British Navy

“ Even in peace time we have shown it in that vast, well-oiled, swift-running, noiseless machine called the British Navy. But now our powers have risen with the need of them. The expansion of the Navy has been a miracle, the management of the transport a greater one, the formation of the new Army the greatest of all time. To get the men was the least of the difficulties. ”

“ Perhaps the first of the flashes as of lightning by which we have seen the drama of the past 365 days is that which shows us the part played by the British Navy. What a part it has been! Do we even yet recognize its importance? Have our faithful and loyal Allies a full sense of its tremendous effect on the fortunes of the campaign? On Sunday, August 2, two days before the dispatch of Great Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, we saw thousands of our naval reserve flying off by special boats and trains to their ships on our east and south coasts. ”

“ Nothing like the achievements of the British Navy has ever been witnessed in the history of war. Not even the most enthusiastic believer in sea power could have dreamed of such brilliant and striking successes; not even the most enthusiastic admirer of the British Navy could, in his most sanguine moments, have expected such results as have been attained. ”

“ In war the British Navy has three prominent duties to discharge. It has to protect our maritime trade, to keep open the communications between the different parts of the empire, and to prevent invasion. If we command the sea these duties will be discharged effectually. As long as we command the sea the career of hostile cruisers sent to prey on our commerce will be precarious, because command of the sea carries with it the necessity of possessing an ample cruiser force. ”

“ Thus the British navy riveted the Great Alliance by operations on a scale hardly imaginable, operations whose breadth and scope beggar all description, since they span the globe itself. As for the men and the spirit in which they work, let him sail on a battleship, a tramp, a liner, or a trawler, the British sailor is always the same, much as he has been since the world first took his measure in Elizabeth's days. ”

“ There are brutes among them, no doubt, but such German naval officers as I have met compare very favourably with their swaggering colleagues of the land service. German sailors are under no misapprehension as to the might and efficiency of the British Navy. It is not they who spread the tale of the British Fleet hiding in ports while German ships proudly sail the North Sea. It is not they who ask plaintively, “Will the British Fleet never come out?” ”

“ Aware that Britain’s navy was vastly superior to her own, and that the only hope for success in a great encounter would be when the British navy had been reduced, Germany kept her Dreadnoughts and other big craft safe in her harbours, contenting herself with sending out submarines to strike sudden blows at the British patrolling vessels guarding the seas. ”

“ It was a glorious moment in world-history when British, French, and Americans at last stood side by side. The American Navy led the way, joining the hunt for German submarines with a keenness whetted by having been held back so long. The Army followed, bit by bit, until two million men had gone to Europe, thanks chiefly to the British ships that took them there. The Nation backed both Army and Navy with vast sums of money, which it could so easily afford, and with patriotic work of every splendid kind. ”

“ I find there are many good men among us; for my own part, I have had full confidence of all in this ship; and once more beg to express my approbation of your conduct.
"May God, who has thus far conducted you, continue to do so; and may the British navy, the glory and support of our country, be restored to its wonted splendour, and be not only the bulwark of Britain, but the terror of the world. ”

“ The fact was that thousands of their trained seamen were hopelessly cut off from Germany by the British Navy. Nearly every German merchant ship outside of the North Sea or the Baltic was either taken by the British or chased into some neutral port from which it never got out. The crews were mostly reservists in the German Navy. They were ready for the call to arms. But they could not answer it. So new men had to be trained. Meanwhile the one good chance slipped away; for by the time these recruits had been trained the Grand Fleet had grown much stronger than before. ”

“ To suppose that a civilian First Lord is bound to be mischievous if he is energetic, and certain to be harmless if, in administering the navy as an instrument of war, he is a cipher, were errors just as great as to suppose that a seaman with a long, loyal, and brilliant record in the public service had put an evil enchantment over the whole British Navy because, fifty years before, he had been born a subject of a Power with which till now we had never been at war. ”

“ So far as fitness for battle depended on the officers and men of the Navy itself the Grand Fleet was as nearly perfect as anything could be. Sprung from the finest race of seamen in the world, trained for a longer time than any foreigners, and belonging to what everyone for centuries has known to be the first of all the navies, the British bluejackets formed the handiest crews you could have found in any age or country. ”

“ We are apt to forget when we see an elaborate machine, the immense quantity of mental and physical exertion it represents, the efforts of the united minds perhaps of many successive generations, and the labour of thousands of workmen. I propose briefly to trace the progress which the British Navy has made from age to age, as well as its customs, and the habits of its seamen, with their more notable exploits since the days when this tight little island of ours first became known to the rest of the world. ”

“ Previous to the Japanese-Russian War, ten years ago, the strategy of the British navy may be characterized as physical rather than mental, depending on a superior number of ships and men; those ships and men being of a very high grade individually, and bound together by a discipline at once strict and sympathetic. ”

“ The British navy, having very diversified services to perform during both peace and war, requires ships of various kinds and sizes. Its first and greatest requirement of all is that of line-of-battle ships in sufficient numbers to enable England to stand up successfully against any European naval force or forces that may threaten her or her empire. ”

“ We can contemplate that issue—and we know our sailors do so—with every confidence. In every single particular—in ships, in men, in moral, and in traditions—the British Navy is superior to that of Germany. Even without the powerful help we should receive from our French and Italian Allies, British control over the ocean highways is supreme. ”

