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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Achievement of the British Navy in the
-World-War, by John Leyland
-
-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 Achievement of the British Navy in the World-War
-
-Author: John Leyland
-
-Release Date: November 22, 2017 [EBook #56027]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACHIEVEMENT--BRITISH NAVY--WORLD-WAR ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Brian Coe, Charlie Howard, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. The
-book cover image was created by the transcriber and is
-placed in the public domain. (This book was produced from
-images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note: Bold text is enclosed in =equals signs=; italic
-text is enclosed in _underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-                            THE ACHIEVEMENT
-                             OF THE BRITISH
-                              NAVY IN THE
-                                 WORLD
-                                  WAR
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  By
-  JOHN LEYLAND
-
-
-  HODDER AND STOUGHTON
-  LONDON    NEW YORK    TORONTO
-  MCMXVII
-
-  _E SHILLING_
-
-
-
-
-  THE ACHIEVEMENT _of the_ BRITISH NAVY
-  IN THE WORLD-WAR   ::   JOHN LEYLAND
-
-[Illustration: THE KING CHATTING WITH ADMIRAL BEATTY]
-
-
-
-
-  THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE
-  BRITISH NAVY IN THE
-  WORLD-WAR
-
-  BY
-  JOHN LEYLAND
-
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-
-  ILLUSTRATED
-
-
-  NEW YORK
-  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
-     I. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE SEA SERVICE                 1
-
-    II. THE CENTRE OF SEA-POWER                                       11
-
-   III. SWEEPING THE ENEMY FROM THE OCEANS                            21
-
-    IV. THE GRASP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN: SEA- AND LAND-POWER           29
-
-     V. DEALING WITH THE SUBMARINES                                   37
-
-    VI. THE NAVY AND THE MINE                                         46
-
-   VII. THE NAVY AND ARMY TRANSPORT                                   55
-
-  VIII. THE NAVY THAT FLIES                                           64
-
-    IX. OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE NAVY                                  71
-
-     X. WHAT THE BRITISH NAVY IS AND WHAT IT FIGHTS FOR               79
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-  THE KING CHATTING WITH ADMIRAL BEATTY                   _Frontispiece_
-
-                                                                    PAGE
-  A BRITISH FLEET STEAMING IN LINE AHEAD                               6
-
-  DRIFTERS WORKING AT SEA                                              6
-
-  A DRIFTER AT SEA: LOOKING FOR SUBMARINES AND MINES                  22
-
-  A DRIFTER LAYING ANTI-SUBMARINE NETS                                22
-
-  FLEETS IN ALLIANCE: BRITISH AND ITALIAN SHIPS IN THE ADRIATIC       38
-
-  ON BOARD THE _Queen Elizabeth_ AT MUDROS                            38
-
-  A FLEET MANŒUVRING AT SEA                                           64
-
-  THE CAPTURED GERMAN SUBMARINE MINE-LAYER UC5                        64
-
-  A BRITISH SUBMARINE                                                 80
-
-  JOURNALISTS ON BOARD A MONITOR                                      80
-
-
-_MAPS:_
-
-   I.  THE CENTRE OF SEA-POWER: THE NORTH SEA           _At end of book_
-
-  II.  THE GRASP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN: SEA- AND LAND-POWER
-                                                        _At end of book_
-
-
-
-
-  THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE BRITISH
-  NAVY IN THE WORLD-WAR
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE SEA SERVICE
-
-        Had I the fabled herb
-         That brought to life the dead,
-        Whom would I dare disturb
-         In his eternal bed?
-        Great Grenville would I wake,
-        And with glad tidings make
-        The soul of mighty Drake
-         Lift an exulting head.
-
-                    _William Watson._
-
-
-When King George returned from the visit he paid to the Grand Fleet
-in June, 1917, he sent a message to Admiral Sir David Beatty, who had
-succeeded Sir John Jellicoe in the command, in which he said that
-“never had the British Navy stood higher in the estimation of friend
-or foe.” His Majesty spoke of people who reason and understand. But
-it is certainly true that the work of the Sea Service during this
-unparalleled war has never been properly appreciated by many of
-those who have benefited by it most. The silent Navy does its work
-unobserved. The record of its heroism and the services it renders pass
-unobserved by the multitude. Sometimes it emerges to strike a blow,
-engage in a “scrap,” or, it may be, to fight a battle, and then it
-retires into obscurity again. Its achievements are forgotten. Only the
-bombardment of a coast town or the torpedoing of a big ship, which
-the Navy did not frustrate, is remembered. Such has been the case in
-all the naval campaigns of the past. Englishmen, who depend upon the
-Navy for their security and the means of their life and livelihood, as
-well as for their power of action against their enemies, are but half
-conscious of what the Fleet is doing for them. On this matter, British
-statesmen, when they speak about the war, almost invariably fail to
-enlighten them.
-
-Who can wonder that people in the Allied countries are still less able
-to realise that behind all the fighting of their own armies lies the
-influence of sea-power, exercised by the British Fleet and the fleets
-that came one after another into co-operation with it? Without this
-power of the sea there could have been no hope of success in the war.
-As the King said, the Navy defends British shores and commerce, and
-secures for England and her Allies the ocean highways of the world. The
-purpose of this book is to show how these things are done.
-
-On the first day of hostilities the British Navy laid hold upon the
-road that would lead to victory. There is no hyperbole in saying that
-the Grand Fleet, in its northern anchorages, from the very beginning,
-influenced the military situation throughout the world, and made
-possible many of the operations of the armies, which could neither have
-been successfully initiated nor continued without it. But in the early
-days of August, 1914, when, from the war cloud which had overshadowed
-Europe, broke forth the lurid horrors of the conflict, the situation
-was extremely critical. What was required to be done had to be done
-quickly and unhesitatingly, lest the enemy should strike an unforeseen
-blow. Happily, with faultless knowledge, the strategy of the emergency
-was realised, and with unerring instinct and sagacity it was applied.
-The foresight of great naval administrators, and chiefly of Lord
-Fisher, who had brought about the regeneration of the British Navy,
-shaping it for modern conditions, was justified a thousandfold.
-
-Never was the need of exerting sea command more urgent than at the
-outbreak of war. Everything that Englishmen had won in all the
-centuries of the storied past was involved in the quarrel. Only by
-mastery of the sea could the country be made secure. Its soil had never
-been trodden by an invader since Norman William came in 1066. The very
-food that was eaten and the things by which the industries and commerce
-of the country existed demanded control at sea. If the British Empire
-was to be safe from aggression it must be safeguarded on every sea. If
-England was to set armies in any foreign field of operations, and to
-retain and maintain them there, with the gigantic supplies they would
-require; if she was to render help to her Allies in men or munitions or
-anything else, whether they came from England, or the United States, or
-any other country, and were landed in France, Russia, Italy, or Greece,
-or in Egypt, Mesopotamia, or East or West Africa, for the defeat of
-the enemy, that must be done by virtue of power at sea. Therefore, in
-this war, as John Hollond, writing his _Discourse of the Navy_ in 1638,
-said of the wars of his time, “the naval part is the thread that runs
-through the whole wooft, the burden of the song, the scope of the text.”
-
-The moment when the First Fleet, as it was then called, slipped away
-from its anchorage at Portland on the morning of Wednesday, July
-29th, 1914, will yet be regarded as one of the decisive moments of
-history. The initiative had been seized, and all real initiative was
-thenceforward denied to the enemy. The gauge of victory had been won.
-“Time is everything; five minutes makes the difference between a
-victory and a defeat,” said Nelson. “The advantage and gain of time and
-place will be the only and chief means for our good,” Drake had said
-before him. By a fortunate circumstance, which should have arrested
-the imagination as with a presage of victory—a circumstance arranged
-five months before, as the result of a series of most intricate
-preparations—time and place were both on the British side.
-
-The First, Second, and Third Fleets, and the flotillas attached
-to them, had been mobilised as a test operation, and inspected at
-Spithead by King George, on July 20th. The First Fleet had returned to
-Portland and the other fleets to their home ports, where the surplus or
-“balance” crews of the Naval Reserves were to be sent on shore. Then
-had come the now famous order to “stand fast,” issued on the night of
-Sunday, July 26th, which had stopped the process of demobilisation.
-Dark clouds had shadowed the international horizon. Austria-Hungary had
-presented her ultimatum to Serbia. She declared war on the 28th. The
-Second Fleet remained, therefore, in proximity to its reserves of men,
-and the men were ready to be re-embarked in the Third Fleet.
-
-Few people realised at the time the immense significance of the
-memorable eastward movement of the squadrons from Portland Roads, or
-of the assembly of those powerful forces at their northern strategic
-anchorages. Those forces became the Grand Fleet, that unexampled
-organisation of fighting force, under command of that fine sea officer,
-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. War was declared by Great Britain on August
-4th. Successive steps of supreme importance were taken, which, in very
-truth, saved the cause of the Allies. Disaster and surprise attack were
-forestalled. The Fleet, fully mobilised, and growing daily in strength,
-was already exerting command of the sea, and the safe transport of the
-Expeditionary Force to France was assured. Co-operation with the French
-Fleet was immediately established—its cruiser squadron in the Channel
-and its battle squadrons in the Mediterranean.
-
-Fighting episodes were not delayed, but for many months the operations
-of the Grand Fleet remained shrouded as by a veil, lifted only on rare
-occasions. Few people knew the tremendous anxieties and responsibility
-of the British Commander-in-Chief. His vast command of vessels of all
-classes and uses had to be organised into a mighty fleet, complete in
-every element—battle squadrons, battle-cruiser squadrons, light-cruiser
-squadrons, flotillas and auxiliaries, transports, hospital ships,
-and every ship and thing that a fleet can require. A whole series of
-intricate dispositions had to be made. Officers were to be inspired
-with the ideas of the Commander-in-Chief and the whole Fleet was to be
-so trained, under squadron and flotilla commanders, that each would
-know on the instant how he should act.
-
-If Nelson, in 1789, spent many hours in explaining to his “band
-of brothers” his plans for his attack at the Nile, with fourteen
-sail-of-the-line, what must it have been for Sir John Jellicoe to
-communicate to his officers, and discuss with them, all his plans for
-every emergency or call for the service of every squadron and ship in
-his vast command? All this must be realised now. And during the anxious
-early months of the war, as the winter was drawing near, the great
-anchorages were as yet unprotected, and safety from hostile submarines
-could often only be found in rapid steaming at sea. The mining
-campaign of the enemy had also to be overcome. The anxieties were
-enormous, and it was only the power of command, the sea instinct, the
-deep understanding, the readiness to act in moments of extraordinary
-responsibility, and the resource and professional skill of the
-Commander-in-Chief and his staff and officers in command, that enabled
-the tremendous work to be accomplished.
-
-[Illustration: A BRITISH FLEET STEAMING IN LINE AHEAD]
-
-[Illustration: DRIFTERS WORKING AT SEA]
-
-While this was in progress other work of immense significance had been
-going on. The Admiralty had undertaken a gigantic task of supreme
-importance with complete success. Great defensive preparations were
-made in British waters, where all traffic was regulated and controlled.
-The vast maritime resources of the country were added to the naval
-service. Two battleships building for Turkey, another for Chile,
-and certain flotilla leaders and other craft building in the
-country, were taken over. Officers and men in abundance were ready.
-The magnificent seafaring populations of the merchant marine and the
-fisheries were drawn into the naval service, and subsequently the whole
-mercantile marine was brought under naval control, and for practical
-purposes was embodied with the Navy. Officers and men of these services
-showed splendid heroism in situations of terror and responsibility
-never anticipated.
-
-A wide network of patrols was brought into being; the blockade was
-organised and strengthened; the examination services were set on
-foot and perfected; and the coast sectors of defence, with their
-flotillas, were raised to a standard of high efficiency. Mine-sweepers
-and net-drifters were at work. Every shipyard in the country and a
-multitude of engineering and ammunition works began to buzz with work
-for the Navy and the mercantile marine. Provision was made for dealing
-with the raiding cruisers and armed merchantmen of the enemy.
-
-At the time, the public knew little or nothing of what was in progress.
-Imagination fails even now to grasp the magnitude of what was achieved.
-The naval share in the campaign was of baffling obscurity, while the
-stage of the war on land became crowded with fighting men, locked in
-a terrible conflict, which at that time seemed to bode no good to
-the Allies. After the brush in the Heligoland Bight on August 28th,
-1914, the Fleet was lost to view. Not at first, but slowly, did it
-become realised that the prognostications of peace-time alarmists had
-proved baseless. There had been no “bolt from the blue,” as had been
-foretold; neither invasion, nor raid, nor foray was attempted upon
-British shores, and there was no anxiety about food. There was always,
-with economy, enough to eat.
-
-But popular confidence seemed for a time to be unreasonably
-disturbed by a record of successive alarming and generally
-unexplained incidents—the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ in
-the Mediterranean, the sinking of the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, _Hogue_,
-_Formidable_, and other vessels, the depredations of German raiding
-cruisers on the distant lines of our trade, the bombardment of
-Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough, and other disquieting episodes.
-Strange as it may seem, there were people who went about asking, “What
-is the Fleet doing?” Was it not the ancient inspiration of the Navy to
-seek out the enemy and to capture or sink or burn his ships wherever
-they were to be found? Yet there was no battle. The German coast was
-not attacked. Allied shipping to the value of millions of pounds was
-being sunk. Why, then, was the Navy inactive? When, later on, the
-submarine menace assumed formidable proportions, alarm began again
-to seize upon the newspapers, when there was justification only for
-precaution.
-
-The hidden truth was not comprehended. Victories were expected when,
-owing to the coyness of the enemy’s strategy, none were possible.
