The Silent Watchers - England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It

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Title: The Silent Watchers - England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It
Author: Copplestone, Bennet
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Silent Watchers - England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It" ***

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THE SILENT WATCHERS

* * * * * *

_By the Same Author_
THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS

_A series of exciting stories which reveal_
_the English Secret Service as it really_
_is—silent, unsleeping, and supremely_
_competent._

“William Dawson is a great creation, a sheer
delight. If Mr. Bennet Copplestone’s intriguing
book meets with half the success it deserves, the
inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be out-rivalled
in popularity by the inscrutable William
Dawson.”—_Daily Telegraph._

_$1.50 Net_
JITNY AND THE BOYS

“The book is full of the thoughts which make
us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow.
Yes, ‘Jitny’ has my blessing.”—_Punch._

“Motoring people could do nothing better than
sit down and have a spin, in imagination, by reading
this book. A clinking motor-car story.”
—_Daily Chronicle._

_$1.50 Net_
NEW YORK—E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

* * * * * *

THE
SILENT WATCHERS

England’s Navy during the Great War:
What It Is, and What We Owe to It

BENNET COPPLESTONE

Author of
“The Lost Naval Papers”

“The Navy is a matter of machines only in
so far as human beings can only achieve material
ends by material means. I look upon the ships and
the guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise
secretes its shell.”—PROLOGUE.

[Illustration]

New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue

First Printing, Sept., 1918
Second Printing, Oct., 1918

Printed in the United States of America

NOTE

Between June, 1916, and February, 1918, I
contributed a good many articles and sketches on
Naval subjects to _The Cornhill Magazine_. They
were not designed upon any plan or published
in any settled sequence. As one article led up
to another, and information came to me from my
generously appreciative readers (many of whom
were in the Service), I revised those which I had
written and ventured to write still more. This
book contains my _Cornhill_ articles—revised and
sometimes re-written in the light of wider information
and kindly criticism—and several additional
chapters which have not previously been published
anywhere. I have endeavoured to weave into a
connected series articles and sketches which were
originally disconnected, and I have introduced
new strands to give strength to the fabric. Through
the whole runs a golden thread which I have
called THE SECRET OF THE NAVY.
B. C.
_March, 1918._

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE AFTER THE BATTLE

I. A BAND OF BROTHERS
II. THE COMING OF WAR
III. THE GREAT VICTORY
IV. WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA “STUNT”
V. WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS AND THE RATS
VI. THE MEDITERRANEAN: A SUCCESS AND A FAILURE
VII. IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL
VIII. IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP
IX. HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”
X. FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
XI. THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”: PART I—RIO TO CORONEL
XII. THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”: PART II—CORONELTO JUAN FERNANDEZ
XIII. THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: PART I
XIV. THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: PART II

EPILOGUE LIEUTENANT CÆSAR

LIST OF MAPS

THE NORTH SEA
THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS
THE SOUTH SEAS
HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”
THE “SYDNEY-EMDEN” ACTION
THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION
THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS

THE SILENT WATCHERS

PROLOGUE

AFTER THE BATTLE

“Cæsar,” said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a temporary Lieutenant
R.N.V.R., who at the outbreak of war had been a classical scholar at
Oxford, “you were in the thick of our scrap yonder off the Jutland
coast. You were in it every blessed minute with the battle cruisers, and
must have had a lovely time. Did you ever, Cæsar, try to write the story
of it?”

It was early in June of 1916, and a group of officers had gathered near
the ninth hole of an abominable golf course which they had themselves
laid out upon an island in the great land-locked bay wherein reposed
from their labours long lines of silent ships. It was a peaceful scene.
Few even of the battleships showed the scars of battle, though among
them were some which the Germans claimed to be at the bottom of the sea.
There they lay, coaled, their magazines refilled, ready at short notice
to issue forth with every eager man and boy standing at his action
station. And while all waited for the next call, officers went ashore,
keen, after the restrictions upon free exercise, to stretch their
muscles upon the infamous golf course. It was, I suppose, one of the
very worst courses in the world. There were no prepared tees, no
fairway, no greens. But there was much bare rock, great tufts of coarse
grass greedy of balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destructive of
wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there of approximately the
regulation size. Few officers of the Grand Fleet, except those in
Beatty’s Salt of the Earth squadrons, far to the south, had since the
war began been privileged to play upon more gracious courses. But the
Sea Service, which takes the rough with the smooth, with cheerful and
profane philosophy, accepted the home-made links as a spirited triumph
of the handy-man over forbidding nature.

“Yes,” said the naval volunteer, “I tried many times, but gave up all
attempts as hopeless. I came up here to get first-hand material, and
have sacrificed my short battle leave to no purpose. The more I learn
the more helplessly incapable I feel. I can describe the life of a ship,
and make you people move and speak like live things. But a battle is too
big for me. One might as well try to realise and set on paper the Day of
Judgment. All I did was to write a letter to an old friend, one
Copplestone, beseeching him to make clear to the people at home what we
really had done. I wrote it three days after the battle. Here it is.”

Lieutenant Cæsar drew a paper from his pocket and read as follows:

* * * * *

“MY DEAR COPPLESTONE,—Picture to yourself our feelings. On Wednesday we
were in the fiery hell of the greatest naval action ever fought. A real
Battle of the Giants. Beatty’s and Hood’s battle cruisers—chaffingly
known as the Salt of the Earth—and Evan Thomas’s squadron of four fast
Queen Elizabeths had fought for two hours the whole German High Seas
Fleet. Beatty, in spite of his heavy losses, had outmanœuvred Fritz’s
battle cruisers and enveloped the German line. The Fifth Battle Squadron
had stalled off the German Main Fleet, and led them into the net of
Jellicoe, who, coming up, deployed between Evan Thomas and Beatty,
though he could not see either, crossed the T of the Germans in the
beautifullest of beautiful manœuvres, and had them for a moment as good
as sunk. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; it is sometimes
difficult to say Blessed be the Name of the Lord. For just when we most
needed full visibility the mist came down thick, the light failed, and
we were robbed of the fruits of victory when they were almost in our
hands. It was hard, hard, bitterly hard. But we had done the utmost
which the Fates permitted. The enemy, after being harried all night by
destroyers, had got away home in torn rags, and we were left in supreme
command of the North Sea, a command more complete and unchallengeable
than at any moment since the war began. For Fritz had put out his full
strength, all his unknown cards were on the table, we knew his strength
and his weakness, and that he could not stand for a moment against our
concentrated power. All this we had done, and rejoiced mightily. In the
morning we picked up from Poldhu the German wireless claiming the battle
as a glorious victory—at which we laughed loudly. But there was no
laughter when in the afternoon Poldhu sent out an official message from
our own Admiralty which, from its clumsy wording and apologetic tone,
seemed actually to suggest that we had had the devil of a hiding. Then
when we arrived at our bases came the newspapers with their talk of
immense losses, and of bungling, and of the Grand Fleet’s failure! Oh,
it was a monstrous shame! The country which depends utterly upon us for
life and honour, and had trusted us utterly, had been struck to the
heart. We had come back glowing, exalted by the battle, full of
admiration for the skill of our leaders and for the serene intrepidity
of our men. We had seen our ships go down and pay the price of sea
command—pay it willingly and ungrudgingly as the Navy always pays.
Nothing that the enemy had done or could do was able to hurt us, but we
had been mortally wounded in the house of our friends. It will take
days, weeks, perhaps months, for England and the world to be made to
understand and to do us justice. Do what you can, old man. Don’t delay a
minute. Get busy. You know the Navy, and love it with your whole soul.
Collect notes and diagrams from the scores of friends whom you have in
the Service; they will talk to you and tell you everything. I can do
little myself. A Naval Volunteer who fought through the action in a
turret, looking after a pair of big guns, could not himself see anything
outside his thick steel walls. Go ahead at once, do knots, and the
fighting Navy will remember you in its prayers.”

* * * * *

The attention of others in the group had been drawn to the reader and
his letter, and when Lieutenant Cæsar stopped, flushed and out of
breath, there came a chorus of approving laughter.

“This temporary gentleman is quite a literary character,” said a
two-ring Lieutenant who had been in an exposed spotting top throughout
the whole action, “but we’ve made a Navy man of him since he joined.
That’s a dashed good letter, and I hope you sent it.”

“Yes,” said Cæsar. “But while I was hesitating, wondering whether I
would risk the lightning of the Higher Powers, a possible court martial,
and the loss of my insecure wavy rings, the business was taken out of my
hands by this same man to whom I was wanting to write. He got moving on
his own account, and now, though the battle is only ten days old, the
country knows the rights of what we did. When it comes to describing the
battle itself, I make way for my betters. For what could I see? On the
afternoon of May 31st, we were doing gun drill in my turret. Suddenly
came an order to put lyddite into the guns and follow the Control.
During the next two hours as the battle developed we saw nothing. We
were just parts of a big human machine intent upon working our own
little bit with faultless accuracy. There was no leisure to think of
anything but the job in hand. From beginning to end I had no suggestion
of a thrill, for a naval action in a turret is just gun drill glorified,
as I suppose it is meant to be. The enemy is not seen; even the
explosions of the guns are scarcely heard. I never took my
ear-protectors from their case in my pocket. All is quiet, organised
labour, sometimes very hard labour when for any reason one has to hoist
the great shells by the hand purchase. It is extraordinary to think that
I got fifty times more actual excitement out of a squadron regatta
months ago than out of the greatest battle in naval history.”

“That’s quite true,” said the Spotting Officer, “and quite to be
expected. Battleship fighting is not thrilling except for the very few.
For nine-tenths of the officers and men it is a quiet, almost dull
routine of exact duties. For some of us up in exposed positions in the
spotting tops or on the signal bridge, with big shells banging on the
armour or bursting alongside in the sea, it becomes mighty wetting and
very prayerful. For the still fewer, the real fighters of the ship in
the conning tower, it must be absorbingly interesting. But for the true
blazing rapture of battle one has to go to the destroyers. In a
battleship one lives like a gentleman until one is dead, and takes the
deuce of a lot of killing. In a destroyer one lives rather like a pig,
and one dies with extraordinary suddenness. Yet the destroyer officers
and men have their reward in a battle, for then they drink deep of the
wine of life. I would sooner any day take the risks of destroyer work,
tremendous though they are, just for the fun which one gets out of it.
It was great to see our boys round up Fritz’s little lot. While you were
in your turret, and the Sub. yonder in control of a side battery, Fritz
massed his destroyers like Prussian infantry and tried to rush up close
so as to strafe us with the torpedo. Before they could get fairly going,
our destroyers dashed at them, broke up their masses, buffeted and
hustled them about exactly like a pack of wolves worrying sheep, and
with exactly the same result. Fritz’s destroyers either clustered
together like sheep or scattered flying to the four winds. It was just
the same with the light cruisers as with the destroyers. Fritz could not
stand against us for a moment, and could not get away, for we had the
heels of him and the guns of him. There was a deadly slaughter of
destroyers and light cruisers going on while we were firing our heavy
stuff over their heads. Even if we had sunk no battle cruisers or
battleships, the German High Seas Fleet would have been crippled for
months by the destruction of its indispensable ‘cavalry screen.’”

As the Spotting Officer spoke, a Lieutenant-Commander holed out on the
last jungle with a mashie—no one uses a putter on the Grand Fleet’s
private golf course—and approached our group, who, while they talked,
were busy over a picnic lunch.

“If you pigs haven’t finished all the bully beef and hard tack,” said
he, “perhaps you can spare a bite for one of the blooming ’eroes of the
X Destroyer Flotilla.” The speaker was about twenty-seven, in rude
health, and bore no sign of the nerve-racking strain through which he
had passed for eighteen long-drawn hours. The young Navy is as
unconscious of nerves as it is of indigestion. The Lieutenant-Commander,
his hunger satisfied, lighted a pipe and joined in the talk.

“It was hot work,” said he, “but great sport. We went in sixteen and
came out a round dozen. If Fritz had known his business, I ought to be
dead. He can shoot very well till he hears the shells screaming past his
ears, and then his nerves go. Funny thing how wrong we’ve been about
him. He is smart to look at, fights well in a crowd, but cracks when he
has to act on his own without orders. When we charged his destroyers and
ran right in he just crumpled to bits. We had a batch of him nicely
herded up, and were laying him out in detail with guns and mouldies,
when there came along a beastly intrusive Control Officer on a battle
cruiser and took him out of our mouths. It was a sweet shot, though.
Someone—I don’t know his name, or he would hear of his deuced
interference from me—plumped a salvo of 12-inch common shell right into
the brown of Fritz’s huddled batch. Two or three of his destroyers went
aloft in scrap-iron, and half a dozen others were disabled. After the
first hour his destroyers and light cruisers ceased to be on the stage;
they had flown quadrivious—there’s an ormolu word for our classical
volunteer—and we could have a whack at the big ships. Later, at night,
it was fine. We ran right in upon Fritz’s after-guard of sound
battleships and rattled them most tremendous. He let fly at us with
every bally gun he had, from 4-inch to 14, and we were a very pretty
mark under his searchlights. We ought to have been all laid out, but our
loss was astonishingly small, and we strafed two of his heavy ships.
Most of his shots went over us.”

“Yes,” called out the Spotting Officer, “yes, they did, and ricochetted
all round us in the Queen Elizabeths. There was the devil of a row. The
firing in the main action was nothing to it. All the while you were
charging, and our guns were masked for fear of hitting you, Fritz’s
bonbons were screaming over our upper works and making us say our
prayers out loud in the Spotting Tops. You’d have thought we were at
church. I was in the devil of a funk, and could hear my teeth rattling.
It is when one is fired on and can’t hit back that one thinks of one’s
latter end.”

“Did any of you see the _Queen Mary_ go?” asked a tall thin man with the
three rings of a Commander. “Our little lot saw nothing of the first
part of the battle; we were with the K.G. Fives and Orions.”

“I saw her,” spoke a Gunnery Lieutenant, a small, quiet man with dreamy,
introspective eyes—the eyes of a poet turned gunner. “I saw her. She
was hit forrard, and went in five seconds. You all know how. It was a
thing which won’t bear talking about. The _Invincible_ took a long time
to sink, and was still floating bottom up when Jellicoe’s little lot
came in to feed after we and the Salt of the Earth had eaten up most of
the dinner. I don’t believe that half the Grand Fleet fired a shot.”

There came a savage growl from officers of the main Battle Squadrons,
who, invited to a choice banquet, had seen it all cleared away before
their arrival. “That’s all very well,” grumbled one of them; “the four
Q.E.s are getting a bit above themselves because they had the luck of
the fair. They didn’t fight the High Seas Fleet by their haughty selves
because they wanted to, you bet.”

The Gunnery Lieutenant with the dreamy eyes smiled. “We certainly
shouldn’t have chosen that day to fight them on. But if the _Queen
Elizabeth_ herself had been with us, and we had had full
visibility—with the horizon a hard dark line—we would have willingly
taken on all Fritz’s 12-inch Dreadnoughts and thrown in his battle
cruisers.”

“That’s the worst of it,” grumbled the Commander, very sore still at
having tasted only of the skim milk of the battle; “naval war is now
only a matter of machines. The men don’t count as they did in Nelson’s
day.”

“Excuse me, sir,” remarked the Sub-Lieutenant; “may I say a word or two
about that? I have been thinking it out.”

There came a general laugh. The Sub-Lieutenant, twenty years of age,
small and dark and with the bright black eyes of his mother—a pretty
little lady from the Midi de la France whom his father had met and
married in Paris—did not look like a philosopher, but he had the
clear-thinking, logical mind of his mother’s people.

“Think aloud, my son,” said the Commander. “As a living incarnation of
l’Entente Cordiale, you are privileged above those others of the
gun-room.”

The light in the Sub’s eyes seemed to die out as his gaze turned
inwards. He spoke slowly, carefully, sometimes injecting a word from his
mother’s tongue which could better express his meaning. He looked all
the while towards the sea, and seemed scarcely to be conscious of an
audience of seniors. His last few sentences were spoken wholly in
French.

“No—naval war is a war of men, as it always was and always will be. For
what are the machines but the material expression of the souls of the
men? Our ships are better and faster than the German ships, our guns
heavier and more accurate than theirs, our gunners more deadly than
their gunners, because our Navy has the greater human soul. The Royal
Navy is not a collection of lifeless ships and guns imposed upon men by
some external power as the Kaiser sought to impose a fleet upon the
Germans, a nation of landsmen. The Navy is a matter of machines only in
so far as human beings can only achieve material ends by material means.
I look upon the ships and guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise
secretes its shell. They are the products of naval thought, and naval
brains, and, above all, of that ever-expanding naval soul (_l’esprit_)
which has been growing for a thousand years. Our ships yonder are
materially new, the products almost of yesterday, but really they are
old, centuries old; they are the expression of a naval soul working,
fermenting, always growing through the centuries, always seeking to
express itself in machinery. Naval war is an art, the art of men, and
where in the world will one find men like ours, officers like ours? Have
you ever thought whence come those qualities which one sees glowing
every day in our men, from the highest Admiral to the smallest ship
boy—have you ever thought whence they come?”

He paused, still looking out to sea. His companions, all of them his
superiors in rank and experience, stared at him in astonishment, and one
or two laughed. But the Commander signalled for silence. “Et après,” he
asked quietly; “d’où viennent ces qualités?” Unconsciously he had
sloughed the current naval slang and spoke in the native language of the
Sub.

The effect was not what he had expected. At the sound of the Commander’s
voice speaking in French the Sub-Lieutenant woke up, flushed, and
instantly reverted to his English self. “I am sorry, sir. I got speaking
French, in which I always think, and when I talk French I talk the most
frightful rot.”

“I am not so sure that it was rot. Your theory seems to be that we are,
in the naval sense, the heirs of the ages, and that no nation that has
not been through our centuries-old mill can hope to stand against us. I
hope that you are right. It is a comforting theory.”

“But isn’t that what we all think, sir, though we may not put it quite
that way? Most of us know that our officers and men are of
unapproachable stuff in body and mind, but we don’t seek for a reason.
We accept it as an axiom. I’ve tried to reason the thing out because I’m
half French; and also because I’ve been brought up among dogs and horses
and believe thoroughly in heredity. It’s all a matter of breeding.”

“The Sub’s right,” broke in the Gunnery Lieutenant with the poet’s eyes;
“though a Sub who six months ago was a snotty who has no business to
think of anything outside his duty. The Service would go to the devil if
the gun-room began to talk psychology. We excuse it in this Sub here for
the sake of the Entente Cordiale, of which he is the living embodiment;
but had any other jawed at us in that style I would have sat upon his
head. Of course he is right, though it isn’t our English way to see
through things and define them as the French do. No race on earth can
touch us for horses or dogs or prize cattle—or Navy men. It takes
centuries to breed the boys who ran submarines through the Dardanelles
and the Sound and stayed out in narrow enemy waters for weeks together.
Brains and nerves and sea skill can’t be made to order even by a German
Kaiser. Navy men should marry young and choose their women from sea
families; and then their kids won’t need to be taught. They’ll have the
secret of the Service in their blood.”

“That’s all very fine,” observed a Marine Lieutenant reflectively; “but
who is going to pay for it all? We can’t. I get 7_s._ 6_d._ a day, and
shall have 11_s._ in a year or two; it sounds handsome, but would hardly
run to a family. Few in the Navy have any private money, so how can we
marry early?”

“Of course we can’t as things go now,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant. “But
some day even the Admiralty will discover that the English Navy will
become a mere list of useless machines unless the English naval families
can be kept up on the lower deck as well as in the wardroom and
gun-room. Why, look at the names of our submarine officers whenever they
get into the papers for honours. They are always salt of the sea, names
which have been in the Navy List ever since there was a List. You may
read the same names in the Trafalgar roll and back to the Dutch wars.
Most of us were Pongos before that—shore Pongos who went afloat with
Blake or Prince Rupert—but then we became sailors, and so remained,
father to son. I can only go back myself to the Glorious First of June,
but some of us here in the Grand Fleet date from the Stuarts at least.
It is jolly fine to be of Navy blood, but not all plum jam. One has such
a devil of a record to live up to. In my term at Dartmouth there was a
poor little beast called Francis Drake—a real Devon Drake, a genuine
antique—but what a load of a name to carry! Thank God, my humble name
doesn’t shine out of the history books. And as with the officers, so
with the seamen. Half of them come from my own country of Devon—the
cradle of the Navy. They are in the direct line from Drake’s buccaneers.
Most of the others come from the ancient maritime counties of the
Channel seaboard, where the blood of everyone tingles with Navy salt.
The Germans can build ships which are more or less accurate copies of
our own, but they can’t breed the men. That is the whole secret.”

The Lieutenant-Commander, whose war-scarred destroyer lay below
refitting, laughed gently. “There’s a lot in all that, more than we
often realise when we grumble at the cursed obstinacy of our old
ratings, but even you do not go back far enough. It is the old blood of
the Vikings and sea-pirates in us English which makes us turn to the
sea; the rest is training. In no other way can you explain the success
of the Fringes, the mine-sweepers, and patrols, most of them manned by
naval volunteers who, before the war, had never served under the White
Ensign nor seen a shot fired. What is our classical scholar here, Cæsar,
but a naval volunteer whom Whale Island and natural intelligence have
turned into a gunner? But as regards the regular Navy, the Navy of the
Grand Fleet, you are right. Pick your boys from the sea families, catch
them young, pump them full to the teeth with the Navy Spirit—_l’esprit
marin_ of our bi-lingual Sub here—make them drunk with it. Then they
are all right. But they must never be allowed to think of a darned thing
except of the job in hand. The Navy has no use for men who seek to peer
into their own souls. They might do it in action and discover blue funk.
We want them to be no more conscious of their souls than of their
livers. Though I admit that it is devilish difficult to forget one’s
liver when one has been cooped up in a destroyer for a week. It is not
nerve that Fritz lacks so much as a kindly obedient liver. He is an
iron-gutted swine, and that is partly why he can’t run destroyers and
submarines against us. The German liver is a thing to wonder at. Do you
know——” but here the Lieutenant-Commander became too Rabelaisian for
my delicate pen.

The group had thinned out during this exercise in naval analysis.
Several of the officers had resumed their heart-and-club-breaking
struggle with the villainous golf course, but the Sub, the volunteer
Lieutenant, and the Pongo (Marine) still sat at the feet of their
seniors. “May I say how the Navy strikes an outsider like me?” asked
Cæsar diffidently. Whale Island, which had forgotten all other Latin
authors, had given him the name as appropriate to one of his learning.

“Go ahead,” said the Commander generously. “All this stuff is useful
enough for a volunteer; without the Pongos and Volunteers to swallow our
tall stories, the Navy would fail of an audience. The snotties know too
much.”

“I was going to speak of the snotties,” said Cæsar, “who seem to me to
be even more typical of the Service than the senior officers. They have
all its qualities, emphasised, almost comically exaggerated. I do not
know whether they are never young or that they never grow old, but there
is no essential difference in age and in knowledge between a snotty six
months out of cadet training and a Commander of six years’ standing.
They rag after dinner with equal zest, and seem to be equally well
versed in the profound technical details of their sea work. Perhaps it
is that they are born full of knowledge. The snotties interest me beyond
every type that I have met. Their manners are perfect and in startling
contrast with those of the average public school boy of fifteen or
sixteen—even in College at Winchester—and they combine their real
irresponsible youthfulness with a grave mask of professional learning
which is delightful to look upon. I have before me the vision of a child
of fifteen with tousled yellow hair and a face as glum as a sea-boot,
sitting opposite to me in the machine which took us back one day to the
boat, smoking a ‘fag’ with the clumsiness which betrayed his lack of
practice, in between bites of ‘goo’ (in this instance Turkish Delight),
of which I had seen him consume a pound. He looked about ten years old,
and in a husky, congested voice, due to the continual absorption of
sticky food, he described minutely to me the method of conning a
battleship in manœuvres and the correct amount to allow for the inertia
of the ship when the helm is centred; he also explained the tactical
handling of a squadron during sub-calibre firing. That snotty was a
sheer joy, and the Navy is full of him. He’s gone himself, poor little
chap—blown to bits by a shell which penetrated the deck.”

“In time, Cæsar,” said the Commander, “by strict attention to duty you
will become a Navy man. But we have talked enough of deep mysteries. It
was that confounded Sub, with his French imagination, who started us.
What I really wish someone would tell me is this: what was the ‘northern
enterprise’ that Fritz was on when we chipped in and spoilt his little
game?”

“It does not matter,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant. “We spoilt it,
anyhow. The dear old newspapers talk of his losses in big ships as if
they were all that counted. What has really crippled him has been the
wiping out of his destroyers and fast new cruisers. Without them he is
helpless. It was a great battle, much more decisive than most people
think, even in the Grand Fleet itself. It was as decisive by sea as the
Marne was by land. We have destroyed Fritz’s mobility.”

The men rose and looked out over the bay. There below them lay their sea
homes, serene, invulnerable, and about them stretched the dull, dour,
treeless landscape of their northern fastness. Their minds were as
peaceful as the scene. As they looked a bright light from the compass
platform of one of the battleships began to flicker through the
sunshine—dash, dot, dot, dash. “There goes a signal,” said the
Commander. “You are great at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my son.”

The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes, and as he read grinned
capaciously. “It is some wag with a signal lantern,” said he. “It reads:
Question—Daddy,—what—did—you—do—in—the—Great—War?”

“I wonder,” observed the Sub-Lieutenant, “what new answer the lower deck
has found to that question. Before the battle their reply was: ‘I was
kept doubling round the decks, sonny.’”

“There goes the signal again,” said the Pongo; “and here comes the
answer.” He read it out slowly as it flashed word after word: “‘=I
laid the guns true, sonny.=’”

“And a dashed good answer, too,” cried the Commander heartily.

“That would make a grand fleet signal before a general action,” remarked
the Gunnery Lieutenant. “I don’t care much for Nelson’s Trafalgar
signal. It was too high-flown and sentimental for the lower deck. It was
aimed at the history books, rather than at old tarry-breeks of the fleet
a hundred years ago. No—there could not be a better signal than just
‘Lay the Guns True’—carry out your orders precisely, intelligently,
faultlessly. What do you say, my Hun of a classical volunteer?”

“It could not be bettered,” said Cæsar.

“I will make a note of it,” said the Gunnery Lieutenant, “against the
day, when as a future Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet
into action.”

CHAPTER I

A BAND OF BROTHERS
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”—_King Henry V._

My boyhood was spent in Devon, the land of Drake and the home of the
Elizabethan Navy. A deep passion for the Sea Service is in my blood,
though, owing to family circumstances, I was not able to indulge my
earliest ambition to become myself one of the band of brothers who serve
under the White Ensign. My elder brother lived and died afloat. Two of
my sons, happier than their father, are privileged to play their parts
in the great ships of the Fleets. So that, though not in the Service, I
am of it, by ties of blood and by ties of the earliest association.
Whenever I have sought to penetrate its mysteries and to interpret them
to my fellow countrymen, my motive has never been that of mere idle
curiosity.

The Royal Navy wields, and has always wielded, a great material force,
but the secret of its strength lies not in the machines with which it
has equipped itself in the various stages of its development. Vast and
terrible as are the ships and the guns, they would be of little worth if
their design and skilful employment were not inspired by that spiritual
force, compounded of tradition, training, devotion and discipline, which
I call the Soul of the Navy. In the design of its weapons, in its
mastery of their use, above all in its consummate seamanship, the Royal
Navy has in all ages surpassed its opponents; but it has done these
things not through some fortuitous gift of the Sea Gods, but because of
the never-failing development of its own spirit. It has always been at a
great price, in the sacrifice of ease and in the outpouring of the lives
of men, that the Navy has won for itself and for us the freedom of the
seas. Those who reckon navies in ships and guns, in weight of metal and
in broadside fire, while leaving out of account the spirit and training
and devotion of the men, can never understand the Soul of the Navy. For
all these material things are the expression of the Soul; they are not
the Soul itself.

The Navy is still the old English Navy of the southern maritime counties
of England. It has become the Navy of Great Britain, the Navy of the
British Empire, but in spirit, and to a large extent in hereditary
personnel, it remains the English Navy of the Narrow Seas. Many counties
play a great part in its equipment, but to me it is always the Navy of
my own land of Devon; officers and men are the lineal successors of
those bold West Country seamen who in their frail barks ranged the wide
seas hundreds of years ago and first taught to us and to the world the
meaning of the expression “sea communications.”

There is not an officer in the permanent service of the Fleets of to-day
who was not trained in Devon. On the southern seaboard of that county,
set upon a steep slope overlooking the mouth of the most lovely of
rivers, stands the Naval College in which are being trained those who
will guide our future Fleets. A little way to the west lies one of the
greatest of naval ports and arsenals. From my county of Devon comes half
the Navy of to-day, half the men of the Fleet, be they warrant officers,
seamen or engineers. The atmosphere of Devon, soft and sleepy as it may
appear to a stranger, is electric with the spirit of Drake, which is the
spirit of Nelson, which is the spirit of the boys of Dartmouth. For
generation after generation, in the old wooden hulks _Britannia_ and
_Hindustan_, and afterwards in the Naval College on the heights, the
cadets during their most impressionable years have breathed in the
spirit of the Navy. I have often visited them there and loved them; my
brother, who worked among them and taught them, died there, and is
buried in the little cemetery which crowns the hill where, years ago in
a blinding snowstorm, I stood beside his open grave and heard the Last
Post wail above his body. I have always envied him that great privilege,
to die in the service of the Navy and to be buried within hail of the
boys whom he loved.

The cadets of Dartmouth have learned that the Sea Service is an exacting
and most jealous mistress who brooks no rival. They have learned that
the Service is everything and themselves nothing. They have learned that
only by humbly submitting themselves to be absorbed into the Service can
they be deemed to be worthy of that Service. The discipline of the Navy
is no cast-iron system imposed by force and punishment upon unwilling
men; there is nothing in it of Prussian Militarism. It is rather the
willing subordination of proud free men to the dominating interests of a
Service to which they have dedicated their lives. The note of their
discipline is “The Service first, last, and all the time.” The Navy
resembles somewhat a religious Order, but in the individual
subordination of body, heart, brains and soul there is nothing of
servitude. The Naval officer is infinitely proud and infinitely humble.
Infinitely proud of his Service, infinitely humble in himself. If an
officer through error, however pardonable, loses his ship—and very
young officers have command of ships—and in the stern, though always
sympathetic, judgment of his fellows he must temporarily be put upon the
shelf, he does not grumble or repine. He does not write letters to the
papers upon his grievances. He accepts the judgment loyally, even
proudly, and strives to merit a return to active employment. No
fleshpots in the outer world, no honours or success in civil employment,
ever compensate the naval officer for the loss of his career at sea.

From the circumstances of their lives, so largely spent among their
fellows at sea or in naval harbours, and from their upbringing in naval
homes and training ships, officers and men grow into a class set apart,
dedicated as Followers of the Sea, in whose eyes the dwellers in cities
appear as silly chatterers and hucksterers, always seeking after some
vain thing, be it wealth or rank or fame. The discipline of the Navy is,
like its Soul, apart and distinct from anything which we know on land.
It is very strict but also very human. There is nothing in it of Caste.
“I expect,” said Drake, “the gentlemen to draw with the mariners.” Drake
allowed of no distinction between “gentlemen” and “mariners” except that
“gentlemen” were expected always to surpass the “mariners” in tireless
activity, cheerful endurance of hardships, and unshakable valour in
action. Drake could bear tenderly with the diseased grumbling of a
scurvy-stricken mariner, but the gentleman adventurer who “groused” was
in grievous peril of a rope and a yard arm. The gentlemen adventurers
have given place to professional naval officers, the mariners have
become the long-service trained seamen in their various grades who have
given their lives to the Navy, but the spirit of Drake endures to this
day. The Gentlemen are expected to draw with the Mariners.

When a thousand lives and a great ship may be lost by the lapse from
vigilance of one man, very strict discipline is a vital necessity. But
as with officers so with men it is the discipline of cheerful, willing
obedience. The spirit of the Navy is not the spirit of a Caste. It burns
as brightly in the seaman as in the lieutenant, in the ship’s boy as in
the midshipman, in the warrant officer as in the “Owner.” It is a
discipline hammered out by the ceaseless fight with the sea. The Navy is
always on active service; it is always waging an unending warfare with
the forces of the sea; the change from a state of peace to a state of
war means only the addition of one more foe—and if he be a gallant and
chivalrous foe he is welcomed gladly as one worthy to kill and to be
killed.

Catch boys young, inure them to Naval discipline, and teach them the
value of it, and to them it will become part of the essential fabric of
their lives. A good example of how men of Naval training cling to the
discipline of the Service as to a firm unbreakable rope was shown in
Captain Scott’s South Polar expeditions. Some of the officers, and
practically the whole of the crews, were lent by the Navy, but the
expeditions themselves were under auspices which were not naval. At sea
Captain Scott’s legal authority was that of a merchant skipper, on land
during his exploring expeditions he had no legal authority at all. Yet
all the officers and men, knowing that their lives depended upon willing
subordination, agreed that the discipline both at sea and on land should
be that of the Navy to which most of them belonged. The ships were run
exactly as if they had flown the White Ensign, and as if their
companions were under the Navy Act. Strict though it may be, there is
nothing arbitrary about naval discipline, and those who have tested it
in peace and war know its quality of infinite endurance under any
strain.

The Navy is a small Service, small in numbers, and to this very
smallness is partly due the beauty of its Soul. For it is a picked
Service, and only by severe selection in their youth can those be chosen
who are worthy to remain among its permanent members. The professional
officers and men number only some 150,000, and the great temporary war
expansion—after the inclusion of Naval Reservists, Naval Volunteers,
and the Division for service on land, did little more than treble the
active list. The Navy, even then, bore upon its rolls names less than
one-twelfth as numerous as in those legions who were drafted into the
Army. Yet this small professional Navy, by reason of its Soul and the
vast machines which that Soul secretes and employs with supreme
efficiency, dominated throughout the war the seas of the whole world.
The Navy has for so long been a wonder and a miracle that we have ceased
to be thrilled by it; we take it for granted; but it remains no less a
wonder and a miracle.

Many causes have combined to make this little group—this few, this
happy few, this band of brothers—the most splendid human force which
the world has ever seen. The Naval Service is largely hereditary.
Officers and men come from among those who have served the sea for
generations. In the Navy List of to-day one may read names which were
borne upon the ships’ books of hundreds of years ago. And since the
tradition of the sea plays perhaps the greatest part in the development
of the Naval Soul, this continuity of family service, on the lower deck
as in the wardroom and gun room, needs first to be emphasised. The young
son of an officer, of a warrant-officer, of a seaman, or of a marine,
enters the Service already more than half trained. He has the spirit of
the Service in his blood, and its collective honour is already his own
private honour. I remember years ago a naval officer said to me
sorrowfully, “My only son must go into the Service, and yet I fear that
he is hardly fit for it. He is delicate, shy, almost timid. But what can
one do?”

“Is it necessary?” I asked foolishly. He stared at me: “We have served
from father to son since the reign of Charles II.” So the boy entered
the _Britannia_, and I heard no more of him until one morning, years
after, I saw in an Honours List a name which I knew, that of a young
Lieutenant who had won the rare naval V.C. in the Mediterranean. It was
my friend’s son; blood had triumphed; the delicate, shy, almost timid
lad had made good.

The Navy catches its men when they are young, unspoiled, malleable, and
moulds them with deft fingers as a sculptor works his clay. Officers
enter in their early teens—now as boys at Osborne who afterwards become
naval cadets at Dartmouth. Formerly they spent a year or two longer at
school and entered direct as cadets to the _Britannia_. The system is
essentially the same now as it has been for generations. The material
must be good and young, the best of it is retained and the less good
rejected. The best is moulded and stamped in the Dartmouth workshop, and
emerges after the bright years of early boyhood with the naval hall mark
upon it. The seamen enter as boys into training-ships, and they, too,
are moulded and stamped into the naval pattern. It is a very exacting
but a very just education. No one who has been admitted to the privilege
of training need be rejected except by his own fault, and if he is not
worthy to be continued in training, he is emphatically not worthy to
serve in the Fleets.

Of late years this system, which requires abundance of time for its full
working out, has proved to be deficient in elasticity. It takes some
seven years to make a cadet into a sub-lieutenant, while a great
battleship can be built and equipped in little more than two years. The
German North Sea menace caused a rapid expansion in the output of ships,
especially of big ships, which far outstripped the training of junior
officers needed for their service. The Osborne-Dartmouth system had not
failed, far from it, but it was too slow for the requirements of the
Navy under the new conditions. In order to keep up with the demand, the
supply of naval cadets was increased and speeded up by the admission of
young men from the public schools at the age when they had been
accustomed to enter for permanent Army commissions. A large addition was
also made to the roll of subalterns of Marines—who received training
both for sea and land work—and in this way the ranks of the junior
officers afloat were rapidly expanded. There was no departure from the
Navy’s traditional policy of catching boys young and moulding them
specially and exclusively for the Sea Service; the new methods were
avowedly additional and temporary, to be modified or withdrawn when the
need for urgent expansion had disappeared. The Navy was clearly right.
It was obliged to make a change in its system, but it made it to as
small an extent as would meet the conditions of the moment. The second
best was tacked on to the first best, but the first best was retained in
being to be reverted to exclusively as soon as might be. To catch boys
young, preferably those with the sea tradition in their blood, to teach
them during their most impressionable years that the Navy must always be
to them as their father, mother and wedded wife—the exacting mistress
which demands of them the whole of their affections, energies and
service, to dedicate them in tender years to their Sea Goddess—this
must always be the way to preserve, in its purest undimmed water, that
pearl of great price, the Soul of the Navy.

It follows from the circumstances of their training and life that the
Navy is a Family of which the members are bound together by the closest
of ties of individual friendship and association. It is a Service in
which everybody knows everybody else, not only by name and reputation
but by personal contact. During the long years of residence at Osborne
and Dartmouth, and afterwards in the Fleets, at the Greenwich Naval
College, at the Portsmouth schools of instruction, officers widely
separated by years and rank learn to know one another and to weigh one
another in the most just of balances—that of actual service. Those of
us who have passed many years in the world of affairs, know that the
only reputation worth having is that which we earn among those of our
own profession or craft. And none of us upon land are known and weighed
with the intimate certainty and impartiality which is possible to the
Sea Service. We are not seen at close contact and under all conditions
of work and play, and never in the white light which an ever-present
peril casts upon our worth and hardihood. No fictitious reputation is
possible in the Navy itself as it is possible in the world outside.
Officers may, through the exercise of influence, be placed in positions
over the heads of others of greater worth, they may be written and
talked about by civilians in the newspapers as among the most brilliant
in their profession—especially in time of peace—but the Navy, which
has known them from youth to age inside and out, is not deceived. The
Navy laughs at many of the reputations which we poor civilians
ignorantly honour. No naval reputation is of any value whatever unless
it be endorsed by the Navy itself. And the Navy does not talk. How many
newspaper readers, for instance, had heard of Admiral Jellicoe before he
was placed in command of the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of war? But the
Navy knew all about him and endorsed the choice.

What I write of officers applies with equal force to the men, to the
long-service ratings, the petty officers and warrant officers who form
the backbone of the Service. They, too, are caught young, drawn wherever
possible from sea families, moulded and trained into the naval pattern,
stamped after many years with the hall mark of the Service. It is a
system which has bred a mutual confidence and respect between officers
and men as unyielding as armour-plate. Before the battle of May 31st,
1916, the Grand Fleet had gone forth looking for Fritz many times and
finding him not. Little was expected, but if the unexpected did happen,
then officers believed in their long-service ratings as profoundly as
did these dear old grumblers in their leaders. Many times in the
wardrooms of the battle squadrons the prospects of action would be
discussed and always in the same way.

“No, it’s not likely to be anything, but if it is what we’ve been
waiting for, I have every confidence in our long-service ratings if the
Huns are really out for blood. You know what I mean—those grizzled old
G.L.I.s (gun-layers, first-class), and gunners’ mates and horny-handed
old A.B.s whom we curse all day for their damned obstinacy. The Huns
think that two years make a gunlayer; we know that even twelve years are
not enough. Our long-service ratings would pull the country through,
even if we hadn’t the mechanical advantage over Fritz which we actually
possess. And the combination of the long-service ratings and the
two-Power standard will, when we get to work upon him, give Fritz
furiously to think.”

Even when the great expansion among the big fighting ships called for a
corresponding expansion in the crews, little essential change was made
in the system which had bred confidence such as this. There was some
slight dilution. Officers and men of the R.N.R. and the Naval
Volunteers, to the extent of about 10 per cent., were drafted into the
first-line battleships, but the cream of the professional service was
kept for the first fighting line. For the most part the new temporary
Navy, of admirable material drawn from our almost limitless maritime
population, was kept at work in the Fringes of the Fleet—the
mine-sweepers, armed liners, blockading patrols, and so on—where less
technical navy skill was required, and where invaluable service could be
and was done. The professional Navy has the deepest respect and
gratitude for the devoted work discharged by its amateur auxiliaries.

The Navy is a young man’s service. In no other career in life are the
vital energies, the eager spirits, the glowing capacities of youth given
such ample opportunities for expression. A naval officer can become a
proud “Owner,” with an independent command of a destroyer or submarine,
at an age when in a civil profession he would be entrusted with scanty
responsibilities. In civil life there is a horrible waste of youth; it
is kept down, largely left unused, by the jealousy of age. But the Navy,
which is very wise, makes the most of every hour of it. The small craft,
the Fringes of the Fleet as Mr. Kipling calls them, the eyes and ears
and guardians of the big ships, the patrol boats, submarines and
destroyers, are captained by youngsters under thirty, often under
twenty-five. The land crushes youth, the sea allows and encourages its
fine flower to expand. Naval warfare is directed by grave men, but is to
an enormous extent carried on by bright boys.

But the Navy which employs youth more fully than any other service, also
uses it up more remorselessly. Unless an officer can reach the rank of
Commander—a rank above that of a Major in the Army—when he is little
more than thirty he has a very scanty chance in time of peace of ever
serving afloat as a full Captain. The small ships are many in number,
but the big ships are comparatively few. Only the best of the best can
become Commanders at an age which enables them to reach post rank in
that early manhood which is a necessity for the command of a modern
super-Dreadnought. Many of those who do become Captains in the early
forties have to eat out their hearts upon half-pay because there are not
enough big ships in commission to go round. It is only in time of war
that the whole of our Fleets are mobilised. Some years ago I was dining
with several naval officers from a battle squadron which lay in the
Firth of Forth. Beside me sat a young man looking no more than
thirty-five, and actually little older. He was a Captain I knew, and in
course of conversation I asked for the name of his ship. “The
_Dreadnought_,” said he. This was the time when the name and fame of the
first _Dreadnought_, the first all-big-gun ship which revolutionised the
construction of the battle line, was ringing through the world. And yet
here was this famous ship in charge of a young smooth-faced fellow,
younger than myself, and I did not then consider that I was middle-aged!
“Are you not rather young?” I enquired diffidently. He smiled, “We need
to be young,” said he. Then I understood. It came home to me that the
modern Navy, with its incredibly rapid development in machinery, must
have in its executive officers those precious qualities of adaptability
and quick perception, that readiness to be always learning and testing,
seeking and finding the best new ways of solving old problems, which can
only be found in youth. Youth is of the essence of the Navy, it always
has been so and it probably always will be. Youth learns quickly, and
the Naval officer is always learning. In civil life we enter our
professions, we struggle through our examinations as doctors or lawyers
or engineers, and then we are content to pass our lives in practice and
forget our books. But the naval officer, whose active life is passed on
the salt sea, is ever a student. He goes backwards and forwards between
the sea and the schools. There is no stage and no rank at which his
education stops. Gunnery, torpedo practice, electricity, navigation,
naval strategy, and tactics are all rapidly progressive sciences. A few
years, a very few years, and a whole scheme of practice becomes
obsolete. So the naval officer needs for ever to be passing from the sea
to the _Vernon_, or the _Excellent_, or to Greenwich, where he is kept
up-to-date and given a perennial opportunity to develop the best that is
in him. From fifteen to forty he is always learning, always testing,
always growing, and then—unless his luck is very great—he has to give
way to the rising youth of other men and rest himself unused upon the
shelf. The highest posts are not for him. It is very remorseless the way
in which the Navy uses and uses up its youth, and very touching the
devoted humble way in which that youth submits to be so used up. The
Navy is ever growing in science and in knowledge, it must always have of
the best—the remorselessness with which it chooses only of the best,
and the patience with which those who are not of the best submit without
repining to its devices, are of the Soul of the Navy.

Admiral Sir David Beatty became Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at
the age of forty-five. In years of life and of service he was junior to
half the Captains’ List. He had sprung by merit and by opportunity some
ten years above his contemporaries at Dartmouth. First in the Soudan,
when serving in the flotilla of gunboats, he won promotion from
Lieutenant to Commander at the age of twenty-seven. Again at Tien-tsin
in China, his chance came, and in 1900, while still under thirty, he
reached the captain’s rank. When the war broke out he was a Rear-Admiral
in command of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and was given the
acting rank of Vice-Admiral. He is now an acting Admiral, and his
seniors in years, and even in rank, willingly serve beneath him. Admiral
Beatty is not a scientific sailor, and is not wedded to the Service as
are most of his brother officers. But for the outbreak of the war he
would probably have retired. Yet no one questions his pre-eminent
fitness for his dazzling promotion. He has that rare indefinable quality
of leadership of men and of war instinct which cannot be revealed except
by war itself. When, by fortunate chance, this quality is discovered in
an officer it is instantly recognised as beyond price, and cherished at
its full worth.

The Naval system which teaches subordination, also teaches independence.
If to men roaming over the seas in command of ships, orders come, it is
well; if orders do not come it is also well—they get on very well
without them. If the entire Admiralty were wiped out by German bombs, My
Lords and the whole staff destroyed, the Navy would, in its own
language, “proceed” to carry on. In the middle of the political crisis
of December 1916, when a new Naval Board of Admiralty had just been
appointed, I asked a senior officer how the new lot were getting on. He
said: “There isn’t any First Lord. The First Sea Lord is in bed with
influenza. The Second Sea Lord is in bed with influenza. The Third Sea
Lord is in bed with influenza. The Fourth Sea Lord is at work but is
sickening for influenza. _But the Navy is all right._” That is the note
of serene confidence which distinguishes the Sea Service. Whatever
happens, the Navy is all right.

The Navy is a poor man’s Service. It is a real profession in which the
officers as a rule live on their pay and ask for little more. Men of
great houses will enter the Army in time of peace and regard it as a
mild occupation, men of money will enter for the social position which
it may give to them. But no man of rank or of money in search of a
“cushy job,” was ever such an ass as to look for it in the Navy. Few
officers in the Navy—except among those who have entered in quite
recent years—have any resources beyond their pay; many of them are born
to it, and in their families there have been scanty opportunities for
saving. The Admiralty, until quite recently, required that young
officers upon entry into the Navy or the Marines should be allowed small
specified sums until they attained in service pay the eminence of about
11_s._ a day, and also that a complete uniform equipment should be
provided for them; but after that initial help from home they were
expected to make their pay suffice. And in the great majority of cases
they did what was expected of them. Living is cheap in the Sea Service.
Ships pay no duties upon their stores, and there are few opportunities
afloat for the wasting of money. Mess bills in wardroom and gun-room are
small, and must be kept small, or the captain will arise in wrath and
ask to be informed (in writing) of the reason why. Ere now young men
have been dismissed their ships for persistently running up too large a
wine bill; and to be dismissed one’s ship means not only a bad mark in
the Admiralty’s books, but loss of seniority, which in turn means an
extra early retirement upon that exiguous half-pay which looms always
like a dark cloud upon the naval horizon.

Unhappily for its officers and the country the Navy has not been a
married man’s service; it has been too exacting to tolerate a divided
allegiance. Sometimes poor young things under stress of emotion have got
married, and then has begun for them the most cruel and ageing of
struggles—the man at sea hard put to it to keep up his position, simple
though it be; the wife ashore in poor lodgings or in some tiny villa,
lonely, struggling, growing old too fast for her years; children who
rarely see their father, and whose prospects are of the gloomiest. I do
not willingly put my pen to this picture. Young Navy men, glowing with
health and virile energy, and the spirit of the Service, are very
attractive creatures to whom goes out the love of women, but though
they, too, may love, they are usually compelled to sail away. It is well
for them then if they are as firmly wedded to the Service as the Roman
priest is to his Church, and if they are not always as continent as the
priest, who is so free from sin that he will dare to cast a stone at
them? If the country and its rulers had any belief in heredity, of which
the evidence stares at them from the eyes of every naval son born to the
Service, they would grant to a young officer a year of leave in which to
be married, and pay to him and to his mate a handsome subsidy for every
splendid son whom they laid in the cradles of the Service of the future.

Of late years there has been a change. The rapid expansion of the Fleets
has brought in many young cadets of commercial families, whose parents
have far more money than is wholly good for their sons. The Navy is not
so completely a poor man’s service as it was even ten years ago. The
junior officers are, some of them, too well off. Not long since, a
senior Captain was lamenting this change in my presence. “The snotties
now,” he groaned, “all keep motor bicycles, the sub-lieutenants are not
happy till they own cars, and the Lieutenant-Commanders think nothing of
getting married. All this has been the result of concentrating the
Fleets in home waters. Germany compelled us to do it, but the Service
was the better for the three-year Commissions on foreign stations.” All
this is true. The junior ranks are getting richer. At sea they can spend
little, but ashore and in harbour there are opportunities for gold to
corrupt the higher virtues. For my part, however, I have the fullest
confidence in the training and the example of the older officers. In
this war there has been nothing to suggest that the young Navy is less
devoted and self-sacrificing than the old. The wealthier boys may take
their fling on leave—and who can blame them?—but at sea the Service
comes first.

We love that most which is most hardly won. And the Navy men love their
Service, not because it is easy but because of the hardness of it, and
because of the sacrifices which it exacts from them. It fastens its grip
upon them in those first years between fifteen and twenty, and the grip
grows ever tighter with the flight of time. It is at its very tightest
when the dreadful hour of retirement arrives. When War broke out, in
August 1914, it was hailed with joy by the active Navy afloat, but their
joy was as water unto wine in comparison with that which transfigured
the retired Navy ashore. For them at long last the impossible had
crystallised into fact. For those who were still young enough, the
uniforms were waiting ready in the tin boxes upstairs, and it was but a
short step from their house doors to the decks of a King’s ship. Once
more their gallant names could be written in the Active List of their
Navy. They hastened back, these eager ones, and if there was no
employment for them in their own rank, they snatched at that in any
other rank which offered. Captains R.N. became commanders and even
lieutenants R.N.R. in the Fringes. Admirals became temporary captains.
There were indeed at one time no fewer than nineteen retired admirals
serving as temporary officers R.N.R. in armed liners.

If you would understand how the Navy loves the Service, how that love is
not a part of their lives, but is their lives, reflect upon the case of
one aged officer. I will not give his name; he would not wish it. He had
been in retirement for nearly forty years, too old for service in his
rank, too old possibly for service in any rank. But his pleadings for
employment afloat softened the understanding hearts at Whitehall. He was
allowed to rejoin and to serve as a temporary Lieutenant-Commander in an
armed yacht which assisted the ex-Brazilian monitors sent to bombard the
Belgian coast. There against Zeebrugge he served among kindly lads young
enough to be his grandsons, and there with them and among them he was
killed—the oldest officer serving afloat. And he was happy in his
death. Not Wolfe before Quebec, not Nelson in the cockpit of the
_Victory_, were happier or more glorious in their deaths than was that
temporary Lieutenant-Commander (transferred at his own request from the
retired list) who fought his last fight upon the decks of an armed yacht
and died as he would have prayed to die.

The Navy hates advertisement and scorns above all things in heaven or
upon earth the indiscriminating praise of well-meaning civilians. I
sadly realise that it may scorn me and this book of mine. But I will do
my best to make amends. I will promise that never once in describing
their deeds will I refer to Navy men as “heroes.” I will not, where I
can possibly avoid doing so, mention the name of anyone. I will do my
utmost at all times to write of them as men and not as “b—— angels.” I
will, at the peril of some inconsistency, declare my conviction that
naval officers haven’t any souls, that they are in the Service because
they love it, and not because they care two pins for their country, that
they are rather pleased than otherwise when rotten civilians at home get
a bad fright from a raid. I will declare that they catch and sink German
submarines by all manner of cunning devices, from the sheer zest of
sport, and not because they would raise a finger to save the lives of
silly passengers in luxurious ocean liners. I will do anything to turn
their scorn away from me except to withdraw one word which I have
written upon the Soul of the Navy. For upon this subject they would, I
believe, write as I do if the gods had given to them leisure for
philosophical analysis—which they are much too busy to bother
about—and the knack of verbally expressing their thoughts. When I read
a naval despatch I always groan over it as an awful throwing away of the
most splendid opportunities. I always long to have been in the place of
the writer, to have seen what he saw, to know what he knew, and to tell
the world in living phrase what tremendous deeds were really done. Naval
despatches are the baldest of documents, cold, formal, technical, most
forbiddingly uninspiring. Whenever I ask naval officers why they do not
put into despatches the vivid details which sometimes find their way
into private letters they glare at me, and even their beautiful courtesy
can scarcely keep back the sniff of contempt. “Despatches,” say they,
“are written for the information of the Admiralty.” That is a complete
answer under the Naval Code. The despatches, which make one groan, are
written for the information of the Admiralty, not to thrill poor
creatures such as you and me. A naval officer cares only for his record
at the Admiralty and for his reputation among those of his own craft. If
a newspaper calls Lieutenant A—— B—— a hero, and writes
enthusiastically of his valour, he shudders as would a modest woman if
publicly praised for her chastity. Valour goes with the Service, it is a
part of the Soul of the Navy. It is taken for granted and is not to be
talked or written about. And so with those other qualities that spring
from the traditions of the Navy—the chivalry which risks British lives
to save those of drowning enemies, the tenderness which binds up their
wounds, the honours paid to their dead. All these things, which the
Royal Navy never forgets and the German Navy for the most part has never
learned, are taken for granted and are not to be talked of or written
about.

