SWEEPING THE ENEMY FROM THE OCEANS
Far flung the Fleet then,
Freeing the seas,
Clearing the way for men,
Merchantmen these.
Sinking or flying,
Broken their power,
The enemy dying
Left England Her dower.
_J. L._
In the foregoing chapter some reference was made to the campaign of the
German raiding cruisers and armed liners against British and Allied
commerce in the distant waters of the Atlantic and Pacific during the
early months of hostilities, and before we go any further this aspect
of the war must be discussed. One object of the enemy was to lead to
a scattering of British naval strength, but in this he was wholly
disappointed. The distribution of the British Fleet remained unchanged,
and the great numbers of swift cruisers and armed liners, which had
been apprehended as presenting a formidable menace to commerce, made
but a feeble appearance. The commerce-raiding campaign gave rise,
however, to a good deal of alarm at the time, though it surprised no
one who understood the means made available by the scientific and
mechanical developments of modern naval warfare, and who had studied
them in the light of history.
The interruption or destruction of the enemy’s commerce has always
been one of the objects in naval warfare. British floating commerce
offered a very large target, and the swift German cruisers, directed by
wireless telegraphy and supplied by friendly neutrals, were at work on
the lines followed by shipping, making it inevitable that there should
at first be considerable losses to the Allies. Admiral Mahan thought
that the British total losses in the long wars of the French Revolution
and Empire did not exceed 2½ per cent. of the commerce of the Empire.
The Royal Commission on the Supply of Food in Time of War expressed the
opinion that 4 per cent. would have been a more accurate estimate.
[Illustration: A DRIFTER AT SEA: LOOKING FOR SUBMARINES AND MINES]
[Illustration: A DRIFTER LAYING ANTI-SUBMARINE NETS.]
German cruisers, destructive as a few of them were, did not inflict
losses amounting to anything like the figures of the old wars.
In those contests of power, notwithstanding the depredations of
commerce-destroying frigates, British oversea trade grew, while that
of the enemy withered away. If the enemy captured ten British ships
out of a thousand the loss might be considered serious, but if the
British frigates captured ten out of the enemy’s hundred the injury
inflicted was ten times more effective. Towards the end of the long war
with France very few French traders were captured because scarcely any
ventured to sea, while the French continued to capture English ships
up to the very end of the war, ten years after their fleet had been
destroyed at Trafalgar. The loss by capture and sinking was at the
rate of 500 ships a year, and even in 1810, 619 English ships were lost.
In the present war the German commerce-destroying campaign, by means
of cruisers and armed liners, though very effective at the beginning,
collapsed with great rapidity. Hostile action against trade has never
before been so rapidly brought under control. Steam, the telegraph,
and wireless have enormously increased, as compared with the sailing
days, the thoroughness and efficiency of superior sea-power. Difficulty
of providing for coal and oil supply, the want of naval repairing and
docking bases, and, above all, the immense superiority brought quickly
to bear by the combined naval forces of England, France, and Japan,
aided by the Australian Navy (auxiliary to the British, to which it
belonged), within a comparatively short time caused the whole of
German commerce to disappear from the oceans. Soon not a single ship
remained—trader, cruiser, or armed liner—as a target, except that
such isolated raiders as the _Möwe_ might offer rare opportunities of
attack. This failure of the Germans seemed the more remarkable because
they had long recognised the floating commerce of England to be her
Achilles’ heel. Prince Bülow described it as such. They had expressly
reserved, at The Hague Conference, the right to convert merchantmen
into cruisers on the high seas to serve as commerce-destroyers. They
used this right in some instances, as in that of the _Cap Trafalgar_,
which was sunk in single-ship action by the British converted liner
_Carmania_. Yet this procedure proved of no effect in the war.
It would be a great mistake to regard the German cruiser campaign
against commerce apart from the general distribution of German warships
and the means taken to supply them with their requirements. The writer
is inclined to the belief that the impotence of the Germans in distant
waters shows that their Navy was not ready nor effectively prepared
for the war. The great expenditure on the High Sea Fleet proved
unavailing. The submarine boats did not exist in any considerable
number. Only about twenty-seven or twenty-eight of them were completed
in August, 1914, of which about a dozen were of early experimental
type, fit only for local use, and the programme provided only for the
building of half a dozen in each year. The German Navy possessed not
more than a couple of big airships, and a few effective aeroplanes.