-The Seven Years’ War—the most successful in British annals, the
-turning-point in British history, the war in which Horace Walpole asked
-each morning what victory there was to record—began with the disaster
-of Minorca, followed by the tragedy of Byng. The central facts of naval
-history were but little known. Yet the Navy was, and is, in truth, all
-in all to the country, the Empire, and the Allies.
-
-Before we enter into the main purpose of this book, in which we shall
-discover in several theatres of war the real nature of sea-power, as
-well as the character and momentous consequences of the antagonism
-which grew up between England and Germany, we may inquire what services
-could in reason have been expected from the Navy in the great cataclysm
-which was about to sweep with destruction over the nations. It would
-not have been expected to fight a battle every month or even every
-year, for battles are rare events in naval history. It would not
-have been expected to attack fortified coasts, though it might do so
-on occasions, because ships are designed and built to fight at sea.
-The Navy would not have been expected to forestall every untoward
-incident. Fish often slip through the net, as raiders have slipped
-through our guard in this and other wars. Nor, in these days of the
-stealthy submarine and the blind death-dealing mine, could the Fleet
-have been expected to remain immune from every misfortune. No one could
-have expected the Navy to devise a single conclusive defence against
-the attack of the submarine, any more than it was asked to find an
-infallible remedy for the effects of gunfire.
-
-What we should have expected was that it would make the sea again the
-protecting wall, as Shakespeare says, of the British Isles,
-
-        Or as a moat defensive to a house
-        Against the envy of less happier lands.
-
-We should have expected it to safeguard the incoming of the supplies
-without which neither the people nor their industries could exist—to
-be the panoply of all trade and interests afloat, whether in the
-nature of imports or exports. We should have expected it to deny all
-external activity to the enemy at sea—we might not have anticipated the
-advent of the submarine as a pirate commerce-destroyer—to shut off his
-sea-borne supplies, and to exert that noiseless pressure on the vitals
-of the adversary of which Admiral Mahan speaks—“that compulsion, whose
-silence, when once noted, becomes to the observer the most striking
-and awful mark of the working of sea-power.” We should have expected
-the Navy to become the support, in thrust and holding, of the armies
-in the field—the shaft to their spearhead; their flank and rearguard
-also. Inasmuch as the war is world-wide, and we have powerful Allies,
-we should have expected naval influence and pressure to be manifested
-in the oceans, in the Mediterranean, and, indeed, wherever the enemy is
-and the seas are. Finally, we should have expected the Navy to be to
-the British Empire what it has always been to the Empire’s heart—its
-safeguard from injury and disruption, and the bond that holds it
-together.
-
-Each one of these functions has been executed by in Navy with
-triumphant success in the war, and history would show that it is
-executing them now as the Sea Service has accomplished them in all the
-wars of the past.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-THE CENTRE OF SEA-POWER[A]
-
-        Of speedy victory let no man doubt,
-        Our worst work’s past, now we have found them out.
-        Behold, their navy does at anchor lie,
-        And they are ours, for now they cannot fly.
-
-                    _Andrew Marvel_, 1653.
-
-
-Of all the theatres of the war, on sea or land, the North Sea is the
-most important. It is vital to all the operations of the Allies.
-Command of its waters and its outlets is the thing that matters most.
-In that sea is the centre of naval influence. It is the key of all
-the hostilities. From either side of it the great protagonists in the
-struggle look at one another. There the great constriction of the
-blockade is exerted upon Germany. It is the _mare clausum_ against
-which she protests. Geography is there in the scales against her. She
-rebels against British sea supremacy. The “freedom of the seas” is,
-therefore, her claim—though she is endeavouring to qualify to be the
-tyrant of them. Her only outlook towards the outer seas is from the
-Bight of Heligoland and the fringe of coast behind the East Frisian
-Islands, or from the Baltic, if her ships pass the Sound or the Belt,
-issuing into the North Sea through the Skager-Rak. But they cannot
-reach the ocean, except through the North Passage, where the Grand
-Fleet holds the guard. Only isolated raiders, bent upon predatory
-enterprise, have stealthily gone that way after nightfall. At the
-southern gate of the North Sea, through the Straits of Dover and in
-the Channel, the way is barred. The guns of Dover, the Dover Patrol,
-and certain other deterrents forbid the enemy to adventure in that
-direction.
-
-[A] See Map I., at end of book.
-
-The new engines of naval warfare—the mine, submarine, airship, and
-aeroplane—found their first and greatest use in the North Sea; and only
-by employing craft which hide beneath the water, and, on rare occasion,
-by destroyers which seek the cover of darkness for local forays, have
-the Germans been able to exert their efforts in any waters outside the
-North Sea. At the beginning of the war they had raiding cruisers in the
-Pacific and Atlantic, and a detached squadron in the Far East; but the
-British Fleet reached out to those regions, and, aided by the warships
-of Japan and France, it drove every vestige of German naval power from
-the oceans.
-
-In the North Sea, therefore, sea-power has exerted its greatest, most
-vital, and most far-reaching effect. There the Germans, if they had
-possessed the power, could have struck a blow which, if successful for
-them, would have proved a mortal stroke at the British Empire and would
-have rendered useless all the efforts of the Allies. Millions of men,
-incalculable volumes of guns, munitions, and stores of every imaginable
-kind for the use of the greatest armies ever set in the field, have
-entered the French ports solely because the Grand Fleet holds the guard
-in the North Sea. The whole face of the world would have been changed
-by German naval victory. England would have been subjected by invasion
-and famine. If the heart of the Empire had been struck, what would have
-been the future of its members? If sea communication with the Allies
-had been cut, what would have been their fate at the hands of the
-victors? The attacks of sallying cruisers and destroyers upon the coast
-towns of England, the “tip and run” raids, as they have been called,
-and the visits of bomb-dropping airships and aeroplanes are the signs
-of the naval impotence of Germany.
-
-The situation in the North Sea is, therefore, of absorbing interest.
-It may be studied chiefly from the two points of view of the strategy
-of the opposing fleets and the exercise of the blockade. There is a
-peculiarity in naval warfare, which is not found in warfare upon land,
-that a belligerent can withdraw his naval forces entirely from the
-theatre of war by retaining them, as with a threat, or in a position of
-weakness, behind the guns of his shore defences. Nothing of the kind
-is possible with land armies. A general can always find his enemy, and
-attack or invest him, and, if successful, drive him back, or cause him
-to surrender, and occupy the territory he has held. The Germans have
-chosen the reticent strategy of the sea. They have never come out to
-make a fight to a finish, to put the matter to the touch, “to gain or
-lose it all.” The _animus pugnandi_ is wanting to their fleet. It was
-necessary that they should do something. They could not lie for ever
-stagnant at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. They could keep their officers and
-men in training by making brief cruises in and outside the Bight of
-Heligoland. They might, with luck, meet some portion of the Grand Fleet
-detached and at a disadvantage.
-
-In any case, they were bold enough to take their chance on occasions,
-always with their fortified ports and mined waters and their submarines
-under their lee. They might succeed in reducing British superiority
-by the “attrition” of some encounters. Such was the genesis of the
-Dogger Bank battle of January 24th, 1915, when that gallant officer
-Sir David Beatty inflicted a severe defeat upon Admiral Hipper, and
-drove him back in flight, with the loss of the _Blücher_ and much
-other injury. The same causes brought the German High Sea Fleet, under
-Admiral Scheer, into the great conflict, first with Sir David Beatty,
-and then with the main force of the Grand Fleet, under command of Sir
-John Jellicoe, on May 31st, 1916. The events of the great engagement of
-the Jutland Bank will not be related here. All that it is necessary to
-note is that the Germans had so chosen their time that they were able
-to avoid decisive battle with Sir John Jellicoe’s fleet by retreating
-in the failing light of the day, and that their adventure availed them
-nothing to break the blockade or otherwise to modify the impotent
-position in which they are placed at sea. That action operated to the
-disadvantage of England and her Allies in no degree whatever. The
-superiority of the British Fleet as a fighting engine had been placed
-beyond dispute.
-
-The mine and the submarine have put an end to the system of naval
-blockade as practised by St. Vincent and Cornwallis. No fleet can now
-lie off, or within striking range of, an enemy’s port. Battleships
-cannot be risked against submarines, acting either as torpedo craft
-or mine-layers, nor against swift destroyers at night. That is the
-explanation of the situation which has arisen in the North Sea. The
-blockade is necessarily of a distant kind. There are no places on
-the British coasts where the Grand Fleet could be located, except
-those in which it lies and from which it issues to sweep the North
-Sea periodically. The first essential is to control the enemy’s
-communications, which is done effectively at the North Passage—between
-the Orkneys and Shetlands, and the Norwegian coast—and at the Straits
-of Dover. If the enemy desired a final struggle for supremacy at sea,
-with all its tremendous consequences, he could have it. But he can be
-attacked only when he is accessible. “There shall be neither sickness
-nor death which shall make us yield until this service be ended,” wrote
-Howard in 1588. That is the spirit of the British Navy to-day. But,
-then, the Spanish Armada was at sea. It was not hiding behind its shore
-defences. Be it noted that the Germans, thus hiding themselves, enjoy
-a certain opportunity of undertaking raiding operations in the North
-Sea. It is not a difficult thing to rush a force of destroyers on a
-dark night against some point in an extended line of patrols and effect
-a little damage somewhere. What advantage the Germans hope to gain by
-such proceedings is difficult to discover.
-
-The magnificence of the work of the British patrol flotillas and
-the auxiliary patrols must be recognised. In the North Sea these
-are subsidiary services of the Grand Fleet. Day and night, in every
-weather—in summer heats and winter blasts and blizzards, when icy
-seas wash the boats from stem to stern and the cold penetrates to the
-bone—these patrols are at work. The records of heroism at sea in these
-services have never been surpassed, and England owes a very great deal
-to the men who came to her service. The mercantile marine has given its
-vessels to the State, from the luxurious liner to the fishing trawler,
-and officers and men have come in who have rendered priceless services.
-The trawlers have carried on their perilous work of bringing up the
-strange harvest of horned mines by the score. The patrol boats have
-examined suspicious vessels, controlled sea traffic, and watched the
-sea passages. The destroyer flotillas have been constantly at work and
-ready at any time to bring raiding enemy forces to action. The Royal
-Naval Air Service has never relaxed its activity and has engaged in
-countless combats.
-
-It has sometimes been wondered why the Grand Fleet did not take some
-aggressive action: Why did it not attack the North German sea coast,
-or rout out the pestilent hornets’ nest of Zeebrugge, which the enemy,
-by internal communications impregnable to sea-power, had provided with
-the most powerful guns, besides defending it by great mine-fields? This
-matter requires to be examined. Naval history abounds with evidence
-that to attack coast defences is not the proper or even the permissible
-work of warships. It is the business of military forces, though naval
-forces may often assist, and even give the means of victory. Moreover,
-what was once possible is not possible now. Would Nelson have attacked
-the French Fleet at the Nile if it had lain under the powerful guns
-of these days, and behind mine-fields, through the secret passages of
-which submarines could have issued to destroy him? It would be absurd
-to compare Nelson’s attack upon a line of block-ships and rafts at
-Copenhagen, covered by a few forts armed with old smoothbores, to an
-attack upon coast positions defended by modern guns.
-
-When old Sir Charles Napier was in the Baltic in 1854 he was denounced
-at home because he did not destroy Kronstadt or Helsingfors. He rightly
-refused to play his enemy’s game by endangering his ships. Captain
-(afterwards Admiral Sir) B. J. Sulivan, who was with the fleet, put the
-situation quite clearly in a letter written at the time. A military
-operation was really required then, as it would be now, to accomplish
-such a task.
-
-  We know that two guns have beaten off two large ships with great
-  loss. Had Nelson been here with thirty English ships he would
-  have blockaded the gulf for years, without thinking of attacking
-  such fortresses to get at ships inside. Brest, Toulon, and Cadiz
-  were probably much weaker than these places.... I suppose there
-  will be an outcry at home about doing nothing here, but we might
-  as well try to reach the moon.
-
-But the Navy has never left the Belgian coast secure from attack. It
-has never lost its aggressive spirit. It has attacked from the ship
-and the air. The seaplanes of the Royal Naval Air Service spotted for
-the guns when the monitors were bombarding. Bombs have repeatedly been
-dropped on Ostend, Zeebrugge, and the places in the rear. When the guns
-were silent there were reasons for it. A conjoint naval and military
-expedition was required. The enemy began to feel his hold on the coast
-precarious. Continued operations by sea and land might compel him to
-relax his grasp. Ships may not attack places defended by big guns,
-mine-fields, and submarines and destroyers issuing from secret passages
-through them, but it is certain the British naval offensive will never
-be paralysed.
-
-Such is the magnificent work of the British Navy in blockading the
-German Fleet, molesting the enemy’s coast positions, and controlling
-his communications with the oceans.
-
-The commercial blockade, by which the enemy’s supplies and commodities
-are cut off and his exports paralysed, is too large a subject to be
-dealt with here. The object is to bring the full measure of sea-power
-to bear in crushing the national life of the enemy. It is vital but
-“silent” work of the Navy, and does not lend itself to discussion
-or description. Questions of contraband and the right and method of
-search, which arise from the blockade, caused discussions with the
-United States before the States came into the war. The only object
-of the British Navy and the Foreign Office was to put an end to the
-transit of the enemy’s commodities, and to do so with the utmost
-consideration for the interests of neutrals, and complete protection
-for the lives of the officers and crews in their ships and in the
-examining ships. For these reasons neutral vessels were taken into port
-for examination, safe from the attentions of the enemy’s submarines.
-One great hope of the Germans was that the neutrals would become more
-and more exasperated with England. They remembered that the war of
-1812 arose from this very cause. But they were completely disappointed
-in all such hopes, and they themselves, by interfering with the free
-navigation of other countries, brought the United States into the war
-against them.