* * * * *

It is inevitable from the nature of its training that the Navy should be
intensely self-centred. If one catches a boy when he has but recently
emerged from the nursery, teaches him throughout his active life that
there is but one work fit for the service of man, dedicates him to it by
the strictest discipline, cuts him off by the nature of his daily life
from all intimate contact with or understanding of the world which moves
upon land, his imagination will be atrophied by disuse. He will become
absorbed into the Naval life which is a life entirely of its own, apart
and distinct from all other lives. There is a deep gulf set between the
Naval life and all other lives which very few indeed of the Navy ever
seek to cross. Their attitude towards civilians is very like that of the
law-making statesman of old who said: “The people have nothing to do
with the laws except to obey them.” If the Navy troubled to think of
civilians at all—it never does unless they annoy it with their futile
chatter in Parliament and elsewhere—it would say: “Civilians have
nothing to do with the Navy except to pay for it.” Keen as is the
imaginative foresight of the Navy in regard to everything which concerns
its own honour and effectiveness, it is utterly lacking in any
sympathetic imaginative understanding of the intense civilian interest
in itself and in its work. We poor creatures who stand outside, I who
write and you who read, do in actual fact love the Navy only a little
less devotedly than the Navy loves its own Service. We long to
understand it, to help it, and to pay for it. We know what we owe to it,
but we would ask, in all proper humility, that now and then the Navy
would realise and appreciate the certain fact that it owes some little
of its power and success to us.

I cannot in a formula define the collective Soul of the Navy. It is a
moral atmosphere which cannot be chemically resolved. It is a subtle and
elusive compound of tradition, self sacrifice, early training, willing
discipline, youth, simplicity, valour, chivalry, lack of imagination,
and love of the Service—and the greatest of these is Love. I have tried
to indicate what it is, how it has given to this wonderful Navy of ours
a terrible unity, a terrible force, and an even more terrible
intelligence; how it has transformed a body of men into a gigantic
spiritual Power which expresses its might in the forms and means of
naval warfare. I cannot exactly define it, but I can in a humble
faltering way do my best to reveal it in its working.

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF WAR

Our Navy has played the great game of war by sea for too many hundreds
of years ever to under-rate its foes. It is even more true of the sea
than of the land that the one thing sure to happen is that which is
unexpected. Until they have measured by their own high standards the
quality of an enemy, our officers and men rate him in valour, in sea
skill, and in masterful ingenuity as fully the equal of themselves.
Until August 1914 the Royal Navy had never fought the German, and had no
standards of experience by which to assay him. The Navy had known the
maritime nations of Europe and fought them many times, but the Germans,
a nation of landsmen artificially converted into sailors within a single
generation, were a problem both novel and baffling. Eighteen years
before the War, Germany had no navy worth speaking of in comparison with
ours; during those fateful years she built ships and guns, trained
officers and men, and secured her sea bases on the North Sea and in the
Baltic at a speed and with a concentrated enthusiasm which were wholly
wonderful and admirable. “The Future of Germany lies on the water,”
cried the Kaiser one day, and his faithful people took up the cry. “We
here and now challenge Britain upon her chosen element.” Quite seriously
and soberly the German Navy Law of 1900 issued this challenge, and the
Fatherland settled down to its prodigious task with a serene confidence
and an extraordinary energy which won for it the ungrudging respect of
its future foes.

Perhaps the Royal Navy in those early years of the twentieth century,
and especially in 1913 and 1914, became just a little bit infected by
the mental disease of exalting everything German, which had grown into
an obsession among many Englishmen. At home during the War men oppressed
by their enemy’s land power, would talk as if one German cut in two
became two Germans. German organisation, German educational training,
German mechanical and scientific skill are very good, but they are not
superhuman. Their failures, like those of other folk, are fully as
numerous as their successes. In trade they won many triumphs over us
because British trading methods were individualistic and were totally
lacking in national direction and support. But the Royal Navy is in
every respect wholly distinct from every other British institution. It
is the one and only National Service which has always declined to
recognise in its practice the British policy of muddling through. It is
the one Service with a mind and an iron Soul of its very own. So that
when Germany set to work to create out of nothing a navy to compete with
our own, she was up against a vast spiritual power which she did not
understand, the Soul of the Navy, that unifying dominating force which
gives to it an incomparable strength. She was up, too, against that
experience of the sea and of sea warfare in a race of islanders which
had been living and growing since the days of King Alfred. The wonderful
thing is this: not that the German Navy has at no point been able to
bear comparison with ours—in design of ships, in quality and weight of
guns, in sea cunning, in sea training and in hardihood—but that in the
few short years of the present century the German Navy should have been
built at all, manned at all, trained at all.

As the German Navy grew, and our ships came in contact with those of the
Germans, especially upon foreign stations, our naval officers and men
came to regard their future foes with much respect and even with
admiration. We knew how great a task the Germans had set to themselves,
and were astonished at the speed with which they made themselves
efficient. I have often been told that during the years immediately
before the war, the relations between English and German naval officers
and men were more close than those between English officers and men and
the sailors of any other navy. It became recognised that in the Germans
we should have foemen of undoubted gallantry and of no less undoubted
skill. There are few officers and men in our Fleets who do not know
personally and admire their opposite numbers upon the enemy’s side, and
though our foes have in many ways broken the rules of war as understood
and practised by us, one never hears the Royal Navy call the Germans
“pirates.” Expressions such as this one are left to civilians. When Mr.
Churchill announced that the officers and crews of captured U boats
would be treated differently from those taken in surface ships, the Navy
strongly disapproved. To them it seemed that the responsibility for
breaches of international law and practice lay not with naval officers
and men, whose duty it was to carry out the orders of the superiors, but
that it lay with the superiors who gave those orders. To retaliate upon
subordinate officers and men for the crimes of their political chiefs
seemed cowardly, and worse—it struck a blow at the whole fabric of
naval discipline not only in the German but in every other Service,
including our own. Our officers saw more clearly than did the then First
Lord that no Naval Service can remain efficient for a day if it be
encouraged to discriminate between the several orders conveyed to it,
and to claim for itself a moral right to select what shall be obeyed and
what disobeyed.

Germany had no maritime traditions and a scanty seafaring population to
assist her. Her seaboard upon the North Sea is a maze of shallows and
sandbanks, through which devious channels leading to her naval and
commercial bases are kept open only by continuous dredging. God has made
Plymouth Sound, Spithead and the Firth of Forth; the Devil, it is
alleged, has been responsible for Scapa and the Pentland Firth in
winter; but man, German man, has made the navigable mouths of the Elbe,
the Weser and the Ems. The Baltic is an inland sea upon which the
coasting trade had for centuries been mainly in the hands of
Scandinavians. Until late in the nineteenth century Germany was one of
the least maritime of all nations; almost at a leap she sprang into the
position of one of the greatest. It is said that peoples get the
governments which they deserve; it is certainly true that when peoples
are blind their governments shut their eyes. In the Country of the Blind
the one-eyed man is not King; he is flung out for having the
impertinence to pretend to see. In a state of blindness or of careless
indifference we made Germany a present of Heligoland in 1890. It looked
a poor thing, a crumbling bit of waste rock, and when the Kaiser asked
for it he received the gift almost without discussion. Both our
Government and Court at that time were almost rabidly pro-German. We all
cherished so much suspicion of France and Russia that we had none left
to spare for Germany. Heligoland was then of no great use to us, but it
was of incalculable value to our future enemies. A German Heligoland
fortified, equipped with airship sheds and long-distance wireless, a
shelter for submarines, was to the new German Navy only second in value
to the Kiel Canal. Islands do not “command” anything beyond range of
their guns, especially when they have no harbours; but Heligoland,
though it in no sense commanded the approach to the German bases, was an
invaluable outpost and observation station. It is a little island of
crumbling red rock, preserved only by man’s labour from vanishing into
the sea; it is a mile long and less than one-third of a mile wide; it is
28 miles from the nearest mainland. Yet when we gave to Germany this
scrap of wasting rock, we gave her the equivalent in naval value of a
fleet. We secured her North Sea bases from our sudden attacks, and we
gave her an observation station from which she could direct attacks
against ourselves.

Heligoland, a free gift from us, was the first asset, a most valuable
asset, which Germany was able to place to the credit side of her naval
balance sheet. Other assets were rapidly acquired. In 1898 the building
of the new navy seriously began, in 1900 was passed the famous German
Navy Law setting forth a continuous programme of expansion, the back
alley between the North Sea and the Baltic was cut through the isthmus
of Schleswig-Holstein, and Germany as a Sea Power rose into being. The
British people, at first amused and slightly contemptuous, became
alarmed, and the Royal Navy, always watchful, never boastful, never
undervaluing any possible opponent, settled down to deal in its own
supremely efficient fashion with the German Menace.

Neither the British people nor the Royal Navy were lacking in confidence
in themselves, but neither the people nor the Navy—we are, perhaps, the
least analytical race on earth—realised the immovable foundation upon
which their confidence was based. The people were wise; they simply
trusted to the Navy and gave to it whatever it asked. But the Navy,
though fully alive to the value of its own traditions, training, and
centuries-old skill, did not fully understand that the source of its own
immense striking force was moral rather than material. Like its critics
it thought over much in machines, and when it saw across the North Sea
the outpouring of ships and guns and men which Germany called her Navy,
it became not a little anxious about the result of a sudden unforeseen
collision. It was, if anything, over anxious.

But while this is true of the Navy as a whole, it is not true of the
higher naval command. Away hidden in Whitehall, immersed in the study of
problems for which the data were known and from which no secrets were
hid, sat those who had taken the measure of the German efforts and
gauged the value of them more justly than could the Germans themselves.
They, the silent ones,—who never talked to representatives of the Press
or inspired articles in the newspapers—knew that the German ships,
especially the all-big-gun ships, generically but rather misleadingly
called “Dreadnoughts,” were in nearly every class inferior copies of our
own ships of two or three years earlier. The Royal Navy designed and
built the first Dreadnought at Portsmouth in fifteen months, and
preserved so rigid a secrecy about her details that she was a “mystery
ship” till actually in commission. This lead of fifteen months, so
skilfully and silently acquired, became in practice three years, for it
reduced to waste paper all the German designs. The first Dreadnought was
commissioned by us on December 11th, 1906; it was not until May 3rd,
1910, that the Germans put into service the first _Nassaus_, which were
inferior copies. Our lead gained in 1906 was more than maintained, and
each batch of German designs showed that step by step they had to wait
upon us to reveal to them the path of naval progress. With us the upward
rush was extraordinarily rapid; with the Germans it was slow and
halting—they were slow to grasp what we were about and were then slow
to interpret in steel those of our intentions which they were able to
discern. Once our Navy had adopted the revolutionary idea of the
all-big-gun ship—the design was perhaps an evolution rather than a
revolution—its constructors and designers developed the principle with
the most astonishing rapidity. The original _Dreadnought_ was out of
date in the designers’ minds within a year of her completion. After two
or three years she was what the Americans call “a back number,” and when
the War broke out we had in hand—some of them nearly completed—the
great class of _Queen Elizabeths_ with 25 knots of speed and eight
15-inch guns, vessels as superior to the first _Dreadnought_ in fighting
force as she was herself superior to the light German battleships which
her appearance cast upon the scrap heap. And Germany, in spite of her
patient efforts, her system of espionage—which rarely seemed to
discover anything of real importance—and her outpouring of gold, had
even then as her best battleships vessels little better than our first
_Dreadnought_. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the five
_Queen Elizabeths_ and the five _Royal Sovereigns_ which we put into
commission during the war, equipped with eighty 15-inch guns, could have
taken on with ease the whole of the German battle fleet as it existed in
August 1914. Up to the outbreak of war, at each stage in the race for
weight of guns, power and speed, Britain remained fully two years ahead
of Germany in quality and a great deal more than two years ahead in
magnitude of output. During the war, as I will show later on, the
British lead was prodigiously increased and accelerated.

In its inmost heart, and especially in the heart of the higher command,
the Royal Navy knew that German designers of big ships were but pale
copyists of their own, and that the shipyards of Danzig and Stettin and
Hamburg could not compete in speed or in quantity with its own yards and
those of its contractors in England and Scotland. And yet knowing these
things, there was an undercurrent of anxiety ever present both in the
Navy and in those circles within its sphere of influence. It seemed to
some anxious minds—especially of civilian naval students—that what was
known could not be the whole truth, and that the Germans—belief in
whose ingenuity and resources had become an obsession with many
people—must have some wonderful unknown ships and still more wonderful
guns hidden in the deep recesses behind the Frisian sandbanks. In those
days, a year or two before August 1914, men who ought to have known
better would talk gravely of secret shipyards where stupendous vessels
were under construction, and of secret gunshops where the superhuman
Krupps were at work upon designs which would change the destinies of
nations. Anyone who has ever seen a battleship upon a building slip, and
knows how few are the slips which can accommodate them and how few are
the builders competent to make them, and how few can build the great
guns and gun mountings, will smile at the idea of secret yards and
secret construction. Details may be kept secret, as with the first
_Dreadnought_ and with many of our super-battleships, but the main
dimensions and purpose of a design are glaringly conspicuous to the eyes
of the Royal Navy’s Intelligence Service. One might as well try to hide
a Zeppelin as a battleship.

As with ships so with guns. I will deal in another chapter with the
Navy’s belief, fully justified in action, in the bigger gun—the
straight shooting, hard hitting naval gun of ever-expanding calibre—and
in the higher speed of ships which enables the bigger gun to be used at
its most effective range. There was nothing new in this belief; it was
the ripe fruit of all naval experience. Speed without hitting power is
of little use in the battle line; hitting power without speed gives to
an enemy the advantage of manœuvre and of escape; but speed and hitting
power, both greater than those of an enemy, spell certain annihilation
for him. He can neither fight nor run away. Given sufficient light and
sea room for a fight to the finish, he must be destroyed. The North Sea
deadlock is due to lack of room.

Our guns developed in size and in power as rapidly as did our great
ships in the capacity to carry and use them. Krupps have a very famous
name, made famous beyond their merits by the extravagant adulation which
for years past has been poured upon them in our own country by our own
people. The Germans are a race of egotists, but they have never exalted
themselves, and everything that is German, to the utterly absurd heights
to which many fearful Englishmen have exalted them in England. Krupps
have been bowed down to and almost worshipped as the Gods of Terror.
Their supreme capacity for inventing and constructing the best possible
guns has been taken as proved beyond the need of demonstration. But
Krupps were not and are not supermen; they have had to learn their trade
like more humble folk, and naval gun-making is not a trade which can be
taken up one day and made perfect on the next. Krupps are good
gun-makers, but our own naval gunshops have for years outclassed them at
every point—in design, in size, in power, in quality, and in speed of
production. The long wire-wound naval gun, a miracle of patient
workmanship, is British not German. While Krupps were labouring to make
11-inch guns which would shoot straight and not “droop” at the muzzle,
our Navy was designing and making 12-inch and 13.5-inch weapons of far
greater power and accuracy; when Krupps had at last achieved good
12-inch guns, we were turning out rapidly 15-inch weapons of equal
precision and far greater power. In naval guns Krupps lag far behind us.
And even in land guns—well, the huge siege howitzers which battered
Liège and Namur into powder, came not from Essen but from the Austrian
Skoda Works at Pilsen! And among field guns, the best of the best by
universal acclaim is the French _Soixante Quinze_, in design and
workmanship entirely the product of French artistic skill. War is a sad
leveller, and it has not been very kind to Krupps.

Collectively, the Navy is a fount of serene knowledge and wisdom, and
has been fully conscious of its superiority in men, in ships, and in
guns, but individual naval officers afloat or ashore are not always
either learned or wise. Foolish things were thought and said in 1913 and
in 1914, which one can now recall with a smile and charitably endeavour
to forget.

The Royal Navy was, and is, as superior to that of Germany in officers
and men as in ships and in guns. Indeed the one is the direct and
inevitable consequence of the other. Ships and guns are not imposed upon
the Navy by some outside intelligence; they are secretions from the
brains and experience and traditions of the Service itself; they are the
expressions in machinery of its Soul. One always comes back to this
fundamental fact when making any comparison of relative values in men or
in machines. It was the Navy’s Soul which conceived and made ready the
ships and the guns. The officers and men are the temporary embodiment of
that immortal Soul; it is preserved and developed in them, and through
them is passed on to succeeding generations in the Service.

Though the German Navy had not had time or opportunity to evolve within
itself that dominant moral force which I have called a naval Soul, it
contained both officers and men of notable fighting quality and
efficiency. The Royal Navy no more under-rated the personality of its
German opponents than it under-rated their ships and their guns. We
English, though in foreign eyes we may appear to be self-satisfied, even
bumptious, are at heart rather diffident. No nation on earth publicly
depreciates itself as we do; no nation is so willing to proclaim its own
weaknesses and follies and crimes. Much of this self-depreciation is
mere humbug, little more sincere than our confession on Sunday that we
are “miserable sinners,” but much of it is the result of our native
diffidence. No Scotsman was ever mistrustful of himself or of his race,
but very many Englishmen quite genuinely are. And the Navy being, as it
always has been, English of the English, tends to be modest, even
diffident. It is always learning, always testing itself, always seeking
after improvement; it realises out of the fullness of its experience how
much still remains to be learned, and becomes inevitably diffident of
its very great knowledge and skill. No man is so modest as the genuine
unchallengeable expert.

If one cannot improvise ships and guns of the highest quality by an
exercise of the Imperial will, still less can one improvise the officers
and men who have to man and use them. But Germany tried to do both. The
German Navy could not secrete its ships and guns, for there was no
considerable German navy a score of years ago; the machines were
designed and provided for it by Vulcan and Schichau and Krupps, and the
personnel to fight them had to be collected and trained from out of the
best available material. The officers were largely drawn from Prussian
families which for generations had served in the Army, and had in their
blood that sense of discipline and warlike fervour which are invaluable
in the leaders of any fighting force. But they had in them also the
ruthless temper of the German Army, which we have seen revealed in its
frightful worst in Belgium, Serbia and Poland; they knew nothing of that
kindly chivalrous spirit which is born out of the wide salt womb of the
Sea Mother. Many of these officers, though lacking in the Sea Spirit,
were highly competent at their work. Von Spee’s Pacific Squadron, which
beat Craddock off Coronel and was a little later annihilated by Sturdee
off the Falkland Islands, was, officer for officer and man for man,
almost as good as our best. The German Pacific Squadron was nearer the
realisation of the naval Soul than was any other part of the German
Navy. Admiral von Spee was a gallant and chivalrous gentleman, and the
captain of the _Emden_, ingenious, gay, humorous, unspoiled in success
and undaunted in defeat, was as English in spirit as he was unlike most
of his compatriots in sentiment. The Navy and the public at home were
right when they acclaimed von Spee and von Müller as seamen worthy to
rank with their own Service.

The German Pacific Squadron, being on foreign service, had not only
picked officers of outstanding merit, but also long-service crews of
unpressed men. It was, therefore, in organisation and personnel much
more akin to our Navy than was the High Seas Fleet at home in which the
men were for the most part conscripts on short service (three years)
from the Baltic, Elbe and inland provinces. In our Service the sailors
and marines join for twenty-one years, and in actual practice frequently
serve very much longer. They begin as children in training-ships and in
the schools attached to Marine barracks, and often continue in middle
life as grave men in the petty and warrant officer ranks. The Naval
Service is the work of their lives just as it is with the commissioned
officers. But in the German High Seas Fleet, with its three years of
forced service, a man was no sooner half-trained than his time was up
and he gladly made way for a raw recruit. The German crews were not of
the Sea nor of the Service. During the war, no doubt, they became better
trained. The experienced seamen were not discharged and the general
level of skill arose; the best were passed into the submarines which
alone of the Fleet were continuously at work on the sea. In our own
Navy, in consequence of the very great increase in the number of ships,
both large and small, the professional sailors had to be diluted by the
calling up of Naval Reservists, and by the expansion of the Royal Naval
Volunteer Reserve. But unlike Germany we had, fortunately for ourselves,
an almost limitless maritime population from which to draw the new naval
elements. Fishermen at the call of their country flocked into the
perilous service of mine sweeping and patrolling, young men from the
seaports readily joined the Volunteer detachments in training for the
great ships, dilution was carried on deftly and with so clear a judgment
that the general level of efficiency all round was almost completely
maintained. That this was possible is not so remarkable as it sounds.
The Royal Navy of the fighting ships, even after the war expansion,
remained a very small select service of carefully chosen men. Half of
its personnel was professional and perfectly trained, the second and new
half was so mingled and stirred up with the first that the professional
leaven permeated the whole mass. The Army which desired millions had to
take what it could get; but the Navy, which counts its men in tens of
thousands only, could pick and choose of the best. In the Army the old
Regulars were either killed or swamped under the flood of new entrants;
in the Navy the professionals remained always predominant. It was very
characteristic of the proud exclusiveness of our Royal Navy, very
characteristic of its haughty Soul, that the temporary officers were
allotted rank marks which distinguished them at a glance, even of
civilian eyes, from the regular Service.

Though, as events proved, the Royal Navy need have felt little anxiety
about the result of a fair trial of strength with its German opponents,
there was one ever-present justification for that deeper apprehension
with which the Navy in peace regarded an outbreak of war. It really was
feared lest our Government should leave to the Germans the moment for
beginning hostilities. It was feared lest while politicians were waiting
and seeing the Germans would strike suddenly at their “selected moment,”
and by a well-planned torpedo and submarine attack in time of supposed
peace, would put themselves in a position of substantial advantage.
There was undoubted ground for this fear. The German Government has not,
and never has had, any scruples; it has no moral standards; if before a
declaration of war it could have struck hard and successfully at our
Fleets it would have seized the opportunity without hesitation. And
realising this with the clarity of vision which distinguishes the Sea
Service, the Navy feared lest its freedom of action should be fatally
restricted at the very moment when its hands needed to be most free.

A distinguished naval captain—now an admiral—once put the matter
before me plainly from the naval point of view:

“If the Germans secretly mobilise at a moment when a third of our big
ships are out of commission or are under repair, they may not only by a
sudden torpedo attack cripple our battle squadrons, but may open the
seas to their own cruisers and submarines. We might, possibly should,
recover in time to deal with an invasion, but in the meantime our
overseas trade, on which you people depend at home for food and raw
materials, would have been destroyed. And until we had fully recovered,
not a man or a gun could be sent over sea to help France.”

“Surely we should have some warning,” I objected.

“You won’t get it from Germany,” said he gravely. “The little old man
(Roberts) is right. Germany will strike when Germany’s hour has struck.
If we are ready she will have no chance at all and knows it; she will
not give us a chance to be ready. When she wants to cover a secret
mobilisation she will invite parties of journalists, or provincial
mayors, or village greengrocers to visit Berlin and to see for
themselves how peaceful her intentions are!”

That is how the Navy felt and talked during the months immediately
before the War, and who shall say that their apprehensions were not well
founded? What it feared was unquestionably possible, even probable. But
happily for the Navy, and for these Islands and the Empire which it
guards, those whom the gods seek to destroy they first drive mad. The
wisdom of Germany’s rulers was by all of us immensely overrated. They
fell into the utter blindness of unimaginative stupidity. They
understood us so little that they thought us sure to desert our friends
rather than risk the paint upon our ships and the skins upon our fat and
slothful bodies. They watched us quarrelling among ourselves, talking
savagely of fighting one another in Ireland—we went on doing these
things until July 28th, 1914, four days before Germany attacked
Belgium!—and failed to realise that the ancient fighting spirit was as
strong in us as ever, however much it might seem to be smothered under
the rubbish of politics and social luxury. And meanwhile, during those
intensely critical weeks of July, while Parliament chattered about
Ulster and politicians looked hungrily for the soft spots in one
another’s throats, the Royal Navy was quietly, unostentatiously
preparing for war. What the Navy then did,—moving in all things with
its own silent, serene, masterful efficiency and grimly thanking God for
the dense political gas clouds behind which it could conceal its
movements from the enemy,—saved not only Great Britain and the Empire;
it saved the civilisation of the world.

Blindly Germany went on with her preparations for war against France and
Russia, including in the programme the swallowing up of little Belgium,
and left us wholly out of her calculations. The German battle Fleet,
which had been engaged in peace manœuvres, was cruising off the
Norwegian coast. Grand Admiral von Tirpitz had never expected us to
intervene, and no naval preparations were made. The Germans were in no
position to interfere with our disposition, or to move their cruisers
upon our trade communications. But all through those later days of
imminent crisis the English First Fleet lay mobilised at Portland,
whither it had moved from Spithead, until one night it slipped silently
away and disappeared into the northern mists. The Second and Third
Fleets had been filled up and were completely ready for war in the early
summer dawn of August 3rd. The big ships rushed to their war stations
stretching from the Thames to the Orkneys and commanding both outlets
from the North Sea; the destroyers and submarines swarmed in the Channel
and off the sand-locked German bases. The hour had struck, everything
had been done exactly as had been planned. The German Fleet crept into
safety through the back door of the Kattegat and Kiel, and on the
evening of August 4th, the British Government declared war.

Germany, who thought to catch the Navy asleep, was herself caught. She
had never believed that we either would or could fight for the integrity
of Belgium. She went on blindly in her appointed way until suddenly her
sight returned in a flash of bitter realisation that the Royal Navy,
without firing a single shot, had won the first tremendous decisive,
irreparable battle in the coming world’s war. Her chance of success at
sea had disappeared for ever. Before her lay a long cruel dragging fight
with the seas closed to her merchant ships and her whole Empire in a
state of blockade. No wonder that then, and since, Germany’s fiercest
passion of hate has been directed against us, and above all against that
Royal Navy which shields us and strikes for us. Before a shot had been
fired she saw herself outwitted, outmanœuvred, out-fought. “Gott strafe
England!”

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT VICTORY

In naval warfare there are many actions but few battles. An action is
any engagement between war vessels of any size, but a battle is a
contest between ships of the battle-line—sometimes called “capital
ships” upon the results of which depends the vital issues of a war.
During the whole of the long contest with Napoleon, there were only two
battles of this decisive kind—the Nile and Trafalgar.

And although the fighting by sea and land went on for ten years after
Trafalgar had given to us the supreme control of the world’s seas, there
were no more naval battles. Battles at sea are very rare because, when
fought out, they are so crushingly decisive. This characteristic feature
of the great naval battle has been greatly emphasised by modern
conditions. Upon land armies have outgrown the very earth itself;
fighting frontiers have become lines of trenches; battles have become
the mere swaying of these trench lines—a ripple here or there marks a
success or failure—but the lines re-formed remain. Even after weeks or
months of fighting, if the lines remain unbroken, neither side has
reached a decision. War upon land between great forces is a long
drawn-out agony of attrition.

But while battles upon land have become much less decisive than in the
simpler days of small armies and feeble weapons, fighting upon the sea
has become much quicker, much more crushingly final, in its effects and
results than in the days of our grandfathers. Speed and gun power are
now everything. The faster and more powerful fleet—more powerful in its
capacity for dealing accurate and destructive blows—can annihilate its
enemy completely within the brief hours of a single day. The more
powerful and faster his ships the less will the victor himself suffer.
Only under one condition can a defeated fleet escape annihilation, and
that is when the lack of light or of sea room snatches from the victor a
final decision. If an enemy can get away under shelter of his shore
fortifications, or within the protection of his minefields, he can defy
pursuit; but if there be ample room and daylight Speed and Power wielded
by men such as ours, will prevail with absolute mathematical
certainty—the losers will be sunk, the victors will, by comparison, be
little damaged. Every considerable engagement during the war has added
convincing proof to the conclusions which our Navy drew from the
decisive battle in the Sea of Tsushima between the Japanese and the
Russians, and the not less decisive action upon a smaller scale in which
the Americans destroyed the Spanish squadron off Santiago, Cuba. In both
cases the losers were destroyed while the victors suffered little hurt.
These outstanding lessons were not lost upon the Royal Navy, its
officers had themselves seen both fights, and so in its silent way the
Navy pressed upon its course always seeking after more speed, more gun
power, and above all more numbers. “Only numbers can annihilate,” said
Napoleon, and what the Emperor declared to be true of land fighting is
the more true of fighting by sea. Only numbers can annihilate.

Upon the evening of August 4th, 1914, I was sitting in a London office
beside a ticking tape machine awaiting the message that the Germans had
declined our ultimatum to withdraw from Belgium, and that war had been
declared. “There will be a big sea battle this evening,” observed my
companion. “There has been a big battle,” observed I, “but it is now
over.” Although he and I used similar language we attached to the words
very different meanings. He thought, as the bulk of the British people
thought at that time, that the British and German battle fleets would
meet and fight off the Frisian Islands. But I meant, and felt sure, that
the last thing our Grand Fleet desired was to fight in restricted and
dangerous waters, amid the perils of mines and submarines, when it had
already won the greatest fight of the war without firing a shot or
risking a single ship or man. There had been no “battle” in the popular
sense, but there had in fact been achieved a tremendous decisive victory
which through all the long months to follow would dominate the whole war
by sea and by land. Our great battleships were at that moment cruising
between Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and the Cromarty Firth on the
north-eastern shores of Scotland. Our fastest battle cruisers were in
the Firth of Forth together with many of the better pre-Dreadnought
battleships which, though too slow for a fleet action, had heavy
batteries available for a close fight in narrow waters. Many other older
and slower battleships and cruisers were in the Thames. The narrow
straits of Dover were thickly patrolled by destroyers and submarines,
and more submarines and destroyers were on watch off the mouths of the
Weser, the Jade, the Elbe and the Ems. Light cruisers hovered still
farther to the north where the Skagerrak opens between Denmark and the
Norwegian coast. The North Sea had become a _mare clausum_—no longer,
as the mapmakers term it, a German Ocean, but one which at a single
stroke had become overwhelmingly British.

Take a map of the North Sea and consider with me for a moment the
relative strengths and dispositions of the opposing battle fleets. There
was nothing complicated or super-subtle about the Royal Navy’s plans; on
the contrary they had that beautiful compelling simplicity which is the
characteristic feature of all really great designs whether in war or in
peace.

There are two outlets to the North Sea, one wide to the north and west
beyond the Shetlands, the other narrow and shallow to the south-west
through the Straits of Dover. The Straits are only twenty-one miles
wide; opposite the north of Scotland the Sea is 300 miles wide. But
before German battleships or cruisers could get away towards the wide
north-western outlet beyond the Shetlands they would have to steam some
400 miles north of Heligoland. Except for the Pacific Squadron based
upon Tsing-tau in the Far East and cruising upon the east and west
coasts of Mexico, all the fleets of our enemy were at his North Sea
ports or in the Baltic—a land-locked sheet of water which for the
moment is out of our picture. From Heligoland to Scapa Flow in the
Orkneys—where Admiral Jellicoe had his headquarters and where he had
under his hand twenty-two of our most powerful battleships—is less than
550 miles. Jellicoe had also with him large numbers of armoured and
light cruisers. In the Firth of Forth, less than 500 miles from
Heligoland, Admiral Beatty had five of the fastest and most powerful
battle cruisers afloat and great quantities of lighter cruisers and
destroyers. In the Thames, about 350 miles from Heligoland, lay most of
our slower and less powerful pre-Dreadnought battleships and cruisers,
vessels of a past generation in naval construction, but in their huge
numbers and collective armaments a very formidable force to encounter in
the narrow waters of the Straits of Dover.

Three possible courses of action lay before the German Naval Staff. They
had at their disposal seventeen battleships and battle cruisers built
since the first _Dreadnought_ revolutionised the battle line, but, as I
have already pointed out, these vessels, class for class and gun for
gun, were lighter, slower, and less well armed than were the
twenty-seven great war vessels at the disposal of Jellicoe and Beatty.
The Germans could have tried to break away to the north with their whole
battle fleet, escorting all their lighter cruisers, in the hope that
while the battle fleets were engaged the cruisers might escape round the
north of Scotland, and get upon our trade routes in the Atlantic. That
was their first possible line of action—a desperate one, since Jellicoe
and Beatty with much stronger forces lay upon the flank of their course
to the north, and the preponderating strength and swiftness of our light
and heavy cruisers would have meant, in all human probability, not only
the utter destruction of the enemy’s battle fleet but also the wiping
out of his would-be raiders. Our cruisers could have closed the passages
between the Orkneys and Iceland long before the Germans could have
reached them. This first heroic dash for the free spaces of the outer
seas would have been so eminently gratifying to us that it is scarcely
surprising that the Germans denied us its blissful realisation.

[Illustration: THE NORTH SEA.]

The second possible course, apparently less heroic but in its ultimate
results probably as completely destructive for the enemy as the first
course, would have been to bear south-west, hugging the shallows as
closely as might be possible, and to endeavour to break a way through
the Straits of Dover and the English Channel. From Heligoland to the
Straits is over 350 miles, and we should have known all about the German
dash long before they could have reached the Narrows. Those Narrow Seas
are like the neck of a bottle which would have been corked most
effectually by our serried masses of pre-Dreadnought battleships and
cruisers interspersed by swarming hundreds of submarines and destroyers
with their vicious torpedo stings. We can quite understand how the
Germans, who had read Sir Percy Scott’s observations of a month or two
before on the deadliness of submarines in narrow waters, liked a dash
for the Straits as little as they relished a battle with Jellicoe and
Beatty in the far north, more especially as their line of retreat would
have been cut off by the descent from their northern fastnesses of our
battle fleets. Not then, nor a week or two later when we were passing
our Expeditionary Force across the Channel, did the Germans attempt to
break through the Straits and cut us off from our Allies the French.

The third course was the one which the Germans in fact took. It was the
famous course of Brer Rabbit, to lie low and say nuffin’, and to wait
for happier times when perchance the raids of their own submarines, and
our losses from mines, might so far diminish our fighting strength as to
permit them to risk a Battle of the Giants with some little prospect of
success. And in adopting this waiting policy they did what we least
desired and what, therefore, was the safest for them and most
embarrassing for us. Never at any time did we attempt to prevent the
German battle fleets from coming out. We no more blockaded them than
Nelson a hundred years earlier blockaded the French at Toulin and Brest.
We maintained, as Nelson did, a perpetual unsleeping watch on the
enemy’s movements, but our desire always was the same as Nelson’s—to
let the enemy come out far enough to give us space and time within which
to compass his complete and final destruction.

Although the Germans, by adopting a waiting policy, prevented the Royal
Navy from fulfilling its first duty—the seeking out and destruction of
an enemy’s fighting fleets—their inaction emphasised the completeness
of the Victory of Brains and Soul which the Navy had won during those
few days before the outbreak of war. It was because our mobilisation had
been so prompt and complete, it was because the disposition of our
fleets had been so perfectly conceived, that the Germans dared not risk
a battle with us in the open and were unable to send out their cruisers
to cut off our trading ships and to break our communications with
France. Although the enemy’s fleets had not been destroyed, they had
been rendered very largely impotent. We held, more completely than we
did even after the crowning mercy of Trafalgar, the command of the seas
of the world. The first great battle was bloodless but complete, it had
won for us and for the civilised world a very great victory, and the
Royal Navy had never in its long history more fully realised and
revealed its tremendous unconquerable Soul.

* * * * *

It may be of some little interest, now that the veil of secrecy can be
partly raised, to describe the opposing battle fleets upon which rested
the decision of victory or defeat. Before the war it had become the
habit of many critics, both naval and civilian, to exalt the striking
power of the torpedo craft—both destroyers and submarines—and to talk
of the great battleship as an obsolete monster, as some vast Mammoth at
the mercy of a wasp with a poison sting. But the war has shown that the
Navy was right to hold to the deep beliefs, the outcome of all past
experience, that supremacy in the battle line means supremacy in Sea
Control. The smaller vessels, cruisers, and mosquito craft, are vitally
necessary for their several rôles,—without them the great ships cannot
carry out a commercial blockade, cannot protect trade or transports,
cannot conduct those hundreds of operations both of offence and defence
which fall within the duties of a complete Navy. But the ultimate
decision rests with the Battle Fleets. They are the Fount of Power.
While they are supreme, the seas are free to the smaller active vessels;
without such supremacy, the seas are closed to all craft, except to
submarines and, as events have proved, to a large extent even to those
under-water wasps.

In August, 1914, our Battle Fleets available for the North Sea—and at
the moment of supreme test no vessels, however powerful, which were not
on the spot were of any account at all—were not at their full strength.
The battleships were all at home—the ten Dreadnoughts, each with ten
12-inch guns, the four Orions, the four K.G.V.s and the four Iron Dukes,
each with their ten 13.5-inch guns far more powerful than the earlier
Dreadnoughts,—and were all fully mobilised by August 3rd. But of our
nine fast and invaluable battle cruisers as many as four were far away.
The _Australia_ was at the other side of the globe, and three others had
a short time before been despatched to the Mediterranean. Beatty had the
_Lion_, _Queen Mary_, and _Princess Royal_, each with eight 13.5-inch
guns and twenty-nine knots of speed, in addition to the _New Zealand_,
and _Invincible_ each with eight 12-inch guns. The First Lord of the
Admiralty announced quite correctly that we had mobilised thirty-one
ships of the battle line, but actually in the North Sea at their war
stations upon that fateful evening of August 4th—which now seems so
long ago—Jellicoe and Beatty had twenty-seven only of first line
ships. They were enough as it proved, but one rather grudged at
that time, those three in the Mediterranean and the _Australia_ at
the Antipodes. Had there been a battle of the Giants we should have
needed them all, for only numbers can annihilate. Jellicoe had, in
addition to those which I have reckoned, the _Lord Nelson_ and
_Agamemnon_—pre-Dreadnoughts, each with four 12-inch guns and ten
9.2-inch guns—useful ships but not of the first battle line.

Opposed to our twenty-seven available monsters the Germans had under
their hands eighteen completed vessels of their first line. I do not
count in this select company the armoured cruiser _Blücher_, with her
twelve 8-inch guns, which was sunk later on in the Dogger Bank action by
the 13.5-inch weapons of Beatty’s great cruisers. Neither do I count the
fine cruiser _Goeben_, a fast vessel with ten 11-inch guns which, like
our three absent battle cruisers, was in the Mediterranean. The _Goeben_
escaped later to the Dardanelles and ceased to be on the North Sea roll
of the German High Seas Fleet.

Germany had, then, eighteen battleships and battle cruisers, and had it
been known to the public that our apparent superiority in available
numbers was only 50 per cent. in the North Sea, many good people might
have trembled for the safety of their homes and for the honour of their
wives and daughters. But luckily they did not know, for they could with
difficulty have been brought to understand that naval superiority rests
more in speed and in quality and in striking power than in the mere
numbers of ships. When I have said that numbers only can annihilate, I
mean, of course, numbers of equal or superior ships. In quality of ships
and especially of men, in speed and in striking power, our twenty-seven
ships had fully double the strength of the eighteen Germans who might
have been opposed to them in battle. None of our vessels carried
anything smaller—for battle—than 12-inch guns, and fifteen of them
bore within their turrets the new 13.5-inch guns of which the weight of
shell and destructive power were more than 50 per cent. greater than
that of the earlier 12-inch weapons. On the other hand, four of the
German battleships (the _Nassau_ class) carried 11-inch guns and were
fully two knots slower in speed than any of the British first line.
Three of their battle cruisers also had 11-inch guns. While therefore we
had guns of 12 and 13.5 inches the Germans had nothing more powerful to
oppose to us than guns of 11 and 12 inches. Ship for ship the Germans
were about two knots slower than ourselves, so that we always had the
advantage of manœuvre, the choosing of the most effective range, and the
power of preventing by our higher speed the escape of a defeated foe.
Had the Germans come north into the open sea, we could have chosen
absolutely, by virtue of our greater speed, gun power and numbers, the
conditions under which an action should have been fought and how it
should have been brought to a finish.

An inch or two in the bore of a naval gun, a few feet more or less of
length, may not seem much to some of my readers. But they should
remember that the weight of a shell, and the weight of its explosive
charge, vary as the _cube_ of its diameter. A 12-inch shell is a third
heavier than one of 11 inches, while a 13.5-inch shell is more than
one-half heavier than a 12-inch and twice as heavy as one of 11 inches
only. The power of the bursting charge varies not as the weight, but as
the _square_ of the weight of a shell. The Germans were very slow to
learn the naval lesson of the superiority of the bigger gun and the
heavier shell. It was not until after the Dogger Bank action when
Beatty’s monstrous 13.5-inch shells broke in a terrible storm upon their
lighter-armed battle cruisers that the truth fully came home to them.
Had Jellicoe and Beatty fought the German Fleet in the wide spaces of
the upper North Sea in August, 1914, we should have opposed a fighting
efficiency in power and weight of guns of more than two to one. Rarely
have the precious qualities of insight and foresight been more
strikingly shown forth than in the superiority in ships, in guns, and in
men that the Royal Navy was able to range against their German
antagonists in those early days of August, when the fortunes of the
Empire would have turned upon the chances of a naval battle. In the long
contest waged between 1900 and 1914, in the bloodless war of peace, the
spiritual force of the Navy had gained the victory; the enemy had been
beaten, and knew it, and thenceforward for many months, until the spring
of 1916, he abode in his tents. Whenever he did venture forth it was not
to give battle but to kill some women, some babes, and then to scuttle
home to proclaim the dazzling triumph which “Gott” had granted to his
arms.

* * * * *

It may seem to many a fact most extraordinary that in August, 1914, not
one of our great ships of the first class—the so-called
“super-Dreadnoughts”—upon which we depended for the domination of the
seas and the security of the Empire, not one was more than three years
old. The four Orions—_Orion_, _Conqueror_, _Thunderer_ and
_Monarch_—were completed in 1911 and 1912. The four K.G. Fives—_King
George V_, _Centurion_, _Ajax_, and _Audacious_ in 1912 and 1913; and
the four Iron Dukes—_Iron Duke_, _Marlborough_, _Emperor of India_ and
_Benbow_—in 1914. All these new battleships carried ten 13.5-inch guns
and had an effective speed of nearly 23 knots. The super-battle
cruisers—_Lion_, _Queen Mary_ and _Princess Royal_—were completed in
1912, carried eight 13.5-inch guns, and had a speed of over 29 knots.
Upon these fifteen ships, not one of which was more than three years
old, depended British Sea Power. The Germans had nothing, when the war
broke out, which was comparable with these fifteen splendid monsters.
Their first line battleships and battle cruisers completed in the
corresponding years, from 1911 to 1914—their “opposite numbers” as the
Navy calls them—were not superior in speed, design and power of guns to
our Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers, which had already
passed into the second class, and which, long before the war ended, had
sunk to the third class. But the newness and overwhelming superiority of
our true first line do not surprise those who realise that these fifteen
great ships were the fine flower of our naval brains and soul. The new
Navy of the three years immediately preceding the war was simply the old
Navy writ large. As the need had arisen, so had the Navy expanded to
meet it. The designs for these fifteen ships did not fall down from
Heaven; they were worked out in naval brains years before they found
their material expression in steel. The vast ships issued forth upon the
seas, crushingly superior to anything which our enemy could put into
commission against us, because our naval brains were superior to his and
our naval Soul was to his as a white glowing flame to a tallow candle.
In a sentence, while Germany was laboriously copying our Dreadnoughts we
had cast their designs aside, and were producing at a speed, with which
he could not compete, Orions, K.G. Fives, Iron Dukes and Lions.

* * * * *

The North Sea, large as it may appear upon a map, is all too small for
the manœuvres of swift modern fleets. No part of that stretch of water
which lies south of the Dogger Bank—say, from the Yorkshire coast to
Jutland—is far enough removed from the German bases to allow of a sure
and decisive fleet action. There was no possibility here of a clean
fight to a finish. An enemy might be hammered severely, some of his
vessels might be sunk—Beatty showed the German battle cruisers what we
could do even in a stern chase at full speed—but he could not be
destroyed. On the afternoon and night of May 31st-June 1st, 1916, the
Grand Fleet had the enemy enveloped and ripe for destruction, but were
robbed of full victory by mist and darkness and the lack of sea room.
Nelson spoke with the Soul of the Navy when he declared that a battle
was not won when any enemy ship was enabled to escape destruction. So
while the divisions of the Grand Fleet, and especially the fastest
battle cruisers of some twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots speed (about
thirty-three miles per hour) neglected no opportunity to punish the
enemy ships that might venture forth, what every man from Jellicoe to
the smallest ship boy really longed and prayed for, was a brave ample
battle in the deep wide waters of the north. Here there was room for a
newer and greater Trafalgar, though even here the sea was none too
spacious. Great ships, which move with the speed of a fairly fast train
and shoot to the extreme limits of the visible horizon, really require a
boundless Ocean in which to do their work with naval thoroughness. But
the upper North Sea would have served, and there the Grand Fleet waited,
ever at work though silent, ever watchfully ready for the Great Day. And
while it waited it controlled by the mere fact of its tremendous power
of numbers, weight, and position the destinies of the civilised world.

* * * * *

The task of the Royal Navy in the war would have been much simpler had
the geography of the North Sea been designed by Providence to assist us
in our struggle with Germany. We made the best of it, but were always
sorely handicapped by it. The North Sea was too shallow, too well
adapted for the promiscuous laying of mines, and too wide at its
northern outlet for a really close blockade. Had the British Isles been
slewed round twenty degrees further towards Norway, so that the outlet
to the north was as narrow as that to the English Channel—and had there
been a harbour big enough for the Grand Fleet between the Thames and the
Firth of Forth—then our main bases could have been placed nearer to
Germany and our striking power enormously increased. We could then have
placed an absolute veto upon the raiding dashes which the Germans now
and then made upon the eastern English seaboard. As the position in fact
existed we could not place any of our first line ships further south
than the Firth of Forth—and could place even there only our fastest
vessels—without removing them too far from the Grand Fleet’s main
concentration at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Invergordon in the Cromarty
Firth was used as a rest and replenishing station. The German
raids—what Admiral Jellicoe called their tactics of “tip and run”—were
exasperating, but they could not be allowed to interfere with the naval
dispositions upon which the whole safety of the Empire depended. We had
to depend on the speed of our battle cruisers in the Firth of Forth to
give us opportunity to intercept and punish the enemy. The German battle
cruisers which fired upon Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools were
nearly caught—a few minutes more of valuable time and a little less of
sea haze would have meant their destruction. A second raid was
anticipated and the resulting Dogger Bank action taught the enemy that
the Navy had a long arm and long sight. For a year he digested the
lesson, and did not try his luck again until April, 1916, when he dashed
forth and raided Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast. The story of this raid
is interesting. The Grand Fleet had been out a day or two before upon
what it called a “stunt,” a parade in force of the Jutland coast and the
entrance to the Skaggerak. It had hunted for the Germans and found them
not, and returning to the far north re-coaled the ships. The Germans,
with a cleverness which does them credit, launched their Lowestoft raid
immediately after the “stunt” and before the battle cruisers,
re-coaling, could be ready to dash forth. Even as it was they did not
cut much time to waste. It was a dash across, a few shots, and a dash
back.

Then was made a re-disposition of the British Squadrons, not in the
least designed to protect the east coast of England—though the enemy
was led to believe so—but so to strengthen Beatty’s Battle Cruiser
Squadrons that the enemy’s High Seas Fleet, when met, could be fought
and held until Jellicoe with his battle squadrons could arrive and
destroy it. The re-disposition consisted of two distinct movements.
First: the pre-Dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers which had
been stationed in the Forth were sent to the Thames. Second: Admiral
Evan-Thomas’s fifth battle squadron of five Queen Elizabeth battleships
(built since the war began)—of twenty-five knots speed and each
carrying eight 15-inch guns—_Queen Elizabeth_, _Barham_, _Valiant_,
_Warspite_, and _Malaya_—were sent from Scapa to the Firth of Forth to
reinforce Beatty and to give him a support which would enable him and
Evan-Thomas to fight a delaying action against any force which the
Germans could put to sea. Three of the Invincible type of battle
cruisers were moved from the Forth to Scapa to act as Jellicoe’s advance
guard, and to enable contact to be quickly made between Beatty and
Jellicoe. But for this change in the Grand Fleet’s dispositions, which
enabled the four splendid battleships—_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_
and _Malaya_ (the _Queen Elizabeth_ was in dock)—to engage the whole
High Seas Fleet on the afternoon of May 31st, 1916, while Beatty headed
off the German battle cruisers and opened the way for Jellicoe’s
enveloping movement, the Battle of Jutland could never have been fought.

CHAPTER IV

WITH THE GRAND FLEET: A NORTH SEA “STUNT”
“_So young and so untender!_”—KING LEAR

For more than eighteen months the Grand Fleet had been at war. It was
the centre of the great web of blockading patrols, mine-sweeping
flotillas, submarine hunters, and troop-transport convoys, and yet as a
Fleet it had never seen the enemy nor fired a shot except in practice.
The fast battle cruisers, stationed nearest to the enemy in the Firth of
Forth had grabbed all the sport that was going in the Bight of
Heligoland, or in the Dogger Bank action. But though several of the
vessels belonging to the Grand Fleet had picked up some share in the
fighting—at the Falkland Islands and in the Dardanelles—Jellicoe with
his splendid squadrons still waited patiently for the Day. The perils
from submarines had been mastered, and those from mines, cast into the
seas by a reckless enemy, had been made of little account by continuous
sweeping. The early eagerness of officers and men had given place to a
sedate patience. At short intervals the vast Fleet would issue forth
and, attended by its screen of destroyers and light cruisers, would make
a stately parade of the North Sea. All were prepared for battle when it
came, but as the weeks passed into months and the months into years, the
parades became practice “stunts,” stripped of all expectation of
encountering the enemy and devoid of the smallest excitement. The Navy
knows little of excitement or of thrills—it has too much to think about
and to do. At Action Stations in a great ship, not one man in ten ever
sees anything but the job immediately before him. The enemy, if enemy
there be in sight from the spotting tops, is hidden from nine-tenths of
the officers and crew by steel walls. So, if even a battle be devoid of
thrills—except those painfully vamped up upon paper after the event—a
“stunt,” without expectation of battle, becomes the most placid of sea
exercises. I will describe such a “stunt” as faithfully as may be,
adding thereto a little imaginary incident which will, I hope, gratify
the reader, even though he may be assured in advance that I invented it
for his entertainment.

* * * * *

It was the beginning of the afternoon watch, and the vast harbour of
Scapa Flow was very still and sunny and silent. The hands were sitting
about smoking, or “caulking” after their dinner, and the noisome “both
watches” call was still some fifteen minutes away. But though everything
appeared to be perfectly normal and sedate, an observant Officer of the
Watch, looking through the haze within which the Fleet flagship lay
almost invisible against the dark hills, could see a little wisp of
colour float to her yards and remain. Forthwith up to the yards of every
vessel in harbour ran an exactly similar hoist, and as it was dipped on
the flagship it disappeared from sight upon all. It was the signal to
prepare for sea, and now mark exactly how such a signal—seemingly so
momentous to a civilian—is received by the Navy at war.

If the Officer of the Watch upon a ship knows his signals he will put
his glass back under his arm and think, “Good, I’ve got off two days’
harbour watch keeping at least; my first and middle, too.” The signal
hands on the bridge look at the calm sea, which will for once not drench
them and skin their hands on the halliards, and gratefully regard the
windless sky under which hoists will slide obediently up the mast and
not tug savagely like a pair of dray horses. The signal bos’n turns
purple with fierce resentment which he does not really feel, for he will
be up all day and half the night beside the Officer of the Watch on the
bridge running the manœuvring signals, and he loves to feel
indispensable. There is no excitement on the mess decks, only a smile
since sea means a period of peace of mind when parades and polishings
are suspended, and one keeps three watches or sleeps in a turret all
night and half the day. Besides there is deep down in the minds of all
the hope that, in spite of a hundred duds and wash-outs and
disappointments, this trip may just possibly lead to that glorious scrap
that all have been longing for, and have come to regard as about as
imminent as the Day of Judgment. The gunnery staff look important and
the “garage men”—armourers and electricians, commonly called L.T.O.s,
in unspeakable overalls carrying spanners and circuit-testing
lamps—float round the turrets looking for little faults and flies in
the amber. The bad sailors shiver, though there is hope even for them in
the silence and calmness of the sky. There is no obvious bustle of
preparation, for the best of reasons: there is nothing to do except to
close sea doors and batten down; the Fleet is Already Prepared. Let the
reader please brush from his mind any idea of excitement, any idea of
unusualness, any idea of bustle; none of these things exist when the
Grand Fleet puts to sea. The signal which ran up to the yards of the
flagship and was repeated by all the vessels in the Fleet read: “Prepare
to leave harbour,” and simply meant that the Fleet was going out,
probably that night, and that no officer could leave his ship to go and
dine with his friends in some other ship’s wardroom.

By and by up goes another little hoist, also universally acknowledged;
this makes the stokers and the engine room artificers, and the
purple-ringed, harassed-looking engineer officers jump lively down below
so as to cut the time notice for full steam down by half and be ready to
advance the required speed by three knots or so.

The sun dips and evening comes on; a glorious evening such as one only
gets fairly far north in the spring, and a signal comes again, this
time: “Raise steam for —— knots and report.” Now one sees smoke
pouring forth continuously from the coal-driven ships, and every now and
then a great gust of cold oil vapour from the aristocratic new
battleships whose fires are fed with oil only.

Dinner in the wardroom starts in a blaze of light and a buzz of talking,
and the band plays cheerfully on the half-deck outside. The King’s
health is drunk and the band settles down to an hour of ragtime and
waltzes, the older men sip their port, and the younger ones drift out to
where the gun room is already dancing lustily. Our wonderful Navy dances
beautifully, and loves every evening after dinner to execute the most
difficult of music-hall steps in the midst of a wild Corybantic orgie.
In the choosing of partners age and rank count for nothing. The wardroom
and gun room after dinner are members of one happy family.

Then suddenly the scene is transformed. In the doorway of the anteroom
and dining-room appears framed the tall form of the Owner, who in a
dozen words tells that the Huns are out. They are in full force
strolling merrily along a westerly course far away to the south. Already
the battle-cruisers from the Forth are seeking touch with the enemy, and
the light stuff and the advance destroyers, the screen of the Grand
Fleet, have already flown from Scapa to make contact with the battle
cruisers. Our armoured cruisers have moved out in advance and the Grand
Fleet itself is about to go.

As the wardroom gathers round the Owner, the band packs up hastily and
vanishes down the big hatch into the barracks or Marines’ mess to stow
its instruments and put on warm clothing. Those snotties who have the
first watch scatter, and the remainder gather in the gun room to turn
over the chances on the morrow which seems to their eager souls more
mist-shrouded and promising than have most morrows during the long
months of waiting.

