John Leyland

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 danger80 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. ”

“ 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 ever13 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 confronted74 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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;45 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 her30 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. ”

“ 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. ”