Land and the Bismarck Archipelago, were promptly taken by Australia, near the shores of which they lie. Other islands scattered about the Pacific Ocean were seized by the British and by the Japanese. One of the first to be taken was Kiao-Chao, the German colony in the Province of Shan-Tung, China, which had been seized by the Kaiser's personal orders in 1897, and which was intended to be made the basis of a German partitioning of the Chinese Empire. Japan laid siege to the place and after a blockade lasting from August 27 to November 6, 1914, the Japanese troops, aided by a small British contingent, captured the place. In such fashion the German Colonial Empire was removed from the map of the world. CHAPTER XII THE WAR AT SEA Great Britain's Sea Power Quickly Manifested Her Fleet in Control of the Ocean Disappearance of German Commerce from the High Seas Many Vessels Interned in Neutral Ports - The German War Fleet Held Under Shelter at the Kiel Canal Hundreds of Vessels of Millions of Tons Seized or Destroyed Many Naval Vessels Also the Victims of War - Daring Raids of German Cruisers Admiral Tirpitz and the Policy of Frightfulness - The Submarine Boat Campaign · Rules of International Law Disregarded Destruction of American Vessels - The Tragedy of the Lusitania - The Battle off Jutland Renewal of the Submarine Campaign Enormous Destruction of Commerce, Including American, in the Weeks Before Our Declaration of War. THREE HUNDRED merchant vessels of about twothirds of a million tons burden destroyed in seven weeks, six of them being American vessels. That was the record of the German U-boat campaign of frightfulness, immediately before our declaration of war. That, however, was only a small part of the operations at sea during the great war, and a comparatively minor part; since great as were the losses to the commerce of the allies and of neutral nations, they were not sufficient to affect materially the carrying trade of the world, while they did not in the least degree affect the steel barrier of blockade which the allies maintained along the German coast. BRITISH SEA POWER At the very beginning of the war the sea power of Great Britain was triumphantly manifested. The German Emperor sneered at what he called that country's "con temptible little army," but he had a wholesome respect for its fleet and made no serious attempt to cope with it. His armies were mobilized and rushed irresistibly into France and Russia. But his mighty war fleet remained within the shelter of inland waters, chiefly at the Kiel Canal, while the mercantile marine of Germany, which had been the second largest in the world, disappeared utterly from the high seas. All vessels that could ran into home waters for safety. Many which were in American and other neutral waters remained there, interned for the duration of the war. Many were captured or destroyed by the navies of the allies. Meantime, despite many losses inflicted by a few daring German cruisers, the sea power of Great Britain enabled the commerce of the allies to continue substantially as in time of peace. THE COMMERCE OF THE NATIONS At the outbreak of the war the chief maritime nations had the following mercantile fleets: These figures suggest how comparatively slight was the loss to the British Empire of the nearly 2,000,000 tons of shipping destroyed during the war by the German U-boats and a few cruisers. It amounts to less than ten per cent of the whole; and in fact was nearly compensated for by the building and purchasing of new ships and the capture of German vessels. THE NAVIES OF THE WORLD Statistics of the navies of the various powers cannot be given quite so completely as of the mercantile fleets, the tonnage being lacking. The following table gives, however, the numbers of ships of various classes in the navies of the chief eight powers just before the outbreak of the war. The numbers include those built and in commission and also those actually in process of construction. Under "Battleships" are included dreadnoughts, pre-dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts. The eight powers, the names of which are abbreviated in the table, are the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Germany, AustriaHungary, and the United States. They are thus given, not in the order of their strength, but according to their grouping in the early part of the war; the first five being the allied powers, the next two the central empires, and the last being the then neutral United States: U. K. Fr. Rus. It. Jap. Ger. A.-H. U.S. Vessels. SECTIONAL PLAN OF A SUBMARINE Upper View-Top of vessel showing deck torpedo tubes and fore and aft diving rudders. Lower View-Plan of submarine showing arrangement of torpedo tubes, engines, motors, batteries, tanks and crew quarters. |