* * * * *

Let us now shift the scene to the compass platform or Monkey’s Island of
one of the great new oil-fired battleships of the Fifth Battle Squadron,
one of the five ships known as Queen Elizabeths—all added to the Navy
since the war began and all members of the most powerful and fastest
squadron of battleships upon the seas of the world. They have a speed of
twenty-five knots, carry eight 15-inch guns in four turrets arranged on
the middle line, and have upon each side a battery of six 6-inch guns in
casemates for dealing faithfully and expeditiously with enemy destroyers
who may seek to rush in with the torpedo. As our ship passes out into
the night, the port and starboard 6-inch batteries are fully manned and
loaded, and up on the compass platform, in control of these batteries,
are two young officers—a subaltern of Marines and a naval
sub-lieutenant—to each of whom is allotted one of the batteries. One
has charge of the port side, the other of the starboard. I have called
the Navy a young man’s service, and here we see a practical example; for
beneath us is the last word in super-battleships dependent for
protection against sudden torpedo attack upon the bright eyes and cool
trained brains of two youngsters counting not more than forty years
between them. I will resume my description and put it in the mouth of
one of these youthful control officers—the Marine subaltern who a year
before had been a boy at school:

“Going to the gun room I warn the Sub, my trusted friend and fellow
control officer on the starboard side, and depart to my cabin, where I
dress as for a motor run on a cold day. I have a great Canadian fur cap
and gorgeous gloves which defeat the damp and cold even of the North
Sea. As I stand on the quarter deck for a moment’s glance at the sunset,
which I cannot hope to describe, there comes a sound, a sort of hollow
metallic clap and a flicker of flame. They are testing electric circuits
in the 6-inch battery, and No. 5 gun port has fired a tube. These sounds
recur at short intervals from both sides for a couple of minutes. Then
the gun layers are satisfied and stop. I go along the upper deck above
the battery—which is in casemates between decks—and reach the pagoda,
and then pass up, up, through a little steel door, above the signal
bridge and the searchlights to the airy, roomy Monkey’s Island with the
foremast in the middle of the floor, holding the spotting top—usually
known as the topping spot, an inversion which ironically describes its
exposed position in action—poised above our heads. There is a little
charthouse forward of the mast on its raised date of the compass
platform proper, where the High Priest busies himself between his two
altars, the old and the new.

* * * * *

“Looking ahead it is already dark. The sea is still and the ships are
dim black masses. We have already weighed—the Cable Officer’s call went
as I passed along the upper deck—and are gliding to our station in the
Squadron, all of which are moving away past those ships which have not
yet begun to go out. Gradually we leave the rest of the Grand Fleet
behind, for our great speed gives us the place of honour, and so pass
outside and breast the swell of the open sea.

“We find that the wind has risen outside the harbour, but there has not
yet been time for a serious swell to get up. The water heaves slowly,
breaking into a sharp clap which sets our attendant destroyers dancing
like corks, but of which we take no notice whatever. This is one way in
which the big ships score, though they miss the full joy of life and the
passion for war which can be felt only in a destroyer flotilla. Our
destroyer escort has arisen apparently from nowhere and we all plough on
together. At intervals we tack a few points and the manœuvre is passed
from ship to ship with flash lamps. Behind us, though we cannot see
them, follows the rest of the Grand Fleet, in squadrons line ahead,
trailing out up to, and beyond the horizon.

* * * * *

“That night watch on my first big ‘stunt’ lives in my memory. Never
before had I been by myself in control of a battery of six 6-inch guns
for use against light fast enemy craft, which might try the forlorn
hazard of a dash to within easy torpedo range of about 500 yards.
Torpedoes are useless against rapidly moving ships unless fired quite
close up. This form of attack has been very rare, and has always failed,
but it remains an ever-present possibility. Even in clear weather with
the searchlights on—which are connected up to me and move with me—one
cannot see for more than a mile at night, and a destroyer could rush in
at full speed upon a zig-zag track to within point blank range in about
a minute. Direct-aimed fire would fail at such a rapidly moving mark.
One has to put up a curtain of fire, fast and furious for the charging
vessel to run into. But there is no time to lose, no time at all.

“There was a bright moon upon that first night, so everything was less
unpleasant and nerve-racking than it might have been. Somehow in the
Navy one seems to shed all feelings of nervousness. Perhaps this is the
result of splendid health, the tonic sea air, and the atmosphere of
serene competent resourcefulness which pervades the whole Service. We
are all trained to think only of the job on hand and never of ourselves.

“From the height of the compass platform there is no appearance of
freeboard. The ship’s deck seems to lie flush with the water, and one
sees it as a light-coloured shaped plank—such as one cut out of wood
when a child and fitted with a toy mast. The outline is not regularly
curved but sliced away at the forecastle with straight sides running
back parallel with one another. ‘A’ turret is in the middle of the
forecastle, which is very narrow; and behind it upon a higher level
stands ‘B’ with its long glistening guns sticking out over ‘A’s’ back.
From aloft the turrets look quite small, though each is big enough for a
hundred men to stand comfortably on the roof. The slope upwards is
continued by the great armoured conning tower behind and higher than ‘B’
turret, and directly above and behind that again stands the compass
platform. Overhead towers the draughty spotting top for the turret guns.
Behind again, upon the same level as my platform, are the two great flat
funnels spouting out dense clouds of oily smoke. When there is a
following wind the spotting top is smothered with smoke, and the
officers perched there cough and gasp and curse. It is then worthy of
its name, for it is in truth a ‘topping spot!’

“We are a very fast ship, but at this height the impression of speed is
lost. The ship seems to plough in leisurely fashion through the black
white-crested waves, now and then throwing up a cloud of spray as high
as my platform, to descend crashing upon ‘A’ turret, which is none too
dry a place to sleep in. We don’t roll appreciably, but slide up and
down with a dignified pitch, exactly like the motion of that patent
rocking-horse which I used to love in my old nursery.

“Down below, though they are hidden from me by the deck, the gunners
stand ready behind their casemates, waiting for my signal. The guns are
loaded and trained, the crews stand at their stations, shells and
cordite charges are ready to their hands. The gun-layers are connected
up with me and are ready to respond instantly to my order.

“So the watch passes; my relief comes, and I go.

* * * * *

“I was on watch again in the forenoon, and then one could see something
of the Grand Fleet and realise its tremendous silent power. We had
shortened speed so as not to leave the supporting Squadrons too far
behind and one could see them clearly, long lines of great ships,
stretching far beyond the visible horizon. Nearest to us was the cream
of the Fleet, the incomparable Second Squadron—the four Orions and four
K.G. Fives—which with their eighty 13.5-inch guns possess a
concentrated power far beyond anything flying Fritz’s flag. Upon us of
the Queen Elizabeths, and upon the Second Battle Squadron, rests the
Mastery of the Seas. Far away on the port quarter could be seen the
leading ships of the First Battle Squadron of Dreadnoughts, all ships of
12-inch guns, all good enough for Fritz but not in the same class with
the Orions, the K.G. Fives or with us. Away to starboard came more
Dreadnoughts, and Royal Sovereigns—as powerful as ourselves but not so
fast—and odd ships like the seven-turreted _Agincourt_ and the 14-inch
gunned _Canada_. It was a great sight, one to impress Fritz and to make
his blood turn to water.

“For he could see us as we thrashed through the seas. It looked no
larger than a breakfast sausage, and I had some difficulty in making it
out—even after the Officer of the Watch had shown it to me. But at last
I saw the watching Zeppelin—a mere speck thousands of feet up and
perhaps fifty miles distant. Our seaplanes roared away, rising one after
the other from our carrying-ships like huge seagulls, and Herr Zeppelin
melted into the far-off background of clouds. He had seen us, and that
was enough to keep the Germans at a very safe distance. He, or others
like him, had seen, too, our battle cruisers which, sweeping far down to
the south, essayed to play the hammer to our most massive anvil. In the
evening, precisely at ten o’clock, the German Nordeich wireless sent out
a volley of heavy chaff, assuring us that we had only dared to come out
when satisfied that their High Seas Fleet was in the Baltic. It wasn’t
in the Baltic; at that moment it was scuttling back to the minefields
behind Heligoland. But what could we do? When surprise is no longer
possible at sea, what can one do? It is all very exasperating, but
somehow rather amusing.

“We joined the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the south and swept the
‘German Ocean’ right up to the minefields off the Elbe and Weser, and
north to the opening of the Skaggerak. Further we could not go, for any
foolish attempt to ‘dig out’ Fritz might have cost us half the Grand
Fleet. Then our ’stunt’ ended, we turned and sought once more our
northern fastnesses.”

* * * * *

It was during the return from this big sweep of the North Sea that our
young Marine chanced upon his baptism of fire and his first Great
Adventure. His chance came suddenly and unexpectedly—as chances usually
come at sea—and I will let him tell of it himself in that personal
vivid style of his with which I cannot compete.

* * * * *

“The wonderful thing has happened! I have been in action! It was not a
great battle; it was not what the hardiest evening newspaper could blaze
upon its bills as a Naval Action in the North Sea. From first to last it
endured for one minute and forty seconds; yet for me it was the Battle
of the Century. For it was my own, my very own, my precious ewe lamb of
a battle. It was fought by me on my compass platform and by my bold
gunners in the 6-inch casemates below. All by our little selves we did
the trick, before any horrid potentates could interfere, and the enemy
is at the bottom of the deep blue sea—it is not really very deep and
certainly is not blue. What I most love about my battle is that it was
fought so quickly that no one—and especially none of those tiresome
folks called superior officers—had any opportunity of kicking me off
the stage. All was over, quite over, and my guns had ceased firing
before the Owner had tumbled out of his sea cabin in the pagoda, and
best of all before my gunnery chief had any chance to snatch the control
away from me. He came charging up, red and panting, while the air still
thudded with my curtain fire, and wanted to know what the devil I was
playing at. ‘I have sunk the enemy, sir,’ I said, saluting. ‘What
enemy?’ cried he, ‘I never saw any enemy.’ ‘He’s gone, sir,’ said I
standing at attention. ‘I hit him with three 6-inch shells and he is
very dead indeed.’ ‘It’s all right,’ called out the Officer of the
Watch, laughing. ‘This young Soldier here has been and gone and sunk one
of Fritz’s destroyers. He burst her all to pieces in a manner most
emphatic. I call it unkind. But he always was a heartless young beast.’
Then the Bloke, who is a very decent old fellow, cooled down, said I was
a lucky young dog, and received my official report. He carried it off to
the Lord High Captain—whom the Navy people call the Owner—and the
great man was so very kind as to speak to me himself. He said that I had
done very well and that he would make a note of my prompt attention to
duty. I don’t suppose that I shall ever again fight so completely
satisfying a naval battle, for I am not likely to come across another
one small enough to keep wholly to myself.

“I will tell you all about it. I was up on my platform at my watch. My
battery of 6-inch guns was down below, all loaded with high explosive
shell, weighing 100 lbs. each. All the gunners were ready for anything
which might happen, but expecting nothing. So they had stood and waited
during a hundred watches. It was greying towards dawn, but there was a
good bit of haze and the sea was choppy. The old ship was doing her
rocking-horse trick as usual, and also as usual I was feeling a bit
squeamish but nothing to worry about. As the light increased I could see
about 2,000 yards, more or less—I am not much good yet at judging sea
distances; they look so short. The Officer of the Watch was walking up
and down on the look-out. ‘Hullo,’ I heard him say, ‘what’s that dark
patch yonder three points on the port bow?’ This meant thirty degrees to
the left. I looked through my glasses and so did he, and as I could see
nothing I switched on the big searchlight. Then there came a call from
the Look Out near us, the dark patch changed to thick smoke, and out of
the haze into the blaze of my searchlight slid the high forepeak of a
destroyer. I thought it was one of our escort, and so did the Officer of
the Watch; but as we watched the destroyer swung round, and we could see
the whole length of her. I can’t explain how one can instantly
distinguish enemy ships from one’s own, and can even class them and name
them at sight. One knows them by the lines and silhouette just as one
knows a Ford car from a Rolls-Royce. The destroyer was an enemy, plain
even to me. She had blundered into us by mistake and was now trying hard
to get away. I don’t know what the Officer of the Watch did—I never
gave him a thought—my mind simply froze on to that beautiful battery of
6-inch guns down below and on to that enemy destroyer trying to escape.
Those two things, the battery and the enemy, filled my whole world.

“Within five seconds I had called the battery, given them a range of
2,000 yards, swung the guns on to the enemy and loosed three shells—the
first shells which I had seen fired in any action. They all went over
for I had not allowed for our height above the water. Then the Boche did
an extraordinary thing. If he had gone on swinging round and dashed
away, he might have reached cover in the haze before I could hit him.
But his Officer of the Watch was either frightened out of his wits or
else was a bloomin’ copper-bottomed ’ero. Instead of trying to get away,
he swung back towards us, rang up full speed, and came charging in upon
us so as to get home with a torpedo. It was either the maddest or the
bravest thing which I shall ever see in my life. I ought to have been
frightfully thrilled, but somehow I wasn’t. I felt no excitement
whatever; you see, I was thinking all the time of directing my guns and
had no consciousness of anything else in the world. The moment the
destroyer charged, zig-zagging to distract our aim, I knew exactly what
to do with him. I instantly shortened the range by 400 yards, and gave
my gunners rapid independent fire from the whole battery. The idea was
to put up a curtain of continuous fire about 200 yards short for him to
run into, and to draw in the curtain as he came nearer. As he
zig-zagged, so we followed, keeping up that wide deadly curtain slap in
his path. There was no slouching about those beautiful long-service
gun-layers of ours, and you should have seen the darlings pump it out. I
have seen fast firing in practice but never anything like that. There
was one continuous stream of shell as the six guns took up the order.
Six-inch guns are no toys, and 100-lb. shells are a bit hefty to handle,
yet no quick-firing cartridge loaders could have been worked faster than
were my heavy beauties. Every ten seconds my battery spat out six great
shells, and I steadily drew the curtain in, keeping it always dead in
his path, but by some miracle of light or of manœuvring the enemy
escaped destruction for a whole long minute. On came the destroyer and
round came our ship facing her. The Officer of the Watch was swinging
our bows towards the enemy so as to lessen the mark for his torpedo, and
I swung my guns the opposite way as the ship turned, keeping them always
on the charging destroyer. Away towards the enemy the sea boiled as the
torrent of shells hit it and ricochetted for miles.

“At last the end came! It seemed to have been hours since I began to
fire, but it couldn’t really have been more than a minute; for even
German destroyers will cover half a mile in that time. The range was
down to 1,000 yards when he loosed a torpedo, and at that very precise
instant a shell, ricochetting upwards, caught him close to the water
line of his high forepeak and burst in his vitals. I saw instantly a
great flash blaze up from his funnels as the high explosive smashed his
engines, boilers and fires into scrap. He reared up and screamed exactly
like a wounded horse. It sounded rather awful, though it was only the
shriek of steam from the burst pipes; it made one feel how very live a
thing is a ship, how in its splendid vitality it is, as Kipling says,
more than the crew. He reared up and fell away to port, and two more of
my shells hit him almost amidships and tore out his bottom plates like
shredded paper. I could hear the rending crash of the explosions through
my ear-protectors, and through the continuous roar of my own curtain
fire. He rolled right over and was gone! He vanished so quickly that for
a moment my shells flew screaming over the empty sea, and then I stopped
the gunners. My battle had lasted for one minute and forty seconds!

“‘But what about the torpedo?’ you will ask. I never saw it, but the
Officer of the Watch told me that it had passed harmlessly more than a
hundred feet away from us. ‘You sank the destroyer,’ said the Officer of
the Watch, grinning, ‘but my masterly navigation saved the ship. So
honours is easy, Mr. Marine. If I had had those guns of yours,’ he went
on, ‘I would have sunk the beggar with about half that noise and half
that expenditure of Government ammunition. I never saw such a wasteful
performance,’ said he. But he was only pulling my leg. All the senior
officers, from the Owner downwards, were very nice to me and said that
for a youngster, and a Soldier at that, I hadn’t managed the affair at
all badly.

“I thought that the guns’ crews had done fine and told them so; but the
chief gunner—a stern Marine from Eastney—shook his head sadly. No. 3
gun had been trained five seconds late, he said, and was behind the
others all through. He seemed to reckon the sinking of the destroyer as
nothing in condonation of the shame No. 3 had brought upon his battery.
I condoled with him, but he was wounded to the heart.

* * * * *

“The Officer of the Watch said that all the time the destroyer was
charging she was firing small stuff at our platform with a Q.-F. gun on
her forepeak. And I knew nothing about it! This is the simple and easy
way in which one earns a reputation for coolness under heavy fire.”

CHAPTER V

WITH THE GRAND FLEET: THE TERRIERS
AND THE RATS

“You missed a lot, Soldier,” said the Sub-Lieutenant to his friend the
Marine Subaltern, “through not being here at the beginning. Now it is
altogether too comfortable for us of the big ships; the destroyers and
patrols get all the fun while we hang about here in harbour or put up a
stately and entirely innocuous parade of the North Sea. No doubt we are
Grand in our Silent Might and Keep our Unsleeping Vigil and all the rest
of the pretty tosh which one reads in the papers—but in reality we eat
too much for the good of our waists and do too little work for our
princely pay. But it was very different at the beginning. Then we were
like a herd of wild buffaloes harassed day and night by
super-mosquitoes. When we were not on watch we were saying our prayers.
It was a devil of a time, my son.”

“I thought that you Commanded the Seas,” observed the marine, an
innocent youth who had lately joined.

The Sub-Lieutenant, dark and short, with twenty years to his age and the
salt wisdom of five naval generations in his rich red blood, grinned
capaciously, “So the dear simple old British Public thought. So their
papers told them every day. We did not often get a sight of
newspapers—there were no regular mails, as now, and none of the
comforts of an ordered civilised life, as some ass wrote the other day
of the Grand Fleet. What the deuce have we to do with an ordered
civilised life! Fighting’s our job, and that’s what we want, not beastly
comforts. While we were being chivied about by Fritz’s submarines it was
jolly to be told that we Commanded the Seas of the World. But to me it
sounded a bit sarcastic at a time when we had not got the length of
commanding even the entrances to our own harbours. That’s the cold
truth. For six months we hadn’t a submarine proof harbour in England or
Scotland or Ireland though we looked for one pretty diligently. We
wandered about, east and west and north, looking for some hole where the
submarines couldn’t get in without first knocking at the door, and where
we could lie in peace for two days together. Wherever we went it was the
same old programme. The Zepps would smell us out and Fritz would come
nosing around with his submarines, and we had to up anchor and be off on
our travels once more. At sea we were all right. We cruised always at
speed, with a destroyer patrol out on either side, so that Fritz had no
chance to get near enough to try a shot with the torpedo. A fast moving
ship can’t be hit except broadside on and within a range of about 400
yards; and as we always moved twice as fast as a submerged U boat he
never could get within sure range. He tried once or twice till the
destroyers and light cruisers began to get him with the ram and the gun.
Fritz must have had a good many thrilling minutes when he was fiddling
with his rudder, his diving planes and his torpedo discharge gear and
saw a destroyer foaming down upon him at over thirty knots. Fritz died a
clean death in those days. I would fifty times sooner go under to the
ram or the gun than be caught like a rat in some of the dainty traps
we’ve been setting for a year past. We are top dog now, but I blush to
think of those first few months. It was a most humiliating spectacle.
Fancy fifty million pounds worth of the greatest fighting ships in the
world scuttling about in fear of a dozen or two of footy little
submarines any one of which we could have run up on the main derrick as
easily as a picket boat. If I, a mere snotty in the old _Olympus_, felt
sore in my bones what must the Owners and the Admirals have felt? Answer
me that, Pongo?”

“It’s all right now, I suppose,” said the Pongo.

“Safe and dull,” replied he, “powerful dull. No chance of a battle, and
no feeling that any day a mouldy in one’s ribs is more likely than not.
If Fritz had had as much skill as he had pluck he would have blown up
half the Grand Fleet. Why he didn’t I can’t imagine, except that it
takes a hundred years to make a sailor. Our submarine officers, with
such a target, would have downed a battleship a week easy.”

“Fritz got the three Cressys.”

“He simply couldn’t help,” sniffed the Sub-Lieutenant. “They asked for
trouble; one after the other. Fritz struck a soft patch that morning
which he is never likely to find again.”

“Had the harbours no booms?”

“Never a one. We had built the ships all right, but we had forgotten the
harbours. There wasn’t one, I say, in the east or north or west which
Fritz could not enter whenever he chose to take the risk. He could come
in submerged, a hundred feet down, diving under the line of patrols, but
luckily for us he couldn’t do much after he arrived except keep us busy.
For as sure as ever he stuck up a periscope to take a sight we were on
to him within five seconds with the small stuff, and then there was a
chase which did one’s heart good. I’ve seen a dozen, all much alike,
though one had a queer ending which I will tell you. It explains a lot,
too. It shows exactly why Fritz fails when he has to depend upon
individual nerve and judgment. He is deadly in a crowd, but pretty
feeble when left to himself. We used to think that the Germans were a
stolid race but they aren’t. They have nerves like red-hot wires. I have
seen a crew come up out of a captured submarine, trembling and shivering
and crying. I suppose that frightfulness gets over them like drink or
drugs or assorted debauchery. Now for my story. One evening towards
sunset in the first winter—which means six bells (about three o’clock
in the afternoon) up here—a German submarine crept into this very
harbour and the first we knew of it was a bit alarming. The commander
was a good man, and if he had only kept his head, after working his way
in submerged, he might have got one, if not two, big ships. But instead
of creeping up close to the battleships, where they lay anchored near
the shore, he stuck up a periscope a 1,000 yards away and blazed a
torpedo into the brown of them. It was a forlorn, silly shot. They were
end on to him, and the torpedo just ran between two of them and smashed
up against the steep shore behind. The track of it on the sea was wide
and white as a high road, and half a dozen destroyers were on to that
submarine even before the shot had exploded against the rocks. Fritz got
down safely—he was clever, but too darned nervous for under-water
work—and then began a hunt which was exactly like one has seen in a
barn when terriers are after rats. The destroyers and motor patrols were
everywhere, and above them flew the seaplanes with observers who could
peer down through a hundred feet of water. In a shallow harbour Fritz
could have sunk to the bottom and lain there till after dark, but we
have 200 fathoms here with a very steep shore and there was no bottom
for him. A submarine can’t stand the water pressure of more than 200
feet at the outside. He didn’t dare to fill his tanks and sink, and
could only keep down in diving trim so long as he kept moving with his
electric motors and held himself submerged with his horizontal planes.
Had the motors stopped, the submarine would have come up, for in diving
trim it was slightly lighter than the water displaced. All we had to do
was to keep on hunting till his electric batteries had run down, and
then he would be obliged to come up. Do you twig, Pongo?”

“But he could have sunk to the bottom if he had chosen?”

“Oh, yes. But then he could never have risen again. To have filled his
tanks would have meant almost instant death. At 200 fathoms his plates
would have crumpled like paper.”

“Still I think that I should have done it.”

“So should I. But Fritz didn’t. He roamed about the harbour, blind,
keeping as deep down as he could safely go. Above him scoured the patrol
boats and destroyers, and above them again flew the seaplanes. Now and
then the air observers would get a sight of him and once or twice they
dropped bombs, but this was soon stopped as the risk to our own boats
was too great. Regarded as artillery practice bomb dropping from
aeroplanes is simply rotten. One can’t possibly aim from a thing moving
at fifty miles an hour. If one may believe the look outs of the
destroyers the whole harbour crawled with periscopes, but they were
really bully beef cans and other rubbish chucked over from the warships.
When last seen, or believed to be seen, Fritz was blundering towards the
line of battleships lying under the deep gloom of the shore, and then he
vanished altogether. Night came on, the very long Northern night in
winter, and it seemed extra specially long to us in the big ships.
Searchlights were going all through the dark hours, the water gleamed,
all the floating rubbish which accumulates so fast in harbour stood out
dead black against the silvery surface, and the Officers of the Watch
detected more periscopes than Fritz had in his whole service. The hunt
went on without ceasing for, at any moment, Fritz’s batteries might
peter out, and he come up. It was a bit squirmy to feel that here cooped
up in a narrow deep sea lock were over a hundred King’s ships, and that
somewhere below us was a desperate German submarine which couldn’t
possibly escape, but which might blow some of us to blazes any minute.”

“Did any of you go to sleep?” asked the Pongo foolishly.

The Sub-Lieutenant stared. “When it wasn’t my watch I turned in as
usual,” he replied. “Why not?

“In the morning there was no sign of Fritz, so we concluded that he had
either sunk himself to the bottom or had somehow managed to get out of
the harbour. In either case we should not see him more. So we just
forgot him as we had forgotten others who had been chased and had
escaped. But he turned up again after all. For twenty-four hours nothing
much happened except the regular routine, though after the scare we were
all very wide awake for more U boats, and then we had orders to proceed
to sea. I was senior snotty of the _Olympus_, and I was on the after
look-out platform as the ship cast loose from her moorings and moved
away, to take her place in the line. As we got going there was a curious
grating noise all along the bottom just as if we had been lightly
aground; everyone was puzzled to account for it as there were heaps of
water under us. The grating went on till we were clear of our berth, and
then in the midst of the wide foaming wake rolled up the long thin hull
of a submarine. A destroyer dashed up, and the forward gun was in the
act of firing when a loud voice from her bridge called on the gunners to
stop. ‘Don’t fire on a coffin,’ roared her commander. It was the German
submarine, which after some thirty hours under water had become a dead
hulk. All the air had long since been used up and the crew were lying at
their posts—cold meat, poor devils. A beastly way to die.”

“Beastly,” murmured the Marine. “War is a foul game.”

“Still,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant, cheerfully, “a dead Fritz is always
much more wholesome than a live one, and here were a score of him safely
dead.”

“But what had happened to the submarine?” asked the Marine, not being a
sailor.

“Don’t you see?” explained the Sub-Lieutenant, who had held his story to
be artistically finished. “What a Pongo it is! Fritz had wandered about
blind, deep down under water, until his batteries had given out. Then
the submarine rose, fouled our bottom by the merest accident, and stuck
there jammed against our bilge keels till the movement of the ship had
thrown it clear. It swung to the tide with us. The chances against the
submarine rising under one of the battleships were thousands to one, but
chances like that have a way of coming off at sea. Nothing at sea ever
causes surprise, my son.”

The Sub-Lieutenant spoke with the assurance of a grey-haired Admiral; he
was barely twenty years old, but he was wise with the profound salt
wisdom of the sea and will never get any older or less wise though he
lives to be ninety.

* * * * *

Though our friend the young Lieutenant of Marines was no sailor he was a
scholar, trained in the class-rooms and playing fields, of a great
English school. He was profoundly impressed, as all outsiders must be,
by the engrained efficiency of the seafolk among whom he now dwelt,
their easy mastery of the technicalities of sea craft, and their almost
childish ignorance of everything that lay outside it. It was borne in
upon him that they were a race apart, bred to their special work as
terriers and racehorses are bred, the perfect product of numberless
generations of sea fighters. It was borne in upon him, too, that no
nation coming late to the sea, like the Germans, could, though taking an
infinity of thought, possibly stand up against us. Sea power does not
consist of ships but of men. For a real Navy does not so much design and
build ships as secrete them. They are the expression in machinery of its
brains and Soul. He arrived at this conclusion after much patient
thought and then diffidently laid it before his experienced friend. The
Sub-Lieutenant accepted the theory at once as beyond argument.

“That’s the whole secret, my son, the secret of the Navy. Fritz can’t
design ships; he can only copy ours, and then he can’t make much of his
copies. Take his submarine work. He has any amount of pluck, though he
is a dirty swine; he doesn’t fail for want of pluck but because he
hasn’t the right kind of nerve. That is where Fritz fails and where our
boys succeed, because they were bred to the sea and their fathers before
them, and their fathers before that. Submarining as a sport is exactly
like stalking elephants on foot in long grass. One has to wriggle on
one’s belly till one gets within close range, and then make sure of a
kill in one shot. There’s no time for a second if one misses. Fritz will
get fairly close up, sometimes—or did before we had taken his
measure—but not that close enough to make dead sure of a hit. He is too
much afraid of being seen when he pops his periscope above water. So he
comes down between two stools. He is too far off for a certain hit and
not far enough to escape being seen. That story I told you the other day
was an exact illustration. The moment he pops up the destroyers swoop
down upon him, he flinches, looses off a mouldy, somehow, anyhow, and
then gets down. That sort of thing is no bally use; one doesn’t sink
battleships that fool way. Our men first make sure of their hit at the
closest range, and then think about getting down—or don’t get down.
They do their work without worrying about being sunk themselves the
instant after. That’s just the difference between us and the Germans,
between terriers and rats. It’s no good taking partial risks in
submarine work; one must go the whole hog or leave it alone.

“Risks are queer things,” went on the Sub-Lieutenant, reflectively. “The
bigger they are, the less one gets hurt. Just look at the seaplanes. One
would think that the ordinary dangers of flight were bad enough—the
failure of a stay, the misfiring of an engine, a bad gusty wind—and so
we thought before the war. It looked the forlornest of hopes to rush
upon an enemy plane, shoot him down at the shortest of range, or ram him
if one couldn’t get a kill any other way. It seemed that if two planes
stood up to one another, both must certainly be lost. And so they would.
Yet time and again our Flight officers have charged the German planes,
seen them run away or drop into the sea, and come off themselves with no
more damage than a hole or two through the wings. It’s just nerve, nerve
and breeding. When we dash in upon Fritz with submarine or seaplanes,
taking no count of the risks, but seeking only to kill, he almost always
either blunders or runs. It isn’t that he lacks pluck—don’t believe
that silly libel; Fritz is as brave as men are made—but he hasn’t the
sporting nerve. He will take risks in the mass, but he doesn’t like them
single; we do. He doesn’t love big game shooting, on foot, alone; we do.
He does his best; he obeys orders up to any limit; he will fight and die
without shrinking. But he is not a natural fighting man, and he is
always thinking of dying. We love fighting, love it so much that we
don’t give a thought to the dying part. We just look upon the risk as
that which gives spice to the game.”

“I believe,” said the Marine, thoughtfully, “that you have exactly
described the difference between the races. With us fighting and dying
are parts of one great glorious game; with Fritz they are the most
solemn of business. We laugh all the time and sing music-hall songs;
Fritz never smiles and sings the Wacht am Rhein. I am beginning to
realize that our irrepressible levity is a mighty potent force, mightier
by far than Fritz’s solemnity. The true English spirit is to be seen at
its best and brightest in the Navy, and the Navy is always ready for the
wildest of schoolboy rags. If I had not come to sea I might myself have
become a solemn blighter like Fritz.”

* * * * *

In the wardroom that evening the Marine repeated the Sub-Lieutenant’s
story and was assured that it was true. The Navy will pull a Soldier’s
leg with a joyous disregard for veracity, but there is a crudity about
its invention which soon ceases to deceive. They can invent nothing
which approaches in wonder the marvels which happen every day.

The talk then fell upon the ever-engrossing topic of submarine catching,
and experiences flowed forth in a stream which filled the Marine with
astonishment and admiration. He had never served an apprenticeship in a
submarine catcher and the sea business in small sporting craft was
altogether new to him.

“It is a pity,” at last said a regular Navy Lieutenant, “that submarines
are no good against other submarines. That is a weakness which we must
seek to overcome if, as seems likely in the future, navies contain more
under-water boats than any other craft.”

“That is not quite true,” spoke up a grizzled Royal Naval Reserve man,
and told a story of submarine _v._ submarine which I am not permitted to
repeat.

* * * * *

“Yes,” said the Commander of the _Utopia_ (The Pongo’s ship). “Very
clever and very ingenious. But did you ever hear how the Navy, not the
merchant service this time, caught a submarine off the —— Lightship.
That was finesse, if you please, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve.”

Our young marine hugged himself. He had set the Navy talking, and when
the Navy talks there come forth things which make glad the ears.

“You know the —— Lightship,” went on the Commander, a sea potentate of
thirty-five, with a passion for music-hall songs which he sang most
divinely. “She is anchored on a shoal which lies off the entrance to one
of the busiest of our English harbours. Though her big lantern is not
lighted in war time the ship remains as a day mark, and two men are
always on board of her. She is anchored on the top of a sandbank where
at low water there are not more than twelve feet, though close by the
channels deepen to thirty feet. A little while ago the men in the
Lightship were interested to observe a German submarine approach at high
water—of course submerged—and to take up a position about a hundred
yards distant where the low-water soundings were twenty-two feet. There
she remained on the bottom from tide to tide, watching through her
periscope all the shipping which passed in and out of the harbour. Her
draught in cruising trim was about fourteen feet, so that at high water
she was completely submerged except for the periscope and at low water
the top of her conning tower showed above the surface. At high tide she
slipped away with the results of her observations. The incident was
reported at once to the naval authorities and the lightship men were
instructed to report again at once if the submarine’s performance was
repeated. A couple of days later, under the same conditions, Fritz in
his submarine came back and the whole programme of watchfully waiting
was gone through again. He evidently knew the soundings to a hair and
lay where no destroyer could quickly get at him through the difficult
winding channels amid the sandbanks except when the tide was nearly at
the full. Even at dead low water he could, if surprised, rise and float
and rapidly make off to where there was depth enough to dive. He
couldn’t be rushed, and there were three or four avenues of escape.
Fritz had discovered a safe post of observation and seemed determined to
make the most of it. But, Mr. Royal Naval Reserve, even the poor effete
old Navy has brains and occasionally uses them. The night after the
second visit an Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the lightship’s
anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred yards east-north-east. You
will note that the German submarine’s chosen spot was exactly one
hundred yards west-south-west of the lightship’s old position. The
change was so slight that it might be expected to escape notice. And so
it did. Three days passed, and then at high tide the U boat came
cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the lightship exactly as
before. The only difference was that now she was upon the top of the
shoal with barely twelve feet under her at low water instead of
twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship winked at one another,
for they had talked with the officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise
to the game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully on the bottom,
and Fritz, intent to watch the movements of ships in and out of the
harbour, did not notice that the water was steadily falling away from
his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and deck exposed. Far away
a destroyer was watching, and at the correct moment, when the water
around the U boat was too shallow to float her even in the lightest
trim, she slipped up as near as she could approach, trained a 4-inch gun
upon Fritz and sent in an armed boat’s crew to wish him good-day. Poor
old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors until they were hammering
violently upon his fore hatch and calling upon him to come out and
surrender. He was a very sick man and did not understand at all how he
had been caught until the whole manœuvre had been kindly explained to
him by the Lieutenant-Commander of the destroyer, from whom I also
received the story. ‘You see, Fritz, old son,’ observed the
Lieutenant-Commander, ‘Admiralty charts are jolly things and you know
all about them, but you should sometimes check them with the lead.
Things change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come and have a drink,
old friend, you look as if you needed something stiff.’ Fritz gulped
down a tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out, ‘That was damned
clever and I was a damned fool. For God’s sake don’t tell them in
Germany how I was caught.’ ‘Not for worlds, old man,’ replied the
Lieutenant-Commander. ‘We will say that you were nabbed while trying to
ditch a hospital ship. There is glory for you.’”

“A very nice story,” observed the Royal Naval Reserve man drily.

“I believed your yarn,” said the Commander reproachfully, “and mine is
every bit as true as yours. But no matter. Call up the band and let us
get to real business.”

Two minutes later the anteroom had emptied, and these astonishing naval
children were out on the half-deck dancing wildly but magnificently.
Commanders and Lieutenants were mixed up with Subs., clerks and snotties
from the gun room. Rank disappeared and nothing counted but the
execution of the most complicated Russian measures. It was a strange
scene which perhaps helps to reveal that combination of professional
efficiency and childish irresponsibility which makes the Naval Service
unlike any other community of men and boys in the world.

CHAPTER VI

THE MEDITERRANEAN: A FAILURE AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES

War is made up of successes and failures. We English do not forget our
successes, but we have an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds
the recollection of our failures. Which is a very bad habit, for as
every man realises, during his half-blind stumbles through life, failure
is a most necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians seem able to
bring themselves to forget that in war we ever fail of success, soldiers
and sailors do not forget, and are always seeking to make of their
admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which they may rise to ultimate
victory. On land one may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for
movements are much slower and evil results declare themselves less
rapidly. I am now compelled to write of a failure at sea very early in
the war, which was not retrieved, and which had a trail of most
disastrous consequence; and I hope to do it without imputing blame to
anyone, no blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative vision,
which is one of our most conspicuous defects as a race.

All of those who read me know that the blows which we have struck in
France and Flanders, ever since the crowning victory of the Marne—that
still unexplained miracle which saved western civilisation from
ruin—are the direct consequence of the success in the North Sea of our
mobilised fleets in August, 1914. But few know—or if they do, have
pushed the knowledge testily from their minds—of a failure in the
Mediterranean, also in August of 1914, a failure which at the time may
have seemed of little account, yet out of which grew in inevitable
melancholy sequence, a tragical train of troubles. Though we may choose
to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably long. Nothing would be more
unfair than to lay at the door of the Navy the blame for all the
consequences of a failure which, it has been officially held, the
officers on the spot did their utmost to avert. Men are only human after
all, and the sea is a very big place. We need not censure anyone. Still,
we should be most foolish and blind to the lessons of war if we did not
now and then turn aside from the smug contemplation of our strategical
and tactical victories, and seek in a humble spirit to gather
instruction from a grievous pondering over the consequences of our
defeats. And of this particular defeat of which I write the results have
been gloomy beyond description—the sword in the balance which threw
Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies, and all the blood
and the tears with which the soil of the Near East has been soaked.

When war broke out all our modern battleships were in the North Sea, but
of our nine fast battle cruisers four were away. The _Australia_ was at
the other side of the world, and the _Inflexible_ (flag), _Indomitable_
and _Indefatigable_ were in the Mediterranean. We also had four armoured
cruisers, and four light cruisers in the Mediterranean—the armoured
_Defence_, _Duke of Edinburgh_, _Warrior_ and _Black Prince_, the light
fast _Gloucester_ of the new “Town” class, a sister of the _Glasgow_ and
the _Bristol_, and three other similar cruisers. The Germans had in the
Mediterranean the battle cruiser _Goeben_, as fast, though not so
powerfully gunned, as the three _Inflexibles_ of ours. She carried ten
11-inch guns, while our battle cruisers were each armed with eight
12-inch guns. The _Goeben_ had as her consort the light cruiser
_Breslau_, one of the German Town class built in 1912, a newer and
faster edition of the earlier Town cruisers which were under von Spee in
the Pacific and Atlantic. She could have put up a good fight though
probably an unsuccessful one against the _Gloucester_, but was no match
for the _Defence_, the _Warrior_, the _Black Prince_ or _Duke of
Edinburgh_. Our squadrons in the Mediterranean were, therefore, in
fighting value fully three times as powerful as the German vessels. Our
job was to catch them and to destroy them, but unfortunately we did not
succeed in bringing them to action. The story of their evasion of us,
and of what their escape involved is, to my mind, one of the most
fascinating stories of the whole war.

War officially began between France and Germany upon August 3rd at 6.45
p.m. when the German Ambassador in Paris asked for his passports, and
between Great Britain and Germany upon August 4th at 11 p.m., when our
ultimatum in regard to Belgium was definitely rejected. But though then
at war with Germany, England did not declare war on Austria until
midnight of August 12th. A queer situation arose in the Mediterranean as
the result of these gaps between the dates of active hostilities. Upon
August 4th, the German cruisers could and did attack French territory
without being attacked by us, and all through those fateful days of
August 5th and 6th, when our three battle cruisers were hovering between
Messina and the Adriatic and our four armoured cruisers were lying a
little to the south off Syracuse, Italy was neutral, and Austria was not
at war with us. Our naval commanders were in the highest degree anxious
to do nothing which could in any way offend Italy—whose position as
still a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria and Germany was
delicate in the extreme—and were also anxious to commit no act of
hostility towards Austria. Upon August 4th, therefore, their hands were
tied tight; upon the 5th and 6th they were untied as against the German
cruisers, but could not stretch into either Italian or Austrian waters.
The German Admiral took full advantage of the freedom of movement
allowed to him by our diplomatic bonds.

Let us now come to the story of the escape of the two German cruisers,
indicate as clearly as may be how it occurred, and suggest how the worst
consequences of that escape might have been retrieved by instant and
spirited action on the part of our Government at home. Naval
responsibility, as distinct from political responsibility, ended with
the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ and their entry into the
Dardanelles on the way up to Constantinople which then, and for nearly
three months afterwards, was nominally a neutral port.

On July 31st, 1914, the _Goeben_, a battle cruiser armed with ten
11-inch guns, and with a full speed of twenty-eight to twenty-nine
knots, was at Brindisi in the territorial waters of Italy, a country
which was then regarded by the Germans as an ally. She was joined there
on August 1st by the _Breslau_, a light cruiser of some three knots less
speed than the _Goeben_ and armed only with twelve 4.1-inch guns. The
German commanders had been warned of the imminence of hostilities with
France—and, indeed, upon that day French territory had been violated by
German covering troops, though war had not yet been declared. The French
Fleet was far away to the west, already busied with the transport of
troops from Algeria and Morocco to Marseilles. Based upon Malta and in
touch with the French was the British heavy squadron of three battle
cruisers. The _Indefatigable_, a heavier and faster vessel than either
of the sisters _Inflexible_ or _Indomitable_, was certainly a match for
the _Goeben_ by herself; the three battle cruisers combined were of
overpowering strength. Accompanying the battle cruisers was the armoured
cruiser squadron—_Black Prince_, _Duke of Edinburgh_, _Warrior_ and
_Defence_—together with the light cruiser _Gloucester_. The other light
cruisers and the destroyer escort do not come directly into my picture.
The _Gloucester_—which, as she showed later, had the heels of the
_Breslau_ though not of the speedy _Goeben_—was despatched at once to
the Adriatic to keep watch upon the movements of the Germans. So long as
the Germans were in the Adriatic, the English Admiral, Sir Berkeley
Milne, could do nothing to prevent their junction with the Austrians at
Pola, but upon August 2nd, they both came out and went to Messina, and
so uncovered the Straits of Otranto, which gave passage between Messina
and the Adriatic. The English battle cruisers then steamed to the south
and east of Sicily, bound for the Otranto Straits. Rear-Admiral
Troubridge, in command of the English armoured cruisers, remained
behind.

[Illustration: THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS.]

Upon August 1st, the Italian Government had declared its intention to be
neutral, and upon the 3rd the Italian authorities at Messina refused
coal to the German ships, very much to the outspoken disgust and
disappointment of the German Admiral who had reckoned Italy as at least
passively benevolent. But being a man of resource, he filled his bunkers
from those of German vessels in the harbour, and early in the morning of
August 4th—having received news the previous evening that war had
broken out with France, and was imminent with England—dashed at the
Algerian coast and bombarded Phillippeville and Bona, whence troops had
been arranged to sail for France. When one reflects upon the position of
Admiral Souchon, within easy striking distance of three English battle
cruisers, which at any moment might have been transformed by wireless
orders into enemies of overwhelming power, this dash upon Phillippeville
and Bona was an exploit which would merit an honourable mention upon any
navy’s records. Souchon did, in the time available to him, all the
damage that he could to his enemy’s arrangements, and then sped back to
Messina, passing on the way the _Inflexible_ (flag), _Indomitable_, and
_Gloucester_, which had thus got into close touch with the Germans,
though they were not yet free to go for them. The enterprising Souchon
had cut his time rather fine, and come near the edge of destruction; for
though at the moment of passing the _Inflexible_ and _Indomitable_
England was still at peace with Germany, war was declared before he
reached the neutral refuge of Messina on August 5th. Milne’s hands were
thus tied at the critical moment when he had both the elusive German
cruisers under the muzzles of his hungry guns.

At Messina the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ were again refused coal, and were
ordered to be clear of the port within twenty-four hours. Italy was
resolutely neutral; it was a severe blow. Upon the night of August
4th-5th had come another blow—a wireless message, picked up at sea,
that England had declared war. The position of the Germans now appeared
to be desperate, more so to them than even to us, for Admiral Souchon
had already been warned by the Austrians not to attempt the passage of
the Straits of Otranto, and had also received direct orders at Messina
from Berlin to make a break eastwards for Constantinople. His prospects
of eluding our Squadrons and of reaching the Dardanelles must have
seemed to him of the smallest. It is of interest to note, as revealing
the hardy quality of Admiral Souchon, that these orders from Berlin
reached him at midnight upon August 3rd before he made his raid upon
Phillippeville and Bona. He might have steamed off at once towards the
east in comparative security, for England was not yet at war and our
battle cruisers were not yet waiting upon his doorstep. But instead of
seeking safety in flight he struck a shrewd blow for his country and set
back the hour of his departure for the east by three whole days. He sent
off a wireless message to Greece asking that coal might be got ready for
his ships near an inconspicuous island in the Ægean. Admiral Souchon may
personally be a frightful Hun—I don’t know, I have never met him—but,
I confess that, as a sailor, he appeals to me very strongly. In
resource, in cool decision, and in dashing leadership he was the
unquestioned superior of the English Admirals, whose job it was to get
the better of him.

Upon August 6th, a day big with fate for us and for South Eastern
Europe, the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ were at Messina with steam up. They
had again obtained coal from compatriot ships and could snap their
fingers at Italian neutrality. Watching them was the light cruiser
_Gloucester_, which was no match at all for the _Goeben_, and strung out
to the north-east, guarding the passage from Messina to the Adriatic,
were the three English battle cruisers _Inflexible_, _Indomitable_ and
_Indefatigable_. The English armoured cruisers, _Black Prince_, _Duke of
Edinburgh_, _Defence_ and _Warrior_, were cruising to the South of
Syracuse. It is not contended that these four vessels could not have
been off Messina, and could not have met and fought Souchon, when at
last he issued forth. The contention is—and since it has been accepted
by the Admiralty as sound, one is compelled humbly to say little—that
none of these cruisers was sufficiently armed or armoured to risk action
with a battle cruiser of the _Goeben’s_ class. It is urged that if Milne
had ordered the armoured cruiser squadron to fight the _Goeben_, their
Admiral, Troubridge, might have anticipated the fate of Cradock three
months later at Coronel. Not one of them had a speed approaching that of
the _Goeben_, and their twenty-two heavy guns were of 9.2-inch calibre
as opposed to the ten 11-inch guns of the Germans. That they would have
suffered serious loss is beyond doubt; but might they not, while dying,
have damaged and delayed the _Goeben_ for a sufficient time to allow the
two _Inflexibles_ and the _Indefatigable_ to come down and gobble her
up? It is not for a layman to offer any opinion upon these high naval
matters. But ever since the action was not fought, and the _Goeben_ and
_Breslau_ escaped, whenever two or three naval officers are gathered
together and the subject is discussed, the vote is always thrown upon
the side of fighting. The Soul of the Navy revolts at the thought that
its business is to play for safety when great risks boldly faced may
yield great fruits of victory.

The dispositions of the English Admiral were designed to meet one
contingency only—an attempt by the Germans to pass the Straits of
Otranto and to join the Austrians; he had evidently no suspicion that
they had been ordered to Constantinople and took no steps to bar their
way to the east. The handling of his two ships by Admiral Souchon was
masterly. Until the latest minute he masked his intentions and
completely outmanœuvred his powerful English opponents. Issuing from
Messina on the afternoon of August 6th, he made towards the north-east
as if about to hazard the passage to the Adriatic, and the small
_Gloucester_, which most gallantly kept touch with far superior
forces—she was some two knots slower than the _Goeben_, though rather
faster than the _Breslau_—fell back before him and called up the battle
cruisers on her wireless. Souchon did not attempt to interfere with the
_Gloucester_, for she was doing exactly what he desired of her. He kept
upon his course to the north-east until darkness came down, and then
swinging suddenly eight points to starboard, pointed straight for Cape
Matapan far off to the south-east and called for full speed. Then and
then only he gave the order to jam the _Gloucester’s_ wireless.

He did not wholly succeed, the _Gloucester’s_ warning of his change of
route got through to the battle cruisers, but they were too far away to
interpose their bulky veto on the German plans. For two hours the German
ships travelled at full speed, the _Goeben_ leading, and behind them
trailed the gallant _Gloucester_, though she had nothing bigger in her
armoury than two 6-inch guns, and could have been sunk by a single shell
from the _Goeben’s_ batteries. Twice she overhauled the _Breslau_ and
fired upon her, and twice the _Goeben_ had to fall back to the aid of
her consort and drive away the persistent English captain. The gallantry
of the _Gloucester_ alone redeems the event from being a bitter English
humiliation. All the while she was vainly pursuing the German vessels
the _Gloucester_ continued her calls for help. They got through, but the
_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ had seized too long a start. They were clear away
for the Dardanelles and Constantinople, and were safe from effective
pursuit.

Vice-Admiral Souchon knew his Greeks and his Turks better than we did.
He coaled his ships at the small island of Denusa in the Cyclades with
the direct connivance of King Constantine, who had arranged for coal to
be sent over from Syra, and ignored a formal message from the Sublime
Porte forbidding him to pass the Dardanelles. He was confident that the
Turks, still anxious to sit upon the fence until the safer side were
disclosed, would not dare to fire upon him, and he was justified in his
confidence. He steamed through the Narrows unmolested and anchored
before Constantinople. There a telegram was handed to him from the
Kaiser: “His Majesty sends you his acknowledgments.” One must allow that
the Imperial congratulations were worthily bestowed. Souchon had done
for Germany a greater service than had any of her generals or admirals
or diplomats; he had definitely committed Turkey to the side of the
Central Powers.

* * * * *

If of all words of tongue and pen
The saddest are “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see,
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”

—_Bret Harte_.

For the escape of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_, the Royal Navy was
responsible, but for the consequences which grew out of that escape the
responsibility rests upon _La haute Politique_ at home. The naval
failure might have been retrieved within forty-eight hours had our
Foreign Office understood the hesitating Turkish mind, and had realised
that Souchon’s breach of the Dardanelles Convention—which bars the
Straits to foreign warships—had brought to us a Heaven-sent opportunity
to cut the bonds of gold and intrigue which bound the Turkish Government
to that of Germany. Every Englishman in Constantinople expected that a
pursuing English squadron of overwhelming power would immediately appear
off the Turkish capital and insist upon the surrender or destruction of
the German trespassers. Just as Souchon had passed the Dardanelles
unmolested, so Milne with his three battle cruisers—had orders been
sent to him—might have passed them on the day following. The Turks own
no argument but force, and the greater force would have appeared to them
to be the better argument. Milne, had he been permitted by the British
Foreign Office, could have followed the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to
Constantinople and sunk them there before the eyes of the world. Had he
done so, the history of the war would have been very different. Upon the
Cabinet at home must rest the eternal responsibility for not seeing and
not seizing the finest and least hazardous opportunity that has been
offered to us of determining by one bold stroke the course of the war.
The three English battle cruisers could not have seized Constantinople
any more effectively than the English Squadron, without military
co-operation, could have seized it seven months later had it succeeded
in forcing with its guns the passage of the Narrows. But they could have
revealed to the vacillating Turks, as in a lightning flash, that the
Allies had the wit to see, and the boldness to grasp the vital
opportunities offered by war. But our Government had neither the wit nor
the courage, the wonderful chance was allowed to slip by unused, and the
costliest failure of the war was consummated in all its tragic fullness.

All through August and September and right up to the moment when, late
in October, Turkey was forced into the war by German pressure, our
Foreign Office hugged the belief—God alone knows how acquired—that
diplomatic pressure at Constantinople could counteract the display of
successful force embodied in the frowning guns of the _Goeben_ and the
_Breslau_. In the eyes of a non-maritime people two modern warships
within easy gunshot of their chief city are of more pressing consequence
than the Grand Fleet far away. Our Government accepted gladly the
preposterous story that these German ships had been purchased by the
Turks—with German money—and had been taken over by Turkish officers
and crews. It is pitiful to read now the official statement issued on
August 15th, 1914, through the newly formed Press Bureau: “The Press
Bureau states that there is no reason to doubt that the Turkish
Government is about to replace the German officers and crews of the
_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ by Turkish officers and crews.” As evidence of
Oriental good faith a photograph of the _Goeben_ flying the Turkish
naval flag was kindly supplied for publication in English newspapers.
What could be more convincing? Then, when the moment was ripe and there
was no more need for the verisimilitude of photographs, came the rough
awakening, announced as follows:

“On October 29th, _without notice and without anything to show that such
action was pending_, three Turkish torpedo craft appeared suddenly
before Odessa. . . . The same day the cruisers _Breslau_ and _Hamidieh_
bombarded several commercial ports in the Black Sea, including
Novorossisk and Theodosia. In the forenoon of October 30th, the _Goeben_
bombarded Sevastopol without causing any serious damage. By way of
reprisals the Franco-British squadron in the Eastern Mediterranean
carried out a demonstration against the forts at the entrance to the
Dardanelles at daybreak on November 3rd.”

* * * * *

No comment which I might make could bite more deeply than the bald
quotation describing this irruption of Turkey as “without motive and
without anything to show that such action was pending.” _Caeci sunt
oculi cum animus alias res agit_—The eyes are blind when the mind is
obsessed.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL

Sunset and evening star
* * * *
And after that the dark.

During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of the British cruiser
_Monmouth_, the senior English Naval Officer on the China Station, and
Admiral Count von Spee, commanding the German Far-Eastern Squadron, were
close and intimate friends.

The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers and men of the two
squadrons. The English and Germans discussed with one another the
chances of war between their nations, and wished one another the best of
luck when the scrap came. The German Squadron, which has since been
destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser’s Navy. It was commanded by
professional officers and manned by long-service ratings. It had taken
for its model the English Navy, and it had absorbed much of the English
naval spirit. Count von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentleman,
and with Captain von Müller, who afterwards made the name of the _Emden_
immortal, was worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let us always be
just to those of our foes who, though they fight with us terribly, yet
remain our chivalrous friends. I will tell a pretty story which will
illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed between the English
and German squadrons during those two years before the war.

In December 1912 the _Monmouth_ was cruising in the Gulf of Pechili,
which resembles a long flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von
Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron off Chifu, in the neck of
the bottle, received word from a correspondent that the second Balkan
War had brought England and Germany within a short distance of “Der
Tag.” Von Spee and his officers did not clink glasses to “The Day”; they
were professionals who knew the English Navy and its incomparable power;
they left silly boastings to civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel
who had not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought first of his
English friend who, in his elderly cruiser, was away up in the Gulf at
the mercy of the German Squadron, which was as a cork in its neck. He at
once dispatched a destroyer to find the _Monmouth’s_ captain and to warn
him that though there might be nothing in the news it were better for
him to get clear of the Gulf. “There may be nothing in the yarn,” he
wrote, “I have had many scares before. But it would be well if you got
out of the Gulf. I should be most sorry to have to sink you.” When the
destroyer came up with the _Monmouth_ she had returned to Wei-hai-wei,
and the message was delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an answer
somewhat as follows: “My dear von Spee, thank you very much. I am here.
_J’y suis, J’y reste._ I shall expect you and your guns at breakfast
to-morrow morning.” War did not come then; when von Spee did meet and
sink the _Monmouth_ she had another captain in command, but the story
remains as evidence of the chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and
skilful von Spee.

