle line means supremacy in
+Sea Control. The smaller vessels, cruisers, and
+mosquito craft, are vitally necessary for their
+several rôles,—without them the great ships cannot
+carry out a commercial blockade, cannot protect
+trade or transports, cannot conduct those hundreds
+of operations both of offence and defence which
+fall within the duties of a complete Navy. But
+the ultimate decision rests with the Battle Fleets.
+They are the Fount of Power. While they are
+supreme, the seas are free to the smaller active
+vessels; without such supremacy, the seas are
+closed to all craft, except to submarines and, as
+events have proved, to a large extent even to those
+under-water wasps.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In August, 1914, our Battle Fleets available
+for the North Sea—and at the moment of supreme
+test no vessels, however powerful, which were
+not on the spot were of any account at all—were
+not at their full strength. The battleships were
+all at home—the ten Dreadnoughts, each with
+ten 12-⁠inch guns, the four Orions, the four K.G.V.s
+and the four Iron Dukes, each with their ten
+13.5-⁠inch guns far more powerful than the earlier
+Dreadnoughts,—and were all fully mobilised by
+August 3rd. But of our nine fast and invaluable
+battle cruisers as many as four were far away.
+The <span class='it'>Australia</span> was at the other side of the globe,
+and three others had a short time before been
+despatched to the Mediterranean. Beatty had the
+<span class='it'>Lion</span>, <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span>, and <span class='it'>Princess Royal</span>, each with
+eight 13.5-⁠inch guns and twenty-nine knots of
+speed, in addition to the <span class='it'>New Zealand</span>, and <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+each with eight 12-⁠inch guns. The First
+Lord of the Admiralty announced quite correctly
+that we had mobilised thirty-one ships of the
+battle line, but actually in the North Sea at their
+war stations upon that fateful evening of August
+4th—which now seems so long ago—Jellicoe and
+Beatty had twenty-seven only of first line ships.
+They were enough as it proved, but one rather
+grudged at that time, those three in the Mediterranean
+and the <span class='it'>Australia</span> at the Antipodes.
+Had there been a battle of the Giants we should
+have needed them all, for only numbers can
+annihilate. Jellicoe had, in addition to those
+which I have reckoned, the <span class='it'>Lord Nelson</span> and
+<span class='it'>Agamemnon</span>—pre-Dreadnoughts, each with four
+12-⁠inch guns and ten 9.2-⁠inch guns—useful ships
+but not of the first battle line.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Opposed to our twenty-seven available monsters
+the Germans had under their hands eighteen completed
+vessels of their first line. I do not count
+in this select company the armoured cruiser
+<span class='it'>Blücher</span>, with her twelve 8-⁠inch guns, which was
+sunk later on in the Dogger Bank action by the
+13.5-⁠inch weapons of Beatty’s great cruisers.
+Neither do I count the fine cruiser <span class='it'>Goeben</span>, a fast
+vessel with ten 11-⁠inch guns which, like our three
+absent battle cruisers, was in the Mediterranean.
+The <span class='it'>Goeben</span> escaped later to the Dardanelles and
+ceased to be on the North Sea roll of the German
+High Seas Fleet.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Germany had, then, eighteen battleships and
+battle cruisers, and had it been known to the
+public that our apparent superiority in available
+numbers was only 50 per cent. in the North Sea,
+many good people might have trembled for the
+safety of their homes and for the honour of their
+wives and daughters. But luckily they did not
+know, for they could with difficulty have been
+brought to understand that naval superiority rests
+more in speed and in quality and in striking
+power than in the mere numbers of ships. When
+I have said that numbers only can annihilate,
+I mean, of course, numbers of equal or superior
+ships. In quality of ships and especially of men,
+in speed and in striking power, our twenty-seven
+ships had fully double the strength of the eighteen
+Germans who might have been opposed to them
+in battle. None of our vessels carried anything
+smaller—for battle—than 12-⁠inch guns, and fifteen
+of them bore within their turrets the new 13.5-⁠inch
+guns of which the weight of shell and destructive
+power were more than 50 per cent. greater than
+that of the earlier 12-⁠inch weapons. On the
+other hand, four of the German battleships (the
+<span class='it'>Nassau</span> class) carried 11-⁠inch guns and were fully
+two knots slower in speed than any of the British
+first line. Three of their battle cruisers also had
+11-⁠inch guns. While therefore we had guns of
+12 and 13.5 inches the Germans had nothing more
+powerful to oppose to us than guns of 11 and 12
+inches. Ship for ship the Germans were about
+two knots slower than ourselves, so that we always
+had the advantage of manœuvre, the choosing of
+the most effective range, and the power of preventing
+by our higher speed the escape of a defeated
+foe. Had the Germans come north into the open
+sea, we could have chosen absolutely, by virtue
+of our greater speed, gun power and numbers, the
+conditions under which an action should have
+been fought and how it should have been brought
+to a finish.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>An inch or two in the bore of a naval gun, a few
+feet more or less of length, may not seem much
+to some of my readers. But they should remember
+that the weight of a shell, and the weight of its
+explosive charge, vary as the <span class='it'>cube</span> of its diameter.
+A 12-⁠inch shell is a third heavier than one of
+11 inches, while a 13.5-⁠inch shell is more than
+one-half heavier than a 12-⁠inch and twice as
+heavy as one of 11 inches only. The power of the
+bursting charge varies not as the weight, but as
+the <span class='it'>square</span> of the weight of a shell. The Germans
+were very slow to learn the naval lesson of the
+superiority of the bigger gun and the heavier
+shell. It was not until after the Dogger Bank
+action when Beatty’s monstrous 13.5-⁠inch shells
+broke in a terrible storm upon their lighter-armed
+battle cruisers that the truth fully came home to
+them. Had Jellicoe and Beatty fought the German
+Fleet in the wide spaces of the upper North Sea
+in August, 1914, we should have opposed a fighting
+efficiency in power and weight of guns of more
+than two to one. Rarely have the precious qualities
+of insight and foresight been more strikingly
+shown forth than in the superiority in ships, in
+guns, and in men that the Royal Navy was able
+to range against their German antagonists in those
+early days of August, when the fortunes of the
+Empire would have turned upon the chances of
+a naval battle. In the long contest waged between
+1900 and 1914, in the bloodless war of peace, the
+spiritual force of the Navy had gained the victory;
+the enemy had been beaten, and knew it, and
+thenceforward for many months, until the spring
+of 1916, he abode in his tents. Whenever he did
+venture forth it was not to give battle but to kill
+some women, some babes, and then to scuttle
+home to proclaim the dazzling triumph which
+“Gott” had granted to his arms.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It may seem to many a fact most extraordinary
+that in August, 1914, not one of our great ships
+of the first class—the so-called “super-Dreadnoughts”—upon
+which we depended for the domination
+of the seas and the security of the Empire,
+not one was more than three years old.
+The four Orions—<span class='it'>Orion</span>, <span class='it'>Conqueror</span>, <span class='it'>Thunderer</span>
+and <span class='it'>Monarch</span>—were completed in 1911 and 1912.
+The four K.G. Fives—<span class='it'>King George V</span>, <span class='it'>Centurion</span>,
+<span class='it'>Ajax</span>, and <span class='it'>Audacious</span> in 1912 and 1913; and the
+four Iron Dukes—<span class='it'>Iron Duke</span>, <span class='it'>Marlborough</span>, <span class='it'>Emperor
+of India</span> and <span class='it'>Benbow</span>—in 1914. All these
+new battleships carried ten 13.5-⁠inch guns and
+had an effective speed of nearly 23 knots. The
+super-battle cruisers—<span class='it'>Lion</span>, <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> and <span class='it'>Princess
+Royal</span>—were completed in 1912, carried eight
+13.5-⁠inch guns, and had a speed of over 29 knots.
+Upon these fifteen ships, not one of which was
+more than three years old, depended British Sea
+Power. The Germans had nothing, when the war
+broke out, which was comparable with these
+fifteen splendid monsters. Their first line battleships
+and battle cruisers completed in the corresponding
+years, from 1911 to 1914—their “opposite
+numbers” as the Navy calls them—were not
+superior in speed, design and power of guns to
+our Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers,
+which had already passed into the second class,
+and which, long before the war ended, had sunk
+to the third class. But the newness and overwhelming
+superiority of our true first line do not
+surprise those who realise that these fifteen great
+ships were the fine flower of our naval brains and
+soul. The new Navy of the three years immediately
+preceding the war was simply the old Navy
+writ large. As the need had arisen, so had the
+Navy expanded to meet it. The designs for these
+fifteen ships did not fall down from Heaven; they
+were worked out in naval brains years before they
+found their material expression in steel. The vast
+ships issued forth upon the seas, crushingly superior
+to anything which our enemy could put into commission
+against us, because our naval brains were
+superior to his and our naval Soul was to his as
+a white glowing flame to a tallow candle. In a
+sentence, while Germany was laboriously copying
+our Dreadnoughts we had cast their designs aside,
+and were producing at a speed, with which he
+could not compete, Orions, K.G. Fives, Iron Dukes
+and Lions.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The North Sea, large as it may appear upon a
+map, is all too small for the manœuvres of swift
+modern fleets. No part of that stretch of water
+which lies south of the Dogger Bank—say, from
+the Yorkshire coast to Jutland—is far enough
+removed from the German bases to allow of a sure
+and decisive fleet action. There was no possibility
+here of a clean fight to a finish. An enemy might
+be hammered severely, some of his vessels might
+be sunk—Beatty showed the German battle cruisers
+what we could do even in a stern chase at full
+speed—but he could not be destroyed. On the
+afternoon and night of May 31st-June 1st, 1916,
+the Grand Fleet had the enemy enveloped and
+ripe for destruction, but were robbed of full victory
+by mist and darkness and the lack of sea
+room. Nelson spoke with the Soul of the Navy
+when he declared that a battle was not won when
+any enemy ship was enabled to escape destruction.
+So while the divisions of the Grand Fleet, and
+especially the fastest battle cruisers of some
+twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots speed (about
+thirty-three miles per hour) neglected no opportunity
+to punish the enemy ships that might
+venture forth, what every man from Jellicoe to
+the smallest ship boy really longed and prayed
+for, was a brave ample battle in the deep wide
+waters of the north. Here there was room for a
+newer and greater Trafalgar, though even here the
+sea was none too spacious. Great ships, which
+move with the speed of a fairly fast train and
+shoot to the extreme limits of the visible horizon,
+really require a boundless Ocean in which to do
+their work with naval thoroughness. But the
+upper North Sea would have served, and there
+the Grand Fleet waited, ever at work though
+silent, ever watchfully ready for the Great Day.
+And while it waited it controlled by the mere fact
+of its tremendous power of numbers, weight, and
+position the destinies of the civilised world.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The task of the Royal Navy in the war would
+have been much simpler had the geography of
+the North Sea been designed by Providence to
+assist us in our struggle with Germany. We made
+the best of it, but were always sorely handicapped
+by it. The North Sea was too shallow, too well
+adapted for the promiscuous laying of mines, and
+too wide at its northern outlet for a really close
+blockade. Had the British Isles been slewed round
+twenty degrees further towards Norway, so that
+the outlet to the north was as narrow as that to
+the English Channel—and had there been a harbour
+big enough for the Grand Fleet between the Thames
+and the Firth of Forth—then our main bases could
+have been placed nearer to Germany and our
+striking power enormously increased. We could
+then have placed an absolute veto upon the raiding
+dashes which the Germans now and then
+made upon the eastern English seaboard. As
+the position in fact existed we could not place any
+of our first line ships further south than the Firth
+of Forth—and could place even there only our
+fastest vessels—without removing them too far
+from the Grand Fleet’s main concentration at
+Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Invergordon in the
+Cromarty Firth was used as a rest and replenishing
+station. The German raids—what Admiral Jellicoe
+called their tactics of “tip and run”—were
+exasperating, but they could not be allowed to
+interfere with the naval dispositions upon which
+the whole safety of the Empire depended. We
+had to depend on the speed of our battle cruisers
+in the Firth of Forth to give us opportunity to
+intercept and punish the enemy. The German
+battle cruisers which fired upon Scarborough,
+Whitby, and the Hartlepools were nearly caught—a
+few minutes more of valuable time and a little
+less of sea haze would have meant their destruction.
+A second raid was anticipated and the
+resulting Dogger Bank action taught the enemy
+that the Navy had a long arm and long sight.
+For a year he digested the lesson, and did not try
+his luck again until April, 1916, when he dashed
+forth and raided Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast.
+The story of this raid is interesting. The Grand
+Fleet had been out a day or two before upon
+what it called a “stunt,” a parade in force of the
+Jutland coast and the entrance to the Skaggerak.
+It had hunted for the Germans and found them
+not, and returning to the far north re-coaled the
+ships. The Germans, with a cleverness which
+does them credit, launched their Lowestoft raid
+immediately after the “stunt” and before the
+battle cruisers, re-coaling, could be ready to dash
+forth. Even as it was they did not cut much time
+to waste. It was a dash across, a few shots, and
+a dash back.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Then was made a re-disposition of the British
+Squadrons, not in the least designed to protect
+the east coast of England—though the enemy
+was led to believe so—but so to strengthen Beatty’s
+Battle Cruiser Squadrons that the enemy’s High
+Seas Fleet, when met, could be fought and held
+until Jellicoe with his battle squadrons could
+arrive and destroy it. The re-disposition consisted
+of two distinct movements. First: the
+pre-Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers
+which had been stationed in the Forth were sent
+to the Thames. Second: Admiral Evan-⁠Thomas’s
+fifth battle squadron of five Queen Elizabeth
+battleships (built since the war began)—of twenty-five
+knots speed and each carrying eight 15-⁠inch
+guns—<span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span>, <span class='it'>Barham</span>, <span class='it'>Valiant</span>, <span class='it'>Warspite</span>,
+and <span class='it'>Malaya</span>—were sent from Scapa to the
+Firth of Forth to reinforce Beatty and to give
+him a support which would enable him and Evan-⁠Thomas
+to fight a delaying action against any
+force which the Germans could put to sea. Three
+of the Invincible type of battle cruisers were moved
+from the Forth to Scapa to act as Jellicoe’s advance
+guard, and to enable contact to be quickly made
+between Beatty and Jellicoe. But for this change
+in the Grand Fleet’s dispositions, which enabled
+the four splendid battleships—<span class='it'>Barham</span>, <span class='it'>Valiant</span>,
+<span class='it'>Warspite</span> and <span class='it'>Malaya</span> (the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span> was in
+dock)—to engage the whole High Seas Fleet on
+the afternoon of May 31st, 1916, while Beatty
+headed off the German battle cruisers and opened
+the way for Jellicoe’s enveloping movement, the
+Battle of Jutland could never have been fought.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch04'>CHAPTER IV</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA “STUNT”</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.9em;'>“<span class='it'>So young and so untender!</span>”—<span class='sc'>King Lear</span></p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>For more than eighteen months the Grand Fleet
+had been at war. It was the centre of the great
+web of blockading patrols, mine-sweeping flotillas,
+submarine hunters, and troop-transport convoys,
+and yet as a Fleet it had never seen the enemy nor
+fired a shot except in practice. The fast battle
+cruisers, stationed nearest to the enemy in the
+Firth of Forth had grabbed all the sport that was
+going in the Bight of Heligoland, or in the Dogger
+Bank action. But though several of the vessels
+belonging to the Grand Fleet had picked up some
+share in the fighting—at the Falkland Islands
+and in the Dardanelles—Jellicoe with his splendid
+squadrons still waited patiently for the Day.
+The perils from submarines had been mastered,
+and those from mines, cast into the seas by a reckless
+enemy, had been made of little account by
+continuous sweeping. The early eagerness of officers
+and men had given place to a sedate patience.
+At short intervals the vast Fleet would issue
+forth and, attended by its screen of destroyers and
+light cruisers, would make a stately parade of
+the North Sea. All were prepared for battle when
+it came, but as the weeks passed into months and
+the months into years, the parades became practice
+“stunts,” stripped of all expectation of encountering
+the enemy and devoid of the smallest excitement.
+The Navy knows little of excitement or of
+thrills—it has too much to think about and to
+do. At Action Stations in a great ship, not one
+man in ten ever sees anything but the job immediately
+before him. The enemy, if enemy there
+be in sight from the spotting tops, is hidden from
+nine-tenths of the officers and crew by steel walls.
+So, if even a battle be devoid of thrills—except
+those painfully vamped up upon paper after the
+event—a “stunt,” without expectation of battle,
+becomes the most placid of sea exercises. I will
+describe such a “stunt” as faithfully as may be,
+adding thereto a little imaginary incident which
+will, I hope, gratify the reader, even though he
+may be assured in advance that I invented it for
+his entertainment.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was the beginning of the afternoon watch,
+and the vast harbour of Scapa Flow was very
+still and sunny and silent. The hands were sitting
+about smoking, or “caulking” after their dinner,
+and the noisome “both watches” call was still
+some fifteen minutes away. But though everything
+appeared to be perfectly normal and sedate,
+an observant Officer of the Watch, looking through
+the haze within which the Fleet flagship lay almost
+invisible against the dark hills, could see a little
+wisp of colour float to her yards and remain.
+Forthwith up to the yards of every vessel in harbour
+ran an exactly similar hoist, and as it was dipped
+on the flagship it disappeared from sight upon all.
+It was the signal to prepare for sea, and now mark
+exactly how such a signal—seemingly so momentous
+to a civilian—is received by the Navy at war.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If the Officer of the Watch upon a ship knows
+his signals he will put his glass back under his
+arm and think, “Good, I’ve got off two days’
+harbour watch keeping at least; my first and
+middle, too.” The signal hands on the bridge
+look at the calm sea, which will for once not drench
+them and skin their hands on the halliards, and
+gratefully regard the windless sky under which
+hoists will slide obediently up the mast and not
+tug savagely like a pair of dray horses. The signal
+bos’n turns purple with fierce resentment which
+he does not really feel, for he will be up all day
+and half the night beside the Officer of the Watch
+on the bridge running the manœuvring signals,
+and he loves to feel indispensable. There is no
+excitement on the mess decks, only a smile since
+sea means a period of peace of mind when parades
+and polishings are suspended, and one keeps three
+watches or sleeps in a turret all night and half
+the day. Besides there is deep down in the minds
+of all the hope that, in spite of a hundred duds
+and wash-outs and disappointments, this trip
+may just possibly lead to that glorious scrap that
+all have been longing for, and have come to regard
+as about as imminent as the Day of Judgment.
+The gunnery staff look important and the “garage
+men”—armourers and electricians, commonly
+called L.T.O.s, in unspeakable overalls carrying
+spanners and circuit-testing lamps—float
+round the turrets looking for little faults and
+flies in the amber. The bad sailors shiver, though
+there is hope even for them in the silence and
+calmness of the sky. There is no obvious bustle
+of preparation, for the best of reasons: there
+is nothing to do except to close sea doors and
+batten down; the Fleet is Already Prepared.
+Let the reader please brush from his mind any
+idea of excitement, any idea of unusualness, any
+idea of bustle; none of these things exist when
+the Grand Fleet puts to sea. The signal which
+ran up to the yards of the flagship and was repeated
+by all the vessels in the Fleet read: “Prepare
+to leave harbour,” and simply meant that the
+Fleet was going out, probably that night, and
+that no officer could leave his ship to go and dine
+with his friends in some other ship’s wardroom.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>By and by up goes another little hoist, also
+universally acknowledged; this makes the stokers
+and the engine room artificers, and the purple-ringed,
+harassed-looking engineer officers jump
+lively down below so as to cut the time notice
+for full steam down by half and be ready to
+advance the required speed by three knots or so.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The sun dips and evening comes on; a glorious
+evening such as one only gets fairly far north in
+the spring, and a signal comes again, this time:
+“Raise steam for —— knots and report.” Now
+one sees smoke pouring forth continuously from
+the coal-driven ships, and every now and then
+a great gust of cold oil vapour from the aristocratic
+new battleships whose fires are fed with
+oil only.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Dinner in the wardroom starts in a blaze of
+light and a buzz of talking, and the band plays
+cheerfully on the half-deck outside. The King’s
+health is drunk and the band settles down to an
+hour of ragtime and waltzes, the older men sip
+their port, and the younger ones drift out to where
+the gun room is already dancing lustily. Our
+wonderful Navy dances beautifully, and loves
+every evening after dinner to execute the most
+difficult of music-hall steps in the midst of a wild
+Corybantic orgie. In the choosing of partners
+age and rank count for nothing. The wardroom
+and gun room after dinner are members of one
+happy family.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly the scene is transformed. In
+the doorway of the anteroom and dining-room
+appears framed the tall form of the Owner, who
+in a dozen words tells that the Huns are out. They
+are in full force strolling merrily along a westerly
+course far away to the south. Already the battle-cruisers
+from the Forth are seeking touch with the
+enemy, and the light stuff and the advance destroyers,
+the screen of the Grand Fleet, have
+already flown from Scapa to make contact with
+the battle cruisers. Our armoured cruisers have
+moved out in advance and the Grand Fleet itself
+is about to go.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As the wardroom gathers round the Owner, the
+band packs up hastily and vanishes down the
+big hatch into the barracks or Marines’ mess to
+stow its instruments and put on warm clothing.
+Those snotties who have the first watch scatter,
+and the remainder gather in the gun room to turn
+over the chances on the morrow which seems to
+their eager souls more mist-shrouded and promising
+than have most morrows during the long
+months of waiting.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Let us now shift the scene to the compass platform
+or Monkey’s Island of one of the great new
+oil-fired battleships of the Fifth Battle Squadron,
+one of the five ships known as Queen Elizabeths—all
+added to the Navy since the war began and
+all members of the most powerful and fastest
+squadron of battleships upon the seas of the
+world. They have a speed of twenty-five knots,
+carry eight 15-⁠inch guns in four turrets arranged
+on the middle line, and have upon each side a
+battery of six 6-⁠inch guns in casemates for dealing
+faithfully and expeditiously with enemy destroyers
+who may seek to rush in with the torpedo. As
+our ship passes out into the night, the port and
+starboard 6-⁠inch batteries are fully manned and
+loaded, and up on the compass platform, in control
+of these batteries, are two young officers—a
+subaltern of Marines and a naval sub-lieutenant—to
+each of whom is allotted one of the batteries.
+One has charge of the port side, the other of the
+starboard. I have called the Navy a young
+man’s service, and here we see a practical example;
+for beneath us is the last word in super-battleships
+dependent for protection against sudden torpedo
+attack upon the bright eyes and cool trained brains
+of two youngsters counting not more than forty
+years between them. I will resume my description
+and put it in the mouth of one of these youthful
+control officers—the Marine subaltern who a
+year before had been a boy at school:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Going to the gun room I warn the Sub, my
+trusted friend and fellow control officer on the
+starboard side, and depart to my cabin, where
+I dress as for a motor run on a cold day. I have
+a great Canadian fur cap and gorgeous gloves
+which defeat the damp and cold even of the
+North Sea. As I stand on the quarter deck for
+a moment’s glance at the sunset, which I cannot
+hope to describe, there comes a sound, a sort of
+hollow metallic clap and a flicker of flame. They
+are testing electric circuits in the 6-⁠inch battery,
+and No. 5 gun port has fired a tube. These
+sounds recur at short intervals from both sides
+for a couple of minutes. Then the gun layers
+are satisfied and stop. I go along the upper
+deck above the battery—which is in casemates
+between decks—and reach the pagoda, and then
+pass up, up, through a little steel door, above the
+signal bridge and the searchlights to the airy,
+roomy Monkey’s Island with the foremast in the
+middle of the floor, holding the spotting top—usually
+known as the topping spot, an inversion
+which ironically describes its exposed position
+in action—poised above our heads. There is a
+little charthouse forward of the mast on its raised
+date of the compass platform proper, where the
+High Priest busies himself between his two altars,
+the old and the new.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Looking ahead it is already dark. The sea
+is still and the ships are dim black masses. We
+have already weighed—the Cable Officer’s call
+went as I passed along the upper deck—and are
+gliding to our station in the Squadron, all of
+which are moving away past those ships which
+have not yet begun to go out. Gradually we leave
+the rest of the Grand Fleet behind, for our great
+speed gives us the place of honour, and so pass
+outside and breast the swell of the open sea.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“We find that the wind has risen outside the
+harbour, but there has not yet been time for a
+serious swell to get up. The water heaves slowly,
+breaking into a sharp clap which sets our attendant
+destroyers dancing like corks, but of which we
+take no notice whatever. This is one way in which
+the big ships score, though they miss the full
+joy of life and the passion for war which can be
+felt only in a destroyer flotilla. Our destroyer
+escort has arisen apparently from nowhere and
+we all plough on together. At intervals we tack
+a few points and the manœuvre is passed from
+ship to ship with flash lamps. Behind us, though
+we cannot see them, follows the rest of the Grand
+Fleet, in squadrons line ahead, trailing out up
+to, and beyond the horizon.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That night watch on my first big ‘stunt’
+lives in my memory. Never before had I been
+by myself in control of a battery of six 6-⁠inch guns
+for use against light fast enemy craft, which might
+try the forlorn hazard of a dash to within easy
+torpedo range of about 500 yards. Torpedoes are
+useless against rapidly moving ships unless fired
+quite close up. This form of attack has been
+very rare, and has always failed, but it remains
+an ever-present possibility. Even in clear weather
+with the searchlights on—which are connected
+up to me and move with me—one cannot see for
+more than a mile at night, and a destroyer
+could rush in at full speed upon a zig-zag track
+to within point blank range in about a minute.
+Direct-aimed fire would fail at such a rapidly
+moving mark. One has to put up a curtain of
+fire, fast and furious for the charging vessel to
+run into. But there is no time to lose, no time
+at all.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“There was a bright moon upon that first night,
+so everything was less unpleasant and nerve-racking
+than it might have been. Somehow in the
+Navy one seems to shed all feelings of nervousness.
+Perhaps this is the result of splendid health,
+the tonic sea air, and the atmosphere of serene
+competent resourcefulness which pervades the
+whole Service. We are all trained to think only
+of the job on hand and never of ourselves.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“From the height of the compass platform there
+is no appearance of freeboard. The ship’s deck
+seems to lie flush with the water, and one sees
+it as a light-coloured shaped plank—such as one
+cut out of wood when a child and fitted with a
+toy mast. The outline is not regularly curved
+but sliced away at the forecastle with straight
+sides running back parallel with one another.
+‘A’ turret is in the middle of the forecastle, which
+is very narrow; and behind it upon a higher level
+stands ‘B’ with its long glistening guns sticking
+out over ‘A’s’ back. From aloft the turrets
+look quite small, though each is big enough for a
+hundred men to stand comfortably on the roof.
+The slope upwards is continued by the great
+armoured conning tower behind and higher than
+‘B’ turret, and directly above and behind that
+again stands the compass platform. Overhead
+towers the draughty spotting top for the turret
+guns. Behind again, upon the same level as my
+platform, are the two great flat funnels spouting
+out dense clouds of oily smoke. When there is
+a following wind the spotting top is smothered
+with smoke, and the officers perched there cough
+and gasp and curse. It is then worthy of its
+name, for it is in truth a ‘topping spot!’</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“We are a very fast ship, but at this height the
+impression of speed is lost. The ship seems to
+plough in leisurely fashion through the black
+white-crested waves, now and then throwing up
+a cloud of spray as high as my platform, to descend
+crashing upon ‘A’ turret, which is none too dry
+a place to sleep in. We don’t roll appreciably,
+but slide up and down with a dignified pitch,
+exactly like the motion of that patent rocking-horse
+which I used to love in my old nursery.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Down below, though they are hidden from
+me by the deck, the gunners stand ready behind
+their casemates, waiting for my signal. The guns
+are loaded and trained, the crews stand at their
+stations, shells and cordite charges are ready to
+their hands. The gun-layers are connected up
+with me and are ready to respond instantly to
+my order.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“So the watch passes; my relief comes, and I go.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I was on watch again in the forenoon, and then
+one could see something of the Grand Fleet and
+realise its tremendous silent power. We had
+shortened speed so as not to leave the supporting
+Squadrons too far behind and one could see them
+clearly, long lines of great ships, stretching far
+beyond the visible horizon. Nearest to us was
+the cream of the Fleet, the incomparable Second
+Squadron—the four Orions and four K.G. Fives—which
+with their eighty 13.5-⁠inch guns possess
+a concentrated power far beyond anything flying
+Fritz’s flag. Upon us of the Queen Elizabeths,
+and upon the Second Battle Squadron, rests the
+Mastery of the Seas. Far away on the port
+quarter could be seen the leading ships of the
+First Battle Squadron of Dreadnoughts, all ships
+of 12-⁠inch guns, all good enough for Fritz but
+not in the same class with the Orions, the K.G.
+Fives or with us. Away to starboard came
+more Dreadnoughts, and Royal Sovereigns—as
+powerful as ourselves but not so fast—and odd
+ships like the seven-turreted <span class='it'>Agincourt</span> and the
+14-⁠inch gunned <span class='it'>Canada</span>. It was a great sight,
+one to impress Fritz and to make his blood turn
+to water.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“For he could see us as we thrashed through
+the seas. It looked no larger than a breakfast
+sausage, and I had some difficulty in making
+it out—even after the Officer of the Watch had
+shown it to me. But at last I saw the watching
+Zeppelin—a mere speck thousands of feet up and
+perhaps fifty miles distant. Our seaplanes roared
+away, rising one after the other from our carrying-ships
+like huge seagulls, and Herr Zeppelin
+melted into the far-off background of clouds. He
+had seen us, and that was enough to keep the
+Germans at a very safe distance. He, or others
+like him, had seen, too, our battle cruisers which,
+sweeping far down to the south, essayed to play
+the hammer to our most massive anvil. In the
+evening, precisely at ten o’clock, the German
+Nordeich wireless sent out a volley of heavy chaff,
+assuring us that we had only dared to come out
+when satisfied that their High Seas Fleet was in
+the Baltic. It wasn’t in the Baltic; at that moment
+it was scuttling back to the minefields
+behind Heligoland. But what could we do?
+When surprise is no longer possible at sea, what
+can one do? It is all very exasperating, but
+somehow rather amusing.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“We joined the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the
+south and swept the ‘German Ocean’ right up
+to the minefields off the Elbe and Weser, and north
+to the opening of the Skaggerak. Further we
+could not go, for any foolish attempt to ‘dig out’
+Fritz might have cost us half the Grand Fleet.
+Then our ’stunt’ ended, we turned and sought
+once more our northern fastnesses.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was during the return from this big sweep
+of the North Sea that our young Marine chanced
+upon his baptism of fire and his first Great Adventure.
+His chance came suddenly and unexpectedly—as
+chances usually come at sea—and I will let
+him tell of it himself in that personal vivid style
+of his with which I cannot compete.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“The wonderful thing has happened! I have
+been in action! It was not a great battle; it
+was not what the hardiest evening newspaper
+could blaze upon its bills as a Naval Action in
+the North Sea. From first to last it endured for
+one minute and forty seconds; yet for me it was
+the Battle of the Century. For it was my own,
+my very own, my precious ewe lamb of a battle.
+It was fought by me on my compass platform
+and by my bold gunners in the 6-⁠inch casemates
+below. All by our little selves we did the trick,
+before any horrid potentates could interfere, and
+the enemy is at the bottom of the deep blue sea—it
+is not really very deep and certainly is not blue.
+What I most love about my battle is that it was
+fought so quickly that no one—and especially
+none of those tiresome folks called superior officers—had
+any opportunity of kicking me off the stage.
+All was over, quite over, and my guns had ceased
+firing before the Owner had tumbled out of his
+sea cabin in the pagoda, and best of all before
+my gunnery chief had any chance to snatch the
+control away from me. He came charging up,
+red and panting, while the air still thudded with
+my curtain fire, and wanted to know what the
+devil I was playing at. ‘I have sunk the enemy,
+sir,’ I said, saluting. ‘What enemy?’ cried he,
+‘I never saw any enemy.’ ‘He’s gone, sir,’ said
+I standing at attention. ‘I hit him with three
+6-⁠inch shells and he is very dead indeed.’ ‘It’s
+all right,’ called out the Officer of the Watch,
+laughing. ‘This young Soldier here has been
+and gone and sunk one of Fritz’s destroyers.
+He burst her all to pieces in a manner most emphatic.
+I call it unkind. But he always was
+a heartless young beast.’ Then the Bloke, who
+is a very decent old fellow, cooled down, said
+I was a lucky young dog, and received my official
+report. He carried it off to the Lord High Captain—whom
+the Navy people call the Owner—and
+the great man was so very kind as to speak to me
+himself. He said that I had done very well and
+that he would make a note of my prompt attention
+to duty. I don’t suppose that I shall ever again
+fight so completely satisfying a naval battle, for
+I am not likely to come across another one small
+enough to keep wholly to myself.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I will tell you all about it. I was up on my
+platform at my watch. My battery of 6-⁠inch guns
+was down below, all loaded with high explosive
+shell, weighing 100 lbs. each. All the gunners
+were ready for anything which might happen,
+but expecting nothing. So they had stood and
+waited during a hundred watches. It was greying
+towards dawn, but there was a good bit of haze
+and the sea was choppy. The old ship was doing
+her rocking-horse trick as usual, and also as usual
+I was feeling a bit squeamish but nothing to worry
+about. As the light increased I could see about
+2,000 yards, more or less—I am not much good
+yet at judging sea distances; they look so short.
+The Officer of the Watch was walking up and
+down on the look-out. ‘Hullo,’ I heard him say,
+‘what’s that dark patch yonder three points on
+the port bow?’ This meant thirty degrees to
+the left. I looked through my glasses and so did
+he, and as I could see nothing I switched on the
+big searchlight. Then there came a call from
+the Look Out near us, the dark patch changed to
+thick smoke, and out of the haze into the blaze
+of my searchlight slid the high forepeak of a
+destroyer. I thought it was one of our escort,
+and so did the Officer of the Watch; but as we
+watched the destroyer swung round, and we could
+see the whole length of her. I can’t explain how
+one can instantly distinguish enemy ships from
+one’s own, and can even class them and name
+them at sight. One knows them by the lines and
+silhouette just as one knows a Ford car from a
+Rolls-Royce. The destroyer was an enemy, plain
+even to me. She had blundered into us by mistake
+and was now trying hard to get away. I don’t
+know what the Officer of the Watch did—I never
+gave him a thought—my mind simply froze on
+to that beautiful battery of 6-⁠inch guns down
+below and on to that enemy destroyer trying to
+escape. Those two things, the battery and the
+enemy, filled my whole world.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Within five seconds I had called the battery,
+given them a range of 2,000 yards, swung the guns
+on to the enemy and loosed three shells—the first
+shells which I had seen fired in any action. They
+all went over for I had not allowed for our height
+above the water. Then the Boche did an extraordinary
+thing. If he had gone on swinging round
+and dashed away, he might have reached cover
+in the haze before I could hit him. But his Officer
+of the Watch was either frightened out of his
+wits or else was a bloomin’ copper-bottomed
+’ero. Instead of trying to get away, he swung
+back towards us, rang up full speed, and came
+charging in upon us so as to get home with a
+torpedo. It was either the maddest or the bravest
+thing which I shall ever see in my life. I ought
+to have been frightfully thrilled, but somehow
+I wasn’t. I felt no excitement whatever; you
+see, I was thinking all the time of directing my
+guns and had no consciousness of anything else
+in the world. The moment the destroyer charged,
+zig-zagging to distract our aim, I knew exactly
+what to do with him. I instantly shortened the
+range by 400 yards, and gave my gunners rapid
+independent fire from the whole battery. The idea
+was to put up a curtain of continuous fire about
+200 yards short for him to run into, and to
+draw in the curtain as he came nearer. As
+he zig-zagged, so we followed, keeping up that
+wide deadly curtain slap in his path. There was
+no slouching about those beautiful long-service
+gun-layers of ours, and you should have seen the
+darlings pump it out. I have seen fast firing in
+practice but never anything like that. There
+was one continuous stream of shell as the six guns
+took up the order. Six-⁠inch guns are no toys,
+and 100-⁠lb. shells are a bit hefty to handle, yet
+no quick-firing cartridge loaders could have been
+worked faster than were my heavy beauties. Every
+ten seconds my battery spat out six great shells,
+and I steadily drew the curtain in, keeping it
+always dead in his path, but by some miracle of
+light or of manœuvring the enemy escaped destruction
+for a whole long minute. On came the
+destroyer and round came our ship facing her.
+The Officer of the Watch was swinging our bows
+towards the enemy so as to lessen the mark for
+his torpedo, and I swung my guns the opposite
+way as the ship turned, keeping them always on
+the charging destroyer. Away towards the enemy
+the sea boiled as the torrent of shells hit it and
+ricochetted for miles.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“At last the end came! It seemed to have
+been hours since I began to fire, but it couldn’t
+really have been more than a minute; for even
+German destroyers will cover half a mile in that
+time. The range was down to 1,000 yards when
+he loosed a torpedo, and at that very precise
+instant a shell, ricochetting upwards, caught him
+close to the water line of his high forepeak and
+burst in his vitals. I saw instantly a great flash
+blaze up from his funnels as the high explosive
+smashed his engines, boilers and fires into scrap.
+He reared up and screamed exactly like a wounded
+horse. It sounded rather awful, though it was
+only the shriek of steam from the burst pipes; it
+made one feel how very live a thing is a ship, how
+in its splendid vitality it is, as Kipling says, more
+than the crew. He reared up and fell away to
+port, and two more of my shells hit him almost
+amidships and tore out his bottom plates like
+shredded paper. I could hear the rending crash
+of the explosions through my ear-protectors, and
+through the continuous roar of my own curtain
+fire. He rolled right over and was gone! He
+vanished so quickly that for a moment my shells
+flew screaming over the empty sea, and then I
+stopped the gunners. My battle had lasted for
+one minute and forty seconds!</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“ ‘But what about the torpedo?’ you will ask.
+I never saw it, but the Officer of the Watch told me
+that it had passed harmlessly more than a hundred
+feet away from us. ‘You sank the destroyer,’
+said the Officer of the Watch, grinning, ‘but my
+masterly navigation saved the ship. So honours is
+easy, Mr. Marine. If I had had those guns of
+yours,’ he went on, ‘I would have sunk the beggar
+with about half that noise and half that expenditure
+of Government ammunition. I never saw such
+a wasteful performance,’ said he. But he was only
+pulling my leg. All the senior officers, from the
+Owner downwards, were very nice to me and said
+that for a youngster, and a Soldier at that, I hadn’t
+managed the affair at all badly.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I thought that the guns’ crews had done fine
+and told them so; but the chief gunner—a stern
+Marine from Eastney—shook his head sadly.
+No. 3 gun had been trained five seconds late, he
+said, and was behind the others all through. He
+seemed to reckon the sinking of the destroyer as
+nothing in condonation of the shame No. 3 had
+brought upon his battery. I condoled with him,
+but he was wounded to the heart.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“The Officer of the Watch said that all the time
+the destroyer was charging she was firing small
+stuff at our platform with a Q.-F. gun on her
+forepeak. And I knew nothing about it! This is
+the simple and easy way in which one earns a
+reputation for coolness under heavy fire.”</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch05'>CHAPTER V</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>AND THE RATS</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You missed a lot, Soldier,” said the Sub-Lieutenant
+to his friend the Marine Subaltern, “through
+not being here at the beginning. Now it is altogether
+too comfortable for us of the big ships;
+the destroyers and patrols get all the fun while
+we hang about here in harbour or put up a stately
+and entirely innocuous parade of the North Sea.
+No doubt we are Grand in our Silent Might and
+Keep our Unsleeping Vigil and all the rest of the
+pretty tosh which one reads in the papers—but
+in reality we eat too much for the good of our
+waists and do too little work for our princely pay.
+But it was very different at the beginning. Then
+we were like a herd of wild buffaloes harassed
+day and night by super-mosquitoes. When we
+were not on watch we were saying our prayers.
+It was a devil of a time, my son.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I thought that you Commanded the Seas,”
+observed the marine, an innocent youth who had
+lately joined.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Sub-Lieutenant, dark and short, with twenty
+years to his age and the salt wisdom of five naval
+generations in his rich red blood, grinned capaciously,
+“So the dear simple old British Public
+thought. So their papers told them every day.
+We did not often get a sight of newspapers—there
+were no regular mails, as now, and none of
+the comforts of an ordered civilised life, as some ass
+wrote the other day of the Grand Fleet. What
+the deuce have we to do with an ordered civilised
+life! Fighting’s our job, and that’s what we
+want, not beastly comforts. While we were being
+chivied about by Fritz’s submarines it was jolly
+to be told that we Commanded the Seas of the
+World. But to me it sounded a bit sarcastic at
+a time when we had not got the length of commanding
+even the entrances to our own harbours.
+That’s the cold truth. For six months we hadn’t
+a submarine proof harbour in England or Scotland
+or Ireland though we looked for one pretty diligently.
+We wandered about, east and west and
+north, looking for some hole where the submarines
+couldn’t get in without first knocking at the
+door, and where we could lie in peace for two
+days together. Wherever we went it was the same
+old programme. The Zepps would smell us out
+and Fritz would come nosing around with his
+submarines, and we had to up anchor and be off
+on our travels once more. At sea we were all
+right. We cruised always at speed, with a destroyer
+patrol out on either side, so that Fritz had no
+chance to get near enough to try a shot with the
+torpedo. A fast moving ship can’t be hit except
+broadside on and within a range of about 400
+yards; and as we always moved twice as fast
+as a submerged U boat he never could get within
+sure range. He tried once or twice till the destroyers
+and light cruisers began to get him with
+the ram and the gun. Fritz must have had a
+good many thrilling minutes when he was fiddling
+with his rudder, his diving planes and his torpedo
+discharge gear and saw a destroyer foaming down
+upon him at over thirty knots. Fritz died a clean
+death in those days. I would fifty times sooner
+go under to the ram or the gun than be caught
+like a rat in some of the dainty traps we’ve been
+setting for a year past. We are top dog now, but
+I blush to think of those first few months. It
+was a most humiliating spectacle. Fancy fifty
+million pounds worth of the greatest fighting ships
+in the world scuttling about in fear of a dozen
+or two of footy little submarines any one of which
+we could have run up on the main derrick as
+easily as a picket boat. If I, a mere snotty in
+the old <span class='it'>Olympus</span>, felt sore in my bones what must
+the Owners and the Admirals have felt? Answer
+me that, Pongo?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It’s all right now, I suppose,” said the Pongo.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Safe and dull,” replied he, “powerful dull.
+No chance of a battle, and no feeling that any day
+a mouldy in one’s ribs is more likely than not.
+If Fritz had had as much skill as he had pluck he
+would have blown up half the Grand Fleet. Why
+he didn’t I can’t imagine, except that it takes a
+hundred years to make a sailor. Our submarine
+officers, with such a target, would have downed a
+battleship a week easy.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Fritz got the three Cressys.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“He simply couldn’t help,” sniffed the Sub-Lieutenant.
+“They asked for trouble; one after
+the other. Fritz struck a soft patch that morning
+which he is never likely to find again.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Had the harbours no booms?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Never a one. We had built the ships all right,
+but we had forgotten the harbours. There wasn’t
+one, I say, in the east or north or west which Fritz
+could not enter whenever he chose to take the
+risk. He could come in submerged, a hundred
+feet down, diving under the line of patrols, but
+luckily for us he couldn’t do much after he arrived
+except keep us busy. For as sure as ever he stuck
+up a periscope to take a sight we were on to him
+within five seconds with the small stuff, and then
+there was a chase which did one’s heart good.
+I’ve seen a dozen, all much alike, though one had
+a queer ending which I will tell you. It explains
+a lot, too. It shows exactly why Fritz fails when
+he has to depend upon individual nerve and
+judgment. He is deadly in a crowd, but pretty
+feeble when left to himself. We used to think
+that the Germans were a stolid race but they
+aren’t. They have nerves like red-hot wires. I
+have seen a crew come up out of a captured submarine,
+trembling and shivering and crying. I
+suppose that frightfulness gets over them like
+drink or drugs or assorted debauchery. Now for
+my story. One evening towards sunset in the
+first winter—which means six bells (about three
+o’clock in the afternoon) up here—a German
+submarine crept into this very harbour and the
+first we knew of it was a bit alarming. The commander
+was a good man, and if he had only kept
+his head, after working his way in submerged, he
+might have got one, if not two, big ships. But
+instead of creeping up close to the battleships,
+where they lay anchored near the shore, he stuck
+up a periscope a 1,000 yards away and blazed a
+torpedo into the brown of them. It was a forlorn,
+silly shot. They were end on to him, and the
+torpedo just ran between two of them and smashed
+up against the steep shore behind. The track of
+it on the sea was wide and white as a high road,
+and half a dozen destroyers were on to that submarine
+even before the shot had exploded against
+the rocks. Fritz got down safely—he was clever,
+but too darned nervous for under-water work—and
+then began a hunt which was exactly like one
+has seen in a barn when terriers are after rats.
+The destroyers and motor patrols were everywhere,
+and above them flew the seaplanes with
+observers who could peer down through a hundred
+feet of water. In a shallow harbour Fritz could
+have sunk to the bottom and lain there till after
+dark, but we have 200 fathoms here with a very
+steep shore and there was no bottom for him. A
+submarine can’t stand the water pressure of more
+than 200 feet at the outside. He didn’t dare to
+fill his tanks and sink, and could only keep down
+in diving trim so long as he kept moving with his
+electric motors and held himself submerged with
+his horizontal planes. Had the motors stopped,
+the submarine would have come up, for in diving
+trim it was slightly lighter than the water displaced.
+All we had to do was to keep on hunting
+till his electric batteries had run down, and then
+he would be obliged to come up. Do you twig,
+Pongo?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“But he could have sunk to the bottom if he
+had chosen?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes. But then he could never have risen
+again. To have filled his tanks would have meant
+almost instant death. At 200 fathoms his plates
+would have crumpled like paper.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Still I think that I should have done it.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“So should I. But Fritz didn’t. He roamed
+about the harbour, blind, keeping as deep down
+as he could safely go. Above him scoured the
+patrol boats and destroyers, and above them
+again flew the seaplanes. Now and then the air
+observers would get a sight of him and once or
+twice they dropped bombs, but this was soon
+stopped as the risk to our own boats was too
+great. Regarded as artillery practice bomb dropping
+from aeroplanes is simply rotten. One can’t
+possibly aim from a thing moving at fifty miles
+an hour. If one may believe the look outs of
+the destroyers the whole harbour crawled with
+periscopes, but they were really bully beef cans
+and other rubbish chucked over from the warships.