-
-The blockade work of the examination service and of the armed boarding
-steamers has been extremely hazardous. It has called for the greatest
-qualities of seamanship, because conducted in every condition of
-weather and when storm and fog have made it extremely perilous to
-approach the neutral vessels—which, moreover, have sometimes proved to
-be armed enemies in disguise. Hundreds of vessels have been brought
-into port by the Navy in those northern waters. Sleepless vigilance
-has been required and the highest skill of the sea in every possible
-condition of the service, while the seaman has become a statesman in
-his dealings with the neutral shipmaster. It has been for the Navy to
-bring the ships into port, and for other authorities to inquire into
-their status and to take them before the Prize Court if required.
-
-The German High Sea Fleet having failed, the submarine campaign was
-instituted, and began chiefly in the North Sea. It has never answered
-the expectations of its authors. It has not changed the strategic
-situation in any degree whatever. Great damage has been inflicted upon
-British interests, and valuable ships and cargoes have been sunk, and
-officers and men cast adrift in situations of ruthless hardship. The
-tale of the sea has never had a more terrible record, nor one lighted
-by so much noble self-sacrifice and unfailing courage.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-SWEEPING THE ENEMY FROM THE OCEANS
-
-        Far flung the Fleet then,
-          Freeing the seas,
-        Clearing the way for men,
-          Merchantmen these.
-        Sinking or flying,
-          Broken their power,
-        The enemy dying
-          Left England Her dower.
-
-                    _J. L._
-
-
-In the foregoing chapter some reference was made to the campaign of the
-German raiding cruisers and armed liners against British and Allied
-commerce in the distant waters of the Atlantic and Pacific during the
-early months of hostilities, and before we go any further this aspect
-of the war must be discussed. One object of the enemy was to lead to
-a scattering of British naval strength, but in this he was wholly
-disappointed. The distribution of the British Fleet remained unchanged,
-and the great numbers of swift cruisers and armed liners, which had
-been apprehended as presenting a formidable menace to commerce, made
-but a feeble appearance. The commerce-raiding campaign gave rise,
-however, to a good deal of alarm at the time, though it surprised no
-one who understood the means made available by the scientific and
-mechanical developments of modern naval warfare, and who had studied
-them in the light of history.
-
-The interruption or destruction of the enemy’s commerce has always
-been one of the objects in naval warfare. British floating commerce
-offered a very large target, and the swift German cruisers, directed by
-wireless telegraphy and supplied by friendly neutrals, were at work on
-the lines followed by shipping, making it inevitable that there should
-at first be considerable losses to the Allies. Admiral Mahan thought
-that the British total losses in the long wars of the French Revolution
-and Empire did not exceed 2½ per cent. of the commerce of the Empire.
-The Royal Commission on the Supply of Food in Time of War expressed the
-opinion that 4 per cent. would have been a more accurate estimate.
-
-[Illustration: A DRIFTER AT SEA: LOOKING FOR SUBMARINES AND MINES]
-
-[Illustration: A DRIFTER LAYING ANTI-SUBMARINE NETS.]
-
-German cruisers, destructive as a few of them were, did not inflict
-losses amounting to anything like the figures of the old wars.
-In those contests of power, notwithstanding the depredations of
-commerce-destroying frigates, British oversea trade grew, while that
-of the enemy withered away. If the enemy captured ten British ships
-out of a thousand the loss might be considered serious, but if the
-British frigates captured ten out of the enemy’s hundred the injury
-inflicted was ten times more effective. Towards the end of the long war
-with France very few French traders were captured because scarcely any
-ventured to sea, while the French continued to capture English ships
-up to the very end of the war, ten years after their fleet had been
-destroyed at Trafalgar. The loss by capture and sinking was at the
-rate of 500 ships a year, and even in 1810, 619 English ships were lost.
-
-In the present war the German commerce-destroying campaign, by means
-of cruisers and armed liners, though very effective at the beginning,
-collapsed with great rapidity. Hostile action against trade has never
-before been so rapidly brought under control. Steam, the telegraph,
-and wireless have enormously increased, as compared with the sailing
-days, the thoroughness and efficiency of superior sea-power. Difficulty
-of providing for coal and oil supply, the want of naval repairing and
-docking bases, and, above all, the immense superiority brought quickly
-to bear by the combined naval forces of England, France, and Japan,
-aided by the Australian Navy (auxiliary to the British, to which it
-belonged), within a comparatively short time caused the whole of
-German commerce to disappear from the oceans. Soon not a single ship
-remained—trader, cruiser, or armed liner—as a target, except that
-such isolated raiders as the _Möwe_ might offer rare opportunities of
-attack. This failure of the Germans seemed the more remarkable because
-they had long recognised the floating commerce of England to be her
-Achilles’ heel. Prince Bülow described it as such. They had expressly
-reserved, at The Hague Conference, the right to convert merchantmen
-into cruisers on the high seas to serve as commerce-destroyers. They
-used this right in some instances, as in that of the _Cap Trafalgar_,
-which was sunk in single-ship action by the British converted liner
-_Carmania_. Yet this procedure proved of no effect in the war.
-
-It would be a great mistake to regard the German cruiser campaign
-against commerce apart from the general distribution of German warships
-and the means taken to supply them with their requirements. The writer
-is inclined to the belief that the impotence of the Germans in distant
-waters shows that their Navy was not ready nor effectively prepared
-for the war. The great expenditure on the High Sea Fleet proved
-unavailing. The submarine boats did not exist in any considerable
-number. Only about twenty-seven or twenty-eight of them were completed
-in August, 1914, of which about a dozen were of early experimental
-type, fit only for local use, and the programme provided only for the
-building of half a dozen in each year. The German Navy possessed not
-more than a couple of big airships, and a few effective aeroplanes.
-The cruisers on foreign service were scattered about the world without
-plan. The battle-cruiser _Goeben_ and the light cruiser _Breslau_
-had been detached in the Mediterranean during the Balkan War, and,
-according to the Greek White Book, Turkey having entered into alliance
-with Germany on August 4th, the two cruisers fled to the Dardanelles
-in conformity with orders received from Berlin. The Germans were
-apprehensive as to their safety, and their naval authorities never
-intended to leave them in their dangerous situation of isolation in an
-Italian port. The business of controlling and directing the operations
-of the commerce-destroying cruisers and armed liners, and providing
-their supplies, was admittedly dexterously arranged by the agency
-of wireless, mainly through the means placed at disposal by German
-sympathisers in the United States, the States of Southern America, and
-other neutral countries, though nothing they did could withstand the
-steady pressure of sea-power.
-
-The most considerable German force in distant waters was the East Asian
-Squadron, under command of Admiral Count von Spee. It was located
-at Kiao-Chau, and its principal elements were the armoured cruisers
-_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_. Sooner or later this squadron was
-bound to be defeated, as its commanding officer fully realised. The
-Japanese declared war on August 23rd, and the fleets of Admiral Baron
-Dewa and Admiral Kato were stretched out to blockade and intercept
-him; but he extricated himself very dexterously, crossed the Pacific,
-defeated Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock off Coronel on November 1st,
-rounded Cape Horn, and was himself defeated with the loss of his whole
-squadron in the battle of the Falkland Isles on December 8th. One of
-his cruisers, the _Emden_, which had escaped the Japanese, made a great
-noise in the world. Her captain was a very capable and also a very
-gallant officer, who bombarded oil tanks at Madras, sank the Russian
-cruiser _Jemtchug_ and the French destroyer _Mousquet_ at Penang, and
-sent to the bottom seventeen British vessels, representing a value of
-£2,211,000, besides three sent into port. The _Emden_ was destroyed
-by H.M. Australian cruiser _Sydney_ at the Cocos-Keeling Islands on
-November 8th. The _Karlsruhe_ sank vessels representing a value of
-£1,662,000.
-
-It is not the purpose here to describe the depredations and ocean
-wanderings of the other German cruisers or auxiliary cruisers. The
-object is to show how, by the all-compassing pressure of naval power,
-they were successively destroyed. It would be folly to deny that there
-was something defective in the disposition of the British naval forces
-at the beginning. Admiral von Spee was at large, with two powerful
-armoured cruisers, but Sir Christopher Craddock was left in inferior
-force off the coast of Chile. The obsolescent battleship _Canopus_,
-which had inferior speed, was to join him, but did not reach him in
-time. The Australian battle-cruiser _Australia_, which would have been
-an extremely valuable aid to Craddock’s squadron, did not pursue the
-German squadron across the Pacific.
-
-Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher returned to the Admiralty as First
-Sea Lord on October 29th, 1914, and at once set about to use the
-naval instrument he had been so largely instrumental in creating.
-In dead secrecy and with incredible speed a force was prepared
-and dispatched. Admiral Sturdee had with him the magnificent
-battle-cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, the armoured cruisers
-_Kent_, _Cornwall_, and _Carnarvon_, the light cruisers _Bristol_ and
-_Glasgow_, and the armed liner _Macedonia_. The battleship _Canopus_
-was already at Port Stanley. Before anyone knew he had left England, he
-arrived at the Falkland Islands on December 7th, after having steamed a
-distance of 7,000 miles. The German Admiral was known to be approaching
-with the object of utilising the islands as a base. He arrived on the
-next day, but was taken by complete surprise, though he was conscious
-of impending fate, and his squadron ceased to exist.
-
-This was one of the master-strokes of the war, made with lightning
-rapidity. Strategy was seen in action, and thenceforward the control
-of the ocean was secured. There remained the business of rounding
-up the enemy cruisers which were still preying upon shipping on the
-routes of commerce. Cruisers of sufficient force were dispatched, with
-instructions to remain at certain rendezvous, each forming a base upon
-which lighter cruisers could fall back, or to the support of which
-they could proceed. The lighter vessels cruised on specified curves or
-lines of search, and in this way a network was spread over the oceans
-comparable to a spider’s web. Thus in due course every enemy cruiser
-and auxiliary was intercepted, or, conscious of the toils which were
-spread for her, abandoned her task and sought safety in the internment
-of a neutral port. The Grand Fleet in the North Sea was the master of
-the situation, and made possible the decisive blow which was struck at
-enemy power in the oceans.
-
-Thenceforward the enemy was impotent in every sea. Not a man could
-he send afloat to bring aid to his colonies and protectorates. His
-distant possessions collapsed like a house built of cards. No means
-had he to interrupt the transport of troops which have brought about
-the darkening of every German “place in the sun.” “_Deutschland ist
-Weltreich geworden_,” it was said. But distant possessions are the
-ripe fruit which falls into the lap of the ultimate sea-power, and
-the _Weltreich_ exists no more. By means of sea-power it has been
-destroyed. The submarine is an effective weapon within its sphere,
-but no victory has ever been won by evasion, and no sea-power can be
-exercised by stealthy craft which hide beneath the surface of the sea.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-THE GRASP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN[B]
-
-SEA- AND LAND-POWER
-
-        Others may use the ocean as their road,
-        Only the English make it their abode;
-        Our oaks secure, as if they there took root,
-        We tread on billows with a steady foot.
-
-                    _Edmund Waller_, 1656.
-
-
-It is important next to consider the situation in the Mediterranean,
-where sea-power is of momentous importance to the Allies. In those
-historic waters the fate of many nations has been decided. They are a
-vital link and the highway of the British Empire. Between Gibraltar
-and Port Said two thousand miles of British welfare lie outrolled. To
-France, with her great possessions in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunis,
-the importance of this sea highway is supreme. She must, in this war
-and at all times, traverse its waters or she will be undone. Italy
-has won a great position In the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and
-she would wither away and perish if either fell under enemy control.
-Trieste is her object, and she has proclaimed a protectorate over
-Albania the better to establish her power in the Adriatic, and she has
-her new possessions in the Libia Italiana of Northern Africa. From
-the operations in the Mediterranean we shall learn something more of
-the relation of sea-power to land operations, and of the limitations
-of that power, and we shall see the allied navies of England, France,
-Russia, Italy, and Japan in co-operation. We shall know why the enemy
-made a great submarine stroke in the Mediterranean when everything else
-at sea had failed.
-
-[B] See Map II., at end of book.
-
-The French battleship squadrons were concentrated in the Mediterranean
-before the war. The cruiser squadron in the Channel, like David against
-Goliath, was willing to encounter even the whole German High Sea Fleet;
-but the French had been assured of British co-operation, and all danger
-was forestalled. In the Mediterranean the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ had
-come west, and had bombarded Bona and Philippeville; but the French
-Admiral, going south from Toulon, was on their heels, and they fled to
-the east again, running the gauntlet of the British squadron on their
-way to join the Turks.
-
-They had intended to raid the French transports at sea. At this
-time the French were bringing their troops from Algeria and Tunis,
-amounting in all to nearly 100,000 men, with guns, horses, mules,
-stores, ammunition, hospitals, tent equipment, and all the requirements
-for field service, to join the main army in France. It was a great
-responsibility for the French Navy, increased many-fold when troops
-began to come from their eastern possessions through the Suez Canal.
-
-Failure would have meant disaster. But the whole of the transport work
-was managed without the loss of a man or a horse, and was a wonderful
-success. It could hardly have taken place with so much security if the
-British squadron had not been in the Mediterranean, and not at all if
-the Grand Fleet had not held the German High Sea Fleet fast in its
-ports by the blockade in the North Sea. From that time forward for many
-months, until the Italians came into the war, on May 23rd, 1915, the
-French squadron was employed in neutralising the Austro-Hungarian Fleet
-in the Adriatic, which did not dare to move. The blockading squadron
-was extended across the Strait of Otranto, with occasional sweeps to
-the northward, to control hostile operations, if possible, at Cattaro
-and along the Dalmatian coast up to the approaches to Pola, where
-the submarine _Curie_ was entangled, and lost to the Austrians. The
-French base for these operations was at Malta, but an advanced base
-was established in the island of Lissa. The blockade was completely
-successful in checking every effort of the Austrians to strike at the
-stream of transport in the Mediterranean, though it could not avail
-to save Montenegro or hold back the Austrians in their advance into
-Albania. No fleet can operate beyond the range of its guns, unless its
-flying officers carry their bombs into inland countries.
