Sea-power strangled Germany and saved the world. Even when the Kaiser’s legions were riding roughshod over the greater part of Europe its grip was slowly throttling them. Despite the murderous mission of mine and U-boat, it kept the armies of the Allies supplied with men and munitions, and scoured the world for both. When the British Fleet took up its war stations in the summer of 1914 it became the Heart of Things for civilization. It continued to be so when the major portion of the swaggering

“ Society must not remain passive in face of the deliberate provocation of a blind and outrageous tyrant. The common interests of mankind must direct the impulses of political bodies: European society has no other essential purpose. ”— Schiller. Surprise is the soul of war. The submarine illustrates this elemental principle, and its astounding development is the most amazing fact of the World Struggle. Given favourable circumstances it can attack when least expected, pounce on its prey at such t

“ The unrestricted U-boat war means a very strong naval offensive against the Entente. ”— Admiral von Capelle. Writing in the early summer of 1915, a neutral who visited the once busy ports of Danzig, Stettin, Hamburg, and Bremen remarked that “wherever one goes in these cities, wherever one takes one’s meals, one hears the word Unterseeboot . Amazing, and often untrue, stories are told of the number of submarines that are being constructed, the size and speed of the latest ones, and the great n

“ The submarine is the hunted to-day. ”— Sir Eric Geddes. In the first phase of the Underseas War torpedoes were the favourite weapons of the U-boat. The work was done more effectively and quicker than was possible with the comparatively small guns then mounted. Later, the number of ships attacked by shellfire rapidly increased. This was due to several reasons. The second method of attack was considerably less expensive, for a torpedo costs anything from £750 to £1000. Comparatively few merchant

“ This is the first time since the Creation that all the world has been obliged to unite to crush the Devil. ”— Rudyard Kipling. Two weeks after the declaration of war Count von Reventlow was cock-a-hoop regarding the “attitude of reserve” of what he was kind enough to term the “alleged sea-commanding Fleet of the greatest naval Power in the world.” “This fleet,” he asserted, “has now been lying idle for more than a fortnight, so far from the German coast that no cruiser and no German lightship

“ Germany must for all time to come maintain her claim to sea-power. ”— Lt.-Gen. Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven , Deputy Chief of the German General Staff . The Adriatic afforded much interesting naval news. The strategy of the Austrians was exactly that of the High Sea Fleet—tip-and-run raids and avoidance of battle whenever possible. During the blockade of the Austro-Hungarian naval ports of Pola and Cattaro previous to Italy’s becoming an active participant in the war, the battleships and crui

“ If the submarine had succeeded our Army in France would have withered away. ”— D. Lloyd George. Previous pages have had much to say about U-boats. The northern mists, from the obscurity of which the Grand Fleet occasionally emerged into the broad sunlight of publicity, were as nothing compared with the fog of war which veiled the hourly activities of British and Allied submarines. Scouting is notoriously hazardous and necessarily private. Our underseas craft had sufficient of it. In the perfor

At the beginning of the war it was freely stated that the one ship a submarine could not fight was the submarine. This theory, like so many others, went by the board in the process of time. Finally the notion was completely reversed. Allied underwater craft ferreted out many an enemy submersible. Indeed, if we accept the authority of Rear-Admiral S. S. Robison, of the United States Navy, they did “more than any other class of vessel” to defeat the U-boats. The French and Italians name the units

“ In the future as in the past, the German people will have to seek firm cohesion in its glorious Army and in its belaurelled young Fleet. ”— Lt.-Gen. Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven. All kinds of queer accidents happen to submarines. It was one thing to have a ‘joy-ride’ standing on the conning-tower of a spick-and-span craft in the neighbourhood of Haslar, and quite another to be compelled to lie ‘doggo’ hundreds of miles from the base owing to the near presence of German torpedo-boats out for s

“ The present submarine difficulty is the result of our undisputed supremacy upon the sea surface. The whole ingenuity, building power, and resource of Germany are devoted to submarine methods, because they cannot otherwise seriously damage us. ”— Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. They call them ‘blimps’ in the Navy. The term conveys to the landsman about as much information as ‘Blighty’ to a Chinaman. Blimps are speedy little airships driven by a single propeller, with a gondola capable of holding two

“ Let us march farther, undaunted and confident, along the road of force. Then our future will be secure against British avarice and revenge. The German is too good to become England’s vassal. ”— Admiral von Scheer. Many U-boats were buried in the same grave as their last victim. This was not adequate retribution, but it left the Navy and the Mercantile Marine with one submarine the less to fight. Close to the wreck of the great White Star liner Justicia , a magnificent steamer of 32,000 tons, l

“ I believe the day is not distant when we shall overcome the submarines as we have overcome the Zeppelins and all the infernal machines started by the Germans in this war. ”— Lord Milner. One of the most effective antidotes for the submarine menace when the approximate whereabouts of the enemy is known is the depth charge, already mentioned more than once in these pages. Outwardly it resembles nothing more murderous than a cylindrical drum such as is used for storing paraffin oil. There the lik

“ There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory. ”— Sir Francis Drake. To win the first Victoria Cross awarded to a naval officer in the Great War, to be the first submarine commander to gain it in any war—these are no mean distinctions. Primarily, of course, Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook, R.N., owed his blue ribbon to “most conspicuous bravery,” as the Gazette has it, but to this must be added a particul

“ British submarines may take to themselves the credit of having damaged our trade and shipping in the Baltic. ”— Captain Persius. Before our Russian allies abandoned the sword and the ploughshare for revolution and famine the Baltic was alive with naval doings. Occasionally it even became the scene of intense activity. When the former subjects of the Little Father obtained their liberty, and thereby shackled themselves with a greater tyranny, the inland sea of Northern Europe passed to the enem

“ This blockade is a complete avowal of Germany’s weakness. ”— Lord Robert Cecil. Shelling an enemy is merely a scientific way of throwing stones. When a schoolboy in God’s open air is not quite sure of the nature of an object, his primitive ancestors prompt him to fling something at it; middle age, having the full advantage of civilization, pokes it with a stick. In naval warfare ‘throwing things’ is perfectly legitimate cricket, but mining, which is invisible poking, is scarcely recognized as

“ Their Lordships desire to express to all ranks and ratings concerned in the recent gallant and successful enterprise on the Belgian coast their high admiration of the perfect co-operation displayed, and of the single-minded determination of all to achieve their object. The disciplined daring and singular contempt of death exhibited by those who were assigned the posts of greatest danger places this exploit high in the annals of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and will be a proud memory for t

“ The Board of Admiralty desire to express to the officers and men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines on the completion of their great work their congratulations on a triumph to which history knows no parallel. ” They came in flying the White Ensign, which was the cleanest thing about them. Only a few weeks before the commanders of these same bedraggled U-boats had boasted of defying the world; now they had been brought to heel like a pack of whipped curs. German officers and men were taking pa