+When last seen, or believed to be seen, Fritz was
+blundering towards the line of battleships lying
+under the deep gloom of the shore, and then he
+vanished altogether. Night came on, the very
+long Northern night in winter, and it seemed extra
+specially long to us in the big ships. Searchlights
+were going all through the dark hours, the water
+gleamed, all the floating rubbish which accumulates
+so fast in harbour stood out dead black
+against the silvery surface, and the Officers of
+the Watch detected more periscopes than Fritz
+had in his whole service. The hunt went on without
+ceasing for, at any moment, Fritz’s batteries
+might peter out, and he come up. It was a bit
+squirmy to feel that here cooped up in a narrow
+deep sea lock were over a hundred King’s ships,
+and that somewhere below us was a desperate
+German submarine which couldn’t possibly escape,
+but which might blow some of us to blazes any
+minute.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Did any of you go to sleep?” asked the Pongo
+foolishly.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Sub-Lieutenant stared. “When it wasn’t
+my watch I turned in as usual,” he replied. “Why
+not?</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“In the morning there was no sign of Fritz, so
+we concluded that he had either sunk himself to
+the bottom or had somehow managed to get out
+of the harbour. In either case we should not see
+him more. So we just forgot him as we had forgotten
+others who had been chased and had escaped.
+But he turned up again after all. For twenty-four
+hours nothing much happened except the
+regular routine, though after the scare we were
+all very wide awake for more U boats, and then
+we had orders to proceed to sea. I was senior
+snotty of the <span class='it'>Olympus</span>, and I was on the after
+look-out platform as the ship cast loose from her
+moorings and moved away, to take her place in
+the line. As we got going there was a curious
+grating noise all along the bottom just as if we
+had been lightly aground; everyone was puzzled
+to account for it as there were heaps of water under
+us. The grating went on till we were clear of our
+berth, and then in the midst of the wide foaming
+wake rolled up the long thin hull of a submarine.
+A destroyer dashed up, and the forward gun was
+in the act of firing when a loud voice from her
+bridge called on the gunners to stop. ‘Don’t
+fire on a coffin,’ roared her commander. It was
+the German submarine, which after some thirty
+hours under water had become a dead hulk. All
+the air had long since been used up and the crew
+were lying at their posts—cold meat, poor devils.
+A beastly way to die.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Beastly,” murmured the Marine. “War is a
+foul game.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Still,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant, cheerfully,
+“a dead Fritz is always much more wholesome
+than a live one, and here were a score of him safely
+dead.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“But what had happened to the submarine?”
+asked the Marine, not being a sailor.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you see?” explained the Sub-Lieutenant,
+who had held his story to be artistically finished.
+“What a Pongo it is! Fritz had wandered about
+blind, deep down under water, until his batteries
+had given out. Then the submarine rose, fouled
+our bottom by the merest accident, and stuck
+there jammed against our bilge keels till the
+movement of the ship had thrown it clear. It
+swung to the tide with us. The chances against
+the submarine rising under one of the battleships
+were thousands to one, but chances like that have
+a way of coming off at sea. Nothing at sea ever
+causes surprise, my son.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Sub-Lieutenant spoke with the assurance
+of a grey-haired Admiral; he was barely twenty
+years old, but he was wise with the profound salt
+wisdom of the sea and will never get any older or
+less wise though he lives to be ninety.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Though our friend the young Lieutenant of
+Marines was no sailor he was a scholar, trained in
+the class-rooms and playing fields, of a great
+English school. He was profoundly impressed,
+as all outsiders must be, by the engrained efficiency
+of the seafolk among whom he now dwelt, their
+easy mastery of the technicalities of sea craft, and
+their almost childish ignorance of everything that
+lay outside it. It was borne in upon him that
+they were a race apart, bred to their special work
+as terriers and racehorses are bred, the perfect product
+of numberless generations of sea fighters. It
+was borne in upon him, too, that no nation coming
+late to the sea, like the Germans, could, though
+taking an infinity of thought, possibly stand up
+against us. Sea power does not consist of ships
+but of men. For a real Navy does not so much
+design and build ships as secrete them. They
+are the expression in machinery of its brains and
+Soul. He arrived at this conclusion after much
+patient thought and then diffidently laid it before
+his experienced friend. The Sub-Lieutenant accepted
+the theory at once as beyond argument.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That’s the whole secret, my son, the secret of
+the Navy. Fritz can’t design ships; he can
+only copy ours, and then he can’t make much of
+his copies. Take his submarine work. He has
+any amount of pluck, though he is a dirty swine;
+he doesn’t fail for want of pluck but because he
+hasn’t the right kind of nerve. That is where
+Fritz fails and where our boys succeed, because
+they were bred to the sea and their fathers before
+them, and their fathers before that. Submarining
+as a sport is exactly like stalking elephants on
+foot in long grass. One has to wriggle on one’s
+belly till one gets within close range, and then
+make sure of a kill in one shot. There’s no time
+for a second if one misses. Fritz will get fairly
+close up, sometimes—or did before we had taken
+his measure—but not that close enough to make
+dead sure of a hit. He is too much afraid of being
+seen when he pops his periscope above water. So
+he comes down between two stools. He is too
+far off for a certain hit and not far enough to escape
+being seen. That story I told you the other day
+was an exact illustration. The moment he pops
+up the destroyers swoop down upon him, he
+flinches, looses off a mouldy, somehow, anyhow,
+and then gets down. That sort of thing is no
+bally use; one doesn’t sink battleships that fool
+way. Our men first make sure of their hit at the
+closest range, and then think about getting down—or
+don’t get down. They do their work without
+worrying about being sunk themselves the
+instant after. That’s just the difference between
+us and the Germans, between terriers and rats.
+It’s no good taking partial risks in submarine work;
+one must go the whole hog or leave it alone.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Risks are queer things,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant,
+reflectively. “The bigger they are, the
+less one gets hurt. Just look at the seaplanes.
+One would think that the ordinary dangers of
+flight were bad enough—the failure of a stay, the
+misfiring of an engine, a bad gusty wind—and so
+we thought before the war. It looked the forlornest
+of hopes to rush upon an enemy plane, shoot him
+down at the shortest of range, or ram him if one
+couldn’t get a kill any other way. It seemed that
+if two planes stood up to one another, both must
+certainly be lost. And so they would. Yet time
+and again our Flight officers have charged the
+German planes, seen them run away or drop into
+the sea, and come off themselves with no more
+damage than a hole or two through the wings.
+It’s just nerve, nerve and breeding. When we
+dash in upon Fritz with submarine or seaplanes,
+taking no count of the risks, but seeking only to
+kill, he almost always either blunders or runs.
+It isn’t that he lacks pluck—don’t believe that
+silly libel; Fritz is as brave as men are made—but
+he hasn’t the sporting nerve. He will take
+risks in the mass, but he doesn’t like them single;
+we do. He doesn’t love big game shooting, on
+foot, alone; we do. He does his best; he obeys
+orders up to any limit; he will fight and die
+without shrinking. But he is not a natural
+fighting man, and he is always thinking of dying.
+We love fighting, love it so much that we don’t give
+a thought to the dying part. We just look upon
+the risk as that which gives spice to the game.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I believe,” said the Marine, thoughtfully,
+“that you have exactly described the difference
+between the races. With us fighting and dying
+are parts of one great glorious game; with Fritz
+they are the most solemn of business. We laugh
+all the time and sing music-hall songs; Fritz
+never smiles and sings the Wacht am Rhein. I
+am beginning to realize that our irrepressible
+levity is a mighty potent force, mightier by far
+than Fritz’s solemnity. The true English spirit
+is to be seen at its best and brightest in the Navy,
+and the Navy is always ready for the wildest of
+schoolboy rags. If I had not come to sea I might
+myself have become a solemn blighter like Fritz.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In the wardroom that evening the Marine repeated
+the Sub-Lieutenant’s story and was assured
+that it was true. The Navy will pull a Soldier’s
+leg with a joyous disregard for veracity, but there
+is a crudity about its invention which soon ceases
+to deceive. They can invent nothing which
+approaches in wonder the marvels which happen
+every day.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The talk then fell upon the ever-engrossing topic
+of submarine catching, and experiences flowed forth
+in a stream which filled the Marine with astonishment
+and admiration. He had never served an
+apprenticeship in a submarine catcher and the sea
+business in small sporting craft was altogether
+new to him.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It is a pity,” at last said a regular Navy Lieutenant,
+“that submarines are no good against
+other submarines. That is a weakness which we
+must seek to overcome if, as seems likely in the
+future, navies contain more under-water boats
+than any other craft.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That is not quite true,” spoke up a grizzled
+Royal Naval Reserve man, and told a story of
+submarine <span class='it'>v.</span> submarine which I am not permitted
+to repeat.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said the Commander of the <span class='it'>Utopia</span>
+(The Pongo’s ship). “Very clever and very ingenious.
+But did you ever hear how the Navy,
+not the merchant service this time, caught a
+submarine off the —— Lightship. That was
+finesse, if you please, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Our young marine hugged himself. He had set
+the Navy talking, and when the Navy talks there
+come forth things which make glad the ears.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You know the —— Lightship,” went on
+the Commander, a sea potentate of thirty-five,
+with a passion for music-hall songs which he sang
+most divinely. “She is anchored on a shoal which
+lies off the entrance to one of the busiest of our
+English harbours. Though her big lantern is
+not lighted in war time the ship remains as a day
+mark, and two men are always on board of her.
+She is anchored on the top of a sandbank where at
+low water there are not more than twelve feet,
+though close by the channels deepen to thirty
+feet. A little while ago the men in the Lightship
+were interested to observe a German submarine
+approach at high water—of course submerged—and
+to take up a position about a hundred yards
+distant where the low-water soundings were
+twenty-two feet. There she remained on the
+bottom from tide to tide, watching through her
+periscope all the shipping which passed in and
+out of the harbour. Her draught in cruising
+trim was about fourteen feet, so that at high
+water she was completely submerged except for the
+periscope and at low water the top of her conning
+tower showed above the surface. At high tide
+she slipped away with the results of her observations.
+The incident was reported at once to the
+naval authorities and the lightship men were
+instructed to report again at once if the submarine’s
+performance was repeated. A couple of
+days later, under the same conditions, Fritz in his
+submarine came back and the whole programme
+of watchfully waiting was gone through again. He
+evidently knew the soundings to a hair and lay
+where no destroyer could quickly get at him
+through the difficult winding channels amid the
+sandbanks except when the tide was nearly at the
+full. Even at dead low water he could, if surprised,
+rise and float and rapidly make off to where
+there was depth enough to dive. He couldn’t
+be rushed, and there were three or four avenues
+of escape. Fritz had discovered a safe post of
+observation and seemed determined to make the
+most of it. But, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve, even
+the poor effete old Navy has brains and occasionally
+uses them. The night after the second visit an
+Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the lightship’s
+anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred
+yards east-north-east. You will note that the German
+submarine’s chosen spot was exactly one hundred
+yards west-south-west of the lightship’s old
+position. The change was so slight that it might be
+expected to escape notice. And so it did. Three
+days passed, and then at high tide the U boat came
+cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the
+lightship exactly as before. The only difference was
+that now she was upon the top of the shoal with
+barely twelve feet under her at low water instead
+of twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship
+winked at one another, for they had talked with the
+officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise to the
+game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully
+on the bottom, and Fritz, intent to watch the movements
+of ships in and out of the harbour, did not
+notice that the water was steadily falling away from
+his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and
+deck exposed. Far away a destroyer was watching,
+and at the correct moment, when the water around
+the U boat was too shallow to float her even in
+the lightest trim, she slipped up as near as she
+could approach, trained a 4-⁠inch gun upon Fritz
+and sent in an armed boat’s crew to wish him good-day.
+Poor old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors
+until they were hammering violently upon his fore
+hatch and calling upon him to come out and surrender.
+He was a very sick man and did not
+understand at all how he had been caught until
+the whole manœuvre had been kindly explained
+to him by the Lieutenant-Commander of the
+destroyer, from whom I also received the story.
+‘You see, Fritz, old son,’ observed the Lieutenant-Commander,
+‘Admiralty charts are jolly things
+and you know all about them, but you should
+sometimes check them with the lead. Things
+change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come
+and have a drink, old friend, you look as if you
+needed something stiff.’ Fritz gulped down a
+tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out,
+‘That was damned clever and I was a damned fool.
+For God’s sake don’t tell them in Germany how I
+was caught.’ ‘Not for worlds, old man,’ replied
+the Lieutenant-Commander. ‘We will say that
+you were nabbed while trying to ditch a hospital
+ship. There is glory for you.’ ”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“A very nice story,” observed the Royal Naval
+Reserve man drily.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I believed your yarn,” said the Commander
+reproachfully, “and mine is every bit as true as
+yours. But no matter. Call up the band and
+let us get to real business.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Two minutes later the anteroom had emptied,
+and these astonishing naval children were out on
+the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently.
+Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with
+Subs., clerks and snotties from the gun room.
+Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the
+execution of the most complicated Russian
+measures. It was a strange scene which perhaps
+helps to reveal that combination of professional
+efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes
+the Naval Service unlike any other community of
+men and boys in the world.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch06'>CHAPTER VI</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FAILURE AND ITS</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>CONSEQUENCES</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>War is made up of successes and failures. We
+English do not forget our successes, but we have
+an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds
+the recollection of our failures. Which is a very
+bad habit, for as every man realises, during his
+half-blind stumbles through life, failure is a most
+necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians
+seem able to bring themselves to forget that in
+war we ever fail of success, soldiers and sailors do
+not forget, and are always seeking to make of their
+admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which
+they may rise to ultimate victory. On land one
+may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for
+movements are much slower and evil results
+declare themselves less rapidly. I am now compelled
+to write of a failure at sea very early in the
+war, which was not retrieved, and which had a
+trail of most disastrous consequence; and I hope
+to do it without imputing blame to anyone, no
+blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative
+vision, which is one of our most conspicuous defects
+as a race.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>All of those who read me know that the blows
+which we have struck in France and Flanders, ever
+since the crowning victory of the Marne—that
+still unexplained miracle which saved western
+civilisation from ruin—are the direct consequence
+of the success in the North Sea of our mobilised
+fleets in August, 1914. But few know—or if
+they do, have pushed the knowledge testily from
+their minds—of a failure in the Mediterranean,
+also in August of 1914, a failure which at the
+time may have seemed of little account, yet out
+of which grew in inevitable melancholy sequence,
+a tragical train of troubles. Though we may
+choose to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably
+long. Nothing would be more unfair than to lay
+at the door of the Navy the blame for all the
+consequences of a failure which, it has been
+officially held, the officers on the spot did their
+utmost to avert. Men are only human after all,
+and the sea is a very big place. We need not
+censure anyone. Still, we should be most foolish
+and blind to the lessons of war if we did not now
+and then turn aside from the smug contemplation
+of our strategical and tactical victories, and seek
+in a humble spirit to gather instruction from a
+grievous pondering over the consequences of our
+defeats. And of this particular defeat of which
+I write the results have been gloomy beyond
+description—the sword in the balance which threw
+Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies,
+and all the blood and the tears with which the
+soil of the Near East has been soaked.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When war broke out all our modern battleships
+were in the North Sea, but of our nine fast battle
+cruisers four were away. The <span class='it'>Australia</span> was at
+the other side of the world, and the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>
+(flag), <span class='it'>Indomitable</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> were in the
+Mediterranean. We also had four armoured
+cruisers, and four light cruisers in the Mediterranean—the
+armoured <span class='it'>Defence</span>, <span class='it'>Duke of Edinburgh</span>, <span class='it'>Warrior</span>
+and <span class='it'>Black Prince</span>, the light fast <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>
+of the new “Town” class, a sister of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+and the <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, and three other similar cruisers.
+The Germans had in the Mediterranean the battle
+cruiser <span class='it'>Goeben</span>, as fast, though not so powerfully
+gunned, as the three <span class='it'>Inflexibles</span> of ours. She
+carried ten 11-⁠inch guns, while our battle cruisers
+were each armed with eight 12-⁠inch guns. The
+<span class='it'>Goeben</span> had as her consort the light cruiser <span class='it'>Breslau</span>,
+one of the German Town class built in 1912, a
+newer and faster edition of the earlier Town
+cruisers which were under von Spee in the Pacific
+and Atlantic. She could have put up a good fight
+though probably an unsuccessful one against the
+<span class='it'>Gloucester</span>, but was no match for the <span class='it'>Defence</span>,
+the <span class='it'>Warrior</span>, the <span class='it'>Black Prince</span> or <span class='it'>Duke of Edinburgh</span>.
+Our squadrons in the Mediterranean were,
+therefore, in fighting value fully three times as
+powerful as the German vessels. Our job was to
+catch them and to destroy them, but unfortunately
+we did not succeed in bringing them to action.
+The story of their evasion of us, and of what their
+escape involved is, to my mind, one of the most
+fascinating stories of the whole war.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>War officially began between France and Germany
+upon August 3rd at 6.45 p.m. when the
+German Ambassador in Paris asked for his passports,
+and between Great Britain and Germany
+upon August 4th at 11 p.m., when our ultimatum
+in regard to Belgium was definitely rejected. But
+though then at war with Germany, England did
+not declare war on Austria until midnight of
+August 12th. A queer situation arose in the
+Mediterranean as the result of these gaps between
+the dates of active hostilities. Upon August 4th,
+the German cruisers could and did attack French
+territory without being attacked by us, and all
+through those fateful days of August 5th and 6th,
+when our three battle cruisers were hovering
+between Messina and the Adriatic and our four
+armoured cruisers were lying a little to the south
+off Syracuse, Italy was neutral, and Austria was
+not at war with us. Our naval commanders were
+in the highest degree anxious to do nothing which
+could in any way offend Italy—whose position
+as still a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria
+and Germany was delicate in the extreme—and
+were also anxious to commit no act of hostility
+towards Austria. Upon August 4th, therefore,
+their hands were tied tight; upon the 5th and 6th
+they were untied as against the German cruisers,
+but could not stretch into either Italian or Austrian
+waters. The German Admiral took full advantage
+of the freedom of movement allowed to him by
+our diplomatic bonds.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Let us now come to the story of the escape of
+the two German cruisers, indicate as clearly as
+may be how it occurred, and suggest how the
+worst consequences of that escape might have
+been retrieved by instant and spirited action on
+the part of our Government at home. Naval
+responsibility, as distinct from political responsibility,
+ended with the escape of the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and
+<span class='it'>Breslau</span> and their entry into the Dardanelles on
+the way up to Constantinople which then, and
+for nearly three months afterwards, was nominally
+a neutral port.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On July 31st, 1914, the <span class='it'>Goeben</span>, a battle cruiser
+armed with ten 11-⁠inch guns, and with a full
+speed of twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots, was at
+Brindisi in the territorial waters of Italy, a country
+which was then regarded by the Germans as an
+ally. She was joined there on August 1st by the
+<span class='it'>Breslau</span>, a light cruiser of some three knots less
+speed than the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and armed only with twelve
+4.1-⁠inch guns. The German commanders had
+been warned of the imminence of hostilities with
+France—and, indeed, upon that day French territory
+had been violated by German covering troops,
+though war had not yet been declared. The
+French Fleet was far away to the west, already
+busied with the transport of troops from Algeria
+and Morocco to Marseilles. Based upon Malta
+and in touch with the French was the British
+heavy squadron of three battle cruisers. The
+<span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>, a heavier and faster vessel than
+either of the sisters <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> or <span class='it'>Indomitable</span>, was
+certainly a match for the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> by herself; the
+three battle cruisers combined were of overpowering
+strength. Accompanying the battle
+cruisers was the armoured cruiser squadron—<span class='it'>Black
+Prince</span>, <span class='it'>Duke of Edinburgh</span>, <span class='it'>Warrior</span> and
+<span class='it'>Defence</span>—together with the light cruiser <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>.
+The other light cruisers and the destroyer escort
+do not come directly into my picture. The
+<span class='it'>Gloucester</span>—which, as she showed later, had the
+heels of the <span class='it'>Breslau</span> though not of the speedy
+<span class='it'>Goeben</span>—was despatched at once to the Adriatic
+to keep watch upon the movements of the Germans.
+So long as the Germans were in the Adriatic, the
+English Admiral, Sir Berkeley Milne, could do
+nothing to prevent their junction with the Austrians
+at Pola, but upon August 2nd, they both came
+out and went to Messina, and so uncovered the
+Straits of Otranto, which gave passage between
+Messina and the Adriatic. The English battle
+cruisers then steamed to the south and east of
+Sicily, bound for the Otranto Straits. Rear-Admiral
+Troubridge, in command of the English
+armoured cruisers, remained behind.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-119.jpg' alt='' id='illo-119' style='width:90%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon August 1st, the Italian Government had
+declared its intention to be neutral, and upon
+the 3rd the Italian authorities at Messina refused
+coal to the German ships, very much to the outspoken
+disgust and disappointment of the German
+Admiral who had reckoned Italy as at least passively
+benevolent. But being a man of resource, he
+filled his bunkers from those of German vessels
+in the harbour, and early in the morning of August
+4th—having received news the previous evening
+that war had broken out with France, and was
+imminent with England—dashed at the Algerian
+coast and bombarded Phillippeville and Bona,
+whence troops had been arranged to sail for France.
+When one reflects upon the position of Admiral
+Souchon, within easy striking distance of three
+English battle cruisers, which at any moment
+might have been transformed by wireless orders
+into enemies of overwhelming power, this dash
+upon Phillippeville and Bona was an exploit
+which would merit an honourable mention upon
+any navy’s records. Souchon did, in the time
+available to him, all the damage that he could to
+his enemy’s arrangements, and then sped back to
+Messina, passing on the way the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> (flag),
+<span class='it'>Indomitable</span>, and <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>, which had thus got
+into close touch with the Germans, though they
+were not yet free to go for them. The enterprising
+Souchon had cut his time rather fine, and come
+near the edge of destruction; for though at the
+moment of passing the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> and <span class='it'>Indomitable</span>
+England was still at peace with Germany, war was
+declared before he reached the neutral refuge of
+Messina on August 5th. Milne’s hands were thus
+tied at the critical moment when he had both
+the elusive German cruisers under the muzzles of
+his hungry guns.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At Messina the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span> were again
+refused coal, and were ordered to be clear of the
+port within twenty-four hours. Italy was resolutely
+neutral; it was a severe blow. Upon the
+night of August 4th-5th had come another blow—a
+wireless message, picked up at sea, that England
+had declared war. The position of the Germans
+now appeared to be desperate, more so to them
+than even to us, for Admiral Souchon had already
+been warned by the Austrians not to attempt the
+passage of the Straits of Otranto, and had also
+received direct orders at Messina from Berlin to
+make a break eastwards for Constantinople. His
+prospects of eluding our Squadrons and of reaching
+the Dardanelles must have seemed to him of the
+smallest. It is of interest to note, as revealing
+the hardy quality of Admiral Souchon, that these
+orders from Berlin reached him at midnight upon
+August 3rd before he made his raid upon Phillippeville
+and Bona. He might have steamed off at
+once towards the east in comparative security,
+for England was not yet at war and our battle
+cruisers were not yet waiting upon his doorstep.
+But instead of seeking safety in flight he struck
+a shrewd blow for his country and set back the
+hour of his departure for the east by three whole
+days. He sent off a wireless message to Greece
+asking that coal might be got ready for his ships
+near an inconspicuous island in the Ægean.
+Admiral Souchon may personally be a frightful
+Hun—I don’t know, I have never met him—but,
+I confess that, as a sailor, he appeals to me very
+strongly. In resource, in cool decision, and in
+dashing leadership he was the unquestioned superior
+of the English Admirals, whose job it was to get
+the better of him.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon August 6th, a day big with fate for us
+and for South Eastern Europe, the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and
+<span class='it'>Breslau</span> were at Messina with steam up. They
+had again obtained coal from compatriot ships
+and could snap their fingers at Italian neutrality.
+Watching them was the light cruiser <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>,
+which was no match at all for the <span class='it'>Goeben</span>, and
+strung out to the north-east, guarding the passage
+from Messina to the Adriatic, were the three
+English battle cruisers <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>, <span class='it'>Indomitable</span> and
+<span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>. The English armoured cruisers,
+<span class='it'>Black Prince</span>, <span class='it'>Duke of Edinburgh</span>, <span class='it'>Defence</span> and
+<span class='it'>Warrior</span>, were cruising to the South of Syracuse.
+It is not contended that these four vessels could
+not have been off Messina, and could not have met
+and fought Souchon, when at last he issued forth.
+The contention is—and since it has been accepted
+by the Admiralty as sound, one is compelled humbly
+to say little—that none of these cruisers was sufficiently
+armed or armoured to risk action with a
+battle cruiser of the <span class='it'>Goeben’s</span> class. It is urged
+that if Milne had ordered the armoured cruiser
+squadron to fight the <span class='it'>Goeben</span>, their Admiral,
+Troubridge, might have anticipated the fate of
+Cradock three months later at Coronel. Not one
+of them had a speed approaching that of the
+<span class='it'>Goeben</span>, and their twenty-two heavy guns were
+of 9.2-⁠inch calibre as opposed to the ten 11-⁠inch
+guns of the Germans. That they would have
+suffered serious loss is beyond doubt; but might
+they not, while dying, have damaged and delayed
+the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> for a sufficient time to allow the two
+<span class='it'>Inflexibles</span> and the <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> to come down
+and gobble her up? It is not for a layman to
+offer any opinion upon these high naval matters.
+But ever since the action was not fought, and the
+<span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span> escaped, whenever two or
+three naval officers are gathered together and the
+subject is discussed, the vote is always thrown
+upon the side of fighting. The Soul of the Navy
+revolts at the thought that its business is to play
+for safety when great risks boldly faced may yield
+great fruits of victory.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The dispositions of the English Admiral were
+designed to meet one contingency only—an attempt
+by the Germans to pass the Straits of Otranto and
+to join the Austrians; he had evidently no suspicion
+that they had been ordered to Constantinople
+and took no steps to bar their way to the east.
+The handling of his two ships by Admiral Souchon
+was masterly. Until the latest minute he masked
+his intentions and completely outmanœuvred his
+powerful English opponents. Issuing from Messina
+on the afternoon of August 6th, he made towards
+the north-east as if about to hazard the passage
+to the Adriatic, and the small <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>, which
+most gallantly kept touch with far superior forces—she
+was some two knots slower than the <span class='it'>Goeben</span>,
+though rather faster than the <span class='it'>Breslau</span>—fell back
+before him and called up the battle cruisers on
+her wireless. Souchon did not attempt to interfere
+with the <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>, for she was doing exactly what
+he desired of her. He kept upon his course to
+the north-east until darkness came down, and then
+swinging suddenly eight points to starboard, pointed
+straight for Cape Matapan far off to the south-east
+and called for full speed. Then and then only he
+gave the order to jam the <span class='it'>Gloucester’s</span> wireless.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>He did not wholly succeed, the <span class='it'>Gloucester’s</span>
+warning of his change of route got through to the
+battle cruisers, but they were too far away to
+interpose their bulky veto on the German plans.
+For two hours the German ships travelled at full
+speed, the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> leading, and behind them trailed
+the gallant <span class='it'>Gloucester</span>, though she had nothing
+bigger in her armoury than two 6-⁠inch guns, and
+could have been sunk by a single shell from the
+<span class='it'>Goeben’s</span> batteries. Twice she overhauled the
+<span class='it'>Breslau</span> and fired upon her, and twice the <span class='it'>Goeben</span>
+had to fall back to the aid of her consort and drive
+away the persistent English captain. The gallantry
+of the <span class='it'>Gloucester</span> alone redeems the event from
+being a bitter English humiliation. All the while
+she was vainly pursuing the German vessels the
+<span class='it'>Gloucester</span> continued her calls for help. They
+got through, but the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span> had seized
+too long a start. They were clear away for the
+Dardanelles and Constantinople, and were safe
+from effective pursuit.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Vice-Admiral Souchon knew his Greeks and his
+Turks better than we did. He coaled his ships
+at the small island of Denusa in the Cyclades with
+the direct connivance of King Constantine, who
+had arranged for coal to be sent over from Syra,
+and ignored a formal message from the Sublime
+Porte forbidding him to pass the Dardanelles.
+He was confident that the Turks, still anxious to
+sit upon the fence until the safer side were disclosed,
+would not dare to fire upon him, and he
+was justified in his confidence. He steamed
+through the Narrows unmolested and anchored
+before Constantinople. There a telegram was
+handed to him from the Kaiser: “His Majesty
+sends you his acknowledgments.” One must
+allow that the Imperial congratulations were
+worthily bestowed. Souchon had done for Germany
+a greater service than had any of her generals
+or admirals or diplomats; he had definitely committed
+Turkey to the side of the Central Powers.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>If of all words of tongue and pen</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>The saddest are “It might have been,”</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>More sad are these we daily see,</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2em;font-size:.9em;'>—<span class='it'>Bret Harte</span>.</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='pindent'>For the escape of the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span>, the
+Royal Navy was responsible, but for the consequences
+which grew out of that escape the responsibility
+rests upon <span class='it'>La haute Politique</span> at home.
+The naval failure might have been retrieved within
+forty-eight hours had our Foreign Office understood
+the hesitating Turkish mind, and had realised
+that Souchon’s breach of the Dardanelles Convention—which
+bars the Straits to foreign warships—had
+brought to us a Heaven-sent opportunity
+to cut the bonds of gold and intrigue which
+bound the Turkish Government to that of Germany.
+Every Englishman in Constantinople expected
+that a pursuing English squadron of overwhelming
+power would immediately appear off the Turkish
+capital and insist upon the surrender or destruction
+of the German trespassers. Just as Souchon had
+passed the Dardanelles unmolested, so Milne with
+his three battle cruisers—had orders been sent to
+him—might have passed them on the day following.
+The Turks own no argument but force, and
+the greater force would have appeared to them
+to be the better argument. Milne, had he been
+permitted by the British Foreign Office, could
+have followed the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span> to Constantinople
+and sunk them there before the eyes of the
+world. Had he done so, the history of the war
+would have been very different. Upon the Cabinet
+at home must rest the eternal responsibility for
+not seeing and not seizing the finest and least
+hazardous opportunity that has been offered to
+us of determining by one bold stroke the course of
+the war. The three English battle cruisers could
+not have seized Constantinople any more effectively
+than the English Squadron, without military co-operation,
+could have seized it seven months later
+had it succeeded in forcing with its guns the passage
+of the Narrows. But they could have revealed
+to the vacillating Turks, as in a lightning flash,
+that the Allies had the wit to see, and the boldness
+to grasp the vital opportunities offered by war.
+But our Government had neither the wit nor the
+courage, the wonderful chance was allowed to slip
+by unused, and the costliest failure of the war was
+consummated in all its tragic fullness.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>All through August and September and right
+up to the moment when, late in October, Turkey
+was forced into the war by German pressure, our
+Foreign Office hugged the belief—God alone knows
+how acquired—that diplomatic pressure at Constantinople
+could counteract the display of successful
+force embodied in the frowning guns of the
+<span class='it'>Goeben</span> and the <span class='it'>Breslau</span>. In the eyes of a non-maritime
+people two modern warships within easy
+gunshot of their chief city are of more pressing
+consequence than the Grand Fleet far away. Our
+Government accepted gladly the preposterous story
+that these German ships had been purchased by
+the Turks—with German money—and had been
+taken over by Turkish officers and crews. It is
+pitiful to read now the official statement issued on
+August 15th, 1914, through the newly formed
+Press Bureau: “The Press Bureau states that
+there is no reason to doubt that the Turkish Government
+is about to replace the German officers and
+crews of the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> and <span class='it'>Breslau</span> by Turkish officers
+and crews.” As evidence of Oriental good faith
+a photograph of the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> flying the Turkish
+naval flag was kindly supplied for publication in
+English newspapers. What could be more convincing?
+Then, when the moment was ripe and
+there was no more need for the verisimilitude of
+photographs, came the rough awakening, announced
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“On October 29th, <span class='it'>without notice and without
+anything to show that such action was pending</span>,
+three Turkish torpedo craft appeared suddenly
+before Odessa.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The same day the cruisers
+<span class='it'>Breslau</span> and <span class='it'>Hamidieh</span> bombarded several commercial
+ports in the Black Sea, including Novorossisk
+and Theodosia. In the forenoon of
+October 30th, the <span class='it'>Goeben</span> bombarded Sevastopol
+without causing any serious damage. By way of
+reprisals the Franco-British squadron in the Eastern
+Mediterranean carried out a demonstration against
+the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles at
+daybreak on November 3rd.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>No comment which I might make could bite
+more deeply than the bald quotation describing
+this irruption of Turkey as “without motive and
+without anything to show that such action was
+pending.” <span class='it'>Caeci sunt oculi cum animus alias
+res agit</span>—The eyes are blind when the mind is
+obsessed.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch07'>CHAPTER VII</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Sunset and evening star</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>And after that the dark.</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<p class='pindent'>During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of
+the British cruiser <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, the senior English
+Naval Officer on the China Station, and Admiral
+Count von Spee, commanding the German Far-Eastern
+Squadron, were close and intimate friends.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers
+and men of the two squadrons. The English and
+Germans discussed with one another the chances
+of war between their nations, and wished one
+another the best of luck when the scrap came.
+The German Squadron, which has since been
+destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser’s Navy.
+It was commanded by professional officers and
+manned by long-service ratings. It had taken
+for its model the English Navy, and it had absorbed
+much of the English naval spirit. Count
+von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentleman,
+and with Captain von Müller, who afterwards
+made the name of the <span class='it'>Emden</span> immortal, was
+worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let
+us always be just to those of our foes who, though
+they fight with us terribly, yet remain our chivalrous
+friends. I will tell a pretty story which will
+illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed
+between the English and German squadrons during
+those two years before the war.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In December 1912 the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> was cruising
+in the Gulf of Pechili, which resembles a long
+flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von
+Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron
+off Chifu, in the neck of the bottle, received word
+from a correspondent that the second Balkan War
+had brought England and Germany within a short
+distance of “Der Tag.” Von Spee and his officers
+did not clink glasses to “The Day”; they were
+professionals who knew the English Navy and its
+incomparable power; they left silly boastings to
+civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel who had
+not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought
+first of his English friend who, in his elderly cruiser,
+was away up in the Gulf at the mercy of the
+German Squadron, which was as a cork in its
+neck. He at once dispatched a destroyer to find
+the <span class='it'>Monmouth’s</span> captain and to warn him that
+though there might be nothing in the news it
+were better for him to get clear of the Gulf.
+“There may be nothing in the yarn,” he wrote,
+“I have had many scares before. But it would
+be well if you got out of the Gulf. I should be
+most sorry to have to sink you.” When the
+destroyer came up with the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> she had
+returned to Wei-hai-wei, and the message was
+delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an
+answer somewhat as follows: “My dear von Spee,
+thank you very much. I am here. <span class='it'>J’y suis,
+J’y reste.</span> I shall expect you and your guns at
+breakfast to-morrow morning.” War did not
+come then; when von Spee did meet and sink
+the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> she had another captain in command,
+but the story remains as evidence of the
+chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and skilful
+von Spee.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In November 1913 the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> left the China
+Station, and before she went, upon November 6th,
+her crew were entertained sumptuously by von
+Spee and von Müller. She was paid off in January
+1914, after reaching home, but was recommissioned
+in the following July for the test mobilisation,
+which at the moment meant so much, and which
+a few weeks later was to mean so much more.
+When the war broke out, the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, with her
+new officers and men, half of whom were naval
+reservists, was sent back to the Pacific. The
+armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, also commissioned
+in July, was sent with her, and the old battleship
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span> was despatched a little later. Details of
+the movements of these and of other of our warships
+in the South Atlantic and Pacific are given
+in the chapters entitled “The Cruise of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>.”
+The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had been in the South Atlantic
+at the outbreak of war, and was joined there by
+the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile war had broken out, and we will for
+a few moments consider what resulted. The
+<span class='it'>Emden</span>, Captain von Müller, was at the German
+base of Tsing-tau, but Admiral von Spee, with the
+armoured cruisers <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, was
+among the German Caroline Islands far to the
+south of the China Sea. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was in
+the West Indies and the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> on the
+West Coast of Mexico (the Pacific side). The
+Japanese Fleet undertook to keep von Spee out
+of China waters to the north, and the Australian
+Unit—which then was at full strength and included
+the battle cruiser <span class='it'>Australia</span> with her eight 12-⁠inch
+guns and the light cruisers <span class='it'>Melbourne</span> and <span class='it'>Sydney</span>,
+each armed with eight sixes—made themselves
+responsible for the Australian end of the big sea
+area. The <span class='it'>Emden</span>, disguised as an English cruiser,
+with four funnels—the dummy one made of
+canvas—got out of Tsing-tau under the noses of
+the Japanese watchers, made off towards the
+Indian Ocean, and pursued that lively and solitary
+career which came to its appointed end at the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands, as will be described fully
+later on in this book. The Australian Unit, burning
+with zeal to fire its maiden guns at a substantial
+enemy, sought diligently for von Spee and requisitioned
+the assistance of the French armoured
+cruiser <span class='it'>Montcalm</span>, an old slow and not very useful
+vessel which happened to be available for the hunt.
+Von Spee was discovered in his island retreat and
+pursued as far as Fiji, but the long arm of the
+English Admiralty then interposed and upset the
+merry game. We were short of battle cruisers
+where we wanted them most—in the North Sea—so
+the <span class='it'>Australia</span> was summoned home and the
+remaining ships of the Unit, no longer by themselves
+a match for von Spee, were ordered back
+to Sydney in deep disgust. “A little more,”
+declared the bold Australians, who under their
+English professional officers had been hammered
+into a real Naval Unit, “and we would have done
+the work which the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> had
+to do later. If we had been left alone there would
+not have been any disaster off Coronel.” While
+one can sympathise with complaints such as this
+from eager fire-eaters, one has to accept their
+assertions with due caution. The German High
+Seas Fleet was at that time a more important
+objective than even von Spee. So the <span class='it'>Australia</span>
+sailed for England to join up with the Grand Fleet,
+and von Spee had rest for several weeks. He was
+not very enterprising. Commerce hunting did
+not much appeal to him, though his light cruisers,
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, did some little work in
+that line when on their way to join their Chief
+at Easter Island where the squadron ultimately
+concentrated. On the way across, von Spee
+visited Samoa, from which we had torn down the
+German flag, but did no damage there. On
+September 22nd, he bombarded Tahiti, in the
+Society Islands, a foolish proceeding of which
+he repented later on when the Coronel action left
+him short of shell with no means of replenishment.
+For eight days he stayed in the Marquesas
+Islands taking in provisions, thence he went to
+Easter Island and Masafuera, and so to Valparaiso,
+where the Chilean Government, though neutral,
+was not unbenevolent. He was for three weeks
+at Easter Island (Chilean territory), coaling from
+German ships there, and in this remote spot—a
+sort of Chilean St. Kilda—remained hidden both
+from the Chilean authorities and from our South
+Atlantic Squadron.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We must now return to the British Squadron
+which had been sent out to deal with von Spee
+as best it might. Cradock with such a squadron,
+all, except the light cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, old and slow,
+had no means of bringing von Spee to action under
+conditions favourable to himself, or of refusing
+action when conditions were adverse. Von Spee,
+with his concentrated homogeneous squadron, all
+comparatively new and well-armed cruisers, all
+of about the same speed of twenty-one or twenty-two
+knots, all trained to a hair by constant work
+during a three years’ commission, had under his
+hand an engine of war perfect of its kind. He
+could be sure of getting the utmost out of co-operative
+efforts. The most powerful in guns of
+the English vessels was the battleship <span class='it'>Canopus</span>,
+which, when the action off Coronel was fought,
+was 200 miles away to the south. She bore four
+12-⁠inch guns in barbettes—in addition to twelve
+sixes—but she was fourteen years old and could
+not raise more than about thirteen to fourteen
+knots except for an occasional burst. Any one
+of von Spee’s ships, with 50 per cent. more speed,
+could have made rings round her. Had Cradock
+waited for the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>,—as he was implored to
+do by her captain, Grant,—and set the speed of his
+squadron by hers, von Spee could have fought
+him or evaded him exactly as he pleased. “If
+the English had kept their forces together,” wrote
+von Spee after Coronel, “then we should certainly
+have got the worst of it.” This was the modest
+judgment of a brave man, but it is scarcely true.
+If the English had kept their forces together von
+Spee need never have fought; they would have
+had not the smallest chance of getting near him
+except by his own wish. Admiral Cradock flew
+his flag in the armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, which,
+though of 14,000 tons and 520 feet long, had only
+two guns of bigger calibre than 6-⁠inch. These were
+of 9.2 inches, throwing a shell of 380 lb., but the
+guns, like the ship, were twelve years old. Her
+speed was about seventeen knots, four or five
+knots less than that of the German cruisers she
+had come to chase! The <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, of the “County
+Class,” was as obsolete as the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>. Eleven
+years old, of nearly 10,000 tons, she carried nothing
+better than fourteen 6-⁠inch guns of bygone pattern.
+She may have been good for a knot or two
+more than the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, but her cruising and
+fighting speed was, of course, that of the flagship.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The one effective ship of the whole squadron
+was the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, which curiously enough is the
+sole survivor now of the Coronel action, either
+German or English. Out of the eight warships
+which fought there off the Chilean coast on November
+1st, 1914, five German and three English,
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> alone remains afloat. She is a modern
+light cruiser, first commissioned in 1911. The
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> is light, long and lean. She showed that
+she could steam fully twenty-five knots and
+could fight her two 6-⁠inch and ten 4-⁠inch guns
+most effectively. She was a match for any one of
+von Spee’s light cruisers, though unable to stand
+up to the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> or <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>. The modern
+English navy has been built under the modern
+doctrine of speed and gun-power—the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>,
+<span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, and <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, the products of a bad,
+stupid era in naval shipbuilding, had neither speed
+nor gun-power. The result, the inevitable result,
+was the disaster of Coronel in which the English
+ships were completely defeated and the Germans
+barely scratched. The Germans had learned the
+lesson which we ourselves had taught them.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When one considers the two squadrons which
+met and fought off Coronel, in the light of experience
+cast by war, one feels no surprise that
+the action was over in fifty-two minutes. Cradock
+and his men, 1,600 of them, fought and died.</p>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Sunset and evening star</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>And after that the dark.</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='noindent'>The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> would also have been lost had she
+not been a new ship with speed and commanded
+by a man with the moral courage to use it in order
+to preserve his vessel and her crew for the further
+service of their country. Von Spee, who had
+the mastery of manœuvre, brought Cradock to
+action when and how he pleased, and emphasised
+for the hundredth time in naval warfare that speed
+and striking power and squadron training will
+win victory certainly, inevitably, and almost without
+hurt to the victors. Like the Falkland Islands
+action of five weeks afterwards, that off Coronel
+was a gun action. No torpedoes were used on
+either side. Probably it was one of the last purely
+gun actions which will be fought in our time.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the end of October the British and German
+squadrons were near to one another, though until
+they actually met off Coronel the British commanders
+did not know that the concentrated
+German Squadron was off the Chilean coast. Von
+Spee knew that an old pre-Dreadnought battleship
+had come out from England, though he was
+not sure of her class. He judged her speed to be
+higher than that of the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, which, though
+powerfully armed, was so lame a duck that she
+would have been more of a hindrance than a help
+had Cradock joined up with her. Von Spee had
+an immense advantage in the greater handiness
+and cohesiveness of his ships. The <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> were sisters, completed in 1907,
+and alike in all respects. Their shooting records
+were first-class; they were indeed the crack
+gunnery ships under the German ensign. Their
+sixteen 8.2-⁠inch guns—eight each—fired shells of
+275 lb. weight, nearly three times the weight of
+the 100-⁠lb. shells fired from the 6-⁠inch guns which
+formed the chief batteries of their opponents the
+<span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. They were three
+months out of dock but they could still steam, as
+they showed at Coronel, at over twenty knots in
+a heavy sea. The light cruisers <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>
+and <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> were not identical though very
+nearly alike. Their armament was the same—ten
+4.1-⁠inch guns apiece—and their speed nearly
+the same. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was the fastest as she
+was the newest, a sister of the famous <span class='it'>Emden</span>.
+None of the German light cruisers was so fast or
+so powerful as the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, but together they
+were much more than a match for her, just as
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> together were more
+than a match for the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>.
+When, therefore, von Spee found himself opposed
+to the British armoured cruisers he was
+under no anxiety; he had the heels of them and
+the guns of them; they could neither fight successfully
+with him nor escape from him. The speedy
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> might escape—as in fact she did—but
+the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> were doomed
+from the moment when the action was joined.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the
+rival squadrons at the risk of being wearisome
+since an understanding of their qualities is essential
+to an understanding of the action.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On October 31st, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> put into Coronel,
+a small coaling port near Concepcion and to the
+south of Valparaiso, which had become von Spee’s
+unofficial base. He did not remain in territorial
+waters for more than twenty-four hours at a time,
+but he got what he liked from German ships in
+the harbour. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> kept in wireless touch
+with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, which were
+some fifty miles out at sea to the west, and von
+Spee picked up enough from the English wireless
+to know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel.
+At once he despatched the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> to shadow
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, to stroll as it were unostentatiously
+past the little harbour, while he with the rest of
+the squadron stayed out of sight to the north.
+In the morning of November 1st out came the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and made for the rendezvous where she
+was to join the other cruisers and the <span class='it'>Otranto</span>,
+an armed liner by which they were accompanied.
+The wireless signals passing between the watching
+<span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> and von Spee were in their turn picked
+up by the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, so that each squadron then
+knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradock,
+an English seaman of the fighting type, determined
+to seek out the Germans, though he must
+have suspected their superiority of force. Neither
+side actually knew the strength of the other.
+Cradock spread out his vessels fan-wise in the
+early afternoon and ordered them to steam in this
+fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-139.jpg' alt='' id='illo-139' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE SOUTH SEAS.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships
+on either side began to sight one another, and
+until they did so Cradock had no knowledge that
+he had knocked up against the whole of the German
+Pacific Squadron. The German concentration had
+been effected secretly and most successfully. When
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>, von Spee’s flagship, first saw the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> they were far off to the
+west-south-west and had to wait for more than
+half an hour until the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, which was still
+farther out to the west, could join hands with them.
+Meanwhile the German ships, which were also
+spread out, had concentrated on the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>.
+They were the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>,
+for the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> had not returned from her watching
+duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the
+Germans were getting between his ships and the
+Chilean coast, and that he would be at a grave
+disadvantage by being silhouetted against the
+western sky, tried to work in towards the land.
+But von Spee, grasping his enemy’s purpose, set
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> going at twenty
+knots due south against a heavy sea and forced
+himself between Cradock and the coast. When
+the two light cruisers drew up, the four German
+ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers
+and between them and the land. All these preliminary
+manœuvres were put through while the
+two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and
+they determined the issue of the subsequent action.