-
-The blockade maintained through the winter at the Strait of Otranto
-was exceedingly arduous and filled with peril. Enemy destroyers and
-submarines were at work, issuing from the wonderful island fringe of
-the Dalmatian coast, and the French knew their peril. The armoured
-cruiser _Léon Gambetta_ was sunk by submarine attack, with the loss
-of Rear-Admiral Sénès, who was in command, and every officer on board,
-as well as nearly 600 men. The armoured cruiser _Waldeck-Rousseau_
-suffered damage by torpedo, and the new Dreadnought _Jean Bart_, with
-Admiral Boué de Lapéyrère, the French Admiralissimo of the combined
-fleets, on board, was touched, though only slightly injured. There
-were other submarine attacks and losses of small craft, and some
-losses were inflicted upon the enemy. British cruisers were attached
-to the French Flag during these operations, and they continued to
-co-operate with the French and Italians in Adriatic waters and in the
-Ægean, where the French and Allied naval forces were the guard of all
-the operations at Salonika and in the Piræus. Fleets and armies have
-co-operated in the Mediterranean from the very beginning of the war. In
-May, 1917, the British monitors, which, with the converted cruisers,
-had been operating with the military expedition against the Turks and
-Bulgarians, appeared in the Adriatic, and rendered valuable aid to the
-Italians in their advance towards Trieste. The naval coalition has been
-a marvel of effective organisation.
-
-German professors have sometimes said that the land would sooner or
-later beat the sea—that “Moltke” would become the victor over “Mahan.”
-That is the convinced opinion of the Pan-Germans, who say that the
-railway will yet prove the more rapid and the more secure means of
-transport than the steamship. The lines from Antwerp by Cologne to
-Vienna, and from Hamburg to Berlin, and thence through the very heart
-of Europe to Vienna, and on by Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople,
-and from the opposite shore of the Bosphorus to Baghdad and down to the
-Gulf, and by a branch through Persia to the confines of India, were to
-give commercial and, perchance, military command of two continents.
-Enterprise by the branch railway through Aleppo and Damascus against
-Egypt, with a view to further developments in Africa, was related to
-this conception of land-power. The measures adopted by the Allies for
-the reconstitution of Serbia, the expeditions to the Dardanelles and
-Salonika, the strong action taken in Greece, the naval movements on the
-coast of Syria, the operations in the Sinai peninsula and Palestine,
-and the expedition from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad were the answer to
-these gigantesque projects of the enemy.
-
-Behind them all lay the working of the fleets. Every class of ship and
-almost every kind of vessel employed in naval warfare has been used in
-one or other of these operations—the battleship, cruiser, destroyer,
-torpedo-boat, submarine, mother ship, aeroplane, aircraft-carrier,
-mining vessel, river gunboat, motor launch, mine-trawler, armed
-auxiliary, special service vessel, transport, store ship, collier,
-oiler, tank, distilling ship, ordnance vessel, hospital ship, tug,
-lighter, and a crowd of other craft. All these are required for the
-work of the Navy in the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, and they have been
-employed with a quality of seamanlike skill, enterprise, resource,
-courage, and success such as the history of the sea has no previous
-record of. The appearance at the Golden Horn of a British submarine,
-which had traversed a Turkish mine-field, was the sign of new powers
-in naval warfare. We are lost in admiration of the self-sacrifice
-of officers and men, both of the regular naval service and of the
-mercantile marine and the fisheries, the latter being the heroes of
-the perilous work of mine-sweeping. The British and French navies,
-and the vessel representing the Russian Navy, acted in the closest
-co-operation, and all the naval forces worked in intimate association
-with the armies.
-
-Where there was failure, the failure was due to the inevitable
-limitations of sea-power, which has already been suggested with
-reference to the North German coast, Zeebrugge, and the Montenegrin and
-Albanian coasts. The history of the Dardanelles expedition will not be
-written here. Beginning with a bombardment of the entrance forts on
-November 3rd, 1914, which had little other effect than to stimulate
-the defence, continued after an interval of months by the great naval
-attacks in March, 1915, in which enormous damage was done to the forts
-at the entrance and, to some extent, at the Narrows, but with the loss
-of British and French battleships by the action of gunfire and drifting
-mines, the enterprise concluded with the landing of the Allied armies
-in the Gallipoli peninsula. The troops were compelled by outnumbering
-forces and concentrated gunfire to withdraw. The combined attack should
-have been made at the beginning. The unaided naval attack had merely
-stimulated the defence. Here was the greatest demonstration of which
-there is record of the limitation of sea-power. In the attack of such
-a military position naval forces are essential, but military operations
-are required if the desired success is to be attained.
-
-This is true of all the operations in the Mediterranean and elsewhere.
-Sea-power gave the means by which the army drove back the Turks from
-Egypt, and it was the support of the advance in Sinai and Palestine.
-It gave protection to the transports which carried troops and Army
-requirements to Salonika and the Piræus, patrolling the routes or
-providing convoy for the ships. The enemy realised his opportunity, and
-his submarines began to develop great activity in the Mediterranean.
-Certain transports were sunk and an attempt was made to cut the
-communications of the expeditionary forces with their base. Some
-considerable losses were suffered thereby, but gradually systems were
-developed which gave a reasonable sense of security. The British,
-French, and Italian flotillas were employed, and that of Japan came to
-their aid. Never had such naval co-operation been witnessed before.
-We cannot separate the advance in Mesopotamia from the Mediterranean
-operations because the same object inspired both—viz., that of
-arresting the threatened development of German commercial and military
-power, through Asiatic Turkey to the Persian Gulf, and through Persia
-to the borders of India. The first advance to Kut-el-Amara and
-Ctesiphon proved disastrous because undertaken with inadequate means;
-but the Navy rendered brilliant service, and, in the second advance, a
-sufficient river flotilla of gunboats and transports made possible the
-advance to Baghdad and beyond. The naval flotilla co-operated with
-most excellent effect in this advance, played havoc with enemy’s craft,
-and recaptured H.M.S. _Firefly_, which had been lost in the retreat
-from Ctesiphon.
-
-Thus we see the Navy operating in the great central theatre of war and
-on its outlook to the East, exerting influence, transporting troops,
-forming the base of armies, and everywhere proving an essential factor
-in all that was done. It was confronted in the Mediterranean, as
-elsewhere, with the new weapon of the submarine in very active form.
-That menace, and the campaign against it, shall be the subject of the
-next chapter.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-DEALING WITH THE SUBMARINES
-
-        My name is Captain Kidd,
-         Captain Kidd.
-        My name is Captain Kidd,
-         Captain Kidd.
-        My name is Captain Kidd,
-         And wickedly I did;
-        God’s laws I did forbid,
-         As I sailed.
-
-                    _Old Nautical Ballad._
-
-
-Having seen the British Fleet and the fleets allied with it operating
-in the North Sea, the Oceans, and the Mediterranean, we may suitably
-turn to some special features of the duties and work of the Navy in the
-war. The submarine came as a sign and a portent of new developments
-in the means and the practice of warfare at sea. Regarded once as the
-weapon of the weaker Power, it was adopted into the naval armoury of
-the strongest. When, in 1901, under Lord Fisher’s administration as
-First Sea Lord, a beginning was made in submarine construction by
-the ordering of five Holland boats, many people were taken aback.
-Confessedly the part to be played by the submarine lay at that time
-in the realm of speculation, but the British Navy could not afford to
-ignore it. Every advance must be watched and studied as it developed.
-The development has been rapid, and there are British submarines
-of astonishing powers, which have no equals in the world. They have
-made their mark in many a theatre of war. The French had led the way.
-The Germans followed in 1906. There is, indeed, the best reason to
-believe that Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, chief of the Navy Department,
-looked with no kindly eye upon submarine boats. He was a believer in
-battleships and the creator of the High Sea Fleet, with its battle
-squadrons and cruiser divisions. Concessions were made to the Admiralty
-Staff, and a few submarines were put in hand; but it was not until the
-beginning of the war that Tirpitz became inspired with the fervour of
-the convert.
-
-Even now the relative position of the submarine in the category of
-warships is obscure. Admiral Sir Percy Scott thought that the knell
-of the battleship had been rung by its growing power; yet ships of
-the battleship class, carrying incredible armaments, possessing speed
-beyond the dreams of _ante-bellum_ naval constructors, and infinitely
-superior for a dozen reasons to anything the Germans had thought of,
-have recently been completed, and will probably play a decisive part in
-any future naval engagement.
-
-[Illustration: FLEETS IN ALLIANCE: BRITISH AND ITALIAN SHIPS IN THE
-ADRIATIC]
-
-[Illustration: ON BOARD THE “QUEEN ELIZABETH” AT MUDROS]
-
-But if the submarine has not dethroned the battleship, she has, in
-the hands of the enemy, done other remarkable things. She has struck
-a mortal blow at what many excellent people have hitherto regarded as
-the settled and accepted code of International Law; she has appeared
-as a pirate commerce-destroyer. Without warning and without pity
-she has sunk fishing vessels, tramp steamers, stately liners, and
-hospital ships. The code of honour is not observed by her. The
-German submarine officer has orders to run no risks, although in the
-old wars naval officers—who had no means of submerging either to attack
-or to escape—gladly ran every risk incidental to the service in which
-they were engaged. When the _Lusitania_ was sunk it was explained that
-if the commander of the submarine had permitted the passengers to take
-to the boats before firing his torpedo, “this would have meant the
-certain destruction of his own vessel.” There was no evidence that such
-would have been the case, but the risk, which implied a danger merely
-incidental to naval service, was held to justify the sinking of the
-great liner with 1,200 souls on board. The wildest imagination could
-not have conceived that any human being could take such a distorted
-view of right and wrong, and of the plain duty of the seaman.
-
-The submarine has accomplished other remarkable things in the war.
-She has converted benevolent neutrals into resolute enemies. She has
-brought the United States into the war in support of the Allies. She
-has transformed the mercantile marines opposed to her into actual
-fighting forces. A few merchant ships were armed before the war began,
-but now, because of ruthless submarine attack, the British mercantile
-marine is for practical purposes embodied with the Navy, in the sense
-that it is under naval control, is provided with means of defence,
-and acts directly under naval orders. Moreover, one-half or more of
-its shipping has been taken over by the naval service. The same is
-true of the merchant ships of the Allies. The German submarine has had
-a further effect. She has created a whole array of means directed
-to her destruction. Countless inventors have been set at work, and
-extraordinarily ingenious methods have been employed with the purpose
-of putting an end to submarine activities by sinking every boat as she
-appeared.
-
-In the early days of the submarine it was believed that she might be
-sunk by using spar torpedoes fixed in swift boats, which would bear
-down upon the submarine as she submerged and explode the charge against
-her hull. But it soon occurred to seamen that if a swift vessel,
-destroyer or other, could run down a submarine she might more easily
-sink her by the impact of her sharp stem or a special keel. This method
-has been practised in the war, and by this means a number of enemy
-submarines have been dispatched to Davy Jones’s locker. There was an
-early case in which a certain destroyer, going at high speed, actually
-impaled a German submarine on her stem, and carried her onward, so
-injured that she sank. Another early case was that of the German
-submarine rammed and sent to the bottom off Beachy Head on March 28th,
-1915, by the _Thordis_, commanded by that plucky skipper, Captain Bell,
-who set an example to many.
-
-Another plan was to use suitable vessels in pairs, each pair dragging
-a cable connecting them, from which hung, on short lines, small mines
-to be electrically exploded when a submerged obstruction, probably a
-periscope or conning-tower, put a tension upon the connecting cable.
-The disadvantage of this system was that the entrapping vessels could
-not travel swiftly without bringing the cable near to the surface,
-and the chance of a submarine fouling the cable was remote. Yet it may
-be conjectured that the features of this system may have furnished
-the germ of procedures now in use. Capture or sinking by the use of
-nets was also an early idea, probably suggested by the nets used by
-big ships at anchor for protection against torpedoes, and Admiral Sir
-Arthur Wilson devised a large steel net for the purpose. Possibly this
-method, too, has developed into the nets employed in dealing with
-enemy submarines at the present time. But submarines were continually
-increasing in strength of structure, speed, and handiness, so that new
-systems were necessary and have developed with the requirements.
-
-What the actual methods employed by the Navy are cannot be explained.
-When Mr. Frederick Palmer, the American writer, visited the Grand
-Fleet he asked how the thing was done, and officers said: “Sometimes
-by ramming; sometimes by gunfire; sometimes by explosives; and in many
-other ways which we do not tell.” M. Joseph Reinach also visited the
-Fleet, and said in the _Figaro_ that the submarine was pursued “by net,
-gun, explosive bomb, and other means.” Squadron-Commander Bigsworth on
-August 26th, 1915, destroyed a submarine off Ostend by dropping bombs
-upon her from his aeroplane, and there have been several other episodes
-of the same kind. When the first American transports were attacked in
-the Atlantic, bombs fitted with a short-time fuse were employed which
-burst at a determined depth below the surface of the sea.
-
-The Royal Naval Air Service plays a large part in the anti-submarine
-campaign. Its seaplanes are always scouting over our waters and sight
-enemy submarines from afar. Flying high, they can and do discover
-submarines navigating below the surface, and by wireless or other
-signals bring destroyers or other craft to the scene, where by special
-means submarines are destroyed.