In November 1913 the _Monmouth_ left the China Station, and before she
went, upon November 6th, her crew were entertained sumptuously by von
Spee and von Müller. She was paid off in January 1914, after reaching
home, but was recommissioned in the following July for the test
mobilisation, which at the moment meant so much, and which a few weeks
later was to mean so much more. When the war broke out, the _Monmouth_,
with her new officers and men, half of whom were naval reservists, was
sent back to the Pacific. The armoured cruiser _Good Hope_, also
commissioned in July, was sent with her, and the old battleship
_Canopus_ was despatched a little later. Details of the movements of
these and of other of our warships in the South Atlantic and Pacific are
given in the chapters entitled “The Cruise of the _Glasgow_.” The
_Glasgow_ had been in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of war, and was
joined there by the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_.

Meanwhile war had broken out, and we will for a few moments consider
what resulted. The _Emden_, Captain von Müller, was at the German base
of Tsing-tau, but Admiral von Spee, with the armoured cruisers
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, was among the German Caroline Islands far
to the south of the China Sea. The _Dresden_ was in the West Indies and
the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ on the West Coast of Mexico (the Pacific
side). The Japanese Fleet undertook to keep von Spee out of China waters
to the north, and the Australian Unit—which then was at full strength
and included the battle cruiser _Australia_ with her eight 12-inch guns
and the light cruisers _Melbourne_ and _Sydney_, each armed with eight
sixes—made themselves responsible for the Australian end of the big sea
area. The _Emden_, disguised as an English cruiser, with four
funnels—the dummy one made of canvas—got out of Tsing-tau under the
noses of the Japanese watchers, made off towards the Indian Ocean, and
pursued that lively and solitary career which came to its appointed end
at the Cocos-Keeling Islands, as will be described fully later on in
this book. The Australian Unit, burning with zeal to fire its maiden
guns at a substantial enemy, sought diligently for von Spee and
requisitioned the assistance of the French armoured cruiser _Montcalm_,
an old slow and not very useful vessel which happened to be available
for the hunt. Von Spee was discovered in his island retreat and pursued
as far as Fiji, but the long arm of the English Admiralty then
interposed and upset the merry game. We were short of battle cruisers
where we wanted them most—in the North Sea—so the _Australia_ was
summoned home and the remaining ships of the Unit, no longer by
themselves a match for von Spee, were ordered back to Sydney in deep
disgust. “A little more,” declared the bold Australians, who under their
English professional officers had been hammered into a real Naval Unit,
“and we would have done the work which the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
had to do later. If we had been left alone there would not have been any
disaster off Coronel.” While one can sympathise with complaints such as
this from eager fire-eaters, one has to accept their assertions with due
caution. The German High Seas Fleet was at that time a more important
objective than even von Spee. So the _Australia_ sailed for England to
join up with the Grand Fleet, and von Spee had rest for several weeks.
He was not very enterprising. Commerce hunting did not much appeal to
him, though his light cruisers, the _Dresden_ and _Leipzig_, did some
little work in that line when on their way to join their Chief at Easter
Island where the squadron ultimately concentrated. On the way across,
von Spee visited Samoa, from which we had torn down the German flag, but
did no damage there. On September 22nd, he bombarded Tahiti, in the
Society Islands, a foolish proceeding of which he repented later on when
the Coronel action left him short of shell with no means of
replenishment. For eight days he stayed in the Marquesas Islands taking
in provisions, thence he went to Easter Island and Masafuera, and so to
Valparaiso, where the Chilean Government, though neutral, was not
unbenevolent. He was for three weeks at Easter Island (Chilean
territory), coaling from German ships there, and in this remote spot—a
sort of Chilean St. Kilda—remained hidden both from the Chilean
authorities and from our South Atlantic Squadron.

We must now return to the British Squadron which had been sent out to
deal with von Spee as best it might. Cradock with such a squadron, all,
except the light cruiser _Glasgow_, old and slow, had no means of
bringing von Spee to action under conditions favourable to himself, or
of refusing action when conditions were adverse. Von Spee, with his
concentrated homogeneous squadron, all comparatively new and well-armed
cruisers, all of about the same speed of twenty-one or twenty-two knots,
all trained to a hair by constant work during a three years’ commission,
had under his hand an engine of war perfect of its kind. He could be
sure of getting the utmost out of co-operative efforts. The most
powerful in guns of the English vessels was the battleship _Canopus_,
which, when the action off Coronel was fought, was 200 miles away to the
south. She bore four 12-inch guns in barbettes—in addition to twelve
sixes—but she was fourteen years old and could not raise more than
about thirteen to fourteen knots except for an occasional burst. Any one
of von Spee’s ships, with 50 per cent. more speed, could have made rings
round her. Had Cradock waited for the _Canopus_,—as he was implored to
do by her captain, Grant,—and set the speed of his squadron by hers,
von Spee could have fought him or evaded him exactly as he pleased. “If
the English had kept their forces together,” wrote von Spee after
Coronel, “then we should certainly have got the worst of it.” This was
the modest judgment of a brave man, but it is scarcely true. If the
English had kept their forces together von Spee need never have fought;
they would have had not the smallest chance of getting near him except
by his own wish. Admiral Cradock flew his flag in the armoured cruiser
_Good Hope_, which, though of 14,000 tons and 520 feet long, had only
two guns of bigger calibre than 6-inch. These were of 9.2 inches,
throwing a shell of 380 lb., but the guns, like the ship, were twelve
years old. Her speed was about seventeen knots, four or five knots less
than that of the German cruisers she had come to chase! The _Monmouth_,
of the “County Class,” was as obsolete as the _Good Hope_. Eleven years
old, of nearly 10,000 tons, she carried nothing better than fourteen
6-inch guns of bygone pattern. She may have been good for a knot or two
more than the _Good Hope_, but her cruising and fighting speed was, of
course, that of the flagship.

The one effective ship of the whole squadron was the _Glasgow_, which
curiously enough is the sole survivor now of the Coronel action, either
German or English. Out of the eight warships which fought there off the
Chilean coast on November 1st, 1914, five German and three English, the
_Glasgow_ alone remains afloat. She is a modern light cruiser, first
commissioned in 1911. The _Glasgow_ is light, long and lean. She showed
that she could steam fully twenty-five knots and could fight her two
6-inch and ten 4-inch guns most effectively. She was a match for any one
of von Spee’s light cruisers, though unable to stand up to the
_Scharnhorst_ or _Gneisenau_. The modern English navy has been built
under the modern doctrine of speed and gun-power—the _Good Hope_,
_Monmouth_, and _Canopus_, the products of a bad, stupid era in naval
shipbuilding, had neither speed nor gun-power. The result, the
inevitable result, was the disaster of Coronel in which the English
ships were completely defeated and the Germans barely scratched. The
Germans had learned the lesson which we ourselves had taught them.

When one considers the two squadrons which met and fought off Coronel,
in the light of experience cast by war, one feels no surprise that the
action was over in fifty-two minutes. Cradock and his men, 1,600 of
them, fought and died.

Sunset and evening star
* * * * *
And after that the dark.

The _Glasgow_ would also have been lost had she not been a new ship with
speed and commanded by a man with the moral courage to use it in order
to preserve his vessel and her crew for the further service of their
country. Von Spee, who had the mastery of manœuvre, brought Cradock to
action when and how he pleased, and emphasised for the hundredth time in
naval warfare that speed and striking power and squadron training will
win victory certainly, inevitably, and almost without hurt to the
victors. Like the Falkland Islands action of five weeks afterwards, that
off Coronel was a gun action. No torpedoes were used on either side.
Probably it was one of the last purely gun actions which will be fought
in our time.

* * * * *

At the end of October the British and German squadrons were near to one
another, though until they actually met off Coronel the British
commanders did not know that the concentrated German Squadron was off
the Chilean coast. Von Spee knew that an old pre-Dreadnought battleship
had come out from England, though he was not sure of her class. He
judged her speed to be higher than that of the _Canopus_, which, though
powerfully armed, was so lame a duck that she would have been more of a
hindrance than a help had Cradock joined up with her. Von Spee had an
immense advantage in the greater handiness and cohesiveness of his
ships. The _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ were sisters, completed in
1907, and alike in all respects. Their shooting records were
first-class; they were indeed the crack gunnery ships under the German
ensign. Their sixteen 8.2-inch guns—eight each—fired shells of 275 lb.
weight, nearly three times the weight of the 100-lb. shells fired from
the 6-inch guns which formed the chief batteries of their opponents the
_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_. They were three months out of dock but they
could still steam, as they showed at Coronel, at over twenty knots in a
heavy sea. The light cruisers _Dresden_, _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were
not identical though very nearly alike. Their armament was the same—ten
4.1-inch guns apiece—and their speed nearly the same. The _Dresden_ was
the fastest as she was the newest, a sister of the famous _Emden_. None
of the German light cruisers was so fast or so powerful as the
_Glasgow_, but together they were much more than a match for her, just
as the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ together were more than a match for
the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_. When, therefore, von Spee found himself
opposed to the British armoured cruisers he was under no anxiety; he had
the heels of them and the guns of them; they could neither fight
successfully with him nor escape from him. The speedy _Glasgow_ might
escape—as in fact she did—but the _Good Hope_ and the _Monmouth_ were
doomed from the moment when the action was joined.

I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the rival squadrons at the risk
of being wearisome since an understanding of their qualities is
essential to an understanding of the action.

On October 31st, the _Glasgow_ put into Coronel, a small coaling port
near Concepcion and to the south of Valparaiso, which had become von
Spee’s unofficial base. He did not remain in territorial waters for more
than twenty-four hours at a time, but he got what he liked from German
ships in the harbour. The _Glasgow_ kept in wireless touch with the
_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, which were some fifty miles out at sea to
the west, and von Spee picked up enough from the English wireless to
know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel. At once he despatched the
_Nürnberg_ to shadow the _Glasgow_, to stroll as it were
unostentatiously past the little harbour, while he with the rest of the
squadron stayed out of sight to the north. In the morning of November
1st out came the _Glasgow_ and made for the rendezvous where she was to
join the other cruisers and the _Otranto_, an armed liner by which they
were accompanied. The wireless signals passing between the watching
_Nürnberg_ and von Spee were in their turn picked up by the _Good Hope_,
so that each squadron then knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradock,
an English seaman of the fighting type, determined to seek out the
Germans, though he must have suspected their superiority of force.
Neither side actually knew the strength of the other. Cradock spread out
his vessels fan-wise in the early afternoon and ordered them to steam in
this fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east.

[Illustration: THE SOUTH SEAS.]

At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships on either side began to
sight one another, and until they did so Cradock had no knowledge that
he had knocked up against the whole of the German Pacific Squadron. The
German concentration had been effected secretly and most successfully.
When the _Scharnhorst_, von Spee’s flagship, first saw the _Glasgow_ and
_Monmouth_ they were far off to the west-south-west and had to wait for
more than half an hour until the _Good Hope_, which was still farther
out to the west, could join hands with them. Meanwhile the German ships,
which were also spread out, had concentrated on the _Scharnhorst_. They
were the _Gneisenau_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, for the _Nürnberg_ had
not returned from her watching duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the
Germans were getting between his ships and the Chilean coast, and that
he would be at a grave disadvantage by being silhouetted against the
western sky, tried to work in towards the land. But von Spee, grasping
his enemy’s purpose, set the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ going at
twenty knots due south against a heavy sea and forced himself between
Cradock and the coast. When the two light cruisers drew up, the four
German ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers and
between them and the land. All these preliminary manœuvres were put
through while the two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and they
determined the issue of the subsequent action. For von Spee, having
thrust the English against the background of the declining sun and being
able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this position and to
decide absolutely the moment when the firing should begin, had
effectively won the action before a shot had been fired. So long as the
sun was above the horizon the German ships were lighted up and would
have made admirable marks could Cradock have got within range. But von
Spee had no intention of letting him get within range until the sun had
actually set and had ceased to give light to Cradock’s gunners. His own
men for an hour afterwards could see the English ships standing out as
clearly as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas screen. “I
had manœuvred,” wrote von Spee to a friend, on the day following the
action, “so that the sun in the west could not disturb me. . . . When we
were about five miles off I ordered the firing to commence. The battle
had begun, and with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite
calmly.” He might well be calm. The greater speed of his squadron had
enabled him to outmanœuvre the English ships, and to wait until the
sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English no mark at all. He might
well be calm. Darkness everywhere, except in the western sky behind
Cradock’s ships, came down very quickly, the nearly full moon was not
yet up, the night was fine except for scuds of rain at intervals.
Between seven and eight o’clock—between sunset and moonrise—von Spee
had a full hour in which to do his work, and he made the fullest use of
the time. At three minutes past seven he began to fire, when the range
was between five and six miles, and he hit the _Good Hope_ at the second
salvo. His consort the _Gneisenau_ did the same with the _Monmouth_. It
was fine shooting, but not extraordinary, for the German cruisers were
crack ships and the marks were perfect. At the third salvo both the
_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ burst into flames forrard, and remained on
fire, for German shell rained on them continually. They could rarely see
to reply and never replied effectively. The _Good Hope’s_ lower deck
guns were smothered by the sea and were, for all practical purposes, out
of action. Yet they fought as best they could. Von Spee slowly closed in
and the torrent of heavy shell became more and more bitter. We have no
record of the action from the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, for not a man
was saved from either ship. The _Glasgow_, which, after the _Otranto_
had properly made off early in the action—she was not built for hot
naval work—had both the _Dresden_ and the _Leipzig_ to look after,
could tell only of her own experiences. Captain Luce in quiet sea
service fashion has brought home to us what they were. “Though it was
most trying to receive a great volume of fire without a chance of
returning it adequately, all kept perfectly cool, there was no wild
firing, and discipline was the same as at battle practice. When a target
ceased to be visible gun-layers simultaneously ceased fire.” Yet the
crews of active ratings and reservists struggled gamely to the end. It
came swiftly and mercifully.

We have detailed accounts of the action from the German side, of which
the best was written by von Spee himself on the following day. There is
nothing of boasting or vainglory about his simple story: though the man
was German he seems to have been white all through. I have heard much of
him from those who knew him intimately, and willingly accept his
narrative as a plain statement of fact. Given the conditions, the speed
and powers of the opposing squadrons, the skilful preliminary manœuvres
of von Spee before a shot was fired, and the veil of darkness which hid
the German ships from the luckless English gunners, the result, as von
Spee reveals it, was inevitable. He held his fire until after sunset,
and then closing in to about 10,000 yards—a little over five
miles—gave the order to begin. He himself led the line in the
_Scharnhorst_ and engaged the _Good Hope_, the _Gneisenau_ following him
took the _Monmouth_ as her opposite number. The _Leipzig_ engaged the
_Glasgow_, and the _Dresden_ the _Otranto_. The shell from the 8.2-inch
batteries of the German armoured cruisers—each could use six guns on a
broadside—got home at the second salvo and the range was kept without
apparent difficulty. The fires which almost immediately broke out in the
_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ gave much aid to the German gunners, who,
when the quick darkness of the southern night came down, were spared the
use of their searchlights. “As the two big enemy ships were in flames,”
writes one careful German observer, “we were able to economise our
searchlights.” Then, closing in to about 5,000 yards, von Spee poured in
a terrific fire so rapid and sustained that he shot away nearly half his
ammunition. After fifty-two minutes from the firing of the first shell
the _Good Hope_ blew up. “She looked,” wrote von Spee, “like a splendid
firework display against a dark sky. The glowing white flames, mingled
with bright green stars, shot up to a great height.” Cradock’s flagship
then sank, though von Spee thought for long afterwards that she was
still afloat. The _Otranto_ had made her escape, but the _Monmouth_,
which could not get away, and the _Glasgow_—which at any moment could
have shown the enemy her heels—still continued the unequal fight. The
night had become quite dark, the flames in the _Monmouth_ had burned out
or been extinguished, and the Germans had lost sight of their prey. The
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ worked round to the south, and the
_Leipzig_ and _Dresden_ were sent curving to the north and west, in
order to keep the English ships away from the shelter of the land. Just
then the light cruiser _Nürnberg_, which had been sent upon the scouting
expedition of which I have told, arrived upon the scene of action and
encountered the crippled _Monmouth_. Had the English cruiser been
undamaged, she could soon have disposed of this new combatant, but she
was listing heavily and unable to use her guns. Running up close the
_Nürnberg_ poured in a broadside which sent the _Monmouth_ to the
bottom. The _Glasgow_, badly damaged above water, but still full of
speed and mettle, could do no more. The big German cruisers were coming
up. Her captain took the only possible course. Shortly before the
stricken _Monmouth_ disappeared under the waves he made off at full
speed.

No one was picked up, either from the _Good Hope_ or the _Monmouth_. Von
Spee, who was not the man to neglect the rescue of his drowning enemies,
gives an explanation. He was far from the _Good Hope_ when she blew up,
but the _Nürnberg_ was quite close to the foundering _Monmouth_; why was
no attempt made at rescue in her case at least? It was dark and there
was a heavy sea running, but the risks of a rescue are not sufficient to
excuse the absence of any attempt. The _Nürnberg_ had not been in the
main action, she was flying up, knowing nothing of what had occurred,
when she met and sank the _Monmouth_. Her captain saw other big ships
approaching and thought that one of them was the _Good Hope_. This is
von Spee’s excuse for the omission of his subordinate to put out
boats—or even life lines—but one suspects that the captain of the
_Nürnberg_ had a bad quarter of an hour when next he met his chief.

The German squadron was undamaged, scarcely touched. Three men were
wounded by splinters in the _Gneisenau_. That is the whole casualty
list. One 6-inch shell went through the deck of the _Scharnhorst_ but
did not explode—the “creature just lay down” and went to sleep. “It lay
there,” writes von Spee, “as a kind of greeting.” The light German
cruisers were not touched at all. But though the German squadron had
come through the fight unharmed, it had ceased to be of much account in
a future battle. The silly bombardment of Tahiti, and the action off
Coronel, had so depleted the once overflowing magazines that not half
the proper number of rounds were left for the heavy guns. No fresh
supplies could be obtained. Von Spee could fight again, but he could not
have won again had he been opposed to much lighter metal than that which
overwhelmed him a few weeks later off the Falkland Islands.

On the second day after the action von Spee returned to Valparaiso.
Though his own ship had fought with the _Good Hope_ and he had seen her
blow up he did not know for certain what had become of her. This well
illustrates the small value of observers’ estimates of damage done to
opponents during the confusion of even the simplest of naval fights.
Distances are so great and light is so variable. The destruction of the
_Monmouth_ was known, but not that of the _Good Hope_. So von Spee made
for Valparaiso to find out if the English flagship had sought shelter
there. Incidentally he took with him the first news of his victory, and
the large German colony in the Chilean city burned to celebrate the
occasion in characteristic fashion. But von Spee gave little
encouragement. He was under no illusions. He fully realized the power of
the English Navy and that his own existence and that of his squadron
would speedily be determined. He “absolutely refused” to be celebrated
as national hero, and at the German club, where he spent an hour and a
half, declined to drink a toast directed in offensive terms against his
English enemies. In his conduct of the fights with our ships, in his
orders, in his private letters, Admiral von Spee stands out as a simple
honest gentleman.

He was a man not very energetic. Though forcible in action and a most
skilful naval tactician, he does not seem to have had any plans for the
general handling of his squadron. If an enemy turned up he fought him,
but he did not go out of his way to seek after him. He dawdled about
among the Pacific Islands during September and at Easter Island during
most of October; after Coronel he lingered in and out of Valparaiso
doing nothing. He must have known that England would not sit down in
idle lamentation, but he did nothing to anticipate and defeat her plans
for his destruction. His shortage of coal and ammunition caused him to
forbid the commerce raiding which appealed to the officers of his light
cruisers, and probably the same weakness made him reluctant to seek any
other adventures. For five weeks he made no attempt even to raid the
Falkland Islands, which lay helplessly expecting his stroke, and when at
last he started out by the long safe southern route round the Horn, it
was to walk into the mouth of the avenging English squadron which had
been gathered there to receive him. One thing is quite certain: he heard
no whisper of the English plans and expected to meet nothing at the
Falkland Islands more formidable than the _Canopus_, the _Glasgow_, and
perhaps one or two “County Class” cruisers, such as the _Cornwall_ or
_Kent_. He never expected to be crunched in the savage jaws of two
battle cruisers!

While this kindly, rather indolent German Admiral was marking time off
the Chilean coast, the squadron which was to avenge the blunder of
Coronel was assembling from the ends of the earth towards the appointed
rendezvous off the Brazilian coast. The _Bristol_, a sister of the
_Glasgow_, had come in from a long cruise in the West Indies, during
which she had met and exchanged harmless shots with another German
wanderer, the _Karlsruhe_. The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were racing
down from the north. The _Cornwall_ and _Kent_, burning to show that
even “County” cruisers were not wholly useless in battle, and the
armoured cruiser _Carnarvon_ were already in the South Atlantic. The
poor old _Canopus_ and the _Glasgow_ had foregathered at Port Stanley in
the Falkland Islands on November 8th, but were immediately ordered north
to Montevideo to meet the other cruisers on the passage south. They left
in accordance with these orders, but the _Canopus_ was turned back by
wireless, so that Port Stanley might have some naval protection against
the expected von Spee raid. Here the _Canopus_ was put aground in the
mud, painted in futurist colours, and converted into a land fort. With
her four 12-inch guns she could at least have made the inner harbour
impassable to the Germans. The _Glasgow_ docked for repairs at Rio, and
then joined the avenging squadron which had concentrated off Brazil, and
with them swept down to the Falkland Islands which were reached upon the
evening of December 7th. All the English ships, to which had been
committed the destruction of von Spee, had then arrived. The stage was
set and the curtain about to go up upon the second and final act of the
Pacific drama. Upon the early morning of the following day, as if in
response to a call by Fate, von Spee and his squadron arrived. After
five weeks of delay he had at last made up his mind to strike.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer . . .
And all the clouds that lour’d
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The naval operations which culminated in the action off the Falkland
Islands are associated vividly in my mind with two little personal
incidents. On November 12th, 1914, a week after the distressful news had
reached this country of the destruction by the enemy of the cruisers
_Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ off the Chilean coast, a small slip of paper
was brought to me in an envelope which had not passed through the post.
I will not say from whom or whence that paper came. Upon it were written
these words: “The battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ have
left for the South Atlantic.” That was all, twelve words, but rarely has
news which meant so much been packed into so small a space. The German
Sea Command would have given a very great deal for the sight of that
scrap of paper which, when read, I burned. For it meant that two fast
battle cruisers, each carrying eight 12-inch guns, were at that moment
speeding south to dispose for ever of von Spee’s Pacific Squadron. The
battle cruisers docked and coaled at Devonport on November 9th, 10th and
11th; hundreds of humble folk like myself must have known of their
mission and its grim purpose, yet not then nor afterwards until their
work was done did a whisper of their sailing reach the ears of Germany.

The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ coaled off St. Vincent, Cape Verde
Islands, and again south of the Line. At the appointed rendezvous off
Brazil they were joined by the _Carnarvon_, _Kent_, _Cornwall_, and
_Bristol_, the armed liner _Orama_, and many colliers. Weeks had passed
and yet no word of the English plans, even of the concentration in
force, reached von Spee, who still thought that he had nothing more
formidable to deal with than a few light cruisers and the old battleship
_Canopus_.

Nothing is more difficult to kill than a legend, and perhaps the most
invulnerable of legends is that one which attributes to the German
Secret Service a superhuman efficiency. I offer to the still faithful
English believers two facts which in a rational world would blast that
legend for ever: the secret mission of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
to the Falkland Islands in November-December 1914, and the silent
transport of the original British Expeditionary Force across the Channel
during the first three weeks of war. And yet, I suppose, the legend will
survive. The strongest case, says Anatole France in _Penguin Island_, is
that which is wholly unsupported by evidence.

The second incident which sticks in my mind was a scene in a big public
hall on the evening of December 9th. Lord Rosebery was in the middle of
a recruiting speech—chiefly addressed, as he plaintively observed, to
an audience of baldheads—when there came a sudden interruption. Pink
newspapers fluttered across the platform, the coat tails of the speaker
were seized, and one of the papers thrust into his hands. We all waited
while Lord Rosebery adjusted his glasses and read a stop-press message.
What he found there pleased him, but he was in no hurry to impart his
news to us. He smiled benevolently at our impatience, and deliberately
worked us up to the desired pitch of his dramatic intensity. Then at
last he stepped forward and read:

“At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th the _Scharnhorst_, the _Gneisenau_, the
_Nürnberg_, the _Leipzig_, and the _Dresden_ were sighted near the
Falkland Islands by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick
Sturdee. An action followed in the course of which the _Scharnhorst_
(flying the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee), the _Gneisenau_, and the
_Leipzig _ were . . . _sunk_.”

At that word, pronounced with tremendous emphasis, 6,000 people jumped
to their feet; they shouted, they cheered, they stamped upon the floor,
they sang “Rule Britannia” till the walls swayed and the roof shuddered
upon its joists. It was a scene less of exultation than of relief,
relief that the faith of the British people in the long arm of the Royal
Navy had been so fully justified. Cradock and the gallant dead of
Coronel had been avenged. The mess had been cleaned up.

“I thought,” said Lord Rosebery, as soon as the tumult had died down, “I
thought that would wake you up.”

* * * * *

At Devonport the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had been loaded “to the
utmost capacity,” not only with stores and ammunition for their own use,
but with supplies to replenish the depleted magazines of their future
consorts. They steamed easily well out of sight of land, except when
they put in to coal off St. Vincent, and made the trip of 4,000 miles to
the rendezvous near the line in a little over fourteen days. They
cleared the Sound in the evening of November 11th, and found the other
cruisers I have mentioned awaiting them at the appointed rendezvous off
the Brazilian coast in the early morning of November 26th. Two days
passed, days of sweltering tropic heat, during which the stores, brought
by the battle cruisers, were parcelled out among the other ships and
coal was taken in by all the ships from the attendant colliers. The
speed of a far-cruising squadron is determined absolutely by its coal
supplies. When voracious eaters of coal like battle cruisers undertake
long voyages, it behoves them to cut their fighting speed of some
twenty-eight knots down to a cruising speed of about one-half. By the
morning of Saturday, November 28th, the now concentrated and fully
equipped avenging Squadron was ready for its last lap of 2,500 miles to
the Falkland Islands. The English vessels, spread out in a huge fan,
swept down, continually searching for the enemy off the coasts of South
America, where rumour hinted that he had taken refuge. The several ships
steamed within the extreme range of visible signalling—so that no
tell-tale wireless waves might crackle forth warnings to von Spee. It
was high summer in the south and the weather glorious, though the
temperature steadily fell as the chilly solitudes of the Falklands were
approached. No Germans were sighted, and the Falkland Islands were
reached before noon on December 7th. The Squadron had already been met
at the rendezvous and joined by the light cruiser _Glasgow_. The old
_Canopus_, so slow and useless as a battleship that she had been put
aground on the mud of the inner harbour (Port Stanley) to protect the
little settlement there, was found at her useful but rather inglorious
post. Most of the vessels anchored in the large outer harbour (Port
William) and coaling was begun at once, but though it was continued at
dawn of the following day it was not then destined to be completed.

Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had worked to perfection. The
two great battle cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from England,
the Squadron had secretly concentrated and then searched the South
Atlantic, the Falkland Islands had been secured from a successful
surprise attack which would have given much joy to our enemies, yet not
a whisper of his fast-approaching doom had sped over the ether to von
Spee. Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he had dawdled
irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our ships were ready for battle, even
the light cruiser _Glasgow_, so heavily battered in the Coronel action
that her inside had been built up with wooden shores till it resembled
the “Epping Forest,” after which the lower deck had christened it, and
she had a hole as big as a church door in one side above the water-line.
She had steamed to Rio in this unhappy plight and had been there well
and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his men were full of fight;
they had their hurts and their humiliation to avenge and meant to get
their own back with interest. They did; their chance came upon the
following day, and they used it to the full.

Whitehall had done its best, and now came a benevolent Joss to put the
crowning seal upon its work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the
Falkland Islands will go down to history as a shining example of the
whiteness of the Navy’s good Joss when in a mood of real benignity. We
desired two things to round off the scheme roughed out at the Admiralty
on November 6th: we wanted—though it was the last thing which we
expected—we wanted the German Pacific Squadron to walk into the trap
which had so daintily been prepared, and they came immediately, on the
very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland Islands, at the
actual moment when Vice-Admiral Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of
the _Carnarvon_), with heads bent over a big chart, were discussing
plans of search. They might have come and played havoc with the Islands
on any morning during the previous five weeks, yet they did not come
until December 8th, when we were just ready and most heartily anxious to
receive them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day with what the Navy
calls “full visibility.” We got it on December 8th. And this was a very
wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are cursed with a vile cold
climate, almost as cold in the summer of December as in the winter of
June. It rains there about 230 days in the year, and even when the rain
does not fall fog is far more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the
Falklands is even some points more forbidding than the dreadful climate
of Lewis in the Hebrides, which it closely resembles. Yet now and then,
at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of them, the best of the
year, dawned upon December 8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility
was at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light breeze blew gently
from the north-west. Our gunners had a full view to the horizon and a
kindly swell to swing the gunsights upon their marks. For Sturdee and
his gunners it was a day of days. Had von Spee come upon a wet and dull
morning all would have been spoiled; he could have got away, his
squadron could have scattered, and we should have had many weary weeks
of search before compassing his destruction. But he came upon the one
morning of the year when we were ready for him and the perfect weather
conditions made escape impossible. Our gunnery officers from their
spotting tops could see as far as even the great 12-inch guns could
shoot. When the Fates mean real business there is no petty higgling
about their methods; they ladle out Luck not in spoonfuls but with
shovels.

The Squadron which had come so far to clean up the mess of Coronel was
commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, who had been
plucked out of his office chair at the Admiralty—he was Director of
Naval Intelligence—and thrown up upon the quarter-deck of the
_Invincible_. He was the right man for the job, a cool-headed scientific
sailor who would make full use of the power and speed of his big ships
and yet run no risk of suffering severe damage thousands of miles away
from a repairing base. Those who criticise his leisurely deliberation in
the action, and the long-range fighting tactics which dragged out the
death agony of the _Scharnhorst_ for three and a half hours and of the
_Gneisenau_ for five, forget that to Sturdee an hour or two of time, and
a hundred or two rounds of heavy shell, were as nothing when set against
the possibility of damage to his battle cruisers. His business was to
sink a very capable and well-armed enemy at the minimum of risk to his
own ships, and so he determined to fight at a range—on the average
about 16,000 yards (9½ land miles)—which made his gunnery rather
ineffective and wasteful, yet certain to achieve its purpose in course
of time.

Just as von Spee at Coronel, having the advantage of greater speed and
greater power, could do what he pleased with the _Good Hope_ and
_Monmouth_, so Sturdee with his battle cruisers could do what he pleased
with von Spee. The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ could steam at
twenty-eight knots—they were clean ships—while the _Scharnhorst_ and
the _Gneisenau_, now five months out of dock, could raise little more
than twenty. The superiority of the English battle cruisers in guns was
no less than in speed. Each carried eight 12-inch guns, firing a shell
of 850 lb., while von Spee’s two armoured cruisers were armed with eight
8.2-inch guns, firing shell of 275 lb. Sturdee, with his great advantage
of speed, could set the range outside the effective capacity of von
Spee’s guns, secure against anything but an accidental plunging shot
upon his decks, while the light German 6-inch armour upon sides and
barbettes was little protection against his own 12-inch armour-piercing
shell. Sturdee could keep his distance and pound von Spee to bits at
leisure. The “visibility” was perfect, space was unlimited, the Germans
had no port of refuge, and from dawn to sunset Sturdee had sixteen hours
of working daylight. He was in no hurry, though one may doubt if he
expected to take so unconscionable a time as three and a half hours to
sink the _Scharnhorst_ and five hours to dispose of the _Gneisenau_. It
was not that Sturdee’s gunnery was bad—relatively, that is, to the
gunnery of other ships or of other navies. The word bad suggests blame.
But it was certainly ineffective. After the Falkland Islands action, and
after those running fights in the North Sea between battle cruisers, it
became dreadfully clear that naval gunnery is still in its infancy. All
the brains and patience and mechanical ingenuity which have been
lavished upon the problem of how to shoot accurately from a rapidly
moving platform at a rapidly moving object, all the appliances for
range-finding and range-keeping and spotting, leave a margin of
guesswork in the shooting, which is a good deal bigger than the width of
the target fired at. The ease and accuracy of land gunnery in contrast
with the supreme difficulty and relative inaccuracy of sea gunnery were
brought vividly before me once in conversation with a highly skilled
naval gunner. “Take a rook rifle,” said he, “put up a target upon a
tree, measure out a distance, sit down, and fire. You will get on to
your target after two or three shots and then hit it five times out of
six. You will be a land gunner with his fixed guns, his observation
posts, his aeroplanes or kite balloons, his maps upon which he can
measure up his ranges. Then get into a motor-car with your rook rifle,
get a friend to drive you rapidly along a country road, and standing up
try what sport you make of hitting the rabbits which are running and
jumping about in the fields. That, exaggerated a bit perhaps, is sea
gunnery. We know our own speed and our own course, but we don’t know
exactly either the enemy’s speed or the enemy’s course; we have to
estimate both. As he varies his course and his speed—he does both
constantly—he throws out our calculations. It all comes down to
range-finding and spotting, trial and error. Can you be surprised that
naval gunnery, measured by land standards, is wasteful and ineffective?”
“No,” said I, “I am surprised that you ever hit at all.”

* * * * *

The English Squadron began to coal at half-past three upon that bright
summer morning of December 8th, and the grimy operation proceeded
vigorously until eight o’clock, when there came a sudden and most
welcome interruption. Columns of smoke were observed far away to the
south-east, and, presently, the funnels of two approaching vessels were
made out. There were three others whose upper works had not yet shown
above the horizon. Coaling was at once stopped and steam raised to full
pressure. Never have our engineer staffs more splendidly justified their
advance in official status than upon that day. Not only did they get
their boilers and engines ready in the shortest possible time, but, in
the subsequent action, they screwed out of their ships a knot or two
more of speed than they had any right to do. The action was gained by
speed and gun power; without the speed—the speed of clean-bottomed
ships against those which, after five months at sea, had become
foul—the power of the great guns could not have been fully developed.
So, when we remember Sturdee and his master gunners and gunnery officers
in the turrets and aloft in the spotting tops, let us also remember the
master engineers hidden out of sight far below who gave to the gunners
their opportunity.

The battle cruisers, whose presence it was desired to conceal until the
latest moment, poured oil upon their furnaces and, veiled in clouds of
the densest smoke, awaited the rising of the pressure gauges. In the
outer harbour the light cruisers collected, and from her immovable
position upon the mud-banks the old _Canopus_ loosed a couple of pot
shots from her big guns at the distant German at a range of six miles.
Admiral Graf von Spee and his merry men laughed—they knew all about the
_Canopus_. Then, when all was ready, the indomitable _Glasgow_, the
_Kent_ (own sister to the sunken _Monmouth_), and the armoured
_Carnarvon_ issued forth to battle. In the words of an eye-witness,
later a prisoner, “The Germans laughed till their sides ached.” A few
more minutes passed, and then, from under the cover of the smoke and the
low fringes of the harbour, steamed grandly out the _Invincible_ and
_Inflexible_, cleared for action, their huge turrets fore and aft and
upon either beam bristling with the long 12-inch guns, their turbines
working at the fullest pressure, the flag of Vice-Admiral Sturdee
fluttering aloft. There was no more German laughter. Von Spee and his
officers and men were gallant enemies, they saw instantly the moment the
battle cruisers issued forth, overwhelming in their speed and power,
that for themselves and for their squadron the sun had risen for the
last time. They had come for sport, the easy capture of the Falkland
Islands, but sport had turned upon the instant of staggering surprise to
tragedy; nothing remained but to fight and to die as became gallant
seamen. And so they fought, and so they died, all but a few whom we,
more merciful than the Germans themselves at Coronel, plucked from the
cold sea after the sinking of their ships.

The German Squadron—the two armoured cruisers _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_, each with eight 8.2-inch guns, and the three light cruisers
_Nürnberg_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, each armed with ten 4.1-inch
guns—made off at full speed, and for awhile the English Squadron
followed at the leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about twenty
knots so as to keep together. It was at once apparent that our ships had
the legs of the enemy, and could catch them when they pleased and could
fight at any range and in any position which they chose to select. That
is the crushing advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun power a
fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if no port of refuge be available
for him. In weight and power of guns there was no possible comparison.
The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, which had descended from the far
north to swab up the mess of Coronel, were at least three times as
powerful as the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, crack gunnery ships
though they might be. Their 12-inch guns could shoot with ease and with
sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range beyond the full stretch
of the German 8.2-inch weapons however deftly they might be handled.
Their 10-inch armour upon the turrets and conning-tower was invulnerable
against chance hits when closing in, and the armoured decks covering
their inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The chances of
disaster were reduced almost to nothingness by Sturdee’s tactics of the
waiting game. When at length he gave the order to open fire he kept out
at a distance which made the percentage of his hits small, yet still
made those hits which he brought off tremendously effective. A bursting
charge of lyddite in the open may do little damage, even that contained
in a 12-inch shell, but the same charge exploded within the decks of a
cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destructiveness.

Presently the German Squadron divided, the enemy light cruisers and
attendant transports seeking safety in flight from our light cruisers
despatched in chase while the armoured cruisers held on pursued by the
two battle cruisers and the armoured _Carnarvon_, whose ten guns were of
7.5- and 6-inch calibre. The _Carnarvon_, light though she was by
comparison with the battle cruisers, did admirable and accurate work,
and proved in the action to be by no means a negligible consort. There
was no hurry. A wide ocean lay before the rushing vessels, the enemy had
no opportunity of escape so long as the day held clear and fine, and the
English ships could close in or open out exactly as they pleased. During
most of the fight which followed the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_
steered upon courses approximately parallel with those of the Germans,
following them as they dodged and winded like failing hares, always
maintaining that dominating position which in these days of steam
corresponds with Nelson’s weather gauge. It followed from their position
as the chasers that they could not each use more than six guns, but this
was more than compensated for by the enemy’s inability to use more than
four of his heavier guns in the _Scharnhorst_ or _Gneisenau_.

I have met and talked with many naval officers and men who have been in
action during the present war, and have long since ceased to put a
question which received an invariable answer. I used to inquire “Were
you excited or sensibly thrilled either when going into action or after
it had begun?” This was the substance though not the words of the
question. One does not talk in that land fashion with sailor-men. The
answer was always the same. “Excited, thrilled, of course not. There was
too much to do.” An action at sea is glorified drill. Every man knows
his job perfectly and does it as perfectly as he knows how. Whether he
be an Admiral or a ship’s boy he attends to his job and has no time to
bother about personal feelings. Naval work is team work, the individual
is nothing, the team is everything. This is why there is a certain
ritual and etiquette in naval honours; personal distinctions are very
rare and are never the result of self-seeking. There is no pot-hunting
in the Sea Service. Not only are actions at sea free from excitement or
thrills, but for most of those who take part in them they are blind. Not
one in twenty of those who fight in a big ship see anything at all—not
even the gun-layers, when the range is long and they are “following the
Control.” Calmly and blindly our men go into action, calmly and blindly
they fight obeying exactly their orders, calmly and blindly when Fate
wills they go down to their deaths. In their calmness and in their
blindness they are the perfected fruits of long centuries of naval
discipline. The Sea Service has become highly scientific, yet in taste
and in sentiment it has changed little since the days of Queen
Elizabeth. The English sailor, then as now, has a catlike hatred of
dirt, and never fights so happily as when his belly is well filled. The
officers and men of the battle cruisers had been coaling when the enemy
so obligingly turned up, and they had breakfasted so early that the meal
had passed from their memories. There was plenty of time before firing
could begin. So, while the engineers sweated below, those with more
leisure scrubbed the black grime from their skins, and changed into
their best and brightest uniforms to do honour to a great occasion. Then
at noon “all hands went to dinner.”

* * * * *

The big guns of the battle cruisers began to pick up the range of the
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ at five minutes to one, three hours after
the chase had begun, when the distance from the enemy’s armoured
cruisers was some 18,000 yards, say ten land miles. And while the huge
shots fly forth seeking their prey, let us visit in spirit for a few
minutes the spotting top of the _Invincible_, and discover for ourselves
how it is possible to serve great guns with any approach to accuracy,
when both the pursuing and pursued ships are travelling at high speed
upon different courses during which the range and direction are
continually varying. The _Invincible_ worked up at one time to
twenty-nine knots (nearly thirty-four miles an hour), though not for
long, since a lower speed was better suited to her purpose, and the
firing ranges varied from 22,000 yards down to the comparatively close
quarters of six miles, at which the _Scharnhorst_ and, later, the
_Gneisenau_ were sent to the bottom.

From the decks of the _Invincible_, when the main action opened, little
could be seen of the chase except columns of smoke, but from the fire
control platform one could make out through glasses the funnels and most
of the upper works of the German cruisers. At this elevation the sea
horizon was distant 26,000 yards (about 15½ land miles), and upon the
day of the Falkland Islands fight “visibility” was almost perfect. When
an enemy ship can be seen, its distance can be measured within a margin
of error of half of one per cent.—fifty yards in ten thousand; that is
not difficult, but since both the enemy vessel and one’s own ship are
moving very fast, and courses are being changed as the enemy seeks to
evade one’s fire or to direct more efficiently his own guns, the varying
ranges have to be kept, which is much more difficult. It follows that
three operations have to be in progress simultaneously, of which one is
a check upon and a correction of the other two. First, all the
range-finders have to be kept going and their readings compared;
secondly, the course and speed of one’s own ship have to be registered
with the closest accuracy and the corresponding speeds and courses of
the enemy observed and estimated; thirdly, the pitching of one’s shots
has to be watched and their errors noted as closely as may be. All this
delicate gunnery work is perfectly mechanical but chiefly human. The
Germans, essentially a mechanically inhuman people, try to carry the aid
of machinery farther than we do. They fit, for example, a gyroscopic
arrangement which automatically fires the guns at a chosen moment in the
roll of a ship. We fire as the roll brings the wires of the sighting
telescopes upon the object aimed at, and can shoot better when a ship is
rolling than when she is travelling upon an even keel. We believe in
relying mainly upon the deft eyes and hands of our gun-layers—when the
enemy is within their range of vision—and upon control officers up
aloft when he is not. German gunnery can be very good, but it tends to
fall to pieces under stress of battle. Ours tends to improve in action.
Machinery is a good servant but a bad master.

As the shots are fired they are observed by the spotting officers to
fall too short or too far over, to one side or to the other, and
corrections are made in direction and in range so as to convert a
“bracket” into a “straddle” and then to bring off accurate hits.

When, say, the shots of one salvo fall beyond the mark and the shots of
the next come down on the near side, the mark is said to be “bracketed.”
When the individual shots of a salvo fall some too far and others too
short, the mark has been “straddled.” A straddle is a closed-in bracket.
At long ranges far more shots miss than hit, and we are dealing now with
ranges up to ten or twelve miles. The bigger the gun the bigger the
splash made by its shell when striking the water, and as the spotting
officers cannot spot unless they can clearly make out the splashes,
there is an accuracy—an ultimate effective accuracy—in big guns with
which smaller ones cannot compete however well they may be served. For,
ultimately, in naval gunnery, when ships are moving fast and ranges are
changing continually, we come down to trial and error. We shoot and
correct, correct and shoot, now and then find the mark and speedily lose
it again, as the courses and speeds are changed. Unless we can see the
splashes of the shells and are equipped with guns powerful enough to
shoot fairly flat—without high elevation—we may make a great deal of
noise and expend quantities of shell, but we shall not do much hurt to
the enemy.

The Falkland Islands action was the Royal Navy’s first experience in
long-range war gunnery under favorable conditions of light—and it was
rather disappointing. It revealed the immense gap which separates
shooting in war and shooting at targets in time of peace. The battle
cruisers sank the enemy, and suffered little damage in doing their
appointed work, and thus achieved both the purposes which Admiral
Sturdee had set himself and his men. But it was a wasteful exhibition,
and showed how very difficult it is to sink even lightly armoured ships
by gun-fire alone. Our shells at the long ranges set were falling
steeply; their effective targets were not the sides but the decks of the
Germans, which were not more than seventy feet wide. If one reflects
what it means to pitch a shell at a range of ten miles upon a rapidly
moving target seventy feet wide, one can scarcely feel surprised that
very few shots got fairly home. We need not accept _au pied de la
lettre_ the declaration of Lieutenant Lietzmann—a damp and unhappy
prisoner—that the _Gneisenau_, shot at for five hours, was hit
effectively only twenty times, nor endorse his rather savage verdict
that the shooting of the battle cruisers was “simply disgraceful.” But
every competent gunnery officer, in his moments of expansive candour,
will agree that the results of the big-gun shooting were not a little
disappointing. The Germans added to our difficulty by veiling their
ships in smoke clouds and thus, to some extent cancelled the day’s
“visibility.”

No enemy could have fought against overwhelming odds more gallantly and
persistently than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly trained
long-service men. Many times, even at the long ranges at which the early
part of the action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon the
battle cruisers. One 8.2-inch shell from the _Scharnhorst_ wrecked the
_Invincible’s_ wardroom and smashed all the furniture into chips except
the piano, which still retained some wires and part of the keyboard.
Another shell scattered the Fleet Paymaster’s money-box and strewed the
decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless. Though the
_Invincible_ was the leading ship, and at one time received the
concentrated fire of both the _Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_, she did
not suffer a single casualty. And, while she was being peppered almost
harmlessly, her huge shells, which now and then burst inboard the doomed
German vessels, were setting everything on fire between decks, until the
dull red glow could be seen from miles away through the gaping holes in
the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell.

Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued, with intervals of rest
for guns and men, till 4.16, when the _Scharnhorst_ sank. Three hours
and twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the Germans stuck to
their work, there was no thought of surrender; they fought so long as a
gun could be brought to bear or a round of shell remained in their
depleted magazines. Every man in the _Scharnhorst_ was killed or
drowned; the action was not ended when she went down and her consort
_Gneisenau_, steaming through the floating bodies of the poor relics of
her company, was compelled to leave them to their fate. For nearly two
hours longer the _Gneisenau_ kept up the fight. The battle cruisers and
the smaller _Carnarvon_ closed in upon her, and at a range of some six
to seven land miles smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was
blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes past six she rolled
over and sank. Her guns spoke up to the last. As she lay upon her side
her end was hastened by the Germans themselves, who, feeling that she
was about to go, opened to the sea one of the broadside torpedo flats.
She sank with her ensign still flying. If the whole German Navy could
live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern Pacific Squadron, that Service
might in time develop a true Naval Soul.

Those of the crew who remained afloat in the water after the _Gneisenau_
sank were picked up by boats from the battle cruisers and the
_Carnarvon_—we rescued 108 officers and men. Admiral Sturdee sent them
a message of congratulation upon their rescue and of commendation upon
their gallantry in battle, and every English sailor did his utmost to
treat them as brothers of the sea. Officers and men lived with their
captors as guests, not as prisoners, in wardroom and gun-room, and on
the lower deck the English and Germans fought their battle over again in
the best of honest fellowship. “There is nothing at all to show that we
are prisoners of war,” wrote a young German lieutenant to his friends in
the Fatherland, expressing in one simple sentence—though perhaps
unconsciously—the immortal spirit of the English Sea Service. A
defeated enemy is not a prisoner; he is an unhappy brother of the sea,
to be dried and clothed and made much of, and to be taught with the
kindly aid of strong drink to forget his troubles.

There is little of exhilaration about a sea fight, such as that which I
have briefly sketched. It seems, even to those who take part in it, to
be wholly impersonal and wholly devilish. Though its result depends
entirely upon the human element, upon the machines which men’s brains
have secreted and which their cunning hands and eyes direct, it seems to
most of them while in action to have become nothing loftier than a fight
between soulless machines. One cannot wonder. The enemy ship—to those
few of the fighting men who can see it—is a spot upon the distant
horizon from which spit out at intervals little columns of fire and
smoke. There is no sign of a living foe. And upon one’s own ship the
attention of everyone is absorbed by mechanical operations—the steam
steering gear, the fire control, the hydraulic or electric gun
mechanism, the glowing fires down below fed by their buzzing air fans,
the softly purring turbines. And yet, what now appears to be utterly
inhuman and impersonal is in reality as personal and human as was
fighting in the days of yard-arm distances and hand-to-hand boarding.
The Admiral who, from his armoured conning-tower, orders the courses and
maintains the distances best suited to his terrible work; the Fire
Director watching, aiming, adjusting sights with the minute care of a
marksman with his rifle; the officers at their telescopes spotting the
gouts of foam thrown up by the bursting shells; the engineers intent to
squeeze the utmost tally in revolutions out of their beloved engines;
the stokers each man rightly feeling that upon him and his efforts
depends the sustained speed which alone can give mastery of manœuvre;
the seamen at their stations extinguishing fire caused by hostile
shells; the gunners following with huge blind weapons the keen eyes
directing them from far aloft; all these are personal and very human
tasks. A sea fight, though it may appear to be one between machinery, is
now as always a fight between men. Battles are fought and won by men and
by the souls of men, by what they have thought and done in peace time as
a preparation for war, by what they do in war as the result of their
peace training.

The whole art of successful war is the concentration upon an enemy at a
given moment of an overwhelming force and the concentration of that
force outside the range of his observation. Both these things were done
by the Royal Navy between November 6th and December 8th, 1914, and their
fruits were the shattered remains of von Spee’s squadron lying thousands
of fathoms deep in the South Atlantic. But nothing which the Admiralty
planned upon November 6th would have availed had not the Royal Navy
designed and built so great a force of powerful ships that, when the
far-off call arose, two battle cruisers could be spared to travel 7,000
miles from the North Sea to the Falkland Islands without sensibly
endangering the margin of safety of the Grand Fleet at home.

While the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were occupying the front of the
battle stage and disposing of the hostile stars, the English light
cruisers were enjoying themselves in the wings in a more humble but not
less useful play. The cruiser _Kent_ astonished everybody. She was the
lame duck of the Squadron, a slow old creature who could with extreme
difficulty screw out seventeen knots, so that, in the company of much
faster boats, her armament of fourteen 6-inch guns appeared to be
practically wasted. Yet this elderly County cruiser, so short of coal
that her fires were fed with boats, ladders, doors, and officers’
furniture, got herself moving at over twenty-one knots, chased and
caught the _Nürnberg_—which ought to have been able to romp round her
if one of her boilers had not been out of action—and sank the German
vessel out of hand. Afterwards her officers claimed with solemn oaths
that she had done twenty-four knots, but there are heights to which my
credulity will not soar. One is compelled on the evidence to believe
that she did catch the _Nürnberg_, but how she did it no one can
explain, least of all, I fancy, her Engineer Commander himself. The
_Leipzig_ was rapidly overhauled by the speedy _Glasgow_, who sank her
with the aid of the _Cornwall_ and so repaid in full the debt of
Coronel. The cruiser _Bristol_, a sister of the _Glasgow_, was sent
after the German Squadron’s transports and colliers, and, in company
with the armed liner _Macedonia_, “proceeded,” in naval language, “to
destroy them.” Out of the whole German Squadron the light cruiser
_Dresden_ (own sister to the _Emden_) alone managed to get away. She had
turbine engines and fled without firing a shot. She passed a precarious
hunted existence for three months, and was at last disposed of off
Robinson Crusoe’s Island on March 14th, 1915. The _Glasgow_, still
intent upon collecting payment for her injuries, and our aged but active
friend the _Kent_, were in at her death, which was not very glorious. I
will tell her story in its proper place. So ended that most dainty
operation, the wiping out of the German Pacific Squadron and the
cleaning up of the Mess of Coronel. Throughout, our sailors had to do
only with clean above-water fighting. There were no nasty sneaking mines
or submarines to hamper free movement; the fast ship and the big gun had
full play and did their work in the business-like convincing fashion
which the Royal Navy has taught us to expect from it.

* * * * *

[For what follows I have none but German evidence, yet am loth to
disbelieve it. I cannot bring myself to conceive it possible that the
dull Teutonic imagination could, unaided by fact, round off in so pretty
a fashion the story of the Falkland Islands. My naval friends laugh at
me. They say the yarn is wholly impossible.]

More than a year afterwards some fishermen upon the barren Schleswig
coast observed a little water-worn dinghy lying upon the sand. She was
an open boat about twelve feet long, too frail a bark in which to essay
the crossing of the North Sea. Yet upon this little dinghy was engraved
the name of the _Nürnberg_! Like a homing pigeon this frail scrap of
wood and iron had wandered by itself across the world from that
far-distant spot where its parent vessel had been sunk by the _Kent_. It
had drifted home, empty and alone, through 7,000 miles of stormy seas. I
like to picture to myself that Odyssey of the _Nürnberg’s_ dinghy during
those fourteen months of lonely ocean travel. Those who know and love
ships are very sure that they are alive. They are no soulless hulks of
wood or steel or iron, but retain always some spiritual essence
distilled from the personality of those who designed, built, and sailed
them. It may be that in her dim blind way this fragment of a once fine
cruiser, all that was left of a splendid squadron, was inspired to bring
to her far-away northern home the news of a year-old tragedy. So she
drifted ever northwards, scorched by months of sun and buffeted by
months of tempest, until she came at last to rest upon her own arid
shores. And the spirits of German sailors, which had accompanied her and
watched over her during those long wanderings, must, when they saw her
ground upon the Schleswig sands, have passed to their sleep content.

CHAPTER IX

HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN”

Forward, each gentleman and knight!
Let gentle blood show generous might
And chivalry redeem the fight!

The Luck of the Navy is not always good. There are wardrooms in the
Grand Fleet within which to mention any Joss except of the most devilish
blackness may lead to blasphemy and even to blows. One can sympathise.
Those who sped on May 31st, 1916, across 400 miles of sea and who,
though equipped with all the paraphernalia of fire-directors,
spotting-officers, range-fingers, control instruments, grizzled
gun-layers and tremendous wire-wound guns, failed to get in a single
shot at an elusive enemy, are dangerous folk to chaff. If to them had
been vouchsafed the great chance which came to the Salt of the Earth and
the Fifth B. S. there would not now be a German battleship afloat!
Still, in face of blazing examples of bad Joss such as this, I will
maintain that there are pixies sitting up aloft who have a tender regard
for the Royal Navy and who, every now and then, ladle out to it
toothsome morsels of unexpected, astounding, incredible Luck.