+For von Spee, having thrust the English against
+the background of the declining sun and being
+able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this
+position and to decide absolutely the moment
+when the firing should begin, had effectively won
+the action before a shot had been fired. So long
+as the sun was above the horizon the German
+ships were lighted up and would have made
+admirable marks could Cradock have got within
+range. But von Spee had no intention of letting
+him get within range until the sun had actually
+set and had ceased to give light to Cradock’s
+gunners. His own men for an hour afterwards
+could see the English ships standing out as clearly
+as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas
+screen. “I had manœuvred,” wrote von Spee
+to a friend, on the day following the action, “so
+that the sun in the west could not disturb me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+When we were about five miles off I ordered the
+firing to commence. The battle had begun, and
+with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite
+calmly.” He might well be calm. The greater
+speed of his squadron had enabled him to outmanœuvre
+the English ships, and to wait until
+the sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English
+no mark at all. He might well be calm. Darkness
+everywhere, except in the western sky behind
+Cradock’s ships, came down very quickly, the
+nearly full moon was not yet up, the night was fine
+except for scuds of rain at intervals. Between
+seven and eight o’clock—between sunset and
+moonrise—von Spee had a full hour in which to
+do his work, and he made the fullest use of the
+time. At three minutes past seven he began to
+fire, when the range was between five and six
+miles, and he hit the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> at the second salvo.
+His consort the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> did the same with the
+<span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. It was fine shooting, but not extraordinary,
+for the German cruisers were crack ships
+and the marks were perfect. At the third salvo
+both the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> burst into
+flames forrard, and remained on fire, for German
+shell rained on them continually. They could
+rarely see to reply and never replied effectively.
+The <span class='it'>Good Hope’s</span> lower deck guns were smothered
+by the sea and were, for all practical purposes,
+out of action. Yet they fought as best they could.
+Von Spee slowly closed in and the torrent of heavy
+shell became more and more bitter. We have no
+record of the action from the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and
+<span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, for not a man was saved from either
+ship. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, which, after the <span class='it'>Otranto</span> had
+properly made off early in the action—she was not
+built for hot naval work—had both the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>
+and the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> to look after, could tell only of
+her own experiences. Captain Luce in quiet sea
+service fashion has brought home to us what
+they were. “Though it was most trying to receive
+a great volume of fire without a chance of returning
+it adequately, all kept perfectly cool, there was
+no wild firing, and discipline was the same as at
+battle practice. When a target ceased to be
+visible gun-layers simultaneously ceased fire.” Yet
+the crews of active ratings and reservists struggled
+gamely to the end. It came swiftly and
+mercifully.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We have detailed accounts of the action from
+the German side, of which the best was written
+by von Spee himself on the following day. There
+is nothing of boasting or vainglory about his simple
+story: though the man was German he seems to
+have been white all through. I have heard much
+of him from those who knew him intimately, and
+willingly accept his narrative as a plain statement
+of fact. Given the conditions, the speed and
+powers of the opposing squadrons, the skilful
+preliminary manœuvres of von Spee before a shot
+was fired, and the veil of darkness which hid the
+German ships from the luckless English gunners,
+the result, as von Spee reveals it, was inevitable.
+He held his fire until after sunset, and then closing
+in to about 10,000 yards—a little over five miles—gave
+the order to begin. He himself led the line
+in the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and engaged the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>,
+the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> following him took the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>
+as her opposite number. The <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> engaged
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, and the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> the <span class='it'>Otranto</span>. The
+shell from the 8.2-⁠inch batteries of the German
+armoured cruisers—each could use six guns on a
+broadside—got home at the second salvo and the
+range was kept without apparent difficulty. The
+fires which almost immediately broke out in
+the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> gave much aid to the
+German gunners, who, when the quick darkness of
+the southern night came down, were spared the
+use of their searchlights. “As the two big enemy
+ships were in flames,” writes one careful German
+observer, “we were able to economise our searchlights.”
+Then, closing in to about 5,000 yards,
+von Spee poured in a terrific fire so rapid and
+sustained that he shot away nearly half his ammunition.
+After fifty-two minutes from the firing
+of the first shell the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> blew up. “She
+looked,” wrote von Spee, “like a splendid firework
+display against a dark sky. The glowing
+white flames, mingled with bright green stars,
+shot up to a great height.” Cradock’s flagship
+then sank, though von Spee thought for long
+afterwards that she was still afloat. The <span class='it'>Otranto</span>
+had made her escape, but the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, which
+could not get away, and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>—which at
+any moment could have shown the enemy her heels—still
+continued the unequal fight. The night
+had become quite dark, the flames in the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>
+had burned out or been extinguished, and
+the Germans had lost sight of their prey. The
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> worked round to the
+south, and the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and <span class='it'>Dresden</span> were sent curving
+to the north and west, in order to keep the
+English ships away from the shelter of the land.
+Just then the light cruiser <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>, which had been
+sent upon the scouting expedition of which I
+have told, arrived upon the scene of action and
+encountered the crippled <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. Had the
+English cruiser been undamaged, she could soon
+have disposed of this new combatant, but she was
+listing heavily and unable to use her guns. Running
+up close the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> poured in a broadside
+which sent the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> to the bottom. The
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, badly damaged above water, but still
+full of speed and mettle, could do no more. The
+big German cruisers were coming up. Her captain
+took the only possible course. Shortly before
+the stricken <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> disappeared under the
+waves he made off at full speed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>No one was picked up, either from the <span class='it'>Good
+Hope</span> or the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. Von Spee, who was not
+the man to neglect the rescue of his drowning
+enemies, gives an explanation. He was far from
+the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> when she blew up, but the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>
+was quite close to the foundering <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>;
+why was no attempt made at rescue in her case
+at least? It was dark and there was a heavy sea
+running, but the risks of a rescue are not sufficient
+to excuse the absence of any attempt. The <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>
+had not been in the main action, she was
+flying up, knowing nothing of what had occurred,
+when she met and sank the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. Her
+captain saw other big ships approaching and
+thought that one of them was the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>.
+This is von Spee’s excuse for the omission of his
+subordinate to put out boats—or even life lines—but
+one suspects that the captain of the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>
+had a bad quarter of an hour when next he met
+his chief.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The German squadron was undamaged, scarcely
+touched. Three men were wounded by splinters
+in the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>. That is the whole casualty list.
+One 6-⁠inch shell went through the deck of the
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> but did not explode—the “creature
+just lay down” and went to sleep. “It lay there,”
+writes von Spee, “as a kind of greeting.” The
+light German cruisers were not touched at all.
+But though the German squadron had come through
+the fight unharmed, it had ceased to be of much
+account in a future battle. The silly bombardment
+of Tahiti, and the action off Coronel, had so
+depleted the once overflowing magazines that not
+half the proper number of rounds were left for
+the heavy guns. No fresh supplies could be
+obtained. Von Spee could fight again, but he
+could not have won again had he been opposed
+to much lighter metal than that which overwhelmed
+him a few weeks later off the Falkland Islands.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On the second day after the action von Spee
+returned to Valparaiso. Though his own ship
+had fought with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and he had seen
+her blow up he did not know for certain what had
+become of her. This well illustrates the small
+value of observers’ estimates of damage done to
+opponents during the confusion of even the simplest
+of naval fights. Distances are so great and light
+is so variable. The destruction of the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>
+was known, but not that of the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>. So
+von Spee made for Valparaiso to find out if the
+English flagship had sought shelter there. Incidentally
+he took with him the first news of his
+victory, and the large German colony in the
+Chilean city burned to celebrate the occasion in
+characteristic fashion. But von Spee gave little
+encouragement. He was under no illusions. He
+fully realized the power of the English Navy and
+that his own existence and that of his squadron
+would speedily be determined. He “absolutely
+refused” to be celebrated as national hero, and
+at the German club, where he spent an hour and
+a half, declined to drink a toast directed in offensive
+terms against his English enemies. In his conduct
+of the fights with our ships, in his orders, in his
+private letters, Admiral von Spee stands out as
+a simple honest gentleman.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>He was a man not very energetic. Though
+forcible in action and a most skilful naval tactician,
+he does not seem to have had any plans for the
+general handling of his squadron. If an enemy
+turned up he fought him, but he did not go out
+of his way to seek after him. He dawdled about
+among the Pacific Islands during September and
+at Easter Island during most of October; after
+Coronel he lingered in and out of Valparaiso doing
+nothing. He must have known that England
+would not sit down in idle lamentation, but he
+did nothing to anticipate and defeat her plans for
+his destruction. His shortage of coal and ammunition
+caused him to forbid the commerce
+raiding which appealed to the officers of his light
+cruisers, and probably the same weakness made
+him reluctant to seek any other adventures. For
+five weeks he made no attempt even to raid the
+Falkland Islands, which lay helplessly expecting
+his stroke, and when at last he started out by the
+long safe southern route round the Horn, it was
+to walk into the mouth of the avenging English
+squadron which had been gathered there to receive
+him. One thing is quite certain: he heard no
+whisper of the English plans and expected to meet
+nothing at the Falkland Islands more formidable
+than the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, and perhaps one
+or two “County Class” cruisers, such as the
+<span class='it'>Cornwall</span> or <span class='it'>Kent</span>. He never expected to be
+crunched in the savage jaws of two battle cruisers!</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While this kindly, rather indolent German Admiral
+was marking time off the Chilean coast, the
+squadron which was to avenge the blunder of
+Coronel was assembling from the ends of the earth
+towards the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian
+coast. The <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, a sister of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, had
+come in from a long cruise in the West Indies, during
+which she had met and exchanged harmless
+shots with another German wanderer, the <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>.
+The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> were racing down from
+the north. The <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> and <span class='it'>Kent</span>, burning to
+show that even “County” cruisers were not wholly
+useless in battle, and the armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>
+were already in the South Atlantic. The
+poor old <span class='it'>Canopus</span> and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had foregathered
+at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands on
+November 8th, but were immediately ordered
+north to Montevideo to meet the other cruisers
+on the passage south. They left in accordance
+with these orders, but the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> was turned
+back by wireless, so that Port Stanley might have
+some naval protection against the expected von
+Spee raid. Here the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> was put aground
+in the mud, painted in futurist colours, and converted
+into a land fort. With her four 12-⁠inch
+guns she could at least have made the inner harbour
+impassable to the Germans. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> docked
+for repairs at Rio, and then joined the avenging
+squadron which had concentrated off Brazil, and
+with them swept down to the Falkland Islands
+which were reached upon the evening of December
+7th. All the English ships, to which had been
+committed the destruction of von Spee, had then
+arrived. The stage was set and the curtain about
+to go up upon the second and final act of the
+Pacific drama. Upon the early morning of the
+following day, as if in response to a call by Fate,
+von Spee and his squadron arrived. After five
+weeks of delay he had at last made up his mind to
+strike.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch08'>CHAPTER VIII</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Now is the winter of our discontent</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Made glorious summer .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>And all the clouds that lour’d</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<p class='pindent'>The naval operations which culminated in the
+action off the Falkland Islands are associated
+vividly in my mind with two little personal incidents.
+On November 12th, 1914, a week after
+the distressful news had reached this country of
+the destruction by the enemy of the cruisers <span class='it'>Good
+Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> off the Chilean coast, a small
+slip of paper was brought to me in an envelope
+which had not passed through the post. I will
+not say from whom or whence that paper came.
+Upon it were written these words: “The battle
+cruisers <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> have left for the
+South Atlantic.” That was all, twelve words,
+but rarely has news which meant so much been
+packed into so small a space. The German Sea
+Command would have given a very great deal
+for the sight of that scrap of paper which, when
+read, I burned. For it meant that two fast
+battle cruisers, each carrying eight 12-⁠inch guns,
+were at that moment speeding south to dispose
+for ever of von Spee’s Pacific Squadron. The
+battle cruisers docked and coaled at Devonport
+on November 9th, 10th and 11th; hundreds of
+humble folk like myself must have known of their
+mission and its grim purpose, yet not then nor
+afterwards until their work was done did a whisper
+of their sailing reach the ears of Germany.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> coaled off St. Vincent,
+Cape Verde Islands, and again south of the
+Line. At the appointed rendezvous off Brazil they
+were joined by the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, <span class='it'>Kent</span>, <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>,
+and <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, the armed liner <span class='it'>Orama</span>, and many
+colliers. Weeks had passed and yet no word of
+the English plans, even of the concentration in
+force, reached von Spee, who still thought that
+he had nothing more formidable to deal with than
+a few light cruisers and the old battleship <span class='it'>Canopus</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Nothing is more difficult to kill than a legend,
+and perhaps the most invulnerable of legends is
+that one which attributes to the German Secret
+Service a superhuman efficiency. I offer to the
+still faithful English believers two facts which in
+a rational world would blast that legend for ever:
+the secret mission of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>
+to the Falkland Islands in November-December
+1914, and the silent transport of the original
+British Expeditionary Force across the Channel
+during the first three weeks of war. And yet,
+I suppose, the legend will survive. The strongest
+case, says Anatole France in <span class='it'>Penguin Island</span>, is
+that which is wholly unsupported by evidence.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The second incident which sticks in my mind
+was a scene in a big public hall on the evening of
+December 9th. Lord Rosebery was in the middle
+of a recruiting speech—chiefly addressed, as he
+plaintively observed, to an audience of baldheads—when
+there came a sudden interruption. Pink
+newspapers fluttered across the platform, the
+coat tails of the speaker were seized, and one of
+the papers thrust into his hands. We all waited
+while Lord Rosebery adjusted his glasses and read
+a stop-press message. What he found there pleased
+him, but he was in no hurry to impart his news
+to us. He smiled benevolently at our impatience,
+and deliberately worked us up to the desired
+pitch of his dramatic intensity. Then at last he
+stepped forward and read:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>,
+the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>, the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, and the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> were sighted near the Falkland Islands
+by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir
+Frederick Sturdee. An action followed in the
+course of which the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> (flying the flag of
+Admiral Graf von Spee), the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, and the
+<span class='it'>Leipzig </span> were .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <span class='it'>sunk</span>.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At that word, pronounced with tremendous
+emphasis, 6,000 people jumped to their feet;
+they shouted, they cheered, they stamped upon
+the floor, they sang “Rule Britannia” till the
+walls swayed and the roof shuddered upon its
+joists. It was a scene less of exultation than of
+relief, relief that the faith of the British people
+in the long arm of the Royal Navy had been so
+fully justified. Cradock and the gallant dead of
+Coronel had been avenged. The mess had been
+cleaned up.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I thought,” said Lord Rosebery, as soon as
+the tumult had died down, “I thought that would
+wake you up.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At Devonport the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> had
+been loaded “to the utmost capacity,” not only
+with stores and ammunition for their own use, but
+with supplies to replenish the depleted magazines
+of their future consorts. They steamed easily
+well out of sight of land, except when they put in
+to coal off St. Vincent, and made the trip of 4,000
+miles to the rendezvous near the line in a little
+over fourteen days. They cleared the Sound in
+the evening of November 11th, and found the
+other cruisers I have mentioned awaiting them
+at the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian coast
+in the early morning of November 26th. Two
+days passed, days of sweltering tropic heat, during
+which the stores, brought by the battle cruisers,
+were parcelled out among the other ships and
+coal was taken in by all the ships from the attendant
+colliers. The speed of a far-cruising squadron
+is determined absolutely by its coal supplies.
+When voracious eaters of coal like battle cruisers
+undertake long voyages, it behoves them to cut
+their fighting speed of some twenty-eight knots
+down to a cruising speed of about one-half. By
+the morning of Saturday, November 28th, the now
+concentrated and fully equipped avenging Squadron
+was ready for its last lap of 2,500 miles to the
+Falkland Islands. The English vessels, spread
+out in a huge fan, swept down, continually searching
+for the enemy off the coasts of South America,
+where rumour hinted that he had taken refuge.
+The several ships steamed within the extreme
+range of visible signalling—so that no tell-tale
+wireless waves might crackle forth warnings to
+von Spee. It was high summer in the south
+and the weather glorious, though the temperature
+steadily fell as the chilly solitudes of the Falklands
+were approached. No Germans were sighted,
+and the Falkland Islands were reached before
+noon on December 7th. The Squadron had
+already been met at the rendezvous and joined
+by the light cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>. The old <span class='it'>Canopus</span>,
+so slow and useless as a battleship that she had
+been put aground on the mud of the inner harbour
+(Port Stanley) to protect the little settlement there,
+was found at her useful but rather inglorious post.
+Most of the vessels anchored in the large outer
+harbour (Port William) and coaling was begun at
+once, but though it was continued at dawn of
+the following day it was not then destined to be
+completed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had
+worked to perfection. The two great battle
+cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from
+England, the Squadron had secretly concentrated
+and then searched the South Atlantic, the Falkland
+Islands had been secured from a successful surprise
+attack which would have given much joy to our
+enemies, yet not a whisper of his fast-approaching
+doom had sped over the ether to von Spee.
+Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he
+had dawdled irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our
+ships were ready for battle, even the light cruiser
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, so heavily battered in the Coronel action
+that her inside had been built up with wooden
+shores till it resembled the “Epping Forest,” after
+which the lower deck had christened it, and she
+had a hole as big as a church door in one side
+above the water-line. She had steamed to Rio
+in this unhappy plight and had been there well
+and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his
+men were full of fight; they had their hurts and
+their humiliation to avenge and meant to get
+their own back with interest. They did; their
+chance came upon the following day, and they
+used it to the full.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Whitehall had done its best, and now came a
+benevolent Joss to put the crowning seal upon its
+work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the Falkland
+Islands will go down to history as a shining
+example of the whiteness of the Navy’s good Joss
+when in a mood of real benignity. We desired
+two things to round off the scheme roughed out
+at the Admiralty on November 6th: we wanted—though
+it was the last thing which we expected—we
+wanted the German Pacific Squadron to
+walk into the trap which had so daintily been
+prepared, and they came immediately, on the
+very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland
+Islands, at the actual moment when Vice-Admiral
+Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>),
+with heads bent over a big chart, were
+discussing plans of search. They might have
+come and played havoc with the Islands on any
+morning during the previous five weeks, yet they
+did not come until December 8th, when we were
+just ready and most heartily anxious to receive
+them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day
+with what the Navy calls “full visibility.” We
+got it on December 8th. And this was a very
+wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are
+cursed with a vile cold climate, almost as cold
+in the summer of December as in the winter of
+June. It rains there about 230 days in the year,
+and even when the rain does not fall fog is far
+more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the
+Falklands is even some points more forbidding
+than the dreadful climate of Lewis in the Hebrides,
+which it closely resembles. Yet now and then,
+at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of
+them, the best of the year, dawned upon December
+8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility was
+at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light
+breeze blew gently from the north-west. Our
+gunners had a full view to the horizon and a
+kindly swell to swing the gunsights upon their
+marks. For Sturdee and his gunners it was a
+day of days. Had von Spee come upon a wet
+and dull morning all would have been spoiled; he
+could have got away, his squadron could have
+scattered, and we should have had many weary
+weeks of search before compassing his destruction.
+But he came upon the one morning of the year
+when we were ready for him and the perfect
+weather conditions made escape impossible. Our
+gunnery officers from their spotting tops could
+see as far as even the great 12-⁠inch guns could
+shoot. When the Fates mean real business there
+is no petty higgling about their methods; they
+ladle out Luck not in spoonfuls but with shovels.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Squadron which had come so far to clean
+up the mess of Coronel was commanded by Vice-Admiral
+Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, who had been
+plucked out of his office chair at the Admiralty—he
+was Director of Naval Intelligence—and
+thrown up upon the quarter-deck of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>.
+He was the right man for the job, a cool-headed
+scientific sailor who would make full use of the
+power and speed of his big ships and yet run no
+risk of suffering severe damage thousands of miles
+away from a repairing base. Those who criticise
+his leisurely deliberation in the action, and the
+long-range fighting tactics which dragged out the
+death agony of the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> for three and a
+half hours and of the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> for five, forget
+that to Sturdee an hour or two of time, and a
+hundred or two rounds of heavy shell, were as
+nothing when set against the possibility of damage
+to his battle cruisers. His business was to sink
+a very capable and well-armed enemy at the
+minimum of risk to his own ships, and so he
+determined to fight at a range—on the average
+about 16,000 yards (9½ land miles)—which made
+his gunnery rather ineffective and wasteful, yet
+certain to achieve its purpose in course of time.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Just as von Spee at Coronel, having the advantage
+of greater speed and greater power, could
+do what he pleased with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>,
+so Sturdee with his battle cruisers could do
+what he pleased with von Spee. The <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> could steam at twenty-eight knots—they
+were clean ships—while the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, now five months out of dock,
+could raise little more than twenty. The superiority
+of the English battle cruisers in guns was no
+less than in speed. Each carried eight 12-⁠inch
+guns, firing a shell of 850 lb., while von Spee’s
+two armoured cruisers were armed with eight
+8.2-⁠inch guns, firing shell of 275 lb. Sturdee,
+with his great advantage of speed, could set the
+range outside the effective capacity of von Spee’s
+guns, secure against anything but an accidental
+plunging shot upon his decks, while the light
+German 6-⁠inch armour upon sides and barbettes
+was little protection against his own 12-⁠inch
+armour-piercing shell. Sturdee could keep his
+distance and pound von Spee to bits at leisure.
+The “visibility” was perfect, space was unlimited,
+the Germans had no port of refuge, and from dawn
+to sunset Sturdee had sixteen hours of working
+daylight. He was in no hurry, though one may
+doubt if he expected to take so unconscionable
+a time as three and a half hours to sink the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and five hours to dispose of the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>.
+It was not that Sturdee’s gunnery was bad—relatively,
+that is, to the gunnery of other ships
+or of other navies. The word bad suggests blame.
+But it was certainly ineffective. After the Falkland
+Islands action, and after those running
+fights in the North Sea between battle cruisers, it
+became dreadfully clear that naval gunnery is
+still in its infancy. All the brains and patience
+and mechanical ingenuity which have been lavished
+upon the problem of how to shoot accurately from
+a rapidly moving platform at a rapidly moving
+object, all the appliances for range-finding and
+range-keeping and spotting, leave a margin of
+guesswork in the shooting, which is a good deal
+bigger than the width of the target fired at. The
+ease and accuracy of land gunnery in contrast
+with the supreme difficulty and relative inaccuracy
+of sea gunnery were brought vividly before me
+once in conversation with a highly skilled naval
+gunner. “Take a rook rifle,” said he, “put up
+a target upon a tree, measure out a distance, sit
+down, and fire. You will get on to your target
+after two or three shots and then hit it five times
+out of six. You will be a land gunner with his
+fixed guns, his observation posts, his aeroplanes
+or kite balloons, his maps upon which he can
+measure up his ranges. Then get into a motor-car
+with your rook rifle, get a friend to drive you
+rapidly along a country road, and standing up
+try what sport you make of hitting the rabbits
+which are running and jumping about in the fields.
+That, exaggerated a bit perhaps, is sea gunnery.
+We know our own speed and our own course,
+but we don’t know exactly either the enemy’s
+speed or the enemy’s course; we have to estimate
+both. As he varies his course and his speed—he
+does both constantly—he throws out our calculations.
+It all comes down to range-finding
+and spotting, trial and error. Can you be surprised
+that naval gunnery, measured by land
+standards, is wasteful and ineffective?” “No,”
+said I, “I am surprised that you ever hit at all.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The English Squadron began to coal at half-past
+three upon that bright summer morning of
+December 8th, and the grimy operation proceeded
+vigorously until eight o’clock, when there came
+a sudden and most welcome interruption. Columns
+of smoke were observed far away to the south-east,
+and, presently, the funnels of two approaching
+vessels were made out. There were three others
+whose upper works had not yet shown above the
+horizon. Coaling was at once stopped and steam
+raised to full pressure. Never have our engineer
+staffs more splendidly justified their advance in
+official status than upon that day. Not only did
+they get their boilers and engines ready in the
+shortest possible time, but, in the subsequent
+action, they screwed out of their ships a knot or
+two more of speed than they had any right to do.
+The action was gained by speed and gun power;
+without the speed—the speed of clean-bottomed
+ships against those which, after five months at
+sea, had become foul—the power of the great
+guns could not have been fully developed. So,
+when we remember Sturdee and his master gunners
+and gunnery officers in the turrets and aloft in
+the spotting tops, let us also remember the master
+engineers hidden out of sight far below who gave
+to the gunners their opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The battle cruisers, whose presence it was desired
+to conceal until the latest moment, poured oil
+upon their furnaces and, veiled in clouds of the
+densest smoke, awaited the rising of the pressure
+gauges. In the outer harbour the light cruisers
+collected, and from her immovable position upon
+the mud-banks the old <span class='it'>Canopus</span> loosed a couple
+of pot shots from her big guns at the distant
+German at a range of six miles. Admiral Graf
+von Spee and his merry men laughed—they knew
+all about the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>. Then, when all was
+ready, the indomitable <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, the <span class='it'>Kent</span> (own
+sister to the sunken <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>), and the armoured
+<span class='it'>Carnarvon</span> issued forth to battle. In the words
+of an eye-witness, later a prisoner, “The Germans
+laughed till their sides ached.” A few more
+minutes passed, and then, from under the cover
+of the smoke and the low fringes of the harbour,
+steamed grandly out the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>,
+cleared for action, their huge turrets fore and aft
+and upon either beam bristling with the long
+12-⁠inch guns, their turbines working at the fullest
+pressure, the flag of Vice-Admiral Sturdee fluttering
+aloft. There was no more German laughter.
+Von Spee and his officers and men were gallant
+enemies, they saw instantly the moment the
+battle cruisers issued forth, overwhelming in their
+speed and power, that for themselves and for their
+squadron the sun had risen for the last time.
+They had come for sport, the easy capture of the
+Falkland Islands, but sport had turned upon the
+instant of staggering surprise to tragedy; nothing
+remained but to fight and to die as became gallant
+seamen. And so they fought, and so they died,
+all but a few whom we, more merciful than the
+Germans themselves at Coronel, plucked from the
+cold sea after the sinking of their ships.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The German Squadron—the two armoured
+cruisers <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, each with
+eight 8.2-⁠inch guns, and the three light cruisers
+<span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>, <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, each armed with
+ten 4.1-⁠inch guns—made off at full speed, and
+for awhile the English Squadron followed at the
+leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about
+twenty knots so as to keep together. It was at
+once apparent that our ships had the legs of the
+enemy, and could catch them when they pleased
+and could fight at any range and in any position
+which they chose to select. That is the crushing
+advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun
+power a fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if
+no port of refuge be available for him. In weight
+and power of guns there was no possible comparison.
+The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>, which
+had descended from the far north to swab up the
+mess of Coronel, were at least three times as
+powerful as the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, crack
+gunnery ships though they might be. Their
+12-⁠inch guns could shoot with ease and with
+sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range
+beyond the full stretch of the German 8.2-⁠inch
+weapons however deftly they might be handled.
+Their 10-⁠inch armour upon the turrets and conning-tower
+was invulnerable against chance hits when
+closing in, and the armoured decks covering their
+inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The
+chances of disaster were reduced almost to nothingness
+by Sturdee’s tactics of the waiting game.
+When at length he gave the order to open fire
+he kept out at a distance which made the percentage
+of his hits small, yet still made those
+hits which he brought off tremendously effective.
+A bursting charge of lyddite in the open may
+do little damage, even that contained in a 12-⁠inch
+shell, but the same charge exploded within the
+decks of a cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destructiveness.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Presently the German Squadron divided, the
+enemy light cruisers and attendant transports
+seeking safety in flight from our light cruisers
+despatched in chase while the armoured cruisers
+held on pursued by the two battle cruisers and
+the armoured <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, whose ten guns were of
+7.5- and 6-⁠inch calibre. The <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, light
+though she was by comparison with the battle
+cruisers, did admirable and accurate work, and
+proved in the action to be by no means a negligible
+consort. There was no hurry. A wide ocean
+lay before the rushing vessels, the enemy had no
+opportunity of escape so long as the day held
+clear and fine, and the English ships could close
+in or open out exactly as they pleased. During
+most of the fight which followed the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> steered upon courses approximately
+parallel with those of the Germans, following them
+as they dodged and winded like failing hares,
+always maintaining that dominating position which
+in these days of steam corresponds with Nelson’s
+weather gauge. It followed from their position
+as the chasers that they could not each use more
+than six guns, but this was more than compensated
+for by the enemy’s inability to use more
+than four of his heavier guns in the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+or <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have met and talked with many naval officers
+and men who have been in action during the
+present war, and have long since ceased to put a
+question which received an invariable answer.
+I used to inquire “Were you excited or sensibly
+thrilled either when going into action or after it
+had begun?” This was the substance though
+not the words of the question. One does not talk
+in that land fashion with sailor-men. The answer
+was always the same. “Excited, thrilled, of
+course not. There was too much to do.” An
+action at sea is glorified drill. Every man knows
+his job perfectly and does it as perfectly as he
+knows how. Whether he be an Admiral or a
+ship’s boy he attends to his job and has no time
+to bother about personal feelings. Naval work
+is team work, the individual is nothing, the team
+is everything. This is why there is a certain
+ritual and etiquette in naval honours; personal
+distinctions are very rare and are never the result
+of self-seeking. There is no pot-hunting in the
+Sea Service. Not only are actions at sea free
+from excitement or thrills, but for most of those
+who take part in them they are blind. Not one
+in twenty of those who fight in a big ship see
+anything at all—not even the gun-layers, when the
+range is long and they are “following the Control.”
+Calmly and blindly our men go into action, calmly
+and blindly they fight obeying exactly their
+orders, calmly and blindly when Fate wills they
+go down to their deaths. In their calmness and
+in their blindness they are the perfected fruits of
+long centuries of naval discipline. The Sea Service
+has become highly scientific, yet in taste and in
+sentiment it has changed little since the days of
+Queen Elizabeth. The English sailor, then as
+now, has a catlike hatred of dirt, and never fights
+so happily as when his belly is well filled. The
+officers and men of the battle cruisers had been
+coaling when the enemy so obligingly turned up,
+and they had breakfasted so early that the meal
+had passed from their memories. There was
+plenty of time before firing could begin. So,
+while the engineers sweated below, those with
+more leisure scrubbed the black grime from their
+skins, and changed into their best and brightest
+uniforms to do honour to a great occasion. Then
+at noon “all hands went to dinner.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The big guns of the battle cruisers began to
+pick up the range of the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>
+at five minutes to one, three hours after the chase
+had begun, when the distance from the enemy’s
+armoured cruisers was some 18,000 yards, say ten
+land miles. And while the huge shots fly forth
+seeking their prey, let us visit in spirit for a few
+minutes the spotting top of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>, and
+discover for ourselves how it is possible to serve
+great guns with any approach to accuracy, when
+both the pursuing and pursued ships are travelling
+at high speed upon different courses during which
+the range and direction are continually varying.
+The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> worked up at one time to twenty-nine
+knots (nearly thirty-four miles an hour),
+though not for long, since a lower speed was better
+suited to her purpose, and the firing ranges varied
+from 22,000 yards down to the comparatively close
+quarters of six miles, at which the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and, later, the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> were sent to the bottom.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>From the decks of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>, when the main
+action opened, little could be seen of the chase
+except columns of smoke, but from the fire control
+platform one could make out through glasses the
+funnels and most of the upper works of the German
+cruisers. At this elevation the sea horizon was
+distant 26,000 yards (about 15½ land miles), and
+upon the day of the Falkland Islands fight “visibility”
+was almost perfect. When an enemy
+ship can be seen, its distance can be measured
+within a margin of error of half of one per cent.—fifty
+yards in ten thousand; that is not difficult,
+but since both the enemy vessel and one’s own
+ship are moving very fast, and courses are being
+changed as the enemy seeks to evade one’s fire
+or to direct more efficiently his own guns, the
+varying ranges have to be kept, which is much
+more difficult. It follows that three operations
+have to be in progress simultaneously, of which
+one is a check upon and a correction of the other
+two. First, all the range-finders have to be kept
+going and their readings compared; secondly, the
+course and speed of one’s own ship have to be
+registered with the closest accuracy and the
+corresponding speeds and courses of the enemy
+observed and estimated; thirdly, the pitching of
+one’s shots has to be watched and their errors
+noted as closely as may be. All this delicate
+gunnery work is perfectly mechanical but chiefly
+human. The Germans, essentially a mechanically
+inhuman people, try to carry the aid of machinery
+farther than we do. They fit, for example, a
+gyroscopic arrangement which automatically fires
+the guns at a chosen moment in the roll of a ship.
+We fire as the roll brings the wires of the sighting
+telescopes upon the object aimed at, and can
+shoot better when a ship is rolling than when she
+is travelling upon an even keel. We believe in
+relying mainly upon the deft eyes and hands of
+our gun-layers—when the enemy is within their
+range of vision—and upon control officers up aloft
+when he is not. German gunnery can be very
+good, but it tends to fall to pieces under stress
+of battle. Ours tends to improve in action.
+Machinery is a good servant but a bad master.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As the shots are fired they are observed by the
+spotting officers to fall too short or too far over,
+to one side or to the other, and corrections are
+made in direction and in range so as to convert a
+“bracket” into a “straddle” and then to bring
+off accurate hits.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When, say, the shots of one salvo fall beyond
+the mark and the shots of the next come down
+on the near side, the mark is said to be “bracketed.”
+When the individual shots of a salvo fall some too
+far and others too short, the mark has been
+“straddled.” A straddle is a closed-in bracket.
+At long ranges far more shots miss than hit,
+and we are dealing now with ranges up to ten or
+twelve miles. The bigger the gun the bigger the
+splash made by its shell when striking the water,
+and as the spotting officers cannot spot unless
+they can clearly make out the splashes, there is
+an accuracy—an ultimate effective accuracy—in
+big guns with which smaller ones cannot compete
+however well they may be served. For, ultimately,
+in naval gunnery, when ships are moving
+fast and ranges are changing continually, we
+come down to trial and error. We shoot and
+correct, correct and shoot, now and then find the
+mark and speedily lose it again, as the courses
+and speeds are changed. Unless we can see the
+splashes of the shells and are equipped with guns
+powerful enough to shoot fairly flat—without high
+elevation—we may make a great deal of noise
+and expend quantities of shell, but we shall not
+do much hurt to the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Falkland Islands action was the Royal
+Navy’s first experience in long-range war gunnery
+under favorable conditions of light—and it was
+rather disappointing. It revealed the immense
+gap which separates shooting in war and shooting
+at targets in time of peace. The battle cruisers
+sank the enemy, and suffered little damage in
+doing their appointed work, and thus achieved
+both the purposes which Admiral Sturdee had
+set himself and his men. But it was a wasteful
+exhibition, and showed how very difficult it is to
+sink even lightly armoured ships by gun-fire alone.
+Our shells at the long ranges set were falling
+steeply; their effective targets were not the
+sides but the decks of the Germans, which were
+not more than seventy feet wide. If one reflects
+what it means to pitch a shell at a range of ten
+miles upon a rapidly moving target seventy feet
+wide, one can scarcely feel surprised that very few
+shots got fairly home. We need not accept <span class='it'>au
+pied de la lettre</span> the declaration of Lieutenant
+Lietzmann—a damp and unhappy prisoner—that
+the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, shot at for five hours, was hit
+effectively only twenty times, nor endorse his
+rather savage verdict that the shooting of the
+battle cruisers was “simply disgraceful.” But
+every competent gunnery officer, in his moments
+of expansive candour, will agree that the results
+of the big-gun shooting were not a little disappointing.
+The Germans added to our difficulty
+by veiling their ships in smoke clouds and thus,
+to some extent cancelled the day’s “visibility.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>No enemy could have fought against overwhelming
+odds more gallantly and persistently
+than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly
+trained long-service men. Many times, even at
+the long ranges at which the early part of the
+action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon
+the battle cruisers. One 8.2-⁠inch shell from the
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> wrecked the <span class='it'>Invincible’s</span> wardroom
+and smashed all the furniture into chips except
+the piano, which still retained some wires and part
+of the keyboard. Another shell scattered the
+Fleet Paymaster’s money-box and strewed the
+decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless.
+Though the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> was the leading ship, and
+at one time received the concentrated fire of both
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, she did not
+suffer a single casualty. And, while she was
+being peppered almost harmlessly, her huge shells,
+which now and then burst inboard the doomed
+German vessels, were setting everything on fire
+between decks, until the dull red glow could be
+seen from miles away through the gaping holes in
+the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued,
+with intervals of rest for guns and men, till 4.16,
+when the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> sank. Three hours and
+twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the
+Germans stuck to their work, there was no thought
+of surrender; they fought so long as a gun could
+be brought to bear or a round of shell remained
+in their depleted magazines. Every man in the
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> was killed or drowned; the action was
+not ended when she went down and her consort
+<span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, steaming through the floating bodies
+of the poor relics of her company, was compelled
+to leave them to their fate. For nearly two hours
+longer the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> kept up the fight. The battle
+cruisers and the smaller <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span> closed in upon
+her, and at a range of some six to seven land miles
+smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was
+blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes
+past six she rolled over and sank. Her guns spoke
+up to the last. As she lay upon her side her end
+was hastened by the Germans themselves, who,
+feeling that she was about to go, opened to the
+sea one of the broadside torpedo flats. She sank
+with her ensign still flying. If the whole German
+Navy could live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern
+Pacific Squadron, that Service might in time
+develop a true Naval Soul.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Those of the crew who remained afloat in the
+water after the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> sank were picked up
+by boats from the battle cruisers and the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>—we
+rescued 108 officers and men. Admiral
+Sturdee sent them a message of congratulation
+upon their rescue and of commendation upon their
+gallantry in battle, and every English sailor did
+his utmost to treat them as brothers of the sea.
+Officers and men lived with their captors as guests,
+not as prisoners, in wardroom and gun-room, and
+on the lower deck the English and Germans fought
+their battle over again in the best of honest fellowship.
+“There is nothing at all to show that we
+are prisoners of war,” wrote a young German
+lieutenant to his friends in the Fatherland, expressing
+in one simple sentence—though perhaps unconsciously—the
+immortal spirit of the English
+Sea Service. A defeated enemy is not a prisoner;
+he is an unhappy brother of the sea, to be dried
+and clothed and made much of, and to be taught
+with the kindly aid of strong drink to forget his
+troubles.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There is little of exhilaration about a sea fight,
+such as that which I have briefly sketched. It
+seems, even to those who take part in it, to be
+wholly impersonal and wholly devilish. Though
+its result depends entirely upon the human element,
+upon the machines which men’s brains have
+secreted and which their cunning hands and eyes
+direct, it seems to most of them while in action to
+have become nothing loftier than a fight between
+soulless machines. One cannot wonder. The
+enemy ship—to those few of the fighting men who
+can see it—is a spot upon the distant horizon from
+which spit out at intervals little columns of fire
+and smoke. There is no sign of a living foe.
+And upon one’s own ship the attention of everyone
+is absorbed by mechanical operations—the steam
+steering gear, the fire control, the hydraulic or
+electric gun mechanism, the glowing fires down
+below fed by their buzzing air fans, the softly
+purring turbines. And yet, what now appears
+to be utterly inhuman and impersonal is in reality
+as personal and human as was fighting in the days
+of yard-arm distances and hand-to-hand boarding.
+The Admiral who, from his armoured conning-tower,
+orders the courses and maintains the
+distances best suited to his terrible work; the Fire
+Director watching, aiming, adjusting sights with
+the minute care of a marksman with his rifle; the
+officers at their telescopes spotting the gouts of
+foam thrown up by the bursting shells; the
+engineers intent to squeeze the utmost tally in
+revolutions out of their beloved engines; the
+stokers each man rightly feeling that upon him
+and his efforts depends the sustained speed which
+alone can give mastery of manœuvre; the seamen
+at their stations extinguishing fire caused by
+hostile shells; the gunners following with huge
+blind weapons the keen eyes directing them from
+far aloft; all these are personal and very human
+tasks. A sea fight, though it may appear to be
+one between machinery, is now as always a fight
+between men. Battles are fought and won by
+men and by the souls of men, by what they have
+thought and done in peace time as a preparation
+for war, by what they do in war as the result of
+their peace training.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The whole art of successful war is the concentration
+upon an enemy at a given moment of an
+overwhelming force and the concentration of
+that force outside the range of his observation.
+Both these things were done by the Royal Navy
+between November 6th and December 8th, 1914,
+and their fruits were the shattered remains of
+von Spee’s squadron lying thousands of fathoms
+deep in the South Atlantic. But nothing which
+the Admiralty planned upon November 6th would
+have availed had not the Royal Navy designed
+and built so great a force of powerful ships that,
+when the far-off call arose, two battle cruisers could
+be spared to travel 7,000 miles from the North
+Sea to the Falkland Islands without sensibly
+endangering the margin of safety of the Grand
+Fleet at home.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> were occupying
+the front of the battle stage and disposing of the
+hostile stars, the English light cruisers were enjoying
+themselves in the wings in a more humble
+but not less useful play. The cruiser <span class='it'>Kent</span> astonished
+everybody. She was the lame duck of the
+Squadron, a slow old creature who could with
+extreme difficulty screw out seventeen knots, so
+that, in the company of much faster boats, her
+armament of fourteen 6-⁠inch guns appeared to be
+practically wasted. Yet this elderly County cruiser,
+so short of coal that her fires were fed with boats,
+ladders, doors, and officers’ furniture, got herself
+moving at over twenty-one knots, chased and
+caught the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>—which ought to have been
+able to romp round her if one of her boilers had
+not been out of action—and sank the German
+vessel out of hand. Afterwards her officers claimed
+with solemn oaths that she had done twenty-four
+knots, but there are heights to which my credulity
+will not soar. One is compelled on the evidence
+to believe that she did catch the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>, but
+how she did it no one can explain, least of all, I
+fancy, her Engineer Commander himself. The
+<span class='it'>Leipzig</span> was rapidly overhauled by the speedy
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, who sank her with the aid of the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>
+and so repaid in full the debt of Coronel. The
+cruiser <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, a sister of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, was sent
+after the German Squadron’s transports and colliers,
+and, in company with the armed liner
+<span class='it'>Macedonia</span>, “proceeded,” in naval language, “to
+destroy them.” Out of the whole German Squadron
+the light cruiser <span class='it'>Dresden</span> (own sister to the
+<span class='it'>Emden</span>) alone managed to get away. She had
+turbine engines and fled without firing a shot.
+She passed a precarious hunted existence for three
+months, and was at last disposed of off Robinson
+Crusoe’s Island on March 14th, 1915. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+still intent upon collecting payment for her injuries,
+and our aged but active friend the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, were in
+at her death, which was not very glorious. I will
+tell her story in its proper place. So ended that
+most dainty operation, the wiping out of the
+German Pacific Squadron and the cleaning up
+of the Mess of Coronel. Throughout, our sailors
+had to do only with clean above-water fighting.
+There were no nasty sneaking mines or submarines
+to hamper free movement; the fast ship and the
+big gun had full play and did their work in the
+business-like convincing fashion which the Royal
+Navy has taught us to expect from it.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>[For what follows I have none but German
+evidence, yet am loth to disbelieve it. I cannot
+bring myself to conceive it possible that the dull
+Teutonic imagination could, unaided by fact,
+round off in so pretty a fashion the story of the
+Falkland Islands. My naval friends laugh at me.
+They say the yarn is wholly impossible.]</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>More than a year afterwards some fishermen
+upon the barren Schleswig coast observed a little
+water-worn dinghy lying upon the sand. She
+was an open boat about twelve feet long, too frail
+a bark in which to essay the crossing of the North
+Sea. Yet upon this little dinghy was engraved
+the name of the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>! Like a homing pigeon
+this frail scrap of wood and iron had wandered
+by itself across the world from that far-distant spot
+where its parent vessel had been sunk by the
+<span class='it'>Kent</span>. It had drifted home, empty and alone,
+through 7,000 miles of stormy seas. I like to
+picture to myself that Odyssey of the <span class='it'>Nürnberg’s</span>
+dinghy during those fourteen months of lonely
+ocean travel. Those who know and love ships
+are very sure that they are alive. They are no
+soulless hulks of wood or steel or iron, but retain
+always some spiritual essence distilled from the
+personality of those who designed, built, and sailed
+them. It may be that in her dim blind way this
+fragment of a once fine cruiser, all that was left
+of a splendid squadron, was inspired to bring to
+her far-away northern home the news of a year-old
+tragedy. So she drifted ever northwards,
+scorched by months of sun and buffeted by months
+of tempest, until she came at last to rest upon
+her own arid shores. And the spirits of German
+sailors, which had accompanied her and watched
+over her during those long wanderings, must, when
+they saw her ground upon the Schleswig sands,
+have passed to their sleep content.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch09'>CHAPTER IX</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Forward, each gentleman and knight!</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Let gentle blood show generous might</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>And chivalry redeem the fight!</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Luck of the Navy is not always good. There
+are wardrooms in the Grand Fleet within which
+to mention any Joss except of the most devilish
+blackness may lead to blasphemy and even to
+blows. One can sympathise. Those who sped
+on May 31st, 1916, across 400 miles of sea and
+who, though equipped with all the paraphernalia
+of fire-directors, spotting-officers, range-fingers,
+control instruments, grizzled gun-layers and tremendous
+wire-wound guns, failed to get in a single
+shot at an elusive enemy, are dangerous folk to
+chaff. If to them had been vouchsafed the great
+chance which came to the Salt of the Earth and
+the Fifth B. S. there would not now be a German
+battleship afloat! Still, in face of blazing examples
+of bad Joss such as this, I will maintain that there
+are pixies sitting up aloft who have a tender regard
+for the Royal Navy and who, every now and then,
+ladle out to it toothsome morsels of unexpected,
+astounding, incredible Luck.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>For how else can one explain the action at the
+Falkland Islands? There was sheer luck in every
+detail of it, luck piled upon luck. Sturdee with
+his two battle-cruisers raced through 7,000 miles
+of ocean, from Plymouth to Port Stanley, and
+not a whisper of his coming sped over the wireless
+to von Spee. Yet hundreds knew of Sturdee’s
+mission—even I knew before he had cleared the
+English Channel. During five weeks, from the
+Coronel battle until December 7th, the Falkland
+Islands were exposed almost helpless to a raid
+by von Spee’s victorious squadron. Yet he delayed
+his coming until December 8th—the day after
+the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> had arrived to gobble
+him up. As if these two miracles were not sufficient—a
+month of silence in those buzzing days of
+enemy agents and wireless telegraphy, and von
+Spee’s arrival off Port Stanley at the moment
+most dangerous for him and most convenient for
+us—the Fates worked for the Navy yet another.
+They gave to Sturdee upon December 8th, 1914,
+perfect weather, full visibility, and a quiet sea in
+a corner of ocean where rain and fog are the rule
+and clear weather almost a negligible exception.