-
-Probably gunfire is the chief means by which submarines are sent to the
-bottom. A German submarine may attain complete submergence from the
-cruising trim within about three minutes; but the time may be longer,
-if she has a gun mounted, wireless rigged, and other top hamper. From
-the awash position, in which her speed is reduced, she may submerge in
-about two minutes. A swift destroyer, knowing the position of such a
-submarine, may advance toward her, covering a nautical mile within two
-minutes, so that she has an excellent chance of coming within range
-and putting in shots with effect. Gunnery is carried to a high pitch
-of proficiency in the Navy, and one destroyer may be mentioned which
-knocked out the periscope of a German submarine at a range of over
-2,000 yards with her first round. There is nothing an enemy submarine
-likes less than to see destroyers tearing down towards her at high
-speed as she is getting in her gun, withdrawing her periscope, lowering
-her masts—often a disguise—and filling her tanks. Moreover, complete
-submergence may not be a sure protection for her if she is watched, for
-she may be destroyed by an explosive bomb.
-
-German submarines have also learned to fear armed merchantmen, which
-have not seldom used their guns with effect, sometimes compelling their
-assailants to submerge, and so evading their attack, and sometimes by
-obtaining direct hits. The _Dunrobin_ in September, 1916, carried on a
-lively action for some minutes, hitting her assailant in the vicinity
-of her conning-tower with a T.N.T. shell—thereby causing an internal
-explosion, from which dense smoke arose—followed by three common shell,
-each of them making a direct hit, after which the enemy suddenly
-plunged at a sharp angle, evidently going to the bottom. In March,
-1917, the _Bellorado_ was attacked by gunfire from a submarine, whereby
-her master, chief officer, and a seaman were killed, while her gunners
-put such shot into the assailant that she was silenced and manifestly
-disabled.
-
-Further it is not permissible to go on describing how submarines are
-accounted for. The catalogue of methods is a long one. There could
-certainly be no single and decisive weapon for the destruction of this
-new engine of warfare. There is no remedy for the effects of gunfire,
-and if submarines discover targets possible to be attacked they will
-certainly attack them. Some surprise was expressed that the British
-Admiralty did not at once suppress the submarine menace. When the
-submarine campaign began in February, 1915, it resulted in the sinking
-of a number of British merchantmen; but, having risen to its height, it
-declined, with fluctuations, until it was described as being “well in
-hand.” The methods employed had been successful. Then, after several
-months, the submarines began their depredations again, carrying them
-into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean with great violence. They also
-penetrated the Channel, though they never checked the great stream of
-transport for the armies between English and French ports, which the
-Navy was guarding with complete success.
-
-The reason for this recrudescence of submarine piracy was the intense
-energy which the Germans devoted to the production of standardised
-and powerful classes of submarines, whose parts were produced in
-many districts of the German Empire. The new boats were practically
-submarine cruisers, capable of high surface speed, which enabled them
-to overhaul slow merchantmen, and they were armed with powerful guns.
-The early enemy submarine carried a 1.4-inch gun, but a 2.9-inch
-12-pounder was provided. There is now reason to believe that the
-calibre has risen to 4.1 inches and, in the case of some of the
-more powerful boats, to 5.1 inches, these larger guns being shorter
-and lighter than the same guns mounted in cruisers. But obviously
-submarines of these classes, carrying on their work over wider areas
-and in distant places, will not be so easy to destroy as the smaller
-boats of the early submarine campaign, and this may account for
-the difficulty in providing a complete protection from the attack.
-Submarine sections have been sent overland and assembled at Trieste for
-the Adriatic and Mediterranean, and at Varna for use in the Black Sea,
-and also doubtless at the Golden Horn or in the Gulf of Ismid.
-
-There is much uncertainty about the future of the submarine. She
-exercises no command at sea, and she makes many fruitless attacks upon
-armed merchantmen; but she is dangerous, nevertheless. The British
-Navy has devoted exhaustless energy in applying every possible agency
-for dealing with hostile submarines, and its great success encourages
-the hope and belief that the scourge will yet be exterminated.
-Destroyers, motor launches, patrolling ships of many classes,
-seaplanes, observation balloons, and other craft are at work every day
-and many of them every night. But whatever element of uncertainty there
-may be as to the complete success of these agencies, there is none in
-the conclusion that the submarine will never bring England, still less
-her Allies, to the verge of famine or anywhere near it. Scarcity of
-food is not due so much to the submarine as to the great demand on the
-world’s supplies, and the enormous volume of shipping absorbed by the
-naval and military requirements of England and her Allies. The Navy,
-which has done such wonderful work in the war, is not and will not be
-ineffective against the submarine.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-THE NAVY AND THE MINE
-
-        They sink, they slink, they seek the boat,
-          Grisly horns stuck through their skin,
-        Ready to sink all things that float,
-          These villain boxes shaped of tin.
-          The fisher sees the death therein,
-        But reaches down with his long fling,
-          And grasps the chain that holds them in,
-        And draws the fangs they hoped would sting.
-
-                    _Anon._
-
-
-The British Navy fights for the great ideals of the people, acting upon
-the lines of old and loyal traditions; but, while doing so, it has
-encountered the desperate devices of the enemy, who has used the latest
-achievements of scientific and mechanical invention in such a manner
-as to overthrow many preconceived methods and accepted conventions of
-naval warfare. We have already spoken of the submarine. Now we shall
-see what the mine is, and how it is dealt with by the Navy and the
-services the Navy controls. It has been said, with much truth, that
-the essence of war is violence and that moderation in war is futility.
-It is also true, as we see, in the cruel operations of Zeppelins and
-bomb-dropping aeroplanes, and not less in the attacks of submarines,
-as directed by the Germans and their allies, that the non-military
-populations suffer the horrors of war in much greater degree than was
-the case in the wars even of recent times.
-
-But the Germans, at the very beginning of the war, outraged neutral
-sentiment by employing ostensible merchant and passenger vessels,
-flying neutral flags, and without giving warning to the neutrals, in
-the deadly work of scattering mines indiscriminately in the open sea
-on the main lines of trade. They acted in direct contravention of the
-rules of war as previously accepted. These disguised mining vessels
-had traversed the trade routes as if pursuing peaceful purposes, thus
-enjoying the immunities which had always been accorded to innocent
-neutral vessels, and yet they had wantonly endangered the lives of all
-who traversed the sea, whether neutral or enemy. The Admiralty were
-soon able to declare publicly that this mine-laying under a neutral
-flag, as well as reconnaissance conducted by trawlers and even by
-hospital ships and neutral vessels, had become the ordinary methods
-of German naval warfare. The later history of the war shows how far
-the Germans were prepared to go in casting off any restraint in their
-efforts to do injury to their enemies. They compelled the British
-Admiralty to adopt counter-measures.
-
-For years past the Germans had devoted unremitting attention to the
-study and practice of mining and the production of very powerful types
-of mines. In that respect they were undoubtedly ready. The state of
-war between England and Germany began at 11 p.m. on August 4th, 1914,
-and on the morning of the next day German mines were being laid on the
-east coast of England. The _Königin Luise_, a former Hamburg-Amerika
-liner of 2,163 tons, was caught in the act, off the Suffolk coast,
-and was sunk by the light cruiser _Amphion_ and the Third Torpedo
-Flotilla. On the next day the _Amphion_ herself, the first British
-warship destroyed in the war, fell a victim to the mines she had laid.
-This disguised mine-layer had initiated a practice, which has since
-been many times followed in the war, of throwing mines overboard in the
-track of pursuing vessels. It was resorted to by the retreating Germans
-in the battle of the Dogger Bank. Here it may be remarked that the
-Germans have always claimed the right to subject every consideration to
-their necessity to win, though at The Hague Conference of 1907, Baron
-Marschall von Bieberstein, the German delegate, said that conscience,
-good sense, and the duty imposed by the principles of humanity
-would constitute the most effective guarantee against abuse, and he
-proclaimed—“_je le dis à haute voix_”—that German naval officers would
-always fulfil “in the strictest fashion the duties which emanate from
-the unwritten law of humanity and civilisation.”
-
-Any technical description of German mines would be out of place here;
-but it may be said that generally they approximate to a spherical
-shape, and are provided with projecting “horns,” almost in the shape of
-drumsticks, concussion with which is calculated to break a small phial
-within, whose contents cause the detonation of the enormous charge of
-T.N.T. explosive. Each mine is provided with a sinker, which drops to
-the bottom, and is attached to the mine by a cable or sounding-line
-paid out by special mechanism to any desired length, whereby the mine
-may be kept at the intended depth below the surface. There are other
-types of mines, and in particular one of cylindrical form, containing a
-prodigious quantity of explosive and capable of the widest destruction.
-This has probably been used only in special situations. The ordinary
-mines can be laid with great rapidity by a specially fitted mine-layer,
-provided with rotary gear, bringing mine after mine along a special
-track to the dropping position. The drifting mines which the Germans
-at the very beginning of the war set afloat in the main trade route
-from America to Liverpool, _viâ_ the North of Ireland, can be laid with
-still greater rapidity.
-
-When mine-laying in British waters by surface boats was made extremely
-risky, or almost impossible, the Germans resorted to the employment
-of submarine mine-layers, one of which was exhibited in the Thames.
-Vessels of this class, so far as they are known, probably carry a
-maximum of twelve big mines in six shoots or air-locks, the lower mine
-in each shoot being released by means of a lever, after which the
-other drops into its place, ready to be let go in the same way. The
-boat exhibited in London and elsewhere was of a rough, rudimentary
-character, indifferently built, and her speed was probably not more
-than six or eight knots. Undoubtedly many of the submarine mine-layers
-are of better type. They are constantly at work especially on the east
-coast of England, and some losses have resulted; but the effect of
-their operations is nearly always overcome by the means adopted by the
-Navy.
-
-The first measure set on foot by the Admiralty was to organise a
-system of search for suspicious craft, and to declare the North Sea
-a war area, within which it was dangerous for any vessel to navigate
-except through channels indicated by the naval authorities. The Germans
-replied with their now famous and futile blockade order of February,
-1915. New regulations were issued from time to time regulating
-navigation through the British mine-fields, and the result has been, in
-association with the patrols, to exercise a very close supervision over
-the navigation in home waters. As to distant mining operations of the
-enemy, the First Lord of the Admiralty stated, on March 8th, 1917, that
-they had been carried very far, and the P. & O. liner _Mongolia_, sunk
-off Bombay on June 23rd, 1917, was not the only vessel mined in the
-Arabian Sea. From time to time it has been announced that mails for and
-from the East and Australia have been lost at sea.
-
-It is an inspiring thing to turn from this picture of mines and the
-scattering of them by the enemy to another picture—that of the gallant
-and successful manner in which the Navy, and the mine-trawlers and
-other vessels embodied in its service and employed in the ceaseless
-patrols, have grappled with the deadly menace of the mine. Ever
-patrolling the British coasts, ever facing death, often speeding
-to the help of vessels mined, torpedoed, or otherwise in distress,
-the glorious men who man these craft have inscribed their names in
-letters of gold on the roll of British honour and fame at sea. It was
-a marvellous thing, this embodiment of the vast mine-sweeping and
-patrolling service in the work of the Navy in the war. From all the
-coasts fishermen have come, with their trawlers converted from the
-craft of winning fish at sea, to the sterner work of bringing up and
-destroying the strange harvest of deadly mines which endanger all
-life at sea. Many a trawler has been sunk by contact with her fatal
-captures; others have been sunk by hostile fire and bombing by enemy
-aeroplanes, but never have the brave seamen quailed in the service of
-the country and the Allies, and in every port men are to be met whose
-craft have been sunk under them, and who have hastened to sea again.
-
-Hundreds of ships, drawn from the mercantile marine and the fisheries,
-steam yachts, motor boats, armed launches, and vessels of other
-classes, are employed in such dangerous work. They share the trials
-of war, wind, and weather with the regular naval patrols. Sir Edward
-Carson, when First Lord of the Admiralty, directed attention to the
-magnificent work of the mine-trawlers of these patrols. The force
-employed at the beginning of the war numbered about 150 small vessels,
-but increased to 3,000 or more. The whole nation should understand
-what mine-sweepers were doing. “The thousands of men engaged in this
-operation are the men who are feeding the whole population of this
-country, from morning till night, battling with the elements as well
-as the enemy, facing dangers under the sea. A mine-sweeper carries
-his life in his hands at every moment, and he does it willingly.”
-Later again he expressed his thanks and the thanks of the nation for
-the splendid work they had accomplished. Of all the seamen who had
-so deservedly earned the gratitude of the country none had had more
-arduous and dangerous duties to perform than the gallant fellows in the
-patrols.
-
-They have worked in reliefs day and night at sea, though sometimes
-driven to port by the fury of the elements, and they brave every kind
-of weather. As Admiral Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol, has said,
-with reference to the security with which thousands of merchantmen had
-passed through the waters in his control, “no figures could emphasise
-more thoroughly the sacrifice made by the personnel of the patrols and
-the relative immunity ensured to the commerce of their country.” They
-have trawled for mines not only in British but in distant waters. Their
-magnificent work under fire, and attacked by bomb-dropping aeroplanes,
-at the Dardanelles will never be forgotten.
-
-An American correspondent, Mr. Gordon Brace, who sailed in a
-mine-trawler to learn its work, concluded an article in the _New York
-Tribune_ in these words:—
-
-  I looked at those men who go out day after day; who wear their
-  lifebelts continuously; who take their tea on the decks while
-  they peer over the rims of their cups for the death that lurks
-  in those sombre waters. I thought how fine was their devotion
-  to their duty; how great a part they are playing in the war—out
-  there alone, where their deeds are attended with no sounding
-  of trumpets, where they give to their work the same quality of
-  bravery as is required of the man in the trenches. And as I
-  glanced at the inscription over the cabin, which read “England
-  expects every man to do his duty,” I knew that England would not
-  be disappointed.