For how else can one explain the action at the Falkland Islands? There
was sheer luck in every detail of it, luck piled upon luck. Sturdee with
his two battle-cruisers raced through 7,000 miles of ocean, from
Plymouth to Port Stanley, and not a whisper of his coming sped over the
wireless to von Spee. Yet hundreds knew of Sturdee’s mission—even I
knew before he had cleared the English Channel. During five weeks, from
the Coronel battle until December 7th, the Falkland Islands were exposed
almost helpless to a raid by von Spee’s victorious squadron. Yet he
delayed his coming until December 8th—the day after the _Invincible_
and _Inflexible_ had arrived to gobble him up. As if these two miracles
were not sufficient—a month of silence in those buzzing days of enemy
agents and wireless telegraphy, and von Spee’s arrival off Port Stanley
at the moment most dangerous for him and most convenient for us—the
Fates worked for the Navy yet another. They gave to Sturdee upon
December 8th, 1914, perfect weather, full visibility, and a quiet sea in
a corner of ocean where rain and fog are the rule and clear weather
almost a negligible exception. The Falkland Islands do not see half a
dozen such days as that December 8th in the whole circuit of the year.
Von Spee came and to Sturdee were granted a long southern summer day,
perfect visibility, a limitless ocean of space, and a benign easy swell
to swing the gunsights kindly upon their mark. It was a day that gunners
pray for, sometimes dream of, but very rarely experience in battle.

Less conspicuously but not less benignantly did the kindly Fates work up
the scene for the destruction of the _Emden_. They made all their
preparations in silence and then switched up the curtain at the moment
chosen by themselves. In the Falkland Islands action Luck interposed to
perfect the Navy’s long-laid plans and to add to the scheme those
artistic touches of which man unaided is incapable. But the
_Sydney-Emden_ action was fortuitous, quite unplanned, flung off at a
moment when Luck might have seemed to be wholly on the side of the
raider. The _Emden_ had destroyed 70,000 tons of shipping in seven weeks
and vanished after each exploit upon an ocean which left no tracks. She
seemed to be as elusive and dangerous as the Flying Dutchman. But
perhaps her commander, von Müller, a most ingenious and gallant seaman,
had committed that offence, which the Athenians and Eton boys call
hubris, and had neglected to pay due homage for the good fortune which
was poured upon him in plenty. For the Fates wearied of their sport with
him and with us, withdrew their mantle of protection, and suddenly
delivered the _Emden_ to the _Sydney_ with that artistic thoroughness
which may always be seen in their carefully planned work. Luck is no
bungler, but Luck is a most jealous mistress. If Sturdee and Glossop are
wise they will sacrifice their dearest possessions while there is yet
time. The _Invincible_ is at the bottom of the North Sea and the
_Inflexible_ was mined in the Dardanelles. The _Sydney_ is a pretty
little ship and I should grieve to see her suffer for her good luck of
three years ago.

* * * * *

Take a chart of the Indian Ocean and draw a line from Fremantle in
Australia to Colombo in Ceylon. The middle point of this line will be
seen to lie about fifty miles east of the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Now
draw another line from Cocos to the Sunda strait, a line which will be
seen to bisect at right angles the Fremantle-Colombo line. After this
exercise in Euclid examine that point without parts and without
magnitude, fifty miles east of Cocos, where the tracks intersect. It
is a very interesting point, for upon the tropical night of November
8th, 1914, it was being approached by two hostile naval forces each of
which was entirely ignorant of the nearness of the other. Coming up from
Australia bound for Colombo steamed a fleet of transports under the
charge of Captain Silver of H.M. Australian light cruiser _Melbourne_.
Upon the left of Captain Silver, and nearest to the Cocos Islands, was
Captain Glossop in the sister ship _Sydney_, and away to the right was a
Japanese light cruiser. Upon the line from the Sunda strait to the Cocos
Islands was steaming the famous raider _Emden_, with an attendant
collier, bound upon a mission of destruction there. The _Emden_ crossed
the head of the convoy about three hours before it reached the point of
intersection of the two tracks, and went on to demolish the cable and
wireless station on the Islands. Meanwhile, wholly unconscious of the
scene-setting upon which the Fates were busy, the convoy sailed on,
crossed the _Emden’s_ track and cut that vessel off from any chance of
escape to the east. To the west the ocean stretches unbroken for
limitless miles. At half-past six in the morning the _Emden_ appeared
off the Cocos Islands and the watching wireless operators at once sent
out a warning to all whom it might concern that a foreign warship was in
sight. It greatly concerned Captain Silver of the _Melbourne_, who
ordered Captain Glossop to proceed in the _Sydney_ to the Islands in
order to investigate. The _Sydney_ was nearest to the Islands, was a
clean ship not three weeks out of dock, was in trim for the highest
possible speed and, though largely manned by men in course of training,
was in charge of experienced officers “lent” by the Royal Navy to the
Australian Fleet Unit.

[Illustration: HOW THE “SYDNEY” MET THE “EMDEN.”]

In the old sailing-ship days it was more common than it is now for
fighting ships to pass close to one another without detection. Whole
fleets used then to do it in a way which now seems always unbelievable.
The classical example is that of Napoleon and Nelson in June, 1798. On
the night of June 30th-July 1st, Napoleon with a huge fleet of
transports, escorted by Admiral Brueys’ squadron, crossed the Gulf of
Candia and reached Alexandria on the afternoon of the 1st. Nelson, who
had been at Alexandria in search of his enemy, left on June 29th, and
sailed slowly against adverse winds to the north. Though the French and
British fleets covered scores of miles of sea they passed across one
another, each without suspicion of the presence of the other. Nelson was
very short of frigates. It is not remarkable that the British convoy and
the _Emden_ on the night of November 8th, 1914, should so nearly have
met without mutual detection; what is wonderful is that the _Emden_
should have chosen the day and hour for raiding the Cocos Islands when a
greatly superior British force was barely fifty miles distant and placed
by accident in a position which cut off all prospects of escape. It was
a stroke of Luck for us which exactly paralleled the occasion of von
Spee’s raid a month later upon the Falkland Islands.

By seven o’clock Glossop and the _Sydney_ were ready to leave upon their
trip of investigation—they had no knowledge of what was before
them—and during the next two and a quarter hours they steamed at twenty
knots towards the distant cable station. In the meantime the _Emden_ had
sent a boat ashore and the work of destruction of the station was
completed by 9.20 a.m. Everything fitted exactly into its place, for the
Fates are very pretty workmen. The _Emden_ knew nothing of the
_Sydney’s_ coming, but as Glossop sped along his wireless receivers took
up the distress calls from Cocos. He learned that the enemy warship had
sent a boat ashore—and then came interruptions in the signals which
showed that the wireless station had been raided. Naval officers do not
get excited—they have too much of urgency upon which to concentrate
their minds—but to those in the _Sydney_ must have come some thrills at
the unknown prospect. Their ship and their men were new and untried in
war. Their guns had never fired a shot except in practice. Before them
might be the _Emden_ or the _Königsberg_ or both together. They did not
know, but as they rushed through the slowly heaving tropic sea they
serenely, exactly, prepared for action.

The light cruiser _Sydney_, completed in 1913 for the Australian Unit,
is very fast and powerful. She is 5,600 tons, built with the clipper
bows and lines of a yacht, and when oil is sprayed upon her coal
furnaces can steam at over twenty-five knots. She bears upon her deck
eight 6-inch guns of the latest pattern, one forward, one aft, and three
on either beam, so that she can fire simultaneously from five guns upon
either broadside. Her lyddite shells weigh one hundred pounds each. She
was, and is, of the fast one-calibre type of warship which, whether as
light cruiser, battle cruiser, or heavy battleship, gives to our Navy
its modern power of manœuvre and concentrated fighting force. Speed and
gun-power, with the simplicity of control given by guns all of one size,
are the doctrines upon which the New Navy has been built, and by virtue
of which it holds the seas. The _Sydney_ was far more powerful than the
_Emden_, whose ten guns were of 4.1-inch, firing shells of thirty-eight
pounds weight. The German raider had been out of dock in warm waters for
at least three and a half months, her bottom was foul, and her speed so
much reduced that in the action which presently began she never raised
more than sixteen knots. In speed as in gun-power she was utterly
outclassed.

Let us visit the _Sydney_ as she prepares for action on the morning of
the fight just as she had prepared day after day in practice drill at
sea. Before the foremast stands the armoured conning tower—exactly like
a closed-in jam-pot—designed for the captain’s use; forward of the
tower rises the two-storeyed bridge, the upper part of which is the
station of the gunnery control officer; upon the mast, some fifty feet
up, is fitted a spotting top for another officer. This distribution of
executive control may look very pretty and scientific, but Glossop, who
had tested it in practice, proposed to fight on a system of his own. If
a captain is cooped up in a conning tower, with the restricted vision of
a mediæval knight through a vizard, a gunnery lieutenant is perched on
the upper bridge by the big range-finder, and another lieutenant is
aloft in the spotting top, the difficulties of communication in a small
cruiser are added to the inevitable confusion of a fight. So the
armoured jam-pot and the crow’s nest aloft were both abandoned, and
Glossop placed himself beside his Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly upon the
upper bridge with nothing between their bodies and the enemy’s shot
except a frail canvas screen. Accompanying them was a lieutenant in
charge of certain instruments. At the back of the bridge—which measured
some ten feet by eight—stood upon its pedestal the principal
range-finder with a seat at the back for the operator. This
concentration of control upon the exposed upper bridge had its risks, as
will presently appear, but is made for simplicity and for the rapid
working both of the ship and of her guns. Another lieutenant, Geoffrey
Hampden, was in charge of the after control station, where also was
fitted a range-finder. When a ship prepares for action the most unhappy
person on board is the Second in Command—in this instance
Lieutenant-Commander John F. Finlayson (now Commander)—who by the rules
of the Service is condemned to safe and inglorious, though important
duties in the lower conning tower. Here, seeing little or nothing and
wrapped like some precious egg in cotton wool, the poor First Lieutenant
is preserved from danger so that, if his Chief be killed or disabled, he
at least may remain to take over command.

From the upper fore bridge of the _Sydney_ we can see the guns’ crews
standing ready behind their curved steel screens and note that as the
ship cuts through the long ocean swell the waves break every now and
then over the fo’c’sle and drench the gun which stands there. At 9.15
land is sighted some ten miles distant and five minutes later a
three-funnelled cruiser, recognised at once as the _Emden_, is seen
running out of the port. Upon the _Sydney_ a bugle blows, and then for
twenty minutes all is quiet orderly work at Action Quarters. To the
_Emden_ the sudden appearance of the _Sydney_ is a complete surprise.
Her destruction party of three officers and forty men are still ashore
and must be left behind if their ship is to be given any, the most
slender, chance of escape. Captain von Müller recognises the _Sydney_ at
once as a much faster and more heavily gunned ship than his own. His one
chance is to rush at his unexpected opponent and utilise to the utmost
the skill of his highly trained gunners and the speed with which they
can work their quick-firing guns. If he can overwhelm the _Sydney_ with
a torrent of shell before she can get seriously home upon him he may
disable her so that flight will be possible. In rapid and good gunnery,
and in a quick bold offensive, may rest safely; there is no other
chance. So out he comes, makes straight for the _Sydney_ as hard as he
can go and gives her as lively a fifteen minutes as the most greedy of
fire-eaters could desire.

When the two cruisers first see one another they are 20,000 yards
distant, but as both are closing in the range comes quickly down to
10,500 yards (six land miles). To the astonishment both of the Captain
and Gunnery Lieutenant of the _Sydney_, who are together looking out
from the upper fore bridge, von Müller opens fire at this very long
range for his small 4.1-inch guns and gets within a hundred yards at his
first salvo. It is wonderful shooting. His next is just over and with
the third he begins to hit. At the long range the _Emden’s_ shells fall
steeply—at an angle of thirty degrees—rarely burst and never ricochet
from the sea. They whine overhead in torrents, plop into the sea on all
sides, and now and then smash on board. One reaches the upper fore
bridge, passes within a foot of Lieutenant Rahilly’s head, strikes the
pedestal of the big range-finder, glances off without bursting, cuts off
the leg of the operator who is sitting behind, and finishes its career
overboard. If that shell had burst Glossop and his Gunnery Lieutenant,
together with their colleague at the rate-of-change instrument, must
have been killed or seriously wounded and the Second in Command would
have been released from his thick steel prison. Not one of them was six
feet distant from where the shell struck in their midst. The
range-finder is wrecked and its operator killed, but the others are
untouched. A few minutes later two, possibly three, shells hit the after
control, wound everyone inside, and wipe that control off the effective
list.

But meanwhile the officers of the _Sydney_ and their untried but gallant
and steady men have not been idle. Their first salvo fired immediately
after the _Emden_ opened is much too far, their second is rather wild
and ragged, but with the third some hits are made. The _Sydney_ had
fortunately just secured her range when the principal range-finder was
wrecked and the after control scattered, and Gunnery Lieutenant Rahilly
is able to keep it by careful spotting and rate-of-change observations.
Glossop, who has the full command given by superior speed, manœuvres so
as to keep out to about 8,000 yards, to maintain as nearly constant a
rate of change as is possible, and to present the smallest danger space
to the enemy. The _Emden’s_ first effort to close in has failed, and now
that the _Sydney’s_ 100-pound shells begin to burst well on board of her
the _Emden’s_ one chance upon which von Müller has staked everything has
disappeared. During the first fifteen minutes the _Sydney_ was hit ten
times, but afterwards not at all; the _Emden_ was hit again and again
during the long-drawn-out two hours of the hopeless struggle. After
twenty minutes the _Emden’s_ forward funnel went and she caught fire
aft. Her steering gear was wrecked and she became dependent upon the
manipulation of her propellers, and the inevitable falling off in speed
to about thirteen knots. During the early critical minutes of the action
the _Sydney_ had the _Emden_ upon her port side, but all her casualties
were suffered upon the starboard or disengaged side due to the steepness
with which the German shells were falling. Once she was hit upon the
two-inch side armour over the engine room and the shell, which this time
burst, left a barely discernible scratch. Another shell fell at the foot
of a starboard gun pedestal in the open space behind the shield, burst
and wounded the gun’s crew but left the gun unhurt except for a
spattering of a hundred tiny dents. The electric wires were not even
cut. It is remarkable that during the whole of the action no electric
wires in any part of the _Sydney_ were damaged. As I have told both gun
controls of the _Sydney_ were hit during the first few minutes though
only the after one was put out of action; the _Emden_, less fortunate,
had both her controls totally destroyed and all the officers and men
within them killed.

After the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour the _Emden_ had lost
two funnels and the foremast; she was badly on fire aft and amidships,
so that at times nothing more than the top of the mainmast could be seen
amid the clouds of steam and smoke. Her guns, now occasionally firing,
gave out a short yellow flash by which they could be distinguished from
the long dark red flames of the _Sydney’s_ bursting lyddite. Once she
disappeared so completely that the cry went up from the _Sydney_ that
she had sunk, but she appeared again, blazing, almost helpless. Glossop,
who had been circling round to port, then drew in to a range of 5,500
yards—which in the absence of the range-finder was wrongly estimated at
under 5,000—and determined to try a shot with a torpedo. It was a
difficult shot as the torpedo gunner was obliged to set his gyroscope to
a definite angle and then wait until the rapidly turning _Emden_ came
upon his bearing. But in spite of the difficulties it was very good; the
torpedo ran straight for its mark and then stopped short at the distance
of 5,000 yards for which it had been set. The torpedo crews, naturally
enough, wanted forthwith to let off all their mouldies, just to show the
gunners how the business should be done with, but the hard-hearted
Glossop forbade. The moment after the one had been fired he swung the
ship round to starboard, opened out his range, and resumed the
distressful game of gun-pounding. The _Emden_ also went away to
starboard for about four miles and then von Müller, finding that his
ship was badly pierced under water as well as on fire, put about again
and headed for the North Keeling Island, where he ran aground. The
_Sydney_ followed, saw that her beaten enemy was irretrievably wrecked,
and went away to deal with the _Emden’s_ collier—a captured British
ship _Buresk_—which had hovered about during the action but upon which
Glossop had not troubled to fire. The _Emden_ fired no torpedoes in the
action, for though von Müller had three left his torpedo flat was put
out of business early in the fight.

Though the _Emden_ was beaten and done for, the gallantry and skill with
which she had fought could not have been exceeded. She was caught by
surprise, and to some extent unprepared, yet within twenty minutes of
the _Sydney’s_ appearance upon the sky line von Müller was pouring a
continuous rain of shell upon her at over 10,000 yards range and
maintaining both his speed of fire and its accuracy until the
hundred-pound shots bursting on board of him had smashed up both his
controls, knocked down his foremast, and put nine of his ten guns out of
action. Even then the one remaining gun continued to fire up to the
last. The crew of the _Sydney_, exposed though many of them were upon
the vessel’s open decks—a light cruiser has none of the protection of a
battleship—bore themselves as their Anzac fellow-countrymen upon the
beaches and hills of Gallipoli. At first they were rather ragged through
over-eagerness, but they speedily settled down. The hail of shell which
beat upon them was unceasing, but they paid as little heed to it as if
they had passed their lives under heavy fire instead of experiencing it
for the first time. Upon Glossop and his lieutenants on the upper
bridge, and in the transmission room below, was suddenly thrown a new
and urgent problem. With the principal range-finder gone and the
after-control wrecked in the first few minutes, they were forced to
depend upon skilful manœuvring and spotting to give accuracy to their
guns. They solved their problem ambulando, as the Navy always does, and
showed that they could smash up an opponent by mother wit and sea skill
when robbed by the aid of science. It is good to be equipped with all
the appliances which modern ingenuity has devised; it is still better to
be able at need to dispense with them.

I love to write of the cold fierce energy with which our wonderful
centuries-old Navy goes forth to battle, but I love still more to record
its kindly solicitude for the worthy opponents whom its energy has
smashed up. Once a fight is over it loves to bind up the wounds of its
foes, to drink their health in a friendly bottle, and to wish them
better luck next time. When he had settled with the collier _Buresk_,
and taken off all those on board of her, Glossop returned to the wreck
of the _Emden_ lying there helpless upon the North Keeling Island. The
foremast and funnels were gone, the brave ship was a tangle of broken
steel fore and aft, but the mainmast still stood and upon it floated the
naval ensign of Germany. Until that flag had been struck the _Sydney_
could not send in a boat or deal with the crew as surrendered prisoners.
Captain Glossop is the kindliest of men; it went against all his
instincts to fire at that wreck upon which the forms of survivors could
be seen moving about, but his duty compelled him to force von Müller
into submission. For a quarter of an hour he sent messages by
International code and Morse flag signals, but the German ensign
remained floating aloft. As von Müller would not surrender he must be
compelled, and compelled quickly and thoroughly. In order to make sure
work the _Sydney_ approached to within 4,000 yards, trained four guns
upon the _Emden_, and then when the aim was steady and certain smashed
her from end to end. The destruction must have been frightful, and it is
probable that von Müller’s obstinacy cost his crew greater casualties
than the whole previous action. These last four shots did their work,
the ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender went up. It was now
late in the afternoon, the tropical night was approaching, and the
_Sydney_ left the _Emden_ to steam to Direction Island some fifteen
miles away and to carry succour to the staff of the raided cable and
wireless station. Before leaving he sent in a boat and an assurance that
he would bring help in the morning.

Although the distance from Direction Island, where the action may be
said to have begun, to North Keeling Island, where it ended, is only
fifteen miles the courses followed by the fighting vessels were very
much longer. They are shown upon the von Müller-Glossop plan, printed on
page 193. The _Emden_ was upon the inside and the _Sydney_—whose
greatly superior speed gave her complete mastery of manœuvre—was upon
the outside. The _Emden’s_ course works out at approximately thirty-five
miles and the _Sydney’s_ at fifty miles. The officers and men who are
fighting a ship stand, as it were, in the midst of a brilliantly lighted
stage and may receive more than their due in applause if one overlooks
the sweating engineers, artificers, and stokers who, hidden far below,
make possible the exploits of the stars. At no moment during the whole
action, though ventilating fans might stop and minor pipes be cut, did
the engines fail to give Glossop the speed for which he asked. His
success and his very slight losses—four men killed and sixteen
wounded—sprang entirely from his speed, which, when required, exceeded
the twenty-five knots for which his engines were designed. When,
therefore, we think of Glossop and Rahilly, who from that exposed upper
bridge were manœuvring the ship and directing the guns, we must not
forget Engineer Lieutenant-Commander Coleman and his half-naked men down
below, who throughout that broiling day in the tropics nursed those
engines and toiled at those fires which brought the guns to fire upon
the enemy.

True to his promise Glossop brought the _Sydney_ back to the _Emden_ at
eleven o’clock on the morning of November 10th, having borrowed a doctor
and two assistants from Direction Island, and then began the long
task—which the Navy loves only less than actual battle—of rescue and
care for the sufferers by its prowess. North Keeling Island is an
irregular strip of rock, boulders and sand almost entirely surrounding a
large lagoon. It is studded with cocoanut palms and infested with red
land-crabs. An unattractive spot. The _Emden_ was aground upon the
weatherside and the long rollers running past her stern broke into surf
before the mainmast. Lieutenant R. C. Garsia, going out to her in one of
the _Sydney’s_ boats, was hauled by the Germans upon her quarter-deck,
where he found Captain von Müller, whose personal luck had held to the
last, for he was unwounded. Von Müller readily gave his parole to be
amenable to the _Sydney’s_ discipline if the surviving Germans were
transshipped. The _Emden_ was in a frightful state. She was burned out
aft, her decks were piled with the wreck of three funnels and the
foremast, and within her small space of 3,500 tons, seven officers and
115 men had been killed by high-explosive shell and splinters. Her
condition may be suggested by the experience of a warrant officer of the
_Sydney_ who, after gravely soaking in her horrors, retailed them in
detail to his messmates. For two days thereafter the warrant officers’
mess in the _Sydney_ lost their appetites for meat: one need say no
more! The unwounded and slightly wounded men were first transferred to
the boats of the _Sydney_ and _Buresk_, but for the seriously wounded
Neil-Robertson stretchers had to be used so that they might be lowered
over the side into boats. This had to be done during the brief lulls
between the rollers. By five o’clock the _Emden_ was cleared of men and
Captain von Müller went on board the _Sydney_, which made at once for
the only possible landing place on the island in order to take off some
Germans who had got ashore. To the surprise of everyone it was then
discovered that several wounded men, including a doctor, had managed to
reach the shore and were somewhere among the scrub and rocks. Night was
fast coming on, the wounded ashore were without food and drink—except
what could be obtained from cocoanuts—and were cut off from all
assistance except that which the _Sydney_ could supply. The story of how
young Lieutenant Garsia drove in through the surf after dark—at the
imminent hazard of his whaler and her crew—hunted for hours after those
elusive Germans, was more than once hopelessly “bushed,” and finally
came out at the original landing place, is a pretty example of the
Navy’s readiness to spend ease and risk life for the benefit of its
defeated enemies. In the morning the rescue party of English sailors and
unwounded Germans, supplied with cocoanuts and an improvised stretcher
made of bottom boards and boathooks, at last discovered the wounded
party, which had not left the narrow neck of land opposite the stranded
_Emden_. Lieutenant Schal of the _Emden_, who was with them, eagerly
seized upon the cocoanuts and cut them open for the wounded, who had
been crying for water all night and for whom he had not been able to
find more than one nut. The wounded German doctor had gone mad the
previous afternoon, insisted upon drinking deeply of salt water, and so
died. The four wounded men who remained alive were laboriously
transferred to the _Sydney_ and the dead were covered up with sand and
boulders. “A species of red land-crab with which the ground is infested
made this the least one could do.” The reports of Navy men may seem to
lack grace, but they have the supreme merit of vivid simplicity. That
short sentence, which I have quoted, makes us realise that waterless
crab-haunted night of German suffering more vividly than a column of
fine writing.

[Illustration: THE “SYDNEY-EMDEN” ACTION.]

All was over, and the packed _Sydney_ headed away for her 1,600-mile
voyage to Colombo. To her company of about 400 she had added 11 German
officers and 200 men, of whom 3 officers and 53 men were wounded. The
worst cases were laid upon her fo’c’sle and quarter-deck, the rest
huddled in where they could. It was a trying voyage, but happily the
weather was fine and windless, the ship as steady as is possible in the
Indian Ocean, and the Germans well behaved; von Müller and Glossop, the
conquered and conqueror, the guest and the host, became friendly and
mutually respecting during those days in the _Sydney_. I like to think
of those two, in the captain’s cabin, putting their heads together over
sheets of paper and at last evolving the plan of the _Sydney-Emden_
action which is printed here. Von Müller did the greater part of it,
for, as Glossop remarked, “he had the most leisure.” A cruiser skipper
with 400 of his own men on board and 200 prisoners, is not likely to
lack for jobs. To the von Müller-Glossop plan I have added a few
explanatory words, but otherwise it is as finally approved by those who
knew most about it.

Some single-ship actions remain more persistently in the public memory
and in the history books than battles of far greater consequence. They
are easy to describe and easy to understand. One immortal action is that
of the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_; another is that of the _Sydney_
and the _Emden_. It was planned wholly by the Fates which rule the Luck
of the Navy, it was fought cleanly and fairly and skilfully on both
sides, and the faster, more powerful ship won. I like to picture to
myself the _Sydney_ heading for Colombo, bearing upon her crowded decks
the captives of her bow and spear, her guns and her engines, not
vaingloriously triumphant, but humbly thankful to the God of Battles. To
her officers and crew their late opponents were now guests who could
discuss with them, the one with the other, the incidents of the short
fierce fight dispassionately as members of the same profession, though
serving under different flags, just as Glossop and von Müller discussed
them in the after cabin under the quarter-deck when they bent their
heads over their collaborated plan.

CHAPTER X

FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

Since I have not been so foolish as to set myself the task of writing a
history of the Naval War, I am not hampered by any trammels of
chronological sequence. It is my purpose to select those events which
will best illustrate the workings of the British Naval Soul, and to
present them in such a manner and in such an order as will make for the
greatest simplicity and force. Naval warfare, viewed in the scattered
detail of operations taking place all over the world, is a mightily
confusing study; but, if it be analysed and set forth in its essential
features, the resultant picture has the clarity and atmosphere of the
broad sea horizon itself. There is nothing in naval warfare, as waged by
the Royal Navy, of that frightful confusion and grime and clotted horror
which has become inseparable from the operations of huge land forces.
Sailors live clean lives—except when the poor fellows are coaling
ship!—and die clean deaths. They have the inestimable privilege of
freedom both in the conception of their plans and in their execution.
The broad distinction between land and sea service was put clearly to me
once by a Marine officer who had known both. “At sea,” he observed, “one
at least lives like a gentleman until one is dead.” It must be very
difficult to live or to feel like a gentleman when one is smothered in
the mud of Flanders’ trenches and has not had a bath for a month.

Although, as I have shown, the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of war was,
in effective battle power, of twice the strength of its German
opponents, no time was lost in adding largely to that margin of
strength. Mines, with which Germany recklessly sowed the seas whenever
she could evade the watchful eyes of our cruisers and destroyers, and
the elusive and destructively armed submarine, were perils not lightly
to be regarded by our great ships. We took the measure of both these
dangers in due course, but in the early months of war they caused a vast
amount of apprehension. In addition, therefore, to dealing directly with
these perils the whole power of our shipyards, gun shops, and
armour-rolling mills was turned to the task of increasing the available
margin of battle strength so as to anticipate the possibility of serious
losses.

And here we had great advantages over Germany. We not only had a far
longer and far greater experience, both in designing and constructing
ships and guns, but we had a larger number of yards and shops where
battleships and battle cruisers could be completed and equipped.
Throughout the fourteen years of the peace contest Germany had always
been far behind us in design, in speed of construction, and in the
volume of output. We built the first Dreadnought in little more than
fifteen months—by preparing all the material in advance and taking a
good deal from other ships—but our average time of completing the later
models was rather more than two years apiece. The exalted
super-battleships occupied about two years and three months before they
were in commission. Germany—which so many fearful folk seriously look
upon as superhuman in efficiency—never built an ordinary Dreadnought in
peace time in less than two years and ten months, and always waited for
the chance of copying our designs before she laid one down. It is
reasonable to suppose that in the early days of war the German yards and
gun shops worked much more rapidly than during the peace competition,
but as our own quicker rate of construction was also enormously
accelerated it is in the highest degree unlikely that our speed of war
output was ever approached by our opponents. We had at the beginning far
more skilled labour and, what is more important, far more available
skilled labour. Since it was only by slow degrees that we enlisted a
vast army for Continental service while Germany had to mobilise the
whole of hers at the beginning of hostilities and to call upon the
millions of untrained men, the drain upon our manhood was for a long
time far less than the drain upon hers. As time went on labour became
scarce with us, even for naval work, but it could never have been so
scarce as with the Germans when after their immense losses they were
driven to employ every possible trained and untrained man with the
colours.

We had yet another advantage. In August, 1914, as the result of the
far-seeing demands of the British Admiralty we had twice as many great
ships under construction in this country as Germany had in the whole of
her North Sea and Baltic yards. This initial advantage was an enormous
one, since it meant that for eighteen months Germany could make no
effective efforts to catch up with us, and that at the end of that
period we should inevitably have in commission an increase in battle
strength more than twice as great as hers. The completed new lead thus
secured early in 1916, added to the lead obtained before the outbreak of
war, then made our position almost impregnable. We were thus free to
concentrate much of our attention upon those smaller vessels—the
destroyers, patrol boats, steam drifters, fast submarine catchers and
motor boats—which were urgently needed to cope with Germany’s attacks
upon the world’s merchant ships.

Early in 1915, six months after the outbreak of War, our shipyards and
gun shops had turned out an extraordinary quantity of finished work.
There had been some loss in skilled labour through voluntary enlistment
in the Army, but the men that were left worked day and night shifts in
the most enthusiastic and uncomplaining spirit. The war was still new
and the greatness of the Empire’s emergency had thrilled all hearts.
Some coolness came later, as was inevitable—poor human nature has its
cold fits as well as its hot ones—and there was even some successful
intriguing by enemy agents in the North, but the great mass of British
workmen remained sound at heart. The work went on, more slowly, a little
less enthusiastically, but it went on.

During the first six months we completed the great battle cruiser
_Tiger_, a sister of the _Lion_ with her eight 13.5-inch guns, and the
sisters fought together with those others of their class—the _Queen
Mary_ and _Princess Royal_—in the Dogger Bank action in January, 1915.
We took over and completed two battleships which were building for
Turkey and under their new names of _Erin_ and _Agincourt_ they joined
Jellicoe in the north. The second of these great vessels—ravished from
the enemy—had fourteen 12-inch guns (set in seven turrets) and the
other ten 13.5-inch. We completed two vast super-ships, the _Queen
Elizabeth_ and another like to her, both with a speed of twenty-five
knots and eight 15-inch guns apiece. The battle cruisers, _Indomitable_
and _Indefatigable_, speeding home from the Mediterranean, had raised
the Battle Cruiser strength in the North Sea to seven fine vessels of
which four carried 13.5-inch guns and the three others 12-inch weapons.
Even though the _Inflexible_ and _Invincible_ were still away—they were
not yet back from fighting that perfect little action in which the
German Pacific Squadron had been destroyed—we had a battle cruiser
force against which the rival German vessels could not fight and hope to
remain afloat.

After six months, therefore, Jellicoe had received four new
battleships—two of them by far the most powerful at that time
afloat—and Beatty had been joined by three battle cruisers, one of them
quite new. The Grand Fleet was the stronger for six months of work by
seven ships.

As compared with our increased strength of seven ships (five quite new),
Germany had managed to muster no more than three. She completed two
battleships of a speed of twenty and a half knots, each carrying ten
12-inch guns. Neither of these vessels were more powerful than our
original Dreadnought class and they were not to be compared with our
King George V’s, Orions or Iron Dukes and still less with our Queen
Elizabeths. That Germany should, six months after the war began, be
completing battleships of a class which with us had been far surpassed
fully four years earlier is the best possible illustration of her
poverty in naval brains and foresight. Germany had also completed one
battle cruiser, the _Derfflinger_, of twenty-seven knots speed and with
eight 12-inch guns, which in her turn was not more powerful than our
Invincibles of five years earlier date. The _Derfflinger_ could no more
have stood up to our new _Tiger_ than the two battleships just completed
by our enemies could have fought for half an hour with our two new Queen
Elizabeths. So great indeed had our superiority become as early in the
war as the beginning of 1915 that we could without serious risk afford
to release two or three battle cruisers for the Mediterranean and to
escort the Canadian and Australian contingents across the seas, and to
send to the Mediterranean the mighty _Queen Elizabeth_ to flesh her
maiden guns upon the Turkish defences of the Dardanelles. Ship guns are
not designed to fight with land forts, and though the _Queen
Elizabeth’s_ 15-inch shells, weighing over 1,900 lbs. apiece, may not
have achieved very much against the defences of the Narrows, their
smashing power and wonderful accuracy of control were fully
demonstrated.

Inconclusive though it was in actual results, the Dogger Bank action of
January, 1915, proved to be most instructive. It showed clearly three
things: first, that no decisive action could be fought by the big ships
in the southern portion of the North Sea—there was not sufficient room
to complete the destruction of the enemy. Secondly, it demonstrated the
overwhelming power of the larger gun and the heavier shell. Thanks to
the skill of the Navy’s engineering staffs it was also found that the
actual speed of our battle cruisers was quite a knot faster than their
designed speed, and since no similar advance in speed was noticeable in
the case of the fleeing German cruisers it could be concluded that the
training of our engineers was fully as superior to theirs as was
unquestionably the training of our long-service seamen and gunners
superior to that of their short-service crews. As the fleets grew larger
our superiority in personnel tended to become more marked. We had an
almost unlimited maritime population upon which to draw for the few
thousands whom we needed—before the war the professional Navy was
almost wholly recruited from the seaboards of the South of England—we
had still as our reserves the east and west coasts of England and
Scotland. But Germany, even before the war, could not man her fleets
from her scanty resources of men from her seaboards, and more and more
had to depend upon partially trained landsmen. If one adds to this
initial disadvantage in the quality of the German sea recruits, that
other disadvantage of tile cooping up of her fleets—sea training can
only be acquired fully upon the open seas—while ours were continually
at work, patrolling, cruising, practising gunnery, and so on, it will be
seen that on the one side the personal efficiency of officers and men,
upon which the value of machines wholly depends, tended continually to
advance, while upon the German side it tended as continually to recede.
It was the old story. Nelson’s sea-worn fleet, though actually smaller
in numbers and weaker in guns than those of the French and Spaniards at
Trafalgar, was so infinitely superior to its opponents in trained
officers and men that the result of the battle was never for a moment in
doubt.

At the time of the Dogger Bank action, which confirmed our Navy in its
growing conviction that Speed and Power of guns were of supreme
importance, the Germans had no guns afloat larger in calibre than
12-inch and seven of the ships in their first line were armed with
weapons of 11 inches. They then mustered in all twenty big ships which
they could place in the battle line against our available thirty-two,
and of their twenty not more than thirteen were of a class comparable
even with our older Dreadnoughts. They had nothing to touch our twelve
Orions, King Georges, Iron Dukes, all with 13.5-inch guns, and upon a
supreme eminence by themselves stood the two new Queen Elizabeths which,
if need be, could have disposed of any half-dozen of the weaker German
battleships. In the Jutland Battle four Queen Elizabeths—_Barham_,
_Warspite_, _Valiant_ and _Malaya_—fought for an hour and more the
whole High Seas Fleet. It is no wonder, then, that the Germans did not
come out far enough for Jellicoe to get at them. And yet there were
silly people ashore who still prattled about the inactivity of the Royal
Navy and asked one another “what it was doing.”

There is a good story told of the scorn of the professional seamen
afloat for the querulous civilians ashore. When the _Lion_ was summoned
to lead the battle cruisers in the Dogger Bank action she was lying in
the Forth undergoing some slight repairs. As she got up steam a gang of
dockyard mateys, at work upon her, pleaded anxiously to be put ashore.
They had no stomach for a battle. But there was no time to worry about
their feelings; they were carried into action with the ship, and when
the shots began to fly they were contemptuously assured by the grizzled
old sea dogs, that they were in for the time of their lives. “You wanted
to know,” said they, “what the b——y Navy’s doing and now you’re going
to see.”

While the power of the Grand Fleet dominated the war at sea, some thirty
supply ships and transports safely crossed the English Channel every
day, and troops poured into Britain and France from every part of our
wide-flung Empire. But for that silent, brooding, ever-expanding Grand
Fleet, watching over the world’s seas from its eyries on the Scottish
coast, not a man or a gun or a pound of stores could have been sent to
France, not a man could have been moved from India or Australia, Canada
or New Zealand. But for that “idle” Grand Fleet the war would have been
over and Germany victorious before the summer and autumn of 1914 had
passed into winter. During the war sea power, as always in naval
history, has depended absolutely upon the power in men, in ships, and in
guns of the first battle line.

At the beginning of 1915, in addition to the completed ships which I
have already mentioned, Great Britain had under construction three
additional Queen Elizabeths—_Malaya_, _Barham_, and _Valiant_—all of
twenty-five knot speed and carrying eight 15-inch guns apiece. She had
also on the stocks in various stages of growth five Royal Sovereign
Battleships designed for very heavy armour, with a speed of from
twenty-one to twenty-two knots, and to be equipped with eight 15-inch
guns each.

* * * * *

It will be seen how completely during the war the Royal Navy had “gone
nap” on the ever faster ship and the ever bigger gun. Calculations might
be partially upset by weather and visibility—as they were in the
Jutland Battle—but even under the worst conditions speed and gun power
came triumphantly by their own. Our fast and powerful battle cruisers,
and our four fast and more powerful Queen Elizabeths—the name ship was
not present—could not on that day of low visibility choose their most
effective ranges, but the speed and power of the battle cruisers enabled
them to outflank the enemy while the speed and hitting power of the
_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_ and _Malaya_ held up the whole of the
German High Seas Fleet until Jellicoe with his overwhelming squadrons
could come to their support. Even under the worst conditions of light,
speed and gun power had fully justified themselves.

Let us for a moment consider what are the advantages and disadvantages
of the bigger and bigger gun; the advantages of speed will be obvious to
all. To take first the disadvantages. Big guns mean weight, and weight
is inconsistent with speed. The bigger the gun, the heavier it is, the
heavier its mountings, its turrets, and its ammunition. Therefore in
order that weight may be kept down and high speed attained, the ships
which carry big guns must carry fewer guns than those which are more
lightly armed. The Orions, K.G. Fives, and Iron Dukes each bear ten
13.5-inch guns within their turrets, but the battle cruisers of which
the _Lion_ is the flagship, built for speed, can carry no more than
eight. The Queen Elizabeth battleships, designed to carry 15-inch guns
and to have a speed of twenty-five knots, mount eight guns only against
the ten of the earlier and more lightly armed super-Dreadnoughts. Speed
and weight being inconsistent, increase in speed and increase in size of
guns can only be reconciled by reducing the number of guns carried. The
fewer the guns carried, the fewer the salvos that can be fired at an
enemy during a fixed time even if the rate of fire of the big guns can
be kept so high as that of the smaller ones. When opposing ships are
moving fast upon divergent courses, ranges are continually varying and
the difficulty of making effective hits is very great indeed. The
elaboration of checks and controls, which are among the most cherished
of naval gunnery secrets, are designed to increase the proportion of
hits to misses which must always be small even when the light is most
favourable. If the heavy gun were no more accurate than the light one,
then the small number of guns carried and the reduced number of salvos,
would probably annul the benefit derived from the greater smashing power
of the heavier shell when it did hit an enemy. The ever-expanding gun
has, therefore, disadvantages, notable disadvantages, but as we shall
see they are far more than outweighed by its great and conspicuous
merits.

The first overwhelming advantage of the big gun is the gain in accuracy.
It is far more accurate than the lighter one. As the fighting range
increases so does the elevation of a gun, needed to reach an object
within the visible limits of the horizon, sensibly increase. But the
bigger the gun and the heavier its shell, the flatter becomes its
trajectory. And a flat trajectory—low elevation—means not only more
accurate shooting, but a larger danger zone for an enemy ship. At 24,000
yards (twelve sea miles) a 12-inch shell is falling very steeply and can
rarely be pumped upon an enemy’s deck, but a 15-inch shell is still
travelling upon a fairly flat path which makes it effective against the
sides and upper works of a ship as well as against its deck. The 15-inch
shell thus has the bigger mark. It also suffers less from deflection
and, what is more important, maintains its speed for a much longer time
than a lighter shell. Increased weight means increased momentum. When
the 15-inch shell gets home upon its bigger mark at a long range it has
still speed and weight (momentum) with which to penetrate protective
armour. When it does hit and penetrate there is no comparison in
destructiveness between the effect of a 15-inch shell and one of twelve
inches. The larger shell is nearly two and a half times as heavy as the
smaller one (1,960 lbs. against 850), and the power of the bursting
charge of the big shell is more than six times that of the smaller one.
Far-distant ships, big ships, can be destroyed by 15-inch shells when,
even if occasionally hit by one of twelve inches, they would be little
more than peppered. The big gun therefore gives to our Navy a larger
mark, greater accuracy arising from the lower trajectory, and far
greater destructive hitting power in comparison with the lighter guns
carried by most of the German battleships.

But the advantages of the big gun do not end here. Gunnery, in spite of
all its elaboration of checks and controls, is largely a matter of trial
and error. All that the checks and controls are designed to do is to
reduce the proportion of errors; they cannot by themselves ensure
accurate shooting. Accuracy is obtained through correcting the errors by
actual observation of the results of shots. This is called “spotting.”
When shells are seen to fall too short, or too far, or too much to one
side or the other, the error in direction or elevation is at once
corrected. But everything depends upon exact meticulous spotting, an
almost incredibly difficult matter at the long ranges of modern sea
fighting. Imagine oneself looking for the splash of a shell, bursting on
contact with the sea ten or more miles away, and estimating just how far
that splash is short or over or to one side of the object aimed at. It
will be obvious to anyone that the position of a big splash can be
gauged more surely than that of a small one, and that the huge splash of
the big shell, which sends up a column of water hundreds of feet high,
can be seen and placed by spotting officers who would be quite baffled
if they were observing shots from 12-inch weapons. In this respect also,
that of spotting results, the big gun with its big shell, greatly
assists the elimination of inevitable errors and increases the
proportion of effective hits to misses. If then we get from bigger guns
a higher proportion of hits, and a much greater effectiveness from those
hits, then the bigger gun has paid a handsome dividend on its cost and
has more than compensated us for the reduction in its numbers. Where the
useful limit will be reached one cannot say, nothing but experience in
war can decide, but the visible horizon being limited to about fifteen
sea miles, there must come a stage in gun expansion when increase in
size, accuracy, and destructiveness will cease to compensate for
smallness of numbers. And the limit will be more quickly reached when
during an action the light does not allow the big gun to use its
accuracy at longer ranges to the fullest advantage.

* * * * *

Although one’s attention is apt to be absorbed by the great ships of the
first battle line, the ultimate Fount of naval Power, a Navy which built
only vast battleships and cruisers would be quite unable to control the
seas. A navy’s daily work does not consist of battles. For the main
purposes of watching the seas, hunting submarines, blockading an enemy,
and guarding the communications of ourselves and our Allies, and also
for protecting our big ships against submarines and other mosquito
attacks, we needed vast numbers of light cruisers, patrol boats,
destroyers, armed merchant cruisers, steam drifters and so on, and these
had to be built or adapted with as great an energy as that devoted to
turning out the monsters of the first battle line. The construction of
light cruisers and destroyers—the cavalry of the seas—kept pace during
1915 and 1916 with that of the big fighting ships, while the turning out
of the light fast craft essential for hunting down enemy submarines, far
surpassed in speed and other building operations. At the beginning of
the war we had 270 light mosquito vessels; at the end of 1917 we had
3,500!

Nothing like the tremendous activity in warship building during 1915 has
ever been seen in our country. Mercantile building was to a large extent
suspended, labour was both scarce and dear, builders could not complete
commercial contracts at the prices named in them, the great yards became
“controlled establishments” with priority claims both for labour and
material. Consequently every yard which could add to the Navy’s
strength, whether in super-battleships or cruisers, destroyers or in the
humble mine sweeper, were put on to war work. The Clyde, typical of the
shipbuilding rivers, was a forest of scaffolding poles from Fairfield to
Greenock within which huge rusty hulls—to the unaccustomed eye very
unlike new vessels—grew from day to day in the open almost with the
speed of mushrooms. A trip down the teeming river became one of the
sights of the city on the Clyde and, though precautions were taken to
exclude aliens, the Germans must have known with some approach to
accuracy the numbers and nature of the craft which were under
construction. What was going on in the Clyde during that year of supreme
activity, when naval brains were unhampered by Parliament or the
Treasury, was also going on in the Tyne, at Barrow and Birkenhead, in
the Royal Dockyards—everywhere day and night the Navy was growing at a
speed fully three times as great as in any year in our history.

* * * * *

Twenty-two months after war broke out, in May of 1916, Jellicoe’s battle
line had been strengthened during the previous twelve months by the
addition of no less than seven great vessels. Three more Queen
Elizabeths were finished and so were three Royal Sovereigns, and in
addition a fine battleship, which had been building in England for
Brazil, was taken over and completed. She was named the _Canada_, had
twenty-three knots of speed, and was designed to carry ten 14-inch guns.
There were thus available in the North Sea, allowing for occasional
absences, from thirty-eight to forty-two great ships of the battle line,
of which no fewer than eight carried 15-inch guns of the very latest
design. This huge piling up of strength was essential not only to
provide against possible losses but to ensure that, in spite of all
accidents, an immense preponderance of naval power would always be
available should Germany venture to put her fortunes to the hazard of
battle. And accidents did occur. The coast lights had all been
extinguished and ships at sea cruising at night were almost buried in
darkness. As time went on it became more and more certain that a Battle
of the Giants could have but one result.

I have now carried the story of naval expansion down to the time of the
Jutland Battle—May 31st, 1916—and will show by how much our paper
strength had increased between August 4th, 1914, and that date, and how
much of that strength was available when the call for battle rang out.
It happened that none of our battle cruisers was away upon overseas
enterprises, so that we were in good circumstances to meet the call.
There had been added to the Fleets one battle cruiser, the _Tiger_, with
13.5-inch guns, five Queen Elizabeth battleships with 15-inch guns,
three Royal Sovereign battleships with 15-inch guns (_Royal Sovereign_,
_Royal Oak_ and _Revenge_), the _Erin_ battleship with 13.5-inch guns,
the _Canada_ battleship with 14-inch guns, and the _Agincourt_
battleship with fourteen 12-inch guns. At the beginning of the war our
total strength in battleships and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought and
later more powerful types was thirty-one, so that on May 31st we had in
and near the North Sea a full paper total of forty-two ships of the
battle line.

But the Royal Navy which is always at work upon the open seas can never
have at any one moment its whole force available for battle. The
squadrons composing the Fleets were, however, exceedingly powerful, far
more than sufficient for the complete destruction of the Germans had
they dared to fight out the action. As the battle was fought the main
burden fell upon thirteen only of our ships—Beatty’s four Cat battle
cruisers assisted by the _New Zealand_ and _Indefatigable_, Hood’s three
battle cruisers of the Invincible class, and Evan-Thomas’s four Queen
Elizabeth battleships. Jellicoe’s available main Fleet of twenty-five
battleships, including two Royal Sovereigns with 15-inch guns, the
_Canada_ with 14-inch guns, and twelve Orions, K.G. Fives and Iron Dukes
with 13.5-inch guns, which was robbed of its fought-out battle by the
enemy’s skilful withdrawal, was almost sufficient by itself to have
eaten up the German High Seas Fleet.

During the battle we lost the _Queen Mary_ with 13.5-inch guns, and the
_Invincible_ and _Indefatigable_ with 12-inch guns, all of which were
battle cruisers. So that after the action our total battle cruiser
strength had declined from ten to seven, while our battleship strength
was unimpaired.

* * * * *

It is not easy to be quite sure of what the Germans had managed to do
during those twenty-two months of war. I have given them credit for
completing every ship which it was possible for them to complete. They
were too fully occupied with building submarines to attack our merchant
ships, too fully occupied with guns and shells for land fighting, and
too much hampered in regard to many essential materials by our blockade,
to be able to effect more than the best possible. Rumour from time to
time credited them with the construction of “surprise” ships carrying
17-inch guns, but nothing unexpected was revealed when the clash of
Fleets came on May 31st, 1916. Huge new battleships and huge new guns
take us at the very least fifteen months to complete at full war
pressure—most of them nearer two years—and the German rate of
construction, even when unhampered by a blockade and the calling to the
army of all available men, has always been much slower than ours. The
British Admiralty does not work in the dark and doubtless knew fully
what the Germans were doing.

If we credit the Germans with their best possible they might have added,
by May, 1916, four battleships and two battle cruisers to their High
Seas Fleet as it existed early in 1915. One of the battleships was the
_Salamis_, which was building at Stettin for Greece when the war broke
out. She was designed for speed of twenty-three knots, and to carry ten
14-inch guns. The other three battleships were copies of our Queen
Elizabeths, though slower by about four knots. They were to have been
equipped with eight 15-inch guns, though Germany had not before the war
managed to make any naval guns larger than 12-inch. The battle cruisers
(_Hindenburg_ and _Lützow_) were vessels of twenty-seven knots with
eight 12-inch guns, not to be compared with our Cats and no better than
our comparatively old class of Invincibles.

The story of the _Salamis_ and its 14-inch guns forms a very precious
piece of war history. The guns for this Greek battleship had been
ordered in America, a country which has specialised in guns of that
calibre. But when Germany took over the ship the guns had not been
delivered at Stettin, and never were delivered. They had quite another
destination and employment. Our Admiralty interposed, in its grimly
humorous way, bought the guns in America, brought them over to this
country, and used the weapons intended for the _Salamis_ to bombard the
Germans at Zeebrugge and the Turks in Gallipoli. One may speculate as to
which potentate was the more irritated by this piece of poetic
justice—the Kaiser in Berlin or his brother-in-law “Tino” in Athens.

At their utmost, therefore, the Germans could not have added more than
five vessels to their first line (they had lost one battle cruiser),
thus raising it at the utmost to twenty-five battleships and cruisers,
as compared with our maximum of forty-two much more powerful and faster
ships. Four of their battleships were the obsolete Nassaus with twelve
11-inch guns and two of their battle cruisers (_Moltke_ and _Seydlitz_)
were also armed with 11-inch guns. If a successful fight with our Grand
Fleet was hopeless in August, 1914, it was still more hopeless in May,
1916. We had not doubled our lead in actual numbers but had much more
than doubled it in speed and power of the vessels available for a battle
in the North Sea. In gun power we had nearly twice Germany’s strength at
the beginning; we had not far from three times her effective strength by
the end of May of 1916. It is indeed probable that Germany was not so
strong in big ships and guns as I have here reckoned. She did not
produce so many in the Jutland Battle. I can account for five battle
cruisers and sixteen battleships (excluding pre-Dreadnoughts) making
twenty-one in all. I have allowed her, however, the best possible, but
long before the year 1916 it must have been brought bitterly home to the
German Sea Command that by no device of labour, thought, and machinery
could they produce great ships to range in battle with ours. We had
progressed from strength to strength at so dazzling a speed that we
could not possibly be overtaken. Had not the hare gone to sleep, the
tortoise could never have come up with it—and the British hare had no
intention of sleeping to oblige the German tortoise. There is every
indication that Germany soon gave up the contest in battleships and put
her faith in super-submarines, and in Zeppelins, the one to scout and
raid, and the other to sink merchant vessels and so between them either
to starve or terrify England into seeking an end of the war.

CHAPTER XI

THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
PART I.—RIO TO CORONEL
(July 27th to Nov. 1st, 1914)

Everyone has heard of the light cruiser _Glasgow_, how she fought at
Coronel, and then escaped, and is now the sole survivor among the
warships which then represented Great Britain and Germany; how she
fought again off the Falkland Islands, and with the aid of the
_Cornwall_ sank the _Leipzig_; how after many days of weary search she
discovered the _Dresden_ in shelter at Juan Fernandez, and with the
_Kent_ finally brought that German cruiser to a last account. These
things are known. But of her other movements and adventures between the
declaration of war in August of 1914 and that final spectacular scene in
Cumberland Bay, Juan Fernandez, upon March 14th, 1915, nothing has been
written. It is a very interesting story, and I propose to write it now.
I will relate how she began her fighting career as the forlorn solitary
representative of English sea power in the South Atlantic, and how by
gradual stages, as if endowed with some compelling power of magnetic
attraction, she became the focus of a British and German naval
concentration which at last extended over half the world. This scrap of
a fast light cruiser, of 4,800 tons, in appearance very much like a
large torpedo-boat destroyer, with her complement of 370 men, worthily
played her part in the Empire’s work, which is less the fighting of
great battles than the sleepless policing of the seas. The battleships
and battle cruisers are the fount of power; they by their fighting might
hold the command of the seas, but the Navy’s daily work in the outer
oceans is done, not by huge ships of the line, but by light cruisers,
such as the _Glasgow_, of which at the outbreak of the war we had far
too few for our needs.

In July, 1914, the _Glasgow_ was the sole representative of British sea
power upon the Atlantic coast of South America. She had the charge of
our interests from a point some 400 miles north of Rio, right down to
the Falkland Islands in the cold south. She was a modern vessel of 4,800
tons, first commissioned in 1911 by Captain Marcus Hill, and again in
September, 1912, by Captain John Luce, and the officers and men who
formed her company in July nearly four years ago, when the shadow of war
hung over the world. She was well equipped to range over the thousands
of miles of sea of which she was the solitary guardian. Her turbine
engines, driving four screws, could propel her at a speed exceeding
twenty-six knots (over thirty miles an hour) when her furnaces were fed
with coal and oil; and with her two 6-inch and ten 4-inch guns of new
pattern she was more than a match for any German light cruiser which
might have been sent against her.