+The Falkland Islands do not see half a dozen
+such days as that December 8th in the whole
+circuit of the year. Von Spee came and to Sturdee
+were granted a long southern summer day, perfect
+visibility, a limitless ocean of space, and a benign
+easy swell to swing the gunsights kindly upon
+their mark. It was a day that gunners pray for,
+sometimes dream of, but very rarely experience in
+battle.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Less conspicuously but not less benignantly did
+the kindly Fates work up the scene for the destruction
+of the <span class='it'>Emden</span>. They made all their preparations
+in silence and then switched up the curtain
+at the moment chosen by themselves. In the Falkland
+Islands action Luck interposed to perfect
+the Navy’s long-laid plans and to add to the scheme
+those artistic touches of which man unaided is
+incapable. But the <span class='it'>Sydney-Emden</span> action was
+fortuitous, quite unplanned, flung off at a moment
+when Luck might have seemed to be wholly on
+the side of the raider. The <span class='it'>Emden</span> had destroyed
+70,000 tons of shipping in seven weeks and vanished
+after each exploit upon an ocean which left no
+tracks. She seemed to be as elusive and dangerous
+as the Flying Dutchman. But perhaps her commander,
+von Müller, a most ingenious and gallant
+seaman, had committed that offence, which the
+Athenians and Eton boys call hubris, and had
+neglected to pay due homage for the good fortune
+which was poured upon him in plenty. For the
+Fates wearied of their sport with him and with
+us, withdrew their mantle of protection, and
+suddenly delivered the <span class='it'>Emden</span> to the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> with
+that artistic thoroughness which may always be
+seen in their carefully planned work. Luck is no
+bungler, but Luck is a most jealous mistress. If
+Sturdee and Glossop are wise they will sacrifice
+their dearest possessions while there is yet time.
+The <span class='it'>Invincible</span> is at the bottom of the North Sea
+and the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> was mined in the Dardanelles.
+The <span class='it'>Sydney</span> is a pretty little ship and I should
+grieve to see her suffer for her good luck of three
+years ago.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Take a chart of the Indian Ocean and draw a
+line from Fremantle in Australia to Colombo in
+Ceylon. The middle point of this line will be seen
+to lie about fifty miles east of the Cocos-Keeling
+Islands. Now draw another line from Cocos to
+the Sunda strait, a line which will be seen to bisect
+at right angles the Fremantle-Colombo line. After
+this exercise in Euclid examine that point without
+parts and without magnitude, fifty miles east of
+Cocos, where the tracks intersect. It is a very
+interesting point, for upon the tropical night of
+November 8th, 1914, it was being approached by
+two hostile naval forces each of which was entirely
+ignorant of the nearness of the other. Coming
+up from Australia bound for Colombo steamed a
+fleet of transports under the charge of Captain
+Silver of H.M. Australian light cruiser <span class='it'>Melbourne</span>.
+Upon the left of Captain Silver, and nearest to
+the Cocos Islands, was Captain Glossop in the
+sister ship <span class='it'>Sydney</span>, and away to the right was a
+Japanese light cruiser. Upon the line from the
+Sunda strait to the Cocos Islands was steaming
+the famous raider <span class='it'>Emden</span>, with an attendant
+collier, bound upon a mission of destruction there.
+The <span class='it'>Emden</span> crossed the head of the convoy about
+three hours before it reached the point of intersection
+of the two tracks, and went on to demolish
+the cable and wireless station on the Islands.
+Meanwhile, wholly unconscious of the scene-setting
+upon which the Fates were busy, the convoy
+sailed on, crossed the <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> track and cut that
+vessel off from any chance of escape to the east.
+To the west the ocean stretches unbroken for limitless
+miles. At half-past six in the morning the
+<span class='it'>Emden</span> appeared off the Cocos Islands and the
+watching wireless operators at once sent out a
+warning to all whom it might concern that a foreign
+warship was in sight. It greatly concerned Captain
+Silver of the <span class='it'>Melbourne</span>, who ordered Captain
+Glossop to proceed in the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> to the Islands
+in order to investigate. The <span class='it'>Sydney</span> was nearest
+to the Islands, was a clean ship not three weeks
+out of dock, was in trim for the highest possible
+speed and, though largely manned by men in
+course of training, was in charge of experienced
+officers “lent” by the Royal Navy to the Australian
+Fleet Unit.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-178.jpg' alt='' id='illo-178' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In the old sailing-ship days it was more common
+than it is now for fighting ships to pass close to
+one another without detection. Whole fleets used
+then to do it in a way which now seems always
+unbelievable. The classical example is that of
+Napoleon and Nelson in June, 1798. On the night
+of June 30th-July 1st, Napoleon with a huge
+fleet of transports, escorted by Admiral Brueys’
+squadron, crossed the Gulf of Candia and reached
+Alexandria on the afternoon of the 1st. Nelson,
+who had been at Alexandria in search of his enemy,
+left on June 29th, and sailed slowly against adverse
+winds to the north. Though the French and
+British fleets covered scores of miles of sea they
+passed across one another, each without suspicion
+of the presence of the other. Nelson was very
+short of frigates. It is not remarkable that the
+British convoy and the <span class='it'>Emden</span> on the night of
+November 8th, 1914, should so nearly have met
+without mutual detection; what is wonderful is
+that the <span class='it'>Emden</span> should have chosen the day and
+hour for raiding the Cocos Islands when a greatly
+superior British force was barely fifty miles distant
+and placed by accident in a position which cut off
+all prospects of escape. It was a stroke of Luck
+for us which exactly paralleled the occasion of
+von Spee’s raid a month later upon the Falkland
+Islands.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>By seven o’clock Glossop and the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> were
+ready to leave upon their trip of investigation—they
+had no knowledge of what was before them—and
+during the next two and a quarter hours
+they steamed at twenty knots towards the distant
+cable station. In the meantime the <span class='it'>Emden</span> had
+sent a boat ashore and the work of destruction of
+the station was completed by 9.20 a.m. Everything
+fitted exactly into its place, for the Fates
+are very pretty workmen. The <span class='it'>Emden</span> knew nothing
+of the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> coming, but as Glossop sped
+along his wireless receivers took up the distress
+calls from Cocos. He learned that the enemy
+warship had sent a boat ashore—and then came
+interruptions in the signals which showed that
+the wireless station had been raided. Naval officers
+do not get excited—they have too much of
+urgency upon which to concentrate their minds—but
+to those in the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> must have come some
+thrills at the unknown prospect. Their ship and
+their men were new and untried in war. Their
+guns had never fired a shot except in practice.
+Before them might be the <span class='it'>Emden</span> or the <span class='it'>Königsberg</span>
+or both together. They did not know, but as
+they rushed through the slowly heaving tropic
+sea they serenely, exactly, prepared for action.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The light cruiser <span class='it'>Sydney</span>, completed in 1913 for
+the Australian Unit, is very fast and powerful.
+She is 5,600 tons, built with the clipper bows
+and lines of a yacht, and when oil is sprayed upon
+her coal furnaces can steam at over twenty-five
+knots. She bears upon her deck eight 6-⁠inch
+guns of the latest pattern, one forward, one aft,
+and three on either beam, so that she can fire
+simultaneously from five guns upon either broadside.
+Her lyddite shells weigh one hundred pounds
+each. She was, and is, of the fast one-calibre
+type of warship which, whether as light cruiser,
+battle cruiser, or heavy battleship, gives to our
+Navy its modern power of manœuvre and concentrated
+fighting force. Speed and gun-power,
+with the simplicity of control given by guns all
+of one size, are the doctrines upon which the New
+Navy has been built, and by virtue of which it
+holds the seas. The <span class='it'>Sydney</span> was far more powerful
+than the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, whose ten guns were of 4.1-⁠inch,
+firing shells of thirty-eight pounds weight.
+The German raider had been out of dock in warm
+waters for at least three and a half months, her
+bottom was foul, and her speed so much reduced
+that in the action which presently began she never
+raised more than sixteen knots. In speed as in
+gun-power she was utterly outclassed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Let us visit the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> as she prepares for action
+on the morning of the fight just as she had prepared
+day after day in practice drill at sea. Before the
+foremast stands the armoured conning tower—exactly
+like a closed-in jam-pot—designed for the
+captain’s use; forward of the tower rises the
+two-storeyed bridge, the upper part of which is
+the station of the gunnery control officer; upon
+the mast, some fifty feet up, is fitted a spotting
+top for another officer. This distribution of
+executive control may look very pretty and
+scientific, but Glossop, who had tested it in practice,
+proposed to fight on a system of his own. If a
+captain is cooped up in a conning tower, with the
+restricted vision of a mediæval knight through a
+vizard, a gunnery lieutenant is perched on the
+upper bridge by the big range-finder, and another
+lieutenant is aloft in the spotting top, the difficulties
+of communication in a small cruiser are
+added to the inevitable confusion of a fight. So
+the armoured jam-pot and the crow’s nest aloft
+were both abandoned, and Glossop placed himself
+beside his Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly upon
+the upper bridge with nothing between their bodies
+and the enemy’s shot except a frail canvas screen.
+Accompanying them was a lieutenant in charge
+of certain instruments. At the back of the bridge—which
+measured some ten feet by eight—stood
+upon its pedestal the principal range-finder with
+a seat at the back for the operator. This concentration
+of control upon the exposed upper
+bridge had its risks, as will presently appear, but
+is made for simplicity and for the rapid working
+both of the ship and of her guns. Another lieutenant,
+Geoffrey Hampden, was in charge of the
+after control station, where also was fitted a range-finder.
+When a ship prepares for action the
+most unhappy person on board is the Second in
+Command—in this instance Lieutenant-Commander
+John F. Finlayson (now Commander)—who
+by the rules of the Service is condemned to
+safe and inglorious, though important duties in
+the lower conning tower. Here, seeing little or
+nothing and wrapped like some precious egg in
+cotton wool, the poor First Lieutenant is preserved
+from danger so that, if his Chief be killed or disabled,
+he at least may remain to take over command.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>From the upper fore bridge of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> we
+can see the guns’ crews standing ready behind
+their curved steel screens and note that as the
+ship cuts through the long ocean swell the waves
+break every now and then over the fo’c’sle and
+drench the gun which stands there. At 9.15 land
+is sighted some ten miles distant and five minutes
+later a three-funnelled cruiser, recognised at once
+as the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, is seen running out of the port.
+Upon the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> a bugle blows, and then for
+twenty minutes all is quiet orderly work at Action
+Quarters. To the <span class='it'>Emden</span> the sudden appearance
+of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> is a complete surprise. Her destruction
+party of three officers and forty men are still
+ashore and must be left behind if their ship is to
+be given any, the most slender, chance of escape.
+Captain von Müller recognises the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> at once
+as a much faster and more heavily gunned ship
+than his own. His one chance is to rush at his
+unexpected opponent and utilise to the utmost
+the skill of his highly trained gunners and the
+speed with which they can work their quick-firing
+guns. If he can overwhelm the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> with a
+torrent of shell before she can get seriously home
+upon him he may disable her so that flight will be
+possible. In rapid and good gunnery, and in a
+quick bold offensive, may rest safely; there is no
+other chance. So out he comes, makes straight
+for the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> as hard as he can go and gives her
+as lively a fifteen minutes as the most greedy of
+fire-eaters could desire.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When the two cruisers first see one another they
+are 20,000 yards distant, but as both are closing
+in the range comes quickly down to 10,500 yards
+(six land miles). To the astonishment both of the
+Captain and Gunnery Lieutenant of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>,
+who are together looking out from the upper fore
+bridge, von Müller opens fire at this very long
+range for his small 4.1-⁠inch guns and gets within
+a hundred yards at his first salvo. It is wonderful
+shooting. His next is just over and with the
+third he begins to hit. At the long range the
+<span class='it'>Emden’s</span> shells fall steeply—at an angle of thirty
+degrees—rarely burst and never ricochet from the
+sea. They whine overhead in torrents, plop into
+the sea on all sides, and now and then smash on
+board. One reaches the upper fore bridge, passes
+within a foot of Lieutenant Rahilly’s head, strikes
+the pedestal of the big range-finder, glances off
+without bursting, cuts off the leg of the operator
+who is sitting behind, and finishes its career overboard.
+If that shell had burst Glossop and his
+Gunnery Lieutenant, together with their colleague
+at the rate-of-change instrument, must have been
+killed or seriously wounded and the Second in
+Command would have been released from his
+thick steel prison. Not one of them was six feet
+distant from where the shell struck in their midst.
+The range-finder is wrecked and its operator killed,
+but the others are untouched. A few minutes
+later two, possibly three, shells hit the after control,
+wound everyone inside, and wipe that control
+off the effective list.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But meanwhile the officers of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> and
+their untried but gallant and steady men have
+not been idle. Their first salvo fired immediately
+after the <span class='it'>Emden</span> opened is much too far, their
+second is rather wild and ragged, but with the
+third some hits are made. The <span class='it'>Sydney</span> had fortunately
+just secured her range when the principal
+range-finder was wrecked and the after control
+scattered, and Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly is able
+to keep it by careful spotting and rate-of-change
+observations. Glossop, who has the full command
+given by superior speed, manœuvres so as to keep
+out to about 8,000 yards, to maintain as nearly
+constant a rate of change as is possible, and to
+present the smallest danger space to the enemy.
+The <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> first effort to close in has failed, and
+now that the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> 100-pound shells begin to
+burst well on board of her the <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> one chance
+upon which von Müller has staked everything has
+disappeared. During the first fifteen minutes the
+<span class='it'>Sydney</span> was hit ten times, but afterwards not at
+all; the <span class='it'>Emden</span> was hit again and again during
+the long-drawn-out two hours of the hopeless
+struggle. After twenty minutes the <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> forward
+funnel went and she caught fire aft. Her
+steering gear was wrecked and she became dependent
+upon the manipulation of her propellers,
+and the inevitable falling off in speed to about
+thirteen knots. During the early critical minutes
+of the action the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> had the <span class='it'>Emden</span> upon her
+port side, but all her casualties were suffered upon
+the starboard or disengaged side due to the steepness
+with which the German shells were falling.
+Once she was hit upon the two-⁠inch side armour
+over the engine room and the shell, which this
+time burst, left a barely discernible scratch. Another
+shell fell at the foot of a starboard gun pedestal
+in the open space behind the shield, burst and
+wounded the gun’s crew but left the gun unhurt
+except for a spattering of a hundred tiny dents.
+The electric wires were not even cut. It is remarkable
+that during the whole of the action no electric
+wires in any part of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> were damaged.
+As I have told both gun controls of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>
+were hit during the first few minutes though only
+the after one was put out of action; the <span class='it'>Emden</span>,
+less fortunate, had both her controls totally
+destroyed and all the officers and men within them
+killed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>After the lapse of about three-quarters of an
+hour the <span class='it'>Emden</span> had lost two funnels and the foremast;
+she was badly on fire aft and amidships,
+so that at times nothing more than the top of the
+mainmast could be seen amid the clouds of steam
+and smoke. Her guns, now occasionally firing,
+gave out a short yellow flash by which they could
+be distinguished from the long dark red flames
+of the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> bursting lyddite. Once she disappeared
+so completely that the cry went up from
+the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> that she had sunk, but she appeared
+again, blazing, almost helpless. Glossop, who
+had been circling round to port, then drew in to
+a range of 5,500 yards—which in the absence of
+the range-finder was wrongly estimated at under
+5,000—and determined to try a shot with a torpedo.
+It was a difficult shot as the torpedo gunner was
+obliged to set his gyroscope to a definite angle
+and then wait until the rapidly turning <span class='it'>Emden</span>
+came upon his bearing. But in spite of the difficulties
+it was very good; the torpedo ran straight
+for its mark and then stopped short at the distance
+of 5,000 yards for which it had been set. The
+torpedo crews, naturally enough, wanted forthwith
+to let off all their mouldies, just to show the
+gunners how the business should be done with,
+but the hard-hearted Glossop forbade. The
+moment after the one had been fired he swung the
+ship round to starboard, opened out his range, and
+resumed the distressful game of gun-pounding.
+The <span class='it'>Emden</span> also went away to starboard for about
+four miles and then von Müller, finding that his
+ship was badly pierced under water as well as on
+fire, put about again and headed for the North
+Keeling Island, where he ran aground. The <span class='it'>Sydney</span>
+followed, saw that her beaten enemy was
+irretrievably wrecked, and went away to deal
+with the <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> collier—a captured British ship
+<span class='it'>Buresk</span>—which had hovered about during the
+action but upon which Glossop had not troubled
+to fire. The <span class='it'>Emden</span> fired no torpedoes in the
+action, for though von Müller had three left his
+torpedo flat was put out of business early in the
+fight.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Though the <span class='it'>Emden</span> was beaten and done for,
+the gallantry and skill with which she had fought
+could not have been exceeded. She was caught
+by surprise, and to some extent unprepared, yet
+within twenty minutes of the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> appearance
+upon the sky line von Müller was pouring a continuous
+rain of shell upon her at over 10,000 yards
+range and maintaining both his speed of fire and
+its accuracy until the hundred-pound shots bursting
+on board of him had smashed up both his controls,
+knocked down his foremast, and put nine of his
+ten guns out of action. Even then the one remaining
+gun continued to fire up to the last. The
+crew of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>, exposed though many of them
+were upon the vessel’s open decks—a light cruiser
+has none of the protection of a battleship—bore
+themselves as their Anzac fellow-countrymen upon
+the beaches and hills of Gallipoli. At first they
+were rather ragged through over-eagerness, but
+they speedily settled down. The hail of shell
+which beat upon them was unceasing, but they
+paid as little heed to it as if they had passed their
+lives under heavy fire instead of experiencing it for
+the first time. Upon Glossop and his lieutenants
+on the upper bridge, and in the transmission room
+below, was suddenly thrown a new and urgent
+problem. With the principal range-finder gone
+and the after-control wrecked in the first few
+minutes, they were forced to depend upon skilful
+manœuvring and spotting to give accuracy to
+their guns. They solved their problem ambulando,
+as the Navy always does, and showed that they
+could smash up an opponent by mother wit and
+sea skill when robbed by the aid of science. It is
+good to be equipped with all the appliances which
+modern ingenuity has devised; it is still better
+to be able at need to dispense with them.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I love to write of the cold fierce energy with
+which our wonderful centuries-old Navy goes forth
+to battle, but I love still more to record its kindly
+solicitude for the worthy opponents whom its
+energy has smashed up. Once a fight is over it
+loves to bind up the wounds of its foes, to drink
+their health in a friendly bottle, and to wish them
+better luck next time. When he had settled with
+the collier <span class='it'>Buresk</span>, and taken off all those on board
+of her, Glossop returned to the wreck of the <span class='it'>Emden</span>
+lying there helpless upon the North Keeling Island.
+The foremast and funnels were gone, the brave
+ship was a tangle of broken steel fore and aft,
+but the mainmast still stood and upon it floated
+the naval ensign of Germany. Until that flag had
+been struck the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> could not send in a boat
+or deal with the crew as surrendered prisoners.
+Captain Glossop is the kindliest of men; it went
+against all his instincts to fire at that wreck upon
+which the forms of survivors could be seen moving
+about, but his duty compelled him to force von
+Müller into submission. For a quarter of an hour
+he sent messages by International code and Morse
+flag signals, but the German ensign remained
+floating aloft. As von Müller would not surrender
+he must be compelled, and compelled quickly and
+thoroughly. In order to make sure work the
+<span class='it'>Sydney</span> approached to within 4,000 yards, trained
+four guns upon the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, and then when the
+aim was steady and certain smashed her from end
+to end. The destruction must have been frightful,
+and it is probable that von Müller’s obstinacy cost
+his crew greater casualties than the whole previous
+action. These last four shots did their work, the
+ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender
+went up. It was now late in the afternoon, the
+tropical night was approaching, and the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>
+left the <span class='it'>Emden</span> to steam to Direction Island some
+fifteen miles away and to carry succour to the
+staff of the raided cable and wireless station. Before
+leaving he sent in a boat and an assurance
+that he would bring help in the morning.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Although the distance from Direction Island,
+where the action may be said to have begun, to
+North Keeling Island, where it ended, is only
+fifteen miles the courses followed by the fighting
+vessels were very much longer. They are shown
+upon the von Müller-⁠Glossop plan, printed on
+page <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>. The <span class='it'>Emden</span> was upon the inside and
+the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>—whose greatly superior speed gave
+her complete mastery of manœuvre—was upon
+the outside. The <span class='it'>Emden’s</span> course works out at
+approximately thirty-five miles and the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span>
+at fifty miles. The officers and men who are
+fighting a ship stand, as it were, in the midst of
+a brilliantly lighted stage and may receive more
+than their due in applause if one overlooks the
+sweating engineers, artificers, and stokers who,
+hidden far below, make possible the exploits of
+the stars. At no moment during the whole action,
+though ventilating fans might stop and minor
+pipes be cut, did the engines fail to give Glossop
+the speed for which he asked. His success and
+his very slight losses—four men killed and sixteen
+wounded—sprang entirely from his speed, which,
+when required, exceeded the twenty-five knots for
+which his engines were designed. When, therefore,
+we think of Glossop and Rahilly, who from that
+exposed upper bridge were manœuvring the ship
+and directing the guns, we must not forget Engineer
+Lieutenant-Commander Coleman and his half-naked
+men down below, who throughout that
+broiling day in the tropics nursed those engines
+and toiled at those fires which brought the guns
+to fire upon the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>True to his promise Glossop brought the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>
+back to the <span class='it'>Emden</span> at eleven o’clock on the morning
+of November 10th, having borrowed a doctor and
+two assistants from Direction Island, and then
+began the long task—which the Navy loves only
+less than actual battle—of rescue and care for the
+sufferers by its prowess. North Keeling Island
+is an irregular strip of rock, boulders and sand
+almost entirely surrounding a large lagoon. It is
+studded with cocoanut palms and infested with
+red land-crabs. An unattractive spot. The <span class='it'>Emden</span>
+was aground upon the weatherside and the long
+rollers running past her stern broke into surf before
+the mainmast. Lieutenant R. C. Garsia, going
+out to her in one of the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> boats, was hauled
+by the Germans upon her quarter-deck, where he
+found Captain von Müller, whose personal luck
+had held to the last, for he was unwounded. Von
+Müller readily gave his parole to be amenable to
+the <span class='it'>Sydney’s</span> discipline if the surviving Germans
+were transshipped. The <span class='it'>Emden</span> was in a frightful
+state. She was burned out aft, her decks were
+piled with the wreck of three funnels and the foremast,
+and within her small space of 3,500 tons,
+seven officers and 115 men had been killed by high-explosive
+shell and splinters. Her condition may
+be suggested by the experience of a warrant officer
+of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> who, after gravely soaking in her
+horrors, retailed them in detail to his messmates.
+For two days thereafter the warrant officers’ mess
+in the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> lost their appetites for meat: one
+need say no more! The unwounded and slightly
+wounded men were first transferred to the boats
+of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> and <span class='it'>Buresk</span>, but for the seriously
+wounded Neil-Robertson stretchers had to be
+used so that they might be lowered over the side
+into boats. This had to be done during the brief
+lulls between the rollers. By five o’clock the
+<span class='it'>Emden</span> was cleared of men and Captain von Müller
+went on board the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>, which made at once
+for the only possible landing place on the island
+in order to take off some Germans who had got
+ashore. To the surprise of everyone it was then
+discovered that several wounded men, including
+a doctor, had managed to reach the shore and
+were somewhere among the scrub and rocks.
+Night was fast coming on, the wounded ashore
+were without food and drink—except what could
+be obtained from cocoanuts—and were cut off
+from all assistance except that which the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>
+could supply. The story of how young Lieutenant
+Garsia drove in through the surf after dark—at
+the imminent hazard of his whaler and her crew—hunted
+for hours after those elusive Germans,
+was more than once hopelessly “bushed,” and
+finally came out at the original landing place, is
+a pretty example of the Navy’s readiness to spend
+ease and risk life for the benefit of its defeated
+enemies. In the morning the rescue party of
+English sailors and unwounded Germans, supplied
+with cocoanuts and an improvised stretcher made
+of bottom boards and boathooks, at last discovered
+the wounded party, which had not left the narrow
+neck of land opposite the stranded <span class='it'>Emden</span>. Lieutenant
+Schal of the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, who was with them,
+eagerly seized upon the cocoanuts and cut them
+open for the wounded, who had been crying for
+water all night and for whom he had not been able
+to find more than one nut. The wounded German
+doctor had gone mad the previous afternoon, insisted
+upon drinking deeply of salt water, and so
+died. The four wounded men who remained alive
+were laboriously transferred to the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> and the
+dead were covered up with sand and boulders.
+“A species of red land-crab with which the ground
+is infested made this the least one could do.”
+The reports of Navy men may seem to lack grace,
+but they have the supreme merit of vivid simplicity.
+That short sentence, which I have quoted, makes
+us realise that waterless crab-haunted night of
+German suffering more vividly than a column of
+fine writing.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'><span class='pageno' title='193' id='Page_193'></span></p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-193.jpg' alt='' id='illo-193' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE “SYDNEY-EMDEN” ACTION.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>All was over, and the packed <span class='it'>Sydney</span> headed
+away for her 1,600-mile voyage to Colombo.
+To her company of about 400 she had added 11
+German officers and 200 men, of whom 3 officers
+and 53 men were wounded. The worst cases
+were laid upon her fo’c’sle and quarter-deck, the
+rest huddled in where they could. It was a trying
+voyage, but happily the weather was fine and
+windless, the ship as steady as is possible in the
+Indian Ocean, and the Germans well behaved;
+von Müller and Glossop, the conquered and
+conqueror, the guest and the host, became friendly
+and mutually respecting during those days in
+the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>. I like to think of those two, in the
+captain’s cabin, putting their heads together over
+sheets of paper and at last evolving the plan of
+the <span class='it'>Sydney-Emden</span> action which is printed here.
+Von Müller did the greater part of it, for, as Glossop
+remarked, “he had the most leisure.” A cruiser
+skipper with 400 of his own men on board and 200
+prisoners, is not likely to lack for jobs. To the
+von Müller-⁠Glossop plan I have added a few
+explanatory words, but otherwise it is as finally
+approved by those who knew most about it.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Some single-ship actions remain more persistently
+in the public memory and in the history books
+than battles of far greater consequence. They are
+easy to describe and easy to understand. One
+immortal action is that of the <span class='it'>Shannon</span> and the
+<span class='it'>Chesapeake</span>; another is that of the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> and
+the <span class='it'>Emden</span>. It was planned wholly by the Fates
+which rule the Luck of the Navy, it was fought
+cleanly and fairly and skilfully on both sides,
+and the faster, more powerful ship won. I like
+to picture to myself the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> heading for
+Colombo, bearing upon her crowded decks the
+captives of her bow and spear, her guns and her
+engines, not vaingloriously triumphant, but humbly
+thankful to the God of Battles. To her officers
+and crew their late opponents were now guests
+who could discuss with them, the one with the
+other, the incidents of the short fierce fight dispassionately
+as members of the same profession,
+though serving under different flags, just as Glossop
+and von Müller discussed them in the after cabin
+under the quarter-deck when they bent their heads
+over their collaborated plan.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch10'>CHAPTER X</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Since I have not been so foolish as to set myself
+the task of writing a history of the Naval War,
+I am not hampered by any trammels of chronological
+sequence. It is my purpose to select those
+events which will best illustrate the workings of
+the British Naval Soul, and to present them in
+such a manner and in such an order as will make
+for the greatest simplicity and force. Naval warfare,
+viewed in the scattered detail of operations
+taking place all over the world, is a mightily confusing
+study; but, if it be analysed and set forth
+in its essential features, the resultant picture has
+the clarity and atmosphere of the broad sea horizon
+itself. There is nothing in naval warfare, as
+waged by the Royal Navy, of that frightful confusion
+and grime and clotted horror which has
+become inseparable from the operations of huge
+land forces. Sailors live clean lives—except when
+the poor fellows are coaling ship!—and die clean
+deaths. They have the inestimable privilege of
+freedom both in the conception of their plans and
+in their execution. The broad distinction between
+land and sea service was put clearly to me once
+by a Marine officer who had known both. “At
+sea,” he observed, “one at least lives like a gentleman
+until one is dead.” It must be very difficult
+to live or to feel like a gentleman when one is
+smothered in the mud of Flanders’ trenches and
+has not had a bath for a month.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Although, as I have shown, the Grand Fleet at
+the outbreak of war was, in effective battle power,
+of twice the strength of its German opponents, no
+time was lost in adding largely to that margin of
+strength. Mines, with which Germany recklessly
+sowed the seas whenever she could evade the
+watchful eyes of our cruisers and destroyers, and
+the elusive and destructively armed submarine,
+were perils not lightly to be regarded by our great
+ships. We took the measure of both these dangers
+in due course, but in the early months of war they
+caused a vast amount of apprehension. In addition,
+therefore, to dealing directly with these
+perils the whole power of our shipyards, gun
+shops, and armour-rolling mills was turned to
+the task of increasing the available margin of
+battle strength so as to anticipate the possibility
+of serious losses.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>And here we had great advantages over Germany.
+We not only had a far longer and far greater experience,
+both in designing and constructing ships
+and guns, but we had a larger number of yards
+and shops where battleships and battle cruisers
+could be completed and equipped. Throughout
+the fourteen years of the peace contest Germany
+had always been far behind us in design, in speed
+of construction, and in the volume of output.
+We built the first Dreadnought in little more than
+fifteen months—by preparing all the material in
+advance and taking a good deal from other ships—but
+our average time of completing the later
+models was rather more than two years apiece.
+The exalted super-battleships occupied about two
+years and three months before they were in commission.
+Germany—which so many fearful folk
+seriously look upon as superhuman in efficiency—never
+built an ordinary Dreadnought in peace
+time in less than two years and ten months, and
+always waited for the chance of copying our
+designs before she laid one down. It is reasonable
+to suppose that in the early days of war the German
+yards and gun shops worked much more rapidly
+than during the peace competition, but as our
+own quicker rate of construction was also enormously
+accelerated it is in the highest degree
+unlikely that our speed of war output was ever
+approached by our opponents. We had at the
+beginning far more skilled labour and, what is
+more important, far more available skilled labour.
+Since it was only by slow degrees that we enlisted
+a vast army for Continental service while Germany
+had to mobilise the whole of hers at the beginning
+of hostilities and to call upon the millions of
+untrained men, the drain upon our manhood was
+for a long time far less than the drain upon hers.
+As time went on labour became scarce with us,
+even for naval work, but it could never have
+been so scarce as with the Germans when after
+their immense losses they were driven to employ
+every possible trained and untrained man with the
+colours.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We had yet another advantage. In August,
+1914, as the result of the far-seeing demands of
+the British Admiralty we had twice as many
+great ships under construction in this country
+as Germany had in the whole of her North Sea
+and Baltic yards. This initial advantage was an
+enormous one, since it meant that for eighteen
+months Germany could make no effective efforts
+to catch up with us, and that at the end of that
+period we should inevitably have in commission
+an increase in battle strength more than twice as
+great as hers. The completed new lead thus
+secured early in 1916, added to the lead obtained
+before the outbreak of war, then made our position
+almost impregnable. We were thus free to concentrate
+much of our attention upon those smaller
+vessels—the destroyers, patrol boats, steam drifters,
+fast submarine catchers and motor boats—which
+were urgently needed to cope with Germany’s
+attacks upon the world’s merchant ships.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Early in 1915, six months after the outbreak of
+War, our shipyards and gun shops had turned
+out an extraordinary quantity of finished work.
+There had been some loss in skilled labour through
+voluntary enlistment in the Army, but the men
+that were left worked day and night shifts in the
+most enthusiastic and uncomplaining spirit. The
+war was still new and the greatness of the Empire’s
+emergency had thrilled all hearts. Some coolness
+came later, as was inevitable—poor human
+nature has its cold fits as well as its hot ones—and
+there was even some successful intriguing by
+enemy agents in the North, but the great mass of
+British workmen remained sound at heart. The
+work went on, more slowly, a little less enthusiastically,
+but it went on.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>During the first six months we completed the
+great battle cruiser <span class='it'>Tiger</span>, a sister of the <span class='it'>Lion</span>
+with her eight 13.5-⁠inch guns, and the sisters
+fought together with those others of their class—the
+<span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> and <span class='it'>Princess Royal</span>—in the Dogger
+Bank action in January, 1915. We took over
+and completed two battleships which were building
+for Turkey and under their new names of <span class='it'>Erin</span>
+and <span class='it'>Agincourt</span> they joined Jellicoe in the north.
+The second of these great vessels—ravished from
+the enemy—had fourteen 12-⁠inch guns (set in
+seven turrets) and the other ten 13.5-⁠inch. We
+completed two vast super-ships, the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span>
+and another like to her, both with a speed of twenty-five
+knots and eight 15-⁠inch guns apiece. The
+battle cruisers, <span class='it'>Indomitable</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>, speeding
+home from the Mediterranean, had raised the
+Battle Cruiser strength in the North Sea to seven
+fine vessels of which four carried 13.5-⁠inch guns
+and the three others 12-⁠inch weapons. Even
+though the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> and <span class='it'>Invincible</span> were still
+away—they were not yet back from fighting that
+perfect little action in which the German Pacific
+Squadron had been destroyed—we had a battle
+cruiser force against which the rival German vessels
+could not fight and hope to remain afloat.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>After six months, therefore, Jellicoe had received
+four new battleships—two of them by far the
+most powerful at that time afloat—and Beatty
+had been joined by three battle cruisers, one of
+them quite new. The Grand Fleet was the
+stronger for six months of work by seven ships.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As compared with our increased strength of
+seven ships (five quite new), Germany had managed
+to muster no more than three. She completed two
+battleships of a speed of twenty and a half knots,
+each carrying ten 12-⁠inch guns. Neither of these
+vessels were more powerful than our original Dreadnought
+class and they were not to be compared with
+our King George V’s, Orions or Iron Dukes and
+still less with our Queen Elizabeths. That Germany
+should, six months after the war began,
+be completing battleships of a class which with us
+had been far surpassed fully four years earlier
+is the best possible illustration of her poverty in
+naval brains and foresight. Germany had also
+completed one battle cruiser, the <span class='it'>Derfflinger</span>, of
+twenty-seven knots speed and with eight 12-⁠inch
+guns, which in her turn was not more powerful than
+our Invincibles of five years earlier date. The
+<span class='it'>Derfflinger</span> could no more have stood up to our new
+<span class='it'>Tiger</span> than the two battleships just completed
+by our enemies could have fought for half an
+hour with our two new Queen Elizabeths. So
+great indeed had our superiority become as early
+in the war as the beginning of 1915 that we could
+without serious risk afford to release two or
+three battle cruisers for the Mediterranean and
+to escort the Canadian and Australian contingents
+across the seas, and to send to the Mediterranean
+the mighty <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span> to flesh her maiden
+guns upon the Turkish defences of the Dardanelles.
+Ship guns are not designed to fight with land forts,
+and though the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth’s</span> 15-⁠inch shells,
+weighing over 1,900 lbs. apiece, may not have
+achieved very much against the defences of the
+Narrows, their smashing power and wonderful
+accuracy of control were fully demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Inconclusive though it was in actual results,
+the Dogger Bank action of January, 1915, proved
+to be most instructive. It showed clearly three
+things: first, that no decisive action could be
+fought by the big ships in the southern portion of
+the North Sea—there was not sufficient room to
+complete the destruction of the enemy. Secondly,
+it demonstrated the overwhelming power of the
+larger gun and the heavier shell. Thanks to the
+skill of the Navy’s engineering staffs it was also
+found that the actual speed of our battle cruisers
+was quite a knot faster than their designed speed,
+and since no similar advance in speed was noticeable
+in the case of the fleeing German cruisers it could
+be concluded that the training of our engineers
+was fully as superior to theirs as was unquestionably
+the training of our long-service seamen and gunners
+superior to that of their short-service crews. As
+the fleets grew larger our superiority in personnel
+tended to become more marked. We had an
+almost unlimited maritime population upon which
+to draw for the few thousands whom we needed—before
+the war the professional Navy was almost
+wholly recruited from the seaboards of the South
+of England—we had still as our reserves the east
+and west coasts of England and Scotland. But
+Germany, even before the war, could not man
+her fleets from her scanty resources of men from
+her seaboards, and more and more had to depend
+upon partially trained landsmen. If one adds
+to this initial disadvantage in the quality of the
+German sea recruits, that other disadvantage of
+the cooping up of her fleets—sea training can only
+be acquired fully upon the open seas—while ours
+were continually at work, patrolling, cruising,
+practising gunnery, and so on, it will be seen that
+on the one side the personal efficiency of officers
+and men, upon which the value of machines wholly
+depends, tended continually to advance, while
+upon the German side it tended as continually
+to recede. It was the old story. Nelson’s sea-worn
+fleet, though actually smaller in numbers and
+weaker in guns than those of the French and
+Spaniards at Trafalgar, was so infinitely superior
+to its opponents in trained officers and men that
+the result of the battle was never for a moment
+in doubt.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the time of the Dogger Bank action, which
+confirmed our Navy in its growing conviction that
+Speed and Power of guns were of supreme importance,
+the Germans had no guns afloat larger in
+calibre than 12-⁠inch and seven of the ships in
+their first line were armed with weapons of 11
+inches. They then mustered in all twenty big
+ships which they could place in the battle line
+against our available thirty-two, and of their
+twenty not more than thirteen were of a class comparable
+even with our older Dreadnoughts. They
+had nothing to touch our twelve Orions, King
+Georges, Iron Dukes, all with 13.5-⁠inch guns, and
+upon a supreme eminence by themselves stood
+the two new Queen Elizabeths which, if need be,
+could have disposed of any half-dozen of the weaker
+German battleships. In the Jutland Battle four
+Queen Elizabeths—<span class='it'>Barham</span>, <span class='it'>Warspite</span>, <span class='it'>Valiant</span> and
+<span class='it'>Malaya</span>—fought for an hour and more the whole
+High Seas Fleet. It is no wonder, then, that the
+Germans did not come out far enough for Jellicoe
+to get at them. And yet there were silly people
+ashore who still prattled about the inactivity of
+the Royal Navy and asked one another “what it
+was doing.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>There is a good story told of the scorn of the
+professional seamen afloat for the querulous
+civilians ashore. When the <span class='it'>Lion</span> was summoned
+to lead the battle cruisers in the Dogger Bank
+action she was lying in the Forth undergoing some
+slight repairs. As she got up steam a gang of dockyard
+mateys, at work upon her, pleaded anxiously
+to be put ashore. They had no stomach for a battle.
+But there was no time to worry about their feelings;
+they were carried into action with the ship,
+and when the shots began to fly they were contemptuously
+assured by the grizzled old sea dogs,
+that they were in for the time of their lives. “You
+wanted to know,” said they, “what the b——y
+Navy’s doing and now you’re going to see.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While the power of the Grand Fleet dominated
+the war at sea, some thirty supply ships and
+transports safely crossed the English Channel
+every day, and troops poured into Britain and
+France from every part of our wide-flung Empire.
+But for that silent, brooding, ever-expanding
+Grand Fleet, watching over the world’s seas from
+its eyries on the Scottish coast, not a man or a
+gun or a pound of stores could have been sent to
+France, not a man could have been moved from
+India or Australia, Canada or New Zealand. But
+for that “idle” Grand Fleet the war would have
+been over and Germany victorious before the
+summer and autumn of 1914 had passed into winter.
+During the war sea power, as always in naval
+history, has depended absolutely upon the power
+in men, in ships, and in guns of the first battle
+line.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the beginning of 1915, in addition to the
+completed ships which I have already mentioned,
+Great Britain had under construction three additional
+Queen Elizabeths—<span class='it'>Malaya</span>, <span class='it'>Barham</span>, and
+<span class='it'>Valiant</span>—all of twenty-five knot speed and carrying
+eight 15-⁠inch guns apiece. She had also on
+the stocks in various stages of growth five Royal
+Sovereign Battleships designed for very heavy
+armour, with a speed of from twenty-one to twenty-two
+knots, and to be equipped with eight 15-⁠inch
+guns each.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It will be seen how completely during the war
+the Royal Navy had “gone nap” on the ever
+faster ship and the ever bigger gun. Calculations
+might be partially upset by weather and visibility—as
+they were in the Jutland Battle—but even
+under the worst conditions speed and gun power
+came triumphantly by their own. Our fast and
+powerful battle cruisers, and our four fast and
+more powerful Queen Elizabeths—the name ship
+was not present—could not on that day of low
+visibility choose their most effective ranges, but
+the speed and power of the battle cruisers
+enabled them to outflank the enemy while the
+speed and hitting power of the <span class='it'>Barham</span>, <span class='it'>Valiant</span>,
+<span class='it'>Warspite</span> and <span class='it'>Malaya</span> held up the whole of the
+German High Seas Fleet until Jellicoe with his
+overwhelming squadrons could come to their
+support. Even under the worst conditions of
+light, speed and gun power had fully justified
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Let us for a moment consider what are the
+advantages and disadvantages of the bigger and
+bigger gun; the advantages of speed will be
+obvious to all. To take first the disadvantages.
+Big guns mean weight, and weight is inconsistent
+with speed. The bigger the gun, the heavier it
+is, the heavier its mountings, its turrets, and its
+ammunition. Therefore in order that weight may
+be kept down and high speed attained, the ships
+which carry big guns must carry fewer guns than
+those which are more lightly armed. The Orions,
+K.G. Fives, and Iron Dukes each bear ten
+13.5-⁠inch guns within their turrets, but the battle
+cruisers of which the <span class='it'>Lion</span> is the flagship, built
+for speed, can carry no more than eight. The
+Queen Elizabeth battleships, designed to carry
+15-⁠inch guns and to have a speed of twenty-five
+knots, mount eight guns only against the ten of
+the earlier and more lightly armed super-Dreadnoughts.
+Speed and weight being inconsistent,
+increase in speed and increase in size of guns can
+only be reconciled by reducing the number of
+guns carried. The fewer the guns carried, the
+fewer the salvos that can be fired at an enemy
+during a fixed time even if the rate of fire of the
+big guns can be kept so high as that of the smaller
+ones. When opposing ships are moving fast upon
+divergent courses, ranges are continually varying
+and the difficulty of making effective hits is very
+great indeed. The elaboration of checks and
+controls, which are among the most cherished of
+naval gunnery secrets, are designed to increase the
+proportion of hits to misses which must always
+be small even when the light is most favourable.
+If the heavy gun were no more accurate than the
+light one, then the small number of guns carried
+and the reduced number of salvos, would probably
+annul the benefit derived from the greater smashing
+power of the heavier shell when it did hit an enemy.
+The ever-expanding gun has, therefore, disadvantages,
+notable disadvantages, but as we shall see
+they are far more than outweighed by its great and
+conspicuous merits.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The first overwhelming advantage of the big gun
+is the gain in accuracy. It is far more accurate
+than the lighter one. As the fighting range increases
+so does the elevation of a gun, needed to
+reach an object within the visible limits of the
+horizon, sensibly increase. But the bigger the
+gun and the heavier its shell, the flatter becomes
+its trajectory. And a flat trajectory—low elevation—means
+not only more accurate shooting,
+but a larger danger zone for an enemy ship. At
+24,000 yards (twelve sea miles) a 12-⁠inch shell is
+falling very steeply and can rarely be pumped
+upon an enemy’s deck, but a 15-⁠inch shell is still
+travelling upon a fairly flat path which makes it
+effective against the sides and upper works of a
+ship as well as against its deck. The 15-⁠inch shell
+thus has the bigger mark. It also suffers less from
+deflection and, what is more important, maintains
+its speed for a much longer time than a lighter
+shell. Increased weight means increased momentum.
+When the 15-⁠inch shell gets home upon
+its bigger mark at a long range it has still speed
+and weight (momentum) with which to penetrate
+protective armour. When it does hit and penetrate
+there is no comparison in destructiveness between
+the effect of a 15-⁠inch shell and one of twelve inches.
+The larger shell is nearly two and a half times as
+heavy as the smaller one (1,960 lbs. against 850),
+and the power of the bursting charge of the big
+shell is more than six times that of the smaller
+one. Far-distant ships, big ships, can be destroyed
+by 15-⁠inch shells when, even if occasionally hit
+by one of twelve inches, they would be little more
+than peppered. The big gun therefore gives to
+our Navy a larger mark, greater accuracy arising
+from the lower trajectory, and far greater destructive
+hitting power in comparison with the lighter
+guns carried by most of the German battleships.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But the advantages of the big gun do not end
+here. Gunnery, in spite of all its elaboration of
+checks and controls, is largely a matter of trial
+and error. All that the checks and controls are
+designed to do is to reduce the proportion of errors;
+they cannot by themselves ensure accurate shooting.
+Accuracy is obtained through correcting the
+errors by actual observation of the results of shots.
+This is called “spotting.” When shells are seen
+to fall too short, or too far, or too much to one
+side or the other, the error in direction or elevation
+is at once corrected. But everything depends
+upon exact meticulous spotting, an almost incredibly
+difficult matter at the long ranges of
+modern sea fighting. Imagine oneself looking for
+the splash of a shell, bursting on contact with the
+sea ten or more miles away, and estimating just
+how far that splash is short or over or to one side
+of the object aimed at. It will be obvious to anyone
+that the position of a big splash can be gauged
+more surely than that of a small one, and that the
+huge splash of the big shell, which sends up a
+column of water hundreds of feet high, can be
+seen and placed by spotting officers who would be
+quite baffled if they were observing shots from
+12-⁠inch weapons. In this respect also, that of
+spotting results, the big gun with its big shell,
+greatly assists the elimination of inevitable errors
+and increases the proportion of effective hits to
+misses. If then we get from bigger guns a higher
+proportion of hits, and a much greater effectiveness
+from those hits, then the bigger gun has
+paid a handsome dividend on its cost and has
+more than compensated us for the reduction in
+its numbers. Where the useful limit will be
+reached one cannot say, nothing but experience
+in war can decide, but the visible horizon being
+limited to about fifteen sea miles, there must come
+a stage in gun expansion when increase in size,
+accuracy, and destructiveness will cease to compensate
+for smallness of numbers. And the limit
+will be more quickly reached when during an
+action the light does not allow the big gun to use
+its accuracy at longer ranges to the fullest advantage.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Although one’s attention is apt to be absorbed
+by the great ships of the first battle line, the
+ultimate Fount of naval Power, a Navy which
+built only vast battleships and cruisers would be
+quite unable to control the seas. A navy’s daily
+work does not consist of battles. For the main
+purposes of watching the seas, hunting submarines,
+blockading an enemy, and guarding the communications
+of ourselves and our Allies, and also
+for protecting our big ships against submarines
+and other mosquito attacks, we needed vast
+numbers of light cruisers, patrol boats, destroyers,
+armed merchant cruisers, steam drifters and so
+on, and these had to be built or adapted with as
+great an energy as that devoted to turning out
+the monsters of the first battle line. The construction
+of light cruisers and destroyers—the
+cavalry of the seas—kept pace during 1915 and
+1916 with that of the big fighting ships, while the
+turning out of the light fast craft essential for
+hunting down enemy submarines, far surpassed
+in speed and other building operations. At the
+beginning of the war we had 270 light mosquito
+vessels; at the end of 1917 we had 3,500!</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Nothing like the tremendous activity in warship
+building during 1915 has ever been seen in our
+country. Mercantile building was to a large extent
+suspended, labour was both scarce and dear,
+builders could not complete commercial contracts
+at the prices named in them, the great yards
+became “controlled establishments” with priority
+claims both for labour and material. Consequently
+every yard which could add to the Navy’s
+strength, whether in super-battleships or cruisers,
+destroyers or in the humble mine sweeper, were
+put on to war work. The Clyde, typical of the
+shipbuilding rivers, was a forest of scaffolding
+poles from Fairfield to Greenock within which
+huge rusty hulls—to the unaccustomed eye very
+unlike new vessels—grew from day to day in the
+open almost with the speed of mushrooms. A trip
+down the teeming river became one of the sights
+of the city on the Clyde and, though precautions
+were taken to exclude aliens, the Germans must
+have known with some approach to accuracy the
+numbers and nature of the craft which were under
+construction. What was going on in the Clyde
+during that year of supreme activity, when naval
+brains were unhampered by Parliament or the
+Treasury, was also going on in the Tyne, at Barrow
+and Birkenhead, in the Royal Dockyards—everywhere
+day and night the Navy was growing at a
+speed fully three times as great as in any year in
+our history.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Twenty-two months after war broke out, in
+May of 1916, Jellicoe’s battle line had been strengthened
+during the previous twelve months by the
+addition of no less than seven great vessels. Three
+more Queen Elizabeths were finished and so
+were three Royal Sovereigns, and in addition a fine
+battleship, which had been building in England for
+Brazil, was taken over and completed. She was
+named the <span class='it'>Canada</span>, had twenty-three knots of
+speed, and was designed to carry ten 14-⁠inch guns.