-
-The practical methods by which the Navy and its brave mine-trawlers
-conduct their operations are of great interest, but description
-cannot go too far. The enemy is certainly well acquainted with all
-British methods previous to the war; but mine-sweeping systems do not
-stand still, but develop with the progress of armaments generally.
-Mine-trawling is developed from the system of trawling for fish, which
-before the war had reached a high degree of technical efficiency, and
-in the application of that system to their work in the war the men
-have attained great proficiency and become extraordinarily successful.
-The trawl-net varies in size with the dimensions of the vessel using
-it. An average size would be about 100 feet in length, with a spread
-of from 80 to 90 feet. The principal features in fishing trawlers are
-fore and after frameworks, with fairleaders, a towing-block, a powerful
-steam-winch, and towing-warps. A trawler would pay out hundreds of
-fathoms of heavy wire warp, the handling of which called for great
-skill and dexterity. It was not a very difficult thing to adapt this
-method of trawling to the sweeping for mines. The fishing trawler goes
-unaided, but in mine-sweeping the trawlers work in pairs, and the
-towing-warp is replaced by the sweeping-wire. Two trawlers, steaming
-abreast at a certain interval, drag a weighted steel hawser which, upon
-striking the mooring of a mine, brings the deadly catch to the surface,
-where it is exploded by gunfire from a destroyer or by rifle fire from
-an armed trawler or motor boat. The mine-sweepers have encountered
-perils and hardships which have never been recorded, and fishing
-trawlers pursuing their peaceful occupations have often incurred the
-same risks.
-
-Next after the destruction of the enemy’s fighting vessels comes
-the destruction of his death-dealing mines, and the mine-trawlers,
-confronted with an unparalleled task, attended with extreme peril, have
-rendered magnificent service to England and her Allies.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-THE NAVY AND ARMY TRANSPORT
-
-        What of the mark?
-          Ah! seek it not in England;
-        A bold mark, an old mark
-          Is waiting over-sea;
-        Where the string harps in chorus,
-        And the lion flag is o’er us,
-          It is there our work shall be.
-
-                    _Sir A. Conan Doyle._
-
-
-The stupendous and scarcely calculable operation of transporting
-by sea the enormous armies which are employed in many theatres of
-the hostilities is the index and measure of the greatest of all the
-triumphs of naval power in the war, namely, that of establishing and
-maintaining essential command of the sea. Against this bulwark the
-enemy’s naval forces have battled in vain. The submarine may, in some
-degree and in some circumstances, affect command of the sea, but it
-cannot exercise it.
-
-It is difficult to realise all that the transport of millions of men,
-organised as armies and provided with all that armies require, has
-meant to the Allies, or to bring home to ourselves a full sense of
-what the responsibilities of the Navy have been in safeguarding them.
-The armies of Frederick and Napoleon were pygmies compared with the
-vast hosts which are set in the field to-day. When Frederick invaded
-Silesia he had with him not more than 30,000 men. The motley army with
-which Napoleon invaded Russia—the greatest that had ever been brought
-under a single command—did not greatly exceed 600,000 on a liberal
-computation. Wellington in the Peninsula never commanded 50,000 men.
-But in March, 1916, Mr. Balfour, then First Lord of the Admiralty,
-said that 4,000,000 combatants had already been transported under the
-guardianship of the British Fleet, with 1,000,000 horses and other
-animals, 2,500,000 tons of stores, and 22,000,000 gallons of oil, for
-British use and the use of the Allies. In January, 1917, Admiral Sir
-John Jellicoe, First Sea Lord, said that over 7,000,000 men had been
-transported, together with all the guns, munitions, and stores they
-required. Six months later, when the United States troops began to
-arrive, the figure may be estimated to have reached 10,000,000.
-
-The victory of Germany would have been swift and decisive if the great
-armies represented by these figures had not come to the support of
-France. French troops from Northern Africa and the East also joined
-her brave army, because transport in the Mediterranean was secure. The
-great army of Russia could have made no offensive movement if she had
-not received the immense supplies of guns, munitions, motors, and other
-material which came to her from abroad. Because of British supremacy
-at sea and the shipping that consequently came there, Archangel, from
-being a sleepy harbour, developed into one of the busiest ports on
-the continent of Europe. Italy could have made no headway if many of
-the things she required had not come to her by sea. Greece would have
-remained permanently on the side of the enemy if sea-power and the
-troops transported there had not rallied her to the Allies. The German
-colonies would not have been occupied if fleets had not carried to them
-the troops for their subjection. England, by virtue of sea command
-guaranteed by her Fleet, has gathered her armies from India, Canada,
-Australia, New Zealand, and from every colony and possession, and
-has sent them to serve in France, Belgium, Greece, Gallipoli, Egypt,
-Palestine, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, and Africa. Not a soldier has gone
-afloat but a seaman has carried him on his back.
-
-Before we can appreciate this aspect of the work of the Navy in the
-war, we must gain some idea of what is implied by the military service
-of these armies in the field. It is not enough to dispatch armies.
-They must be maintained and supplied. The communications of an army
-are vital to its operations, and the communications of all the armies
-that England is employing are by sea, and are guarded by the Navy.
-It would not be an easy thing to estimate the vast requirements of
-fighting forces; but that is unnecessary. They are on an infinitely
-greater scale, in proportion to the strength of the troops employed,
-than in any previous war. Guns are far more numerous and much heavier
-than they were. The expenditure of ammunition has gone beyond all
-anticipation, and a real fleet is required for its transport. Horses,
-mules, many descriptions of heavy and light ordnance and ammunition for
-them, warlike and general stores of innumerable kinds, aeroplanes,
-balloons, the gigantic “tanks,” hospitals and hospital requisites,
-clothing, food, forage, camp equipment, transport vehicles, traction
-engines, pontooning, railway, telegraph, building, and mining material,
-locomotives of many kinds, petrol, and a hundred other stores and
-things are necessary, and they must day and night be in transit,
-without rest or pause. It will illustrate the gigantic nature of the
-operation if we record that between November, 1916, and June, 1917,
-2,000 miles of complete railway track were shipped, with nearly 1,000
-locomotives, and other supplies by railway companies. Labour and work
-for a hundred different services have to be provided also. The United
-States and other countries have contributed enormous supplies, and,
-with the coming of the American Army, the volume of the ceaseless
-torrent—the veritable Niagara—will increase still more. History has no
-parallel for such operations.
-
-This vast business being the charge of the British Navy and of the
-navies allied with it, we see how great an object it must be of the
-enemy to strike at the lines of supply. That they have completely
-failed would appear almost miraculous, if we did not know that the
-reasons for the failure are altogether of a practical character. It
-was inevitable that there should be some losses when submarines and
-mine-layers were at work, but the destruction effected has been a
-mere fraction of the whole, and the influence upon the campaigns is
-entirely negligible. The Ministry of Munitions imports 1,500,000 tons
-of material every month. The most considerable loss due to attack
-has been in the matter of shell components, but it did not amount to
-more than 5.9 per cent. of the whole supply from the beginning of the
-submarine campaign up to June, 1917. The most serious disasters were
-in the Mediterranean, where submarines sank the French transports
-_Provence II._ and _Gallia_, engaged in the Salonika expedition, with
-the loss of about 1,600 lives. The enemy will certainly continue his
-efforts.
-
-Never was a more seriously planned attempt made than that of June 22nd,
-1917, when General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force was crossing
-the Atlantic. German submarines, in considerable force, made two
-attacks upon the transports, and on both occasions were beaten off with
-every appearance of loss. One submarine was certainly sunk, and there
-was reason to believe that the accurate fire of the American gunners
-sent others to the bottom. For purposes of convenience the expedition
-had been divided into contingents, each composed of troop-ships and a
-naval escort designed to keep off such raiders as might be met with.
-An ocean rendezvous was arranged with the American destroyers then
-operating in European waters, in order that the passage through the
-danger zone might be attended by every possible protection. There
-was reason to believe that the Germans had secret intelligence of
-the course taken by the transports to the rendezvous and of the time
-appointed for their arrival there.
-
-The first attack occurred at 10.30 p.m. at a point well on the American
-side of the rendezvous, in a part of the Atlantic which might have
-been presumed free from submarines. The heavy gunfire of the American
-destroyers scattered the enemy boats, and five torpedoes were seen.
-The second attack was launched a few days later, against the other
-contingent, on the European side of the rendezvous. Not only did
-destroyers hold the boats at a safe distance, but their speed resulted
-in sinking at least one submarine. Bombs were dropped firing a charge
-of explosive timed to go off at a certain distance under water. In
-one instance the wreckage covered the surface of the sea after a shot
-at a periscope. “Protected by our high seas convoy destroyers and by
-French war vessels,” said the Secretary of the United States Navy, “the
-contingent proceeded, and joined the others at a French port. The whole
-nation will rejoice that so great a peril has passed for the vanguard
-of the men who will fight our battles in France.”
-
-This incident illustrates the method of protection chiefly employed by
-the British Navy. When the original Expeditionary Force was sent to
-France, the Grand Fleet was in readiness if the High Sea Fleet should
-venture to issue to sea. Cruisers, destroyers, naval aircraft, and
-submarines were on watch and guard in the North Sea and the Channel,
-and the patrol was maintained, day and night, without intermission
-until the army had been effectively transported. The patrol was then
-organised upon a greater scale as the transport grew in volume. The
-Dover Patrol undertook a work of the highest importance, and was
-instrumental in holding off all destroyer attacks from the eastward.
-Cruisers, destroyers, armed motor launches, mine-trawlers and drifters,
-and other vessels have been constantly at work, and observation
-balloons and seaplanes have never ceased their vigil. The triumph has
-been complete, the enemy submarines have never penetrated the guard,
-and the Channel communications of all the armies in France have been
-made secure. There are certain features of this organisation which
-cannot be dealt with here. The same system has been carried into the
-Mediterranean and elsewhere, and the French, Italian, and Japanese
-navies have shared in the work.
-
-In this matter of transport protection the British Navy has rendered
-magnificent service to all the Allies. General Sir Charles Munro, after
-the evacuation of Gallipoli, said it was a stroke of good fortune
-for the Army to be associated with a service “whose work remained
-throughout this anxious period beyond the power of criticism or
-cavil,” and General Sir Ian Hamilton reported that “one tiny flaw in
-the mutual trust and confidence animating the two services would have
-wrecked the whole enterprise.” This is true not only of Gallipoli but
-of every place in which the Navy has been serving as the guard of the
-communications, and the base and support of the military forces.
-
-It will be understood that the Transport Department of the British
-Admiralty undertook a colossal work at the beginning of the war. It
-possessed the unrivalled experience gained during the South African
-War, 1899–1901, when about 275,000 men were dispatched and supplied
-with all army requirements over a distance of 7,000 miles of sea and
-land. Then there was no enemy afloat, but the operation was greater
-than any previously undertaken, and evoked the admiration of the world
-as a revelation of resource, energy, organisation, national spirit,
-good management, and business-like capacity. What will be said when
-the now incalculable work of the Transport Department in this war can
-be estimated and described? The inspection and selection of ships and
-the conversion of them for the accommodation of troops and horses was a
-great business. In 1899 it was estimated that a satisfactory transport
-should be capable of carrying a number of men equal to 25 per cent. of
-her tonnage. What is the rule now one cannot say. There are important
-considerations of ballasting, speed, coal consumption, and other
-matters in such business, and the removal or adaptation of existing
-fittings and the allotting of space for various purposes have occupied
-the Admiralty officers and officials.
-
-It was a business both of embarkation and disembarkation, on both sides
-of the Channel, and special provision was required for the wounded
-and sick. The Naval Transport and Embarkation Officers have had a
-very exhausting and anxious time in taking up, fitting, coaling, and
-otherwise preparing vessels for sea, and in giving orders for the
-movements of ships at the ports on arrival and departure, as well as
-in providing for the safety and expedition of all embarkations of men,
-horses, and stores, and arranging for docking and like matters. They
-merit the gratitude of the country and the Allies. It may be said
-that in all the naval and commercial ports of the United Kingdom,
-and in the French ports as well, work of this or like kind has been
-in progress uninterruptedly since the beginning of the war. It is
-strictly naval work, and was set on an excellent and satisfactory
-footing by the Admiralty; but, as the war progressed, and the pressure
-grew greater, imposing additional duties on the Transport Department,
-some matters dealt with by certain of its branches, and concerned with
-ship construction, modification, and repair, were placed in charge of
-competent civilians.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-THE NAVY THAT FLIES
-
-        Heard the Heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a
-                ghastly dew
-        From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.
-
-                    _Tennyson._
-
-
-From an account of the work of the British Navy in the war there must
-not be omitted some exposition of the gallant doings of the men of
-the Royal Naval Air Service. They have made their mark in the war,
-in every theatre of it, and no one can tell what part they will play
-before the struggle is at an end. Of some of their work very little is
-known. They render “silent” service, like that of the Navy to which
-they belong. They do not always carry on their duty alone. On occasions
-they participate in that of the Royal Flying Corps of the Army. They
-have been associated with the gallant French airmen, and the Americans
-come with a new burst of energy. The Germans know British naval airmen
-at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and in all the country behind those places;
-at sea also, when the German raiders return from their exploits; and
-on the West front of the Army, too, where they go at times far behind
-the line, spying out the land, taking number and note of the enemy,
-dropping bombs on his store and ammunition dumps, disturbing all
-his rearward services, and stirring up his aerodromes and the nursing
-places, where his fledglings, whom they call “quirks,” are taking to
-themselves wings and learning to fly.