Upon July 27th, 1914, while lying at Rio de Janeiro her captain received
the first intimation that the strain in Europe might result in war
between England and Germany. Upon July 29th the warning became more
urgent, and upon July 31st the activity of the German merchant ships in
the harbour showed that they also had been notified of the imminence of
hostilities. They loaded coal and stores into certain selected vessels
to their utmost capacity, and clearly purposed to employ them as supply
ships for any of their cruisers which might be sent to the South
Atlantic. At that time there were, as a matter of fact, no German
cruisers nearer than the east coast of Mexico. The _Karlsruhe_ had just
come out to relieve the _Dresden_, which had been conveying refugees of
the Mexican Revolution to Kingston, Jamaica. Thence she sailed for
Haiti, met there the _Karlsruhe_, and made the exchange of captains on
July 27th. Both these cruisers were ordered to remain, but a third
German cruiser in Mexican waters, the _Strassburg_, rushed away for home
and safely got back to Germany before war was declared on August 4th.
Thus the _Dresden_ and _Karlsruhe_ were left, and over against them in
the West Indies lay Rear-Admiral Cradock with four “County”
cruisers—_Suffolk_, _Essex_, _Lancaster_, and _Berwick_ (sisters of the
_Monmouth_)—and the fast cruiser _Bristol_, a sister of the _Glasgow_.
Though the _Glasgow_, lying alone at Rio, had many anxieties—chiefly at
first turning upon that question of supply which governs the movements
of war ships in the outer seas—she had no reason to expect an immediate
descent of the _Dresden_ and _Karlsruhe_ from the north. Cradock could
look after them if they had not the good luck to evade his attentions.
Upon August 1st, the _Glasgow_ was cleared for war, and all luxuries and
superfluities, all those things which make life tolerable in a small
cruiser, were ruthlessly cast forth and put into store at Rio. She was
well supplied with provisions and ammunition, but coal, as it always is,
was an urgent need—not only coal for the immediate present, but for the
indefinite future. For immediate necessities the _Glasgow_ bought up the
cargo of a British collier in Rio, and ordered her captain to follow the
cruiser when she sallied forth. Upon August 3rd, the warnings from home
became definite, the _Glasgow_ coaled and took in oil till her bunkers
were bursting, made arrangements with the English authorities in Rio for
the transmission of telegrams to the secret base which she proposed to
establish, and late in the evening of August 4th, crept out of Rio in
the darkness with all lights out. During that fourth day of August the
passing minutes seemed to stretch into years. The anchorage where the
_Glasgow_ lay was in the outer harbour, and she was continually passed
by German merchant steamers crowding in to seek the security of a
neutral port. War was very near.

[Illustration: THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”]

Captain Luce had already selected a secret base, where he hoped to be
able to coal in shelter outside territorial waters. His collier had been
ordered to follow as soon as permitted, and he headed off to inspect the
barren rocks, uninhabited except by a lighthouse-keeper, which were to
be his future link with home. His luck held, for the first ship he
encountered was a big English steamer bound for Rio with coal for the
Brazilian railways. In order to be upon the safe side, he commandeered
this collier also, and made her attend him to his base. There, to his
relief, he found that shelter from the surf could be found, and that it
was possible to use the desolate spot as a coaling base and keep the
supply ships outside territorial waters. He used it then and afterwards;
so did the other cruisers, _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, which came out to
him, so also did that large squadron months later which made of this
place a rendezvous and an essential storehouse on the journey to the
Falklands and to the end of von Spee. We were always most careful to
keep on the right side of the Law.

I will not give to this base of the _Glasgow_ its true name; let us call
it the Pirates’ Lair, and restore to it the romantic flavour of
irresponsible buccaneering which I do not doubt that it enjoyed a
century or so earlier. In the _Glasgow’s_ day it mounted a lighthouse
and an exceedingly inquisitive keeper whom German Junkers would have
terrorised, but whom the kindly English, themselves to some extent
trespassers, left unharmed to the enjoyment of his curiosity. He, lucky
man, did not know that there was a war on.

Realise, if you can, the feelings of the officers and men of this small
English cruiser lying isolated from the world in her Pirates’ Lair.
Their improvised base, not far from the main trade routes, might at any
moment have been discovered—as indeed it was before very long; it was
the territory of a neutral country, a country most friendly then and
afterwards, but bound to observe its declaration of neutrality. They
knew that coal and store ships from England would be sent out, but did
not know whether they would arrive. They were in wireless touch with the
British representatives at Rio, Pernambuco, and Montevideo, but
authentic news came in scraps intermingled with the wildest rumour.
They, or rather their captain, had to sort the grains of essential fact
from the chaff of fiction. As the month of August unfolded, their news
of the war came chiefly from German wireless, and those of us who lived
through and remember those early weeks of war also remember that the
news from enemy sources had no cheerful sound. For some weeks they were
free from anxiety for supplies, provided that their base could be
retained, yet the future was blank. I do not think that they worried
overmuch; the worst time they had lived through was during those few
days in Rio before war broke out, and those days immediately afterwards,
when they were seeking those corners of their Lair least exposed to
gales and surf. Very often coaling was impossible; more often it was
both difficult and dangerous.

It may seem strange that for many weeks—until well into September—the
_Glasgow_ heard nothing of Cradock and his West Indies Squadron. Yet it
was so. Cradock in the _Suffolk_ had on August 5th met the _Karlsruhe_
coaling at sea, and signalled to the fast _Bristol_ to look after her.
The _Bristol_ got upon the chase and fired a shot or two, but, speedy
though she was, the _Karlsruhe_ ran away from her and was seen no more
and heard of no more until she began her ravages upon steamers to the
South of Pernambuco. Cradock, thinking she had gone north, and moreover
having charge of the whole North Atlantic trade on its western side,
became farther and farther separated from the _Glasgow_, and even went
so far away as Halifax. Meanwhile the _Dresden_ slipped down and entered
the _Glasgow’s_ sea area on August 9th, though her movements were not
yet known. On the 13th Captain Luce learned that the _Monmouth_ was
coming out to him under a captain who was his junior, so that upon
himself would still rest the responsibility for the South Atlantic. He
was now beginning to get some news upon which he could act, and already
suspected that the _Dresden_ or the _Karlsruhe_, or both, had broken
away for the south. He could hear the Telefunken wireless calls of the
_Dresden_ to her attendant colliers from somewhere in the north a
thousand miles away. During his cruises from the Lair he was always on
the look out for her, and once, on the 16th, thought that he had her
under his guns. But the warship which he had sighted proved to be a
Brazilian, and the thirst of the _Glasgow’s_ company for battle went for
a while unslaked. The _Dresden_, for which the _Glasgow_ was searching,
had coaled at the Rocas Islands, there met the _Baden_, a collier of
twelve knots, carrying 5,000 tons of coal, and together the two vessels
made for the south and remained together until after the Falkland
Islands action had been fought. The _Dresden_ picked up a second
collier, the _Preussen_, and set her course for the small barren
Trinidad Island, another old Pirates’ Lair some 500 miles from that of
the _Glasgow_, at which she in her turn established a temporary base. At
one moment the _Dresden_ and _Glasgow_ were not far apart, the wireless
calls sounded near, yet they did not meet. This was on the 18th, when
the _Glasgow_ was coaling at her base, and two days before she went
north to join up with the _Monmouth_ off Pernambuco.

This journey to the north coincided in time with the _Dresden’s_ passage
to Trinidad Island, so that by the 20th the two cruisers were again a
thousand miles apart, but with their positions reversed. While the
_Glasgow_ had been going up, the _Dresden_ had been going south and
east. For awhile we will leave the _Dresden_, which after spending two
days under the lee of Trinidad Island went on her way to the south,
drawing farther and farther away from the _Glasgow_ and more and more
out of our picture. Her movements were from time to time revealed by
captures of British ships, of which the crews were sent ashore. Her
captain, Lüdecke, at no time made a systematic business of preying upon
merchant traffic and upon him rests no charge of inhumanity. It may be
that commerce raiding and murder did not please him; it may be that he
was under orders to make his way at the leisurely gait of his collier
_Baden_—he left the _Preussen_ behind at Trinidad Island—towards the
Chilean coast, and the ultimate meeting with von Spee.

At sea off Pernambuco on August 20th, the _Glasgow_ met the _Monmouth_,
which had been commissioned on August 4th, mainly with naval reservists,
and hastily despatched to the South Atlantic. Rumour still pointed to
the presence of the _Dresden_ in the vicinity, and it seemed likely that
she might meditate an attack upon our merchant shipping in the waters
afterwards greatly favoured by the _Karlsruhe_. The two English cruisers
remained in the north for a week, hearing much German wireless, which
was that of the _Karlsruhe_, and not of the _Dresden_. On the night of
the 27th the armed liner _Otranto_ heralded her approach, and on the
following day the _Glasgow_ met her at the Rocas Islands. Captain Luce
had now progressed from the command of one cruiser to the control of
quite a squadron, three ships. Already the concentration about the small
form of the _Glasgow_ had begun.

The bigness of the sea and the difficulty of finding single vessels,
though one may be equipped with all the aids of cable and wireless
telegraphy, will begin to be realised. I have told how the _Dresden_
passed the _Glasgow_ on the 18th. She had been at the Rocas Islands on
the 14th. The _Karlsruhe_, too, had been at the Rocas Islands on the
17th. She, also, had come south, though Cradock, with his squadron, was
hunting for her in the north up to the far latitudes of Halifax. The two
German cruisers, which had seemed so far away from the _Glasgow_ when
she was at Rio calculating possibilities on August 1st, had both evaded
the West Indies squadron and penetrated into her own slenderly guarded
waters.

Upon August 30th the _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_ were back at
their Pirates’ Lair, which they could not leave for long, since it
formed their rather precarious base of supply, and there they learned
that the _Dresden_ had sunk the British steamer _Holmwood_ far to the
south off Rio Grande do Sul and must be looked after at once, since she
might have it in mind to raid our big shipping lines with the River
Plate. Here on the 31st they learned also of the action in the
Heligoland Bight, and of the German invasion of France, and of the
retreat from Mons. The land war seemed very far off, but very ominous to
those Keepers of the South Atlantic in their borrowed base upon a
foreign shore thousands of miles away.

My readers, especially those who are the more thoughtful, may ask how
the _Glasgow_ was able with a clear conscience to hie away to the north
and leave during all those weeks our big shipping trade to Brazil,
Uruguay, and the Argentine uncovered from the raiding exploits of all
the German liners lying there which might have issued forth as armed
commerce raiders. The answer is that none of the German liners had any
guns. The spectre of concealed guns which might upon the outbreak of war
be mounted, proved to be baseless. The German liners had no guns, not
even the _Cap Trafalgar_, sunk later, September 14th, off Trinidad
Island by the _Carmania_. The _Cap Trafalgar’s_ guns came from the small
German gunboat _Eber_, which had arranged a meeting with her at this
unofficial German base. The project of arming the _Cap Trafalgar_ was
quite a smart one, but, unfortunately for her, the first use to which
she put her borrowed weapons was the last, and she went down in one of
the most spirited fights of the whole war. The _Carmania_ had come down
from the north in the train of Rear-Admiral Cradock.

At the beginning of September the _Glasgow_ and the _Monmouth_ shifted
down south, in the hope of catching the _Dresden_ at work off the River
Plate. There they arrived on the 8th, but found no prey, though rumours
were many, and unrewarded searches as many. The _Otranto_ came down to
join them, and down also came the news that Cradock in his new flagship,
the _Good Hope_, sent out to him from England, was also coming to take
charge of the operations. Upon September 11th the _Dresden_ was reported
to be far down towards the Straits of Magellan and for the time out of
reach, so the _Glasgow’s_ squadron returned to its northern Lair and the
junction with the _Good Hope_. From Cradock the officers learned that
the _Cornwall_ and _Bristol_, with the _Carmania_ and _Macedonia_, had
arrived on the station, and that the old battleship _Canopus_ was coming
out. At the beginning of the war there had been one ship only in the
South Atlantic, the _Glasgow_; now there were no fewer than five
cruisers and three armed liners, and a battleship was on the way. One
ship had grown into eight, was about to grow into nine, and before long
was destined to become the focus of the most interesting concentration
of the whole war.

We have now reached September 18th, by which date the _Dresden_ was far
off towards the Pacific. She reached an old port of refuge for whalers
near Cape Horn, named Orange Bay, on the 5th, and rested there till the
16th. At Punta Arenas she had picked up another collier, the _Santa
Isabel_, and, accompanied by her pair of supply vessels passed slowly
round the Horn. At the western end of the Magellan Straits she met with
the Pacific liner _Ortega_, which, though fired upon and called to stop,
pluckily bolted into a badly charted channel and conveyed the news of
the _Dresden’s_ movements to the English squadron, which for awhile had
lost all trace of her.

It was not yet clear to Cradock, who was now in command of the Southern
Squadron—to distinguish it from the Northern Squadron, which presently
consisted of the armoured cruiser _Carnarvon_ (Rear-Admiral Stoddart),
the _Defence_, the _Cornwall_, the _Kent_, the _Bristol_, and the armed
liner _Macedonia_—it was not yet clear that the _Dresden_ was bound for
the Pacific, and a rendezvous with von Spee. It seemed more probable
that her intention was to prey upon shipping off the Straits of
Magellan. In order to meet the danger, he set off with the _Good Hope_,
_Monmouth_, _Glasgow_, and the armed liner _Otranto_ to operate in the
far south, employing the Falkland Islands as his base. The _Glasgow’s_
Lair of the north now remained for the use of Stoddart’s squadron.

In the light of after-events one cannot but feel regret that
the old battleship _Canopus_ was attached to the Southern
Squadron—Cradock’s—instead of the armoured cruiser _Defence_, a much
more useful if less powerfully armed vessel. The _Defence_ was
comparatively new, completed in 1908, had a speed of some twenty-one to
twenty-two knots, and was more powerful than either the _Scharnhorst_ or
the _Gneisenau_. The three sisters, _Defence_, _Minotaur_, and
_Shannon_, had indeed been laid down as replies to the building of the
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, and carried four 9.2-inch guns and ten
7.5-inch as against the eight 8.2-inch and six 6-inch guns of the German
cruisers.

I have reached a point in my narrative when it becomes necessary to take
up the story from the German side, and to indicate how it came about
that five cruisers, which at the beginning of the war were widely
scattered, became concentrated into the fine hard-fighting squadron
which met Cradock at Coronel. The permanent base of the _Scharnhorst_
and _Gneisenau_ was Tsing-tau in China, but it happened that at the end
of July, 1914, they were more than 2,000 miles away in the Caroline
Islands. The light cruisers _Nürnberg_ and _Leipzig_ were upon the
western coast of Mexico, and, as I have already told, the _Dresden_ was
off the eastern coast of Mexico. The _Emden_, which does not concern us,
was at Tsing-tau. The _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ were kept out of
China waters by the Japanese fleets and hunted for and chased to Fiji by
the Australian Unit. On September 22nd von Spee bombarded Tahiti, in the
Society Islands, at the moment when the _Dresden_, having safely passed
through the Atlantic, was creeping up the Chilean coast and the
_Nürnberg_ and _Leipzig_ were coming down from the north. All the German
vessels had been ordered to concentrate at Easter Island, a small remote
convict settlement belonging to Chili and lost in the Pacific far out
(2,800 miles) to the west of Valparaiso.

While, therefore, Cradock and his Southern Squadron were steering for
the Falkland Islands to make of it a base for their search for the
_Dresden_, von Spee’s cruisers were slowly concentrating upon Easter
Island. There was no coal at the Falklands—they produce nothing except
sheep and the most abominable weather on earth—but it was easy for us
to direct colliers thither, and to transform the Islands into a base of
supplies. The Germans had a far more difficult task. All through the
operations which I am describing, and have still to describe, we were
possessed of three great advantages. We had the coal, we had the freedom
of communications given by ocean cables and wireless, and we had the
sympathy of all those South American neutrals with whom we had to deal.
Admiral von Spee and his ships were all through in great difficulties
for coal, and would have failed entirely unless the German ships at
South American ports had run big risks to seek out and supply him. He
was to a large extent cut off from the outside world, for he had no
cables, and received little information or assistance from home. The
slowness of his movements, both before and after Coronel, may chiefly be
explained through his lack of supplies and his ignorance of where we
were or of what we were about to do.

It is comparatively easy for me now to plot out the movements of the
English and German vessels, and to set forth their relative positions at
any date. But when the movements were actually in progress the admirals
and captains on both sides were very much in the dark. Now and then
would come a ray of light which enabled their imagination and judgment
to work. Thus the report from the _Ortega_ that she had encountered the
_Dresden_ with her two colliers at the Pacific entrance of the Magellan
Straits showed that she might be bound for some German rendezvous in the
Pacific Ocean. A day or two later came word that the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ had bombarded Tahiti, and that these two powerful cruisers,
which had seemed to be so remote from the concern of the South Atlantic
Squadron, were already half-way across the wide Pacific, apparently
bound for Chili. It was also, of course, known that the _Leipzig_ and
_Nürnberg_ were on the west coast of Mexico to the north. Any one who
will take a chart of the Pacific and note the positions towards the end
of September of von Spee, the _Dresden_, and the _Nürnberg_ and
_Leipzig_, will see that the lonely dot marked as Easter Island was
pretty nearly the only spot in the vast stretch of water towards which
these scattered units could possibly be converging. At least so it
seemed at the time, and, in fact, proved to be the case. The
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ reached Easter Island early in October,
the _Nürnberg_ turned up on the 12th, and later upon the same day the
_Dresden_ arrived with her faithful collier the _Baden_. Upon the 14th
down came the _Leipzig_ accompanied by colliers carrying 3,000 tons of
coal. The German concentration was complete; it had been carried through
with very considerable skill aided by no less considerable luck. The few
inhabitants of the lonely Easter Island, remote from trade routes,
cables, and newspapers, regarded the German squadron with complete
indifference. They had heard nothing of the world war, and were not
interested in foreign warships. The island is rich in archæological
remains. There happened to be upon it a British scientific expedition,
but, busied over the relics of the past, the single-minded men of
science did not take the trouble to cross the island to look at the
German ships. They also were happy in their lack of knowledge that a war
was on.

[Illustration: THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION.]

I have anticipated events a little in order to make clear what was
happening on the other side of the great spur of South America while
Admiral Stoddart’s squadron was taking charge of the Brazilian,
Uruguayan, and upper Argentine coasts, and Admiral Cradock, with the
_Good Hope_, _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_—followed by the
battleship _Canopus_—were pressing to the south after the _Dresden_.
Stoddart’s little lot had been swept up from regions remote from their
present concentration. The _Carnarvon_ had come from St. Vincent, the
_Defence_ from the Mediterranean, where she had been Troubridge’s
flagship in the early days of the war; the _Kent_ had been sent out from
England, and the _Cornwall_ summoned from the West Coast of Africa. The
_Bristol_, as we know, was from the West Indies and her fruitless hunt
for the elusive _Karlsruhe_. The South Atlantic was now in possession of
two considerable British squadrons, although two months earlier there
had been nothing of ours carrying guns except the little _Glasgow_.

After the news arrived from the _Ortega_ about the _Dresden’s_
movements, Cradock took his ships down to Punta Arenas, and thence
across to Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where he was joined by
the _Canopus_, a slow old ship of some thirteen to fourteen knots, which
had straggled down to him. I have never been able to reconcile the
choice of the old _Canopus_, despite her formidable 12-inch guns, with
my sense of what was fitting for the pursuit and destruction of German
cruisers with a squadron speed of some twenty-one knots. From Port
Stanley the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ were despatched round the Horn upon
a scouting expedition which was to extend as far as Valparaiso. Already
the Southern Squadron was beginning to suffer from its remoteness from
the original Pirates’ Lair of the _Glasgow_. The Northern Squadron,
collected from the corners of the earth, were receiving the supply ships
first and skimming the cream off their cargoes before letting them loose
for the service of their brethren in arms to the south. It was all very
natural and inevitable, but rather irritating for those who had now to
make the best of the knuckle end of the Admiralty’s joints.

The trip round the Horn of the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ was very rough
indeed; the English cruisers rolled continually gunwhale under, and had
they chanced to encounter the _Dresden_—which was not then possible,
for she was well up the Chilean coast—neither side could have fired a
shot at the other. At Orange Bay, where they put in, they discovered
evidence of the recent presence of the _Dresden_ in rather a curious
way. It had long been the custom of vessels visiting that remote
desolate spot to erect boards giving their names and the date of their
call. Upon the notice board of the German cruiser _Bremen_, left many
months before, was read in pencil, partially obliterated by a cautious
afterthought, the words “Dresden, September 11th, 1914.”

During the early part of October, the two cruisers _Glasgow_ and
_Monmouth_ worked up the Chilean coast and reached Valparaiso about
October 17th. It was an expedition rather trying to the nerves of those
who were responsible for the safety of the ships. Perhaps the word
“squirmy” will best describe their feelings. Already the German
concentration had taken place at Easter Island to the west of them; they
did not positively know of it, but suspected, and felt apprehensive lest
their presence in Chilean waters might be reported to von Spee and
themselves cut off and overwhelmed before they could get away. Coal and
provisions were running short, the crew were upon half rations, and any
imprudence might be very severely punished.

During October the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ were detached from the _Good
Hope_, and it was not until the 28th that Cradock joined up with them at
a point several hundred miles south of Coronel, whither they had
descended for coal and stores after their hazardous northern enterprise.
Here also was the _Otranto_, but the _Canopus_, though steaming her
best, had been left behind by the _Good Hope_, and was, for all
practical purposes, of no account at all. She was 200 miles away when
Coronel was fought. On October 28th, after receiving orders from
Cradock, the _Glasgow_ left by herself bound north for Coronel, a small
Chilean coaling port, there to pick up mails and telegrams from England.
The _Glasgow_ arrived off Coronel on the 29th, but remained outside
patrolling for forty-eight hours. The German wireless about her was very
strong indeed, enemy ships were evidently close at hand, and at any
moment might appear. They were indeed much nearer and more menacing than
the _Glasgow_ knew, even at this eleventh hour before the meeting took
place. On October 26th Admiral von Spee was at Masafuera, a small island
off the Chilean coast, on the 27th he left for Valparaiso itself, and
there on the 31st he learned of the arrival in the port of Coronel of
the English cruiser _Glasgow_. The clash of fighting ships was very
near.

On October 31st the _Glasgow_ entered the harbour of Coronel, a large
harbour to which there are two entrances, and a rendezvous off the port
had been arranged with the rest of the squadron for November 1st. Her
arrival was at once notified to von Spee at Valparaiso. The mails and
telegrams were collected, and at 9.15 on the 1st the _Glasgow_ backed
out cautiously, ready, if the Germans were in force outside, to slip
back again into neutral waters and to take the fullest advantage of her
twenty-four hours’ law. She emerged seeing nothing, though the enemy
wireless was coming loudly, and met the _Good Hope_, _Monmouth_, and
_Otranto_ at the appointed rendezvous some eighty miles out to sea. Here
the mails and telegrams were transferred to Cradock by putting them in a
cask and towing it across the _Good Hope’s_ bows. The sea was rough, and
this resourceful method was much quicker and less dangerous than the
orthodox use of a boat. Cradock spread out his four ships, fifteen miles
apart, and steamed to the north-west at ten knots. Smoke became visible
to the _Glasgow_ at 4.20 p.m., and as she increased speed to
investigate, there appeared two four-funnelled armoured cruisers and one
light cruiser with three funnels. Those four-funnelled ships were the
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, and until they were seen at that moment
by the _Glasgow_ they were not positively known to have been on the
Chilean coast. To this extent the German Admiral had taken his English
opponents by surprise. “When we saw those damned four funnels,” said the
officers of the _Glasgow_, “we knew that there was the devil to pay.”

I have already told the story of the Coronel action and I will not tell
it again. Von Spee held off so long as the sun behind the English gave
them the advantage of light, and did not close in until the sun had set
and the yellow afterglow made his opponents stand out like silhouettes.
He could see them while they could not see him. During the action, the
light cruiser _Glasgow_, with which I am mainly concerned, had a very
unhappy time. The armed liner _Otranto_ cleared off, quite properly, and
the _Glasgow_, third in the line, was exposed for more than an hour to
the concentrated fire of the 4.1-inch guns of both the _Leipzig_ and
_Dresden_, and afterwards, when the _Good Hope_ had blown up and the
_Monmouth_ been disabled, for about a quarter of an hour to the 8.2-inch
guns of the _Gneisenau_. Her gunnery officers could not see the splashes
of their own shells, and could not correct the ranges. When darkness
came down it was useless to continue firing blindly, and worse than
useless, since her gun flashes gave some guidance to the enemy’s
gunners. At the range of about 11,000 yards, a long range for the German
4.1-inch guns, the shells were falling all around very steeply, the
surface of the sea was churned into foam, and splinters from bursting
shells rained over her. It is a wonderful thing that she suffered so
little damage and that not a single man of her company was killed or
severely wounded. Four slight wounds from splinters constituted her
total tally of casualties. At least 600 shells, great and small, were
fired at her, yet she was hit five times only. The most serious damage
done was a big hole between wind and water on the port quarter near one
of the screws. Yet even this hole did not prevent her from steaming away
at twenty-four knots, and from covering several thousand miles before
she was properly repaired. I think that the _Glasgow_ must be a lucky
ship. After the _Good Hope_ had blown up and the _Monmouth_, badly hurt,
was down by the bows and turning her stern to the seas, the _Glasgow_
hung upon her consort’s port quarter, anxious to give help and deeply
reluctant to leave. Yet she could do nothing. The _Monmouth_ was clearly
doomed, and it was urgent that the _Glasgow_ should get away to warn the
_Canopus_, then 150 miles away and pressing towards the scene of action,
and to report the tragedy and the German concentration to the Admiralty
at home. During that anxious waiting time, when the enemy’s shells were
still falling thickly about her, the sea, to the _Glasgow’s_ company,
looked very, very cold! At last, when the moon was coming up brightly,
and further delay might have made escape impossible, the _Glasgow_
sorrowfully turned to the west, towards the wide Pacific spaces, and
dashed off at full speed. It was not until half an hour later, when she
was twelve miles distant, that she counted the seventy-five flashes of
the _Nürnberg’s_ guns which finally destroyed the _Monmouth_. I am
afraid that the story of the cheers from the _Monmouth_ which sped the
_Glasgow_ upon her way must be dismissed as a pretty legend. No one in
the _Glasgow_ heard them, and no one from the _Monmouth_ survived to
tell the tale. Captain Grant and his men of the _Canopus_ must have
suffered agonies when they received the _Glasgow’s_ brief message. They
had done their utmost to keep up with the _Good Hope_, and the slowness
of their ship had been no fault of theirs. Grant had, I have been told,
implored the Admiral to wait for him before risking an engagement.

The journey to the Straits and to her junction with the _Canopus_ was a
very anxious one for the _Glasgow’s_ company. They did their best to be
cheerful, though cheerfulness was not easy to come by. They had
witnessed the total defeat of an English by a German squadron, and
before they could get down south into comparative safety the German
ships, running down the chord of the arc which represented the
_Glasgow’s_ course, might arrive first at the Straits. That there was no
pursuit to the south may be explained by the one word—coal. Von Spee
could get coal at Valparaiso or at Coronel—though the local coal was
soft, wretched stuff—but he had no means of replenishment farther
south. One does not realize how completely a squadron of warships is
tied to its colliers or to its coaling bases until one tries to discover
and explain the movements of warships cruising in the outer seas.

While running down towards the Straits—for twenty-four hours she kept
up twenty-four knots—the _Glasgow_ briefly notified the _Canopus_ of
the disaster of Coronel and of her own intention to make for the
Falkland Islands. Beyond this, she refrained from using the tell-tale
wireless which might give away her position to a pursuing enemy. Upon
the evening of the 3rd she picked up the German press story of the
action, but kept silence upon it herself. On the morning of the 4th,
very short of stores—her crew had been on reduced rations for a
month—she reached the Straits and, to her great relief, found them
empty of the enemy. She did not meet the _Canopus_ until the 6th, and
then, with the big battleship upon her weather quarter, to keep the seas
somewhat off that sore hole in her side, she made a fortunately easy
passage to the Falkland Islands and entered Port Stanley at daylight
upon November 8th. Thence the _Glasgow_ despatched her first telegram to
the authorities at home, and at six o’clock in the evening set off with
the _Canopus_ for the north. But that same evening came orders from
England for the _Canopus_ to return, in order that the coaling base of
the Falklands might be defended, so the _Glasgow_, alone once more after
many days, pursued her solitary way towards Rio and to her meeting with
the _Carnarvon_, _Defence_, and _Cornwall_, which were at that time
lying off the River Plate guarding the approaches to Montevideo and
Buenos Ayres. The _Glasgow_ had done her utmost to uphold the Flag, but
the lot of the sole survivor of a naval disaster is always wretched. The
one thing which counts in the eyes of English naval officers is the good
opinion of their brethren of the sea; those of the _Glasgow_ could not
tell until they had tested it what would be the opinion of their
colleagues in the Service. It was very kind, very sympathetic; so
overflowing with kindness and sympathy were those who now learned the
details of the disaster, that the company of the _Glasgow_, sorely
humiliated, yet full of courage and hope for the day of reckoning, never
afterwards forgot how much they owed to it. At home men growled
foolishly, ignorantly, sank to the baseness of writing abusive letters
to the newspapers, and even to the _Glasgow_ herself, but the Service
understood and sympathised, and it is the Service alone which counts.

CHAPTER XII

THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW”
PART II.—CORONEL TO JUAN FERNANDEZ
(Nov. 1st, 1914, to March 14th, 1915)

We left the British cruiser _Glasgow_ off the River Plate, where she had
arrived after her escape, sore at heart and battered in body, from the
disaster of Coronel. The battleship _Canopus_ remained behind at Port
Stanley to defend the newly established coaling-station at the Falkland
Islands. Her four 12-inch guns would have made the inner harbour
impassable to the lightly armoured cruisers of Admiral von Spee had he
descended before the reinforcements from the north arrived; and the
colliers, cleverly hidden in the remote creeks of the Islands, would
have been most difficult for him to discover. It was essential to our
plans that there should be ample stores of coal at the Falklands for the
use of Sturdee’s punitive squadron when it should arrive, and every
possible precaution was taken to ensure the supply. As it happened, von
Spee did not come for five weeks. He was at his wits’ end to find coal,
and was, moreover, short of ammunition after the bombardment of Tahiti
and the big expenditure in the Coronel fight. So he remained pottering
about off the Chilean coast until he had swept up enough of coal and of
colliers to make his journey to the Falklands, and to provide for his
return to the Lair which he had established in an inlet upon the coast.

At the English Bank, off the River Plate, the _Glasgow_ had joined up
with the _Carnarvon_, _Defence_, and _Cornwall_, and her company were
greatly refreshed in spirit by the kindly understanding and sympathy of
their brothers of the sea. The officers and men of the _Glasgow_, who
had by now worked together for more than two years, had come through
their shattering experiences with extraordinarily little loss of morale.
They had suffered a material defeat, but their courage and confidence in
the ultimate issue burned as brightly as ever. Even upon the night of
the disaster, when they were seeking a safe road to the Straits,
uncertain whether the Germans would arrive there first, they were much
more concerned for the safety of the _Canopus_ than worried about their
own skins. Their captain and navigating lieutenant had thrust upon them
difficulties and anxieties of which the others were at first ignorant.
The ship’s compasses were found to be gravely disturbed by the shocks of
the action, their magnetism had been upset, and not until star sights
could be taken were they able to correct the error of fully twenty
degrees. The speed at which the cruiser travelled buried the stern
deeply, and the water entering by the big hole blown in the port quarter
threatened to flood a whole compartment and make it impossible for full
speed to be maintained. The voyage to the Straits was, for those
responsible, a period of grave anxiety. Yet through it all the officers
and men did their work and maintained a cheerful countenance, as if to
pass almost scatheless through a tremendous torrent of shell, and to get
away with waggling compasses and a great hole between wind and water,
was an experience which custom had made of little moment. No one could
have judged from their demeanour that never before November 1st had the
_Glasgow_ been in action, and that not until November 6th, when she had
beside her the support of the _Canopus’s_ great guns, did she reach
comparative safety.

The _Glasgow’s_ damaged side had been shored up internally with baulks
of timber, but if she were to become sea- and battle-worthy it was
necessary to seek for some more permanent means of repair. So with her
consorts she made for Rio, arriving on the 16th, and reported her
damaged condition to the Brazilian authorities. Under the Hague
Convention she was entitled to remain at Rio for a sufficient time to be
made seaworthy, and the Brazilian Government interpreted the Convention
in the most generous sense. The Government floating dock was placed at
her disposal, and here for five days she was repaired, until with her
torn side plating entirely renewed she was as fit as ever for the perils
of the sea. Her engineers took the fullest advantage of those invaluable
days; they overhauled the boilers and engines so thoroughly that when
the bold cruiser emerged from Rio she was fresh and clean, ready to
steam at her own full speed of some twenty-six knots, and to fight
anything with which she could reasonably be classed in weight of metal.
By this time the _Glasgow_ had learned of the great secret concentration
about to take place at her old Pirates’ Lair to the north, and of those
other concentrations which were designed to ensure the destruction of
von Spee to whatsoever part of the wide oceans he might direct his
ships.

The disaster of Coronel had set the Admiralty bustling to very good and
thorough purpose. No fewer than five squadrons were directed to
concentrate for the one purpose of ridding the seas of the German
cruisers. First came down Sturdee with the battle cruisers _Invincible_
and _Inflexible_ to join the _Carnarvon_, _Glasgow_, _Kent_, _Cornwall_,
and _Bristol_ at the Pirates’ Lair. Upon their arrival the armoured
cruiser _Defence_ was ordered to the Cape to complete there a watching
squadron ready for von Spee should he seek safety in that direction. One
Japanese squadron remained to guard the China seas, and another of great
power sped across the Pacific towards the Chilean coast. In Australian
waters were the battle cruiser _Australia_ and her consorts of the Unit,
together with the French cruiser _Montcalm_. Von Spee’s end was certain;
what was not quite so certain was whether he would fall to the Japanese
or to Sturdee. Our Japanese Allies fully understood that we were
gratified at his falling to us; he had sunk our ships and was our just
prey. Yet if he had loitered much longer off Chili, and had not at last
ventured upon his fatal Falklands dash, the gallant Japanese would have
had him. Luck favoured us now, as it had favoured us a month earlier
when the _Emden_ was destroyed at the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Those who
have read my story of the _Emden_ in Chapter IX will remember that but
for the fortune of position which placed the _Sydney_ nearest to the
Islands when their wireless call for help went out, the famous raider
would in all probability have fallen to a Japanese light cruiser which
was with the Australian convoy.

The mission of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, and the secrecy with
which it was enshrouded, is one of the most romantic episodes of the
war. I have already dealt fully with it. But there has since come to me
one little detail which reveals how very near we were, at one time, to a
German discovery of the whole game. The two battle cruisers coaled at
St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands—Portuguese territory, within which we
had no powers of censorship—and at the Pirates’ Lair off the Brazilian
coast. Their movements began to be talked about in Rio and the River
Plate. Men knew of the Coronel disaster and shrewdly suspected that the
two great ships were on their way to the South Atlantic. A description
of their visit had been prepared, and was actually in type. It was
intended for publication in a local South American paper. That it was
not published, when urgent representations were made on our behalf,
reveals how scrupulous was the consideration with which our friends of
Brazil and the Argentine regarded our interests. There were no powers of
censorship, the appeal was as man to man, and Englishman to Portuguese,
and the appeal prevailed—even over the natural thirst of a journalist
for highly interesting news. The battle cruisers coaled and passed upon
their way, and no word of their visit went forth to Berlin or to von
Spee.

The _Glasgow_ was among the British cruisers which greeted Sturdee at
the Pirates’ Lair, and as soon as ammunition and stores had been
distributed and coal taken in, the voyage to the Falkland Islands began.
The squadron arrived in the evening of December 7th, and at daybreak of
the 8th von Spee ran upon his fate. The part played by the _Glasgow_ in
the action was less spectacular than that which fell to the battle
cruisers, but it was useful and has some features of interest. Among
other things it illustrates how little is known of the course of a naval
action—spread over hundreds of miles of sea—while it takes place, and
for some time even after it is over.

On the morning of December 8th, at eight o’clock, the approach of the
German squadron was observed, and at this moment the English squadron
was hard at work coaling. By 9.45 steam was up and the pursuit began.
The _Glasgow_ was lying in the inner harbour with banked fires, ready
for sea at two hours’ notice, but her Engineer Lieutenant-Commander
Shrubsole and his staff so busied themselves that in little over an hour
from the signal to raise steam she was under weigh, and an hour later
she was moving in chase of the enemy at a higher speed than she obtained
in her contractors’ trials when she was a brand-new ship three years
earlier. Throughout the war the engineering staff of the Royal Navy has
never failed to go one better than anyone had the right to expect of it.
It has never failed to respond to any call upon its energies or its
skill, never.

In order that we may understand how the _Dresden_ was able to make her
escape unscathed from her pursuers—she bolted without firing a shot in
the action—I must give some few details of the position of the ships
when the German light cruisers were ordered by von Spee to take
themselves off as best they might. Shortly before one o’clock the
_Glasgow_, a much faster ship than anything upon our side except the two
battle cruisers, was two miles ahead of the flagship _Invincible_, and
it was Sturdee’s intention to attack the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_—hull down on the horizon—with his speediest ships, the
_Invincible_, _Inflexible_, and _Glasgow_. Our three other
cruisers—_Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and _Kent_—were well astern of the
leaders. At 1.04 the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ turned to the
eastward to accept battle and to cover the retreat of their light
cruisers, which were then making off towards the south-east. Admiral
Sturdee, seeing at once that the light cruisers might make good their
escape unless the speedy _Glasgow_ were detached in pursuit, called up
the _Carnarvon_ (Rear-Admiral Stoddart) to his support, and ordered
Captain Luce in the _Glasgow_ to take charge of the job of rounding up
and destroying the _Leipzig_, _Nürnberg_, and _Dresden_. The _Glasgow_,
therefore, began the chase at a grave disadvantage. She first had to
work round the stern of the _Invincible_, pass the flagship upon her
disengaged side, and then steam off from far in the rear after the
_Cornwall_ and _Kent_, which had already begun the pursuit. The
_Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were a long way off, and the _Dresden_ was even
farther. This cruiser, _Dresden_, though sister to the _Emden_, was,
unlike her sister and the others of von Spee’s light cruisers, fitted
with Parsons’ turbine engines. She was much the fastest of the German
ships at the Falkland Islands, and beginning her flight with a start of
some ten miles quickly was lost to sight beyond the horizon. The
_Cornwall_ and _Kent_ had no chance at all of overtaking her, and the
_Glasgow_, whose captain was the senior naval officer in command of the
pursuing squadron of the three English cruisers, could not overtake a
long stern chase by herself so long as the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were
in his course and had not been disposed of. He was obliged first to make
sure of them. Steaming at twenty-four and a half knots, the _Glasgow_
drew away from the battle cruisers and began to overhaul the _Leipzig_
and _Nürnberg_. She decided to attack the _Leipzig_, which was nearest
to her, and to regulate her speed so that the _Cornwall_ and
_Kent_—both more powerful but much slower ships than herself—would not
be left behind. As it happened the engineering staffs of these not very
rapid “County” cruisers rose nobly to the emergency, the _Cornwall_ was
able to catch the _Leipzig_ and to take a large part in her destruction,
while the _Kent_ kept on after the _Nürnberg_ and, as it proved, was
successful in destroying her also. One of the ten boilers of the
_Nürnberg_ had been out of action for weeks past and her speed was a
good deal below its best.

The sea is a very big place, but that portion of it contained within the
ring of the visible horizon is very small. To those in the _Glasgow_,
pressing on in chase of the _Leipzig_, the scene appeared strange and
even ominous. They could see the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ far away,
moving apparently in pursuit of themselves, but the battle cruisers
hidden below the curve of the horizon they could not see. When firing
from the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ ceased for a while—as it did at
intervals—it seemed to the _Glasgow’s_ company that they were
sandwiched between von Spee’s armoured cruisers and his light cruisers,
and that the battle cruisers, upon which the result of the action
depended, had disappeared into space. The telegraph room and the
conning-tower doubtless knew what was happening, but the ship’s company
as a whole did not. To this brevity of vision, and to this detachment
from exact information, one must set down the extraordinarily
conflicting stories one receives from the observers of a naval action.
They see what is within the horizon but not what is below it, and that
which is below is not uncommonly far more important than that which is
above.

Shortly after three o’clock the _Glasgow_ opened upon the _Leipzig_ with
her foremost 6-inch gun at a range of about 12,000 yards (about seven
miles), seeking to outrange the lighter 4.1-inch guns carried by the
German cruiser. The distance closed down gradually to 10,000 yards, at
which range the German guns could occasionally get in their work. They
could, as the _Emden_ showed in her fight with the _Sydney_, and as was
observed at Coronel, do effective shooting even at 11,000 yards, but
hits were difficult to bring off, owing to the steepness of the fall of
the shells and the narrowness of the mark aimed at. For more than an
hour the _Glasgow_ engaged the _Leipzig_ by herself, knocking out her
secondary control position between the funnels, and allowing the
_Cornwall_ time to arrive and to help to finish the business with her
fourteen 6-inch guns. At one time the range fell as low as 9,000 yards,
the _Leipzig’s_ gunners became very accurate, and the _Glasgow_ suffered
nearly all the casualties which overtook her in the action.

About 4.20 the _Cornwall_ was able to open fire, and the _Glasgow_
joined her, so that both ships might concentrate upon the same side of
the _Leipzig_. Just as Admiral Sturdee in his fight with the
_Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_ could not afford to run risks of
damage far from a repairing base, so the _Glasgow_ and the _Cornwall_
with several hours of daylight before them were not justified in
allowing impatience to hazard the safety of the ships. They had to
regard the possible use of torpedoes and to look out for dropped mines.
Neither torpedoes nor mines were, in fact, used by the Germans, though
at one time in the course of the action drums, mistaken for mines, were
seen in the water and carefully avoided. They were cases in which
cartridges were brought from the magazines, and which were thrown
overboard after being emptied. As the afternoon drew on the weather
turned rather misty, and the attacking ships were obliged to close in a
little and hurry up the business. This was at half-past five.

From the first the _Leipzig_ never had a chance. She was out-steamed and
utterly out-gunned. Her opponents had between them four times her
broadside weight of metal, and the _Cornwall_ was an armoured ship. She
never had a chance, yet she went on, fired some 1,500 rounds—all that
remained in her magazines after Coronel—and did not finally cease
firing until after seven o’clock. For more than four hours her company
had looked certain death in the face yet gallantly stood to their work.
From first to last von Spee’s concentrated squadron played the naval
game according to the immemorial rules, and died like gentlemen. Peace
be to their ashes. In success and in failure they were the most gallant
and honourable of foes. At seven o’clock the _Leipzig_ was smashed to
pieces, she was blazing from stem to stern, she was doomed, yet gave no
sign of surrender.

At this moment, when the work of the _Glasgow_ and the _Cornwall_ had
been done—the _Cornwall_, it should be noted, bore the heavier burden
in this action—she was hit eighteen times, though little hurt, and
played her part with the utmost loyalty and devotion—at this moment
flashed the news through the ether that the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ had been sunk. The news spread, and loud cheers went up from
the English ships. To the doomed company in the _Leipzig_ those cheers
must have carried some hint of the utter disaster which had overtaken
their squadron. It was not until nine o’clock (six hours after the
_Glasgow_ had begun to fire upon her) that she made her last plunge—if
a modern compartment ship does not blow up, she takes a powerful lot of
shell to sink her—and the English ships did everything that they could
to save life. The _Glasgow_ drew close up under her stern and lowered
boats, at the same time signalling that she was trying to save life.
There was no reply. Perhaps the signals were not read; perhaps there
were not many left alive to make reply. The _Leipzig_, still blazing,
rolled right over to port and disappeared. Six officers, including the
Navigating Lieutenant-Commander, and eight men were picked up by the
_Glasgow’s_ boats. Fourteen officers and men out of nearly 300! The
captives were treated as honoured guests and made much of. Our officers
and men took their gallant defeated foes to their hearts and gave them
of their best. It was not until two days later, when news arrived that
the _Leipzig’s_ sister and consort the _Nürnberg_ had been sunk by the
_Kent_, that these brave men broke down. Then they wept. They cared
little for the _Dresden_—a stranger from the North Atlantic—but the
_Nürnberg_ was their own consort, beside whom they had sailed for years,
and beside whom they had fought. They had hoped to the last that she
might make good her escape from the wreck of von Spee’s squadron. When
that last hope failed they wept. When I think of von Spee’s gallant men,
so human in their strength and in their weakness, I cannot regard them
as other than worthy brothers of the sea.

In the Coronel action the _Glasgow_, exposed to the concentrated fire of
the _Leipzig_ and _Dresden_ for an hour, and to the heavy guns of the
_Gneisenau_ for some ten minutes, did not lose a single man. There were
four slight wounds from splinters, that was all. But in her long fight
with the _Leipzig_ alone, assisted by the powerful batteries of the
_Cornwall_, the _Glasgow_ suffered two men killed, three men severely
wounded, and six slightly hurt. Such are the strange chances of war.
After Coronel, though they had seen two of their own ships go down and
were in flight from an overwhelming enemy, the officers and men were
wonderfully cheerful. The shrewder the buffets of Fate the stiffer
became their tails. But after the Falklands, when success had wiped out
the humiliation of failure, there came a nervous reaction. Defeat could
not depress the spirit of these men, but victory, by relieving their
minds from the long strain of the past months, made them captious and
irritable. Perhaps their spirits were overshadowed by the prospect of
the weary hunt for the fugitive _Dresden_.

* * * * *

By wondrous accident perchance one may
Grope out a needle in a load of hay.

[Illustration: THE CRUISE OF THE “GLASGOW.”]

Four German cruisers had been sunk, but one, the _Dresden_, had escaped,
and the story of the next three months is the story of a search—always
wearisome, sometimes dangerous, sometimes even absurd. The Straits of
Magellan, the islands of Tierra del Fuego and of the Horn, and the west
coast of the South American spur are a maze of inlets, many uncharted,
nearly all unsurveyed. The hunt for the elusive _Dresden_ among the
channels, creeks, and islands was far more difficult than the proverbial
grope for a needle in a load of hay. A needle buried in hay cannot
change its position; provided that it really be hidden in a load,
patience and a magnet will infallibly bring it forth. The _Dresden_
could move from one hiding place to another, no search for her could
ever exhaust the possible hiding-places, and it was not positively known
until after she had been run down and destroyed where she had been in
hiding. That she was found after three weary months may be explained by
that one word which explains so much in naval work—coal. The _Dresden_
after her flight from the Falkland Islands action was short of coal; von
Spee’s attendant colliers, _Baden_ and _Santa Isabel_, had been pursued
and sunk by the _Bristol_ and the armed liner _Macedonia_, and she was
cast upon the world without means of replenishing her bunkers. This was,
of course, known to her pursuers, so that they expected, and expected
rightly, that she would hang about in some secluded creek until her
dwindling supplies drove her forth upon the seas to hunt for more. Which
is what happened.

Upon the evening of December 8th, after the _Glasgow_ and _Cornwall_ had
disposed of the _Leipzig_, there were one English and two German
cruisers unaccounted for. The _Kent_ had last been seen chasing the
_Nürnberg_ towards the south-east, while the _Dresden_ was disappearing
over the curve of the horizon to the south. Upon the following morning
no news had come in from the _Kent_, and some anxiety was felt; it was
necessary to find her before proceeding with the pursuit of the
_Dresden_, and much valuable time was lost. It happened that during her
fight with the _Nürnberg_, which she sank in a most business-like
fashion, the _Kent’s_ aerials were shot away and she lost wireless
contact with Sturdee’s squadron. The _Glasgow_ was ordered off to search
for her, but fortunately the _Kent_ turned up on the morning of the 10th
deservedly triumphant. She had performed the great feat of catching and
sinking a vessel which on paper was much faster than herself, and she
had done it though short of coal and at the sacrifice of everything
wooden on board, including the wardroom furniture. She was compelled
with the _Glasgow_ and _Cornwall_ to return to Port Stanley for coal,
and this delay was of the utmost service to the fugitive _Dresden_.
Though the movements of that cruiser, in the interval, were not learned
until much later, it will be convenient if I give them now, so that the
situation may be made clear. The _Dresden_ had owed her escape to her
speed and to the occupation of the _Glasgow_—the only cruiser upon our
side which could catch her—with the _Leipzig_. She got clear away,
rounded the Horn on the 9th, and on December 10th entered the Cockburn
Channel on the west coast of Tierra del Fuego. At Stoll Bay she passed
the night, and her coal-bunkers being empty sent men ashore to cut
enough wood to enable her to struggle up to Punta Arenas. She ran a
great risk by making for so conspicuous a port, but she had no choice.
Coal must be obtained somehow or her number would speedily go up. She
was not entitled to get Chilean coal, for she had managed to delude the
authorities into supplying her upon five previous occasions during the
statutory period of three months. Once in three months a belligerent
warship is permitted, under the Hague Rules, to coal at the ports of a
neutral country; once she claims this privilege she is cut off from
getting more coal from the same country for three months. But the
_Dresden_ again managed, as she had already done four times before, to
secure supplies illegitimately. She coaled at Punta Arenas, remained
there for thirty-one hours—though after twenty-four hours she was
liable to internment—and left at 10 p.m. on the 13th. It was this
disregard for the Hague Rules which led to the destruction of the
_Dresden_ in Chilean territorial waters at Juan Fernandez three months
later. We held that she had broken international law deliberately many
times, she was no longer entitled to claim its protection. She could not
disregard it when it knocked against her convenience, and shelter
herself under it when in need of a protective mantle. She had by her own
violations become an outlaw.

At 2.30 a.m. on the 13th, Sturdee learned that the _Dresden_ was at
Punta Arenas. The _Bristol_, which was ready, jumped off the mark at
once; the _Inflexible_ and the _Glasgow_, which were not quite ready,
got off at 9.15. Thus it happened that the _Bristol_ reached Punta
Arenas seventeen hours after the _Dresden_ had left, to vanish, as it
were, into space, and not to be heard of again for a couple of months.
What she did was to slip down again into the Cockburn Channel and lie at
anchor in Hewett Bay near the southern exit. On December 26th she
shifted her quarters to an uncharted and totally uninhabited creek,
called the Gonzales Channel, and there she lay in idle security until
February 4th.

During the long weeks of the _Dresden’s_ stay in Hewett Bay and the
Gonzales Channel, the English cruisers were busily hunting for her among
the islets and inlets of the Magellan Straits, Tierra del Fuego, and the
west coast of the South American spur. The _Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and
_Kent_ took charge of the Magellan Straits, the _Glasgow_ and _Bristol_
ferreted about the recesses of the west coast with the _Inflexible_
outside of them to chase the sea-rat should she break cover for the
open. The battle cruiser _Australia_ came in from the Pacific and with
the “County” cruiser _Newcastle_, from Mexico, kept watch off
Valparaiso. The _Dresden_, lying snug in the Gonzales Channel, was not
approached except once, on December 29th, when one of the searchers was
within twenty miles of her hiding-place. The weather was thick and she
was not seen. The big ships did not long waste their time over the
search. It was one better suited to light craft, for lighter craft even
than the _Glasgow_ or _Bristol_, for which the uncharted channels often
threatened grave dangers. Armed patrols or picket boats, of shallow
draught, were best suited to the work, and in its later stages were
furbished up and made available.

On December 16th the battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were
recalled to England, and the _Canopus_ went north to act as guardship at
the precious Pirates’ Lair which has figured so often in these pages.
The _Australia_ passed on her way to the Atlantic, across which the
Canadian contingents were in need of convoy, and the supervision of the
_Dresden_ search devolved upon Admiral Stoddart of the _Carnarvon_. The
Admiral with the _Carnarvon_ and _Cornwall_ remained in and out of the
Magellan Straits, while the captain of the _Glasgow_, with him the
_Kent_, _Bristol_, and _Newcastle_, was put in charge of the Chilean
Archipelago. Gradually as time went on and the _Dresden_ lay low—all
this while in the Gonzales Channel—other ships went away upon more
urgent duties and the chase was left to the _Glasgow_, _Kent_, and an
armed liner _Orama_. The _Bristol_ had butted herself ashore in one of
the unsurveyed channels and was obliged to seek a dock for repairs. The
great concentration of which the _Glasgow_ had been the focus was over,
she was now back at her old police work, though not upon her old
station. She had begun the war in sole charge of the South Atlantic; the
wheel of circumstance had brought her, with her consorts, to the charge
of the South Pacific.

Although the _Glasgow’s_ company had had many experiences of the risks
of war, they had never felt in action the strain upon their nerves which
was always with them day in day out during that long weary hunt for the
_Dresden_ in the Chilean Archipelago. They explored no less than 7,000
miles of narrow waters, for the most part uncharted, feeling their way
by lead and by mother wit, becoming learned in the look of the towering
rocks which shut them in, and in the kelp growing upon their sea
margins. The channels wound among steep high cliffs, around which they
could not see. As they worked stealthily round sharp corners, they were
always expecting to encounter the _Dresden_ with every gun and torpedo
tube registered upon the narrow space into which they must emerge. Their
own guns and torpedoes were always ready for instant action, but in this
game of hide-and-seek the advantage of surprise must always rest with
the hidden conscious enemy. This daily strain went on through half of
December and the whole of January and February! One cannot feel
surprised to learn that in the view of the _Glasgow’s_ company the
actions of Coronel and the Falklands were gay picnics when set in
comparison with that hourly expectation throughout two and a half months
of the sudden discovery of the _Dresden_, and that anticipated blast of
every gun and mouldy which she could on the instant bring to bear. Added
to this danger of sudden attack was the ever-present risk of maritime
disaster. It is no light task to navigate for three months waters to
which exist no sailing directions and no charts of even tolerable
accuracy. Upon Captain Luce and upon his second in command,
Lieutenant-Commander Wilfred Thompson, rested a load of responsibility
which it would be difficult to overestimate.

It was not until early in March that any authentic news of the movements
of the _Dresden_ became available. Upon February 4th she had issued
forth of the Gonzales Channel and crept stealthily up the Chilean coast.
To the _Glasgow_ had come during the long weeks of the _Dresden’s_
hiding many reports that she was obliged to investigate. Many times our
own cruisers were seen by ignorant observers on shore and mistaken for
the _Dresden_; out would flow stories which, wandering by way of South
American ports—and sometimes by way of London itself—would come to
rest in the _Glasgow’s_ wireless-room and increase the burden thrown
upon her officers. More than once she was taken by shore watchers to be
the _Dresden_, and urgently warned from home to be on the look-out for
herself!