+There were thus available in the North Sea,
+allowing for occasional absences, from thirty-eight
+to forty-two great ships of the battle line, of
+which no fewer than eight carried 15-⁠inch guns
+of the very latest design. This huge piling up
+of strength was essential not only to provide
+against possible losses but to ensure that, in
+spite of all accidents, an immense preponderance
+of naval power would always be available should
+Germany venture to put her fortunes to the hazard
+of battle. And accidents did occur. The coast
+lights had all been extinguished and ships at sea
+cruising at night were almost buried in darkness.
+As time went on it became more and more certain
+that a Battle of the Giants could have but one
+result.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have now carried the story of naval expansion
+down to the time of the Jutland Battle—May 31st,
+1916—and will show by how much our paper
+strength had increased between August 4th, 1914,
+and that date, and how much of that strength
+was available when the call for battle rang out.
+It happened that none of our battle cruisers was
+away upon overseas enterprises, so that we were
+in good circumstances to meet the call. There
+had been added to the Fleets one battle cruiser,
+the <span class='it'>Tiger</span>, with 13.5-⁠inch guns, five Queen Elizabeth
+battleships with 15-⁠inch guns, three Royal
+Sovereign battleships with 15-⁠inch guns (<span class='it'>Royal
+Sovereign</span>, <span class='it'>Royal Oak</span> and <span class='it'>Revenge</span>), the <span class='it'>Erin</span>
+battleship with 13.5-⁠inch guns, the <span class='it'>Canada</span> battleship
+with 14-⁠inch guns, and the <span class='it'>Agincourt</span> battleship
+with fourteen 12-⁠inch guns. At the beginning
+of the war our total strength in battleships and
+battle cruisers of the Dreadnought and later more
+powerful types was thirty-one, so that on May 31st
+we had in and near the North Sea a full paper
+total of forty-two ships of the battle line.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But the Royal Navy which is always at work
+upon the open seas can never have at any one
+moment its whole force available for battle.
+The squadrons composing the Fleets were, however,
+exceedingly powerful, far more than sufficient
+for the complete destruction of the Germans had
+they dared to fight out the action. As the battle
+was fought the main burden fell upon thirteen
+only of our ships—Beatty’s four Cat battle cruisers
+assisted by the <span class='it'>New Zealand</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>,
+Hood’s three battle cruisers of the Invincible class,
+and Evan-⁠Thomas’s four Queen Elizabeth battleships.
+Jellicoe’s available main Fleet of twenty-five
+battleships, including two Royal Sovereigns
+with 15-⁠inch guns, the <span class='it'>Canada</span> with 14-⁠inch guns,
+and twelve Orions, K.G. Fives and Iron Dukes
+with 13.5-⁠inch guns, which was robbed of its fought-out
+battle by the enemy’s skilful withdrawal,
+was almost sufficient by itself to have eaten up
+the German High Seas Fleet.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>During the battle we lost the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> with
+13.5-⁠inch guns, and the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>
+with 12-⁠inch guns, all of which were
+battle cruisers. So that after the action our total
+battle cruiser strength had declined from ten to
+seven, while our battleship strength was unimpaired.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It is not easy to be quite sure of what the Germans
+had managed to do during those twenty-two
+months of war. I have given them credit
+for completing every ship which it was possible
+for them to complete. They were too fully occupied
+with building submarines to attack our merchant
+ships, too fully occupied with guns and shells for
+land fighting, and too much hampered in regard
+to many essential materials by our blockade, to
+be able to effect more than the best possible.
+Rumour from time to time credited them with
+the construction of “surprise” ships carrying
+17-⁠inch guns, but nothing unexpected was revealed
+when the clash of Fleets came on May 31st, 1916.
+Huge new battleships and huge new guns take us
+at the very least fifteen months to complete at
+full war pressure—most of them nearer two years—and
+the German rate of construction, even when
+unhampered by a blockade and the calling to the
+army of all available men, has always been much
+slower than ours. The British Admiralty does
+not work in the dark and doubtless knew fully
+what the Germans were doing.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If we credit the Germans with their best possible
+they might have added, by May, 1916, four
+battleships and two battle cruisers to their High
+Seas Fleet as it existed early in 1915. One of
+the battleships was the <span class='it'>Salamis</span>, which was building
+at Stettin for Greece when the war broke out.
+She was designed for speed of twenty-three knots,
+and to carry ten 14-⁠inch guns. The other three
+battleships were copies of our Queen Elizabeths,
+though slower by about four knots. They were
+to have been equipped with eight 15-⁠inch guns,
+though Germany had not before the war managed
+to make any naval guns larger than 12-⁠inch.
+The battle cruisers (<span class='it'>Hindenburg</span> and <span class='it'>Lützow</span>)
+were vessels of twenty-seven knots with eight
+12-⁠inch guns, not to be compared with our Cats
+and no better than our comparatively old class of
+Invincibles.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The story of the <span class='it'>Salamis</span> and its 14-⁠inch guns
+forms a very precious piece of war history. The
+guns for this Greek battleship had been ordered in
+America, a country which has specialised in guns
+of that calibre. But when Germany took over the
+ship the guns had not been delivered at Stettin,
+and never were delivered. They had quite another
+destination and employment. Our Admiralty interposed,
+in its grimly humorous way, bought the
+guns in America, brought them over to this country,
+and used the weapons intended for the <span class='it'>Salamis</span> to
+bombard the Germans at Zeebrugge and the Turks
+in Gallipoli. One may speculate as to which
+potentate was the more irritated by this piece of
+poetic justice—the Kaiser in Berlin or his brother-in-law
+“Tino” in Athens.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At their utmost, therefore, the Germans could
+not have added more than five vessels to their
+first line (they had lost one battle cruiser), thus
+raising it at the utmost to twenty-five battleships
+and cruisers, as compared with our maximum of
+forty-two much more powerful and faster ships.
+Four of their battleships were the obsolete Nassaus
+with twelve 11-⁠inch guns and two of their battle
+cruisers (<span class='it'>Moltke</span> and <span class='it'>Seydlitz</span>) were also armed with
+11-⁠inch guns. If a successful fight with our Grand
+Fleet was hopeless in August, 1914, it was still
+more hopeless in May, 1916. We had not doubled
+our lead in actual numbers but had much more
+than doubled it in speed and power of the vessels
+available for a battle in the North Sea. In gun
+power we had nearly twice Germany’s strength at
+the beginning; we had not far from three times
+her effective strength by the end of May of 1916.
+It is indeed probable that Germany was not so
+strong in big ships and guns as I have here
+reckoned. She did not produce so many in the
+Jutland Battle. I can account for five battle
+cruisers and sixteen battleships (excluding pre-Dreadnoughts)
+making twenty-one in all. I have
+allowed her, however, the best possible, but long
+before the year 1916 it must have been brought
+bitterly home to the German Sea Command that
+by no device of labour, thought, and machinery
+could they produce great ships to range in battle
+with ours. We had progressed from strength to
+strength at so dazzling a speed that we could not
+possibly be overtaken. Had not the hare gone to
+sleep, the tortoise could never have come up with
+it—and the British hare had no intention of sleeping
+to oblige the German tortoise. There is every
+indication that Germany soon gave up the contest
+in battleships and put her faith in super-submarines,
+and in Zeppelins, the one to scout and
+raid, and the other to sink merchant vessels and
+so between them either to starve or terrify England
+into seeking an end of the war.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch11'>CHAPTER XI</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;'><span class='sc'>Part I.—Rio to Coronel</span></p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;'>(July 27th to Nov. 1st, 1914)</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Everyone has heard of the light cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+how she fought at Coronel, and then escaped,
+and is now the sole survivor among the warships
+which then represented Great Britain and Germany;
+how she fought again off the Falkland Islands,
+and with the aid of the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> sank the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>;
+how after many days of weary search she discovered
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> in shelter at Juan Fernandez, and
+with the <span class='it'>Kent</span> finally brought that German cruiser
+to a last account. These things are known. But
+of her other movements and adventures between
+the declaration of war in August of 1914 and that
+final spectacular scene in Cumberland Bay, Juan
+Fernandez, upon March 14th, 1915, nothing has
+been written. It is a very interesting story, and
+I propose to write it now. I will relate how she
+began her fighting career as the forlorn solitary
+representative of English sea power in the South
+Atlantic, and how by gradual stages, as if endowed
+with some compelling power of magnetic attraction,
+she became the focus of a British and German
+naval concentration which at last extended over
+half the world. This scrap of a fast light cruiser,
+of 4,800 tons, in appearance very much like a large
+torpedo-boat destroyer, with her complement of
+370 men, worthily played her part in the Empire’s
+work, which is less the fighting of great battles
+than the sleepless policing of the seas. The battleships
+and battle cruisers are the fount of power;
+they by their fighting might hold the command
+of the seas, but the Navy’s daily work in the
+outer oceans is done, not by huge ships of the
+line, but by light cruisers, such as the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+of which at the outbreak of the war we had far too
+few for our needs.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In July, 1914, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was the sole representative
+of British sea power upon the Atlantic
+coast of South America. She had the charge of
+our interests from a point some 400 miles north of
+Rio, right down to the Falkland Islands in the
+cold south. She was a modern vessel of 4,800
+tons, first commissioned in 1911 by Captain Marcus
+Hill, and again in September, 1912, by Captain John
+Luce, and the officers and men who formed her
+company in July nearly four years ago, when the
+shadow of war hung over the world. She was well
+equipped to range over the thousands of miles of sea
+of which she was the solitary guardian. Her turbine
+engines, driving four screws, could propel her at
+a speed exceeding twenty-six knots (over thirty
+miles an hour) when her furnaces were fed with
+coal and oil; and with her two 6-⁠inch and ten 4-⁠inch
+guns of new pattern she was more than a match
+for any German light cruiser which might have
+been sent against her.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon July 27th, 1914, while lying at Rio de
+Janeiro her captain received the first intimation
+that the strain in Europe might result in war
+between England and Germany. Upon July
+29th the warning became more urgent, and upon
+July 31st the activity of the German merchant
+ships in the harbour showed that they also had
+been notified of the imminence of hostilities. They
+loaded coal and stores into certain selected vessels
+to their utmost capacity, and clearly purposed
+to employ them as supply ships for any of their
+cruisers which might be sent to the South Atlantic.
+At that time there were, as a matter of fact, no
+German cruisers nearer than the east coast of
+Mexico. The <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span> had just come out to
+relieve the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, which had been conveying
+refugees of the Mexican Revolution to Kingston,
+Jamaica. Thence she sailed for Haiti, met there
+the <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>, and made the exchange of captains
+on July 27th. Both these cruisers were ordered
+to remain, but a third German cruiser in Mexican
+waters, the <span class='it'>Strassburg</span>, rushed away for home and
+safely got back to Germany before war was declared
+on August 4th. Thus the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> and <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>
+were left, and over against them in the West
+Indies lay Rear-Admiral Cradock with four
+“County” cruisers—<span class='it'>Suffolk</span>, <span class='it'>Essex</span>, <span class='it'>Lancaster</span>, and
+<span class='it'>Berwick</span> (sisters of the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>)—and the fast
+cruiser <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, a sister of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>. Though
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, lying alone at Rio, had many anxieties—chiefly
+at first turning upon that question of
+supply which governs the movements of war ships
+in the outer seas—she had no reason to expect an
+immediate descent of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> and <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>
+from the north. Cradock could look after them
+if they had not the good luck to evade his attentions.
+Upon August 1st, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was cleared for
+war, and all luxuries and superfluities, all those
+things which make life tolerable in a small cruiser,
+were ruthlessly cast forth and put into store at Rio.
+She was well supplied with provisions and ammunition,
+but coal, as it always is, was an urgent
+need—not only coal for the immediate present,
+but for the indefinite future. For immediate
+necessities the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> bought up the cargo of a
+British collier in Rio, and ordered her captain
+to follow the cruiser when she sallied forth. Upon
+August 3rd, the warnings from home became
+definite, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> coaled and took in oil till her
+bunkers were bursting, made arrangements with
+the English authorities in Rio for the transmission
+of telegrams to the secret base which she proposed
+to establish, and late in the evening of August 4th,
+crept out of Rio in the darkness with all lights
+out. During that fourth day of August the passing
+minutes seemed to stretch into years. The
+anchorage where the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> lay was in the outer
+harbour, and she was continually passed by German
+merchant steamers crowding in to seek the
+security of a neutral port. War was very near.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-219.jpg' alt='' id='illo-219' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Captain Luce had already selected a secret
+base, where he hoped to be able to coal in shelter
+outside territorial waters. His collier had been
+ordered to follow as soon as permitted, and he
+headed off to inspect the barren rocks, uninhabited
+except by a lighthouse-keeper, which were to be
+his future link with home. His luck held, for the
+first ship he encountered was a big English steamer
+bound for Rio with coal for the Brazilian railways.
+In order to be upon the safe side, he commandeered
+this collier also, and made her attend him to his
+base. There, to his relief, he found that shelter
+from the surf could be found, and that it was
+possible to use the desolate spot as a coaling base
+and keep the supply ships outside territorial waters.
+He used it then and afterwards; so did the other
+cruisers, <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, which came
+out to him, so also did that large squadron months
+later which made of this place a rendezvous and
+an essential storehouse on the journey to the
+Falklands and to the end of von Spee. We were
+always most careful to keep on the right side of
+the Law.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I will not give to this base of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> its
+true name; let us call it the Pirates’ Lair, and
+restore to it the romantic flavour of irresponsible
+buccaneering which I do not doubt that it enjoyed
+a century or so earlier. In the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> day it
+mounted a lighthouse and an exceedingly inquisitive
+keeper whom German Junkers would
+have terrorised, but whom the kindly English,
+themselves to some extent trespassers, left unharmed
+to the enjoyment of his curiosity. He,
+lucky man, did not know that there was a war on.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Realise, if you can, the feelings of the officers
+and men of this small English cruiser lying isolated
+from the world in her Pirates’ Lair. Their improvised
+base, not far from the main trade routes,
+might at any moment have been discovered—as
+indeed it was before very long; it was the territory
+of a neutral country, a country most friendly
+then and afterwards, but bound to observe its
+declaration of neutrality. They knew that coal
+and store ships from England would be sent out,
+but did not know whether they would arrive.
+They were in wireless touch with the British representatives
+at Rio, Pernambuco, and Montevideo,
+but authentic news came in scraps intermingled
+with the wildest rumour. They, or rather their
+captain, had to sort the grains of essential fact
+from the chaff of fiction. As the month of
+August unfolded, their news of the war came
+chiefly from German wireless, and those of us
+who lived through and remember those early
+weeks of war also remember that the news from
+enemy sources had no cheerful sound. For some
+weeks they were free from anxiety for supplies,
+provided that their base could be retained, yet
+the future was blank. I do not think that they
+worried overmuch; the worst time they had
+lived through was during those few days in Rio
+before war broke out, and those days immediately
+afterwards, when they were seeking those corners
+of their Lair least exposed to gales and surf. Very
+often coaling was impossible; more often it was
+both difficult and dangerous.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It may seem strange that for many weeks—until
+well into September—the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> heard
+nothing of Cradock and his West Indies Squadron.
+Yet it was so. Cradock in the <span class='it'>Suffolk</span> had on
+August 5th met the <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span> coaling at sea, and
+signalled to the fast <span class='it'>Bristol</span> to look after her. The
+<span class='it'>Bristol</span> got upon the chase and fired a shot or two,
+but, speedy though she was, the <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span> ran
+away from her and was seen no more and heard of
+no more until she began her ravages upon steamers
+to the South of Pernambuco. Cradock, thinking
+she had gone north, and moreover having charge
+of the whole North Atlantic trade on its western
+side, became farther and farther separated from
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, and even went so far away as Halifax.
+Meanwhile the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> slipped down and entered
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> sea area on August 9th, though her
+movements were not yet known. On the 13th
+Captain Luce learned that the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> was coming
+out to him under a captain who was his junior,
+so that upon himself would still rest the responsibility
+for the South Atlantic. He was now beginning
+to get some news upon which he could act,
+and already suspected that the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> or the
+<span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>, or both, had broken away for the south.
+He could hear the Telefunken wireless calls of the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> to her attendant colliers from somewhere
+in the north a thousand miles away. During his
+cruises from the Lair he was always on the look out
+for her, and once, on the 16th, thought that he had
+her under his guns. But the warship which he
+had sighted proved to be a Brazilian, and the
+thirst of the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company for battle went
+for a while unslaked. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, for which the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was searching, had coaled at the Rocas
+Islands, there met the <span class='it'>Baden</span>, a collier of twelve
+knots, carrying 5,000 tons of coal, and together
+the two vessels made for the south and remained
+together until after the Falkland Islands action
+had been fought. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> picked up a second
+collier, the <span class='it'>Preussen</span>, and set her course for the
+small barren Trinidad Island, another old Pirates’
+Lair some 500 miles from that of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, at
+which she in her turn established a temporary base.
+At one moment the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> and <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> were not
+far apart, the wireless calls sounded near, yet they
+did not meet. This was on the 18th, when the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was coaling at her base, and two days
+before she went north to join up with the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>
+off Pernambuco.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>This journey to the north coincided in time with
+the <span class='it'>Dresden’s</span> passage to Trinidad Island, so that
+by the 20th the two cruisers were again a thousand
+miles apart, but with their positions reversed.
+While the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had been going up, the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>
+had been going south and east. For awhile we
+will leave the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, which after spending two
+days under the lee of Trinidad Island went on her
+way to the south, drawing farther and farther
+away from the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and more and more out of
+our picture. Her movements were from time to
+time revealed by captures of British ships, of
+which the crews were sent ashore. Her captain,
+Lüdecke, at no time made a systematic business
+of preying upon merchant traffic and upon him
+rests no charge of inhumanity. It may be that
+commerce raiding and murder did not please him;
+it may be that he was under orders to make his
+way at the leisurely gait of his collier <span class='it'>Baden</span>—he
+left the <span class='it'>Preussen</span> behind at Trinidad Island—towards
+the Chilean coast, and the ultimate meeting
+with von Spee.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At sea off Pernambuco on August 20th, the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> met the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, which had been commissioned
+on August 4th, mainly with naval
+reservists, and hastily despatched to the South
+Atlantic. Rumour still pointed to the presence
+of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> in the vicinity, and it seemed likely
+that she might meditate an attack upon our
+merchant shipping in the waters afterwards greatly
+favoured by the <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>. The two English
+cruisers remained in the north for a week, hearing
+much German wireless, which was that of the
+<span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>, and not of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>. On the night
+of the 27th the armed liner <span class='it'>Otranto</span> heralded her
+approach, and on the following day the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+met her at the Rocas Islands. Captain Luce had
+now progressed from the command of one cruiser
+to the control of quite a squadron, three ships.
+Already the concentration about the small form
+of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had begun.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The bigness of the sea and the difficulty of finding
+single vessels, though one may be equipped with
+all the aids of cable and wireless telegraphy, will
+begin to be realised. I have told how the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>
+passed the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> on the 18th. She had been
+at the Rocas Islands on the 14th. The <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>,
+too, had been at the Rocas Islands on the 17th.
+She, also, had come south, though Cradock, with
+his squadron, was hunting for her in the north
+up to the far latitudes of Halifax. The two
+German cruisers, which had seemed so far away
+from the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> when she was at Rio calculating
+possibilities on August 1st, had both evaded the
+West Indies squadron and penetrated into her
+own slenderly guarded waters.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon August 30th the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, and
+<span class='it'>Otranto</span> were back at their Pirates’ Lair, which
+they could not leave for long, since it formed their
+rather precarious base of supply, and there they
+learned that the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> had sunk the British
+steamer <span class='it'>Holmwood</span> far to the south off Rio Grande
+do Sul and must be looked after at once, since
+she might have it in mind to raid our big shipping
+lines with the River Plate. Here on the 31st
+they learned also of the action in the Heligoland
+Bight, and of the German invasion of France, and
+of the retreat from Mons. The land war seemed
+very far off, but very ominous to those Keepers
+of the South Atlantic in their borrowed base upon
+a foreign shore thousands of miles away.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>My readers, especially those who are the more
+thoughtful, may ask how the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was able
+with a clear conscience to hie away to the north
+and leave during all those weeks our big shipping
+trade to Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine
+uncovered from the raiding exploits of all the
+German liners lying there which might have issued
+forth as armed commerce raiders. The answer
+is that none of the German liners had any guns.
+The spectre of concealed guns which might upon
+the outbreak of war be mounted, proved to be
+baseless. The German liners had no guns, not
+even the <span class='it'>Cap Trafalgar</span>, sunk later, September
+14th, off Trinidad Island by the <span class='it'>Carmania</span>. The
+<span class='it'>Cap Trafalgar’s</span> guns came from the small German
+gunboat <span class='it'>Eber</span>, which had arranged a meeting with
+her at this unofficial German base. The project
+of arming the <span class='it'>Cap Trafalgar</span> was quite a smart one,
+but, unfortunately for her, the first use to which
+she put her borrowed weapons was the last, and
+she went down in one of the most spirited fights
+of the whole war. The <span class='it'>Carmania</span> had come down
+from the north in the train of Rear-Admiral
+Cradock.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the beginning of September the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and
+the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> shifted down south, in the hope of
+catching the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> at work off the River Plate.
+There they arrived on the 8th, but found no prey,
+though rumours were many, and unrewarded
+searches as many. The <span class='it'>Otranto</span> came down to
+join them, and down also came the news that
+Cradock in his new flagship, the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, sent
+out to him from England, was also coming to take
+charge of the operations. Upon September 11th
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was reported to be far down towards
+the Straits of Magellan and for the time out of
+reach, so the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> squadron returned to its
+northern Lair and the junction with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>.
+From Cradock the officers learned that the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>
+and <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, with the <span class='it'>Carmania</span> and <span class='it'>Macedonia</span>,
+had arrived on the station, and that the old battleship
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span> was coming out. At the beginning
+of the war there had been one ship only in the
+South Atlantic, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>; now there were
+no fewer than five cruisers and three armed liners,
+and a battleship was on the way. One ship had
+grown into eight, was about to grow into nine,
+and before long was destined to become the focus
+of the most interesting concentration of the whole
+war.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We have now reached September 18th, by which
+date the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was far off towards the Pacific.
+She reached an old port of refuge for whalers
+near Cape Horn, named Orange Bay, on the 5th,
+and rested there till the 16th. At Punta Arenas
+she had picked up another collier, the <span class='it'>Santa Isabel</span>,
+and, accompanied by her pair of supply vessels
+passed slowly round the Horn. At the western
+end of the Magellan Straits she met with the
+Pacific liner <span class='it'>Ortega</span>, which, though fired upon and
+called to stop, pluckily bolted into a badly charted
+channel and conveyed the news of the <span class='it'>Dresden’s</span>
+movements to the English squadron, which for
+awhile had lost all trace of her.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was not yet clear to Cradock, who was now
+in command of the Southern Squadron—to distinguish
+it from the Northern Squadron, which
+presently consisted of the armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>
+(Rear-Admiral Stoddart), the <span class='it'>Defence</span>, the
+<span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, the <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, and the armed
+liner <span class='it'>Macedonia</span>—it was not yet clear that the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> was bound for the Pacific, and a rendezvous
+with von Spee. It seemed more probable that her
+intention was to prey upon shipping off the Straits
+of Magellan. In order to meet the danger, he
+set off with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+and the armed liner <span class='it'>Otranto</span> to operate in the far
+south, employing the Falkland Islands as his base.
+The <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> Lair of the north now remained for
+the use of Stoddart’s squadron.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In the light of after-events one cannot but feel
+regret that the old battleship <span class='it'>Canopus</span> was attached
+to the Southern Squadron—Cradock’s—instead of
+the armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Defence</span>, a much more useful
+if less powerfully armed vessel. The <span class='it'>Defence</span> was
+comparatively new, completed in 1908, had a
+speed of some twenty-one to twenty-two knots, and
+was more powerful than either the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+or the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>. The three sisters, <span class='it'>Defence</span>,
+<span class='it'>Minotaur</span>, and <span class='it'>Shannon</span>, had indeed been laid
+down as replies to the building of the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, and carried four 9.2-⁠inch guns and
+ten 7.5-⁠inch as against the eight 8.2-⁠inch and six
+6-⁠inch guns of the German cruisers.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have reached a point in my narrative when it
+becomes necessary to take up the story from the
+German side, and to indicate how it came about
+that five cruisers, which at the beginning of the
+war were widely scattered, became concentrated
+into the fine hard-fighting squadron which met
+Cradock at Coronel. The permanent base of the
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> was Tsing-tau in China,
+but it happened that at the end of July, 1914, they
+were more than 2,000 miles away in the Caroline
+Islands. The light cruisers <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>
+were upon the western coast of Mexico, and, as
+I have already told, the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was off the eastern
+coast of Mexico. The <span class='it'>Emden</span>, which does not
+concern us, was at Tsing-tau. The <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> were kept out of China waters by
+the Japanese fleets and hunted for and chased
+to Fiji by the Australian Unit. On September
+22nd von Spee bombarded Tahiti, in the Society
+Islands, at the moment when the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, having
+safely passed through the Atlantic, was creeping
+up the Chilean coast and the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>
+were coming down from the north. All the German
+vessels had been ordered to concentrate at Easter
+Island, a small remote convict settlement belonging
+to Chili and lost in the Pacific far out (2,800 miles)
+to the west of Valparaiso.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While, therefore, Cradock and his Southern
+Squadron were steering for the Falkland Islands
+to make of it a base for their search for the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>,
+von Spee’s cruisers were slowly concentrating upon
+Easter Island. There was no coal at the Falklands—they
+produce nothing except sheep and
+the most abominable weather on earth—but it
+was easy for us to direct colliers thither, and to
+transform the Islands into a base of supplies.
+The Germans had a far more difficult task. All
+through the operations which I am describing,
+and have still to describe, we were possessed of
+three great advantages. We had the coal, we had
+the freedom of communications given by ocean
+cables and wireless, and we had the sympathy of
+all those South American neutrals with whom we
+had to deal. Admiral von Spee and his ships
+were all through in great difficulties for coal, and
+would have failed entirely unless the German ships
+at South American ports had run big risks to seek
+out and supply him. He was to a large extent
+cut off from the outside world, for he had no cables,
+and received little information or assistance from
+home. The slowness of his movements, both before
+and after Coronel, may chiefly be explained through
+his lack of supplies and his ignorance of where we
+were or of what we were about to do.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It is comparatively easy for me now to plot out
+the movements of the English and German vessels,
+and to set forth their relative positions at any date.
+But when the movements were actually in progress
+the admirals and captains on both sides were very
+much in the dark. Now and then would come a
+ray of light which enabled their imagination and
+judgment to work. Thus the report from the
+<span class='it'>Ortega</span> that she had encountered the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> with
+her two colliers at the Pacific entrance of the
+Magellan Straits showed that she might be bound
+for some German rendezvous in the Pacific Ocean.
+A day or two later came word that the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span>
+and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> had bombarded Tahiti, and that
+these two powerful cruisers, which had seemed
+to be so remote from the concern of the South
+Atlantic Squadron, were already half-way across
+the wide Pacific, apparently bound for Chili. It
+was also, of course, known that the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and
+<span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> were on the west coast of Mexico to
+the north. Any one who will take a chart of the
+Pacific and note the positions towards the end of
+September of von Spee, the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>
+and <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, will see that the lonely dot marked
+as Easter Island was pretty nearly the only spot
+in the vast stretch of water towards which these
+scattered units could possibly be converging. At
+least so it seemed at the time, and, in fact, proved
+to be the case. The <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>
+reached Easter Island early in October, the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>
+turned up on the 12th, and later upon the
+same day the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> arrived with her faithful
+collier the <span class='it'>Baden</span>. Upon the 14th down came the
+<span class='it'>Leipzig</span> accompanied by colliers carrying 3,000
+tons of coal. The German concentration was
+complete; it had been carried through with very
+considerable skill aided by no less considerable
+luck. The few inhabitants of the lonely Easter
+Island, remote from trade routes, cables, and
+newspapers, regarded the German squadron with
+complete indifference. They had heard nothing
+of the world war, and were not interested in foreign
+warships. The island is rich in archæological
+remains. There happened to be upon it a British
+scientific expedition, but, busied over the relics
+of the past, the single-minded men of science did
+not take the trouble to cross the island to look at
+the German ships. They also were happy in their
+lack of knowledge that a war was on.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-231.jpg' alt='' id='illo-231' style='width:90%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have anticipated events a little in order to
+make clear what was happening on the other side
+of the great spur of South America while Admiral
+Stoddart’s squadron was taking charge of the
+Brazilian, Uruguayan, and upper Argentine coasts,
+and Admiral Cradock, with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+<span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, and <span class='it'>Otranto</span>—followed by the battleship
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span>—were pressing to the south after
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>. Stoddart’s little lot had been swept
+up from regions remote from their present concentration.
+The <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span> had come from St.
+Vincent, the <span class='it'>Defence</span> from the Mediterranean,
+where she had been Troubridge’s flagship in the
+early days of the war; the <span class='it'>Kent</span> had been sent
+out from England, and the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> summoned
+from the West Coast of Africa. The <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, as
+we know, was from the West Indies and her fruitless
+hunt for the elusive <span class='it'>Karlsruhe</span>. The South
+Atlantic was now in possession of two considerable
+British squadrons, although two months earlier
+there had been nothing of ours carrying guns except
+the little <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>After the news arrived from the <span class='it'>Ortega</span> about the
+<span class='it'>Dresden’s</span> movements, Cradock took his ships
+down to Punta Arenas, and thence across to Port
+Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where he was
+joined by the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, a slow old ship of some
+thirteen to fourteen knots, which had straggled
+down to him. I have never been able to reconcile
+the choice of the old <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, despite her formidable
+12-⁠inch guns, with my sense of what
+was fitting for the pursuit and destruction of
+German cruisers with a squadron speed of some
+twenty-one knots. From Port Stanley the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> were despatched round the Horn
+upon a scouting expedition which was to extend
+as far as Valparaiso. Already the Southern
+Squadron was beginning to suffer from its remoteness
+from the original Pirates’ Lair of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>.
+The Northern Squadron, collected from the corners
+of the earth, were receiving the supply ships first
+and skimming the cream off their cargoes before
+letting them loose for the service of their brethren
+in arms to the south. It was all very natural and
+inevitable, but rather irritating for those who had
+now to make the best of the knuckle end of the
+Admiralty’s joints.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The trip round the Horn of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and
+<span class='it'>Monmouth</span> was very rough indeed; the English
+cruisers rolled continually gunwhale under, and
+had they chanced to encounter the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>—which
+was not then possible, for she was well up the
+Chilean coast—neither side could have fired a shot
+at the other. At Orange Bay, where they put in,
+they discovered evidence of the recent presence
+of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> in rather a curious way. It had
+long been the custom of vessels visiting that remote
+desolate spot to erect boards giving their names
+and the date of their call. Upon the notice board
+of the German cruiser <span class='it'>Bremen</span>, left many months
+before, was read in pencil, partially obliterated by
+a cautious afterthought, the words “Dresden,
+September 11th, 1914.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>During the early part of October, the two
+cruisers <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> worked up the
+Chilean coast and reached Valparaiso about October
+17th. It was an expedition rather trying to the
+nerves of those who were responsible for the safety
+of the ships. Perhaps the word “squirmy” will
+best describe their feelings. Already the German
+concentration had taken place at Easter Island to
+the west of them; they did not positively know
+of it, but suspected, and felt apprehensive lest
+their presence in Chilean waters might be reported
+to von Spee and themselves cut off and overwhelmed
+before they could get away. Coal and provisions
+were running short, the crew were upon half
+rations, and any imprudence might be very severely
+punished.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>During October the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>
+were detached from the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, and it was
+not until the 28th that Cradock joined up with
+them at a point several hundred miles south of
+Coronel, whither they had descended for coal and
+stores after their hazardous northern enterprise.
+Here also was the <span class='it'>Otranto</span>, but the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>,
+though steaming her best, had been left behind
+by the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, and was, for all practical purposes,
+of no account at all. She was 200 miles
+away when Coronel was fought. On October 28th,
+after receiving orders from Cradock, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+left by herself bound north for Coronel, a small
+Chilean coaling port, there to pick up mails and
+telegrams from England. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> arrived off
+Coronel on the 29th, but remained outside patrolling
+for forty-eight hours. The German wireless
+about her was very strong indeed, enemy ships were
+evidently close at hand, and at any moment might
+appear. They were indeed much nearer and more
+menacing than the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> knew, even at this
+eleventh hour before the meeting took place.
+On October 26th Admiral von Spee was at Masafuera,
+a small island off the Chilean coast, on the
+27th he left for Valparaiso itself, and there on the
+31st he learned of the arrival in the port of Coronel
+of the English cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>. The clash of
+fighting ships was very near.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On October 31st the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> entered the harbour
+of Coronel, a large harbour to which there are two
+entrances, and a rendezvous off the port had been
+arranged with the rest of the squadron for November
+1st. Her arrival was at once notified to
+von Spee at Valparaiso. The mails and telegrams
+were collected, and at 9.15 on the 1st the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+backed out cautiously, ready, if the Germans were
+in force outside, to slip back again into neutral
+waters and to take the fullest advantage of her
+twenty-four hours’ law. She emerged seeing nothing,
+though the enemy wireless was coming loudly,
+and met the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>, <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>, and <span class='it'>Otranto</span>
+at the appointed rendezvous some eighty miles
+out to sea. Here the mails and telegrams were
+transferred to Cradock by putting them in a
+cask and towing it across the <span class='it'>Good Hope’s</span> bows.
+The sea was rough, and this resourceful method
+was much quicker and less dangerous than the
+orthodox use of a boat. Cradock spread out his
+four ships, fifteen miles apart, and steamed to
+the north-west at ten knots. Smoke became
+visible to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> at 4.20 p.m., and as she
+increased speed to investigate, there appeared two
+four-funnelled armoured cruisers and one light
+cruiser with three funnels. Those four-funnelled
+ships were the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>, and
+until they were seen at that moment by the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+they were not positively known to have been on
+the Chilean coast. To this extent the German
+Admiral had taken his English opponents by
+surprise. “When we saw those damned four
+funnels,” said the officers of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, “we knew
+that there was the devil to pay.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have already told the story of the Coronel
+action and I will not tell it again. Von Spee held
+off so long as the sun behind the English gave
+them the advantage of light, and did not close in
+until the sun had set and the yellow afterglow
+made his opponents stand out like silhouettes.
+He could see them while they could not see him.
+During the action, the light cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, with
+which I am mainly concerned, had a very unhappy
+time. The armed liner <span class='it'>Otranto</span> cleared off, quite
+properly, and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, third in the line, was
+exposed for more than an hour to the concentrated
+fire of the 4.1-⁠inch guns of both the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and afterwards, when the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span> had
+blown up and the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> been disabled, for
+about a quarter of an hour to the 8.2-⁠inch guns of
+the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>. Her gunnery officers could not
+see the splashes of their own shells, and could not
+correct the ranges. When darkness came down
+it was useless to continue firing blindly, and worse
+than useless, since her gun flashes gave some
+guidance to the enemy’s gunners. At the range
+of about 11,000 yards, a long range for the German
+4.1-⁠inch guns, the shells were falling all around
+very steeply, the surface of the sea was churned
+into foam, and splinters from bursting shells rained
+over her. It is a wonderful thing that she suffered
+so little damage and that not a single man of her
+company was killed or severely wounded. Four
+slight wounds from splinters constituted her total
+tally of casualties. At least 600 shells, great and
+small, were fired at her, yet she was hit five times
+only. The most serious damage done was a big
+hole between wind and water on the port quarter
+near one of the screws. Yet even this hole did
+not prevent her from steaming away at twenty-four
+knots, and from covering several thousand
+miles before she was properly repaired. I think
+that the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> must be a lucky ship. After the
+<span class='it'>Good Hope</span> had blown up and the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>,
+badly hurt, was down by the bows and turning
+her stern to the seas, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> hung upon her
+consort’s port quarter, anxious to give help and
+deeply reluctant to leave. Yet she could do
+nothing. The <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> was clearly doomed, and
+it was urgent that the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> should get away to
+warn the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>, then 150 miles away and pressing
+towards the scene of action, and to report the
+tragedy and the German concentration to the
+Admiralty at home. During that anxious waiting
+time, when the enemy’s shells were still falling
+thickly about her, the sea, to the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company,
+looked very, very cold! At last, when the
+moon was coming up brightly, and further delay
+might have made escape impossible, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+sorrowfully turned to the west, towards the wide
+Pacific spaces, and dashed off at full speed. It
+was not until half an hour later, when she was
+twelve miles distant, that she counted the seventy-five
+flashes of the <span class='it'>Nürnberg’s</span> guns which finally
+destroyed the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span>. I am afraid that the
+story of the cheers from the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> which sped
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> upon her way must be dismissed as
+a pretty legend. No one in the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> heard
+them, and no one from the <span class='it'>Monmouth</span> survived to
+tell the tale. Captain Grant and his men of the
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span> must have suffered agonies when they
+received the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> brief message. They had
+done their utmost to keep up with the <span class='it'>Good Hope</span>,
+and the slowness of their ship had been no fault
+of theirs. Grant had, I have been told, implored
+the Admiral to wait for him before risking an
+engagement.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The journey to the Straits and to her junction
+with the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> was a very anxious one for the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company. They did their best to be
+cheerful, though cheerfulness was not easy to come
+by. They had witnessed the total defeat of an
+English by a German squadron, and before they
+could get down south into comparative safety the
+German ships, running down the chord of the arc
+which represented the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> course, might
+arrive first at the Straits. That there was no
+pursuit to the south may be explained by the one
+word—coal. Von Spee could get coal at Valparaiso
+or at Coronel—though the local coal was soft,
+wretched stuff—but he had no means of replenishment
+farther south. One does not realize how
+completely a squadron of warships is tied to its
+colliers or to its coaling bases until one tries to
+discover and explain the movements of warships
+cruising in the outer seas.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While running down towards the Straits—for
+twenty-four hours she kept up twenty-four knots—the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> briefly notified the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> of
+the disaster of Coronel and of her own intention
+to make for the Falkland Islands. Beyond this,
+she refrained from using the tell-tale wireless
+which might give away her position to a pursuing
+enemy. Upon the evening of the 3rd she picked
+up the German press story of the action, but
+kept silence upon it herself. On the morning
+of the 4th, very short of stores—her crew had
+been on reduced rations for a month—she reached
+the Straits and, to her great relief, found them
+empty of the enemy. She did not meet the <span class='it'>Canopus</span>
+until the 6th, and then, with the big battleship
+upon her weather quarter, to keep the seas somewhat
+off that sore hole in her side, she made a
+fortunately easy passage to the Falkland Islands
+and entered Port Stanley at daylight upon November
+8th. Thence the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> despatched her
+first telegram to the authorities at home, and
+at six o’clock in the evening set off with the
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span> for the north. But that same evening
+came orders from England for the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> to
+return, in order that the coaling base of the Falklands
+might be defended, so the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, alone
+once more after many days, pursued her solitary
+way towards Rio and to her meeting with the
+<span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, <span class='it'>Defence</span>, and <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, which were
+at that time lying off the River Plate guarding
+the approaches to Montevideo and Buenos Ayres.
+The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had done her utmost to uphold the
+Flag, but the lot of the sole survivor of a naval
+disaster is always wretched. The one thing which
+counts in the eyes of English naval officers is the
+good opinion of their brethren of the sea; those
+of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> could not tell until they had tested
+it what would be the opinion of their colleagues in
+the Service. It was very kind, very sympathetic;
+so overflowing with kindness and sympathy were
+those who now learned the details of the disaster,
+that the company of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, sorely humiliated,
+yet full of courage and hope for the day of reckoning,
+never afterwards forgot how much they owed
+to it. At home men growled foolishly, ignorantly,
+sank to the baseness of writing abusive letters to
+the newspapers, and even to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> herself,
+but the Service understood and sympathised, and
+it is the Service alone which counts.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch12'>CHAPTER XII</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;'><span class='sc'>Part II.—Coronel to Juan Fernandez</span></p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;'>(Nov. 1st, 1914, to March 14th, 1915)</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We left the British cruiser <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> off the River
+Plate, where she had arrived after her escape,
+sore at heart and battered in body, from the
+disaster of Coronel. The battleship <span class='it'>Canopus</span> remained
+behind at Port Stanley to defend the newly
+established coaling-station at the Falkland Islands.
+Her four 12-⁠inch guns would have made the inner
+harbour impassable to the lightly armoured cruisers
+of Admiral von Spee had he descended before the
+reinforcements from the north arrived; and the
+colliers, cleverly hidden in the remote creeks of
+the Islands, would have been most difficult for
+him to discover. It was essential to our plans
+that there should be ample stores of coal at the
+Falklands for the use of Sturdee’s punitive squadron
+when it should arrive, and every possible precaution
+was taken to ensure the supply. As it happened,
+von Spee did not come for five weeks. He
+was at his wits’ end to find coal, and was, moreover,
+short of ammunition after the bombardment of
+Tahiti and the big expenditure in the Coronel fight.
+So he remained pottering about off the Chilean
+coast until he had swept up enough of coal and
+of colliers to make his journey to the Falklands,
+and to provide for his return to the Lair which
+he had established in an inlet upon the coast.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the English Bank, off the River Plate, the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had joined up with the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, <span class='it'>Defence</span>,
+and <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, and her company were greatly
+refreshed in spirit by the kindly understanding
+and sympathy of their brothers of the sea. The
+officers and men of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, who had by now
+worked together for more than two years, had
+come through their shattering experiences with
+extraordinarily little loss of morale. They had
+suffered a material defeat, but their courage and
+confidence in the ultimate issue burned as brightly
+as ever. Even upon the night of the disaster,
+when they were seeking a safe road to the Straits,
+uncertain whether the Germans would arrive there
+first, they were much more concerned for the
+safety of the <span class='it'>Canopus</span> than worried about their
+own skins. Their captain and navigating lieutenant
+had thrust upon them difficulties and
+anxieties of which the others were at first ignorant.
+The ship’s compasses were found to be gravely
+disturbed by the shocks of the action, their magnetism
+had been upset, and not until star sights
+could be taken were they able to correct the error
+of fully twenty degrees. The speed at which the
+cruiser travelled buried the stern deeply, and
+the water entering by the big hole blown in the
+port quarter threatened to flood a whole compartment
+and make it impossible for full speed to be
+maintained. The voyage to the Straits was, for
+those responsible, a period of grave anxiety. Yet
+through it all the officers and men did their work
+and maintained a cheerful countenance, as if to
+pass almost scatheless through a tremendous torrent
+of shell, and to get away with waggling compasses
+and a great hole between wind and water,
+was an experience which custom had made of
+little moment. No one could have judged from
+their demeanour that never before November 1st
+had the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> been in action, and that not until
+November 6th, when she had beside her the support
+of the <span class='it'>Canopus’s</span> great guns, did she reach comparative
+safety.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> damaged side had been shored up
+internally with baulks of timber, but if she were
+to become sea- and battle-worthy it was necessary
+to seek for some more permanent means of repair.
+So with her consorts she made for Rio, arriving on
+the 16th, and reported her damaged condition to
+the Brazilian authorities. Under the Hague Convention
+she was entitled to remain at Rio for a
+sufficient time to be made seaworthy, and the
+Brazilian Government interpreted the Convention
+in the most generous sense. The Government
+floating dock was placed at her disposal, and here
+for five days she was repaired, until with her torn
+side plating entirely renewed she was as fit as ever
+for the perils of the sea. Her engineers took the
+fullest advantage of those invaluable days; they
+overhauled the boilers and engines so thoroughly
+that when the bold cruiser emerged from Rio she
+was fresh and clean, ready to steam at her own full
+speed of some twenty-six knots, and to fight anything
+with which she could reasonably be classed
+in weight of metal. By this time the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+had learned of the great secret concentration
+about to take place at her old Pirates’ Lair to the
+north, and of those other concentrations which
+were designed to ensure the destruction of von
+Spee to whatsoever part of the wide oceans he
+might direct his ships.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The disaster of Coronel had set the Admiralty
+bustling to very good and thorough purpose. No
+fewer than five squadrons were directed to concentrate
+for the one purpose of ridding the seas
+of the German cruisers. First came down Sturdee
+with the battle cruisers <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>
+to join the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, <span class='it'>Kent</span>, <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>,
+and <span class='it'>Bristol</span> at the Pirates’ Lair. Upon their arrival
+the armoured cruiser <span class='it'>Defence</span> was ordered to the
+Cape to complete there a watching squadron ready
+for von Spee should he seek safety in that direction.
+One Japanese squadron remained to guard the
+China seas, and another of great power sped across
+the Pacific towards the Chilean coast. In Australian
+waters were the battle cruiser <span class='it'>Australia</span> and
+her consorts of the Unit, together with the French
+cruiser <span class='it'>Montcalm</span>. Von Spee’s end was certain;
+what was not quite so certain was whether he
+would fall to the Japanese or to Sturdee. Our
+Japanese Allies fully understood that we were
+gratified at his falling to us; he had sunk our
+ships and was our just prey. Yet if he had loitered
+much longer off Chili, and had not at last ventured
+upon his fatal Falklands dash, the gallant Japanese
+would have had him. Luck favoured us now, as
+it had favoured us a month earlier when the <span class='it'>Emden</span>
+was destroyed at the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Those
+who have read my story of the <span class='it'>Emden</span> in Chapter IX
+will remember that but for the fortune of position
+which placed the <span class='it'>Sydney</span> nearest to the Islands
+when their wireless call for help went out, the
+famous raider would in all probability have fallen
+to a Japanese light cruiser which was with the
+Australian convoy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The mission of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span> and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>, and
+the secrecy with which it was enshrouded, is one
+of the most romantic episodes of the war. I
+have already dealt fully with it. But there has
+since come to me one little detail which reveals
+how very near we were, at one time, to a German
+discovery of the whole game. The two battle
+cruisers coaled at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands—Portuguese
+territory, within which we had no
+powers of censorship—and at the Pirates’ Lair
+off the Brazilian coast. Their movements began
+to be talked about in Rio and the River Plate.
