High Seas Fleet

“ The whole of the shore and off-shore islands were full of big guns in strong forts—and remember that you can sink a fleet, though you can't sink a coast—while the waters were full of mines and submarines.
Moreover, in destroyers, which are as dangerous out at sea as they are round a base, the German "High Sea Fleet" began with no less than eighty-eight against the forty-two in the British "Grand Fleet." The British had so many narrow seaways to defend that they could not spare Jellicoe nearly enough light cruisers or destroyers. ”

“ Her special rôle in war-time will be to help in safeguarding the commerce of the British Empire on the high seas, to see that the corn-ships and the cattle-ships from across the Atlantic, on which the people of these islands depend for their existence from day to day, reach port without molestation by the 'corsair cruisers' of the enemy. It will be her duty to patrol on the trade routes far and wide, and chase off hostile ships at sight, or run them down and fight them. ”

“ Lacking U-boats, I was forced to adopt quite a different scheme; instead of making for the English coast and luring the enemy on to our line of U-boats before the actual battle took place, I had to make a widespread advance with torpedo-boats to take stock of the commercial traffic in the North Sea and capture prizes. The Fleet was to serve as a support to the light craft that were sent out. ”

“ By creating a fleet we strengthened our claim to sea-power, without which the Empire must wither away, we remained a thorn in the side of the British, and their ill-will was the constant accompaniment of our growth. The freedom of the seas, which we strove for in line with our evolution, England was never willing to grant, even if it had to come to a world-War on the point. ”

“ To that end we must work with unflinching devotion to get our ships perfectly ready in every respect, to think out and practise everything that can be of the slightest help and prepare for the day on which the High Sea Fleet will be permitted to engage a numerically superior enemy in battle for our beloved Emperor who has created this proud Fleet as a shield for our dear Fatherland, in full confidence in the efficiency whioh we have acquired by unflagging work in time of peace. ”

“ The nation readily understood this, especially when it was made clear to them that the Fleet had succeeded in keeping open those overseas communications on which the country was so dependent. This fact was specially brought into prominence by the destruction of our cruiser squadron off the Falkland Islands. ”

“ The Fleet was animated by one sole idea - we must and will succeed. Every single vessel, battleship, torpedo-boat, minesweeper, cruiser and airship, with their crews- all were permeated with the gravity and importance of this task which I impressed on officers and men on every occasion. New forces must be found which would undertake to complete the work, which threatened to be a failure when handled as hitherto by the Naval Staff and the Naval Cabinet. ”

“ Moreover, it is so important to increase the offensive powers of a fleet which is inferior in numbers by the employment of destroyers that these cannot possibly be dispensed with. If one compares, simply on a map, the position of a fleet which ventures into the Channel from the Heligoland Bight with that of a fleet making for the Heligoland Bight from the English coast - from the Firth of Forth, for example - the advantages and disadvantages of the prospects on either side are at once apparent. ”

“ On October 21, when the Note had been dispatched to President Wilson, the U-boats received orders of recall, and my Chief of Staff, Commodore von Levetzow, was commissioned to inform the Fleet Command in Wilhelmshaven of the course of the negotiations, and to take to them the order of the Navy Command: "The forces of the High Sea Fleet are to be made ready for attack and battle with the English Fleet." ”

“ Five boats had simultaneously reported that the enemy was retiring to the north, so it followed that the whole of Moon Sound must be clear of hostile craft; the enterprise was therefore abandoned. The damage that the large ships would probably have sustained from mines was out of proportion to anything that might have been gained by pushing on farther.
This completed the operations of the Fleet. The conquest of the islands attained by this co-operation of the Army and Navy represents a military achievement which was as unique as it was successful. ”

“ The whole organisation for holding the Fleet in readiness is directed towards affording every enterprise the greatest possible security, and towards leaving out of account those ships which have come to port for necessary rest. It is of great value to uphold this principle, because in the course of the U-boat campaign, upon which, in my opinion, our entire naval strategy will sooner or later have to be concentrated, the Fleet will have to devote itself to one task - to get the U-boats safely out to sea and bring them safely home again. ”

“ To supply the men for the new U-boats we had to draw to an even greater degree than before upon the existing personnel of the Fleet, and had to take the necessary steps at once for training the commanders and officers of the watch for U-boat service, for it took several months for them to become familiar with the technical apparatus of the boats and acquire the necessary skill in marksmanship. ”

“ The greater the number of steamers sunk the more likelihood there was that a transport would be sunk. We should more quickly attain our end with the U-boat campaign by keeping the blockaded area round England and the coast of France under the greatest possible pressure than by extending the blockaded area to include the American coast. ”

“ Chapter 15 - Activity of the Fleet During the U-Boat Campaign BESIDES the direct support of the U-boats which operated from home bases, the Fleet supplied almost the whole personnel required to commission the new boats. It was particularly important for the U-boats to have technical men who were well trained in seamanship. The commanders had to be officers who had sufficient experience to navigate and handle the boats without assistance in the most difficult circumstances. ”