The cruisers on foreign service were scattered about the world without
plan. The battle-cruiser _Goeben_ and the light cruiser _Breslau_
had been detached in the Mediterranean during the Balkan War, and,
according to the Greek White Book, Turkey having entered into alliance
with Germany on August 4th, the two cruisers fled to the Dardanelles
in conformity with orders received from Berlin. The Germans were
apprehensive as to their safety, and their naval authorities never
intended to leave them in their dangerous situation of isolation in an
Italian port. The business of controlling and directing the operations
of the commerce-destroying cruisers and armed liners, and providing
their supplies, was admittedly dexterously arranged by the agency
of wireless, mainly through the means placed at disposal by German
sympathisers in the United States, the States of Southern America, and
other neutral countries, though nothing they did could withstand the
steady pressure of sea-power.
The most considerable German force in distant waters was the East Asian
Squadron, under command of Admiral Count von Spee. It was located
at Kiao-Chau, and its principal elements were the armoured cruisers
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_. Sooner or later this squadron was
bound to be defeated, as its commanding officer fully realised. The
Japanese declared war on August 23rd, and the fleets of Admiral Baron
Dewa and Admiral Kato were stretched out to blockade and intercept
him; but he extricated himself very dexterously, crossed the Pacific,
defeated Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock off Coronel on November 1st,
rounded Cape Horn, and was himself defeated with the loss of his whole
squadron in the battle of the Falkland Isles on December 8th. One of
his cruisers, the _Emden_, which had escaped the Japanese, made a great
noise in the world. Her captain was a very capable and also a very
gallant officer, who bombarded oil tanks at Madras, sank the Russian
cruiser _Jemtchug_ and the French destroyer _Mousquet_ at Penang, and
sent to the bottom seventeen British vessels, representing a value of
£2,211,000, besides three sent into port. The _Emden_ was destroyed
by H.M. Australian cruiser _Sydney_ at the Cocos-Keeling Islands on
November 8th. The _Karlsruhe_ sank vessels representing a value of
£1,662,000.
It is not the purpose here to describe the depredations and ocean
wanderings of the other German cruisers or auxiliary cruisers. The
object is to show how, by the all-compassing pressure of naval power,
they were successively destroyed. It would be folly to deny that there
was something defective in the disposition of the British naval forces
at the beginning. Admiral von Spee was at large, with two powerful
armoured cruisers, but Sir Christopher Craddock was left in inferior
force off the coast of Chile. The obsolescent battleship _Canopus_,
which had inferior speed, was to join him, but did not reach him in
time. The Australian battle-cruiser _Australia_, which would have been
an extremely valuable aid to Craddock’s squadron, did not pursue the
German squadron across the Pacific.
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher returned to the Admiralty as First
Sea Lord on October 29th, 1914, and at once set about to use the
naval instrument he had been so largely instrumental in creating.
In dead secrecy and with incredible speed a force was prepared
and dispatched. Admiral Sturdee had with him the magnificent
battle-cruisers _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, the armoured cruisers
_Kent_, _Cornwall_, and _Carnarvon_, the light cruisers _Bristol_ and
_Glasgow_, and the armed liner _Macedonia_. The battleship _Canopus_
was already at Port Stanley. Before anyone knew he had left England, he
arrived at the Falkland Islands on December 7th, after having steamed a
distance of 7,000 miles. The German Admiral was known to be approaching
with the object of utilising the islands as a base. He arrived on the
next day, but was taken by complete surprise, though he was conscious
of impending fate, and his squadron ceased to exist.
This was one of the master-strokes of the war, made with lightning
rapidity. Strategy was seen in action, and thenceforward the control
of the ocean was secured. There remained the business of rounding
up the enemy cruisers which were still preying upon shipping on the
routes of commerce. Cruisers of sufficient force were dispatched, with
instructions to remain at certain rendezvous, each forming a base upon
which lighter cruisers could fall back, or to the support of which
they could proceed. The lighter vessels cruised on specified curves or
lines of search, and in this way a network was spread over the oceans
comparable to a spider’s web. Thus in due course every enemy cruiser
and auxiliary was intercepted, or, conscious of the toils which were
spread for her, abandoned her task and sought safety in the internment
of a neutral port. The Grand Fleet in the North Sea was the master of
the situation, and made possible the decisive blow which was struck at
enemy power in the oceans.
Thenceforward the enemy was impotent in every sea. Not a man could
he send afloat to bring aid to his colonies and protectorates. His
distant possessions collapsed like a house built of cards. No means
had he to interrupt the transport of troops which have brought about
the darkening of every German “place in the sun.” “_Deutschland ist
Weltreich geworden_,” it was said. But distant possessions are the
ripe fruit which falls into the lap of the ultimate sea-power, and
the _Weltreich_ exists no more. By means of sea-power it has been
destroyed. The submarine is an effective weapon within its sphere,
but no victory has ever been won by evasion, and no sea-power can be
exercised by stealthy craft which hide beneath the surface of the sea.