+Men knew of the Coronel disaster and shrewdly
+suspected that the two great ships were on their
+way to the South Atlantic. A description of their
+visit had been prepared, and was actually in type.
+It was intended for publication in a local South
+American paper. That it was not published,
+when urgent representations were made on our
+behalf, reveals how scrupulous was the consideration
+with which our friends of Brazil and the
+Argentine regarded our interests. There were
+no powers of censorship, the appeal was as man to
+man, and Englishman to Portuguese, and the
+appeal prevailed—even over the natural thirst of
+a journalist for highly interesting news. The
+battle cruisers coaled and passed upon their way,
+and no word of their visit went forth to Berlin or
+to von Spee.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was among the British cruisers which
+greeted Sturdee at the Pirates’ Lair, and as soon
+as ammunition and stores had been distributed
+and coal taken in, the voyage to the Falkland
+Islands began. The squadron arrived in the
+evening of December 7th, and at daybreak of the
+8th von Spee ran upon his fate. The part played
+by the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> in the action was less spectacular
+than that which fell to the battle cruisers, but it
+was useful and has some features of interest.
+Among other things it illustrates how little is
+known of the course of a naval action—spread over
+hundreds of miles of sea—while it takes place, and
+for some time even after it is over.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On the morning of December 8th, at eight o’clock,
+the approach of the German squadron was observed,
+and at this moment the English squadron was
+hard at work coaling. By 9.45 steam was up and
+the pursuit began. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was lying in the
+inner harbour with banked fires, ready for sea at
+two hours’ notice, but her Engineer Lieutenant-Commander
+Shrubsole and his staff so busied
+themselves that in little over an hour from the
+signal to raise steam she was under weigh, and
+an hour later she was moving in chase of the
+enemy at a higher speed than she obtained in her
+contractors’ trials when she was a brand-new ship
+three years earlier. Throughout the war the
+engineering staff of the Royal Navy has never
+failed to go one better than anyone had the right
+to expect of it. It has never failed to respond to
+any call upon its energies or its skill, never.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In order that we may understand how the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> was able to make her escape unscathed
+from her pursuers—she bolted without firing a
+shot in the action—I must give some few details
+of the position of the ships when the German
+light cruisers were ordered by von Spee to take
+themselves off as best they might. Shortly before
+one o’clock the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, a much faster ship than
+anything upon our side except the two battle
+cruisers, was two miles ahead of the flagship <span class='it'>Invincible</span>,
+and it was Sturdee’s intention to attack
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>—hull down on the
+horizon—with his speediest ships, the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>,
+<span class='it'>Inflexible</span>, and <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>. Our three other cruisers—<span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>,
+<span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, and <span class='it'>Kent</span>—were well astern
+of the leaders. At 1.04 the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>
+turned to the eastward to accept battle and
+to cover the retreat of their light cruisers, which
+were then making off towards the south-east.
+Admiral Sturdee, seeing at once that the light
+cruisers might make good their escape unless
+the speedy <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> were detached in pursuit,
+called up the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span> (Rear-Admiral Stoddart)
+to his support, and ordered Captain Luce in the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> to take charge of the job of rounding up
+and destroying the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>, and <span class='it'>Dresden</span>.
+The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, therefore, began the chase at a grave
+disadvantage. She first had to work round the
+stern of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>, pass the flagship upon her
+disengaged side, and then steam off from far in
+the rear after the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> and <span class='it'>Kent</span>, which had
+already begun the pursuit. The <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and
+<span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> were a long way off, and the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>
+was even farther. This cruiser, <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, though
+sister to the <span class='it'>Emden</span>, was, unlike her sister and the
+others of von Spee’s light cruisers, fitted with
+Parsons’ turbine engines. She was much the
+fastest of the German ships at the Falkland Islands,
+and beginning her flight with a start of some ten
+miles quickly was lost to sight beyond the horizon.
+The <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> and <span class='it'>Kent</span> had no chance at all of
+overtaking her, and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, whose captain
+was the senior naval officer in command of the
+pursuing squadron of the three English cruisers,
+could not overtake a long stern chase by herself so
+long as the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> were in his course
+and had not been disposed of. He was obliged
+first to make sure of them. Steaming at twenty-four
+and a half knots, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> drew away from
+the battle cruisers and began to overhaul the
+<span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>. She decided to attack the
+<span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, which was nearest to her, and to regulate
+her speed so that the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> and <span class='it'>Kent</span>—both
+more powerful but much slower ships than herself—would
+not be left behind. As it happened the
+engineering staffs of these not very rapid “County”
+cruisers rose nobly to the emergency, the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>
+was able to catch the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and to take a large
+part in her destruction, while the <span class='it'>Kent</span> kept on
+after the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> and, as it proved, was successful
+in destroying her also. One of the ten boilers of
+the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> had been out of action for weeks past
+and her speed was a good deal below its best.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The sea is a very big place, but that portion of
+it contained within the ring of the visible horizon
+is very small. To those in the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, pressing
+on in chase of the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, the scene appeared
+strange and even ominous. They could see the
+<span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> far away, moving apparently
+in pursuit of themselves, but the battle
+cruisers hidden below the curve of the horizon
+they could not see. When firing from the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> ceased for a while—as it did
+at intervals—it seemed to the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company
+that they were sandwiched between von Spee’s
+armoured cruisers and his light cruisers, and that
+the battle cruisers, upon which the result of the
+action depended, had disappeared into space.
+The telegraph room and the conning-tower doubtless
+knew what was happening, but the ship’s
+company as a whole did not. To this brevity of
+vision, and to this detachment from exact information,
+one must set down the extraordinarily conflicting
+stories one receives from the observers of
+a naval action. They see what is within the horizon
+but not what is below it, and that which is below
+is not uncommonly far more important than that
+which is above.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Shortly after three o’clock the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> opened
+upon the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> with her foremost 6-⁠inch gun
+at a range of about 12,000 yards (about seven
+miles), seeking to outrange the lighter 4.1-⁠inch
+guns carried by the German cruiser. The distance
+closed down gradually to 10,000 yards, at which
+range the German guns could occasionally get in
+their work. They could, as the <span class='it'>Emden</span> showed in
+her fight with the <span class='it'>Sydney</span>, and as was observed at
+Coronel, do effective shooting even at 11,000
+yards, but hits were difficult to bring off, owing
+to the steepness of the fall of the shells and the
+narrowness of the mark aimed at. For more than
+an hour the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> engaged the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> by herself,
+knocking out her secondary control position
+between the funnels, and allowing the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>
+time to arrive and to help to finish the business
+with her fourteen 6-⁠inch guns. At one time the
+range fell as low as 9,000 yards, the <span class='it'>Leipzig’s</span>
+gunners became very accurate, and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+suffered nearly all the casualties which overtook
+her in the action.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>About 4.20 the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> was able to open fire,
+and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> joined her, so that both ships
+might concentrate upon the same side of the
+<span class='it'>Leipzig</span>. Just as Admiral Sturdee in his fight with
+the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> could not
+afford to run risks of damage far from a repairing
+base, so the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> with several
+hours of daylight before them were not justified
+in allowing impatience to hazard the safety of
+the ships. They had to regard the possible use
+of torpedoes and to look out for dropped mines.
+Neither torpedoes nor mines were, in fact, used
+by the Germans, though at one time in the course
+of the action drums, mistaken for mines, were seen
+in the water and carefully avoided. They were
+cases in which cartridges were brought from the
+magazines, and which were thrown overboard
+after being emptied. As the afternoon drew on
+the weather turned rather misty, and the attacking
+ships were obliged to close in a little and hurry
+up the business. This was at half-past five.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>From the first the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> never had a chance.
+She was out-steamed and utterly out-gunned.
+Her opponents had between them four times her
+broadside weight of metal, and the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> was
+an armoured ship. She never had a chance, yet
+she went on, fired some 1,500 rounds—all that
+remained in her magazines after Coronel—and did
+not finally cease firing until after seven o’clock.
+For more than four hours her company had looked
+certain death in the face yet gallantly stood to
+their work. From first to last von Spee’s concentrated
+squadron played the naval game according
+to the immemorial rules, and died like gentlemen.
+Peace be to their ashes. In success and
+in failure they were the most gallant and honourable
+of foes. At seven o’clock the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> was
+smashed to pieces, she was blazing from stem to
+stern, she was doomed, yet gave no sign of surrender.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At this moment, when the work of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+and the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> had been done—the <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>,
+it should be noted, bore the heavier burden in
+this action—she was hit eighteen times, though
+little hurt, and played her part with the utmost
+loyalty and devotion—at this moment flashed the
+news through the ether that the <span class='it'>Scharnhorst</span> and
+<span class='it'>Gneisenau</span> had been sunk. The news spread, and
+loud cheers went up from the English ships. To
+the doomed company in the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> those cheers
+must have carried some hint of the utter disaster
+which had overtaken their squadron. It was not
+until nine o’clock (six hours after the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+had begun to fire upon her) that she made her last
+plunge—if a modern compartment ship does
+not blow up, she takes a powerful lot of shell to
+sink her—and the English ships did everything
+that they could to save life. The <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> drew
+close up under her stern and lowered boats, at the
+same time signalling that she was trying to save
+life. There was no reply. Perhaps the signals
+were not read; perhaps there were not many left
+alive to make reply. The <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>, still blazing,
+rolled right over to port and disappeared. Six
+officers, including the Navigating Lieutenant-Commander,
+and eight men were picked up by the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> boats. Fourteen officers and men out of
+nearly 300! The captives were treated as honoured
+guests and made much of. Our officers and
+men took their gallant defeated foes to their
+hearts and gave them of their best. It was not
+until two days later, when news arrived that
+the <span class='it'>Leipzig’s</span> sister and consort the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> had
+been sunk by the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, that these brave men
+broke down. Then they wept. They cared little
+for the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>—a stranger from the North
+Atlantic—but the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> was their own consort,
+beside whom they had sailed for years, and beside
+whom they had fought. They had hoped to the
+last that she might make good her escape from
+the wreck of von Spee’s squadron. When that
+last hope failed they wept. When I think of von
+Spee’s gallant men, so human in their strength
+and in their weakness, I cannot regard them as
+other than worthy brothers of the sea.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In the Coronel action the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, exposed to
+the concentrated fire of the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span> and <span class='it'>Dresden</span>
+for an hour, and to the heavy guns of the <span class='it'>Gneisenau</span>
+for some ten minutes, did not lose a single man.
+There were four slight wounds from splinters,
+that was all. But in her long fight with the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>
+alone, assisted by the powerful batteries of the
+<span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> suffered two men killed,
+three men severely wounded, and six slightly
+hurt. Such are the strange chances of war.
+After Coronel, though they had seen two of their
+own ships go down and were in flight from an
+overwhelming enemy, the officers and men were
+wonderfully cheerful. The shrewder the buffets
+of Fate the stiffer became their tails. But after
+the Falklands, when success had wiped out the
+humiliation of failure, there came a nervous
+reaction. Defeat could not depress the spirit of
+these men, but victory, by relieving their minds
+from the long strain of the past months, made
+them captious and irritable. Perhaps their spirits
+were overshadowed by the prospect of the weary
+hunt for the fugitive <span class='it'>Dresden</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>By wondrous accident perchance one may</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Grope out a needle in a load of hay.</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-253.jpg' alt='' id='illo-253' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Four German cruisers had been sunk, but one,
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, had escaped, and the story of the
+next three months is the story of a search—always
+wearisome, sometimes dangerous, sometimes
+even absurd. The Straits of Magellan, the
+islands of Tierra del Fuego and of the Horn, and
+the west coast of the South American spur are a
+maze of inlets, many uncharted, nearly all unsurveyed.
+The hunt for the elusive <span class='it'>Dresden</span> among
+the channels, creeks, and islands was far more
+difficult than the proverbial grope for a needle
+in a load of hay. A needle buried in hay cannot
+change its position; provided that it really be
+hidden in a load, patience and a magnet will infallibly
+bring it forth. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> could move
+from one hiding place to another, no search for
+her could ever exhaust the possible hiding-places,
+and it was not positively known until after she
+had been run down and destroyed where she had
+been in hiding. That she was found after three
+weary months may be explained by that one word
+which explains so much in naval work—coal. The
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> after her flight from the Falkland Islands
+action was short of coal; von Spee’s attendant
+colliers, <span class='it'>Baden</span> and <span class='it'>Santa Isabel</span>, had been pursued
+and sunk by the <span class='it'>Bristol</span> and the armed liner
+<span class='it'>Macedonia</span>, and she was cast upon the world without
+means of replenishing her bunkers. This was,
+of course, known to her pursuers, so that they
+expected, and expected rightly, that she would
+hang about in some secluded creek until her
+dwindling supplies drove her forth upon the seas
+to hunt for more. Which is what happened.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon the evening of December 8th, after the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> had disposed of the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>,
+there were one English and two German cruisers
+unaccounted for. The <span class='it'>Kent</span> had last been seen
+chasing the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span> towards the south-east,
+while the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was disappearing over the curve
+of the horizon to the south. Upon the following
+morning no news had come in from the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, and
+some anxiety was felt; it was necessary to find
+her before proceeding with the pursuit of the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and much valuable time was lost. It
+happened that during her fight with the <span class='it'>Nürnberg</span>,
+which she sank in a most business-like fashion,
+the <span class='it'>Kent’s</span> aerials were shot away and she lost
+wireless contact with Sturdee’s squadron. The
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span> was ordered off to search for her, but
+fortunately the <span class='it'>Kent</span> turned up on the morning of
+the 10th deservedly triumphant. She had performed
+the great feat of catching and sinking a
+vessel which on paper was much faster than herself,
+and she had done it though short of coal
+and at the sacrifice of everything wooden on
+board, including the wardroom furniture. She
+was compelled with the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> to
+return to Port Stanley for coal, and this delay was
+of the utmost service to the fugitive <span class='it'>Dresden</span>.
+Though the movements of that cruiser, in the
+interval, were not learned until much later, it
+will be convenient if I give them now, so that the
+situation may be made clear. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> had
+owed her escape to her speed and to the occupation
+of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>—the only cruiser upon our side
+which could catch her—with the <span class='it'>Leipzig</span>. She got
+clear away, rounded the Horn on the 9th, and on
+December 10th entered the Cockburn Channel on
+the west coast of Tierra del Fuego. At Stoll Bay
+she passed the night, and her coal-bunkers being
+empty sent men ashore to cut enough wood to
+enable her to struggle up to Punta Arenas. She
+ran a great risk by making for so conspicuous a
+port, but she had no choice. Coal must be obtained
+somehow or her number would speedily go up.
+She was not entitled to get Chilean coal, for she
+had managed to delude the authorities into supplying
+her upon five previous occasions during the
+statutory period of three months. Once in three
+months a belligerent warship is permitted, under
+the Hague Rules, to coal at the ports of a neutral
+country; once she claims this privilege she is
+cut off from getting more coal from the same
+country for three months. But the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> again
+managed, as she had already done four times
+before, to secure supplies illegitimately. She coaled
+at Punta Arenas, remained there for thirty-one
+hours—though after twenty-four hours she was
+liable to internment—and left at 10 p.m. on the
+13th. It was this disregard for the Hague Rules
+which led to the destruction of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> in
+Chilean territorial waters at Juan Fernandez three
+months later. We held that she had broken
+international law deliberately many times, she
+was no longer entitled to claim its protection.
+She could not disregard it when it knocked against
+her convenience, and shelter herself under it when
+in need of a protective mantle. She had by her
+own violations become an outlaw.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At 2.30 a.m. on the 13th, Sturdee learned that
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was at Punta Arenas. The <span class='it'>Bristol</span>,
+which was ready, jumped off the mark at once;
+the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> and the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, which were not
+quite ready, got off at 9.15. Thus it happened
+that the <span class='it'>Bristol</span> reached Punta Arenas seventeen
+hours after the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> had left, to vanish, as it
+were, into space, and not to be heard of again for
+a couple of months. What she did was to slip
+down again into the Cockburn Channel and lie
+at anchor in Hewett Bay near the southern exit.
+On December 26th she shifted her quarters to an
+uncharted and totally uninhabited creek, called
+the Gonzales Channel, and there she lay in idle
+security until February 4th.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>During the long weeks of the <span class='it'>Dresden’s</span> stay in
+Hewett Bay and the Gonzales Channel, the English
+cruisers were busily hunting for her among the
+islets and inlets of the Magellan Straits, Tierra del
+Fuego, and the west coast of the South American
+spur. The <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>, <span class='it'>Cornwall</span>, and <span class='it'>Kent</span> took
+charge of the Magellan Straits, the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> and
+<span class='it'>Bristol</span> ferreted about the recesses of the west
+coast with the <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> outside of them to chase
+the sea-rat should she break cover for the open.
+The battle cruiser <span class='it'>Australia</span> came in from the
+Pacific and with the “County” cruiser <span class='it'>Newcastle</span>,
+from Mexico, kept watch off Valparaiso. The
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span>, lying snug in the Gonzales Channel, was
+not approached except once, on December 29th,
+when one of the searchers was within twenty
+miles of her hiding-place. The weather was thick
+and she was not seen. The big ships did not long
+waste their time over the search. It was one
+better suited to light craft, for lighter craft even
+than the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> or <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, for which the uncharted
+channels often threatened grave dangers. Armed
+patrols or picket boats, of shallow draught, were
+best suited to the work, and in its later stages were
+furbished up and made available.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>On December 16th the battle cruisers <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> were recalled to England, and the
+<span class='it'>Canopus</span> went north to act as guardship at the
+precious Pirates’ Lair which has figured so often
+in these pages. The <span class='it'>Australia</span> passed on her way
+to the Atlantic, across which the Canadian contingents
+were in need of convoy, and the supervision
+of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> search devolved upon Admiral
+Stoddart of the <span class='it'>Carnarvon</span>. The Admiral with the
+<span class='it'>Carnarvon</span> and <span class='it'>Cornwall</span> remained in and out of
+the Magellan Straits, while the captain of the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, with him the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, <span class='it'>Bristol</span>, and <span class='it'>Newcastle</span>,
+was put in charge of the Chilean Archipelago.
+Gradually as time went on and the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> lay
+low—all this while in the Gonzales Channel—other
+ships went away upon more urgent duties and the
+chase was left to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, <span class='it'>Kent</span>, and an armed
+liner <span class='it'>Orama</span>. The <span class='it'>Bristol</span> had butted herself ashore
+in one of the unsurveyed channels and was obliged
+to seek a dock for repairs. The great concentration
+of which the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had been the focus
+was over, she was now back at her old police
+work, though not upon her old station. She had
+begun the war in sole charge of the South Atlantic;
+the wheel of circumstance had brought her, with
+her consorts, to the charge of the South Pacific.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Although the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company had had many
+experiences of the risks of war, they had never
+felt in action the strain upon their nerves which
+was always with them day in day out during that
+long weary hunt for the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> in the Chilean
+Archipelago. They explored no less than 7,000
+miles of narrow waters, for the most part uncharted,
+feeling their way by lead and by mother wit, becoming
+learned in the look of the towering rocks
+which shut them in, and in the kelp growing upon
+their sea margins. The channels wound among
+steep high cliffs, around which they could not see.
+As they worked stealthily round sharp corners,
+they were always expecting to encounter the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> with every gun and torpedo tube registered
+upon the narrow space into which they must
+emerge. Their own guns and torpedoes were
+always ready for instant action, but in this game
+of hide-and-seek the advantage of surprise must
+always rest with the hidden conscious enemy. This
+daily strain went on through half of December
+and the whole of January and February! One
+cannot feel surprised to learn that in the view of
+the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> company the actions of Coronel and
+the Falklands were gay picnics when set in comparison
+with that hourly expectation throughout
+two and a half months of the sudden discovery of
+the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and that anticipated blast of every
+gun and mouldy which she could on the instant
+bring to bear. Added to this danger of sudden
+attack was the ever-present risk of maritime
+disaster. It is no light task to navigate for three
+months waters to which exist no sailing directions
+and no charts of even tolerable accuracy. Upon
+Captain Luce and upon his second in command,
+Lieutenant-Commander Wilfred Thompson, rested
+a load of responsibility which it would be difficult
+to overestimate.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was not until early in March that any authentic
+news of the movements of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> became
+available. Upon February 4th she had issued
+forth of the Gonzales Channel and crept stealthily
+up the Chilean coast. To the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> had come
+during the long weeks of the <span class='it'>Dresden’s</span> hiding many
+reports that she was obliged to investigate. Many
+times our own cruisers were seen by ignorant
+observers on shore and mistaken for the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>;
+out would flow stories which, wandering by way
+of South American ports—and sometimes by way
+of London itself—would come to rest in the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span>
+wireless-room and increase the burden thrown
+upon her officers. More than once she was taken
+by shore watchers to be the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, and urgently
+warned from home to be on the look-out for herself!</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At last the veil lifted. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, with her
+coal of Punta Arenas approaching exhaustion, was
+sighted at a certain spot well up the Chilean coast
+where had been situated von Spee’s secret Lair.
+The news was rushed out to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, and since
+her consort, the <span class='it'>Kent</span>, was nearest to the designated
+spot this cruiser was despatched at once to investigate.
+As at the Falklands action, her
+engineers rose to the need for rapid movement.
+For thirty-six hours continuously she steamed
+northwards at seventeen knots, and arrived just
+before daybreak on the 7th. Nothing was then
+in sight, nor until three o’clock in the afternoon
+of the following day, the 8th. While in misty
+weather the <span class='it'>Kent</span> was waiting and watching out at
+sea, a cloud bank lifted and the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was revealed.
+She had not been seen by us since the
+day of her flight, December 8th, exactly three
+months before! The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was a shabby
+spectacle, her paint gone, her sides raw with rust
+and standing high out of the water. She was
+evidently light, and almost out of coal. The <span class='it'>Kent</span>
+at once made for her quarry, but the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, a
+much faster ship, drew away. Foul as she was,
+for she had not been in dock since the war began,
+the <span class='it'>Kent</span> was little cleaner. The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> drew
+away, but the relentless pursuit of the indefatigable
+<span class='it'>Kent</span> kept her at full speed for six hours, and left
+her with no more than enough fuel to reach Masafuera
+or Juan Fernandez. By thus forcing the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span> to burn most of the fuel which still
+remained in her bunkers, the <span class='it'>Kent</span> performed an
+invaluable service. This was on March 8th. Juan
+Fernandez was judged to be the most likely spot
+in which she would take refuge, and thither the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, <span class='it'>Kent</span>, and <span class='it'>Orama</span> foregathered, arriving
+at daybreak on the 14th. In Cumberland Bay,
+600 yards from the shore, the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> lay at
+anchor; the chase was over. She had arrived
+at 8.30 a.m. on the 9th; she had been in Chilean
+waters for nearly five days. Yet her flag was still
+flying, and there was no evidence that she had
+been interned. Cumberland Bay is a small settlement,
+and there was no Chilean force present
+capable of interning a German warship.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I will indicate what happened. The main facts
+have been told in the correspondence which took
+place later between the Chilean and British Governments.
+I will tell the story as I have myself
+gathered it, and as I interpret it.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> lay in neutral Chilean waters, yet
+her flag was flying, and she had trained her guns
+upon the English squadron which had found her
+there. There was nothing to prevent her—though
+liable to internment—from making off unless steps
+were taken at once to put her out of action. She
+had many times before broken the neutrality
+regulations of Chili, and was rightly held by us
+to be an outlaw to be captured or sunk at sight.
+Acting upon this just interpretation of the true
+meaning of neutrality, Captain Luce of the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>,
+the senior naval officer, directed his own guns and
+those of the <span class='it'>Kent</span> to be immediately fired upon the
+<span class='it'>Dresden</span>. The first broadside dismounted her forecastle
+guns and set her ablaze. She returned the
+fire without touching either of the English ships.
+Then, after an inglorious two and a half minutes,
+the <span class='it'>Dresden’s</span> flag came down.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Captain Lüdecke of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> despatched a
+boat conveying his “adjutant” to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span>
+for what he called “negotiations,” but the English
+captain declined a parley. He would accept
+nothing but unconditional surrender. Lüdecke
+claimed that his ship was entitled to remain in
+Cumberland Bay for repairs, that she had not
+been interned, and that his flag had been struck
+as a signal of negotiation and not of surrender.
+When the Englishman Luce would not talk except
+through the voices of his guns, the German adjutant
+went back to his ship and Lüdecke then blew her
+up. His crew had already gone ashore, and the
+preparations for destroying the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> had been
+made before her captain entered upon his so-called
+“negotiations.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was upon the whole fortunate that Lüdecke
+took the step of sinking the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> himself. It
+might have caused awkward diplomatic complications
+had we taken possession of her in
+undoubted Chilean territorial waters, and yet we
+could not have permitted her any opportunity of
+escaping under the fiction of internment. Nothing
+would have been heard of internment if the English
+squadron had not turned up—the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> had
+already made an appointment with a collier—and
+if we had not by our fire so damaged the cruiser
+that she could not have taken once more to the
+sea. Her self-destruction saved us a great deal
+of trouble. In the interval between the firing
+and the sinking of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span>, the Maritime
+Governor of Juan Fernandez suggested that the
+English should take away essential parts of the
+machinery and telegraph for a Chilean warship
+to do the internment business. Neither of these
+proceedings was necessary after the explosion.
+The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> was at the bottom of Cumberland
+Bay, and the British Government apologised to
+the Chileans for the technical violation of territorial
+waters. The apology was accepted, and everyone
+was happy—not the least the officers and men
+of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> who, after months of aimless, hopeless
+wanderings, found themselves still alive and
+in a sunny land flowing with milk and honey.
+After their long stay in Tierra del Fuego the
+warmth of Chili must have seemed like paradise.
+The <span class='it'>Dresden</span> yielded to the <span class='it'>Glasgow</span> one item of
+the spoils of war. After the German cruiser had
+sunk, a small pig was seen swimming about in
+the Bay. It had been left behind by its late friends,
+but found new ones in the <span class='it'>Glasgow’s</span> crew. That
+pig is alive still, or was until quite recently. Grown
+very large, very hairy, and very truculent, and
+appropriately named von Tirpitz, it has been
+preserved from the fate which waits upon less
+famous pigs, and possesses in England a sty and a
+nameplate all to its distinguished self.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>With the sinking of the <span class='it'>Dresden</span> the cruise of the
+<span class='it'>Glasgow</span>, which I have set out to tell, comes to a
+close. She returned to the South Atlantic, and
+for a further stretch of eighteen months her officers
+and men continued their duties on board. But
+life must for them have become rather dull. There
+were no more Coronels, or Falkland Islands actions,
+or hunts for elusive German cruisers. Just the
+daily work of a light cruiser on patrol duty in time
+of war. When in the limelight they played their
+part worthily, and I do not doubt continued to
+play it as worthily, though less conspicuously,
+when they passed into the darkness of the wings,
+and other officers, other men, and other ships
+occupied in their turn the bright scenes upon the
+naval stage.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch13'>CHAPTER XIII</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>AND REFLECTIONS</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;'><span class='sc'>Part I</span></p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It is strange how events of great national importance
+become associated in one’s mind with small
+personal experiences. I have told with what
+vividness I remember the receipt in November,
+1914, of private news that the battle cruisers <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+and <span class='it'>Inflexible</span> had left Devonport for the
+Falkland Islands, and how I heard Lord Rosebery
+read out Sturdee’s victorious dispatch to 6,000
+people in St. Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow. In a
+similar way the Jutland battle became impressed
+upon my mind in an unforgettable personal fashion.
+On May 22nd, 1916, I learned that Admiral Beatty
+had at his disposal the four “Cats”—<span class='it'>Lion</span>, <span class='it'>Tiger</span>,
+<span class='it'>Queen Mary</span>, and <span class='it'>Princess Royal</span>—of about twenty-nine
+knots speed, and each armed with eight 13.5-⁠inch
+guns, the two battle cruisers <span class='it'>New Zealand</span>
+and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>, of some twenty-seven knots of
+speed, and carrying each eight 12-⁠inch guns, and
+the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span>, of twenty-five knots, all of
+which were armed with eight of the new 15-⁠inch
+guns, which were a great advance upon the earlier
+thirteen-point-fives. The ships of the Fifth Battle
+Squadron had all been completed since the war
+began. The <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span> herself went into
+dock at Rosyth for repairs, so that for immediate
+service the squadron was reduced to four ships—<span class='it'>Barham</span>,
+<span class='it'>Valiant</span>, <span class='it'>Warspite</span>, and <span class='it'>Malaya</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Upon the following Saturday, May 27th, I was
+invited to lunch in one of the battleships, but
+upon arrival at South Queensferry, I found the
+Fleet under Short Notice for sea, and no one was
+allowed to leave the ships, or to receive friends
+on board. It was a beautiful day, the long, light-coloured
+Cats and the Futurist-grey battleships
+were a most noble sight, but I felt too much like
+a Peri shut out of Paradise to be happy in observing
+them. A day or two later, Thursday, June 1st,
+was fixed for my next visit, but again the Fates
+were unkind. When I arrived in the early morning
+and stood upon the heights overlooking the
+anchorage, Beatty’s Fleet had gone, and, though
+I did not know it, had even then fought the Jutland
+battle. In the afternoon, news came with the
+return to the Forth of the damaged battleship
+<span class='it'>Warspite</span> surrounded by her attendant destroyers.
+That was on the Thursday afternoon, but it was
+not until the evening of Friday that the first
+Admiralty message was issued, that famous message
+which will never be forgotten either by the country
+or by the Navy. The impression which it made
+may be simply illustrated. I was sitting in my
+drawing-room after dinner, anxiously looking for
+news both on national and personal grounds, when
+a newsboy shrieked under my window “Great
+Naval Disaster: Five British Battleships Sunk.”
+The news printed in the paper was not so bad as
+that shouted, but it was bad enough; it gave the
+impression of very heavy losses incurred for no
+compensating purpose, and turned what had really
+been a conspicuous naval success into an apology
+for a naval disaster. As a humble student, I
+could to some extent read between the lines of
+the dispatch and dimly perceive what had happened,
+but to the mass of the British public, the
+wording of that immortal document could not
+have been worse conceived. To them it seemed
+that the End of All Things was at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The story runs that the first bulletin was made
+up by clerks from scraps of messages which came
+over the wireless from the Grand Fleet, but in
+which the most important sentence of all was
+omitted. “The Germans are claiming a victory,”
+wailed the Admiralty clerks through the aerials
+at Whitehall. “What shall we say?” “Say,”
+snapped the Grand Fleet, “say that we gave them
+hell!” If the Admiralty had only said this,
+said it, too, in curt, blasphemous naval fashion,
+the public would have understood, and all would
+have been well. What a dramatic chance was
+then lost! Think what a roar of laughter and
+cheering would have echoed round the world if
+the first dispatch had run as follows:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“We have met and fought the German Fleet,
+and given it hell. Beatty lost the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span>
+and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> in the first part of the battle
+when the odds were heavily against us, but Jellicoe
+coming up enveloped the enemy, and was only
+prevented by mist and low visibility from destroying
+him utterly. The Germans have lost as many
+ships as we have, and are shattered beyond repair.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>That message, in a few words, would have given
+a true impression of the greatest sea fight that
+the world has known, a fight, too, which has
+established beyond question the unchallengeable
+supremacy of British strategy, battle tactics, seamanship,
+discipline, and devotion to duty of every
+man and boy in the professional Navy. In the
+technical sense, it was an indecisive battle: the
+Germans escaped destruction. But morally, and
+in its practical results, no sea fight has been more
+decisive. Nearly two years have passed since that
+morning of June 1st when the grey dawn showed
+the seas empty of German ships, and though the
+High Seas Fleet has put out many times since
+then, it has never again ventured to engage us.
+Jutland drove sea warfare, for the Germans, beneath
+the surface, a petty war of raids upon
+merchant vessels, a war—as against neutrals—of
+piracy and murder. By eight o’clock on the
+evening of May 31st, 1916, the Germans had been
+out-fought, outmanœuvred, and cut off from their
+bases. Had the battle begun three hours earlier,
+and had visibility been as full as it had been in
+the Falkland Islands action, had there been, above
+all, ample sea room, there would not have been
+a German battleship afloat when the sun went
+down. There never was a luckier fleet than that
+one which scrambled away through the darkness
+of May 31st-June 1st, worked its way round the
+enveloping horns of Jellicoe, Beatty, and Evan-⁠Thomas,
+and arrived gasping and shattered at
+Wilhelmshaven. We can pardon the Kaiser, who,
+in his relief for a crowning mercy, proclaimed the
+escape to be a glorious victory.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But though the Kaiser may, after his manner,
+talk of victories, German naval officers cherish
+no illusions about Jutland. If one takes the
+trouble to analyse their very full dispatches, their
+relief at escaping destruction shines forth too
+plainly to be mistaken. Admiral Scheer got away,
+and showed himself to be a consummate master
+of his art. But he never, in his dispatches, claims
+that the British Fleets were defeated in the military
+sense. They were foiled, chiefly through his own
+skill, but they were not defeated. The German
+dispatches state definitely that the battle of
+May 31st “confirmed the old truth, that the large
+fighting ship, the ship which combines the maximum
+of strength in attack and defence, rules the seas.”
+The relation of strength, they say, between the
+English and German Fleets, “was roughly two
+to one.” They do not claim that this overwhelming
+superiority in our strength was sensibly
+reduced by the losses in the battle, nor that the
+large English fighting ships—admittedly larger,
+much more numerous, and more powerfully gunned
+than their own—ceased after Jutland to rule the
+seas. Their claim, critically examined, is simply
+that in the circumstances the German ships made
+a highly successful escape. And so indeed they
+did.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Jutland battle always presents itself to my
+mind in a series of clear-cut pictures. Very few
+of those who take part in a big naval battle see
+anything of it. They are at their stations, occupied
+with their pressing duties, and the world without
+is hidden from them. I try to imagine the various
+phases of the battle as they were unfolded before
+the eyes of those few in the fighting squadrons
+who did see. Perhaps if I try to paint for my
+readers those scenes which are vividly before me,
+I may convey to them something of what I have
+tried to learn myself.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Let us transport ourselves to the signal bridge
+of Admiral Beatty’s flagship, the battle cruiser
+<span class='it'>Lion</span>, and take up station there upon the afternoon
+of May 31st, at half-past two. It is a fine
+afternoon, though hazy; the clouds lie in heavy
+banks, and the horizon, instead of appearing as
+a hard line, is an indefinable blend of grey sea and
+grey cloud. It is a day of “low visibility,” a
+day greatly favouring a weak fleet which desires
+to evade a decisive action. We have been sweeping
+the lower North Sea, and are steering towards
+the north-west on our way to rejoin Jellicoe’s
+main Fleet. Our flagship, <span class='it'>Lion</span>, is the leading
+vessel of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and
+following behind us, we can see the <span class='it'>Princess Royal</span>,
+<span class='it'>Queen Mary</span>, and <span class='it'>Tiger</span>. At a little distance behind
+the <span class='it'>Tiger</span> appear the two ships which remain
+to us of the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, the
+<span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> and <span class='it'>New Zealand</span>, fine powerful ships,
+but neither so fast nor so powerful as are our
+four Cats of the First Squadron. Some five
+or six miles to the west of us we can make out,
+against the afternoon sky, the huge bulk of the
+<span class='it'>Barham</span>, which, followed by her three consorts,
+<span class='it'>Valiant</span>, <span class='it'>Warspite</span>, and <span class='it'>Malaya</span>, leads the Fifth
+Battle Squadron of the most powerful fighting
+ships afloat. We are the spear-head of Beatty’s
+Fleet, but those great ships yonder, silhouetted
+against the sky, are its most solid shaft.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illo-271.jpg' alt='' id='illo-271' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Word runs round the ship that the enemy has
+been sighted, but since we know nothing of his
+numbers or of his quality—Jutland, though anticipated
+and worked for, was essentially a battle
+of encounter—our light cruisers fly off to make
+touch and find out for us. Away also soars
+seaplane, rising from the platform of our carrying
+ship <span class='it'>Engadine</span>, a clumsy-looking seagull, with its
+big pontoon feet, but very fast and very deftly
+handled. The seaplane flies low, for the clouds
+droop towards the sea, it is heavily fired upon,
+but is not hit, and it returns to tell us—or rather
+the Admiral, in his conning tower below—just
+what he wishes to learn. There is an enemy
+battle cruiser squadron immediately in front of
+us, consisting of five armoured ships, with their
+attendant light cruisers and destroyers. The German
+battle cruisers are: <span class='it'>Derfflinger</span> (12-⁠inch guns),
+<span class='it'>Lützow</span> (12-⁠inch), <span class='it'>Moltke</span> (11-⁠inch), <span class='it'>Seydlitz</span> (11-⁠inch),
+and another stated by the Germans to be
+the <span class='it'>von der Tann</span>, which had more than once been
+reported lost. Since our four big battle cruisers
+carry 13.5-⁠inch guns, and two other guns of 12-⁠inch,
+and the four battleships supporting us great
+15-⁠inch weapons, we ought to eat up the German
+battle cruisers if we can draw near enough to see
+them distinctly. By half-past three the two
+British battle cruiser squadrons are moving at
+twenty-five knots, formed up in line of battle,
+and the Fifth Battle Squadron, still some five
+miles away, is steaming at about twenty-three
+knots. The Germans have turned in a southerly
+direction, and are flying at full speed upon a course
+which is roughly parallel with that which we
+have now taken up. During the past hour we
+have come round nearly twelve points—eight
+points go to a right angle—and are now speeding
+away from Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet, which is some
+forty miles distant to the north and west. Since
+we are faster than Jellicoe, the gap between us and
+him is steadily opening out.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>From the signal bridge, a very exposed position,
+we can see the turret guns below us and the spotting
+top above. The turrets swing round, as the
+gunners inside get their directions from the gunnery-control
+officer who, in his turn, receives every few
+moments the results of the range-finding and rate-of-change
+observations which are being continually
+taken by petty officers charged with the duty.
+Further corrections will be made when the guns
+begin to shoot, and the spotting officers aloft
+watch for the splashes of the shells as they fall
+into the sea. Naval gunnery, in spite of all the
+brains and experience lavished upon it, must
+always be far from an exact science. One has to
+do with moving ships firing at other moving ships,
+many factors which go to a precise calculation are
+imperfectly known, and though the margin of
+error may be reduced by modern instruments of
+precision, the long fighting ranges of to-day make
+the error substantial. The lower the visibility,
+the greater becomes the gunner’s uncertainty, for
+neither range-finding nor spotting can be carried
+on with accuracy. Even on the clearest of days
+it is difficult to “spot” a shell-splash at more
+than 14,000 yards (eight land miles), a range which
+is short for the huge naval gun. When many
+guns are firing, it is not easy to pick up the splashes
+of one’s own shells, and to distinguish between
+their water-bursts and the camouflage put up by
+an enemy.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At our position upon the signal bridge, though
+we are there only in spirit, we probably feel much
+more of excitement than does any officer or man
+of the big ship upon which we have intruded our
+ghostly presence. Most of them can see nothing;
+all of them are too busy upon their duties to
+bother about personal feelings. There is an atmosphere
+of serene confidence in themselves and their
+ship which communicates itself even to outsiders
+like us. At 3.48 the enemy is some 18,500 yards
+distance, and visible, for the light has improved,
+and firing begins almost simultaneously from us
+and our opponents. The first crash from the
+<span class='it'>Lion’s</span> two fore-turrets nearly throws us off the
+bridge, so sudden and fierce it is, and so little does
+its intensity seem to be subdued by our ear-protectors.
+But as other crashes follow down the
+line we grow accustomed to them, grip tightly at
+the hand-rail, and forget ourselves in the grandeur
+of the sight unfolding itself before us. Away, far
+away, is the enemy, hull down, smothered in smoke
+and by the huge gouts of spray thrown up by our
+bursting shells. He is adding to the splashes by
+firing his own side batteries into the sea to confuse
+the judgment of our spotters.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At each discharge from our ship, a great cone of
+incandescent gas flames forth, cutting like a sword
+through the pale curtain of smoke. From the
+distant enemy ships we can see thin flashes spurt
+in reply, and his shells pitch beside us and over
+us, lashing our decks with sea foam and sometimes
+throwing a torrent of water over the spotting
+top and bridge. Before five minutes have passed,
+we are wet through, our ears are drumming in
+spite of the faithful protectors, and all sensation
+except of absorbed interest in the battle has left us.
+At any moment we may be scattered by a bursting
+shell, or carried to the bottom with our sunken
+ship, but we do not give a thought to the risks.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While we are firing at the enemy, and he is
+firing at us at ranges varying from ten to eight
+miles, a fierce battle is going on between the lines
+of big ships. Light cruisers are fighting light
+cruisers, destroyers are rushing upon destroyers.
+At an early stage in the action, the German Admiral
+Hipper—in command of the battle cruisers—launched
+fifteen destroyers at our line, and was
+taught a rough lesson in the quality of the boys
+who man our T.B.D.s. Twelve of our heavier and
+more powerfully armed destroyers fell upon the
+German fifteen, huddled them into a bunch, and
+had started to lay them out scientifically with
+gun and torpedo, when they fled back to the shelter
+of their own big ships. Following them up, our
+destroyers delivered a volley of torpedoes upon the
+German battle cruisers at less than 3,000 yards
+distance. Probably no damage was done, for it
+is the forlornest of jobs to loose mouldies against
+fast manœuvring ships, but lack of success does not
+in any way dim the splendour of the attempt. As
+light cruisers and destroyers fight and manœuvre,
+the torrent of heavy shells screams over their
+heads, flying as high in their course as Alpine
+mountains, and dropping almost vertically near
+the lines of battle cruisers.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As soon as we turned to the south in pursuit of
+Hipper’s advance squadron of battle cruisers,
+Admiral Evan-⁠Thomas closed his supporting battleships
+upon us, and we can now see them clearly
+about two miles away on our starboard quarter,
+formed in line of battle, the flagship <span class='it'>Barham</span> leading.
+At eight minutes past four they join in the fight,
+firing at a range of 20,000 yards (twelve miles),
+not an excessive distance for their tremendous
+flat-shooting 15-⁠inch guns if the light were good,
+but too far for accuracy now that the enemy ships
+can be seen so very indistinctly. Up to now the
+German gunnery has been good; our ships have
+not often been seriously struck, but the shells in
+bunched salvoes have fallen very closely beside
+us. Our armour, though much thinner than that
+of the battleships behind us, is sufficient to keep
+off the enemy’s light shells—our 13.5-⁠inch shells
+are twice the weight of his 11-⁠inch, and the 15-⁠inch
+shells fired by the Queen Elizabeths astern of us
+are more than twice the weight of his 12-⁠inch.
+We feel little anxiety for our turrets, conning
+towers, or sides, but we notice how steeply his
+salvoes are falling at the long ranges, and are
+not without concern for our thin decks should
+any 12-⁠inch shells of 850 lb. weight plump fairly
+upon them from the skies. By half-past four the
+German fire has slackened a good deal, has become
+ragged and inaccurate, showing that we are getting
+home with our heavy stuff, and the third ship in
+the line is seen to be on fire. All is going well,
+the enemy is outclassed in ships and in guns; we
+are still between him and his bases to the south-west,
+he is already becoming squeezed up against
+the big banks which stretch out one hundred miles
+from the Jutland coast, and for a while it looks as
+if Beatty had struck something both soft and good.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But a few minutes make a great change. All
+through the last hour we have been steaming fast
+towards the main German High Seas Fleet and
+away from Jellicoe, and at 4.42 the leading German
+battleships can be seen upon the smoky horizon
+to the south-east. Though we do not know it
+yet, the whole High Seas Fleet is before us, including
+sixteen of the best German ships, and it
+were the worst of folly to go any farther towards
+it. We could, it is true, completely outflank it
+by continuing on our present course, and with
+our high speed might avoid being crushed in a
+general action, but we should have irrevocably
+separated ourselves from Jellicoe, and have committed
+a tactical mistake of the biggest kind. We
+should have divided the English forces in the face
+of the enemy, instead of concentrating them. So
+a quick order comes from the conning tower below,
+and away beside us runs a signal hoist. “Sixteen
+points, starboard.” Sixteen points mean a complete
+half-circle, and round come our ships, the
+<span class='it'>Lion</span> leading, turning in a curve of which the
+diameter is nearly a mile, and heading now to
+the north, towards Jellicoe, instead of to the
+south, away from him. Our purpose now is to
+keep the Germans fully occupied until Jellicoe,
+who is driving his battleships at their fullest speed,
+can come down and wipe Fritz off the seas. As
+we come round, the German battle cruisers follow
+our manœuvre, and also turn through sixteen
+points in order to place themselves at the head of
+the enemy’s battle line.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>As we swing round and take up our new course,
+we pass between the Queen Elizabeths and the
+enemy, masking their fire, and for a few minutes
+we are exposed in the midst of a critical manœuvre
+to the concentrated salvoes of every German
+battleship within range. The range is long, the
+German shells fired with high elevation fall very
+steeply, and we are safe except from the ill-luck
+of heavy projectiles pitching upon our decks.
+From the signal bridge of the <span class='it'>Lion</span> we can see
+every battle cruiser as it swings, or as it approaches
+the turning point, we can see the whole beautiful
+length of them, and we also see a sight which has
+never before been impressed upon the eyes of man.
