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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:

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-

-

-

-

-

-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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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48497 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original maps.
+      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.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48497 ***
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-<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

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-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'/>

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-<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.2em;'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</p>

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-

-<p class='pindent'>Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.</p>

-

-<p class='line'>&#160;</p>

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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Silent Watchers, by Bennet Copplestone</title>
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48497 ***</div>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Silent Watchers, by Bennet Copplestone</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<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>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48497 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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