-
-[Illustration: A FLEET MANŒUVERING AT SEA]
-
-[Illustration: THE CAPTURED GERMAN SUBMARINE MINE-LAYER UC5]
-
-The Royal Naval Air Service has lent its aid to the Italians, has
-provided unpleasant experiences for the Bulgarians, has dropped bombs
-on the Turks at Gaza and thereabout, has rendered good service in
-the Mesopotamian business, and was invaluable in “spotting” for the
-guns which destroyed the fugitive German cruiser _Königsberg_ in the
-jungle-clad reaches of the Rufiji River. From dawn to dusk these
-knights of the air have been flying in many parts of the world, and
-night-flying is their particular pleasure when there is great work
-to be done. Their “game book” is very full of astounding episodes
-of fighting which, in exciting experiences, put into the shade the
-thrilling narratives which for generations have delighted the hearts
-of boys. Few people know the sleepless vigil which the naval airmen
-keep all round the British coasts, constantly flying to keep watch upon
-the enemy, to spot his submarines, to discover his mine-fields, and
-to defeat any efforts he may make when transports are moving at sea.
-Such is an outline of the occupations and duties of the Royal Naval Air
-Service.
-
-There was an “Air Department” at the Admiralty before the war, and a
-Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps with its “Central Air Office,”
-its Flying School at Eastchurch, and seaplane and aeroplane stations
-at six places on the coasts, as well as airships at Farnborough and
-Kingsnorth. At the Royal inspection at Spithead of the great mobilised
-Fleet, just before the war, naval aeroplanes, seaplanes, and airships
-gave a fine display. Development was rapid, the Royal Naval Air Service
-came into independent existence, and there is now the Fifth Sea Lord
-at the Admiralty charged with the supervision of the Royal Naval Air
-Service, and representing it on the Air Board.
-
-Some of the most useful work of the Royal Naval Air Service is in
-“spotting” for the guns of the warships. Its officers made a methodical
-photographic survey of the coast from Nieuport to the Dutch frontier
-early in the war to assist the monitors which were then bombarding
-the coast, and to observe and correct their fire. They worked from a
-height of about 12,000 feet, constantly observing the development of
-the enemy’s gun emplacements, all in despite of hostile aeroplanes and
-shells. That survey has been continued, and the result is the finest
-thing in aerial cartography which has ever been achieved.
-
-It will illustrate this part of the special work of the seaplanes if we
-describe how they began, which we are enabled to do by a lively-witted
-official scribe, who examined the records of their operations, and has
-given his impressions:—
-
-  “I can’t see where they’re pitching,” said the Navy-that-Floats,
-  referring to the shells of the monitors bursting twelve miles
-  away. “What about spotting for us, old son?” “That will I do,”
-  replied the Navy-that-Flies. “And more also. But I shall have to
-  wear khaki, because it’s done out here; by everybody, apparently.”
-
-  “Wear anything you like,” replied the Navy-that-Floats, “as long
-  as you help us to hit those shore-batteries. Only—because you
-  wear khaki (the Royal Naval Air Service does not usually wear
-  khaki) and see life, don’t forget you’re still the same old Navy,
-  as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
-
-  The Navy-that-Flies added “Amen,” and said that it wouldn’t
-  forget. Wherever its squadrons were based they rigged a flagstaff
-  and flew the White Ensign at the peak. They erected wooden huts
-  and painted them Service grey, labelling them “Mess-deck,”
-  “Ward-room,” “Gun-room,” etc., as the case might be. They divided
-  the flights into port and starboard watches, and solemnly asked
-  leave to “go ashore” for recreation. They filled in shell-holes
-  and levelled the ground for aerodromes; they ran up hangars and
-  excavated dug-outs—whither they retired in a strong silent rush
-  (the expression is theirs) when the apprehensive Boche attempted
-  to curtail their activity with bombs.
-
-Not all the good work of the Royal Naval Air Service in its
-co-operation with the Fleet comes into public notice. It rendered
-excellent service at the Dardanelles, the seaplane carrier _Arc Royal_
-being present. There were many fine achievements, including the bombing
-of a transport in the Straits by Flight-Commander C. H. K. Edmonds,
-R.N. Seaplanes may take the place of scouting cruisers, as the eyes of
-the Fleet, and relieve destroyers of some of their scouting duties.
-What would Nelson not have given for the help of seaplanes when he
-was crying out for frigates, and was groping for the French in the
-Mediterranean in 1798, and came unknowingly within a short distance
-of them; or, again, when, in 1805, they eluded him off Toulon?
-Intelligence of the movements of our enemy is of the utmost importance
-to officers commanding at sea, and this is the service which the naval
-airmen have been rendering.
-
-At the beginning of the war the Germans enjoyed an advantage in the
-possession of some dirigible airships, which sailed in calm airs,
-unimpeded, over the North Sea, surveyed its full extent, and reported
-what they saw to the German naval authorities. Their number rapidly
-increased. Thus the British Fleet was to a certain extent hampered in
-its operations. Now the situation is changed. The enemy’s airships
-know the peril of coming within range of anti-aircraft guns, and they
-dread the “hornets” which carry special means of setting them on fire.
-There are British airships, too, and observation captive balloons,
-fixed and towed, as well as seaplanes, maintained in adequate numbers.
-The seaplane played a useful part in the battle of the Jutland Bank,
-and craft of the class will astonish the enemy in any subsequent naval
-engagement.
-
-The dropping of bombs by the seaplanes or aeroplanes of the Royal
-Naval Air Service has become the most prominent of its activities.
-The machines are of great power, and, acting in numbers, they have
-been able to drop an enormous weight of bombs on the enemy positions,
-particularly in the districts behind the coast of West Flanders. Within
-the space of four or five months 70 tons of explosives were dropped
-on the German aerodromes in Northern Belgium. Brave naval airmen in
-July, 1917, from a height of 800 feet, dropped bombs on the _Goeben_
-and other enemy warships at the Golden Horn, and hit the Turkish War
-Office also. In this work the young officers—for the service demands
-youth—have given proof of exceeding keenness. It would be difficult to
-catalogue the expeditions of the naval airmen on the Belgian coast.
-They have assisted in most important operations.
-
-How far such work may be continued, to what range carried, or what will
-be the full effect, we do not know. The Navy-that-Flies will leave
-nothing undone that is capable of accomplishment. It has operated in
-association with the work of French flying men on many occasions, at
-the bombardment of Zeebrugge and elsewhere. It will find a powerful
-co-worker in the new and gallant allies who are bringing all their
-force to bear from beyond the Atlantic. The United States air service
-will develop with extraordinary rapidity, and its co-operation will be
-warmly welcomed by British naval airmen. So abundant is the confidence
-of Americans, so strong and virile their faith in themselves, that some
-of them look to the aeroplane to end the war. Rear-Admiral Bradley A.
-Fiske has demanded an immediate naval attack on the German fleet and
-submarine bases in the Baltic by a monster fleet of aeroplanes and
-seaplanes. He believes that the importance of naval aerial operations
-is not sufficiently realised by the Allies and that Essen may be
-destroyed by bombardment from the air.
-
-The field of speculation does not fall within the scope of this little
-book, the object of which is to illustrate the work of the Fleet and
-its associated services in all the theatres of war. The Royal Naval
-Air Service is still young, and has undoubtedly a great future.
-Already it has proved a valuable auxiliary. It has assisted in the
-important business of providing complete strategical observations. It
-has aided the work of the commercial blockade, in making more easy on
-many occasions the operations of the much-tried examination service.
-Undoubtedly the transport of the armies and their stores across the
-Channel and in many seas, which was the subject of the last chapter,
-would have been conducted with less certainty, and perhaps with less
-confidence, if it had not been for the active co-operation, as the
-eyes of the Fleet, of the naval flying men. The long-range gunnery of
-warships against permanent fortifications, both at the Dardanelles and
-on the Belgian coast, has gained in accuracy from the observation by
-the aircraft of the Navy.
-
-This subject might have been pursued further, but enough has been said
-to show that, among the agencies employed by the British Fleet in the
-accomplishment of the supreme duties which it exercises for the safety
-of the country and the support of the Allies, the Royal Naval Air
-Service holds an important place. It has evoked enthusiasm among its
-officers, who have maintained in a high degree, in many a battle in the
-air, the fearlessness, resource, and daring of the Naval Service to
-which they belong.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE NAVY
-
-        Sailor, what of the debt we owe you?
-          Day or night is the peril more?
-        Who so dull that he fails to know you,
-          Sleepless guard of our island shore?
-        Safe the corn to the farmyard taken;
-          Grain ships safe upon all the seas;
-        Homes in peace and a faith unshaken—
-          Sailor, what do we owe for these?
-
-                    _The late Viscount Stuart._
-
-
-No picture of the war work of the British Navy could be complete
-without some account of its officers and men. From what has already
-been said, the nature of the qualities demanded of them will have
-been realised. In the general direction of the Navy by the Admiralty
-there have been required calm reflection, profound insight, strategic
-imagination, sound and swift judgment as to the full use and the
-yet ill-understood limitations of sea-power, an abundant spring of
-action, and the unflinching resolution to give effect to the utmost
-to the striking and controlling force of the naval arm. In the
-Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet there was needed the high ability
-to administer and exercise the command, to inspire officers and men of
-every rank and rating in the Fleet with zeal, efficiency, and devotion,
-as well as sleepless vigilance in the long waiting for the enemy, and
-instant readiness for action at all times. The Commander-in-Chief does
-not work alone. He has a staff who collaborate in these duties and give
-effect to his plans; and admirals secondary in command, who have no
-light task in directing the work and operations of the larger elements
-of the Fleet. Sir John Jellicoe, who was appointed to the Grand Fleet
-at the beginning of the war, was a master of the high attainments
-required for his office, and it was he who created the base of his
-operations, organised all the agencies of his command, and exercised
-that command with consummate ability. The instrument he had shaped
-and handled so capably fell to the charge of Sir David Beatty, a most
-gallant officer, eminently fitted to use it, whose temperament is the
-very spirit of action, and yet who forms his plans in the mould of cool
-reflection. Happily for the British Navy, the fire of action is mingled
-in its officers with the ice of thought. They know when to strike, and
-when they strike they strike hard.
-
-Great responsibilities have rested on the captains of His Majesty’s
-ships. They showed in the Jutland battle, in which they were tried by
-the searching test of decisive action, that they possessed the ability
-to inspire and discipline their men, and to put forth the maximum of
-the fighting power of the ships. Officers in detached command away
-from the Fleet have rendered very great services. The junior officers
-are beyond praise. By universal testimony, their devotion, courage,
-and ever-ready professional skill, in every test of emergency and
-endurance, have never been excelled. The officers of the destroyers are
-men above price. The commanders of submarines, who have even carried
-their enterprise into the Baltic, and risked the perils of mine and gun
-in the narrow waters of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are officers
-who have won new laurels for the Fleet.
-
-The men of the lower deck, wherever they serve, give daily proof of the
-bravery, hardihood, cheerfulness, and long endurance which have always
-been the qualities of British seamen. Let Sir John Jellicoe speak of
-them as he knew them:—
-
-  Nothing can ever have been finer than the coolness and courage
-  shown in every case where ships have been sunk by mines or
-  torpedoes; discipline has been perfect, and men have gone to
-  their deaths not only most gallantly, but most unselfishly. One
-  heard on all sides of numerous instances of men giving up on
-  these occasions the plank which had supported them to some more
-  feeble comrade, and I feel prouder every day that passes that I
-  command such men. During the period of waiting and watching they
-  are cheerful and contented, in spite of the grey dullness of
-  their lives.
-
-It would not be difficult to single out instances from the records of
-the war of constructive power in thought, and sound and swift judgment
-in action, as well as of splendid courage, enterprise, dash, and
-resolution—call it what you will—in the crisis of battle and in moments
-of stress, exhibited in a manner rarely exampled in naval warfare. The
-British Fleet has been rich in the mental endowments of its officers,
-showing them to possess grasp and insight, and moral force, to dominate
-hesitation and sustain action in the tremendous emergencies of battle
-and when confronted with the most formidable responsibilities.
-Excitement has never carried them away. Judgment has worked through all
-their endeavours as, in the long watches and waiting, it has sustained
-them.
-
-Eulogy is not required. Nothing that has been said exceeds the
-merits of officers and men. It is right that these things should be
-understood. The man is more than the machine, and the finest fleet and
-most compete material equipment are dead and inert without the living
-power of the officers who command, and the men who man the ships and
-vessels of every class. It is they who have done and are doing the work
-of the Navy in the war. They, and not their ships, have given security
-to the British Isles, have kept the seas and oceans open for the
-Allies, have safeguarded every interest afloat, and have worked and are
-working, day and night, to defeat the purposes of the enemy.
-
-We now turn to a consideration which is of paramount importance for
-a right understanding of the Navy’s work in the war. England is the
-support of all her Continental Allies. If she should suffer or lose
-her power of supplying them with armies and arms, or should weaken in
-her offensive, the Allies would collapse. This is a fact of primary
-importance. The Germans realise it fully. They hesitate at nothing in
-their efforts to strike at England. They publicly declared that they
-would reduce her by famine. They struck at her mercantile marine, not
-merely at ships which were armed and engaged in the naval service
-in such large numbers, but at the ordinary cargo vessels, including
-neutral vessels carrying British supplies, and at fishermen pursuing
-their regular avocations, who, under The Hague Conventions, were,
-with their boats, tackle, rigging, gear, and cargoes, to be exempt
-from capture, and still more from destruction. Of the officers and
-men of these services we must speak also. It became necessary, in the
-conditions which had arisen, to bring the whole mercantile marine under
-naval direction and orders, and practically it is embodied with the
-Navy, and provided for the most part with armaments for defence, and
-closely in touch with a great protective organisation.
