by the activities of British submarines – so unhealthy, in fact, that the German attack upon the Gulf of Riga, which was to have led to the crushing of the Russian right wing and the advance upon Petrograd, ended in a dismal failure and the precipitate flight of the attackers. That they will be any more successful in the future is practically unthinkable. Stronger, both relatively and actually, than before the War, the British Navy calmly awaits “the day,” hoping it may soon come, when the Germans will stake their existence upon a last desperate effort to challenge that mastery of the sea the hope of which must be slipping for ever from their grasp.
It is only necessary to say a few words about the atrocious policy of submarine “frightfulness” which culminated in the sinking of the “Lusitania” and the deliberate sacrifice of the lives of some 1,200 innocent people who had nothing whatever to do with the War. That policy, the deluded German people were solemnly assured, was to bring Britain to her knees by cutting off supplies of food and raw material, and starving her into submission. It is worth noting in this connection that the Germans to-day are calling upon heaven and earth to punish the brutal English for attempting to “starve the German people” by a perfectly legitimate blockade carried out in strict accordance with the rules of international law. We heard nothing of the iniquities of the “starvation” policy as long as the Germans hoped to be able to apply it to us in the same way that they applied it to Paris during the war of 1870-71; it was only when they realised that the submarine policy had failed that they began the desperate series of appeals, directed especially to the United States, that they were being unfairly treated owing to Britain refusing to allow them the “freedom of the seas” – in other words, refusing to sit idly by while Germany obtained from the United States and elsewhere the food and munitions of which she stood, and stands, in such desperate need.
As a matter of fact, the German submarine campaign has not even succeeded in reducing appreciably the strength of the British mercantile marine.
Despite our losses, our mercantile marine is to-day, thanks to new building and purchases, but little weaker than when war broke out, while, so far as we can judge, the submarine campaign has failed to contribute in the slightest degree to the rise in food values which has imposed so great a burden upon large classes of people in our country. It has been in fact, a complete and absolute failure. It has cost us, it is true, many valuable vessels and many valuable lives, but as a means to ending the War it has achieved practically nothing. The policy of terrifying by murder has prospered no more afloat than it did ashore, while outside the ranks of the combatants it has done nothing but earn for Germany the contempt of the whole civilised world, to bring Germany within an ace of war with the United States, and to brand the German Navy and the entire German nation with an indelible stain of blood and crime.
The submarine policy was a policy which could have been justified only by complete success. It may suit the German Press, led by the nose by the Government, to tell the German people that hated England was being rapidly subdued by the efforts of the “heroic” murderers commanding the German U-boats. We know differently.
We have the authority of Mr Balfour for saying that the German losses in submarines have been “formidable,” and it has been stated – and not contradicted – in the House of Commons that no fewer than fifty of these assassins of the sea have met the fate which their infamy richly deserved. Unofficial estimates have put the number even higher. We shall not know the exact facts until after the War, but we know at least that the German people have at length awakened to an uneasy realisation of the fact that they have murdered in vain, and that they have covered themselves with undying infamy to no real purpose.
I do not suppose that knowledge sits very hardly upon their consciences; but even in Germany there must be people who are beginning to wonder what judgment the civilised world will pass upon them in the future, and how they are ever to hold up their heads again among civilised nations. And not even a German can remain perpetually indifferent to the judgment of the civilised world.
By every means which ingenuity could devise and daring seamanship could carry into execution Germany’s submarines have been chased, harried, and sunk, until, as we are informed upon reliable authority, the chiefs of the German Navy are finding it increasingly difficult to find and train submarine crews. And small wonder! No one questions the bravery of the German sailor, whatever we may think of his humanity. But, also, he is human, and not the superhuman being which the Germans imagine themselves to be. And when he sees, week after week and month after month, submarine after submarine venturing forth into the waters of the North Sea only to be mysteriously swallowed up in the void, one can understand that he shrinks appalled from a prospect sufficient to shake the nerves of men who, whatever their other qualities may be, have not been bred for hundreds of years to the traditions and the dangers of the sea. Small wonder that they quail from the unknown fate which for ever threatens them! Many sally forth never to return; others, more fortunate, on reaching home have a tale to tell which, losing nothing in the telling, is not of a nature to encourage their fellows.
It is said that a single voyage in a German submarine is enough so seriously to try the nerves of officers and men that they need a prolonged rest before they are ready to resume their duties. Imagine the conditions under which they live! Hunted day and night by the relentless British destroyers, faced ever by strange and unfamiliar perils and by traps of which they know nothing, it is hardly a matter of surprise if their nerves give way.
The War has given us the most wonderful example the world has ever seen of what sea power means. Thanks to their undisputed command of the ocean, the Allies have been able to carry on operations in widely separated theatres practically free from any of the difficulties which would certainly have proved insurmountable in the presence of strong hostile forces afloat. We and our Allies have been able to transport men and munitions wherever we wished without serious hindrance, and even in the presence of hostile submarines we have only lost two or three transports in eighteen months of war. That, it must be admitted, is a very wonderful record.
Even the tragic blunder of the Dardanelles gave us a striking instance of what sea power can effect. We were able, thanks to the Navy, not merely to land huge forces in the face of the enemy, but we were able also to re-embark them without loss under circumstances which, by all the laws of war, should have meant an appalling list of casualties. There can be no doubt whatever that had the re-embarking troops on the Gallipoli Pensinsula tried to reach their ships without having firm command of the sea, not more than a very small percentage of them would have survived.
In considering the bearings of naval power to the great struggle as a whole, we must always keep in mind what the Germans expected and hoped when they declared war. We know, of course, that they did not expect Britain to enter the War. But at the same time they must have realised that there was a possibility of our doing so, and they had formulated a plan of campaign to meet such a contingency. We know pretty well what that campaign was. The German theory has been put into practice since; unfortunately for the Germans, it has not worked out quite in accordance with the text-books. They declared for the “war of attrition”; their idea was that, by submarine attacks, the British Fleet could be so whittled down that at length the German main Fleet would be able to meet it with reasonable prospects of success. Their Fleet, while the process of attrition was going on, was to remain sheltered in the unreachable fastnesses of the Kiel Canal. The latter, however, is the only part of the German programme which has gone according to the book.
The “High Canal Fleet” remains in the “last ditch,” and apparently, at the time of writing, seems likely to remain there. But the process of attrition has not made the progress the Germans hoped for. It is true we have lost a number of ships through submarine attacks. But it will not be overlooked by the Germans any more than by ourselves that the greater part of our losses was sustained in the early days of the submarine campaign. As soon as the Navy “got busy” with the submarine pest our losses practically ceased, and it is now a long time since we have lost a fighting unit through torpedo attack. As is usual with the Navy, our men set themselves to grapple with unfamiliar conditions, and their success has been very striking. Not only have they been able to protect themselves