“ Owing to a common origin and language, our navy has always followed the British navy, though at a somewhat respectful distance; and while it is true that in point of mechanical inventions we are ahead, in seamanship, navigation, and engineering on a par, and in gunnery and tactics not far behind, yet we must admit that in policy and in policy's first cousin, strategy, we are very far in the rear. ”

“ But even the best of men and ships will not make the best fleet unless trained and "tuned up" to act together; and here, in its combined manuoeuvres, lay the crowning glory of the vast Grand Fleet. One day a visitor was watching it fight a sham battle against an enemy firing big guns at long range, when up came a real enemy, in the form of a German submarine, much closer than the sham. Of course the visitor turned his glasses on the "sub" and on the destroyers racing after it, like greyhounds slipped from the leash. ”

“ The old and fighting British navy, whose representatives keep the seas today against the king's enemies, has been heard of once or twice during the present war, but for the most part preserves a certain aristocratic and dignified aloofness from the public gaze. There is, however, another and an older navy which comes and goes under the eyes of all, as it has done any time these three or four centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most important types of vessels composing the British Navy have now been described. There are many others—sloops, gunboats, transports, despatch-boats, coal ships, hospital-ships, etcetera, which need not be more than mentioned. What warships will be like in the future it is impossible to forecast, as will be seen from what has been already said. Improvements in armour and guns, as well in machinery, are ever being made, which may alter the present type of ship altogether. ”

“ They are not only splendid [Pg 12] fighting-ships, but they are well officered and manned."
Here is what Lord Reading, the British Ambassador to the United States said in the course of an address at the Yale 1918 Commencement:
"Let me say to you on behalf of the British people what a debt of gratitude we owe to your navy for its co-operation with us. There is no finer spectacle to be seen at present than that complete and cordial co-operation which is existing between your fleet and ours. They work as one. ”

“ As the British Navy in its influence on world policy inspired German ambitions, so German thoroughness in organization, when applied to the growing German Fleet, reacted upon the British Navy and gave it a new and vigorous life. ”

“ The watching fleets of the present day have none of the charm and change to occupy their mind which accompanied the sailing-ship navy, making and shortening sail, trimming sails, tacking, and wearing, necessary for cruising on the look-out. There were no air-vessels, mines, submarines, or torpedoes in the old days, no under-water warfare. The strain upon officers and men of the sea-going fleet in these days is terrific: nothing to occupy their thoughts as in the days of sailing-ships. ”

“ Any one who will contrast the British navy of to-day with the British navy as it might and would have been under the administration, say, of such a First Lord of the Admiralty as the present Duke of Somerset proved himself in every department of the naval service five-and-twenty years ago, will understand the recent outcry in England for a safer and more powerful fleet. ”

“ Only a well-considered leadership knows when it will use this thirst for action, and employ it in undertakings which keep the great whole in view. Our Navy, thank God, does not need to pursue prestige policy; the services which it has already rendered us are too considerable and too important for that.”
There is no occasion to quarrel with a word in this passage. The German admirals and captains in command of twenty-three or twenty-four of the most powerful ships in the world must certainly have been straining at the leash. ”

“ It is true that the British navy was maintained in strength, vigor and efficiency, but the navy was not an instrument of aggression nor even the guardian of exclusive paths for British commerce across the seas. ”

“ So, whether by sea or land or air, whether as warriors or as civilians, the people of Great Britain gave their united all to the noblest cause on earth. And, when the war ended, Great Britain had the biggest army as well as the biggest navy in the world—biggest not only in absolute numbers but also biggest in proportion to the whole number of men fit to bear arms. ”

“ When once men had found out how to make and use canoes they had also found out the third and final principle of sea-power, which is, that if you live beside the water and do not learn how to fight on it you will certainly be driven off it by some enemy who has learnt how to fight there. For sea-power in time of war simply means the power to use the sea yourself while stopping the enemy from using it. So the first duty of any navy is to keep the seaways open for friends and closed to enemies. And this is even more the duty of the British Navy than of any other navy. ”

“ First, the Americans failed badly on land against Canada, though they outnumbered the Canadians fifteen to one, and though the Imperial garrison of Canada was only four thousand strong. Secondly, the little American Navy gave the big British Navy a great deal of trouble by daring cruises on the part of small but smart squadrons against the British trade routes, and, as there were no squadron battles, by what counted for very much more than squadron cruises in the eyes of the world, five ship duels won without a break. ”

“ This means that the Navy, in spite of all its losses, became bigger than any other country's navy, mercantile marine, fishing fleet, river steamers, and all other kinds of shipping, put together, since the world began. When we add the British mercantile marine, British shipbuilding, the British fishing fleets, and all the shipping interests of the Empire overseas, we shall find that British sea-power of all kinds equalled all the sea-power of all the rest of the world together. Destroy that sea-power and we die. ”

“ We have become in fact an integral part of the British Navy. Admiral Sims is in general supervision of us, but we are directly in command of the British Admiral commanding the station. Of the U-boat situation, I may say little. There is nothing about which so much is imagined, rumored and reported, and so little known for certain. Five times, when coming through the danger zone, we manned all guns, thinking we saw something. Once in my watch I put the helm hard over to dodge a torpedo—which proved to be a porpoise! ”