-
-When Mr. Balfour was First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking in the
-House of Commons on March 7th, 1916, he directed special attention to
-this aspect of naval work, not merely to the service of ships flying
-the White Ensign, but to that of transports and of merchant and cargo
-vessels, and their officers and men, conveying imports and exports,
-and the supplies required by the Allied armies. “On them,” he said,
-“we depend, not less than on our armed forces, for maintaining the
-necessary economic basis upon which all war must ultimately be waged.”
-There were, as he said, thousands of officers and men whose ships had
-been sunk under them by mine and submarine, and yet who had cheerfully
-signed on again, and were not to be driven from their ancient heritage
-of the sea. England depends upon her mercantile marine for her national
-existence. To a great extent, her food and raw materials are in its
-charge; and it also brings without ceasing hundreds of thousands
-of tons of munitions of many kinds required by the Allies. When,
-therefore, we estimate the work of the Navy in the war, we must give
-to the merchant branch of the Sea Service the position it deserves, as
-an absolute and primary necessity to England and her Allies.
-
-The nobility of the work carried on by the officers and men of
-the merchant service and the fishermen, whether in armed ships,
-mine-trawlers, or cargo vessels, is a dominant note of the war. Their
-heroism has been conspicuous, and, as was stated by Admiral Sir Henry
-Jackson, when he was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, the facility
-with which they learned to carry out their duties as part of a trained
-fighting force was extraordinary. “The Allied nations,” he said, “owe
-them a deep debt of gratitude for their response, as well as for their
-indomitable pluck and endurance.” “There is no room in the Navy for
-anything but the most sincere admiration and respect for the officers
-and men of the mercantile marine,” said Sir John Jellicoe. They had
-practically become a part of the fighting force, sharing in the work
-of the Navy in the war, and their courageous conduct and unflinching
-devotion to duty have gained the testimony of naval officers
-everywhere, not only in the British service, but in the Allied navies
-which have come into contact with them. Of the magnificent service of
-the mine-trawlers we have spoken in a previous chapter.
-
-Let this chapter conclude with an appeal to England and her Allies to
-remember the great and enduring services of British seamen. They do
-not often speak of one another. Sometimes, as by a flash, as when Sir
-John Jellicoe wrote of his men, the truth is revealed. It was that
-taciturn old officer, Sir John Jervis, who said of Troubridge that he
-had “honour and courage as bright as his sword.” The torch is handed on
-from one officer to another. There are many qualities among them. The
-fire of Drake meets the resolute gravity of Blake; the long reflection
-of Kempenfelt is the foil to the fierce glow of Nelson. The tradition
-is continuous. Sir John Jellicoe could find no words to do justice
-to his officers and men in the day and night actions of the Jutland
-Battle. The glorious traditions of the past were worthily upheld. Sir
-David Beatty showed his fine qualities of gallant leadership, high
-determination, and correct strategic insight. Great qualities were
-manifested by every rank and rating. Down in the engine-rooms, seeing
-nothing of the battle, men were working like Titans, and some ships
-reached speeds which they had never before attained. This was great
-service for England and her Allies.
-
-There is sometimes a tendency to forget—to lose proportion, also—in
-censuring seamen for not doing what the power of the sea alone can
-never achieve. Howe was burned in effigy in London almost at the very
-time when he was fighting his glorious battle of Quiberon Bay, braving
-the perils of rocks which were charted and known, and not, be it
-noted, of submarines and mines which are invisible and unknown. As the
-sarcastic songster wrote at the time:
-
-          When Hawke did bang
-          Monsieur Conflans,
-        You sent us beef and beer;
-          Now Monsieur’s beat,
-          We’ve naught to eat,
-        Since you have naught to fear.
-
-And so Nelson spoke. “I will only apply,” he said, “some very old lines
-wrote at the end of some former war:
-
-        “Our God and sailor we adore
-        In times of danger—not before!
-        The danger past, both are alike requited:
-        God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted!”
-
-Now, the object of this book is to show what are the services of the
-British Navy to England and to the Allies. Its influence has been
-visible throughout the world, working everywhere with unexampled
-success. It operates solely because of the qualities and sacrifices of
-its officers and men. To them a high tribute must be paid.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-WHAT THE BRITISH NAVY IS AND WHAT IT FIGHTS FOR
-
-        Where shall the watchful sun,
-            England, my England,
-        Match the master-work you’ve done,
-            England, my own?
-        When shall he rejoice agen
-        Such a breed of mighty men
-        As come forward, one to ten,
-          To the song on your bugles blown,
-              England—
-          Down the years on your bugles blown?
-
-                    _W. E. Henley._
-
-
-Antagonism between England and Germany became the central fact in the
-international situation many years before the war. There seemed to be
-a fundamental antithesis between the ideals of the two peoples. The
-freedom of the Englishman, guaranteed to him by sea-power, appeared
-effeminate and undisciplined weakness to the German; the freedom of
-the German, guaranteed to him only by the military strength of his
-autocratic State, was regarded as feudal dependence by the Englishman.
-Not to bring about a conflict, but to avert one—or, if the worst
-came to the worst, to engage in one with success—was the motive of
-British policy. There was no visible ground for German aggression, but
-deep-seated antagonism was the element of danger which successive
-Premiers and Foreign Ministers had had to take account of in appraising
-their country’s future, and, with the guidance of their colleague at
-the Admiralty, who based his judgment on that of his naval advisers,
-they had obtained the means to build up the Fleet, which was to be the
-country’s and Empire’s defence.
-
-[Illustration: A BRITISH SUBMARINE]
-
-[Illustration: JOURNALISTS ON BOARD A MONITOR]
-
-Armageddon was foreseen, though there was hope against hope that, in
-the great crisis, the dire struggle might be averted. It was known
-that Belgium and France would have need of England if the dogs of war
-were let slip. Many soldiers and writers had pointed out that Belgium
-would become the inevitable pathway of aggression. German writers had
-declared it an injury that the Congress of Vienna had not established
-Germany on the North Sea, and Arndt had expressed the ardent desire
-of the German heart to reconquer the great western rivers, implying
-the domination of the seas. There were dangers in these lesser
-countries. They were full of possibilities. _Qui trop embrasse mal
-étreint._ Belgium would cry aloud for English help. As to Italy, it
-was difficult to believe that she could hold to her compact with the
-Central Powers. Russia, it was known, would be against them. Thus in
-all her naval efforts, long before the war, England, while guarding
-her own interests, was working and building up her naval strength, in
-conscious knowledge of the duty she might one day have to her friends
-who have now become her Allies. This is a very important point, and it
-leads to a brief survey of great sacrifices and unstinted efforts which
-Englishmen have made in the past.
-
-The Fleet that went into the war was the most powerful, best organised,
-and best equipped in every essential particular in the world. Yet,
-for a very long anterior period, Englishmen had remained unconscious
-of what they owed to the Fleet. They had fought brilliant campaigns
-in China, Afghanistan, India, Burma, the Crimea, Abyssinia, and
-elsewhere, in which the Navy was a most essential factor, though it
-had scarcely appeared in the public eye. It was therefore from a low
-ebb that the British Navy rose to the high-water mark of the war. It
-was not until about the year 1882 that the tide began to turn, driven
-forward by the lively breeze of a very useful agitation, in which the
-late Mr. W. T. Stead took a prominent part, and which is believed to
-have been inspired by the present Lord Fisher and the late Mr. Arnold
-Forster. A great shipbuilding scheme was put in hand in 1889. Ever
-since that time, under far-seeing First Lords and First Sea Lords of
-the Admiralty, the task of asserting British naval supremacy has gone
-forward. Expenditure on the Navy mounted from £31,000,000 in 1901 to
-£51,500,000 in 1914, which latter was thought a monstrous figure; but
-it was not a penny too much for the great interests which had to be
-safeguarded.
-
-Battleships of increasing power, cruisers of many classes, destroyers,
-submarines, and auxiliaries were built. Lord Fisher came to the
-Admiralty as First Sea Lord in 1904, and during the subsequent six
-years an enormous work was carried on. The battleships culminated
-in the Dreadnoughts—that class of ships with a main armament of all
-big guns—the cruisers in the battle-cruisers, destroyers grew more
-numerous and of much greater power, submarines were developed in range
-and sea-keeping qualities. None of these types have stood still. The
-Dreadnought developed into the Super-Dreadnought, and the latter has
-developed into the ships of powers before undreamed of, which no one
-has yet described. The submarine has been changed out of recognition,
-and no one suspects what these British vessels can and will do when
-“The Day” really comes.
-
-All these mechanical developments of the Fleet, which are so essential
-at the present time, grew out of the impetus given in and after the
-year 1904. But that was not the only thing which placed the country
-in such a position of advantage at the beginning of the war. The
-battle-fleet and cruiser squadrons had been reorganised to coincide
-with the needs of the Empire, owing to the shifting of the stress of
-naval power from the Atlantic and the Channel to the North Sea. Some
-squadrons in distant waters were reduced in strength to correspond
-with the requirements, and non-fighting ships—vessels too weak to
-fight and too slow to run away—were brought home from distant seas,
-and their officers and men were made available for modern ships. A
-system of nucleus crews was adopted for the reserve ships to facilitate
-mobilisation and to make sure that the ships would be really fit
-for sea. Before that time the whole Fleet had been pivoted on the
-Mediterranean, and a British warship was rarely seen in the North Sea.
-By progressive steps the naval front was changed from the South to the
-East. On the east coast of the United Kingdom destroyer and submarine
-flotillas were based on ports prepared for them. A great dockyard was
-erected at Rosyth, and all along the coast naval bases were developed,
-and every preparation was made for the possibility of war. These
-were developments of great significance, and the immense and growing
-strength of the British Fleet justified the French in concentrating
-their battle squadrons in the Mediterranean, and leaving at Brest and
-in the Channel only a division of cruisers, supported by flotillas.
-
-Fleets of warships are meant to fight when the need for fighting
-comes; but there was no affront to Germany, no cause for resentment or
-agitation, in the concentration of the main strength of the British
-Fleet in such places, and with such bases, that they could carry their
-power into the North Sea. Force attracts force in strategy as in
-physics, and the growth of the German High Sea Fleet at Wilhelmshaven,
-with the great sea canal thence to Kiel on the Baltic, inevitably
-brought about the British concentration. How magnificently advantageous
-was the position secured has already been shown. In an earlier chapter
-it has also been explained that by the strategic position occupied by
-the Grand Fleet, and the grip held on the entrance to the Channel at
-Dover, the North Sea became strategically a closed sea—a _mare clausum_.
-
-This fact, which is a fact of geography as well as of strategic
-concentration, has made the enemy restive and resentful. We are
-described as the “tyrants of the seas,” and the “freedom of the seas”
-became a catchword of the Germans. Every ruler who has felt the hard
-pressure of British sea-power, whether his name was Louis, or Napoleon,
-or Wilhelm, has, perhaps inevitably, taken this line in denouncing
-us to neutrals and endeavouring to array neutrals against us. In an
-earlier stage of the present war this was the consistent plea of
-German statesmen. But when they instructed their sea officers to sink
-the _Lusitania_ and many other ships, and when they threatened with
-disaster neutral ships which approached the British Isles, they became
-themselves the tyrants of the sea in a very real sense, and they thus
-arrayed the United States and other States against themselves, and
-brought a new Armada to strengthen the already superior British Fleet.
-
-The war is a fight for freedom. The British Navy is fighting, and glad
-to have the Allied navies fighting in co-ordination with it, for the
-liberation of oppressed nations and countries from military domination.
-Command of the sea implies no restriction of navigation. It exists only
-in war time. In time of peace the British Navy guaranteed the freedom
-of the seas, and will guarantee it again when the war is at an end. We
-cannot do better than quote on this question what that distinguished
-American writer Admiral Mahan said:—
-
-  Why do English innate political conceptions of popular
-  representative Government, of the balance of law and liberty,
-  prevail in North America from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of
-  Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific? Because the command of
-  the sea at the decisive era belonged to Great Britain. In India
-  and Egypt administrative efficiency has taken the place of a
-  welter of tyranny, feudal struggle, and bloodshed, achieving
-  thereby the comparative welfare of the once harried populations.
-  What underlies this administrative efficiency? The British Navy,
-  assuring in the first place British control and thereafter
-  communication with the home country, whence comes the local
-  power without which administration everywhere is futile. What,
-  at the moment when the Monroe doctrine was proclaimed, insured
-  beyond peradventure the immunity from foreign oppression of the
-  Spanish-American colonies in their struggle for independence? The
-  command of the sea by Great Britain, backed by the feeble Navy
-  but imposing strategic position of the United States, with her
-  swarm of potential commerce-destroyers, which, a decade before,
-  had harassed the trade even of the Mistress of the Seas.
-
-In concluding, therefore, we see how the British Navy, having served
-Great Britain and the British Empire so efficiently and so well in
-every interest and possession, fighting constantly against every
-stealthy device of the enemy, has served the Allies not less well and
-worthily. And we discover, too, that the Navy is ever friendly to
-neutral Powers, and that the command of the sea which it exercises in
-the war is the panoply of freedom and liberty throughout the world.
-
-[Illustration: I. THE CENTRE OF SEA POWER: THE NORTH SEA]
-
-[Illustration: II. THE GRASP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN—LAND AND SEA POWER]
-
-
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-  Publishers in America for HODDER & STOUGHTON
-
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-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
-preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
-
-Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
-quotation marks retained.
-
-Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
-inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
-
-Page 6: “If Nelson, in 1789,” should be 1798.
-
-Page 10: “by in Navy” was printed that way; probably should be “by the
-Navy”.
-
-Pages 11 and 29: Footnotes were unmarked in original, but have been
-marked as footnotes here.
-
-Page 66: “Nieuport” was printed that way; should be “Nieuwpoort”.
-
-
-
-
-
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