At last the veil lifted. The _Dresden_, with her coal of Punta Arenas
approaching exhaustion, was sighted at a certain spot well up the
Chilean coast where had been situated von Spee’s secret Lair. The news
was rushed out to the _Glasgow_, and since her consort, the _Kent_, was
nearest to the designated spot this cruiser was despatched at once to
investigate. As at the Falklands action, her engineers rose to the need
for rapid movement. For thirty-six hours continuously she steamed
northwards at seventeen knots, and arrived just before daybreak on the
7th. Nothing was then in sight, nor until three o’clock in the afternoon
of the following day, the 8th. While in misty weather the _Kent_ was
waiting and watching out at sea, a cloud bank lifted and the _Dresden_
was revealed. She had not been seen by us since the day of her flight,
December 8th, exactly three months before! The _Dresden_ was a shabby
spectacle, her paint gone, her sides raw with rust and standing high out
of the water. She was evidently light, and almost out of coal. The
_Kent_ at once made for her quarry, but the _Dresden_, a much faster
ship, drew away. Foul as she was, for she had not been in dock since the
war began, the _Kent_ was little cleaner. The _Dresden_ drew away, but
the relentless pursuit of the indefatigable _Kent_ kept her at full
speed for six hours, and left her with no more than enough fuel to reach
Masafuera or Juan Fernandez. By thus forcing the _Dresden_ to burn most
of the fuel which still remained in her bunkers, the _Kent_ performed an
invaluable service. This was on March 8th. Juan Fernandez was judged to
be the most likely spot in which she would take refuge, and thither the
_Glasgow_, _Kent_, and _Orama_ foregathered, arriving at daybreak on the
14th. In Cumberland Bay, 600 yards from the shore, the _Dresden_ lay at
anchor; the chase was over. She had arrived at 8.30 a.m. on the 9th; she
had been in Chilean waters for nearly five days. Yet her flag was still
flying, and there was no evidence that she had been interned. Cumberland
Bay is a small settlement, and there was no Chilean force present
capable of interning a German warship.

I will indicate what happened. The main facts have been told in the
correspondence which took place later between the Chilean and British
Governments. I will tell the story as I have myself gathered it, and as
I interpret it.

The _Dresden_ lay in neutral Chilean waters, yet her flag was flying,
and she had trained her guns upon the English squadron which had found
her there. There was nothing to prevent her—though liable to
internment—from making off unless steps were taken at once to put her
out of action. She had many times before broken the neutrality
regulations of Chili, and was rightly held by us to be an outlaw to be
captured or sunk at sight. Acting upon this just interpretation of the
true meaning of neutrality, Captain Luce of the _Glasgow_, the senior
naval officer, directed his own guns and those of the _Kent_ to be
immediately fired upon the _Dresden_. The first broadside dismounted her
forecastle guns and set her ablaze. She returned the fire without
touching either of the English ships. Then, after an inglorious two and
a half minutes, the _Dresden’s_ flag came down.

Captain Lüdecke of the _Dresden_ despatched a boat conveying his
“adjutant” to the _Glasgow_ for what he called “negotiations,” but the
English captain declined a parley. He would accept nothing but
unconditional surrender. Lüdecke claimed that his ship was entitled to
remain in Cumberland Bay for repairs, that she had not been interned,
and that his flag had been struck as a signal of negotiation and not of
surrender. When the Englishman Luce would not talk except through the
voices of his guns, the German adjutant went back to his ship and
Lüdecke then blew her up. His crew had already gone ashore, and the
preparations for destroying the _Dresden_ had been made before her
captain entered upon his so-called “negotiations.”

It was upon the whole fortunate that Lüdecke took the step of sinking
the _Dresden_ himself. It might have caused awkward diplomatic
complications had we taken possession of her in undoubted Chilean
territorial waters, and yet we could not have permitted her any
opportunity of escaping under the fiction of internment. Nothing would
have been heard of internment if the English squadron had not turned
up—the _Dresden_ had already made an appointment with a collier—and if
we had not by our fire so damaged the cruiser that she could not have
taken once more to the sea. Her self-destruction saved us a great deal
of trouble. In the interval between the firing and the sinking of the
_Dresden_, the Maritime Governor of Juan Fernandez suggested that the
English should take away essential parts of the machinery and telegraph
for a Chilean warship to do the internment business. Neither of these
proceedings was necessary after the explosion. The _Dresden_ was at the
bottom of Cumberland Bay, and the British Government apologised to the
Chileans for the technical violation of territorial waters. The apology
was accepted, and everyone was happy—not the least the officers and men
of the _Dresden_ who, after months of aimless, hopeless wanderings,
found themselves still alive and in a sunny land flowing with milk and
honey. After their long stay in Tierra del Fuego the warmth of Chili
must have seemed like paradise. The _Dresden_ yielded to the _Glasgow_
one item of the spoils of war. After the German cruiser had sunk, a
small pig was seen swimming about in the Bay. It had been left behind by
its late friends, but found new ones in the _Glasgow’s_ crew. That pig
is alive still, or was until quite recently. Grown very large, very
hairy, and very truculent, and appropriately named von Tirpitz, it has
been preserved from the fate which waits upon less famous pigs, and
possesses in England a sty and a nameplate all to its distinguished
self.

With the sinking of the _Dresden_ the cruise of the _Glasgow_, which I
have set out to tell, comes to a close. She returned to the South
Atlantic, and for a further stretch of eighteen months her officers and
men continued their duties on board. But life must for them have become
rather dull. There were no more Coronels, or Falkland Islands actions,
or hunts for elusive German cruisers. Just the daily work of a light
cruiser on patrol duty in time of war. When in the limelight they played
their part worthily, and I do not doubt continued to play it as
worthily, though less conspicuously, when they passed into the darkness
of the wings, and other officers, other men, and other ships occupied in
their turn the bright scenes upon the naval stage.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS
AND REFLECTIONS
PART I

It is strange how events of great national importance become associated
in one’s mind with small personal experiences. I have told with what
vividness I remember the receipt in November, 1914, of private news that
the battle cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had left Devonport for
the Falkland Islands, and how I heard Lord Rosebery read out Sturdee’s
victorious dispatch to 6,000 people in St. Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow. In a
similar way the Jutland battle became impressed upon my mind in an
unforgettable personal fashion. On May 22nd, 1916, I learned that
Admiral Beatty had at his disposal the four “Cats”—_Lion_, _Tiger_,
_Queen Mary_, and _Princess Royal_—of about twenty-nine knots speed,
and each armed with eight 13.5-inch guns, the two battle cruisers _New
Zealand_ and _Indefatigable_, of some twenty-seven knots of speed, and
carrying each eight 12-inch guns, and the _Queen Elizabeth_, of
twenty-five knots, all of which were armed with eight of the new 15-inch
guns, which were a great advance upon the earlier thirteen-point-fives.
The ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron had all been completed since the
war began. The _Queen Elizabeth_ herself went into dock at Rosyth for
repairs, so that for immediate service the squadron was reduced to four
ships—_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_.

Upon the following Saturday, May 27th, I was invited to lunch in one of
the battleships, but upon arrival at South Queensferry, I found the
Fleet under Short Notice for sea, and no one was allowed to leave the
ships, or to receive friends on board. It was a beautiful day, the long,
light-coloured Cats and the Futurist-grey battleships were a most noble
sight, but I felt too much like a Peri shut out of Paradise to be happy
in observing them. A day or two later, Thursday, June 1st, was fixed for
my next visit, but again the Fates were unkind. When I arrived in the
early morning and stood upon the heights overlooking the anchorage,
Beatty’s Fleet had gone, and, though I did not know it, had even then
fought the Jutland battle. In the afternoon, news came with the return
to the Forth of the damaged battleship _Warspite_ surrounded by her
attendant destroyers. That was on the Thursday afternoon, but it was not
until the evening of Friday that the first Admiralty message was issued,
that famous message which will never be forgotten either by the country
or by the Navy. The impression which it made may be simply illustrated.
I was sitting in my drawing-room after dinner, anxiously looking for
news both on national and personal grounds, when a newsboy shrieked
under my window “Great Naval Disaster: Five British Battleships Sunk.”
The news printed in the paper was not so bad as that shouted, but it was
bad enough; it gave the impression of very heavy losses incurred for no
compensating purpose, and turned what had really been a conspicuous
naval success into an apology for a naval disaster. As a humble student,
I could to some extent read between the lines of the dispatch and dimly
perceive what had happened, but to the mass of the British public, the
wording of that immortal document could not have been worse conceived.
To them it seemed that the End of All Things was at hand.

The story runs that the first bulletin was made up by clerks from scraps
of messages which came over the wireless from the Grand Fleet, but in
which the most important sentence of all was omitted. “The Germans are
claiming a victory,” wailed the Admiralty clerks through the aerials at
Whitehall. “What shall we say?” “Say,” snapped the Grand Fleet, “say
that we gave them hell!” If the Admiralty had only said this, said it,
too, in curt, blasphemous naval fashion, the public would have
understood, and all would have been well. What a dramatic chance was
then lost! Think what a roar of laughter and cheering would have echoed
round the world if the first dispatch had run as follows:

“We have met and fought the German Fleet, and given it hell. Beatty lost
the _Queen Mary_ and _Indefatigable_ in the first part of the battle
when the odds were heavily against us, but Jellicoe coming up enveloped
the enemy, and was only prevented by mist and low visibility from
destroying him utterly. The Germans have lost as many ships as we have,
and are shattered beyond repair.”

That message, in a few words, would have given a true impression of the
greatest sea fight that the world has known, a fight, too, which has
established beyond question the unchallengeable supremacy of British
strategy, battle tactics, seamanship, discipline, and devotion to duty
of every man and boy in the professional Navy. In the technical sense,
it was an indecisive battle: the Germans escaped destruction. But
morally, and in its practical results, no sea fight has been more
decisive. Nearly two years have passed since that morning of June 1st
when the grey dawn showed the seas empty of German ships, and though the
High Seas Fleet has put out many times since then, it has never again
ventured to engage us. Jutland drove sea warfare, for the Germans,
beneath the surface, a petty war of raids upon merchant vessels, a
war—as against neutrals—of piracy and murder. By eight o’clock on the
evening of May 31st, 1916, the Germans had been out-fought,
outmanœuvred, and cut off from their bases. Had the battle begun three
hours earlier, and had visibility been as full as it had been in the
Falkland Islands action, had there been, above all, ample sea room,
there would not have been a German battleship afloat when the sun went
down. There never was a luckier fleet than that one which scrambled away
through the darkness of May 31st-June 1st, worked its way round the
enveloping horns of Jellicoe, Beatty, and Evan-Thomas, and arrived
gasping and shattered at Wilhelmshaven. We can pardon the Kaiser, who,
in his relief for a crowning mercy, proclaimed the escape to be a
glorious victory.

But though the Kaiser may, after his manner, talk of victories, German
naval officers cherish no illusions about Jutland. If one takes the
trouble to analyse their very full dispatches, their relief at escaping
destruction shines forth too plainly to be mistaken. Admiral Scheer got
away, and showed himself to be a consummate master of his art. But he
never, in his dispatches, claims that the British Fleets were defeated
in the military sense. They were foiled, chiefly through his own skill,
but they were not defeated. The German dispatches state definitely that
the battle of May 31st “confirmed the old truth, that the large fighting
ship, the ship which combines the maximum of strength in attack and
defence, rules the seas.” The relation of strength, they say, between
the English and German Fleets, “was roughly two to one.” They do not
claim that this overwhelming superiority in our strength was sensibly
reduced by the losses in the battle, nor that the large English fighting
ships—admittedly larger, much more numerous, and more powerfully gunned
than their own—ceased after Jutland to rule the seas. Their claim,
critically examined, is simply that in the circumstances the German
ships made a highly successful escape. And so indeed they did.

The Jutland battle always presents itself to my mind in a series of
clear-cut pictures. Very few of those who take part in a big naval
battle see anything of it. They are at their stations, occupied with
their pressing duties, and the world without is hidden from them. I try
to imagine the various phases of the battle as they were unfolded before
the eyes of those few in the fighting squadrons who did see. Perhaps if
I try to paint for my readers those scenes which are vividly before me,
I may convey to them something of what I have tried to learn myself.

Let us transport ourselves to the signal bridge of Admiral Beatty’s
flagship, the battle cruiser _Lion_, and take up station there upon the
afternoon of May 31st, at half-past two. It is a fine afternoon, though
hazy; the clouds lie in heavy banks, and the horizon, instead of
appearing as a hard line, is an indefinable blend of grey sea and grey
cloud. It is a day of “low visibility,” a day greatly favouring a weak
fleet which desires to evade a decisive action. We have been sweeping
the lower North Sea, and are steering towards the north-west on our way
to rejoin Jellicoe’s main Fleet. Our flagship, _Lion_, is the leading
vessel of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, and following behind us, we
can see the _Princess Royal_, _Queen Mary_, and _Tiger_. At a little
distance behind the _Tiger_ appear the two ships which remain to us of
the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, the _Indefatigable_ and _New
Zealand_, fine powerful ships, but neither so fast nor so powerful as
are our four Cats of the First Squadron. Some five or six miles to the
west of us we can make out, against the afternoon sky, the huge bulk of
the _Barham_, which, followed by her three consorts, _Valiant_,
_Warspite_, and _Malaya_, leads the Fifth Battle Squadron of the most
powerful fighting ships afloat. We are the spear-head of Beatty’s Fleet,
but those great ships yonder, silhouetted against the sky, are its most
solid shaft.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.]

Word runs round the ship that the enemy has been sighted, but since we
know nothing of his numbers or of his quality—Jutland, though
anticipated and worked for, was essentially a battle of encounter—our
light cruisers fly off to make touch and find out for us. Away also
soars seaplane, rising from the platform of our carrying ship
_Engadine_, a clumsy-looking seagull, with its big pontoon feet, but
very fast and very deftly handled. The seaplane flies low, for the
clouds droop towards the sea, it is heavily fired upon, but is not hit,
and it returns to tell us—or rather the Admiral, in his conning tower
below—just what he wishes to learn. There is an enemy battle cruiser
squadron immediately in front of us, consisting of five armoured ships,
with their attendant light cruisers and destroyers. The German battle
cruisers are: _Derfflinger_ (12-inch guns), _Lützow_ (12-inch), _Moltke_
(11-inch), _Seydlitz_ (11-inch), and another stated by the Germans to be
the _von der Tann_, which had more than once been reported lost. Since
our four big battle cruisers carry 13.5-inch guns, and two other guns of
12-inch, and the four battleships supporting us great 15-inch weapons,
we ought to eat up the German battle cruisers if we can draw near enough
to see them distinctly. By half-past three the two British battle
cruiser squadrons are moving at twenty-five knots, formed up in line of
battle, and the Fifth Battle Squadron, still some five miles away, is
steaming at about twenty-three knots. The Germans have turned in a
southerly direction, and are flying at full speed upon a course which is
roughly parallel with that which we have now taken up. During the past
hour we have come round nearly twelve points—eight points go to a right
angle—and are now speeding away from Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet, which is
some forty miles distant to the north and west. Since we are faster than
Jellicoe, the gap between us and him is steadily opening out.

From the signal bridge, a very exposed position, we can see the turret
guns below us and the spotting top above. The turrets swing round, as
the gunners inside get their directions from the gunnery-control officer
who, in his turn, receives every few moments the results of the
range-finding and rate-of-change observations which are being
continually taken by petty officers charged with the duty. Further
corrections will be made when the guns begin to shoot, and the spotting
officers aloft watch for the splashes of the shells as they fall into
the sea. Naval gunnery, in spite of all the brains and experience
lavished upon it, must always be far from an exact science. One has to
do with moving ships firing at other moving ships, many factors which go
to a precise calculation are imperfectly known, and though the margin of
error may be reduced by modern instruments of precision, the long
fighting ranges of to-day make the error substantial. The lower the
visibility, the greater becomes the gunner’s uncertainty, for neither
range-finding nor spotting can be carried on with accuracy. Even on the
clearest of days it is difficult to “spot” a shell-splash at more than
14,000 yards (eight land miles), a range which is short for the huge
naval gun. When many guns are firing, it is not easy to pick up the
splashes of one’s own shells, and to distinguish between their
water-bursts and the camouflage put up by an enemy.

At our position upon the signal bridge, though we are there only in
spirit, we probably feel much more of excitement than does any officer
or man of the big ship upon which we have intruded our ghostly presence.
Most of them can see nothing; all of them are too busy upon their duties
to bother about personal feelings. There is an atmosphere of serene
confidence in themselves and their ship which communicates itself even
to outsiders like us. At 3.48 the enemy is some 18,500 yards distance,
and visible, for the light has improved, and firing begins almost
simultaneously from us and our opponents. The first crash from the
_Lion’s_ two fore-turrets nearly throws us off the bridge, so sudden and
fierce it is, and so little does its intensity seem to be subdued by our
ear-protectors. But as other crashes follow down the line we grow
accustomed to them, grip tightly at the hand-rail, and forget ourselves
in the grandeur of the sight unfolding itself before us. Away, far away,
is the enemy, hull down, smothered in smoke and by the huge gouts of
spray thrown up by our bursting shells. He is adding to the splashes by
firing his own side batteries into the sea to confuse the judgment of
our spotters.

At each discharge from our ship, a great cone of incandescent gas flames
forth, cutting like a sword through the pale curtain of smoke. From the
distant enemy ships we can see thin flashes spurt in reply, and his
shells pitch beside us and over us, lashing our decks with sea foam and
sometimes throwing a torrent of water over the spotting top and bridge.
Before five minutes have passed, we are wet through, our ears are
drumming in spite of the faithful protectors, and all sensation except
of absorbed interest in the battle has left us. At any moment we may be
scattered by a bursting shell, or carried to the bottom with our sunken
ship, but we do not give a thought to the risks.

While we are firing at the enemy, and he is firing at us at ranges
varying from ten to eight miles, a fierce battle is going on between the
lines of big ships. Light cruisers are fighting light cruisers,
destroyers are rushing upon destroyers. At an early stage in the action,
the German Admiral Hipper—in command of the battle cruisers—launched
fifteen destroyers at our line, and was taught a rough lesson in the
quality of the boys who man our T.B.D.s. Twelve of our heavier and more
powerfully armed destroyers fell upon the German fifteen, huddled them
into a bunch, and had started to lay them out scientifically with gun
and torpedo, when they fled back to the shelter of their own big ships.
Following them up, our destroyers delivered a volley of torpedoes upon
the German battle cruisers at less than 3,000 yards distance. Probably
no damage was done, for it is the forlornest of jobs to loose mouldies
against fast manœuvring ships, but lack of success does not in any way
dim the splendour of the attempt. As light cruisers and destroyers fight
and manœuvre, the torrent of heavy shells screams over their heads,
flying as high in their course as Alpine mountains, and dropping almost
vertically near the lines of battle cruisers.

As soon as we turned to the south in pursuit of Hipper’s advance
squadron of battle cruisers, Admiral Evan-Thomas closed his supporting
battleships upon us, and we can now see them clearly about two miles
away on our starboard quarter, formed in line of battle, the flagship
_Barham_ leading. At eight minutes past four they join in the fight,
firing at a range of 20,000 yards (twelve miles), not an excessive
distance for their tremendous flat-shooting 15-inch guns if the light
were good, but too far for accuracy now that the enemy ships can be seen
so very indistinctly. Up to now the German gunnery has been good; our
ships have not often been seriously struck, but the shells in bunched
salvoes have fallen very closely beside us. Our armour, though much
thinner than that of the battleships behind us, is sufficient to keep
off the enemy’s light shells—our 13.5-inch shells are twice the weight
of his 11-inch, and the 15-inch shells fired by the Queen Elizabeths
astern of us are more than twice the weight of his 12-inch. We feel
little anxiety for our turrets, conning towers, or sides, but we notice
how steeply his salvoes are falling at the long ranges, and are not
without concern for our thin decks should any 12-inch shells of 850 lb.
weight plump fairly upon them from the skies. By half-past four the
German fire has slackened a good deal, has become ragged and inaccurate,
showing that we are getting home with our heavy stuff, and the third
ship in the line is seen to be on fire. All is going well, the enemy is
outclassed in ships and in guns; we are still between him and his bases
to the south-west, he is already becoming squeezed up against the big
banks which stretch out one hundred miles from the Jutland coast, and
for a while it looks as if Beatty had struck something both soft and
good.

But a few minutes make a great change. All through the last hour we have
been steaming fast towards the main German High Seas Fleet and away from
Jellicoe, and at 4.42 the leading German battleships can be seen upon
the smoky horizon to the south-east. Though we do not know it yet, the
whole High Seas Fleet is before us, including sixteen of the best German
ships, and it were the worst of folly to go any farther towards it. We
could, it is true, completely outflank it by continuing on our present
course, and with our high speed might avoid being crushed in a general
action, but we should have irrevocably separated ourselves from
Jellicoe, and have committed a tactical mistake of the biggest kind. We
should have divided the English forces in the face of the enemy, instead
of concentrating them. So a quick order comes from the conning tower
below, and away beside us runs a signal hoist. “Sixteen points,
starboard.” Sixteen points mean a complete half-circle, and round come
our ships, the _Lion_ leading, turning in a curve of which the diameter
is nearly a mile, and heading now to the north, towards Jellicoe,
instead of to the south, away from him. Our purpose now is to keep the
Germans fully occupied until Jellicoe, who is driving his battleships at
their fullest speed, can come down and wipe Fritz off the seas. As we
come round, the German battle cruisers follow our manœuvre, and also
turn through sixteen points in order to place themselves at the head of
the enemy’s battle line.

As we swing round and take up our new course, we pass between the Queen
Elizabeths and the enemy, masking their fire, and for a few minutes we
are exposed in the midst of a critical manœuvre to the concentrated
salvoes of every German battleship within range. The range is long, the
German shells fired with high elevation fall very steeply, and we are
safe except from the ill-luck of heavy projectiles pitching upon our
decks. From the signal bridge of the _Lion_ we can see every battle
cruiser as it swings, or as it approaches the turning point, we can see
the whole beautiful length of them, and we also see a sight which has
never before been impressed upon the eyes of man. For we see two
splendid battle cruisers struck and sink; first the _Indefatigable_, and
then the _Queen Mary_. It is not permitted to us to describe the scene
as actually it presented itself to our eyes.

Beatty has lost two battle cruisers, one of the first class and one of
the second. There remain to him four—the three Cats and the _New
Zealand_; he is sorely weakened, but does not hesitate. He has two
duties to carry out—to lead the enemy towards Jellicoe, and so dispose
of his battle cruisers beyond the head of the German lines as powerfully
to aid Jellicoe in completing their development. Beatty is now round,
and round also comes the Fifth Battle Squadron, forming astern of the
battle cruisers, and with them engaging the leading German ships. The
enemy is some 14,000 yards distant from us in the _Lion_ (8½ miles), and
this range changes little while Beatty is speeding first north and then
north-east, in order to cross the “T” of the German line. We will
continue to stand upon the _Lion’s_ bridge during the execution of this
most spirited manœuvre, and then leave Beatty’s flagship in order to
observe from the spotting top of a battleship how the four Queen
Elizabeths fought the whole High Seas Fleet, while our battle cruisers
were turning its van. What these splendid ships did, and did to
perfection, was to stall the Germans off, and so give time both for the
enveloping movement of Beatty and for the arrival and deployment of
Jellicoe’s main Fleet.

By five o’clock Beatty is fairly off upon his gallant adventure, and
during the next hour, the hardest fought part of the whole battle, the
gap between the battle cruisers and the four supporting battleships
steadily widens. If the Germans are to be enveloped, Beatty must at the
critical moment allow sufficient space between himself and Evan-Thomas
for Jellicoe to deploy his big Fleet between them, and this involves on
the part of the Commander-in-Chief a deployment in the midst of battle
of a delicacy and accuracy only possible to a naval tactician of the
highest order. But both Beatty and Evan-Thomas know their Jellicoe, to
whom, at few-minute intervals, crackle from the aerials above us
wireless messages giving with naval precision the exact courses and
speeds of our ships and the bearings of the enemy. For an hour—up to
the moment when we turned to the north—we ran away from Jellicoe, but
during the next hour we steamed towards him; we know that he is pressing
to our aid with all the speed which his panting engineers can get out of
his squadrons. Beatty’s battle cruisers, curving round the head of the
German line at a range of 14,000 to 12,000 yards, are firing all the
while, and being fired at all the while, but though often hit, they are
safer now than when they were a couple of miles more distant.

We have now reached a very important phase in the battle. It is twenty
minutes past six. At six o’clock the leading vessels of Jellicoe’s Grand
Fleet had been sighted five miles to the north of us and his three
battle cruisers—_Invincible_ (Admiral Hood), _Inflexible_, and
_Indomitable_—have flown down to the help of Beatty. They come into
action, steaming hard due south, and take station ahead of us in the
_Lion_. By this lengthening of his line to the south Beatty has now
completely enveloped the German battle cruisers, which turn through some
twelve points and endeavour to wriggle out of the jaws of the trap which
they see closing remorselessly upon them. They are followed in this turn
by the battleships of the High Seas Fleet which, for more than an hour,
have been faithfully hammered by Evan-Thomas’s Queen Elizabeths, and
show up against the sky a very ragged outline. The range of the battle
cruisers is now down to 8,000 yards, and they get well home upon
battleships as well as upon opponents of their own class. We do not
ourselves escape loss, for the _Invincible_, which has become the
leading ship, is shattered by concentrated gun-fire. The gallant Hood,
with his men, has gone to join his great naval ancestors.

* * * * *

And now let us put the clock back to the hour, 4.57, when the Queen
Elizabeths had completed their turn to the north, and had taken up
position astern of Beatty to hold off the main German Fleet while he is
making his enveloping rush. From the spotting top of the battleship upon
which we have descended we get a most inspiring view, though every now
and then we are smothered in oily smoke from the huge flat funnels below
us, and are drenched with water which is flung up in torrents by shells
bursting alongside. The enemy ships upon which we are firing are some
18,000 yards distant, we can with great difficulty make them out amid
the smoke and haze, and we wonder mightily how the keen-eyed spotting
officers beside us can judge and correct, as they appear to be doing,
the bursts of our shells more than ten miles distance. Our guns, and
those of our consorts, are firing deliberately, for we do not know how
long the battle will endure, and the supply of 15-inch shell and cordite
cannot be unlimited in the very biggest of ships. We learn from the
spotting officers that all our ships, except the _Valiant_, have been
hit several times while coming into action by dropping shots, but that
no serious harm has been done. Meanwhile the shells are falling fast
about us, and all of our ships are repeatedly straddled. The _Warspite_
suffered the most severely, though even she was able to go home to the
Forth under her own steam. This is the battleship whose steering gear
went wrong later in the action, and which turned two complete “O’s” at
full speed. Round she went in great circles of a mile in diameter,
spitting shots with every gun that bore upon the enemy during her wild
gyrations. Fritz began well, but does not seem able to stand punishment.
He rarely hits us now, though we are giving him a much better mark than
he presents to us. For we are silhouetted against the almost clear sky
to the west, while he—and there are a great many of him—is buried in
mist and smoke to the east. Rarely can our range-finding officers take a
clear observation; rarely can our spotters make sure of a correction.
Yet every now and then we note signs that our low-flying, hard-hitting
shells—each one of which weighs not much short of a ton!—are getting
home upon him at least as frequently as his shots are hitting us. Three
of his battleships are new, built since the war began, but the rest are
just Königs and Kaisers, no better than our Dreadnoughts of half a dozen
years ago. We would willingly take on twice our numbers of such
battleships and fight them to a finish upon a clear summer’s day.

Our battle tactics are now plain to see. They are to keep out to the
farthest visible range, to avoid being materially damaged, and to keep
Fritz’s battleships so fully occupied that they will have no opportunity
of closing in upon Beatty when he completes his envelopment. We can see
our battle cruisers some three miles away, swinging more and more round
the head of the German line, and the enemy’s battle cruisers edging away
in the effort to avoid being outflanked. Far away to the north appears
the smoke of the three battle cruisers which are speeding ahead of
Jellicoe’s main Fleet; they are getting their instructions from Beatty’s
_Lion_, and are already making for the head of his line so as to prolong
it, and so to complete the envelopment which is now our urgent purpose.
Our Queen Elizabeth battleships are not hurrying either their engines or
their guns. We are moving just fast enough to keep slightly ahead of the
first half-dozen of the German battleships; we are pounding them
steadily whenever a decent mark is offered us—which unhappily is not
often—and we have seen one big ship go down smothered in smoke and
flames. The time draws on and it is already six o’clock; we have borne
the burden of the fight for more than an hour, though it seems but a few
minutes since we turned more than twenty miles back to the south, and
first gave Fritz a taste of what the Fifth Battle Squadron could do. We
are slowing down now, and the gap between us and Beatty is widening out,
for we know that Jellicoe is coming, and that he will deploy his three
battle squadrons between us and our battle cruisers which, extended in a
long line, with Hood’s _Invincible_ in front, are well round the head of
the German ships. The whole German Fleet is curving into a long,
close-knit spiral between us and Beatty, and, if the light will hold, we
have it ripe for destruction. We have played our part; the issue now
rests with Jellicoe and the gods of weather.

Everything for which we and the battle cruisers have fought and
suffered, for which we have risked and lost the _Queen Mary_ and
_Indefatigable_, is drawing to its appointed end. Our Fifth Battle
Squadron has nearly stopped, and has inclined four points towards the
east, so as to allow the gap for Jellicoe’s deployment to widen out.
Firing upon both sides has ceased. We have great work still to do, and
are anxious to keep all the shells we yet carry for it, and the enemy is
too heavily battered and in too grievous a peril to think of anything
but his immediate escape. We are waiting for Jellicoe, whose squadrons
are already beginning to deploy.

* * * * *

While the Queen Elizabeths wait, ready at any moment to resume the
action whenever and wherever their tremendous services may be called
for, we will leave the Fifth Battle Squadron, and, flying far over the
sea, will penetrate into the Holy of Holies, the conning tower of the
Fleet flagship wherein stands the small, firm-lipped, eager-eyed man who
is the brain and nerve centre of the battle. There are those who have as
sharp a thirst for battle—Beatty has; and there are those who have been
as patient under long-drawn-out delays and disappointments—Kitchener
was; yet there have been few fighting men in English history who could,
as Jellicoe can, combine enduring patience with the most burning ardour,
and never allow the one to achieve mastery over the other. Watch him now
in the conning tower of the _Iron Duke_. He has waited and worked during
twenty-two months for just this moment, when the German High Seas Fleet
have placed their cards upon the table, and he, exactly at the proper
instant, will play his overwhelming trumps. If ever a man had excuse for
too hasty a movement, for too great an eagerness to snatch at victory,
Jellicoe would have one now. His eyes flash, and one may read in them
the man’s intense anxiety not to allow one moment of unnecessary delay
to interpose between his Fleet and the scattering enemy. Yet until the
exact moment arrives when he can with sure hand deploy his squadrons
into line of battle, and fit them with precision into the gap made for
them between Beatty to the east and south and Evan-Thomas to the west
and south, he will not give the order which, once given, cannot be
recalled. For as soon as his Fleet has deployed, it will be largely out
of his hands, its dispositions will have been made, and if it deploys
too soon, the crushing opportunity will be missed, and the Germans will
infallibly escape. So, with his divisions well in hand, he watches upon
the chart the movements of his own and Beatty’s vessels, as the wireless
waves report them to him, and every few minutes goes to the observation
hoods of the conning tower, and seeks to peer through the thick haze and
smoke which still hide from him the enveloping horns of the English
ships, and the curving masses of the enemy. If he could see clearly his
task would be less difficult and the culmination of his hopes less
doubtful. But he cannot see; he has to work by wireless and by instinct,
largely by faith, trusting to the judgment of Beatty and Evan-Thomas,
far away, and himself subject to the ever-varying uncertainties of sea
fighting. He goes back to the chart, upon which his staff are noting
down the condensed essence of all the messages as they flow in, and
then, the moment having arrived, he gives the word. Away run the signal
flags, picked up and interpreted by every squadron flagship, and then
repeated by every ship. The close divisions of the Grand Fleet spread
out, melt gracefully into lines—to all appearance as easily as if they
were battalions of infantry—they swing round to the east, the foremost
vessel reaching out to join up with Beatty’s battle cruisers. As the
Grand Fleet deploys, Evan-Thomas swings in his four Queen Elizabeths so
that the _Barham_, without haste or hesitation, falls in behind the
aftermost of Jellicoe’s battleships, and the remainder of the Fifth
Battle Squadron completes the line, which stretches now in one long
curve to the west and north and east of the beaten Germans. The
deployment is complete, the whole Grand Fleet has concentrated, the
enemy is surrounded on three sides, we are faster than he is, and more
than twice as powerful; if the light will hold, his end has come.
Although from the _Iron Duke_ we cannot now see the wide enveloping
horns, yet we have lately been with them and know them. The main Fleet
in whose centre we now steam, consists of Dreadnoughts, Orions, King
George the Fifths, Iron Dukes (all acting as flagships), Royal
Sovereigns, with 15-inch guns, the _Canada_, with 14-inch guns, and that
queer Dago ship the _Agincourt_, with her seven turrets all on the
middle line, and each containing two 12-inch guns. Not a ship in our
battle line has been afloat for more than seven years, and most of them
are less than three years old. The material newness of the Grand Fleet
is a most striking testimony to the eternal youth of the Navy’s ancient
soul.

We have now concentrated in battle line the battleships of our own main
Fleet and six battle cruisers, after allowing for our losses, and the
Germans have, after making a similar allowance, not more than fourteen
battleships and three battle cruisers. I do not count obsolete
pre-Dreadnoughts. The disparity in force is greater even than is shown
by the bare numbers, which it is not permitted to give exactly. Scarcely
a ship of the enemy can compare in fighting force with the Queen
Elizabeths or the Royal Sovereigns, or even with the Iron Dukes, Orions,
and King George the Fifths. Of course he made off; he would have been a
fool if he had not—and Admiral Scheer is far from being a fool.

Our concentrated Fleet came into action at 6.17, and at this moment the
Germans were curving in a spiral towards the south-west, seeking a way
out of the sea lion’s jaws. They were greatly favoured by the mist and
were handled with superb skill. They relied upon constant torpedo
attacks to fend off our battleships, while their own big vessels worked
themselves clear. We could never see more than four or five ships at a
time in their van, or from eight to ten in their rear. For two hours the
English Fleet, both battleships and battle cruisers, sought to close,
and now and then would get well home upon the enemy at from 11,000 to
9,000 yards, but again and again under cover of torpedo attacks and
smoke clouds, the Germans opened out the range and evaded us. We could
not get in our heavy blows for long enough to crush Scheer, and he could
not get in his mosquito attacks with sufficient success wholly to stave
us off. For us those two hours of hunting an elusive enemy amid smoke
and fog banks were intensely exasperating; for him they must have been
not less intensely nerve-racking. All the while we were hunting him, he
was edging away to the south-west—“pursuing the English” was his own
humorous description of the manœuvre—and both Jellicoe and Beatty were
pressing down between him and the land, and endeavouring to push him
away from his bases. All the while our battleships and battle cruisers
were firing heavily upon any German ship which they could see, damaging
many, and sinking one at least. The return fire was so ragged and
ineffective that our vessels were scarcely touched, and only three men
were wounded in the whole of Jellicoe’s main Fleet. By nine o’clock both
Beatty and Jellicoe were far down the Jutland coast, and had turned
towards the south-west in the expectation that daylight would reveal to
them the German Fleet in a favourable position for ending the business.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS
AND REFLECTIONS
PART II

At the close of my previous Chapter I took a mean advantage of my
readers. For I broke off at the most interesting and baffling phase in
the whole Battle of the Giants. It was easy to write of the first two
phases—the battle-cruiser action up to the turn where the _Queen Mary_
and _Indefatigable_ were lost, and the phase during which Beatty, though
sorely weakened, gallantly headed off the German line, and Evan-Thomas,
with his Fifth Battle Squadron, stalled off the Main High Seas Fleet in
order to allow Beatty the time necessary for the execution of his
manœuvre, and Jellicoe the time to bring up the Grand Fleet. This second
phase of the battle was perfectly planned and perfectly executed. It
will always stand out in the pages of English Naval History as a
classical example of English battle tactics. I could have described
these two phases with much more of intimate detail had the Censor
permitted, but perhaps I gave enough to make clear what was sought to be
done and what was, in fact, achieved.

When Jellicoe had deployed his potent squadrons, fitting them in between
Evan-Thomas and Beatty and curving round the head of the German line,
which by then had turned back upon itself and taken the form of a
closely knit spiral, the Germans appeared to be doomed. They were not
enveloped in the strict sense of being surrounded—we were twice as
strong as they were in numbers of modern ships and nearly three times as
strong in effective gun power, yet we had not nearly sufficient numbers
actually to surround them. A complete envelopment of an enemy fleet
rarely, if ever, occurs at sea. But though Admiral Scheer was not
surrounded he was in the most imminent peril of destruction. Jellicoe
and Beatty were between his ships and the Jutland Coast, and as they
pressed towards the south and west were pushing him away from the Wet
Triangle and the security of his home bases. We had him outmanœuvred and
beaten, but we did not destroy him. Why was that?

No question is more difficult to answer fairly and truthfully. I have
discussed this third critical phase of the battle with a great many
officers who were present—and in a position to see what happened—and
with a great many who, though not present, had means of informing
themselves upon essential details. I have studied line by line the
English and German dispatches and have paid more regard to what they do
not tell than to what they do tell. It is stupid to reject Admiral
Scheer’s dispatch as fiction; it is not, but it is coloured with the
purpose of making the least of his tactical defeat and the most of his
very skilful escape. Jellicoe’s dispatch is also coloured. I do not
doubt that the statements contained in it are strictly true, but there
are obvious omissions. By a process of examination and inquiry I have
arrived at an answer to my question. I put it forward in all deference,
for though I am of the Navy in blood and spirit, and have studied it all
my life, yet I am a layman without sea training in the Service.

The first point essential to an understanding is that Jellicoe’s
deployment was not complete until late in the afternoon, 6.17 p.m.
G.M.T., that the evening was misty, and the “visibility” poor. Had the
encounter between Beatty’s and Hipper’s battle cruisers occurred two
hours earlier, and had Jellicoe come into action at 4.15 instead of
6.15, one may feel confident that there would not now be any High Seas
German Fleet, that we could, since May 31st, 1916, have maintained a
close blockade with fast light craft of the German North Sea and Baltic
bases, and that the U-boat activity, which still threatens our sea
communications and has had a profound influence on the progress of the
war, would never have been allowed by us to develop. Upon so little, two
hours of a day in late spring, sometimes hangs the fate of nations.

The afternoon was drawing towards evening; the light was poor, the
German lines had curved away seeking safety in flight. But there
remained confronting us Hipper’s battle cruisers and Scheer’s faster
battleships, supported by swarms of torpedo craft. We also had our
destroyers, many of them, and light cruisers. There was one chance of
safety open to Scheer, and he took it with a judgment in design and a
skill in execution which marks him out as a great sea captain. His one
chance was so to fend off and delay Jellicoe and Beatty by repeated
torpedo attacks driven home, that the big English ships would not be
able to close in upon the main German Fleet and destroy it by gun-fire
while light remained to give a mark to the gunners. And so Scheer
decided to “attack,” and did attack. In his dispatch he deliberately
gives the impression—for the comfort and gratification of German
readers—that he successfully attacked our Grand Fleet with his main
High Seas Fleet. He was no fool of that sort. He attacked, but it was
with torpedo craft supported by Hipper’s battle cruisers.

The range of a modern torpedo, the range at which it may occasionally be
effective, is not far short of 12,000 yards, about seven land miles.
This, when the visibility is low, is about the extreme effective range
for heavy guns. The guns can shoot much farther, twice as far, when the
gunners or the fire directors up aloft can see; but gunnery without
proper light is a highly wasteful and ineffective business. At the
range—usually about 12,000 yards, though sometimes coming down to 9,000
yards—to which the German torpedo attacks forced Jellicoe and Beatty to
keep out, only some four or five enemy ships in the van could be seen at
once; more of the rear squadron could be seen, though never more than
eight or twelve. Our marks were usually not the hulls of the enemy’s
ships but the elusive flashes of his guns. Scheer used his torpedo craft
in exactly the same way as a skilful land General—in the old days of
open fighting—used his cavalry during a retreat. He used them to cover
by repeated charges, sometimes of single flotillas, at other times of
heavily massed squadrons, the retirement of his main forces.

If, therefore, we combine the factor of low visibility and the approach
of sunset, with the other factor of the long range of the modern
torpedo, we begin to understand why Jellicoe and Beatty were not able to
close in upon their enemy and wipe him off the seas. From the English
point of view the third phase—that critical third phase to which the
first and second phases had led up and which, under favourable
circumstances, would have ended with the destruction of the German
Fleet—found us in the position of a “following” or “chasing” fleet. But
from the German point of view the same phase found their fleet in the
position of “attackers.” I have shown how these points of view can be
reconciled, for while the main German Fleet was intent upon getting away
and our main fleet was intent upon following it up and engaging it, the
German battle cruisers, supported by swarms of torpedo craft, were
fighting a spirited rearguard action and attacking us continually. The
visibility was poor and mist troubled both sides. But the escape of the
Germans was not wholly due to the difficulty of seeing them distinctly.
If we could have closed in we should have seen his ships all right; we
did not close in because the persistence and boldness of his torpedo
attacks prevented us.

The third phase, which lasted from 6.17 p.m. until 8.20 p.m., was fought
generally at about 12,000 yards, though now and then the range came down
to 9,000 yards. The Germans, fending us off with torpedo onslaughts, did
their utmost to open out the ranges and used smoke screens to lessen
what visibility the atmosphere permitted. Their gun-fire was so poor and
ineffective that Jellicoe’s Main Fleet was barely scratched and three
men only were wounded. But we cannot escape from the conclusion that
Scheer’s rearguard tactics were successful, he did fend Jellicoe off and
kept him from closing, and he did withdraw the bulk of his fleet from
the jaws which during two hours were seeking to close upon it. He made
two heavy destroyer attacks, during one of which the battleship
_Marlborough_ was hit but was able to get back to dock under her own
steam. The third phase of the Jutland Battle was exactly like a contest
between two boxers—one heavy and the other light—being fought in an
open field without ropes. The little man, continually side-stepping and
retreating, kept the big man off; the big man could not close for fear
of a sudden jab in his vital parts, and there were no corners to the
ring into which the evasive light weight could be driven.

If one applies this key to the English and German descriptions of the
third phase in the Jutland Battle one becomes able to reconcile them,
and becomes able to understand why the immensely relieved Germans claim
their skilful escape as a gift from Heaven. They do not in their
dispatches claim to have defeated Jellicoe, except in the restricted
sense of having foiled his purpose of compassing their destruction. They
got out of the battle very cheaply, whatever may have been their actual
losses. This they realise as plainly as we do. Relief shines out of
every line of their official story and is compressed, without reserve,
into its concluding sentence. “Whoever had the fortune to take part in
the battle will joyfully recognise with a thankful heart that the
protection of the Most High was with us. It is an old historical truth
that fortune favours the brave.”

* * * * *

I am afraid that I can do little to elucidate the fourth phase of the
Battle of the Giants—the night scrimmage (one cannot call it a battle)
during which our destroyers were seeking out the enemy ships in the
darkness and plugging holes into them at every opportunity. And that
dawn upon June 1st, of which so much was hoped and from which nothing
was realised? Who can describe that? Nothing that I can write would
approach in sublimity the German dispatch. Consider what the situation
was. Jellicoe and Beatty had worked far down the Jutland coast and had
partially edged their way between Scheer and the German bases. Their
destroyers had sought out the German ships, found them and loosed
mouldies at them, lost them again and found them again; finally had lost
them altogether. At dawn the visibility was even lower than during the
previous evening—only three to four miles—our destroyers were out of
sight and touch and did not rejoin till 9 o’clock. No enemy was in
sight, and after cruising about until 11 o’clock Jellicoe was forced to
the conclusion that Scheer had got away round his far-stretching horns
and was even then threading the mine fields which protected his ports of
refuge. There was no more to be done, and the English squadrons, robbed
of the prey upon which they had set their clutches, steamed off towards
their northern fastnesses. There the fleet fuelled and replenished with
ammunition, and 9.30 a.m. on June 2nd was reported ready for action. The
German description of that dawn is a masterpiece in the art of verbal
camouflage: “As the sun rose upon the morning of the historic First of
June in the eastern sky, each one of us expected that the awakening sun
would illumine the British line advancing to renew the battle. This
expectation was not realized. The sea all round, so far as the eye could
see, was empty. One of our airships which had been sent up reported,
later in the morning, having seen twelve ships of a line-of-battle
squadron coming from the southern part of the North Sea holding a
northerly course at great speed. To the great regret of all it was then
too late for our fleet to intercept and attack them.” The British Fleet,
which the writer regretted not to see upon the dawn of a long day in
late spring, was of more than twice the strength of his own. It would
have had sixteen hours of daylight within which to devour him; yet he
regretted its absence! The Germans must be a very simple people,
abysmally ignorant of the sea if this sort of guff stimulates their
vanity.

* * * * *

In war the moral is far greater than the material, the psychological
than the mechanical. One cannot begin to understand the simplest of
actions unless one knows something of the spirit of the men who fight
them. In sea battles, more than in contests upon land, events revolve
round the personalities of the leaders and results depend upon the skill
with which these leaders have gauged the problem set them, and dispose
their forces to meet those varying phases which lead up to a conclusion.
It is borne in upon us by hard experience that the southern part of the
North Sea is not big enough and not deep enough to afford space for a
first-class naval battle to be fought out to the finish. The enemy is
too near his home bases, he can break off an action and get away before
being overwhelmed. Yet even in the southern North Sea there is room in
which to dispose great naval forces and in which to manœuvre them.
Fleets are not tucked up by space as are modern armies. Jutland was a
battle of encounter and manœuvre, not of heavy destructive fighting.
There was a dainty deftness about the first two phases which is
eminently pleasing to our national sea pride, and however we may growl
at the tactical incompleteness of the battle we cannot but admit that,
taken as a whole, it was as strategically decisive an action as has ever
been fought by the English Navy throughout its long history. It
re-established the old doctrine, which the course of the Sea War has
tended to thrust out of sight, that Command of the Sea rests as
completely as it always has done in the past upon the big fighting ships
of the main battle line. Upon them everything else depends; the
operations of destroyers and light cruisers, of patrols and even of
submarines. For upon big ships depends the security of home bases.
Surface ships alone can occupy the wide spaces of the sea and can hold
securely the ports in one’s own country and the ports which are ravished
from an enemy. Submarines are essentially raiders, their office is the
obstruction of sea communications, but submarines are useless, even for
their special work of obstruction, unless they can retire, refit, and
replenish stores at bases made secure by the existence in effective
being of a strong force of big fighting ships. Had Jutland been as great
a tactical success as it was a strategical success, had it ended with
the wiping out of the German High Seas Fleet, then, as I have already
stated, the U-boat menace would have been scotched by the destruction of
the protecting screen behind which the U-boats are built, refitted, and
replenished. No small part of the German relief at the issue of Jutland
is due to their realisation of this naval truth. They express that
realisation in a sentence which contains the whole doctrine of the
efficacy of the big ship as the final determinant in naval warfare.
Admiral Scheer in his dispatch declared that the Battle of May 31st,
1916, “confirmed the old truth that the large fighting ship, the ship
which combines the maximum of strength in attack and defence, rules the
seas.” They do not claim that the English superiority in strength—which
they place at “roughly two to one”—was sensibly reduced by our losses
in the battle, nor that the large English fighting ships—admittedly
larger, more numerous, and more powerfully gunned than their own—ceased
after Jutland to rule the seas. The German claim, critically considered,
is simply that in the circumstances it was a very lucky escape for the
German ships. And so indeed it was. It left them with the means of
securing their bases from which could be carried on the U-boat warfare
against our mercantile communications at sea.

When the day arrives for the veil which at present enshrouds naval
operations to be lifted, and details can be discussed freely and
frankly, a whole literature will grow up around the Battle of the
Giants. Strategically, I repeat—even at the risk of becoming
tedious—it was a great success, both in its inception and in its
practical results. Tactically its success was not complete. The Falkland
Islands and Coronel actions were by comparison simple affairs of which
all essential details are known. Jutland, from six o’clock in the
evening of May 31st until dawn upon June 1st, when the opposing fleets
had completely lost touch, the one with the other, is a puzzling
confusing business which will take years of discussion and of
elucidation wholly to resolve—if ever it be fully resolved. If any one
be permitted to describe the three actions in a few words apiece one
would say that Coronel was both strategically and tactically a brilliant
success for the Germans. Von Spee concentrated his squadron outside the
range of our observation, placed himself in a position of overwhelming
tactical advantage, and won a shattering victory. At the Falkland
Islands action we did to von Spee exactly what he had done to us at
Coronel. This time it was the English concentration which was effected
outside the German observation, and it was the German squadron which was
wiped out when the tactical clash came. The first two phases of Jutland
were, in spite of our serious losses in ships, notable tactical
successes; they ended with Beatty round the head of the German Fleet and
Jellicoe deployed in masterly fashion between Beatty and Evan-Thomas.
Then we get the exasperating third phase, in which the honours of
skilful evasion rest with the Germans, and the fourth or night phase,
during which confusion became worse confounded until all touch was lost.
And yet, in spite of the tactical failure of the third and fourth
phases, the battle as a whole was so great a success that it left us
with an unchallengeable command of the sea—a more complete command than
even after Trafalgar. The Germans learned that they could not fight us
in the open with the smallest hope of success. One of the direct fruits
of Jutland was the intensified U-boat warfare against merchant shipping.
The Germans had learned in the early part of the war that they could not
wear down our battleship strength by under-water attacks; they learned
at Jutland that they could not place their battleships in line against
ours and hope to survive; nothing was left to them except to prey upon
our lines of sea communication. And being a people in whose eyes
everything is fair in war—their national industry—they proceeded to
make the utmost of the form of attack which remained to them. Viewed,
therefore, in its influence upon the progress of the war, the Battle of
Jutland was among the most momentous in our long sea history.

I have discussed the Battle of the Giants so often, and so
remorselessly, with many officers who were present and many others who
though not present were in a position to know much which is hidden from
onlookers, that I fear lest I may have worn out their beautiful
patience. There are two outstanding figures, Beatty and Jellicoe, about
whose personalities all discussion of Jutland must revolve. They are men
of very different types. Beatty is essentially a fighter; Jellicoe is
essentially a student. In power of intellect and in knowledge of his
profession Jellicoe is a dozen planes above Beatty. And yet when it
comes to fighting, in small things and in great, Beatty has an instinct
for the right stroke at the right moment, which in war is beyond price.
Whether in peace or in war, Jellicoe would always be conspicuous among
contemporaries; Beatty, unless war has given him the stage upon which to
develop his flair for battle, would not have stood out. He got early
chances, in the Soudan and in China; he seized them both and rushed up
the ladder of promotion. He was promoted so quickly that he outstripped
his technical education. As a naval strategist and tactician Jellicoe is
the first man in his profession; Beatty is by professional training
neither a strategist nor a tactician—he was a commander at twenty-seven
and a captain at twenty-nine—but give him a fighting problem to be
solved out in the open with the guns firing, and he will solve it by
sheer instinctive genius. In the Battle of Jutland both Beatty and
Jellicoe played their parts with consummate skill; Beatty was in the
limelight all through, while Jellicoe was off the stage during the first
two acts. Yet Jellicoe’s part was incomparably the more difficult, for
upon him, though absent, the whole issue of the battle depended. His
deployment by judgment and instinct—sight was withheld from him by the
weather—was perfect in its timing and precision. He should have been
crowned with the bays of a complete Victor, but the Fates were unkind.
He was robbed of his prey when it was almost within his jaws. Do not be
so blind and foolish as to depreciate the splendid skill and services of
Lord Jellicoe.

* * * * *

I find the writing of this second Chapter upon the Battle of the Giants
a very difficult job. Twice I have tried and failed; this is the result
of the third effort. My failures have been used to light the fires of my
house. Even now I am deeply conscious of the inadequacy of my tentative
reflections. Upon so many points one has not the data; upon so many
others one is not allowed—no doubt properly—yet still not allowed to
say what one knows. Though sometimes I write grave articles, many of my
readers know that by instinct I am a story-teller, and to me narrative
by dialogue comes more readily than a disquisition. Therefore, if you
will permit me, I will cast the remaining portion of this chapter into
the form of dialogue and make of it a discussion between two Admirals, a
Captain, and myself. One of these Admirals I will call a Salt Horse, a
man who has seen service during half a century but who has not
specialised in a technical branch such as gunnery, or navigation, or
torpedoes. A Salt Horse is an all-round sailor. The other Admiral I will
call a Maker, and regard him as a highly competent technical officer in
the design and construction of ships of war, of their guns, and of their
armour. The Captain, a younger man, I will call a Gunner, one who has
specialised in naval gunnery in all its branches, and one who knows the
old methods and those which now are new and secret. These officers have
not been drawn by me from among my own friends. They are not individuals
but are types. Any attempts which may be made at identifying them will
fail and justly fail—for they do not exist as individuals. Let this be
clearly understood. They are creations of my own; I use them to give a
sense of vividness to a narrative which tends to become tedious, and to
bring out features in the Battle of Jutland which cannot without
impertinence be presented directly by one, like myself, who is not
himself a naval officer.

Bennet Copplestone, an intrusive and persistent fellow, begins the
conference by inquiring whether Beatty had, in the professional judgment
of his brother officers, deserved Admiral Jellicoe’s praise of his “fine
qualities of gallant leadership, firm determination, and correct
strategic insight.” Was he as good as his public reputation? I knew, I
said, a good deal too much of the making of newspaper reputations and
had come to distrust them.

“Beatty is a real good man,” declared the Maker. “He sticks his cap on
one side and loves to be photographed looking like a Western American
‘tough.’ But under all this he conceals a fine naval head and the
sturdiest of hearts. He is a first-class leader of men. I had my own
private doubts of him until this Jutland Battle, but now I will take off
my hat in his presence though he is my junior.”

The Maker’s colleagues nodded approval.