+For we see two splendid battle cruisers struck and
+sink; first the <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>, and then the <span class='it'>Queen
+Mary</span>. It is not permitted to us to describe the
+scene as actually it presented itself to our eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Beatty has lost two battle cruisers, one of the
+first class and one of the second. There remain
+to him four—the three Cats and the <span class='it'>New Zealand</span>;
+he is sorely weakened, but does not hesitate. He
+has two duties to carry out—to lead the enemy
+towards Jellicoe, and so dispose of his battle
+cruisers beyond the head of the German lines as
+powerfully to aid Jellicoe in completing their
+development. Beatty is now round, and round
+also comes the Fifth Battle Squadron, forming
+astern of the battle cruisers, and with them engaging
+the leading German ships. The enemy is some
+14,000 yards distant from us in the <span class='it'>Lion</span> (8½
+miles), and this range changes little while Beatty
+is speeding first north and then north-east, in
+order to cross the “T” of the German line. We
+will continue to stand upon the <span class='it'>Lion’s</span> bridge during
+the execution of this most spirited manœuvre,
+and then leave Beatty’s flagship in order to observe
+from the spotting top of a battleship how the four
+Queen Elizabeths fought the whole High Seas
+Fleet, while our battle cruisers were turning its
+van. What these splendid ships did, and did to
+perfection, was to stall the Germans off, and so
+give time both for the enveloping movement of
+Beatty and for the arrival and deployment of
+Jellicoe’s main Fleet.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>By five o’clock Beatty is fairly off upon his
+gallant adventure, and during the next hour, the
+hardest fought part of the whole battle, the gap
+between the battle cruisers and the four supporting
+battleships steadily widens. If the Germans are
+to be enveloped, Beatty must at the critical moment
+allow sufficient space between himself and Evan-⁠Thomas
+for Jellicoe to deploy his big Fleet between
+them, and this involves on the part of the Commander-in-Chief
+a deployment in the midst of
+battle of a delicacy and accuracy only possible to
+a naval tactician of the highest order. But both
+Beatty and Evan-⁠Thomas know their Jellicoe, to
+whom, at few-minute intervals, crackle from the
+aerials above us wireless messages giving with
+naval precision the exact courses and speeds of
+our ships and the bearings of the enemy. For an
+hour—up to the moment when we turned to the
+north—we ran away from Jellicoe, but during
+the next hour we steamed towards him; we know
+that he is pressing to our aid with all the speed
+which his panting engineers can get out of his
+squadrons. Beatty’s battle cruisers, curving round
+the head of the German line at a range of 14,000
+to 12,000 yards, are firing all the while, and being
+fired at all the while, but though often hit, they are
+safer now than when they were a couple of miles
+more distant.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We have now reached a very important phase
+in the battle. It is twenty minutes past six.
+At six o’clock the leading vessels of Jellicoe’s
+Grand Fleet had been sighted five miles to the
+north of us and his three battle cruisers—<span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+(Admiral Hood), <span class='it'>Inflexible</span>, and <span class='it'>Indomitable</span>—have
+flown down to the help of Beatty. They
+come into action, steaming hard due south, and
+take station ahead of us in the <span class='it'>Lion</span>. By this
+lengthening of his line to the south Beatty has now
+completely enveloped the German battle cruisers,
+which turn through some twelve points and endeavour
+to wriggle out of the jaws of the trap which
+they see closing remorselessly upon them. They
+are followed in this turn by the battleships of
+the High Seas Fleet which, for more than an
+hour, have been faithfully hammered by Evan-⁠Thomas’s
+Queen Elizabeths, and show up against
+the sky a very ragged outline. The range of
+the battle cruisers is now down to 8,000 yards,
+and they get well home upon battleships as well
+as upon opponents of their own class. We do not
+ourselves escape loss, for the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>, which
+has become the leading ship, is shattered by
+concentrated gun-fire. The gallant Hood, with his
+men, has gone to join his great naval ancestors.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>And now let us put the clock back to the hour,
+4.57, when the Queen Elizabeths had completed
+their turn to the north, and had taken up position
+astern of Beatty to hold off the main German
+Fleet while he is making his enveloping rush.
+From the spotting top of the battleship upon
+which we have descended we get a most inspiring
+view, though every now and then we are smothered
+in oily smoke from the huge flat funnels below
+us, and are drenched with water which is flung
+up in torrents by shells bursting alongside. The
+enemy ships upon which we are firing are some
+18,000 yards distant, we can with great difficulty
+make them out amid the smoke and haze, and we
+wonder mightily how the keen-eyed spotting officers
+beside us can judge and correct, as they appear
+to be doing, the bursts of our shells more than
+ten miles distance. Our guns, and those of our
+consorts, are firing deliberately, for we do not
+know how long the battle will endure, and the
+supply of 15-⁠inch shell and cordite cannot be
+unlimited in the very biggest of ships. We learn
+from the spotting officers that all our ships, except
+the <span class='it'>Valiant</span>, have been hit several times while
+coming into action by dropping shots, but that no
+serious harm has been done. Meanwhile the shells
+are falling fast about us, and all of our ships are
+repeatedly straddled. The <span class='it'>Warspite</span> suffered the
+most severely, though even she was able to go
+home to the Forth under her own steam. This
+is the battleship whose steering gear went wrong
+later in the action, and which turned two complete
+“O’s” at full speed. Round she went in great
+circles of a mile in diameter, spitting shots with
+every gun that bore upon the enemy during her
+wild gyrations. Fritz began well, but does not
+seem able to stand punishment. He rarely hits
+us now, though we are giving him a much better
+mark than he presents to us. For we are silhouetted
+against the almost clear sky to the west,
+while he—and there are a great many of him—is
+buried in mist and smoke to the east. Rarely
+can our range-finding officers take a clear observation;
+rarely can our spotters make sure of a
+correction. Yet every now and then we note
+signs that our low-flying, hard-hitting shells—each
+one of which weighs not much short of a ton!—are
+getting home upon him at least as frequently
+as his shots are hitting us. Three of his battleships
+are new, built since the war began, but the
+rest are just Königs and Kaisers, no better than
+our Dreadnoughts of half a dozen years ago. We
+would willingly take on twice our numbers of such
+battleships and fight them to a finish upon a clear
+summer’s day.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Our battle tactics are now plain to see. They
+are to keep out to the farthest visible range, to
+avoid being materially damaged, and to keep
+Fritz’s battleships so fully occupied that they
+will have no opportunity of closing in upon Beatty
+when he completes his envelopment. We can see
+our battle cruisers some three miles away, swinging
+more and more round the head of the German
+line, and the enemy’s battle cruisers edging away
+in the effort to avoid being outflanked. Far away
+to the north appears the smoke of the three battle
+cruisers which are speeding ahead of Jellicoe’s
+main Fleet; they are getting their instructions
+from Beatty’s <span class='it'>Lion</span>, and are already making for
+the head of his line so as to prolong it, and so to
+complete the envelopment which is now our urgent
+purpose. Our Queen Elizabeth battleships are
+not hurrying either their engines or their guns.
+We are moving just fast enough to keep slightly
+ahead of the first half-dozen of the German battleships;
+we are pounding them steadily whenever
+a decent mark is offered us—which unhappily is
+not often—and we have seen one big ship go down
+smothered in smoke and flames. The time draws
+on and it is already six o’clock; we have borne
+the burden of the fight for more than an hour,
+though it seems but a few minutes since we turned
+more than twenty miles back to the south, and
+first gave Fritz a taste of what the Fifth Battle
+Squadron could do. We are slowing down now,
+and the gap between us and Beatty is widening
+out, for we know that Jellicoe is coming, and
+that he will deploy his three battle squadrons
+between us and our battle cruisers which, extended
+in a long line, with Hood’s <span class='it'>Invincible</span> in front, are
+well round the head of the German ships. The
+whole German Fleet is curving into a long, close-knit
+spiral between us and Beatty, and, if the
+light will hold, we have it ripe for destruction.
+We have played our part; the issue now rests
+with Jellicoe and the gods of weather.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Everything for which we and the battle cruisers
+have fought and suffered, for which we have
+risked and lost the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>,
+is drawing to its appointed end. Our Fifth Battle
+Squadron has nearly stopped, and has inclined
+four points towards the east, so as to allow the
+gap for Jellicoe’s deployment to widen out. Firing
+upon both sides has ceased. We have great work
+still to do, and are anxious to keep all the shells
+we yet carry for it, and the enemy is too heavily
+battered and in too grievous a peril to think of
+anything but his immediate escape. We are
+waiting for Jellicoe, whose squadrons are already
+beginning to deploy.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>While the Queen Elizabeths wait, ready at any
+moment to resume the action whenever and
+wherever their tremendous services may be called
+for, we will leave the Fifth Battle Squadron, and,
+flying far over the sea, will penetrate into the
+Holy of Holies, the conning tower of the Fleet
+flagship wherein stands the small, firm-lipped,
+eager-eyed man who is the brain and nerve centre
+of the battle. There are those who have as sharp
+a thirst for battle—Beatty has; and there are
+those who have been as patient under long-drawn-out
+delays and disappointments—Kitchener was;
+yet there have been few fighting men in English
+history who could, as Jellicoe can, combine enduring
+patience with the most burning ardour, and
+never allow the one to achieve mastery over
+the other. Watch him now in the conning tower
+of the <span class='it'>Iron Duke</span>. He has waited and worked
+during twenty-two months for just this moment,
+when the German High Seas Fleet have placed
+their cards upon the table, and he, exactly at the
+proper instant, will play his overwhelming trumps.
+If ever a man had excuse for too hasty a movement,
+for too great an eagerness to snatch at victory,
+Jellicoe would have one now. His eyes flash,
+and one may read in them the man’s intense
+anxiety not to allow one moment of unnecessary
+delay to interpose between his Fleet and the
+scattering enemy. Yet until the exact moment
+arrives when he can with sure hand deploy his
+squadrons into line of battle, and fit them with
+precision into the gap made for them between
+Beatty to the east and south and Evan-⁠Thomas
+to the west and south, he will not give the order
+which, once given, cannot be recalled. For as
+soon as his Fleet has deployed, it will be largely
+out of his hands, its dispositions will have been
+made, and if it deploys too soon, the crushing
+opportunity will be missed, and the Germans will
+infallibly escape. So, with his divisions well in
+hand, he watches upon the chart the movements
+of his own and Beatty’s vessels, as the wireless
+waves report them to him, and every few minutes
+goes to the observation hoods of the conning tower,
+and seeks to peer through the thick haze and
+smoke which still hide from him the enveloping
+horns of the English ships, and the curving masses
+of the enemy. If he could see clearly his task
+would be less difficult and the culmination of his
+hopes less doubtful. But he cannot see; he has
+to work by wireless and by instinct, largely by
+faith, trusting to the judgment of Beatty and
+Evan-⁠Thomas, far away, and himself subject to
+the ever-varying uncertainties of sea fighting.
+He goes back to the chart, upon which his staff
+are noting down the condensed essence of all the
+messages as they flow in, and then, the moment
+having arrived, he gives the word. Away run the
+signal flags, picked up and interpreted by every
+squadron flagship, and then repeated by every
+ship. The close divisions of the Grand Fleet
+spread out, melt gracefully into lines—to all
+appearance as easily as if they were battalions of
+infantry—they swing round to the east, the foremost
+vessel reaching out to join up with Beatty’s
+battle cruisers. As the Grand Fleet deploys,
+Evan-⁠Thomas swings in his four Queen Elizabeths
+so that the <span class='it'>Barham</span>, without haste or hesitation,
+falls in behind the aftermost of Jellicoe’s battleships,
+and the remainder of the Fifth Battle
+Squadron completes the line, which stretches now
+in one long curve to the west and north and east
+of the beaten Germans. The deployment is complete,
+the whole Grand Fleet has concentrated,
+the enemy is surrounded on three sides, we are
+faster than he is, and more than twice as powerful;
+if the light will hold, his end has come.
+Although from the <span class='it'>Iron Duke</span> we cannot now see
+the wide enveloping horns, yet we have lately
+been with them and know them. The main Fleet
+in whose centre we now steam, consists of Dreadnoughts,
+Orions, King George the Fifths, Iron
+Dukes (all acting as flagships), Royal Sovereigns,
+with 15-⁠inch guns, the <span class='it'>Canada</span>, with 14-⁠inch guns,
+and that queer Dago ship the <span class='it'>Agincourt</span>, with her
+seven turrets all on the middle line, and each
+containing two 12-⁠inch guns. Not a ship in our
+battle line has been afloat for more than seven
+years, and most of them are less than three years
+old. The material newness of the Grand Fleet is
+a most striking testimony to the eternal youth of
+the Navy’s ancient soul.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We have now concentrated in battle line the
+battleships of our own main Fleet and six battle
+cruisers, after allowing for our losses, and the
+Germans have, after making a similar allowance,
+not more than fourteen battleships and three battle
+cruisers. I do not count obsolete pre-Dreadnoughts.
+The disparity in force is greater even
+than is shown by the bare numbers, which it is not
+permitted to give exactly. Scarcely a ship of the
+enemy can compare in fighting force with the Queen
+Elizabeths or the Royal Sovereigns, or even with the
+Iron Dukes, Orions, and King George the Fifths.
+Of course he made off; he would have been a fool if
+he had not—and Admiral Scheer is far from being
+a fool.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Our concentrated Fleet came into action at 6.17,
+and at this moment the Germans were curving in
+a spiral towards the south-west, seeking a way out
+of the sea lion’s jaws. They were greatly favoured
+by the mist and were handled with superb skill.
+They relied upon constant torpedo attacks to fend
+off our battleships, while their own big vessels
+worked themselves clear. We could never see
+more than four or five ships at a time in their van,
+or from eight to ten in their rear. For two hours
+the English Fleet, both battleships and battle
+cruisers, sought to close, and now and then would
+get well home upon the enemy at from 11,000 to
+9,000 yards, but again and again under cover of
+torpedo attacks and smoke clouds, the Germans
+opened out the range and evaded us. We could
+not get in our heavy blows for long enough to crush
+Scheer, and he could not get in his mosquito
+attacks with sufficient success wholly to stave us
+off. For us those two hours of hunting an elusive
+enemy amid smoke and fog banks were intensely
+exasperating; for him they must have been not
+less intensely nerve-racking. All the while we
+were hunting him, he was edging away to the
+south-west—“pursuing the English” was his own
+humorous description of the manœuvre—and both
+Jellicoe and Beatty were pressing down between
+him and the land, and endeavouring to push him
+away from his bases. All the while our battleships
+and battle cruisers were firing heavily upon any
+German ship which they could see, damaging many,
+and sinking one at least. The return fire was so
+ragged and ineffective that our vessels were scarcely
+touched, and only three men were wounded in the
+whole of Jellicoe’s main Fleet. By nine o’clock
+both Beatty and Jellicoe were far down the Jutland
+coast, and had turned towards the south-west
+in the expectation that daylight would reveal to
+them the German Fleet in a favourable position
+for ending the business.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='ch14'>CHAPTER XIV</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'>AND REFLECTIONS</p>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;'><span class='sc'>Part II</span></p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the close of my previous Chapter I took a mean
+advantage of my readers. For I broke off at the
+most interesting and baffling phase in the whole
+Battle of the Giants. It was easy to write of the
+first two phases—the battle-cruiser action up to
+the turn where the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>
+were lost, and the phase during which Beatty,
+though sorely weakened, gallantly headed off the
+German line, and Evan-⁠Thomas, with his Fifth
+Battle Squadron, stalled off the Main High Seas
+Fleet in order to allow Beatty the time necessary
+for the execution of his manœuvre, and Jellicoe the
+time to bring up the Grand Fleet. This second
+phase of the battle was perfectly planned and
+perfectly executed. It will always stand out in
+the pages of English Naval History as a classical
+example of English battle tactics. I could have
+described these two phases with much more of
+intimate detail had the Censor permitted, but
+perhaps I gave enough to make clear what was
+sought to be done and what was, in fact, achieved.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When Jellicoe had deployed his potent squadrons,
+fitting them in between Evan-⁠Thomas and Beatty
+and curving round the head of the German line,
+which by then had turned back upon itself and
+taken the form of a closely knit spiral, the Germans
+appeared to be doomed. They were not enveloped
+in the strict sense of being surrounded—we were
+twice as strong as they were in numbers of modern
+ships and nearly three times as strong in effective
+gun power, yet we had not nearly sufficient numbers
+actually to surround them. A complete envelopment
+of an enemy fleet rarely, if ever, occurs at sea.
+But though Admiral Scheer was not surrounded
+he was in the most imminent peril of destruction.
+Jellicoe and Beatty were between his ships and the
+Jutland Coast, and as they pressed towards the
+south and west were pushing him away from the
+Wet Triangle and the security of his home bases.
+We had him outmanœuvred and beaten, but we
+did not destroy him. Why was that?</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>No question is more difficult to answer fairly and
+truthfully. I have discussed this third critical
+phase of the battle with a great many officers who
+were present—and in a position to see what happened—and
+with a great many who, though not
+present, had means of informing themselves upon
+essential details. I have studied line by line
+the English and German dispatches and have
+paid more regard to what they do not tell than to
+what they do tell. It is stupid to reject Admiral
+Scheer’s dispatch as fiction; it is not, but it is
+coloured with the purpose of making the least of his
+tactical defeat and the most of his very skilful
+escape. Jellicoe’s dispatch is also coloured. I do
+not doubt that the statements contained in it are
+strictly true, but there are obvious omissions.
+By a process of examination and inquiry I have
+arrived at an answer to my question. I put it
+forward in all deference, for though I am of the
+Navy in blood and spirit, and have studied it all
+my life, yet I am a layman without sea training in
+the Service.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The first point essential to an understanding is
+that Jellicoe’s deployment was not complete until
+late in the afternoon, 6.17 p.m. G.M.T., that the
+evening was misty, and the “visibility” poor.
+Had the encounter between Beatty’s and Hipper’s
+battle cruisers occurred two hours earlier, and had
+Jellicoe come into action at 4.15 instead of 6.15,
+one may feel confident that there would not now
+be any High Seas German Fleet, that we could,
+since May 31st, 1916, have maintained a close
+blockade with fast light craft of the German North
+Sea and Baltic bases, and that the U-⁠boat activity,
+which still threatens our sea communications and
+has had a profound influence on the progress of the
+war, would never have been allowed by us to
+develop. Upon so little, two hours of a day in late
+spring, sometimes hangs the fate of nations.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The afternoon was drawing towards evening; the
+light was poor, the German lines had curved away
+seeking safety in flight. But there remained confronting
+us Hipper’s battle cruisers and Scheer’s
+faster battleships, supported by swarms of torpedo
+craft. We also had our destroyers, many of them,
+and light cruisers. There was one chance of safety
+open to Scheer, and he took it with a judgment
+in design and a skill in execution which marks him
+out as a great sea captain. His one chance was
+so to fend off and delay Jellicoe and Beatty by
+repeated torpedo attacks driven home, that the
+big English ships would not be able to close in
+upon the main German Fleet and destroy it by
+gun-fire while light remained to give a mark to the
+gunners. And so Scheer decided to “attack,” and
+did attack. In his dispatch he deliberately gives
+the impression—for the comfort and gratification
+of German readers—that he successfully attacked
+our Grand Fleet with his main High Seas Fleet.
+He was no fool of that sort. He attacked, but it
+was with torpedo craft supported by Hipper’s
+battle cruisers.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The range of a modern torpedo, the range at
+which it may occasionally be effective, is not far
+short of 12,000 yards, about seven land miles.
+This, when the visibility is low, is about the extreme
+effective range for heavy guns. The guns can shoot
+much farther, twice as far, when the gunners or
+the fire directors up aloft can see; but gunnery
+without proper light is a highly wasteful and ineffective
+business. At the range—usually about
+12,000 yards, though sometimes coming down to
+9,000 yards—to which the German torpedo attacks
+forced Jellicoe and Beatty to keep out, only some
+four or five enemy ships in the van could be seen at
+once; more of the rear squadron could be seen,
+though never more than eight or twelve. Our
+marks were usually not the hulls of the enemy’s ships
+but the elusive flashes of his guns. Scheer used his
+torpedo craft in exactly the same way as a skilful
+land General—in the old days of open fighting—used
+his cavalry during a retreat. He used them
+to cover by repeated charges, sometimes of single
+flotillas, at other times of heavily massed squadrons,
+the retirement of his main forces.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If, therefore, we combine the factor of low
+visibility and the approach of sunset, with the other
+factor of the long range of the modern torpedo, we
+begin to understand why Jellicoe and Beatty were
+not able to close in upon their enemy and wipe him
+off the seas. From the English point of view the
+third phase—that critical third phase to which the
+first and second phases had led up and which, under
+favourable circumstances, would have ended with
+the destruction of the German Fleet—found us in
+the position of a “following” or “chasing” fleet.
+But from the German point of view the same phase
+found their fleet in the position of “attackers.” I
+have shown how these points of view can be reconciled,
+for while the main German Fleet was intent
+upon getting away and our main fleet was intent
+upon following it up and engaging it, the German
+battle cruisers, supported by swarms of torpedo
+craft, were fighting a spirited rearguard action and
+attacking us continually. The visibility was poor
+and mist troubled both sides. But the escape of
+the Germans was not wholly due to the difficulty of
+seeing them distinctly. If we could have closed in
+we should have seen his ships all right; we did not
+close in because the persistence and boldness of his
+torpedo attacks prevented us.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The third phase, which lasted from 6.17 p.m. until
+8.20 p.m., was fought generally at about 12,000
+yards, though now and then the range came down
+to 9,000 yards. The Germans, fending us off
+with torpedo onslaughts, did their utmost to open
+out the ranges and used smoke screens to lessen
+what visibility the atmosphere permitted. Their
+gun-fire was so poor and ineffective that Jellicoe’s
+Main Fleet was barely scratched and three men only
+were wounded. But we cannot escape from the
+conclusion that Scheer’s rearguard tactics were
+successful, he did fend Jellicoe off and kept him from
+closing, and he did withdraw the bulk of his fleet
+from the jaws which during two hours were seeking
+to close upon it. He made two heavy destroyer
+attacks, during one of which the battleship <span class='it'>Marlborough</span>
+was hit but was able to get back to dock
+under her own steam. The third phase of the
+Jutland Battle was exactly like a contest between
+two boxers—one heavy and the other light—being
+fought in an open field without ropes. The little
+man, continually side-stepping and retreating, kept
+the big man off; the big man could not close for
+fear of a sudden jab in his vital parts, and there
+were no corners to the ring into which the evasive
+light weight could be driven.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>If one applies this key to the English and German
+descriptions of the third phase in the Jutland Battle
+one becomes able to reconcile them, and becomes
+able to understand why the immensely relieved
+Germans claim their skilful escape as a gift from
+Heaven. They do not in their dispatches claim
+to have defeated Jellicoe, except in the restricted
+sense of having foiled his purpose of compassing
+their destruction. They got out of the battle very
+cheaply, whatever may have been their actual losses.
+This they realise as plainly as we do. Relief shines
+out of every line of their official story and is compressed,
+without reserve, into its concluding sentence.
+“Whoever had the fortune to take part in
+the battle will joyfully recognise with a thankful
+heart that the protection of the Most High was
+with us. It is an old historical truth that fortune
+favours the brave.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I am afraid that I can do little to elucidate the
+fourth phase of the Battle of the Giants—the night
+scrimmage (one cannot call it a battle) during
+which our destroyers were seeking out the enemy
+ships in the darkness and plugging holes into them
+at every opportunity. And that dawn upon June
+1st, of which so much was hoped and from which
+nothing was realised? Who can describe that?
+Nothing that I can write would approach in sublimity
+the German dispatch. Consider what the
+situation was. Jellicoe and Beatty had worked
+far down the Jutland coast and had partially edged
+their way between Scheer and the German bases.
+Their destroyers had sought out the German ships,
+found them and loosed mouldies at them, lost them
+again and found them again; finally had lost them
+altogether. At dawn the visibility was even lower
+than during the previous evening—only three to
+four miles—our destroyers were out of sight and
+touch and did not rejoin till 9 o’clock. No enemy
+was in sight, and after cruising about until 11 o’clock
+Jellicoe was forced to the conclusion that Scheer
+had got away round his far-stretching horns and
+was even then threading the mine fields which
+protected his ports of refuge. There was no more
+to be done, and the English squadrons, robbed of
+the prey upon which they had set their clutches,
+steamed off towards their northern fastnesses.
+There the fleet fuelled and replenished with ammunition,
+and 9.30 a.m. on June 2nd was reported
+ready for action. The German description of that
+dawn is a masterpiece in the art of verbal camouflage:
+“As the sun rose upon the morning of the
+historic First of June in the eastern sky, each one
+of us expected that the awakening sun would
+illumine the British line advancing to renew the
+battle. This expectation was not realized. The
+sea all round, so far as the eye could see, was
+empty. One of our airships which had been sent up
+reported, later in the morning, having seen twelve
+ships of a line-of-battle squadron coming from the
+southern part of the North Sea holding a northerly
+course at great speed. To the great regret of all it
+was then too late for our fleet to intercept and
+attack them.” The British Fleet, which the writer
+regretted not to see upon the dawn of a long day
+in late spring, was of more than twice the strength
+of his own. It would have had sixteen hours of
+daylight within which to devour him; yet he
+regretted its absence! The Germans must be a
+very simple people, abysmally ignorant of the sea
+if this sort of guff stimulates their vanity.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In war the moral is far greater than the material,
+the psychological than the mechanical. One cannot
+begin to understand the simplest of actions
+unless one knows something of the spirit of the
+men who fight them. In sea battles, more than in
+contests upon land, events revolve round the
+personalities of the leaders and results depend upon
+the skill with which these leaders have gauged the
+problem set them, and dispose their forces to meet
+those varying phases which lead up to a conclusion.
+It is borne in upon us by hard experience that the
+southern part of the North Sea is not big enough
+and not deep enough to afford space for a first-class
+naval battle to be fought out to the finish. The
+enemy is too near his home bases, he can break off
+an action and get away before being overwhelmed.
+Yet even in the southern North Sea there is room
+in which to dispose great naval forces and in which
+to manœuvre them. Fleets are not tucked up by
+space as are modern armies. Jutland was a battle of
+encounter and manœuvre, not of heavy destructive
+fighting. There was a dainty deftness about the
+first two phases which is eminently pleasing to
+our national sea pride, and however we may growl
+at the tactical incompleteness of the battle we
+cannot but admit that, taken as a whole, it was
+as strategically decisive an action as has ever
+been fought by the English Navy throughout its
+long history. It re-established the old doctrine,
+which the course of the Sea War has tended to thrust
+out of sight, that Command of the Sea rests as
+completely as it always has done in the past upon
+the big fighting ships of the main battle line. Upon
+them everything else depends; the operations of
+destroyers and light cruisers, of patrols and even
+of submarines. For upon big ships depends the
+security of home bases. Surface ships alone can
+occupy the wide spaces of the sea and can hold
+securely the ports in one’s own country and the
+ports which are ravished from an enemy. Submarines
+are essentially raiders, their office is the
+obstruction of sea communications, but submarines
+are useless, even for their special work of obstruction,
+unless they can retire, refit, and replenish stores
+at bases made secure by the existence in effective
+being of a strong force of big fighting ships. Had
+Jutland been as great a tactical success as it was a
+strategical success, had it ended with the wiping out
+of the German High Seas Fleet, then, as I have
+already stated, the U-⁠boat menace would have been
+scotched by the destruction of the protecting screen
+behind which the U-⁠boats are built, refitted, and
+replenished. No small part of the German relief
+at the issue of Jutland is due to their realisation
+of this naval truth. They express that realisation
+in a sentence which contains the whole doctrine of
+the efficacy of the big ship as the final determinant
+in naval warfare. Admiral Scheer in his dispatch
+declared that the Battle of May 31st, 1916, “confirmed
+the old truth that the large fighting ship,
+the ship which combines the maximum of strength
+in attack and defence, rules the seas.” They do
+not claim that the English superiority in strength—which
+they place at “roughly two to one”—was
+sensibly reduced by our losses in the battle, nor
+that the large English fighting ships—admittedly
+larger, more numerous, and more powerfully gunned
+than their own—ceased after Jutland to rule the
+seas. The German claim, critically considered,
+is simply that in the circumstances it was a very
+lucky escape for the German ships. And so indeed
+it was. It left them with the means of securing
+their bases from which could be carried on the
+U-⁠boat warfare against our mercantile communications
+at sea.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When the day arrives for the veil which at present
+enshrouds naval operations to be lifted, and details
+can be discussed freely and frankly, a whole literature
+will grow up around the Battle of the Giants.
+Strategically, I repeat—even at the risk of becoming
+tedious—it was a great success, both in its inception
+and in its practical results. Tactically its success
+was not complete. The Falkland Islands and
+Coronel actions were by comparison simple affairs
+of which all essential details are known. Jutland,
+from six o’clock in the evening of May 31st until
+dawn upon June 1st, when the opposing fleets had
+completely lost touch, the one with the other, is a
+puzzling confusing business which will take years
+of discussion and of elucidation wholly to resolve—if
+ever it be fully resolved. If any one be permitted
+to describe the three actions in a few words
+apiece one would say that Coronel was both strategically
+and tactically a brilliant success for the
+Germans. Von Spee concentrated his squadron
+outside the range of our observation, placed himself
+in a position of overwhelming tactical advantage,
+and won a shattering victory. At the Falkland
+Islands action we did to von Spee exactly what he
+had done to us at Coronel. This time it was the
+English concentration which was effected outside
+the German observation, and it was the German
+squadron which was wiped out when the tactical
+clash came. The first two phases of Jutland were,
+in spite of our serious losses in ships, notable tactical
+successes; they ended with Beatty round the head
+of the German Fleet and Jellicoe deployed in masterly
+fashion between Beatty and Evan-⁠Thomas.
+Then we get the exasperating third phase, in which
+the honours of skilful evasion rest with the Germans,
+and the fourth or night phase, during which confusion
+became worse confounded until all touch was
+lost. And yet, in spite of the tactical failure of the
+third and fourth phases, the battle as a whole was so
+great a success that it left us with an unchallengeable
+command of the sea—a more complete command
+than even after Trafalgar. The Germans
+learned that they could not fight us in the open with
+the smallest hope of success. One of the direct fruits
+of Jutland was the intensified U-⁠boat warfare against
+merchant shipping. The Germans had learned in
+the early part of the war that they could not wear
+down our battleship strength by under-water
+attacks; they learned at Jutland that they could
+not place their battleships in line against ours and
+hope to survive; nothing was left to them except
+to prey upon our lines of sea communication. And
+being a people in whose eyes everything is fair in war—their
+national industry—they proceeded to make
+the utmost of the form of attack which remained
+to them. Viewed, therefore, in its influence upon
+the progress of the war, the Battle of Jutland was
+among the most momentous in our long sea history.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I have discussed the Battle of the Giants so often,
+and so remorselessly, with many officers who were
+present and many others who though not present
+were in a position to know much which is hidden
+from onlookers, that I fear lest I may have worn
+out their beautiful patience. There are two outstanding
+figures, Beatty and Jellicoe, about whose
+personalities all discussion of Jutland must revolve.
+They are men of very different types. Beatty is
+essentially a fighter; Jellicoe is essentially a student.
+In power of intellect and in knowledge of his profession
+Jellicoe is a dozen planes above Beatty.
+And yet when it comes to fighting, in small things
+and in great, Beatty has an instinct for the right
+stroke at the right moment, which in war is beyond
+price. Whether in peace or in war, Jellicoe would
+always be conspicuous among contemporaries;
+Beatty, unless war has given him the stage upon
+which to develop his flair for battle, would not have
+stood out. He got early chances, in the Soudan
+and in China; he seized them both and rushed up
+the ladder of promotion. He was promoted so
+quickly that he outstripped his technical education.
+As a naval strategist and tactician Jellicoe is the
+first man in his profession; Beatty is by professional
+training neither a strategist nor a tactician—he was
+a commander at twenty-seven and a captain at
+twenty-nine—but give him a fighting problem to be
+solved out in the open with the guns firing, and he
+will solve it by sheer instinctive genius. In the
+Battle of Jutland both Beatty and Jellicoe played
+their parts with consummate skill; Beatty was in
+the limelight all through, while Jellicoe was off the
+stage during the first two acts. Yet Jellicoe’s part
+was incomparably the more difficult, for upon
+him, though absent, the whole issue of the battle
+depended. His deployment by judgment and
+instinct—sight was withheld from him by the
+weather—was perfect in its timing and precision.
+He should have been crowned with the bays of a
+complete Victor, but the Fates were unkind. He
+was robbed of his prey when it was almost within
+his jaws. Do not be so blind and foolish as to
+depreciate the splendid skill and services of Lord
+Jellicoe.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I find the writing of this second Chapter upon the
+Battle of the Giants a very difficult job. Twice I
+have tried and failed; this is the result of the third
+effort. My failures have been used to light the
+fires of my house. Even now I am deeply conscious
+of the inadequacy of my tentative reflections.
+Upon so many points one has not the data; upon
+so many others one is not allowed—no doubt
+properly—yet still not allowed to say what one
+knows. Though sometimes I write grave articles,
+many of my readers know that by instinct I am a
+story-teller, and to me narrative by dialogue comes
+more readily than a disquisition. Therefore, if you
+will permit me, I will cast the remaining portion
+of this chapter into the form of dialogue and make
+of it a discussion between two Admirals, a Captain,
+and myself. One of these Admirals I will call a
+Salt Horse, a man who has seen service during half
+a century but who has not specialised in a technical
+branch such as gunnery, or navigation, or torpedoes.
+A Salt Horse is an all-round sailor. The
+other Admiral I will call a Maker, and regard him
+as a highly competent technical officer in the design
+and construction of ships of war, of their guns, and
+of their armour. The Captain, a younger man, I
+will call a Gunner, one who has specialised in naval
+gunnery in all its branches, and one who knows
+the old methods and those which now are new and
+secret. These officers have not been drawn by
+me from among my own friends. They are not
+individuals but are types. Any attempts which
+may be made at identifying them will fail and justly
+fail—for they do not exist as individuals. Let this
+be clearly understood. They are creations of my
+own; I use them to give a sense of vividness to
+a narrative which tends to become tedious, and
+to bring out features in the Battle of Jutland
+which cannot without impertinence be presented
+directly by one, like myself, who is not himself a
+naval officer.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Bennet Copplestone, an intrusive and persistent
+fellow, begins the conference by inquiring whether
+Beatty had, in the professional judgment of his
+brother officers, deserved Admiral Jellicoe’s praise
+of his “fine qualities of gallant leadership, firm
+determination, and correct strategic insight.” Was
+he as good as his public reputation? I knew, I said,
+a good deal too much of the making of newspaper
+reputations and had come to distrust them.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Beatty is a real good man,” declared the Maker.
+“He sticks his cap on one side and loves to be
+photographed looking like a Western American
+‘tough.’ But under all this he conceals a fine
+naval head and the sturdiest of hearts. He is a
+first-class leader of men. I had my own private
+doubts of him until this Jutland Battle, but now
+I will take off my hat in his presence though he is
+my junior.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Maker’s colleagues nodded approval.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“There was nothing much in the first part,”
+went on the Maker. “Any of us could have done
+it. His pursuit of the German battle cruisers up to
+their junction with the High Seas Fleet was a
+reconnaissance in force, which he was able to carry
+through without undue risk, because he had behind
+him the Fifth Battle Squadron. His change of
+course then through sixteen points was the only
+possible manœuvre in order to bring his fleet back
+towards Jellicoe and to lead the Germans into the
+trap prepared for them. So far Beatty had done
+nothing to distinguish him from any competent
+fleet leader. Where he showed greatness was in
+not diverging by a hair’s breadth from his plans
+after the loss of the <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> and the <span class='it'>Queen
+Mary</span>. Mind you, these losses were wholly unexpected,
+and staggering in their suddenness.
+He had lost these fine ships while fighting battle
+cruisers fewer in numbers and less powerful in guns
+than his own squadrons. A weaker man might
+have been shaken in nerve and lost confidence in
+himself and his ships. But Beatty did not hesitate.
+Although he was reduced in strength from six battle
+cruisers to four only he dashed away to head off
+the Germans as serenely as if he had suffered no
+losses at all. And his splendid dash had nothing
+in it of recklessness. All the while he was heading
+off the Germans he was manœuvring to give himself
+the advantage of light and to avoid the dropping
+shots which had killed his lost cruisers. All the
+while he kept between the Germans and Jellicoe
+and within touch of his supporting squadron of
+four Queen Elizabeths. Had he lost more ships
+he could at any moment have broken off the action
+and, sheltered by the massive Fifth B.S., have
+saved what remained. As a mixture of dash and
+caution I regard his envelopment of the German
+line, after losing the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> and <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>,
+as a superb exhibition of sound battle tactics and
+of sublime confidence in himself and his men. But
+I wish that he would not wear his cap on one side
+or talk so much. He has modified both these
+ill-practices since he became Commander-in-Chief.
+That is one comfort.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Nelson was a poseur,” said I, “and as theatrical
+as an elderly and ugly prima donna. He posed to
+the gallery in every action, and died, as it were,
+to the accompaniment of slow music. It was an
+amiable weakness.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Jellicoe doesn’t pose,” growled the Maker.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Jellicoe hates advertisement,” I observed.
+“Whenever he used to talk to the gangs of newspaper
+men who infested the Grand Fleet, he always
+implored them to spare his own shrinking personality.
+It is a matter of temperament. Jellicoe
+is a genuinely modest man; Beatty is a vain one.
+They form a most interesting contrast. Life would
+be duller without such contrasts. One could give
+a score of examples from military and naval history
+of high merit allied both to modesty and vanity.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“That is true,” said the Maker, “but the Great
+Silent Sea Service loathes advertisement like the
+very devil, and it is right. The Service would be
+ruined if senior officers tried to bid against one
+another for newspaper puffs.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yet I have known them do it,” said I drily, and
+then slid away from the delicate topic. “Let us
+return to the first part of the action, and examine
+the division of the Fleet between Jellicoe and
+Beatty. Was this division, admittedly hazardous,
+a sound method of bringing the Germans to
+action?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Gunner took upon himself to reply.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It is not, and never has been, possible to bring
+the Germans to action in the southern part of the
+North Sea except with their own consent. There
+is no room. They can always break off and retire
+within their protected waters. Steam fleets of the
+modern size and speed cannot force an action and
+compel it to be fought out to a finish in a smaller
+space than a real ocean. You must always think
+of this when criticising the division of our fleets.
+Beatty was separated from Jellicoe by nearly sixty
+miles, and strengthened by four fast Queen Elizabeth
+battleships to enable him to fight an action
+with a superior German Fleet. He was made
+just strong enough to fight and not too strong to
+scare the Germans away. In theory, the division
+of our forces within striking distance of the enemy
+was all wrong; in practice, it was the only way of
+persuading him into an action. Both sides at the
+end of May, 1916, wanted to bring off a fight at sea.
+Fritz wanted something which he could claim as a
+success in order to cheer up his blockaded grumblers
+at home, who were getting restive. We wanted to
+stop the projected German naval and military
+onslaught upon Russia in the Baltic. The wonderful
+thing about the Jutland Battle is that it appears
+to have achieved both objects. Fritz, by sinking
+three of our battle cruisers, has been able to delude
+a nation of landsmen into accepting a highly
+coloured version of a great naval success; and we,
+by making a sorry mess of his main fleet, did in fact
+clear the northern Russian flank of a grave peril.
+The later Russian successes in the South were the
+direct result of Jutland, and without those successes
+the subsequent Italian, French, and British advances
+could not have been pushed with anything
+like the effect secured. Regarded in this broad
+international way, the division of our fleets justified
+by its results the risks which it involved. What I
+don’t understand is why we suffered so much in
+the first part of the action when Beatty had six
+battle cruisers and four battleships against five
+battle cruisers of the enemy. He lost the <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>
+and <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> while he was in great superiority
+both of numbers and of guns. Then, when the
+German main fleet had come in, and he was carrying
+out an infinitely more hazardous operation in
+the face of a greater superior force, he lost nothing.
+If the <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span> and <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span> had been lost
+during the second hour before Jellicoe arrived I
+should have felt no surprise—we were then deliberately
+risking big losses—but during the first hour
+of fighting, when we had ten ships against five—and
+five much weaker individually than our ten—we
+lost two fine battle cruisers. I confess that I
+am beaten. It almost looks as if at the beginning
+the German gunners were better than ours, but that
+they went to pieces later. What do you think?”
+He turned to the Salt Horse, who spoke little, but
+very forcibly when he could be persuaded to open
+his lips.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Everyone with Beatty, to whom I have spoken,”
+declared the Salt Horse, “agrees that the German
+gunnery was excellent at the beginning. We were
+straddled immediately and hit again and again
+while coming into action. Our gunners must have
+been a bit over-anxious until they settled down.
+We ought to have done something solid in a whole
+hour against five battle cruisers with our thirty-two
+13.5-⁠inch guns and thirty-two 15-⁠inch. And
+yet no one claims more than one enemy ship on fire.
+That means nothing. The burning gas from one
+big shell will make the deuce of a blaze. There is
+no explanation of our losses in the first part, and
+of Fritz’s comparative immunity, except the one
+which you, my dear Gunner, are very unwilling to
+accept. Fritz hit us much more often than we hit
+him. There you have it. I have spoken.” Admiral
+Salt Horse, a most abstemious man, rang the bell
+of the club of which we were members, and ordered
+a whisky and soda. “Just to take the taste of that
+admission out of my mouth,” he explained.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Maker of Ships and Guns smiled ruefully.
+“I have reckoned,” said he, “that the Cats fired
+twenty rounds per gun during the first hour and
+the Queen Elizabeths ten. That makes 640 rounds
+of 13.5-⁠inch shell and 320 rounds of 15-⁠inch. Three
+per cent. of fair hits at the ranges, and in the conditions
+of light, would have been quite good. But
+did we score twenty-eight hits of big shell, or anything
+like it? If we had there would have been
+much more damage done than one battle cruiser
+on fire. The Salt Horse has spoken, and so have I.
+I also will wash the taste of it out of my mouth.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You will admit,” muttered the Gunner, “that
+in the second part, after Beatty and the Queen
+Elizabeths had turned, our control officers and long-service
+gunners came into their own?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Willingly,” cried Admiral Salt Horse. “Nothing
+could have been finer than the hammering which
+Evan-⁠Thomas gave to the whole High Seas Fleet.
+And Beatty crumpled up his opposite numbers
+in first-class style. Our individual system, then,
+justified itself utterly. Fritz’s mechanical control
+went to bits when the shells began to burst about his
+fat ears, but it was painfully good while it lasted.
+Give Fritz his due, Master Gunner, it’s no use
+shutting our eyes to his merits.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I had listened with the keenest interest to this
+interchange, for though I should not myself have
+ventured to comment upon so technical a subject as
+naval gunnery, I had subconsciously felt what the
+old Salt Horse had so bluntly and almost brutally
+expressed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“We have arrived, then, at this,” observed I,
+slowly, “that during the first hour, up to the turn
+when the main High Seas Fleet joined up with
+Hipper’s battle cruisers, our squadrons got the
+worst of it, though they were of twice Fritz’s numbers
+and of far more than twice his strength. It is a
+beastly thing for an Englishman to say, but really
+you leave me no choice. Though I hate whisky,
+I must follow the example set by my betters.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Master Gunner laughed. “In the Service,”
+said he, “we learn from our mistakes. At the
+beginning we did badly on May 31st, but afterwards
+we profited by the lesson. What more could
+you ask? .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Civilians,” said he, aside to his
+colleagues, “seem to think that only English ships
+should be allowed to have guns or to learn how
+to use them.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Now we have given Fritz his due,” said I,
+“let us get on to the second part of the battle,
+Act Two of the naval drama. You will agree that
+the handling of our damaged squadrons by Beatty
+and Evan-⁠Thomas was magnificent, and that the
+execution done by us was fully up to the best
+English standards?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” replied the grim Salt Horse, to whom
+I had specially appealed. “We will allow both.
+Beatty’s combination of dash and caution was
+beyond praise and the gunnery was excellent.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“None of our ships were sunk, none were seriously
+hit,” put in the Gunner. “On the other hand we
+certainly sank one German battle cruiser and one
+battleship, and very heavily damaged others. I
+don’t know how many. I think that we must
+accept as proved that not many German ships of
+the battle line were sunk in any part of the action.
+When badly hit they fell out and retired towards
+home, which they could always do. During the
+second part both fleets were steaming away from
+the German bases, so that a damaged enemy ship
+had only to stop to be left behind in safety. A
+good many ships were claimed by our officers as
+sunk when they were known to have been damaged
+and had disappeared; but I feel sure that most of
+them had fallen out, not been sunk.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“The outstanding feature,” cried the Maker of
+Guns, “was the superiority of our gunnery. We
+have always encouraged individuality in gun laying,
+and have never allowed Fire Control to supersede
+the eyes and hands of the skilled gun-layers in the
+turrets. Control and individual laying are with us
+complementary, not mutually exclusive. With the
+Germans an intensely mechanical control is of
+the essence of their system. They are very good
+up to a point, but have not elasticity enough to
+deal with the perpetual variations of range and
+direction when fighting ships are moving fast and
+receiving heavy punishment. Fritz beat us in the
+first part, but we, as emphatically, beat him in
+the second.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We then passed to a technical discussion upon
+naval gunnery, which cannot be given here in detail.
+I developed my thesis, aggravating to expert gunners,
+that when one passes from the one dimension—distance—of
+land shooting from a fixed gun at a
+fixed object, to the two dimensions—distance and
+direction—of moving guns on board ship firing
+at moving objects, the drop in accuracy is so enormous
+as to make ship gunnery frightfully ineffective
+and wasteful. I readily admitted that when one
+passed still further to three dimensions—distance,
+direction, and height—and essayed air gunnery,
+the wastefulness and ineffectiveness of shooting
+at sea were multiplied an hundredfold. But, as I
+pointed out, we were not at the moment discussing
+anti-aircraft gunnery, but the shooting of naval
+guns at sea in the Jutland Battle.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Of course I brought down a storm upon my
+head. But my main thesis was not contested. It
+was, however, pointed out that I had not allowed
+sufficient weight to the inherent difficulties of
+shooting from a moving ship at a moving ship ten
+or a dozen miles away, and that instead of calling
+naval gunnery “wasteful and ineffective” I ought
+to be dumb with wonder that hits were ever brought
+off at all. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be hard on the poor man,” at last interposed
+the kindly Salt Horse. “He means well
+and can be useful to the Service sometimes though
+he has not had a naval training. The truth is,”
+he went on confidentially, “we feel rather wild
+about the small damage that we did to Fritz on
+May 31st: small, that is, in comparison with our
+opportunities. Our gunnery officers and gun-layers
+are the best in the world, our guns, range-finders
+and other instruments are unapproachable for
+precision, our system of fire direction is the best
+that naval brains can devise and is constantly being
+improved, and yet all through the war the result
+in effective hits has been most disappointing—don’t
+interrupt, you people, I am speaking the
+truth for once. Fritz’s shooting, except occasionally,
+has been even worse than ours, which indicates,
+I think, that the real inner problems of naval gunnery
+are not yet in sight of solution. You see, it is
+quite a new science. In the old days one usually fired
+point blank just as one might plug at a haystack,
+and the extreme range was not more than a mile
+and a half; but now that every fighting ship carries
+torpedo tubes we must keep out a very long way.
+I admit the apparent absurdity of the situation.
+Here on May 31st, two fleets were engaged off and
+on for six hours—most of the time more off than on—and
+the bag for Fritz was three big ships, and for
+us possibly four, by gun-fire. The torpedo practice
+was no better except when our destroyers got in
+really close. During all the third part of the action,
+when Scheer was fending us off with torpedo
+attacks he hit only one battleship, the <span class='it'>Marlborough</span>,
+and she was able to continue in action afterwards
+and to go home under her own steam. Yet upon
+a measured range at a fixed mark a torpedo is good
+up to 11,000 yards, nearly six miles. In action,
+against moving ships, one cannot depend upon a
+mouldy hitting at over 500 yards, a quarter of a
+mile. If gunnery is wasteful and inefficient, what
+about torpedo practice in battle?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“What is the solution?” I asked, greatly
+interested.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Don’t ask me!” replied the Salt Horse. “I
+knew something of gunnery once, but now I’m on
+the shelf. I myself would risk the mouldies and
+fight at close quarters—we have the legs of Fritz
+and could choose our own range—but in-fighting
+means tremendous risks, and the dear stupid old
+public would howl for my head if the corresponding
+losses followed. The tendency at present is towards
+longer and longer ranges, up to the extreme
+visible limits, and the longer the range the greater
+the waste and inefficiency. Ask the Gunner there,
+he is more up-to-date than I am.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Master Gunner growled. He had listened to
+Admiral Salt Horse’s homily with the gravest disapproval.
