12 
LAND & WATER 
August 10, 1916 
Naval Events Review^ed 
By Arthur Pollen 
WHEN, two years ago, the Germans set in 
motion the vast and cruel machine that they 
liad for so long, and at such cost, prepared 
for the destruction of European liberties 
and European civiHsation, it was seen by many that the 
issues of the cataclysmic contest then begun must, if 
France and Russia could only survive the opening blows, 
ultimately be decided by sea power. From the first, 
then, the British Fleet became obviously the deciding 
factor. Everything turned on its asserting and main- 
taining the command of the sea. Almost everything 
turned upon the use to which that command was put. 
We are entering now upon the third year of the war, 
and it is natural that we should ask oiirselves certain 
questions. Does the anniversary hud the Alliance 
stronger or weaker on the crucial element ? If our sea 
power is stronger, is it being used to its full effect or, 
at any rate, to a better effect, <than a year ago ? Has the 
year that is passed taught us any new lessons in the art 
of naval war, or thrown new emphasis on those which 
previous experience should have brought home to us ? 
\Miat efforts has the enemy made and with what success 
to deal with the forces that command the sea adversely 
against him ? What measures has he taken to frustrate 
or escape from the sea pressure that that command has 
made possible ? Is there any prospect or even possi- 
bility of his doing more in the future than he has in the 
past ? Can we reasonably hope that such a command 
of the sea as exists to-day, and such use of that command 
as we are making, can be continued until the war has run 
its appointed course ? 
A brief review of the field will, it seems to me, help us 
to some fairly confident answers to these questions. 
Sea Command, Sea Pressure and Sea Service 
Undoubtedly the major of them all is this. How do 
we stand at sea to-day ? Is it better or worse with us 
than it was a year ago ? In only one respect — and that 
not vital — is the Alhed position not so good. 
In every other the situation is overwhelmingly stronger. 
It is not that our command of the sea is actually more 
secure than it was — though in point of fact it is much 
more secure — that really makes the difference. The 
advance this year over last lies principally in the use 
which the Allies are now making of that command. 
It is only within the last six months that it has beeh 
so used— used, that is to say to cut off our enemy 
effectively from oversea supply. So far as our present 
crrangements allow, this cutting off was in a fair way 
to accomplishment bafore the Battle of Jutland was 
fought. Hence if the striking and instructive action 
never had been fought, the actual military position of the 
Allies and the enemy, in so far as one is helped and the 
other is hampered by sea power, should, on the second 
anniversary, have been what in fact they are. The first 
and most obvious fact then, that comes to our notice in 
reviewing the naval events of this second year, is that at 
the end of it we ft last have the enemy subjected to an 
effective siege. 
But the last twelve months have also shown a sea 
service at work in support of the Allied armies to an 
extent to which there was no parallel in the first twelve 
months of the war. As the Itahan campaign grew in 
extent and, week by week, absorbed a larger and larger 
proportion of the able-bodied population, as Italy ate 
into her accumulated stores, so correspondingly her 
requirements could only be met from the sea. The 
demands of France have multiplied many times in the 
last twelve months, and it is, of course, a commonplace 
that, but for arms, munitions and equipment which 
have reached Russia by water, the amazing resurrection 
of our Allies in the East could never have taken place. 
Great Britain's dependence on the sea is, of course, 
absalutely complete. The Germans earl}^ perceived that 
the longer the war lasted, the less they would gain from 
the fact that they were initially better prepared, not 
only with accumulations of weapons and munitions, 
but with what was of far greater moment, the means of 
renewing and increasing their stock and keeping their 
guns supplied. How soon equality would be reached 
depended upon the amount of help the Allies were able 
to get from the manufacturing capacity of America. 
And without an adequate supply of ships the Allies 
could never make the American supplies available on the 
Eastern and Western fronts. The submarine attack on 
trade, in which the Germans have persisted from Feb- 
ruary iQth, 1915, until the present day, has never been, 
directed to the starvation of England at all. Great as are 
England's needs in the way of food, there was never the 
remotest chance of the shipping of the world being brought 
so low that these requirements could not be met. But 
the transport and supply of the armies at Salonika, in 
Egypt, in Africa and in France, and the munitioning and 
coaling of Italy, France and Russia, were a different 
matter altogether. It was a vital matter to strike at 
their service. The submarine campaign has from the 
first been a purely military operation, directed to the 
purely military object of cutting or, at any rate, hamper- 
ing the supply and communications of the Allied armies. 
To achieve this object, neither life, money nor honour 
has been spared. Every possible effort has been made, 
and every effort has failed. The counter-meas'ir( s of 
the Allies, and principally those of the British Admiralty, 
found us at the end of the second year, not only with a 
sea service equal to all military demands, but equal 
to demands far greater than the\' were a year ago. 
It has, of course, from the first been manifest that there 
was only one way by which the enemy could rid himself 
of this double sea threat. It was to engage and destroy 
the fleet whose existence ensured that sea command 
which, in turn, ensured the sea pressure destined to be 
fatal. His effort to avoid the pressure by the submarine 
has failed. And now the only approach to an effort at 
sea, which might have been pushed into an attempt to 
dispute our command, has failed also. I will deal with 
the purely technical aspects of the Battle of Jutland later. 
For the moment, let it suffice to recall the fact that just 
as no sane person ever thought that Germany had the 
remotest chance of being able to defeat our fleet, so when, 
quite unexpectedly for the Germans, the two fleets did 
meet, not only did the enemy decline action, but he owed 
his escape from total destruction to a fortunate hazard of 
the weather. 
It is thus a summary of the position to say that our 
command of the sea, believed to be impregnable before, 
has now been proved to be so ; that at last we are using it 
to cut the enemy off from o\ersea supplies, to his grave and 
critical embarrassment ; and that the sea service, which 
command assures to us, is proving itself every day and 
in every field to be the one element on which the capacity 
of each of the four Allies to fight depends. And this, it 
must be admitted, is a highly gratifying and satisfactory 
state of affairs. 
The Shipping Shortage 
I said above that in only one respect was tlie Allied 
position worse than it was a year ago. 
A large number of British, Allied and neutral ships 
have been sunk by enemy submarines and mines, and 
to this extent, maintenance of the sea service on the 
efficiency of which the initiatory success of the whole 
Alliance depends, has undoubtedly been made more 
difficult. We have less shipping available for any new 
military operations over sea ; the quantity of commodities 
that can reach the civil populations is smaller, and the 
fact that the shipping is less has necessarily raised the 
prices of them all. To this extent, then, our position is 
not so good as it was. But it is important to bear in 
mind that these losses, grave as they are, and serious as 
is the inconvenience which they have imposed, have not. 