“There was nothing much in the first part,” went on the Maker. “Any of
us could have done it. His pursuit of the German battle cruisers up to
their junction with the High Seas Fleet was a reconnaissance in force,
which he was able to carry through without undue risk, because he had
behind him the Fifth Battle Squadron. His change of course then through
sixteen points was the only possible manœuvre in order to bring his
fleet back towards Jellicoe and to lead the Germans into the trap
prepared for them. So far Beatty had done nothing to distinguish him
from any competent fleet leader. Where he showed greatness was in not
diverging by a hair’s breadth from his plans after the loss of the
_Indefatigable_ and the _Queen Mary_. Mind you, these losses were wholly
unexpected, and staggering in their suddenness. He had lost these fine
ships while fighting battle cruisers fewer in numbers and less powerful
in guns than his own squadrons. A weaker man might have been shaken in
nerve and lost confidence in himself and his ships. But Beatty did not
hesitate. Although he was reduced in strength from six battle cruisers
to four only he dashed away to head off the Germans as serenely as if he
had suffered no losses at all. And his splendid dash had nothing in it
of recklessness. All the while he was heading off the Germans he was
manœuvring to give himself the advantage of light and to avoid the
dropping shots which had killed his lost cruisers. All the while he kept
between the Germans and Jellicoe and within touch of his supporting
squadron of four Queen Elizabeths. Had he lost more ships he could at
any moment have broken off the action and, sheltered by the massive
Fifth B.S., have saved what remained. As a mixture of dash and caution I
regard his envelopment of the German line, after losing the _Queen Mary_
and _Indefatigable_, as a superb exhibition of sound battle tactics and
of sublime confidence in himself and his men. But I wish that he would
not wear his cap on one side or talk so much. He has modified both these
ill-practices since he became Commander-in-Chief. That is one comfort.”

“Nelson was a poseur,” said I, “and as theatrical as an elderly and ugly
prima donna. He posed to the gallery in every action, and died, as it
were, to the accompaniment of slow music. It was an amiable weakness.”

“Jellicoe doesn’t pose,” growled the Maker.

“Jellicoe hates advertisement,” I observed. “Whenever he used to talk to
the gangs of newspaper men who infested the Grand Fleet, he always
implored them to spare his own shrinking personality. It is a matter of
temperament. Jellicoe is a genuinely modest man; Beatty is a vain one.
They form a most interesting contrast. Life would be duller without such
contrasts. One could give a score of examples from military and naval
history of high merit allied both to modesty and vanity.”

“That is true,” said the Maker, “but the Great Silent Sea Service
loathes advertisement like the very devil, and it is right. The Service
would be ruined if senior officers tried to bid against one another for
newspaper puffs.”

“Yet I have known them do it,” said I drily, and then slid away from the
delicate topic. “Let us return to the first part of the action, and
examine the division of the Fleet between Jellicoe and Beatty. Was this
division, admittedly hazardous, a sound method of bringing the Germans
to action?”

The Gunner took upon himself to reply.

“It is not, and never has been, possible to bring the Germans to action
in the southern part of the North Sea except with their own consent.
There is no room. They can always break off and retire within their
protected waters. Steam fleets of the modern size and speed cannot force
an action and compel it to be fought out to a finish in a smaller space
than a real ocean. You must always think of this when criticising the
division of our fleets. Beatty was separated from Jellicoe by nearly
sixty miles, and strengthened by four fast Queen Elizabeth battleships
to enable him to fight an action with a superior German Fleet. He was
made just strong enough to fight and not too strong to scare the Germans
away. In theory, the division of our forces within striking distance of
the enemy was all wrong; in practice, it was the only way of persuading
him into an action. Both sides at the end of May, 1916, wanted to bring
off a fight at sea. Fritz wanted something which he could claim as a
success in order to cheer up his blockaded grumblers at home, who were
getting restive. We wanted to stop the projected German naval and
military onslaught upon Russia in the Baltic. The wonderful thing about
the Jutland Battle is that it appears to have achieved both objects.
Fritz, by sinking three of our battle cruisers, has been able to delude
a nation of landsmen into accepting a highly coloured version of a great
naval success; and we, by making a sorry mess of his main fleet, did in
fact clear the northern Russian flank of a grave peril. The later
Russian successes in the South were the direct result of Jutland, and
without those successes the subsequent Italian, French, and British
advances could not have been pushed with anything like the effect
secured. Regarded in this broad international way, the division of our
fleets justified by its results the risks which it involved. What I
don’t understand is why we suffered so much in the first part of the
action when Beatty had six battle cruisers and four battleships against
five battle cruisers of the enemy. He lost the _Indefatigable_ and
_Queen Mary_ while he was in great superiority both of numbers and of
guns. Then, when the German main fleet had come in, and he was carrying
out an infinitely more hazardous operation in the face of a greater
superior force, he lost nothing. If the _Indefatigable_ and _Queen Mary_
had been lost during the second hour before Jellicoe arrived I should
have felt no surprise—we were then deliberately risking big losses—but
during the first hour of fighting, when we had ten ships against
five—and five much weaker individually than our ten—we lost two fine
battle cruisers. I confess that I am beaten. It almost looks as if at
the beginning the German gunners were better than ours, but that they
went to pieces later. What do you think?” He turned to the Salt Horse,
who spoke little, but very forcibly when he could be persuaded to open
his lips.

“Everyone with Beatty, to whom I have spoken,” declared the Salt Horse,
“agrees that the German gunnery was excellent at the beginning. We were
straddled immediately and hit again and again while coming into action.
Our gunners must have been a bit over-anxious until they settled down.
We ought to have done something solid in a whole hour against five
battle cruisers with our thirty-two 13.5-inch guns and thirty-two
15-inch. And yet no one claims more than one enemy ship on fire. That
means nothing. The burning gas from one big shell will make the deuce of
a blaze. There is no explanation of our losses in the first part, and of
Fritz’s comparative immunity, except the one which you, my dear Gunner,
are very unwilling to accept. Fritz hit us much more often than we hit
him. There you have it. I have spoken.” Admiral Salt Horse, a most
abstemious man, rang the bell of the club of which we were members, and
ordered a whisky and soda. “Just to take the taste of that admission out
of my mouth,” he explained.

The Maker of Ships and Guns smiled ruefully. “I have reckoned,” said he,
“that the Cats fired twenty rounds per gun during the first hour and the
Queen Elizabeths ten. That makes 640 rounds of 13.5-inch shell and 320
rounds of 15-inch. Three per cent. of fair hits at the ranges, and in
the conditions of light, would have been quite good. But did we score
twenty-eight hits of big shell, or anything like it? If we had there
would have been much more damage done than one battle cruiser on fire.
The Salt Horse has spoken, and so have I. I also will wash the taste of
it out of my mouth.”

“You will admit,” muttered the Gunner, “that in the second part, after
Beatty and the Queen Elizabeths had turned, our control officers and
long-service gunners came into their own?”

“Willingly,” cried Admiral Salt Horse. “Nothing could have been finer
than the hammering which Evan-Thomas gave to the whole High Seas Fleet.
And Beatty crumpled up his opposite numbers in first-class style. Our
individual system, then, justified itself utterly. Fritz’s mechanical
control went to bits when the shells began to burst about his fat ears,
but it was painfully good while it lasted. Give Fritz his due, Master
Gunner, it’s no use shutting our eyes to his merits.”

I had listened with the keenest interest to this interchange, for though
I should not myself have ventured to comment upon so technical a subject
as naval gunnery, I had subconsciously felt what the old Salt Horse had
so bluntly and almost brutally expressed.

“We have arrived, then, at this,” observed I, slowly, “that during the
first hour, up to the turn when the main High Seas Fleet joined up with
Hipper’s battle cruisers, our squadrons got the worst of it, though they
were of twice Fritz’s numbers and of far more than twice his strength.
It is a beastly thing for an Englishman to say, but really you leave me
no choice. Though I hate whisky, I must follow the example set by my
betters.”

The Master Gunner laughed. “In the Service,” said he, “we learn from our
mistakes. At the beginning we did badly on May 31st, but afterwards we
profited by the lesson. What more could you ask? . . . Civilians,” said
he, aside to his colleagues, “seem to think that only English ships
should be allowed to have guns or to learn how to use them.”

“Now we have given Fritz his due,” said I, “let us get on to the second
part of the battle, Act Two of the naval drama. You will agree that the
handling of our damaged squadrons by Beatty and Evan-Thomas was
magnificent, and that the execution done by us was fully up to the best
English standards?”

“Yes,” replied the grim Salt Horse, to whom I had specially appealed.
“We will allow both. Beatty’s combination of dash and caution was beyond
praise and the gunnery was excellent.”

“None of our ships were sunk, none were seriously hit,” put in the
Gunner. “On the other hand we certainly sank one German battle cruiser
and one battleship, and very heavily damaged others. I don’t know how
many. I think that we must accept as proved that not many German ships
of the battle line were sunk in any part of the action. When badly hit
they fell out and retired towards home, which they could always do.
During the second part both fleets were steaming away from the German
bases, so that a damaged enemy ship had only to stop to be left behind
in safety. A good many ships were claimed by our officers as sunk when
they were known to have been damaged and had disappeared; but I feel
sure that most of them had fallen out, not been sunk.”

“The outstanding feature,” cried the Maker of Guns, “was the superiority
of our gunnery. We have always encouraged individuality in gun laying,
and have never allowed Fire Control to supersede the eyes and hands of
the skilled gun-layers in the turrets. Control and individual laying are
with us complementary, not mutually exclusive. With the Germans an
intensely mechanical control is of the essence of their system. They are
very good up to a point, but have not elasticity enough to deal with the
perpetual variations of range and direction when fighting ships are
moving fast and receiving heavy punishment. Fritz beat us in the first
part, but we, as emphatically, beat him in the second.”

We then passed to a technical discussion upon naval gunnery,
which cannot be given here in detail. I developed my thesis,
aggravating to expert gunners, that when one passes from the one
dimension—distance—of land shooting from a fixed gun at a fixed
object, to the two dimensions—distance and direction—of moving guns on
board ship firing at moving objects, the drop in accuracy is so enormous
as to make ship gunnery frightfully ineffective and wasteful.
I readily admitted that when one passed still further to three
dimensions—distance, direction, and height—and essayed air gunnery,
the wastefulness and ineffectiveness of shooting at sea were multiplied
an hundredfold. But, as I pointed out, we were not at the moment
discussing anti-aircraft gunnery, but the shooting of naval guns at sea
in the Jutland Battle.

Of course I brought down a storm upon my head. But my main thesis was
not contested. It was, however, pointed out that I had not allowed
sufficient weight to the inherent difficulties of shooting from a moving
ship at a moving ship ten or a dozen miles away, and that instead of
calling naval gunnery “wasteful and ineffective” I ought to be dumb with
wonder that hits were ever brought off at all. I enjoyed myself
thoroughly.

“Don’t be hard on the poor man,” at last interposed the kindly Salt
Horse. “He means well and can be useful to the Service sometimes though
he has not had a naval training. The truth is,” he went on
confidentially, “we feel rather wild about the small damage that we did
to Fritz on May 31st: small, that is, in comparison with our
opportunities. Our gunnery officers and gun-layers are the best in the
world, our guns, range-finders and other instruments are unapproachable
for precision, our system of fire direction is the best that naval
brains can devise and is constantly being improved, and yet all through
the war the result in effective hits has been most disappointing—don’t
interrupt, you people, I am speaking the truth for once. Fritz’s
shooting, except occasionally, has been even worse than ours, which
indicates, I think, that the real inner problems of naval gunnery are
not yet in sight of solution. You see, it is quite a new science. In the
old days one usually fired point blank just as one might plug at a
haystack, and the extreme range was not more than a mile and a half; but
now that every fighting ship carries torpedo tubes we must keep out a
very long way. I admit the apparent absurdity of the situation. Here on
May 31st, two fleets were engaged off and on for six hours—most of the
time more off than on—and the bag for Fritz was three big ships, and
for us possibly four, by gun-fire. The torpedo practice was no better
except when our destroyers got in really close. During all the third
part of the action, when Scheer was fending us off with torpedo attacks
he hit only one battleship, the _Marlborough_, and she was able to
continue in action afterwards and to go home under her own steam. Yet
upon a measured range at a fixed mark a torpedo is good up to 11,000
yards, nearly six miles. In action, against moving ships, one cannot
depend upon a mouldy hitting at over 500 yards, a quarter of a mile. If
gunnery is wasteful and inefficient, what about torpedo practice in
battle?”

“What is the solution?” I asked, greatly interested.

“Don’t ask me!” replied the Salt Horse. “I knew something of gunnery
once, but now I’m on the shelf. I myself would risk the mouldies and
fight at close quarters—we have the legs of Fritz and could choose our
own range—but in-fighting means tremendous risks, and the dear stupid
old public would howl for my head if the corresponding losses followed.
The tendency at present is towards longer and longer ranges, up to the
extreme visible limits, and the longer the range the greater the waste
and inefficiency. Ask the Gunner there, he is more up-to-date than I
am.”

The Master Gunner growled. He had listened to Admiral Salt Horse’s
homily with the gravest disapproval. He was a simple loyal soul; any
criticism which seemed to question the supreme competence of his beloved
Service was to him rank treachery. Yet he knew that the Salt Horse was
as loyal a seaman as he was himself. It was not what was said which
caused his troubled feelings—he would talk as freely himself before his
colleagues—but that such things should be poured into the ears of a
civilian! It was horrible!

“After the first hour, when our gunners had settled down,” said he
gruffly, “their practice was exceedingly good. They hit when they could
see, which was seldom. If the light had been even tolerable no German
ship would have got back to port.”

“I agree,” cried the Maker of Guns and Ships. “We did as well as the
light allowed. Fritz was all to pieces. The bad torpedo practice was
Fritz’s, not ours. The worst of the gunnery was his, too. We have lots
to learn still—as you rightly say, naval gunnery is still in its
infancy—but we have learned a lot more than anyone else has. That is
the one thing which matters to me.”

“Have we not reached another conclusion,” I put in, diffidently,
“namely, that big-ship actions must be indecisive unless the light be
good and the sea space wide enough to allow of a fight to a finish? We
can’t bring Fritz to a final action in the lower part of the North Sea
unless we can cut him off entirely from his avenues of escape. In the
Atlantic, a thousand miles from land, we could destroy him to the last
ship—if our magazines held enough of shell—but as he can choose the
battle ground, and will not fight except near to his bases, we can
shatter him and drive him helpless into port, but we cannot wipe him off
the seas. Is that proved?”

“Yes,” said the Gunner, who had recovered his usual serenity. “In my
opinion that is proved absolutely.”

“One talks rather loosely of envelopment,” explained the Maker, “as if
it were total instead of partial. The German Fleet was never enveloped
or anything like it. What happened was this: As the Germans curved away
in a spiral to the south-west our line curved in with them, roughly
parallel, also to the south-west, keeping always between Fritz and the
land. We were partly between him and his bases, but he could and did
escape by getting round the horn which threatened to cut him off.”

“Could not Jellicoe,” I asked, “have worked right round so as to draw a
line across the mouths of the Elbe and Weser, and to cut Scheer
completely off from the approaches to Wilhelmshaven?”

“Not without immense risk. He would have had to pass into mine fields
and penetrate them all through the hours of darkness. He might have lost
half his fleet. Our trouble has always been the extravagant risk
involved by a close pursuit. When the Germans retire to their protected
waters we must let them go. The Grand Fleet is too vital a force to be
needlessly risked. When Jellicoe’s final stroke failed, owing to the bad
light and the German retirement, the battle was really over. Jellicoe’s
blow had spent itself on the air. The Germans were almost safe except
from our torpedo attacks, which were delivered during the night with
splendid dash and with considerable success. But that night battle was
the queerest business. When the sun rose the enemy had vanished. Fritz
says that we had vanished. I suppose, strictly speaking, that we had. At
least we were out of his sight, though unintentionally. Touch had been
lost and the enemy had got safely home, taking most of his damaged ships
with him. Nothing remained for us to do except to return to our northern
bases, recoal, and refit. The Jutland Battle was indecisive in one
sense, crushingly decisive in another. It left the German Fleet
undestroyed, but left it impotent as a fighting force. Thereafter it
sank into a mere guard for Fritz’s submarine bases.”

“And the gunnery in the third part?” I asked with a sly glance towards
the Gunner. He rose at the bait.

“I do not doubt that, measured by the percentage of hits to rounds
fired, Copplestone would call it wasteful and inefficient. But the Navy
regards the gunnery in the third part as even better than in the second,
as proving our superiority over the Germans. They were then at their
worst while we were at our best; we rapidly improved under the test of
battle, they as rapidly deteriorated. The facts are certain. The enemy
ships were hit repeatedly both by our battleships and battle cruisers,
several were seen to haul out of the line on fire, and at least one
battleship was observed to sink. Throughout all the time—two
hours—during which Jellicoe’s main fleet was engaged his ships were
scarcely touched; not a single man was killed, and three only were
wounded. Is that not good enough for you?”

“You have forgotten the _Invincible_,” remarked that candid critic whom
I have called Salt Horse. “She took station at the head of Beatty’s line
at 6.21. Her distance from the enemy was then 8,000 yards. It was a
gallant service, for Beatty needed support very badly, but by 6.55 the
_Invincible_ had been destroyed. The _Iron Duke_ passed her floating
bottom up. She must have been caught by the concentrated fire of several
enemy ships. It was a piece of luck for Fritz; the last that he had.
Apart from the downing of the _Invincible_, I agree that the third part
of the battle showed our gunnery to be highly effective, and that of the
Germans to be almost wholly innocuous. It was his torpedoes we had then
to fear, not his guns.”

“During the third part,” said the Maker, “the ranges were comparatively
low, from 9,000 to 12,000 yards, but the visibility was so bad that
damaged ships could always betake themselves out of sight and danger. I
am disposed to think that most of Fritz’s sorely damaged ships did get
home—in the absence of evidence that they did not—for we never really
closed in during the whole of the third part of the battle. Fritz was
continually coming and going, appearing and disappearing. His destroyer
attacks were well delivered, and though one battleship only was hit, our
friend the _Marlborough_, we were kept pretty busy looking after
ourselves. Jellicoe was like a heavy-weight boxer trying to get home
upon a little man, skipping about just beyond his reach. We had the
speed and the guns and the superiority of position, but we couldn’t see.
That is the explanation of the indecisiveness of the third part of the
Jutland battle, that part which, with decent luck, would have ended
Fritz’s business. Our gunnery was then top-hole. Take the typical case
of the flagship _Iron Duke_. She got a sight of a _Koenig_ at 12,000
yards (seven miles), straddled her at once, and began to hit at the
second salvo. That is real gunnery, not much waste about it either of
time or shell. Then towards sunset the _Lion_, _Princess Royal_, and
_New Zealand_ engaged two battleships and two battle cruisers at 10,000
yards. Within eighteen minutes three of the Germans had been set on
fire, two were listing heavily, and the three burning ones were only
saved by becoming hidden in smoke and mist. That is the way to get on to
a target and to hold on. I agree with our old friend Salt Horse that the
long ranges during the first part of the action, 18,000 to 20,000
yards—and even more for the _Queen Elizabeth_—are altogether too long
for accuracy unless the conditions are perfect. The distances are well
within the power of the big-calibre guns which we mount, but are out of
harmony with the English naval spirit. We like to see our enemy
distinctly and to get within real punishing distance of him. Compare our
harmless performance during the first part with the beautiful whacking
which we gave Fritz in the third whenever we could see him. The nearer
we get to Fritz the better our gunners become and the more completely
his system goes to bits. Which is just what one would expect. Our
long-service gunners can lay by sight against any ships in the world and
beat them to rags, but when it comes to blind laying directed from the
spotting tops much of the advantage of individual nerve and training is
lost. Like Salt Horse, I am all for in-fighting, at 10,000 yards or
less, and believe that our gun-layers can simply smother Fritz if they
are allowed to get him plainly on the wires of their sighting
telescopes.”

“There is not a petty officer gunlayer who wouldn’t agree with you,”
remarked the Gunner thoughtfully, “but the young scientific Gunnery
Lieutenants would shake their heads. For what would become of the
beautiful fire-direction system which they have been building up for
years past if we are to run in close and pound in the good old fashion?
Ten thousand yards to a modern 15-inch gun is almost point blank.”

“Our business is to sink the enemy in the shortest possible time,” cried
Admiral Salt Horse, “and to fight in the fashion best suited to what
Copplestone here rightly calls the Soul of the Navy. Long-range fighting
is all very well when one can’t do anything else—during a chase, for
example—but when one can close in to a really effective distance, then,
I say, close in and take the risks. In the Jutland Battle we lost two
battle cruisers at long range and one only after the ranges had
shortened. Fritz shot well at long range, but got worse and worse as we
drew nearer to him, until at the end his gunnery simply did not count.
Our ancestors had a similar problem to solve, and solved it at the
Battle of the Saints in brutal fashion by breaking the French line and
fighting at close quarters. There is a lot to be learned from the
Jutland Battle, though it is not for an old dog like me to draw the
lessons. But what does seem to shout at one is that the way to fight a
German is to close in upon him and to knock the moral stuffing out of
him. The destroyers always do it and so do our submarines. I am told
that the way the destroyers charged battleships by night, and rounded up
the enemy’s light stuff by day, was a liberal education in naval
psychology. We are at our best when the risks are greatest—it is the
sporting instinct of the race that sustains us. But Fritz, who is no
sportsman, and has a good deal more of imagination than our lower deck,
cracks when the strain upon his nerves passes the critical point. Our
young officers and men have no nerves; Fritz has more than is good for
him; let us take advantage of his moral weakness and hustle him beyond
the point when he cracks. He is a landsman artificially made into a
seaman; our men are seamen born. In a battleship action the personal
factor tends to be over-borne by the immensity of the fighting
instruments, but it is there all the time and is the one thing which
really counts. We give it full scope in the destroyers, submarines, and
light cruisers; let us give it full scope in the big ships of the battle
line. Let our MEN get at Fritz; don’t seek to convert them into mere
parts of a machine, give their individuality the fullest play; you need
then have no fear lest their work should prove wasteful or ineffective.”

The Master Gunner, a man ten years younger than old Salt Horse, smiled
and said, “I am afraid that the gunnery problem has become too
complicated to yield to your pleasing solution. A few years ago it would
have been considered a futile waste of shell to fight at over 10,000
yards, but the growth in the size of our guns and in our methods of
using them have made us at least as accurate at 20,000 yards as we used
to be at 10,000. At from 9,000 to 12,000 in good light we are now
terrific. All my sympathies are on your side; the Navy has always loved
to draw more closely to the enemy, and maybe our instincts should be our
guide. I can’t say. If we could have a big-ship action every month the
problem would soon be solved. Our trouble is that we don’t get enough of
the Real Thing. You may be very sure that if our officers and men were
told to run in upon Fritz and to smash him, at the ranges which are now
short, they would welcome the order with enthusiasm. The quality and
training of our sea personnel is glorious, incomparable. I live in
wonder at it.”

“And so do I,” cried the Maker, a man not ready to display enthusiasm.
“One has lived with the professional Navy so long that one comes to take
its superb qualities for granted; one needs to see the English Navy in
action to be aroused to its merits. On May 31st very few of those in
Evan-Thomas’s or Jellicoe’s squadrons had been under fire—Beatty’s men
had, of course, more than once. If they showed any defect it was due to
some slight over-eagerness. But this soon passed. In a big-ship action
not one man in a hundred has any opportunity of personal
distinction—which is an uncommonly good thing for the Navy. We have no
use for pot-hunters and advertisers. We want every man to do his little
bit, devotedly, perfectly, without any thought of attracting attention.
Ours is team work. If men are saturated through and through with this
spirit of common devotion to duty they sacrifice themselves as a matter
of course when the call comes. More than once fire penetrated to the
magazines of ships. The men who instantly rolled upon the blazing bags
of cordite, and extinguished the flames with their bodies, did not wait
for orders nor did they expect to be mentioned in dispatches. It was
just their job. But what I did like was Jellicoe’s special mention of
his engineers. These men, upon whose faithful efficiency everything
depends, who, buried in the bowels of ships, carry us into action and
maintain us there, who are the first to die when a ship sinks and the
last to be remembered in Honours lists, these men are of more real
account than almost all those others of us who prance in our decorations
upon the public stage. If the conning tower is the brain of a ship, the
engine-room is its heart. When Jellicoe was speeding up to join Beatty
and Evan-Thomas his whole fleet maintained a speed in excess of the
trial speeds of some of the older vessels. Think what skilful devotion
this simple fact reveals, what minute attention day in day out for
months and years, so that in the hour of need no mechanical gadget may
fail of its duty. And as with Jellicoe’s Fleet so all through the war.
Whenever the engine-rooms have been tested up to breaking strain they
have always, always, stood up to the test. I think less of the splendid
work done by destroyer flotillas, by combatant officers and men in the
big ships, by all those who have manned and directed the light cruisers.
Their work was done within sight; that of the engine-rooms was hidden.”

“I wish that the big public could hear you,” I said, “the big public
whose heart is always in the right place though its head is always
damned ignorant and often damned silly.”

The Maker of Guns and Ships turned on me, this calm, cold man whom I had
thought a stranger to emotion. “And whose fault is that? You are a bit
of an ass, Copplestone, and inconveniently inquisitive. But you can be
useful sometimes. When you come to write of the war at sea, do not wrap
yourself up in a tangle of strategy and tactics of which you know very
little. Stick to the broad human issues. Reveal the men who fight rather
than the ships which are fought with. Think of the Navy as a Service of
flesh and blood and soul, no less than of brains and heart. If you will
do this, and write as well as you know how to do, the public will not
remain either damned ignorant or damned silly.”

“I will do my best,” said I, humbly.

EPILOGUE

LIEUTENANT CÆSAR

Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great?

When the war is over and tens of thousands of young men, who have drunk
deep of the wine of life, are thrown back upon ginger ale, what will be
the effect upon their heads and stomachs? I do not know; I have no data,
except in the one instance of my friend, Lieutenant Cæsar, R.N.V.R.

I must write of him with much delicacy and restraint, for his friendship
is too rich a privilege to be imperilled. His sense of humour is
dangerously subtle. Cæsar is twenty-three, and I am—well, fully twice
his age—yet he bears himself as if he were infinitely my senior in
years and experience. And he is right. What in all my toll of wasted
years can be set beside those crowded twenty-two months of his, now
ended and done with? The fire of his life glowed during those months
with the white intensity of an electric arc; in a moment it went black
when the current was cut off; he was left groping in the darkness for
matches and tallow candles. I dare not sympathise with him openly,
though I feel deeply, for he would laugh and call me a silly old
buffer—a term which I dread above all others.

* * * * *

The variegated career of Lieutenant Cæsar fills me with the deepest
envy. When the war broke out he was a classical scholar at Oxford, one
of the bright spirits of his year. His first in Greats, his prospects of
the Ireland, his almost certain Fellowship—he threw them up. The Army
had no interest for him, but to the Navy he was bound by links of family
association. To the Navy therefore he turned, and prevailed upon a
somewhat reluctant Admiralty to gazette him as a Sub-Lieutenant in the
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. “A classical scholar,” argued Whitehall,
“is about as much use to us as a ruddy poet. What can this young man do
away from his books?” Cæsar rapidly marshalled his poor accomplishments.
He could row—no use, we are in the steam and petrol age; he had been a
sergeant of O.T.C.—no thanks, try the Royal Naval Division; he could
drive a motor-car and was a tolerable engineer. At last some faint
impression was made. Did he understand the engines of a motor-boat? It
appeared that he did; was, in fact, a mildly enthusiastic member of the
Royal Motor Boat Club at Southampton. “Now you’re talking,” said
Whitehall. “Why didn’t you say this at once instead of wasting our time
over your useless frillings?” The official wheels stirred, and within
two or three weeks Cæsar found himself gazetted, and dropped into a fine
big motor patrol boat, which the Admiralty had commandeered and turned
to the protection of battleships from submarines. At that time we had
not a safe harbour anywhere except on the South Coast, where they did
not happen to be wanted. For many months Cæsar patrolled by night and
day deep cold harbours on the east coast of Scotland, hunting
periscopes. It was an arduous but exhilarating service. His immediate
chief, a Lieutenant R.N.V.R., was a benevolent American, the late owner
of the boat. He had handed her over without payment in return for a
lieutenant’s commission. “I was once,” he declared, “a two-striper in
Uncle Sam’s Navy. I got too rich for my health, chucked the Service, and
have been eating myself out of shape. Take the boat but, for God’s sake,
give me the job of running her. She’s too pretty for your thumb-crushing
blacksmiths to spoil.” When reminded that he was an alien, he treated
the objection as the thinnest of evasive pleas. “King George is my man;
there are no diamonds in his garters,” he wrote.

The Lords of the Admiralty, who never in their sheltered lives had read
such letters as now poured in upon them, gasped, collapsed, and gave to
the benevolent neutral all that he asked.

Cæsar worshipped the big motor-boat and her astonishing commander. His
first love wrapped itself round the twin engines, two of them,
six-cylinders each, 120 horse-power. They were ducks of engines which
never gave any trouble, because Cæsar and the two American engineers—I
had almost written nurses—were always on the watch to detect the least
whimper of pain. But though he never neglected his beloved engines, the
mysterious fascinations of the three-pounder gun in the bows gradually
vanquished his mature heart. Her deft breech mechanism, her rapid
loading, the sweet, kindly way she slipped to and fro in her cradle,
became charms before which he succumbed utterly. Cæsar and the gun’s
high-priest, a petty officer gunlayer, became the closest of friends,
and the pair of them would spend hours daily cleaning and oiling their
precious toy. The American lieutenant had his own bizarre notions of
discipline—he thought nothing of addressing the petty officer as “old
horse”; but he worked as hard as Cæsar himself, kept everyone in the
best of spirits through the vilest spells of weather, and was a
perpetual fount of ingenious plans for the undoing of Fritz. The _Mighty
Buzzer_—named from her throbbing exhaust—was a happy ship.

The _Buzzer’s_ career as a king’s ship was brief, and her death
glorious. One night, or rather early morning, she was far out in the
misty jaws of a Highland loch, within which temporarily rested many
great battle-cruisers. Cæsar despised these vast and potent vessels.
“What use are they?” he would ask of his chief. “There is nothing for
them to fight, and they would all have been sunk long ago but for us.”
Fast motor-boats, with 120 horse-power engines, twenty-five knots of
speed—thirty at a pinch, untruthfully claimed the Lieutenant—and
beautiful 3-pounder guns were in Cæsar’s view, the last word in naval
equipment. The Lieutenant would shake his head gravely at his Sub’s
exuberant ignorance. “They are gay old guys just now,” he would reply,
“and feeling pretty cheap. But some day they will get busy and knock
spots off Fritz’s hide. You Britishers are darned slow, but when you do
fetch a gun it’s time to shin up trees. The Germs have stirred up the
British Lion real proper and, I guess, wish now they’d let him stay
asleep.”

The _Buzzer_ had chased many a German submarine, compelling it to dive
deeply and become harmless, but never yet had Cæsar been privileged to
see one close. Upon this misty morning of her demise, when he gained
fame, she was farther out to sea than usual, and was cruising at about
the spot where enterprising U-boats were wont to come up to take a
bearing. I am writing of the days before our harbour defences had
chilled their enterprise into inanition. Cæsar was on watch, and stood
at the wheel amidships. The petty officer and a blue-jacket were
stationed at the gun forward. Our friend’s senses were very much alert,
for he took his duties with the utmost seriousness. Near his boat the
sea heaved and swirled, and as he saw a queer wave pile up he became, if
possible, even more alert and called to his watch to stand by. The sea
went on swirling, the surface broke suddenly, and up swooped the hood
and thin tube of a periscope. It was less than fifty yards away, and for
a moment the lenses did not include the _Buzzer_ within their field of
vision. For Cæsar, his watch on deck, and the sleepers below, the next
few seconds were packed with incident. Round came the _Buzzer_ pointing
straight for the periscope, the exhaust roared as Cæsar called for full
speed, and the gun crashed out. Away went periscope and tube, wiped off
by the spreading cone of the explosion, as if they were no more
substantial than a bullrush, and up shot the _Buzzer’s_ bows as Cæsar
drove her keel violently upon the top of the conning tower of the rising
U-boat. Keel and conning-tower ripped together; there was a tremendous
rush of air-bubbles, followed by oil, and the U-boat was no more. She
had gone, and the _Buzzer_, with six feet of her tender bottom torn off,
was in the act to follow. As she cocked up her stern to dive after her
prey there was just time to get officers and crew into lifebelts and to
signal for help. Cæsar met in the water his commanding officer, who,
though nearly hurled through his cabin walls by the shock, and entirely
ignorant of the cataclysm in which he had been involved, was cheerful as
ever. “Sakes,” he gasped, when he had cleared mouth and nose of salt
water, “when you Britishers do get busy, things—sort of—hum.”

A destroyer rushing down picked up the swimmers and heard their story.
The evidence was considered sufficient, for oil still spread over the
sea, and there were no rocks within miles to have ripped out the
_Buzzer’s_ keel, so another U-boat was credited to the Royal Navy and
Cæsar became a lieutenant. It was a proud day for him.

But he had lost his ship, and was for a time out of a job. The new
harbour defences were under way and fast motor-boats were for a while
less in demand. The Admiralty solved the problem of his future. “This
young man,” it observed, “is nothing better than a temporary lieutenant
of the Volunteer Reserve, but he is not wholly without intelligence and
has a pretty hand with a gun. We will teach him something useful.” So
the order was issued that Lieutenant Cæsar should proceed to Whale
Island, there to be instructed in the mysteries of naval gunnery. “You
will have to work at Whale Island,” warned the captain of his flotilla,
“and don’t you forget it. It is not like Oxford.” This to reduce Cæsar
to the proper level of humility.

Up to this stage in his career Lieutenant Cæsar, though temporarily
serving in the Royal Navy, knew nothing whatever about it. His status
was defined for me once by a sergeant of Marines: “A temporary
gentleman, sir, ’ere to-day and gone to-morrow, and good riddance, sir.”
Upon land the corps and regiments have been swamped by temporaries, but
at sea the Regular Navy remains in full possession. In the barracks at
Whale Island, where Cæsar was assigned quarters, he felt like a very
small schoolboy newly joining a very large school. His fellow-pupils
were R.N.R. men, mercantile brass-bounders with mates’ and masters’
certificates, and R.N.V.R.’s drawn from diverse classes. To him they
seemed a queer lot. He lay low and studied them, finding most of them
wholly ignorant of everything which he knew, but profoundly versed in
things which he didn’t. The instructors of the Regular Service gave him
his first definite contact with the Navy. “My original impression of
them,” he told me, laughing, “was that they were all mad. I had come to
learn gunnery, but for a whole week they insisted upon teaching me squad
drill, about the most derisory version of drill which I have ever seen.
Picture us, a mob of mates out of liners and volunteers out of workshops
and technical schools, trailing rifles round the square at Whale Island,
feeling dazed and helpless, and wondering if we had brought up by
mistake at a lunatic asylum. After the first week, during which Whale
Island indulged its pathetic belief that its true _métier_ is squad
drill, we were all right. We got busy at the guns, and found plenty to
learn.” It was at Whale Island that he received the name of Cæsar, the
one Latin author of which his messmates had any recollection. During the
first month of his training he daily cursed Winchester and Oxford for
the frightful gaps which they had left in his educational equipment. He
could acquire languages with anyone, but mathematics, that essential key
to the mysteries of gunnery, gave him endless trouble. But he had a
keenly tempered brain and limitless persistence. Slowly at first, more
rapidly later, he made up on his contemporaries, and when after two
months of the toughest work of his life he gained a first-class
certificate, he felt that at last he had tasted a real success.

Time brings its revenges. As a Sub in a motor-boat he had affected to
think slightingly of the great battle-cruisers which his small craft
protected, but now that he was transferred to one of the new Cats of the
First Battle Cruiser Squadron his views violently changed. Battleships
were all very well, they had huge guns and tremendous armour, but when
it came to speed and persistent aggressiveness what were these sea
monsters in comparison with the Cats? Why nothing, of course. Which
shows that Cæsar was becoming a Navyman. Put a naval officer into the
veriest tub which can keep herself afloat with difficulty, and steam
five knots in a tideway, and he will exalt her into the most efficient
craft beneath the White Ensign. For she is His Ship.

Lieutenant Cæsar very quickly became at one with his new ship, and
entered into his kingdom. Whether upon the loading platform of a turret
or in control of a side battery, he serenely took up his place and felt
that he had expanded to fill it adequately. His tone became obtrusively
professional. When I asked for some details of his hardships and his
thrills, he sneered at me most rudely. “There are no hardships,” he
declared; “we live and grow fat, and there is not a thrill to the whole
war. My motor-boat was a desperate buccaneer in comparison with these
stately Founts of Power. Every week or two we do a Silent Might parade
in the North Sea, but nothing ever happens.” This was after the Dogger
Bank action for which he was too late, and before the Jutland Battle. He
wrote to me many veiled accounts of the North Sea stunts upon which the
battle-cruisers were persistently engaged, but always insisted that they
were void of excitement.

* * * * *

“Dismiss from your landsman’s mind,” he would write—Cæsar was now a
sailor among sailors—“all idea of thrills. There aren’t any. When the
hoist Prepare to Leave Harbour goes up on the flagship, and black smoke
begins to pour from every funnel in the Squadron, there is no excitement
and no preparation—for we are already fully prepared. We go out with
our attendant destroyers and light cruisers and scour at will over the
‘German Ocean’ looking for Fritz, that we may fall upon him. But he is
too cunning for us. I wish that we had some scouting airships.”

* * * * *

This wish of Lieutenant Cæsar is, I believe, shared by every officer in
the Grand Fleet from the Commander-in-Chief downwards. Airships cannot
fight airships or sea ships, and are of very little use as destructive
agents, but they are bright gems in the firmament of scouts.

I asked Cæsar why he did not keep notes of his manifold experiences. “It
is against orders,” answered he sorrowfully. “We are not allowed to keep
a diary, and I have a rotten memory for those intimate details which
give life to a story. If I could keep notes I would set up in business
as a naval Boyd Cable.” But I am afraid that Cæsar was reckoning without
the Naval Censor, a savage, hungry lion beside whom his brother of the
Military Department is a complacent lamb. Cæsar has a pretty pen, but
his hands are in shackles.

Cæsar bent his keen eyes upon those with whom he was associated, studied
their strength and weakness, and delivered judgment, intolerant in its
youthful sureness.

“The young lieutenants,” he wrote, “are wonderful. Profoundly and
serenely competent at their own work, but irresponsible as children in
everything else. Their ideas of chaff and ragging never arise above
those of the fifth form. Whenever they speak of the Empire they mean the
one in Leicester Square. Shore leave for them means a bust at the
Trocadero, with a music-hall to follow, preferably with a pretty girl.
Their notions of shore life are of the earth earthy, not to say fleshy,
but at sea work they approach the divine. There is not a two-striper in
my wardroom who could not with complete confidence and complete
competence take the Grand Fleet into action. But of education, as you or
I understand the word, they have none. The Navy has been their strictly
intensive life since they left school at about thirteen. Of art, or
literature, or music—except in the crudest forms—they know nothing,
and care nothing. And this makes their early retirement the more
tragical. They go out, nine-tenths of them, before they reach forty
without mental or artistic resources. The Navy is a remorseless user up
of youth. Those who remain afloat, especially those without combatant
responsibilities, tend to degenerate into S.O.B.s.”

* * * * *

I will not translate; Cæsar is too young and too clever to be
sympathetic towards those of middle age.

One afternoon in spring Lieutenant Cæsar was plunged without warning
into the Jutland Battle. He and his like were placidly waiting at action
stations in their turrets, when the order came to put live shell into
the guns. For six hours he remained in his turret, serving his two
13.5-inch guns, but seeing nothing of what passed outside his thick
steel walls. When I implored him to recount to me his experiences, he
protested that he had none.

* * * * *

“You might as well ask a sardine, hermetically sealed in a tin, to
describe a fire in a grocer’s shop,” wrote he. “I was that sardine, and
so were nearly all of us. Those in the conning tower saw something, and
so did the officers in the spotting top when they were not being
smothered by smoke and by water thrown up by bursting shells. But as for
the rest of us—don’t you believe the stories told you by eye-witnesses
of naval battles. They are all second or third hand, and rubbish at
that. When I have sorted the thing out from all those who did see, and
collated the discrepant accounts, I will give you my conclusions, but I
shall not be allowed to write them. For a literary man the Navy is a
rotten service.”

* * * * *

Cæsar at this time wrote rather crossly. He had, I think, visualised
himself as the writer some day of an immortal story of the greatest
naval battle in history. Now that he had been through it, he knew as
little of it at first hand as a heavy gunner in France does of the
advancing infantry whose path forward he is cutting out.

The isolation of a busy turret in action may be realised when one learns
that Cæsar knew nothing of the loss of the _Queen Mary_,
_Indefatigable_, or _Invincible_ until hours after they had gone to the
bottom. He had heard nothing even of damage suffered by his own ship
until, a grimy figure in frowsy overalls, he crawled through the roof of
his big sardine tin and met in the darkness one of his friends who had
been in the spotting top.

* * * * *

“There was a frightful row going on as we sat there on the turret’s
roof,” wrote Cæsar to me. “Our destroyers were charging in upon Fritz’s
flying ships, which with searchlights and guns of all calibres were
seeking to defend themselves. We could not fire for our destroyers were
in the way. The horizon flamed like the aurora borealis, and now and
then big shells, ricochetting, would scream over us. I enjoyed myself
fine, and had no wish to seek safety in my turret, of which I was
heartily sick. That is the only part of the action which I saw, and the
details were buried in confusion and darkness. All the rest of the day I
had been serving two hungry guns with shells and cordite, and firing
them into unknown space. I was too intent on my duties to be bored, but
I did not get the least bit of a thrill until I climbed out on the roof.
Still I am glad to have been in the Battle, and, I love my big wise
guns.”

* * * * *

It was while his battle-cruiser was being refitted, and when he had just
returned from a few days’ leave, that the wheel of his destiny made
another turn. He was hauled struggling and kicking out of his turret as
one plucks a periwinkle from its shell, and cast into a destroyer
attached to the North Sea patrol. He had, as I have told, an easy knack
of picking up languages. To a solid knowledge of German he had added in
past vacations more than a speaking acquaintance with the Scandinavian
tongues—Norse, Danish, and Swedish—and his industry was now turned to
his undoing. Naval gunners were more plentiful than boarding officers
who could converse with the benevolent and unbenevolent neutral, and
Cæsar’s unfortunate accomplishments clearly indicated him for a new job.
At first he was furious, but became quickly reconciled. For, as he
argued, fighting on a grand scale is over, Fritz has had such a
gruelling that he won’t come out any more; North Sea stunts will seem
very tame after that day out by the Jutland coast; patrolling the upper
waters of the North Sea cannot be quite dull, and cross-examining
Scandinavian pirates may become positively exciting. So Cæsar settled
down in his destroyer, in so far as any one can settle down in such an
uneasy craft.

Cæsar now formed part of the inner and closer meshes of the North Sea
blockade designed to intercept those ships which had penetrated the more
widely spread net outside. Many of the masters whom he interviewed
claimed to have a British safe-conduct, but Cæsar was not to be bluffed.
With a rough and chocolate-hued skin he had acquired the peremptory air
of a Sea God.

* * * * *

“It is rather good fun sometimes,” he wrote to me. “We can’t search big
ships on the high seas at all thoroughly, and we don’t want to send them
all into port for examination, so we work a Black List. I have a list
from the War Trade Department of firms which are not allowed to ship to
neutral countries, and of all suspected enemy agents in those countries.
The Norse, Danish and Dutch skippers are very decent and do their best
to help, but the Swedes are horrid blighters. Whenever there is any
doubt at all we send ships into port to be thoroughly examined there.
You may take it that not much gets through now. Next to a complete
blockade of all sea traffic for neutral ports—which I don’t suppose the
politicians can stomach—our Black List system seems to be the goods. I
get good fun with these merchant skippers, and am becoming quite a
linguist, but the work is less exciting than I had hoped. It is amusing
to see a 7,000-ton tramp escorted into port by a twenty-foot motor-boat
which she could sling up on her davits, but even this sight becomes a
matter of course after a while. I have seen something of war from three
aspects, and seem to have exhausted sensations. They are greatly
overrated.”

* * * * *

But Lieutenant Cæsar was destined to have one more experience before war
had used him up and relaid him upon the shelf from which he was plucked
in September, 1914. A destroyer upon patrol duty is still a fighting
vessel, and fights joyfully whenever she can snatch a plausible
opportunity. Cæsar had sunk a submarine, served through the Jutland
Battle, and assisted to stop the holes in the British blockade, but he
had not yet known what fighting really means. That is reserved for
destroyers in action. One afternoon he was cruising not far from the
Dogger Bank, when the sound of light guns was heard a few miles off
towards the east. The Lieut.-Commander in charge of our unit in H.M.S.
_Blockade_ obeyed the Napoleonic rule and steered at once for the guns.
In about ten minutes a group of small craft wreathed in smoke, lighted
up at short intervals by gun flashes, appeared on the horizon, and
roaring at her full speed of 34 knots the British destroyer swept down
upon them. Presently seven trawlers were made out firing with their
small guns at two German torpedo boats, which with torpedo and
23-pounder weapons were intent upon destroying them. One trawler was
blown sky-high while Cæsar’s ship was yet half a mile distant, and
another rolled over shattered by German shell. “It was a pretty sight,”
said Cæsar, when I visited him in hospital, and learned to my deep joy
that he was out of danger. “When we got within a quarter of a mile we
edged to starboard to give the torpedo tubes a clear bearing on the port
bow. A shell or two flew over us, but the layers at the tubes took no
notice. They waited till we were quite close, not more than two hundred
yards, and then loosed a torpedo. I have never seen anything so quick
and smart. I saw the mouldy drop and start, and then a huge column of
water spouted up, blotting out entirely the nearest German boat. The
water fell and set us tossing wildly, but I kept my feet and could see
that German destroyer shut up exactly like a clasp-knife. She had been
bust up amidships, her bow and stern almost kissed one another, and she
went down vertically. The other turned to fly, firing heavily upon us,
but our boys had her in their grip. We had three fine guns, 4-inch
semi-automatics. We hit her full on the starboard quarter as she turned,
and then raked her the whole length of her deck. I did not see the end,
for earth and sky crashed all round me, and I went to sleep. When I
awoke I was lying below, my right leg felt dead, but there was no pain,
and from the horrid vibration running through the vessel I knew that we
were at full speed.

“‘Did we get the other one?’ I asked of my servant, whom I saw beside
me. ‘She sunk proper, sir,’ said he. ‘You, sir, are the only casualty we
’ad.’ It was an honour which I found it difficult to appreciate. ‘What’s
the damage?’ I muttered. ‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he replied diffidently,
’that your right leg is blowed away.’ Then I fainted, and did not come
round again till I was in hospital here. My leg is gone at the knee; I
lost a lot of blood, and should have lost my life but for the tourniquet
which the Owner himself whipped round my thigh. They have whittled the
stump shipshape here, and I am to have a new leg of the most fashionable
design. The doctors say that I shall not know the difference when I get
used to it, and shall be able to play golf and even tennis. Golf and
tennis! Good games, but they seem a bit tame after the life I’ve led for
the last two years.” Cæsar fell silent, and I gripped his hand.

“It isn’t as if you were in the Regular Service,” I murmured. “It isn’t
your career that’s gone. That is still to come. You’ve done your bit,
Cæsar, old man.”

His eyes glittered and a tear welled over and rolled down his cheek.
That was all, the only sign of weakness and of regret for the lost leg
and the lost opportunities for further service. When he spoke again it
was the old cheerful Cæsar whom I knew. “It seems funny. A month or two
hence I shall be back at Oxford, reading philosophy and all sorts of
absurd rubbish for my First in Greats. From Oxford I came, and to Oxford
I shall return; these two years of life will seem like a dream. A few
years hence I shall have nothing but my medal and my wooden leg to
remind me of them. It has been a good time, Copplestone—a devilish good
time. I have done my bit, but I wasn’t cut out for a fighting man. There
is too much preparation and too little real business. I should have
exhausted the thing and got bored. In time I should have become an
S.O.B. like some of those others. No, Copplestone, I have nothing to
regret, not even the lost leg. It is better to go out like this than to
wait till the end of the war, and then to be among the Not Wanteds.”

“They’ve made you a Lieutenant-Commander,” I said slowly.

“Two and a half stripes,” he murmured. “They look pretty, but they are
only the wavy ones, not the real article. I was never anything but a
‘tempory blighter, ’ere to-day and gone to-morrow, and good riddance.’
It was decent of them to think of me, but stripes are no use to me now.
I shall be at Oxford with the other cripples, and the weak hearts, and
the aliens, and the conscientious objectors—what do the dregs of Oxford
know of stripes?”

* * * * *

I saw as much as I could of Cæsar during the weeks that followed. His
mental processes interested me hugely. He has an enviable faculty of
concentrating upon the job in hand to the complete exclusion of
everything outside. He forgot Oxford in the Service, and now seemed to
have almost forgotten the Service in his return to Oxford, and to what
he calls civilisation. He was greatly taken up with the design for his
wooden leg. I met him after his first visit to Roehampton to be
measured, and found him bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Such legs and
arms!” cried he. “They are almost better than meat and bone ones. I saw
a Tommy with a shorter stump than mine jumping hurdles and learning to
kick. He was a professional footballer once. Another with a wooden arm
could write and even draw. In a month or two’s time, when my stump is
healed solid and I have learnt the tricks of my new leg, it will be a
great sport exercising it and trying to find out what it can’t do. A new
interest in life.”

“You seem rather to like having a leg blown off,” I said, wondering.

He is extraordinarily exuberant. I looked for depression after a month
in hospital, but looked in vain. He builds up a future with as much zest
as a youthful architect executes his first commission. The First in
Greats is “off”; Cæsar says that he has not time to bother about such
things. “I shall read History and modern French and Russian literature.
History will do for my Final Schools, and Literature for my play. I
shall learn Russian. Then when I have taken my degree I shall go in for
the Foreign Office. My wooden leg will actually help me to a nomination,
and the exam. is nothing. It’s not a bad idea; I thought of it last
night.”

“You don’t take long over a decision,” I remarked.

“I never did,” said he calmly.

When he returned to Oxford early in November he urged me to pay him a
visit. I was in London a week or two later and having twenty-four hours
to spare ran up to Oxford, established myself at the Clarendon, and
summoned Cæsar to dine with me. All through the meal wonder grew upon
me. For my very charming guest was an undergraduate in his fourth year,
bearing no trace of having been anything else. We talked of Balzac,
Anatole France, and Turgeniev. I listened politely to Cæsar’s views upon
German and Russian Church music. I learned that the scarcity of Turkish
cigarettes was causing him distress, that his rooms were delightful, and
that Oxford was a desert swept clear of his old friends. The war was
never once referred to. His conversation abounded in slang with which I
was not familiar—I come from the other shop. It was an insufferable
evening, and I saw Cæsar hobble away upon his crutches with positive
relief. He could use his leg a little, but the stump was still rather
sore. That hobble was the one natural and human thing about him.

I passed a wretched night, came to a desperate resolution early in the
morning, and carried it out about nine o’clock. Cæsar was in his
“delightful rooms.” They certainly had a pleasant aspect, but the
furniture disgusted me; it might have been selected by a late-Victorian
poet. I looked for a book or a picture which might connect Cæsar with
the R.N.V.R., and looked in vain. He was busy trampling upon the best
two years of his life and forgetting that he had ever been a man. It
should not be. Presently he came in from his bedroom and began to talk
in the manner of the night before but I cut him short. “Cæsar,” I said
brutally, “you are no better than an ass. Look at these rooms. Is this
the place for a man who has lived and fought in a motor-boat, a
battle-cruiser, and a T.B.D.? You have sunk a German submarine, served
in the Jutland Battle, and lost a leg in your country’s service. Hug
these things to your soul, don’t throw them away. Brood upon them, write
about them, for the love of Heaven don’t try to forget them.”

I saw his eyes light up, but he said nothing. His lips began to twitch
and, knowing him as I did, I should have heeded their warning. But
unchecked I drivelled on:

“Are you the man to shrink from an effort because of pain? Did you
grouse when your leg was blown off? Wring all you can out of the future.
Read History, join the F.O., study Russian. But do these things in a
manner worthy of Lieutenant-Commander Cæsar, and don’t try to revive the
puling Oxford spark that you were two years ago before the war came to
sweep the rubbish out of you.”

He gave a clumsy leap, tripped over his new leg, and fell into a chair.
Lying there he laughed and laughed and laughed. How he laughed! Not
loud, but deeply, thoroughly, persistently, as if to make up for a long
abstinence.

“Confound you!” I growled. “What the deuce are you laughing at?”

“You,” said Cæsar simply.

At the word the truth surged over me in a shameful flood. That
preposterous dinner with its babble of Balzac and Turgeniev, Church
music, and Turkish cigarettes. These rooms stripped of all reminders of
two strenuous years of war. That Oxford accent and the intolerable
Oxford slang. “Cæsar,” I shouted, joining in his exuberant laughter,
“you have been pulling my leg all the time.”

“All the time,” said he. “My bedroom is full of stuff that I cleared out
of here. Last night, Copplestone, your ever-lengthening face was a
lovely study, and I have wondered ever since how I kept in my laughter.”

“You young villain,” cried I, overjoyed to find that Cæsar was still my
bright friend of the R.N.V.R. “How shall I ever get even with you?”

“I owe you some reparation,” said he, “and here it is.” He hobbled over
to his desk and drew out a great roll of paper. “This is the first
instalment; there are lots more to come. For the last month I have been
trying to remember, not to forget. I am writing of everything that I
have done and seen and heard and felt during those two splendid years.
Everything. It will run to reams of paper and months of time. When it is
finished you shall have it all. Take it, saturate yourself in it, add
your spells to it. We will stir up the compound of Copplestone and Cæsar
until it ferments, and then distil from the mass a Great Work. It shall
be ours, Copplestone—yours and mine. Will you have me as your partner.”

“With the greatest pleasure in life,” I cried.

We discussed our plans in full detail, and parted the best of friends.
Cæsar is rekindling the ashes of a life which I had thought to be
extinguished; soon there will be a great and glowing fire of realised
memory which will keep warm the years that are to come. He has solved
the problem of his immediate future. But what of those others, those
tens of thousands, who when the war is over will seek for some means to
keep alive the fires which years of war have lighted in their hearts?
Are they to be merged, lost, in the old life as it was lived before
1914? Are they to degenerate slowly but surely into S.O.B.s, intent only
upon earning a living somehow, playing bad golf, or looking on at
football matches? I do not know, I have no data, and it is rather
painful to indulge oneself in speculation.

* * * * *

This sketch was published a year ago. Two months after I had visited
Cæsar at Oxford he called upon me in London. He was in uniform, and
explained that he had quickly grown tired of sick leave and had recalled
himself to Service. “I can’t go to sea again,” said he, “with this
timber toe, but I am at least good for an office job ashore.” But Cæsar
was not made to fit the stool of any office, and when I last heard from
him was an observer in the R.N.A.S.

In this fashion he has rounded off his experiences, and basely failed
me, his friend and biographer, of the scanty data with which to answer
the question set forth in the first sentence of this chapter.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.

Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Silent Watchers - England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It" ***

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