+He was a simple loyal soul; any
+criticism which seemed to question the supreme
+competence of his beloved Service was to him rank
+treachery. Yet he knew that the Salt Horse was
+as loyal a seaman as he was himself. It was not
+what was said which caused his troubled feelings—he
+would talk as freely himself before his colleagues—but
+that such things should be poured into the
+ears of a civilian! It was horrible!</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“After the first hour, when our gunners had
+settled down,” said he gruffly, “their practice was
+exceedingly good. They hit when they could see,
+which was seldom. If the light had been even
+tolerable no German ship would have got back to
+port.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I agree,” cried the Maker of Guns and Ships.
+“We did as well as the light allowed. Fritz was
+all to pieces. The bad torpedo practice was Fritz’s,
+not ours. The worst of the gunnery was his, too.
+We have lots to learn still—as you rightly say, naval
+gunnery is still in its infancy—but we have learned
+a lot more than anyone else has. That is the one
+thing which matters to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Have we not reached another conclusion,” I
+put in, diffidently, “namely, that big-ship actions
+must be indecisive unless the light be good and the
+sea space wide enough to allow of a fight to a
+finish? We can’t bring Fritz to a final action in the
+lower part of the North Sea unless we can cut him
+off entirely from his avenues of escape. In the
+Atlantic, a thousand miles from land, we could
+destroy him to the last ship—if our magazines held
+enough of shell—but as he can choose the battle
+ground, and will not fight except near to his bases,
+we can shatter him and drive him helpless into port,
+but we cannot wipe him off the seas. Is that
+proved?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said the Gunner, who had recovered his
+usual serenity. “In my opinion that is proved
+absolutely.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“One talks rather loosely of envelopment,”
+explained the Maker, “as if it were total instead
+of partial. The German Fleet was never enveloped
+or anything like it. What happened was this:
+As the Germans curved away in a spiral to the
+south-west our line curved in with them, roughly
+parallel, also to the south-west, keeping always
+between Fritz and the land. We were partly
+between him and his bases, but he could and did
+escape by getting round the horn which threatened
+to cut him off.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Could not Jellicoe,” I asked, “have worked
+right round so as to draw a line across the mouths
+of the Elbe and Weser, and to cut Scheer completely
+off from the approaches to Wilhelmshaven?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Not without immense risk. He would have
+had to pass into mine fields and penetrate them all
+through the hours of darkness. He might have
+lost half his fleet. Our trouble has always been
+the extravagant risk involved by a close pursuit.
+When the Germans retire to their protected waters
+we must let them go. The Grand Fleet is too vital
+a force to be needlessly risked. When Jellicoe’s
+final stroke failed, owing to the bad light and the
+German retirement, the battle was really over.
+Jellicoe’s blow had spent itself on the air. The
+Germans were almost safe except from our torpedo
+attacks, which were delivered during the night with
+splendid dash and with considerable success. But
+that night battle was the queerest business. When
+the sun rose the enemy had vanished. Fritz says
+that we had vanished. I suppose, strictly speaking,
+that we had. At least we were out of his sight,
+though unintentionally. Touch had been lost and
+the enemy had got safely home, taking most of his
+damaged ships with him. Nothing remained for
+us to do except to return to our northern bases,
+recoal, and refit. The Jutland Battle was indecisive
+in one sense, crushingly decisive in another. It left
+the German Fleet undestroyed, but left it impotent
+as a fighting force. Thereafter it sank into a mere
+guard for Fritz’s submarine bases.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“And the gunnery in the third part?” I asked
+with a sly glance towards the Gunner. He rose
+at the bait.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I do not doubt that, measured by the percentage
+of hits to rounds fired, Copplestone would
+call it wasteful and inefficient. But the Navy
+regards the gunnery in the third part as even better
+than in the second, as proving our superiority over
+the Germans. They were then at their worst while
+we were at our best; we rapidly improved under
+the test of battle, they as rapidly deteriorated.
+The facts are certain. The enemy ships were hit
+repeatedly both by our battleships and battle
+cruisers, several were seen to haul out of the line
+on fire, and at least one battleship was observed to
+sink. Throughout all the time—two hours—during
+which Jellicoe’s main fleet was engaged his
+ships were scarcely touched; not a single man was
+killed, and three only were wounded. Is that not
+good enough for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You have forgotten the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>,” remarked
+that candid critic whom I have called Salt Horse.
+“She took station at the head of Beatty’s line at
+6.21. Her distance from the enemy was then
+8,000 yards. It was a gallant service, for Beatty
+needed support very badly, but by 6.55 the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>
+had been destroyed. The <span class='it'>Iron Duke</span> passed
+her floating bottom up. She must have been caught
+by the concentrated fire of several enemy ships.
+It was a piece of luck for Fritz; the last that he
+had. Apart from the downing of the <span class='it'>Invincible</span>, I
+agree that the third part of the battle showed our
+gunnery to be highly effective, and that of the
+Germans to be almost wholly innocuous. It was
+his torpedoes we had then to fear, not his guns.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“During the third part,” said the Maker, “the
+ranges were comparatively low, from 9,000 to
+12,000 yards, but the visibility was so bad that
+damaged ships could always betake themselves out
+of sight and danger. I am disposed to think that
+most of Fritz’s sorely damaged ships did get home—in
+the absence of evidence that they did not—for
+we never really closed in during the whole of
+the third part of the battle. Fritz was continually
+coming and going, appearing and disappearing.
+His destroyer attacks were well delivered, and
+though one battleship only was hit, our friend the
+<span class='it'>Marlborough</span>, we were kept pretty busy looking
+after ourselves. Jellicoe was like a heavy-weight
+boxer trying to get home upon a little man, skipping
+about just beyond his reach. We had the speed
+and the guns and the superiority of position, but
+we couldn’t see. That is the explanation of the
+indecisiveness of the third part of the Jutland
+battle, that part which, with decent luck, would
+have ended Fritz’s business. Our gunnery was
+then top-hole. Take the typical case of the flagship
+<span class='it'>Iron Duke</span>. She got a sight of a <span class='it'>Koenig</span> at 12,000
+yards (seven miles), straddled her at once, and
+began to hit at the second salvo. That is real
+gunnery, not much waste about it either of time or
+shell. Then towards sunset the <span class='it'>Lion</span>, <span class='it'>Princess
+Royal</span>, and <span class='it'>New Zealand</span> engaged two battleships
+and two battle cruisers at 10,000 yards. Within
+eighteen minutes three of the Germans had been set
+on fire, two were listing heavily, and the three
+burning ones were only saved by becoming hidden
+in smoke and mist. That is the way to get on to a
+target and to hold on. I agree with our old friend
+Salt Horse that the long ranges during the first
+part of the action, 18,000 to 20,000 yards—and
+even more for the <span class='it'>Queen Elizabeth</span>—are altogether
+too long for accuracy unless the conditions
+are perfect. The distances are well within the
+power of the big-calibre guns which we mount,
+but are out of harmony with the English naval
+spirit. We like to see our enemy distinctly and to
+get within real punishing distance of him. Compare
+our harmless performance during the first
+part with the beautiful whacking which we gave
+Fritz in the third whenever we could see him.
+The nearer we get to Fritz the better our gunners
+become and the more completely his system goes to
+bits. Which is just what one would expect. Our
+long-service gunners can lay by sight against any
+ships in the world and beat them to rags, but when
+it comes to blind laying directed from the spotting
+tops much of the advantage of individual nerve
+and training is lost. Like Salt Horse, I am all for
+in-fighting, at 10,000 yards or less, and believe that
+our gun-layers can simply smother Fritz if they are
+allowed to get him plainly on the wires of their
+sighting telescopes.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“There is not a petty officer gunlayer who
+wouldn’t agree with you,” remarked the Gunner
+thoughtfully, “but the young scientific Gunnery
+Lieutenants would shake their heads. For what
+would become of the beautiful fire-direction system
+which they have been building up for years past if
+we are to run in close and pound in the good old
+fashion? Ten thousand yards to a modern 15-⁠inch
+gun is almost point blank.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Our business is to sink the enemy in the shortest
+possible time,” cried Admiral Salt Horse, “and to
+fight in the fashion best suited to what Copplestone
+here rightly calls the Soul of the Navy. Long-range
+fighting is all very well when one can’t do
+anything else—during a chase, for example—but
+when one can close in to a really effective distance,
+then, I say, close in and take the risks. In the
+Jutland Battle we lost two battle cruisers at long
+range and one only after the ranges had shortened.
+Fritz shot well at long range, but got worse and
+worse as we drew nearer to him, until at the end his
+gunnery simply did not count. Our ancestors had
+a similar problem to solve, and solved it at the
+Battle of the Saints in brutal fashion by breaking
+the French line and fighting at close quarters.
+There is a lot to be learned from the Jutland Battle,
+though it is not for an old dog like me to draw the
+lessons. But what does seem to shout at one is
+that the way to fight a German is to close in upon
+him and to knock the moral stuffing out of him.
+The destroyers always do it and so do our submarines.
+I am told that the way the destroyers
+charged battleships by night, and rounded up the
+enemy’s light stuff by day, was a liberal education
+in naval psychology. We are at our best when the
+risks are greatest—it is the sporting instinct of the
+race that sustains us. But Fritz, who is no sportsman,
+and has a good deal more of imagination than
+our lower deck, cracks when the strain upon his
+nerves passes the critical point. Our young officers
+and men have no nerves; Fritz has more than is
+good for him; let us take advantage of his moral
+weakness and hustle him beyond the point when
+he cracks. He is a landsman artificially made into
+a seaman; our men are seamen born. In a battleship
+action the personal factor tends to be over-borne
+by the immensity of the fighting instruments,
+but it is there all the time and is the one thing which
+really counts. We give it full scope in the destroyers,
+submarines, and light cruisers; let us give
+it full scope in the big ships of the battle line. Let
+our <span class='sc'>Men</span> get at Fritz; don’t seek to convert them
+into mere parts of a machine, give their individuality
+the fullest play; you need then have no fear
+lest their work should prove wasteful or ineffective.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Master Gunner, a man ten years younger
+than old Salt Horse, smiled and said, “I am afraid
+that the gunnery problem has become too complicated
+to yield to your pleasing solution. A few
+years ago it would have been considered a futile
+waste of shell to fight at over 10,000 yards, but the
+growth in the size of our guns and in our methods of
+using them have made us at least as accurate at
+20,000 yards as we used to be at 10,000. At from
+9,000 to 12,000 in good light we are now terrific.
+All my sympathies are on your side; the Navy
+has always loved to draw more closely to the
+enemy, and maybe our instincts should be our guide.
+I can’t say. If we could have a big-ship action
+every month the problem would soon be solved.
+Our trouble is that we don’t get enough of the Real
+Thing. You may be very sure that if our officers
+and men were told to run in upon Fritz and to
+smash him, at the ranges which are now short, they
+would welcome the order with enthusiasm. The
+quality and training of our sea personnel is glorious,
+incomparable. I live in wonder at it.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“And so do I,” cried the Maker, a man not ready
+to display enthusiasm. “One has lived with the
+professional Navy so long that one comes to take
+its superb qualities for granted; one needs to see
+the English Navy in action to be aroused to its
+merits. On May 31st very few of those in Evan-⁠Thomas’s
+or Jellicoe’s squadrons had been under
+fire—Beatty’s men had, of course, more than once.
+If they showed any defect it was due to some slight
+over-eagerness. But this soon passed. In a big-ship
+action not one man in a hundred has any opportunity
+of personal distinction—which is an uncommonly
+good thing for the Navy. We have no use
+for pot-hunters and advertisers. We want every
+man to do his little bit, devotedly, perfectly, without
+any thought of attracting attention. Ours is
+team work. If men are saturated through and
+through with this spirit of common devotion to duty
+they sacrifice themselves as a matter of course when
+the call comes. More than once fire penetrated to
+the magazines of ships. The men who instantly
+rolled upon the blazing bags of cordite, and extinguished
+the flames with their bodies, did not wait
+for orders nor did they expect to be mentioned in
+dispatches. It was just their job. But what I did
+like was Jellicoe’s special mention of his engineers.
+These men, upon whose faithful efficiency everything
+depends, who, buried in the bowels of ships,
+carry us into action and maintain us there, who are
+the first to die when a ship sinks and the last to be
+remembered in Honours lists, these men are of more
+real account than almost all those others of us who
+prance in our decorations upon the public stage.
+If the conning tower is the brain of a ship, the
+engine-room is its heart. When Jellicoe was speeding
+up to join Beatty and Evan-⁠Thomas his whole
+fleet maintained a speed in excess of the trial speeds
+of some of the older vessels. Think what skilful
+devotion this simple fact reveals, what minute
+attention day in day out for months and years, so
+that in the hour of need no mechanical gadget may
+fail of its duty. And as with Jellicoe’s Fleet so all
+through the war. Whenever the engine-rooms have
+been tested up to breaking strain they have
+always, always, stood up to the test. I think less
+of the splendid work done by destroyer flotillas,
+by combatant officers and men in the big ships, by
+all those who have manned and directed the light
+cruisers. Their work was done within sight; that
+of the engine-rooms was hidden.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I wish that the big public could hear you,” I
+said, “the big public whose heart is always in the
+right place though its head is always damned
+ignorant and often damned silly.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Maker of Guns and Ships turned on me, this
+calm, cold man whom I had thought a stranger to
+emotion. “And whose fault is that? You are a bit
+of an ass, Copplestone, and inconveniently inquisitive.
+But you can be useful sometimes. When you
+come to write of the war at sea, do not wrap yourself
+up in a tangle of strategy and tactics of which
+you know very little. Stick to the broad human
+issues. Reveal the men who fight rather than the
+ships which are fought with. Think of the Navy
+as a Service of flesh and blood and soul, no less than
+of brains and heart. If you will do this, and write
+as well as you know how to do, the public will not
+remain either damned ignorant or damned silly.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I will do my best,” said I, humbly.</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div><h1 id='chE'>EPILOGUE</h1></div>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;font-size:.8em;'>LIEUTENANT CÆSAR</p>
+
+<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend='fs:.9em;;' -->
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Now in the names of all the gods at once,</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,</p>
+<p class='line0' style='font-size:.9em;'>That he is grown so great?</p>
+</div></div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<p class='pindent'>When the war is over and tens of thousands of
+young men, who have drunk deep of the wine of life,
+are thrown back upon ginger ale, what will be the
+effect upon their heads and stomachs? I do not
+know; I have no data, except in the one instance
+of my friend, Lieutenant Cæsar, R.N.V.R.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I must write of him with much delicacy and
+restraint, for his friendship is too rich a privilege
+to be imperilled. His sense of humour is dangerously
+subtle. Cæsar is twenty-three, and I am—well,
+fully twice his age—yet he bears himself as
+if he were infinitely my senior in years and experience.
+And he is right. What in all my toll of
+wasted years can be set beside those crowded
+twenty-two months of his, now ended and done
+with? The fire of his life glowed during those
+months with the white intensity of an electric arc; in
+a moment it went black when the current was cut off;
+he was left groping in the darkness for matches and
+tallow candles. I dare not sympathise with him
+openly, though I feel deeply, for he would laugh
+and call me a silly old buffer—a term which I dread
+above all others.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The variegated career of Lieutenant Cæsar fills
+me with the deepest envy. When the war broke
+out he was a classical scholar at Oxford, one of the
+bright spirits of his year. His first in Greats,
+his prospects of the Ireland, his almost certain
+Fellowship—he threw them up. The Army had
+no interest for him, but to the Navy he was bound
+by links of family association. To the Navy therefore
+he turned, and prevailed upon a somewhat
+reluctant Admiralty to gazette him as a Sub-Lieutenant
+in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
+“A classical scholar,” argued Whitehall, “is about
+as much use to us as a ruddy poet. What can this
+young man do away from his books?” Cæsar
+rapidly marshalled his poor accomplishments. He
+could row—no use, we are in the steam and petrol
+age; he had been a sergeant of O.T.C.—no thanks,
+try the Royal Naval Division; he could drive a
+motor-car and was a tolerable engineer. At last
+some faint impression was made. Did he understand
+the engines of a motor-boat? It appeared
+that he did; was, in fact, a mildly enthusiastic
+member of the Royal Motor Boat Club at Southampton.
+“Now you’re talking,” said Whitehall.
+“Why didn’t you say this at once instead of wasting
+our time over your useless frillings?” The official
+wheels stirred, and within two or three weeks Cæsar
+found himself gazetted, and dropped into a fine
+big motor patrol boat, which the Admiralty had
+commandeered and turned to the protection of
+battleships from submarines. At that time we
+had not a safe harbour anywhere except on the
+South Coast, where they did not happen to be
+wanted. For many months Cæsar patrolled by
+night and day deep cold harbours on the east
+coast of Scotland, hunting periscopes. It was an
+arduous but exhilarating service. His immediate
+chief, a Lieutenant R.N.V.R., was a benevolent
+American, the late owner of the boat. He had
+handed her over without payment in return for a
+lieutenant’s commission. “I was once,” he declared,
+“a two-striper in Uncle Sam’s Navy. I
+got too rich for my health, chucked the Service,
+and have been eating myself out of shape. Take
+the boat but, for God’s sake, give me the job of
+running her. She’s too pretty for your thumb-crushing
+blacksmiths to spoil.” When reminded
+that he was an alien, he treated the objection as
+the thinnest of evasive pleas. “King George is
+my man; there are no diamonds in his garters,”
+he wrote.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The Lords of the Admiralty, who never in their
+sheltered lives had read such letters as now poured
+in upon them, gasped, collapsed, and gave to the
+benevolent neutral all that he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Cæsar worshipped the big motor-boat and her
+astonishing commander. His first love wrapped
+itself round the twin engines, two of them, six-cylinders
+each, 120 horse-power. They were ducks
+of engines which never gave any trouble, because
+Cæsar and the two American engineers—I had
+almost written nurses—were always on the watch
+to detect the least whimper of pain. But though
+he never neglected his beloved engines, the mysterious
+fascinations of the three-⁠pounder gun in
+the bows gradually vanquished his mature heart.
+Her deft breech mechanism, her rapid loading,
+the sweet, kindly way she slipped to and fro in
+her cradle, became charms before which he succumbed
+utterly. Cæsar and the gun’s high-priest,
+a petty officer gunlayer, became the closest
+of friends, and the pair of them would spend hours
+daily cleaning and oiling their precious toy. The
+American lieutenant had his own bizarre notions of
+discipline—he thought nothing of addressing the
+petty officer as “old horse”; but he worked as
+hard as Cæsar himself, kept everyone in the best of
+spirits through the vilest spells of weather, and was
+a perpetual fount of ingenious plans for the undoing
+of Fritz. The <span class='it'>Mighty Buzzer</span>—named from her
+throbbing exhaust—was a happy ship.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Buzzer’s</span> career as a king’s ship was brief,
+and her death glorious. One night, or rather early
+morning, she was far out in the misty jaws of a
+Highland loch, within which temporarily rested
+many great battle-cruisers. Cæsar despised these
+vast and potent vessels. “What use are they?”
+he would ask of his chief. “There is nothing for
+them to fight, and they would all have been sunk
+long ago but for us.” Fast motor-boats, with 120
+horse-power engines, twenty-five knots of speed—thirty
+at a pinch, untruthfully claimed the Lieutenant—and
+beautiful 3-⁠pounder guns were in
+Cæsar’s view, the last word in naval equipment.
+The Lieutenant would shake his head gravely at his
+Sub’s exuberant ignorance. “They are gay old
+guys just now,” he would reply, “and feeling pretty
+cheap. But some day they will get busy and knock
+spots off Fritz’s hide. You Britishers are darned
+slow, but when you do fetch a gun it’s time to shin
+up trees. The Germs have stirred up the British
+Lion real proper and, I guess, wish now they’d let
+him stay asleep.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>Buzzer</span> had chased many a German submarine,
+compelling it to dive deeply and become
+harmless, but never yet had Cæsar been privileged
+to see one close. Upon this misty morning of her
+demise, when he gained fame, she was farther out
+to sea than usual, and was cruising at about the spot
+where enterprising U-⁠boats were wont to come up
+to take a bearing. I am writing of the days before
+our harbour defences had chilled their enterprise
+into inanition. Cæsar was on watch, and stood at
+the wheel amidships. The petty officer and a blue-jacket
+were stationed at the gun forward. Our
+friend’s senses were very much alert, for he took his
+duties with the utmost seriousness. Near his boat
+the sea heaved and swirled, and as he saw a queer
+wave pile up he became, if possible, even more alert
+and called to his watch to stand by. The sea went
+on swirling, the surface broke suddenly, and up
+swooped the hood and thin tube of a periscope.
+It was less than fifty yards away, and for a moment
+the lenses did not include the <span class='it'>Buzzer</span> within their
+field of vision. For Cæsar, his watch on deck, and
+the sleepers below, the next few seconds were
+packed with incident. Round came the <span class='it'>Buzzer</span>
+pointing straight for the periscope, the exhaust
+roared as Cæsar called for full speed, and the gun
+crashed out. Away went periscope and tube,
+wiped off by the spreading cone of the explosion, as
+if they were no more substantial than a bullrush,
+and up shot the <span class='it'>Buzzer’s</span> bows as Cæsar drove her
+keel violently upon the top of the conning tower
+of the rising U-⁠boat. Keel and conning-tower
+ripped together; there was a tremendous rush of
+air-bubbles, followed by oil, and the U-⁠boat was
+no more. She had gone, and the <span class='it'>Buzzer</span>, with six
+feet of her tender bottom torn off, was in the act to
+follow. As she cocked up her stern to dive after
+her prey there was just time to get officers and crew
+into lifebelts and to signal for help. Cæsar met in
+the water his commanding officer, who, though
+nearly hurled through his cabin walls by the shock,
+and entirely ignorant of the cataclysm in which he
+had been involved, was cheerful as ever. “Sakes,”
+he gasped, when he had cleared mouth and nose of
+salt water, “when you Britishers do get busy,
+things—sort of—hum.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>A destroyer rushing down picked up the swimmers
+and heard their story. The evidence was considered
+sufficient, for oil still spread over the sea,
+and there were no rocks within miles to have
+ripped out the <span class='it'>Buzzer’s</span> keel, so another U-⁠boat
+was credited to the Royal Navy and Cæsar became
+a lieutenant. It was a proud day for him.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But he had lost his ship, and was for a time out
+of a job. The new harbour defences were under
+way and fast motor-boats were for a while less in
+demand. The Admiralty solved the problem of
+his future. “This young man,” it observed, “is
+nothing better than a temporary lieutenant of the
+Volunteer Reserve, but he is not wholly without
+intelligence and has a pretty hand with a gun.
+We will teach him something useful.” So the order
+was issued that Lieutenant Cæsar should proceed to
+Whale Island, there to be instructed in the mysteries
+of naval gunnery. “You will have to work
+at Whale Island,” warned the captain of his
+flotilla, “and don’t you forget it. It is not like
+Oxford.” This to reduce Cæsar to the proper
+level of humility.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Up to this stage in his career Lieutenant Cæsar,
+though temporarily serving in the Royal Navy,
+knew nothing whatever about it. His status was
+defined for me once by a sergeant of Marines:
+“A temporary gentleman, sir, ’ere to-day and gone
+to-morrow, and good riddance, sir.” Upon land the
+corps and regiments have been swamped by temporaries,
+but at sea the Regular Navy remains in
+full possession. In the barracks at Whale Island,
+where Cæsar was assigned quarters, he felt like a
+very small schoolboy newly joining a very large
+school. His fellow-pupils were R.N.R. men, mercantile
+brass-bounders with mates’ and masters’
+certificates, and R.N.V.R.’s drawn from diverse
+classes. To him they seemed a queer lot. He lay
+low and studied them, finding most of them wholly
+ignorant of everything which he knew, but profoundly
+versed in things which he didn’t. The
+instructors of the Regular Service gave him his
+first definite contact with the Navy. “My original
+impression of them,” he told me, laughing, “was
+that they were all mad. I had come to learn
+gunnery, but for a whole week they insisted upon
+teaching me squad drill, about the most derisory
+version of drill which I have ever seen. Picture
+us, a mob of mates out of liners and volunteers out
+of workshops and technical schools, trailing rifles
+round the square at Whale Island, feeling dazed
+and helpless, and wondering if we had brought up
+by mistake at a lunatic asylum. After the first
+week, during which Whale Island indulged its
+pathetic belief that its true <span class='it'>métier</span> is squad drill,
+we were all right. We got busy at the guns, and
+found plenty to learn.” It was at Whale Island
+that he received the name of Cæsar, the one Latin
+author of which his messmates had any recollection.
+During the first month of his training he daily
+cursed Winchester and Oxford for the frightful gaps
+which they had left in his educational equipment.
+He could acquire languages with anyone, but mathematics,
+that essential key to the mysteries of gunnery,
+gave him endless trouble. But he had a keenly
+tempered brain and limitless persistence. Slowly
+at first, more rapidly later, he made up on his
+contemporaries, and when after two months of the
+toughest work of his life he gained a first-class
+certificate, he felt that at last he had tasted a real
+success.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Time brings its revenges. As a Sub in a motor-boat
+he had affected to think slightingly of the
+great battle-cruisers which his small craft protected,
+but now that he was transferred to one of the new
+Cats of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron his views
+violently changed. Battleships were all very well,
+they had huge guns and tremendous armour, but
+when it came to speed and persistent aggressiveness
+what were these sea monsters in comparison with
+the Cats? Why nothing, of course. Which shows
+that Cæsar was becoming a Navyman. Put a
+naval officer into the veriest tub which can keep
+herself afloat with difficulty, and steam five knots
+in a tideway, and he will exalt her into the most
+efficient craft beneath the White Ensign. For she
+is His Ship.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Lieutenant Cæsar very quickly became at one
+with his new ship, and entered into his kingdom.
+Whether upon the loading platform of a turret
+or in control of a side battery, he serenely took
+up his place and felt that he had expanded to fill it
+adequately. His tone became obtrusively professional.
+When I asked for some details of his
+hardships and his thrills, he sneered at me most
+rudely. “There are no hardships,” he declared;
+“we live and grow fat, and there is not a thrill to
+the whole war. My motor-boat was a desperate
+buccaneer in comparison with these stately Founts
+of Power. Every week or two we do a Silent Might
+parade in the North Sea, but nothing ever happens.”
+This was after the Dogger Bank action for which
+he was too late, and before the Jutland Battle.
+He wrote to me many veiled accounts of the North
+Sea stunts upon which the battle-cruisers were persistently
+engaged, but always insisted that they
+were void of excitement.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Dismiss from your landsman’s mind,” he would
+write—Cæsar was now a sailor among sailors—“all
+idea of thrills. There aren’t any. When the
+hoist Prepare to Leave Harbour goes up on the
+flagship, and black smoke begins to pour from every
+funnel in the Squadron, there is no excitement and
+no preparation—for we are already fully prepared.
+We go out with our attendant destroyers and light
+cruisers and scour at will over the ‘German Ocean’
+looking for Fritz, that we may fall upon him. But
+he is too cunning for us. I wish that we had some
+scouting airships.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>This wish of Lieutenant Cæsar is, I believe, shared
+by every officer in the Grand Fleet from the Commander-in-Chief
+downwards. Airships cannot fight
+airships or sea ships, and are of very little use as
+destructive agents, but they are bright gems in the
+firmament of scouts.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I asked Cæsar why he did not keep notes of his
+manifold experiences. “It is against orders,”
+answered he sorrowfully. “We are not allowed
+to keep a diary, and I have a rotten memory for
+those intimate details which give life to a story.
+If I could keep notes I would set up in business as a
+naval Boyd Cable.” But I am afraid that Cæsar
+was reckoning without the Naval Censor, a savage,
+hungry lion beside whom his brother of the Military
+Department is a complacent lamb. Cæsar
+has a pretty pen, but his hands are in shackles.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Cæsar bent his keen eyes upon those with whom
+he was associated, studied their strength and weakness,
+and delivered judgment, intolerant in its
+youthful sureness.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“The young lieutenants,” he wrote, “are wonderful.
+Profoundly and serenely competent at their
+own work, but irresponsible as children in everything
+else. Their ideas of chaff and ragging never
+arise above those of the fifth form. Whenever they
+speak of the Empire they mean the one in Leicester
+Square. Shore leave for them means a bust at
+the Trocadero, with a music-hall to follow, preferably
+with a pretty girl. Their notions of shore
+life are of the earth earthy, not to say fleshy, but
+at sea work they approach the divine. There is
+not a two-striper in my wardroom who could not
+with complete confidence and complete competence
+take the Grand Fleet into action. But of education,
+as you or I understand the word, they have
+none. The Navy has been their strictly intensive
+life since they left school at about thirteen. Of art,
+or literature, or music—except in the crudest forms—they
+know nothing, and care nothing. And this
+makes their early retirement the more tragical.
+They go out, nine-tenths of them, before they
+reach forty without mental or artistic resources.
+The Navy is a remorseless user up of youth. Those
+who remain afloat, especially those without combatant
+responsibilities, tend to degenerate into
+S.O.B.s.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I will not translate; Cæsar is too young and too
+clever to be sympathetic towards those of middle
+age.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>One afternoon in spring Lieutenant Cæsar was
+plunged without warning into the Jutland Battle.
+He and his like were placidly waiting at action
+stations in their turrets, when the order came to
+put live shell into the guns. For six hours he
+remained in his turret, serving his two 13.5-⁠inch
+guns, but seeing nothing of what passed outside
+his thick steel walls. When I implored him to
+recount to me his experiences, he protested that he
+had none.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You might as well ask a sardine, hermetically
+sealed in a tin, to describe a fire in a grocer’s shop,”
+wrote he. “I was that sardine, and so were nearly
+all of us. Those in the conning tower saw something,
+and so did the officers in the spotting top
+when they were not being smothered by smoke
+and by water thrown up by bursting shells. But
+as for the rest of us—don’t you believe the stories
+told you by eye-witnesses of naval battles. They
+are all second or third hand, and rubbish at that.
+When I have sorted the thing out from all those
+who did see, and collated the discrepant accounts,
+I will give you my conclusions, but I shall not be
+allowed to write them. For a literary man the
+Navy is a rotten service.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Cæsar at this time wrote rather crossly. He had,
+I think, visualised himself as the writer some day
+of an immortal story of the greatest naval battle in
+history. Now that he had been through it, he
+knew as little of it at first hand as a heavy gunner
+in France does of the advancing infantry whose
+path forward he is cutting out.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>The isolation of a busy turret in action may be
+realised when one learns that Cæsar knew nothing
+of the loss of the <span class='it'>Queen Mary</span>, <span class='it'>Indefatigable</span>, or
+<span class='it'>Invincible</span> until hours after they had gone to the
+bottom. He had heard nothing even of damage
+suffered by his own ship until, a grimy figure in
+frowsy overalls, he crawled through the roof of his
+big sardine tin and met in the darkness one of his
+friends who had been in the spotting top.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“There was a frightful row going on as we sat
+there on the turret’s roof,” wrote Cæsar to me.
+“Our destroyers were charging in upon Fritz’s
+flying ships, which with searchlights and guns of
+all calibres were seeking to defend themselves.
+We could not fire for our destroyers were in the way.
+The horizon flamed like the aurora borealis, and
+now and then big shells, ricochetting, would scream
+over us. I enjoyed myself fine, and had no wish to
+seek safety in my turret, of which I was heartily
+sick. That is the only part of the action which I
+saw, and the details were buried in confusion and
+darkness. All the rest of the day I had been serving
+two hungry guns with shells and cordite, and firing
+them into unknown space. I was too intent on my
+duties to be bored, but I did not get the least bit of
+a thrill until I climbed out on the roof. Still I am
+glad to have been in the Battle, and, I love my big
+wise guns.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>It was while his battle-cruiser was being refitted,
+and when he had just returned from a few days’
+leave, that the wheel of his destiny made another
+turn. He was hauled struggling and kicking out
+of his turret as one plucks a periwinkle from its
+shell, and cast into a destroyer attached to the
+North Sea patrol. He had, as I have told, an easy
+knack of picking up languages. To a solid knowledge
+of German he had added in past vacations
+more than a speaking acquaintance with the
+Scandinavian tongues—Norse, Danish, and Swedish—and
+his industry was now turned to his undoing.
+Naval gunners were more plentiful than boarding
+officers who could converse with the benevolent
+and unbenevolent neutral, and Cæsar’s unfortunate
+accomplishments clearly indicated him for a new
+job. At first he was furious, but became quickly
+reconciled. For, as he argued, fighting on a grand
+scale is over, Fritz has had such a gruelling that
+he won’t come out any more; North Sea stunts
+will seem very tame after that day out by the
+Jutland coast; patrolling the upper waters of the
+North Sea cannot be quite dull, and cross-examining
+Scandinavian pirates may become positively exciting.
+So Cæsar settled down in his destroyer, in so far
+as any one can settle down in such an uneasy craft.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Cæsar now formed part of the inner and closer
+meshes of the North Sea blockade designed to intercept
+those ships which had penetrated the more
+widely spread net outside. Many of the masters
+whom he interviewed claimed to have a British safe-conduct,
+but Cæsar was not to be bluffed. With a
+rough and chocolate-hued skin he had acquired
+the peremptory air of a Sea God.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It is rather good fun sometimes,” he wrote to
+me. “We can’t search big ships on the high seas
+at all thoroughly, and we don’t want to send them
+all into port for examination, so we work a Black
+List. I have a list from the War Trade Department
+of firms which are not allowed to ship to
+neutral countries, and of all suspected enemy agents
+in those countries. The Norse, Danish and Dutch
+skippers are very decent and do their best to help,
+but the Swedes are horrid blighters. Whenever
+there is any doubt at all we send ships into port to
+be thoroughly examined there. You may take
+it that not much gets through now. Next to a complete
+blockade of all sea traffic for neutral ports—which
+I don’t suppose the politicians can stomach—our
+Black List system seems to be the goods. I
+get good fun with these merchant skippers, and am
+becoming quite a linguist, but the work is less
+exciting than I had hoped. It is amusing to see a
+7,000-⁠ton tramp escorted into port by a twenty-foot
+motor-boat which she could sling up on her
+davits, but even this sight becomes a matter of
+course after a while. I have seen something of war
+from three aspects, and seem to have exhausted
+sensations. They are greatly overrated.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>But Lieutenant Cæsar was destined to have one
+more experience before war had used him up and
+relaid him upon the shelf from which he was
+plucked in September, 1914. A destroyer upon
+patrol duty is still a fighting vessel, and fights joyfully
+whenever she can snatch a plausible opportunity.
+Cæsar had sunk a submarine, served
+through the Jutland Battle, and assisted to stop
+the holes in the British blockade, but he had not yet
+known what fighting really means. That is reserved
+for destroyers in action. One afternoon he was
+cruising not far from the Dogger Bank, when the
+sound of light guns was heard a few miles off towards
+the east. The Lieut.-Commander in charge of our
+unit in H.M.S. <span class='it'>Blockade</span> obeyed the Napoleonic
+rule and steered at once for the guns. In about
+ten minutes a group of small craft wreathed in
+smoke, lighted up at short intervals by gun flashes,
+appeared on the horizon, and roaring at her full
+speed of 34 knots the British destroyer swept down
+upon them. Presently seven trawlers were made
+out firing with their small guns at two German
+torpedo boats, which with torpedo and 23-⁠pounder
+weapons were intent upon destroying them. One
+trawler was blown sky-high while Cæsar’s ship was
+yet half a mile distant, and another rolled over
+shattered by German shell. “It was a pretty
+sight,” said Cæsar, when I visited him in hospital,
+and learned to my deep joy that he was out of
+danger. “When we got within a quarter of a mile
+we edged to starboard to give the torpedo tubes a
+clear bearing on the port bow. A shell or two
+flew over us, but the layers at the tubes took no
+notice. They waited till we were quite close, not
+more than two hundred yards, and then loosed a
+torpedo. I have never seen anything so quick and
+smart. I saw the mouldy drop and start, and then
+a huge column of water spouted up, blotting out
+entirely the nearest German boat. The water fell
+and set us tossing wildly, but I kept my feet and
+could see that German destroyer shut up exactly
+like a clasp-knife. She had been bust up amidships,
+her bow and stern almost kissed one another, and
+she went down vertically. The other turned to
+fly, firing heavily upon us, but our boys had her
+in their grip. We had three fine guns, 4-⁠inch semi-automatics.
+We hit her full on the starboard
+quarter as she turned, and then raked her the whole
+length of her deck. I did not see the end, for
+earth and sky crashed all round me, and I went to
+sleep. When I awoke I was lying below, my right
+leg felt dead, but there was no pain, and from the
+horrid vibration running through the vessel I knew
+that we were at full speed.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Did we get the other one?’ I asked of my
+servant, whom I saw beside me. ‘She sunk
+proper, sir,’ said he. ‘You, sir, are the only
+casualty we ’ad.’ It was an honour which I
+found it difficult to appreciate. ‘What’s the
+damage?’ I muttered. ‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he replied
+diffidently, ’that your right leg is blowed away.’
+Then I fainted, and did not come round again
+till I was in hospital here. My leg is gone at
+the knee; I lost a lot of blood, and should have lost
+my life but for the tourniquet which the Owner
+himself whipped round my thigh. They have
+whittled the stump shipshape here, and I am to
+have a new leg of the most fashionable design.
+The doctors say that I shall not know the difference
+when I get used to it, and shall be able to play golf
+and even tennis. Golf and tennis! Good games,
+but they seem a bit tame after the life I’ve led for
+the last two years.” Cæsar fell silent, and I gripped
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“It isn’t as if you were in the Regular Service,”
+I murmured. “It isn’t your career that’s gone.
+That is still to come. You’ve done your bit,
+Cæsar, old man.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>His eyes glittered and a tear welled over and
+rolled down his cheek. That was all, the only sign
+of weakness and of regret for the lost leg and the
+lost opportunities for further service. When he
+spoke again it was the old cheerful Cæsar whom I
+knew. “It seems funny. A month or two hence
+I shall be back at Oxford, reading philosophy and
+all sorts of absurd rubbish for my First in Greats.
+From Oxford I came, and to Oxford I shall return;
+these two years of life will seem like a dream. A
+few years hence I shall have nothing but my medal
+and my wooden leg to remind me of them. It has
+been a good time, Copplestone—a devilish good
+time. I have done my bit, but I wasn’t cut out
+for a fighting man. There is too much preparation
+and too little real business. I should have exhausted
+the thing and got bored. In time I should
+have become an S.O.B. like some of those others.
+No, Copplestone, I have nothing to regret, not even
+the lost leg. It is better to go out like this than
+to wait till the end of the war, and then to be among
+the Not Wanteds.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“They’ve made you a Lieutenant-Commander,”
+I said slowly.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Two and a half stripes,” he murmured. “They
+look pretty, but they are only the wavy ones, not
+the real article. I was never anything but a
+‘tempory blighter, ’ere to-day and gone to-morrow,
+and good riddance.’ It was decent of them
+to think of me, but stripes are no use to me now.
+I shall be at Oxford with the other cripples, and
+the weak hearts, and the aliens, and the conscientious
+objectors—what do the dregs of Oxford
+know of stripes?”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I saw as much as I could of Cæsar during the
+weeks that followed. His mental processes interested
+me hugely. He has an enviable faculty of concentrating
+upon the job in hand to the complete
+exclusion of everything outside. He forgot Oxford
+in the Service, and now seemed to have almost
+forgotten the Service in his return to Oxford, and
+to what he calls civilisation. He was greatly taken
+up with the design for his wooden leg. I met him
+after his first visit to Roehampton to be measured,
+and found him bubbling over with enthusiasm.
+“Such legs and arms!” cried he. “They are
+almost better than meat and bone ones. I saw a
+Tommy with a shorter stump than mine jumping
+hurdles and learning to kick. He was a professional
+footballer once. Another with a wooden arm
+could write and even draw. In a month or two’s
+time, when my stump is healed solid and I have
+learnt the tricks of my new leg, it will be a great
+sport exercising it and trying to find out what it
+can’t do. A new interest in life.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You seem rather to like having a leg blown
+off,” I said, wondering.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>He is extraordinarily exuberant. I looked for
+depression after a month in hospital, but looked in
+vain. He builds up a future with as much zest as
+a youthful architect executes his first commission.
+The First in Greats is “off”; Cæsar says that he
+has not time to bother about such things. “I
+shall read History and modern French and Russian
+literature. History will do for my Final Schools,
+and Literature for my play. I shall learn Russian.
+Then when I have taken my degree I shall go in for
+the Foreign Office. My wooden leg will actually
+help me to a nomination, and the exam. is nothing.
+It’s not a bad idea; I thought of it last night.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You don’t take long over a decision,” I remarked.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I never did,” said he calmly.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>When he returned to Oxford early in November
+he urged me to pay him a visit. I was in London
+a week or two later and having twenty-four hours
+to spare ran up to Oxford, established myself at the
+Clarendon, and summoned Cæsar to dine with me.
+All through the meal wonder grew upon me. For
+my very charming guest was an undergraduate in
+his fourth year, bearing no trace of having been
+anything else. We talked of Balzac, Anatole
+France, and Turgeniev. I listened politely to
+Cæsar’s views upon German and Russian Church
+music. I learned that the scarcity of Turkish
+cigarettes was causing him distress, that his rooms
+were delightful, and that Oxford was a desert swept
+clear of his old friends. The war was never once
+referred to. His conversation abounded in slang
+with which I was not familiar—I come from the
+other shop. It was an insufferable evening, and
+I saw Cæsar hobble away upon his crutches with
+positive relief. He could use his leg a little, but
+the stump was still rather sore. That hobble was
+the one natural and human thing about him.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I passed a wretched night, came to a desperate
+resolution early in the morning, and carried it out
+about nine o’clock. Cæsar was in his “delightful
+rooms.” They certainly had a pleasant aspect,
+but the furniture disgusted me; it might have been
+selected by a late-Victorian poet. I looked for a
+book or a picture which might connect Cæsar with
+the R.N.V.R., and looked in vain. He was busy
+trampling upon the best two years of his life and
+forgetting that he had ever been a man. It should
+not be. Presently he came in from his bedroom
+and began to talk in the manner of the night before
+but I cut him short. “Cæsar,” I said brutally,
+“you are no better than an ass. Look at these
+rooms. Is this the place for a man who has lived
+and fought in a motor-boat, a battle-cruiser, and
+a T.B.D.? You have sunk a German submarine,
+served in the Jutland Battle, and lost a leg in your
+country’s service. Hug these things to your soul,
+don’t throw them away. Brood upon them, write
+about them, for the love of Heaven don’t try to
+forget them.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>I saw his eyes light up, but he said nothing. His
+lips began to twitch and, knowing him as I did, I
+should have heeded their warning. But unchecked
+I drivelled on:</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Are you the man to shrink from an effort
+because of pain? Did you grouse when your leg
+was blown off? Wring all you can out of the future.
+Read History, join the F.O., study Russian. But
+do these things in a manner worthy of Lieutenant-Commander
+Cæsar, and don’t try to revive the
+puling Oxford spark that you were two years ago
+before the war came to sweep the rubbish out of
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>He gave a clumsy leap, tripped over his new leg,
+and fell into a chair. Lying there he laughed and
+laughed and laughed. How he laughed! Not
+loud, but deeply, thoroughly, persistently, as if to
+make up for a long abstinence.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“Confound you!” I growled. “What the deuce
+are you laughing at?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You,” said Cæsar simply.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>At the word the truth surged over me in a
+shameful flood. That preposterous dinner with
+its babble of Balzac and Turgeniev, Church music,
+and Turkish cigarettes. These rooms stripped of
+all reminders of two strenuous years of war. That
+Oxford accent and the intolerable Oxford slang.
+“Cæsar,” I shouted, joining in his exuberant
+laughter, “you have been pulling my leg all the
+time.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“All the time,” said he. “My bedroom is full
+of stuff that I cleared out of here. Last night,
+Copplestone, your ever-lengthening face was a
+lovely study, and I have wondered ever since how
+I kept in my laughter.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“You young villain,” cried I, overjoyed to find
+that Cæsar was still my bright friend of the
+R.N.V.R. “How shall I ever get even with you?”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“I owe you some reparation,” said he, “and here
+it is.” He hobbled over to his desk and drew out
+a great roll of paper. “This is the first instalment;
+there are lots more to come. For the last month
+I have been trying to remember, not to forget. I
+am writing of everything that I have done and
+seen and heard and felt during those two splendid
+years. Everything. It will run to reams of paper
+and months of time. When it is finished you shall
+have it all. Take it, saturate yourself in it, add
+your spells to it. We will stir up the compound of
+Copplestone and Cæsar until it ferments, and then
+distil from the mass a Great Work. It shall be ours,
+Copplestone—yours and mine. Will you have me
+as your partner.”</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>“With the greatest pleasure in life,” I cried.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>We discussed our plans in full detail, and parted
+the best of friends. Cæsar is rekindling the ashes
+of a life which I had thought to be extinguished;
+soon there will be a great and glowing fire of realised
+memory which will keep warm the years that are
+to come. He has solved the problem of his immediate
+future. But what of those others, those tens of
+thousands, who when the war is over will seek for
+some means to keep alive the fires which years of
+war have lighted in their hearts? Are they to be
+merged, lost, in the old life as it was lived before
+1914? Are they to degenerate slowly but surely
+into S.O.B.s, intent only upon earning a living
+somehow, playing bad golf, or looking on at football
+matches? I do not know, I have no data, and it is
+rather painful to indulge oneself in speculation.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p class='pindent'>This sketch was published a year ago. Two
+months after I had visited Cæsar at Oxford he
+called upon me in London. He was in uniform,
+and explained that he had quickly grown tired of
+sick leave and had recalled himself to Service.
+“I can’t go to sea again,” said he, “with this timber
+toe, but I am at least good for an office job ashore.”
+But Cæsar was not made to fit the stool of any
+office, and when I last heard from him was an
+observer in the R.N.A.S.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>In this fashion he has rounded off his experiences,
+and basely failed me, his friend and biographer,
+of the scanty data with which to answer the question
+set forth in the first sentence of this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.2em;'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.</p>
+
+<p class='pindent'>Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.</p>
+
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-27 15:52:36 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-27 15:52:36 -0800
commit	1c71c0865439bd8fd019475d7f83ecf35d7a2075 (patch)
tree	7e5c8f76681edb9438eeef6ce84243425f786bbf