The British Navy and the Jutland Fight WEEKS AND MONTHS OF PATROL DUTY AND ONE GREAT ENGAGEMENT BEFORE reviewing the story of naval warfare 1915-1916, it is well to compare the conflicting claims of the rival maritime powers as to their achievements during the first year of fighting. Count zu Reventlow, pointing out the impossibility of preventing Germany's isolation from the oceans. because of the commanding geographical position of the British Isles lying "like a long mole before the North Sea," continues: "The losses of the German Fleet in the first year of the war were very small. It looks to the future with confidence, and even though it has carried on a strategy of reserve and of waiting it has on the other hand, repeatedly shown that it possesses full freedom of action in the North Sea. . . . The German Fleet has coursed about in the North Sea a great number of times, and at times, as it is known, has even advanced to the English coasts in order to bombard English coast defenses and marine stations. The past twelve months have demonstrated that the days of absolute British supremacy are at an end." It may drive the enemy's commerce off the sea. Protect its own commerce. It may render the enemy's fleet impotent. It may make the transfer of enemy's troops across the seas impossible, whether for attack or defense. It may transport its own troops where it will. It may secure their supplies, and (in fitting circumstances) may assist in their operations." Which of the two claims do the following facts support? T HE WORK OF THE BRITISH NAVY IN THE The communications of the Grand Alliance were sea communications, stretching from Archangel to Gibraltar, Gibraltar to Suez or the Cape, the Cape to Colombo, Colombo to Melbourne, and Melbourne to Vladivostock. These communications extending round the globe were kept open all the time, and the figures for 1916 in transport of war material alone read eight millions of men, ten million tons of supplies and explosives, over a million sick and wounded, over a million horses and mules, and fifty million gallons of gasoline. In addition to these, the ordinary import and export trade went on. Such trifles as 100,000,000 cwts. of wheat, 7,000,000 tons of iron ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE ore came into the British Isles, and ONE GREAT ENGAGEMENT TO ON RECORD. The character of this year of naval warfare is, then, one of watching and waiting. There is only one great engagement, and no large offensive move ments except the co-operation with the Allied military forces in Belgium and at the Dardanelles; and the Russian fleet's work in conjunction with Grand-Duke Nicholas in the Black Sea; in all these cases the ships were engaged not against ships but against forts and land intrenchments. The warfare, save at Jutland, was waged with the sea's lighter troops. While the German High Sea Fleet lay inactive, protected by a barrier of submarines, mines, sandbanks and land-fortifications, British armed auxiliaries controlled traffic, mine sweepers labored ceaselessly in the North Sea and adjacent waters, gun and patrol boats hunted submarines and the cruiser squadrons kept tireless watch. British battleships in the northern mists like German battleships in the Kiel Canal were conIdemned to watchful inaction. The policy which gave to naval fighting such a character was conceived by Admirals von Tirpitz and von Pohl. Behind the fighters they struck at the fighters' supplies. If the Allied shipping could be crippled, Britain must either reduce her military operations or find her population in serious economic distress. For once English and German opinion tallied in a striking particular. Sir Percy Scott early in 1914 had prophesied the advent of the submarine in war and foretold that it would create a panic in merchant shipping, and von Tirpitz and von Pohl believed that the mine and submarine would have this effect and that the British Navy would be slow to discover means of defense and reprisal. They were mistaken; von Tirpitz himself in his Memoirs acknowledges the latter fact: "I am certain there was still a possibility of attaining a tolerable peace if Germany had concentrated all her powers in the submarine war as England did in combating it." Germany, by submarine attacks in 1916, had not created a panic, but by the end of the year she had destroyed 1000 ships which could not be easily replaced, and by extensive mine-laying at the end of 1915 and in the early months of 1916, was preparing to reduce ships of war also. Details of the submarine campaign will be found. in another chapter. HE DIFFICULTIES RAISED BY THE BRITISH BLOCKADE. One of the chief weapons used by England to make Germany's attack costly was a blockade of the enemy's territory by sea. This blockade raised difficulties with America, and was strongly criticised in England itself as not being sufficiently effective in preventing foodstuffs passing into Germany through neutral shipping. Britain could not at first easily discriminate between neutral imports intended for neutral use and those which might be passed on to the enemy, until central distributing agencies were arranged in neutral states which governed the destination of all consignments. A special ministry in the Cabinet was created to deal with the question. Lord Robert Cecil was the first to hold it and in his answer to criticism of the scheme, he said: "We could stop up the holes in the dam as they appeared, but it was inevitable that a good deal of water should run through while the repairs were being made." By this blockade then, no ships except submarines or an occasional commerce raider could penetrate into the Atlantic. The whole of the North Sea was declared a military area, and by means of certain regulations such as reducing lights, stopping fishing in certain areas, and closing the East coast ports to trawlers of foreign registry, Sir John Jellicoe was enabled to regulate traffic and check suspicious movement. Who maintained the blockade? The auxiliary craft. It will be recalled that in May, 1915, a change in the British Admiralty had occurred. Lord Fisher and Mr. Winston Churchill had both resigned and their places had been taken by Sir Henry Jackson and Mr. A. J. Balfour. Lord Fisher had, during his tenure of power, set in progress VICE-ADMIRAL SIR R. H. S. BACON Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald H. S. Bacon, K. C. B., succeeded Rear-Admiral Hood in command of the Dover Patrol in April, 1915, and in the autumn assisted the land forces in Belgium. building activities had been undertaken also in France and Russia. The vessels as they had come in had been drafted into various units according to function. One of the chief units was the Dover Patrol, a section of the fleet stationed in home waters with bases at Dover and Dunkirk and a sphere of influence extending for a considerable distance on either hand. Coming up Channel or down the North Sea all vessels would take their final stages along sea-roads policed by fighting ships of the Patrol and its attendant cruisers. Its beat made it into the front line trench of the war by sea, and |