Perhaps the first of the flashes as of lightning by which we have seen
the drama of the past 365 days is that which shows us the part played by
the British Navy. What a part it has been! Do we even yet recognize
its importance? Have our faithful and loyal Allies a full sense of its
tremendous effect on the fortunes of the campaign? On Sunday, August 2,
two days before the dispatch of Great Britain’s ultimatum to Germany,
we saw thousands of our naval reserve flying off by special boats and
trains to their ships on our east and south coasts. On Monday, August 8,
the British Navy had taken possession of the North Sea.
It was a legitimate act of peace, yet never in this world was there a
more complete, if bloodless, victory. The great German North Sea fleet,
which (according to a calculation) had been constructed at a cost of
£300,000,000 sterling, to keep open the seas of the world to German
trade; the fleet which had, in our British view, been built with the
sole purpose of menacing British shores, was shut up in one day within
the narrow limits of its own waters!
In the light of what has happened since it is not too much to say that
if the British Fleet had taken up its cue only forty-eight hours later
the north coast of France would have been bombarded, every town on our
east coast from Aberdeen to Dover would have been destroyed, and Lord
Roberts’s prophecy of German invasion would have been fulfilled. But,
thank God, the watchdogs of the British Navy were there to prevent that
swift surprise. They are there (or elsewhere) still, silently riding the
grey waters in all seasons and all weathers, waiting and watching and
biding their time, and meanwhile (in spite of the occasional marauding
of submarines, the offal of fighting craft) keeping the oceans free to
all ships except those of our enemies. And now, when we hear it said, as
we sometimes do, that Great Britain holds only thirty-five miles of land
on the battle-front in Flanders, let us lift our heads and answer, “Yes,
but she holds thirty-five thousand miles of sea.”