“ The Fleet considered it its most important task to place all its strength at the disposal of the U-boats on their outgoings and incomings, so as to protect them from the dangers of this part of their voyage. Plenty more awaited them which they would have to cope with alone, once they were in their particular sphere of activity. This was essentially the point of view of the mine-sweepers; they suffered ever greater losses, yet did all that was possible to take upon themselves the main dangers that threatened the U-boats. ”

“ This first serious fight with large ships which the Fleet had had the opportunity of participating in proved that the fighting preparedness of the ships as regards the training of all on board was on a very high level, that the ships were handled in a correct and reliable manner, and that the serving of the guns, the signalling, and the transmission of orders from ship to ship during the fight, as well as the measures necessitated by leakages, had all worked admirably. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The outpost-boats were to form a support for the active protective craft in the North Sea, be sufficiently strong to meet a surprise hostile attack and always ready to pick up at sea any forces returning to harbour. ”

“ In the Jade there lay always in readiness a squadron of battleships, two battle-cruisers, a cruiser-leader of torpedo-boats, and a torpedo-boat flotilla; a scouting division of light cruisers were in the Jade and the Weser, a torpedo-boat flotilla in Heligoland harbour, half the ships of Squadron II in the Cuxhaven Roads, at Altenbruch; and, if sufficient torpedo-boats were available, another torpedo-boat half-flotilla was stationed on the Ems or in List Deep (at Sylt) - constituting approximately half the total forces of the High Sea Fleet. ”

“ First, the Auxiliary Cruisers, which are swift merchant liners quickly armed and manned by trained Reservists, who are mostly merchant seamen and fishermen in time of peace. These cruisers do scouting and escort duty, and sometimes have a hard fight with the enemy; though they are not strong enough for regular battles between great men-of-war. Secondly, the Supply Vessels of every size and every kind, which keep the Fleet supplied with food and fuel, munitions and repairs, and everything else a great fleet needs. ”

“ Observation by airships impossible owing to weather conditions. Mine-sweeping only carried out to small extent owing to heavy sea. Scouting Division IV takes over protection of operations in the west. In the course of the morning, the two barrier-breaking groups return from night voyage. No incidents. A boat of the North Sea outpost flotilla reports an enemy submarine; set the torpedo-boat half-flotillas at my disposal to search ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we must not enter the Age of Steam and Steel without taking another look at him, if only to see what a great part he plays in our lives and liberties by keeping the seaways open to friends and closed to enemies. Without the Handy Man of the Royal Navy the Merchant Service could not live a day, the Canadian Army could not have joined the other British armies at the front, and the Empire itself would be all parts and no whole, because divided, not united, by the Seven Seas. United we stand: divided we fall. ”

“ Cruisers are used in at least a dozen different ways. They scout. They attack and defend oversea trade. They "mother" flotillas ("little fleets") of destroyers, which are much smaller than themselves. They attack and defend the front, flank, and rear of the great lines of battle, clearing off the enemy's cruisers and destroyers and trying to get their own torpedoes home against his larger vessels. They are the eyes and ears, the scouts and skirmishers, the outposts and the watchdogs of the Fleet—swift, keen, sinewy, vigilant, and able to hit pretty hard. ”

“ Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught In schools, some graduate of the field or street, Who shall become a master of the art, An admiral sailing the high seas of thought, Fearless and first and steering with his fleet For lands not yet laid down in any chart. ”

“ All kinds of British sea-power did magnificent work in the war, whether building ships, sailing them with passengers and cargoes, or fighting them. The Navy and Mercantile Marine gained eleven million tons during the war, exactly half each. But as the Mercantile Marine lost nine millions sunk, it ended three-and-a-half to the bad, a terrible handicap in the race with the shipping of countries which, like the United States have made stupendous fortunes by the war, besides gaining enormously in shipping and oversea trade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great transatlantic greyhounds whose names evoke so many memories of holiday jaunts across the great ocean slip out of port and are seen no more of men. Vessels arrive at the ports of the seven seas with tales of wanton murder, of hairbreadth escapes. Boat crews drift for days at the mercy of the seas and are finally rescued or perish man by man. The square-rigged ship once more rears its towering masts and yards above the funnels of merchant shipping ”

“ Now that the last and most formidable of our enemies has acknowledged the triumph of the Allied arms on behalf of right and justice, I wish to express my praise and thankfulness to the officers, men, and women of the Royal Navy and Marines, with their comrades of the Fleet Auxiliaries and the Mercantile Marine, who, for more than four years have kept open the seas, protected our shores, and given us safety. ”

“ The coastline of the British Isles is more than twenty times as long as the North Sea coast of Germany, much easier to navigate and very much harder to defend—another advantage for the Germans. The Grand Fleet could not attack the German coast, which has only three good seaways into it, which has a string of islands off it, and which, difficult for foreign ships in time of peace, is impossible in time of war. ”

“ If you will observe well the spirit of the men of the Grand Fleet at a time when the German Fleet—based though it is in the Kiel Canal, where regular shore-leave is easy to arrange—is filled with unrest and threatened with mutiny, I think you will agree with me the keeping of the British sailor in a healthy state of mind and body, without once letting him verge on 'staleness,' is worthy to rank as an achievement with that of keeping the enemy off the seas. ”