10 
LAND & WATER 
July 6, 1916 
A Real Blockade? 
By Arthur Pollen 
jkS things go nowadays, we have not had to wait 
/% long for the first fruits of the Jutland victorj'. 
/ % Four weeks after the battle, the Russians are 
^ Jm-using battleships to attack the German left at 
Riga ; a significant change from the apprehending of so 
many that this summer the German Fleet would assist 
in the great attack ; and Lord Robert Cecil has announced 
the death of the Declaration of London ! At last, then, 
we revert to the position from which we should ha\e 
started, namely, the Law of Prize, as made by the 
courts in previous wars. 
The Morning Post informs us that the Neiv York 
Times, which is possibly the most influential newspaper 
in America, has interpreted this announcement to mean 
that it has been decided by the Allies to abrogate 
all the Orders in Council, and to substitute for them a 
legal blockade. But this does not seem to me to be 
promised by Lord Robert Cecil's statement, which says 
that the successi\e Orders in Council " which have been 
issued adopting, with modifications, the Declaration 
of London " are to be in due course withdrawn. Nothing 
is said as to the Order in Council of March 1915, under 
which the additional measures, not contemplated by the 
Declaration of London, were to be taken against supplies 
reaching Germany through neutral ports. This embargo 
is not yet by any means absolute, and for at least six 
months was hardl}' more than nominal. The interference 
with enemy supphes became real in the course of last 
autumn and seriously effective by the beginning of this 
year. The result is a state of things to-day, the im- 
portance of which it is hardly possible to exaggerate. 
When German newspapers devote column after column — 
and indeed, special supplements — to dealing with the 
privations of the people, the means of remedying them, 
and their results in discontent, disturbances and riots, 
it is obvious that the situation may easily be critical. 
Radicals and Socialists are threatening the Government 
with force and frantic appeals are being made to all 
classes to endure their sufferings with patience. > 
The Frankfurter Zeitung implores its readers to remem- 
ber they are " still a long way from the ordinary sufferings 
of a besieged fortress. ' ' The leading Bavarian paper prints 
an interesting dialogue : " It is no longer a question of 
little privations," says one speaker. " We often lack 
the most necessary things, such as meat, eggs, butter, 
sugar and bread. We fathers are deprived of our sons, 
women of their husbands, and children of their supporters. 
We cannot bear more ; there must be an end to it. 
This war is a crime against mankind." The other tries 
to console him by urging that Germans must hold together. 
" Vast wheat-growing territories have been conquered 
since last summer, and the Balkan granaries are open to 
Germany. The new harvest at any rate will mend things. 
Meanwhile we must endure every privation without 
complaining. We must even hunger if necessary." 
Herr Scheidemann's speech at Waldenburg on the 
22nd of last month has been referred to in the British 
Press before, but only the passage in which, as the spokes- 
man of the Chancellor, he renounces any German desire 
for territorial acquisitions. But one statement of his 
seems to me even more significant. " In no circum- 
stances," he said, " may the German people allow them- 
selves to collapse during the next few weeks, which alone 
separate us from the end of this terrible war — so we hope." 
Scheidemann is a leader of the subservient Socialist 
majority. He was known to be speaking with Govern- 
ment authority. What significance are we to attach to "the 
next few weeks which alone separate Germany from the 
end of this terrible war ? " 
It seems only too clear that the effects of a bare six 
months of severe, though not rigid, blockade have brought 
the people to a point at which their endurance and loyalty 
to their masters have been strained to the utmost. What 
would be the situation had a real and complete blockade 
been proclaimed on the first day of the war, before any 
neutral interests had become vested, when all neutral 
sympathy was on the side of the Allies, when the Belgian 
atrocities had sent a shock through every civihsed 
country ? \\'hat has the omission of the most effective, 
and most obvious, use of our command of the sea cost 
the Allies ? There is certainly no excuse for not pushing 
the siege of Germany to its utmost limits now. Already 
the little flutter of hope that the proclamation of a naval 
victory created has gone. And the densest of Germans 
is beginning to realise that the food dictator of the Empire 
is not Herr Batocki, but Sir John Jellicoe. 
THE I^JELSON TOUCH 
Last week we discussed what in fact had been Nelson's 
habit in the matter of taking risks, and concluded that 
as he was never known to have missed an opportunity 
of fighting, it was probably right to say that in hardly 
any circumstances would risk arising out of the disparity 
of force have deterred him from fighting. 
This determination to fight seemed to be explained 
largely by his bold disregard of conventional rules 
— a thing that arose out of a singular insight into 
the nature of naval war, and perhaps a still more 
singular mastery of the instruments at his disposal. 
And we also saw that these instruments were of a rare 
merit, because bringing them to perfection — perfection, 
that is, as compared with the standard that the enemy 
could reach — was more a matter of seamanship, skill and 
discipline than of any special originality or excellence of 
design in the ships, guns, etc., supplied by the Admiralty. 
In a peculiar way then, Nelson and the ofiicers of his 
time created the Navy which Nelson himself knew how 
to put to such stupendous use. 
But a further remark must be added. Good gunnery 
in Nelson's day had nothing in common with that element 
in good gunnery which for a few years so interested the 
British public a decade ago. The improved marksman- 
ship of the naval gunlaycr was then followed as keenly 
as the form of Ranjitsinhji, Grace or Hobbs. The annual 
returns of the Gunlayers' Test supplied averages in their 
way as exciting as football, cricket and racing news. 
But in Nelson's time there was no marksmanship. Good 
gunnery meant rapid loading and a perfectly drilled 
crew and discipline that was proof against the nerve strain 
of battle. Given these qualities, the Hearer a ship was 
brought to the enemy the more their advantage showed 
over an ill-trained enemy. To use weapons to the best 
effect is, of course, the aim of all tactics. The Nclsonian 
object then, was always the closest possible contact with 
the enemy and the greatest possible concentration when 
attack was made. Contact and concentration could only 
be brought about by the right handling of the ship. 
Tactics and Gunnery 
It is at this point you get an extraordinary contrast 
between the i8th century and 20th century conditions. 
To handle a three-masted ship in such a way as to bring 
it, in company with others, to a definite position relative 
to the enemy, demanded a form and y degree of skill that 
was exceedingly difiicuit to attain, and in point of fact 
could not exist except amongst ofhcprs and men arduously 
and constantly practised in a multiplicity of activities. 
To employ a fleet in accordance with any tactical con- 
ception whatever then, was a function of seamanship, 
and so wholly did all naval fighting turn upon this quality 
that St. Vincent, speaking after all the great battles had 
been fought, almost denied that any credit should be 
given to the commanders for their tactics, and attributed 
the results entirely to the " superior seamanship " of the 
British over their enemies. It is extremely significant 
that, while he dismisses the refinements of tactics as 
" frippery and gimcrack," he does not pay gunnery even 
the compliment of a mention ! The reason, of course, 
is that seamanship was recognised as an art, which it waS; 
whereas gunnery, perhaps rightly, was looked upon 
/ 
