Archibald Hurd

“ The fleet certainly stands to benefit by this comparatively long period of single command. It will feel the confidence born of experience in its distinguished leader, and he in turn, knowing exactly what his ships can do, need fear no check to his plans by unsuspected defects in personnel or material. Whatever the near future may bring, it is certain that the German navy will put forth its utmost effort to fulfil the hope placed in it by the nation, and those who anticipate a cheaply purchased naval victory for us are laying up a rude disappointment for themselves. ”

“ By the words, more than the acts, of those responsible for German naval policy, the other Powers of the world had been forced to expand and reorganise their naval forces. Germany had at great cost won for herself the position of second greatest naval Power in the world, but in doing so she had unconsciously forced up the strength of the British Fleet and dragged in her path the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, and to a limited extent, but only to a limited extent, her ally, Austria-Hungary. ”

“ The Carmania was the only merchant vessel to receive this honour. In notifying the Company of the presentation, the General Secretary of the Navy League stated that “the Navy League realises that while every unit of the fleet has rendered service in accordance with the best traditions of the Royal Navy, H.M.S. Carmania has been able to render herself conspicuous amongst her gallant comrades, and in accepting this souvenir, the Navy League trusts that you will recognise it as an expression of gratitude to the glorious fleet of which that ship was so distinguished a representative.” ”

“ So successfully has the British Navy done its work that many generations of Englishmen have grown up without hearing the sound of a gun fired in anger. Every other nation in Europe has heard the tramp of foreign soldiery in the lifetime of men still living and felt the pain and shame of invasion. ”

“ For the German Empire of to-day the security of its economic development, and especially of its world-trade, is a life question. For this purpose the German Empire needs not only peace on land but also peace at sea—not, however, peace at any price, but peace with honour, which satisfies its just requirements. ”

“ The survey of British naval policy in the years immediately preceding the war would be incomplete were no reference made to the fact, of which we were insistently reminded when hostilities opened, that sea power, even more than military power, must stand defeated from the very outset, unless it is supplemented by economic power. In the past the weakness of all democracies when faced by war has been apparent. However great the power on the sea, however formidable the military arm ashore, the real strength of a people lies in itself. ”

“ It is safe to say that all these vessels maintained in their new naval roles, not only the best traditions of the Cunard Company itself, but those of the Mercantile Marine of which they had once been so distinguished a part, and the British Navy of which they became not the least useful and honourable units. To the Carmania, indeed, fell the singular honour of being the only British armed auxiliary cruiser to sink a German war vessel in single armed combat ”

“ Preparation for war was never thought of. Why should it be? The French Navy had no aggressive designs, and was much below our own, both in material strength and in personnel, while the Russian Navy was partly confined in the Black Sea, the other part being in the Baltic. And so we, both officers and men, set out to have a good time. Our ships were kept up to yacht-like perfection as regards their paintwork, while their bright work shone like gold, and the road to promotion lay not through professional efficiency, but the state of cleanliness and splendour of one's ship. ”

“ Again in February, 1915, while Captain Dow was still in command of her, the Lusitania, on an eastward voyage, received a wireless message to the effect that enemy submarines were cruising in the Irish Sea. He received instructions to fly a neutral flag—a perfectly legitimate ruse—and having on board some 400 Americans, together with the United States mails, he decided to hoist the American flag. Having done so, he crossed the Irish Sea at full speed, without stopping to take up a pilot; steered straight for the Mersey, and once more brought his vessel home in safety. ”

“ As in Opposition he had been foremost in advertising our dependence upon the sea, so in office, as Minister responsible for the Army, he based all his schemes on the assumption that the British Army is the projectile of a supreme fleet, to be hurled oversea as soon as the naval authority is able to give guarantee of safe passage. It was in the light of this essential truth that the Expeditionary Force was organised, and the Volunteers converted into the Territorial Army. Mistakes were, no doubt, made; no man who avoids them can ever expect to do anything. ”

“ But he sees, too, that the Germany of Luther and Goethe, of Ranke, Liebig, Helmholz, and Mommsen, of Bismarck and Moltke, has become also the Germany of Krupp, Siemens, Rathenau, Ballin, and Gwinner; that the products of German industry, the fruits of an unexampled application of the discoveries of science to the processes of manufacture, have been carried by German ships to the remotest ends of the earth; that the material prosperity of his country has been advancing in every direction by leaps and bounds. ”

“ Nor can we forget that many of the officers and men, to whose resource, courage, and devotion this volume bears testimony, have joined the great silent army of the dead to whose exploits the freedom of conscience of every man and woman in the British Empire, as well as their state of material comfort, bear witness. ”

“ When he first advocated the construction of a big navy, the German people viewed his dreams with indifference and distrust. Shackled by a system of conscription in order to provide the Empire with its huge army, they asked what it would profit them if to the burden of a great army they added the vast expense of a fleet capable not merely of defending their coasts, but of operating on the offensive in distant seas. ”

“ Luncheons, dinners, and receptions filled the days over which the yacht racing extended, and when Sir George Warrender steamed out of Kiel to meet at a rendezvous at sea the British squadron, under Rear-Admiral Sir David Beatty, which had been visiting the Baltic ports of Russia, and the other squadrons which had been entertained by the peoples of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, every indication encouraged the belief that peace was more completely assured than at any time during this century. ”

“ In studying, therefore, the history of the naval development of Germany, and contrasting the high hopes which inspired the naval movement with the events which occurred on the outbreak of war, and in subsequent months, one is led to wonder whether, after all, the romance of the German Navy will not be regarded in the future, by the German people at least, rather as a great and costly tragedy. ”