World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John
part of it would always be difficult to grasp. The ordinary news-reading citizen must be content to judge of it by its results, and he is not always capable of doing even that. Neither in this country, nor in the Dominions overseas, still less in the outer world, has the supreme importance or the decisive achievement of our naval Service been realized. Yet to those who understand, the influence of sea-power on history has never been so conclusively demonstrated. In this war, as in the war of a hundred years before, it was from first to last our ships that lay between a military despot and the domination of the world.
To prove this it is only necessary to make a plain statement of the tasks which the British Navy had to undertake in August 1914, to mark the fact that a failure in any one of them would have involved the ruin of the Allied cause; and to remember that no such failure occurred. The gigantic scope of the effort may then be seen; but even then only by those whose vision is wide enough to survey the whole world at once as one vast field of conflict.
First, then, our Fleet undertook to blockade the enemy; to drive his commerce from the seas; to stop his sea-borne supplies, especially foodstuffs, cotton—the raw material of explosives—and munitions of all kinds; also to disable his credit by the stoppage of his export trade.
Secondly, the protection of our own commerce necessitated the control of all the seas of the world. The Atlantic was our main avenue of supply, but we had also to maintain and guard the routes to and from Australia, New Zealand, India, and China; and a Northern Patrol was necessary to ensure the passage from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the north of Russia.
Thirdly, the enemy's main naval force had to be put out of action: that is to say, the North Sea must be effectively controlled by a Grand Fleet capable of dealing with the German High Sea Fleet.
Fourthly, the transfer of enemy troops across the sea must be made impossible; and, in particular, strong flotillas and secondary fleets must be maintained on our own coasts as a guard against possible attempts at invasion.
ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE
(VISCOUNT JELLICOE OF SCAPA).
Fifthly, the transport of our own troops and of those of our Allies must be covered from attack. Under this head alone there were included before the end a number of simultaneous operations entirely beyond example in the history of war. An army of some six millions was passed oversea from the British Isles, from India, from Australia, and New Zealand (and at last more millions from America) to France, to India, to Africa (East and West), to Egypt and Palestine, to Gallipoli and Salonika.
Sixthly, the supplies to all these forces, and to most of them simultaneously, had to be maintained for more than four full years and on a scale hitherto unimagined.
Seventhly, in several campaigns the Navy had to co-operate in the military operations, notably in Gallipoli, in battles near the Belgian coast, and in the attack on the fortified harbour of Zeebrugge.
These seven heads cover every recognized department of naval war; but it must be added that when this latest war changed its character and became an unrestricted submarine campaign, new developments were necessary and were immediately carried out. Under the second and third of the above headings, an entirely new fleet of mine-sweepers, trawlers, and anti-submarine patrols had to be provided, manned, and equipped, to secure the safety both of our ships of war and of our mercantile marine.
It will be seen that these tasks, taken altogether, formed a work of which only one Power in the world was capable; while taken separately they appear plainly as seven threads upon every one of which the fate of the common cause depended absolutely. The effort of the Allies in this war was distinguished first by the early heroism of the Belgian, Serbian, and Russian troops; then by the long and desperate endurance of the French, British, and Italian armies; finally, it was reinforced by the large contingent of late-comers from America, and carried to victory by the supreme genius of Foch. But behind and beneath all these lay another force, scarcely thought of at the time, and since almost forgotten, though to it they all owed the very possibility of their military existence. During those four years the British Fleet never ceased to carry great armies over sea; to sweep every ocean clean, and guard the territories along their shores; to shut up the hostile Empire within an impassable barrier. In a word, it retained every day and every night, from the first hour of the war to the last, that control which was the most vital condition of success.
In so doing it suffered some losses and achieved stirring successes, of which one or two are related in the pages which follow. But it must always be remembered that these are but incidents; the business of the British Navy is the right use of the sea, and not conquest or display. For it, therefore, victory is not the affair of a day here or a day there, however rousing to the blood: it lies rather in what is neither spectacular nor resounding—in the monotonous but manifold perfection of an indispensable service.
CHAPTER XXII.
CORONEL.
The battle of Coronel will always have a peculiar interest for us: there is a mystery about it which can never be finally cleared up. At the outbreak of war a British admiral, Sir Christopher Cradock, was in charge of a large and important area off the coast of South America. It was his business to keep this area clear of the enemy squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee, which was much stronger than his own, but was believed to be scattered on the trade routes. In the end Cradock found the enemy squadron united and in much superior force. He instantly attacked, and went down in the action, with two of his ships.
The problem is to ascertain what were his motives for this swift decision to fight against overwhelming odds. Not a man in the flagship survived, and we must do the best with what evidence we have before us. We know the admiral's general idea of the work he had to do; we know what his instructions were, what force he asked for and what was given him; we know the speed and gun-power of the enemy ships, and what he as an experienced commander must have thought of them. Finally, we know the nature of the choice which was open to him; and in face of all this the mystery remains.
The key to it probably lies in the character of the man who had to make the decision; and from this point of view the story is a fine one. While every one is free to form an opinion on the facts, the judgment of those who knew Cradock best is the simplest and the most favourable one. A certain margin of discretion must be allowed to every admiral in time of war; and at the moment of crisis a man of powerful character and vision may go even further, and take the great responsibility of departing from the line of strict obedience to orders. To Cradock's friends it seems clear that he saw himself and his squadron as representing the prestige of his country in combat with a superior force which might be disabled, if it could not be destroyed; he saw that duty might be fulfilled, and honour and success attained, though victory should be impossible. So he hunted his great enemy both skilfully and fearlessly, but relied at a pinch rather on courage than on caution.
From the outbreak of war the German China Squadron, as we now know, was never wholly dispersed: Spee detached ships from time to time to the coast of South America, but remained himself with the strongest part of his force in the Pacific, where he was heard of only at intervals. He might possibly be intending to go westwards and raid the Indian Ocean, as the Emden actually did. He moved, in fact, on Samoa, but when he arrived there on September 14, 1914, he found Apia already safe in the hands of the New Zealanders, and not a ship in the harbour. He left again for Suvarov Island, coaled in the Society Islands, bombarded the French capital Papieté on the 22nd September, and appeared to be making for South America; he might be thinking of a dash through the Magellan Straits to attack our trade on the eastern coast.
The British Admiralty knew the danger of this. Spee's two principal ships—the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau—were fast ships and well armed, with prize gunnery crews. To hunt them satisfactorily a pair of battle-cruisers were required, and these could not well be spared from the Grand Fleet. The Indefatigable was therefore ordered out from the Mediterranean, with the fast