12 
Land & Water 
August 8, 191 8 
of executive command. But to a service not bred to seeing 
iill questions of policy first investigated, analysed, and, finally, 
defined by a staff which necessarily will consist more of 
younger than of older men, the suggestion that the higher ranks 
should accept the guiding co operation of their juniors seemed 
altogether anarchical. The long resistance to the estabhsh- 
nient of a Higher fommand based on rational principles may 
be set down to these two elements of human psychology. 
That successive Governments failed to break this conserva- 
tism down must, 1 think, be explained by their fear of the 
hold which men of great professional reputation had upon 
the public mind and public affections. It was notable, for 
example, that when our original troubles came to us at the 
first crisis, the (iovernment, instead of seeking the help of 
the youngest and most accomplished of our admirals and 
captains, chose as chief advisers the oldest and least in 
touch with our modern conditions. It was, perhaps, the sarue 
fear of public opinion that delayed the completion of the 1917 
reforms until the beginning of the next year. But, with all 
its defects and its limitations, the solution sought of the fourth 
sea crisis has made the history of the past twelve months the 
most hopeful of any since the war began. 
The New Era 
The- period divides itself into two unequal portions. 
Between June and January, 1917, was seen the_ slowly grow- 
ing mastery of the submarine. The rate of loss was halved 
and the methods by which this result \vas achieved were 
applied as' widely as possible. But in the next six or eight 
months no improvement in the position corresponding to 
that which obtained in the first period was obtained. The 
explanation is simple enough. The old autocratic regime 
had not understood the nature of the new war any, better 
than the nature of the old. It had from the first, under suc- 
cessive chief naval advisers, repudiated convoy as though 
it were a pestilent heresy. In June, 1917, the very men who, 
as absolutist advisers, had taken this attitude, were compelled 
to sanction the hated thing itself. It yielded exactly the 
results claimed for it, but no more. It was in its nature so 
simple and so obvious that it did not take long to get it into 
working order. It was the best form of defence. But defence 
is the weakest form of war. The stronger form, the offensive^ 
needed planning and long preparations. In the nature of 
tilings these could not take effect either in six months or ia 
twelve. Nor is it likely that, while the old personnel was 
suffered to remain at Whitehall, those engaged on the plans 
and charged with the preparations for this were able to work 
with the expedition which the situation called for. For the 
first 31X months after the revolution, then, little occurred to 
prove Its efficiency, except the fruits of the policy which 
instructed opinion had forced on Whitehall. But these, so 
far as the final issue of the war was concerned, were surely 
sufficient. For the losses by submarines were brought 
below the danger point. 
It was nof; until the revolution made its next step forward 
by the changes in personnel announced in January that 
marked progress was shown in the other fields of naval war 
I he late autumn had been marked, as it was fully expected 
once the submarine was thwarted, by various efforts on the 
part of the enemy to assert himself by other means at "sea 
A Lerwick convoy, very inadequately protected, was raided 
by fast and powerful enemy cruisers, and many ships sunk 
in circumstances of extraordinary barbarity. The destroyers 
protecting them sacrificed themselves with fruitless gallantry 
rhere were ravages on the coast as well. Both things pointed 
to salient weaknesses in the naval position. At the time of 
ont tSf"h^ '"f f* ^^^ ^""^ °^ ^916, it had been pointed 
out that the repeated evidences of our inability to hold the 
enemy m the Narrow Seas ought not to be allowed to pass 
micensored or unremedied. But the fatal habit of refusing 
Jefor^T"' *^^t ''^" «'d f^^»"nte had failed prevented any 
reform for a year. It was not until Sir Roger Keyes was 
c'r'eTd thi? !■ nover Command and a new ftmospLre^S 
created that remarkable departures in new policy were in- 
augurated This policy took two forms. l4t 'th^re was 
acros's the n'"'"\ °' 1 '^'"t ""'"^^ ^-- coast to coas 
across the Channel, and simultaneously with this North Sea 
"most to the t';r-^i T 'r" ^^^"'■-^S'- territorial watei^ 
almost to the Scottish foreshore and another in the Kattegat 
to intercept such German U-bpats as base their activlS 
Sa scaJeTfv ^'''" 'r'i ."r"" g^^^t minefields on 
uoon th.^ K " ^'^ "^"'^^ °^ t'""*^- ^^'^ can their effect 
Xv It '"^'"^""'^ campaign be expected to be seen unti 
they are very near completion; but then the effect mav 
possibly be immediate and overwhelming ^ 
the SrS 'a [^"^'T the creation and maintenance of 
me Darrages, a second new departure in policy was the 
organisation of attacks on the German bases in Flanders. 
Of these Zeebriigge was infinitely the most inportant, because 
it is from here that the deep water canal runs to the docks 
and wharves of Bruges some miles inland. The value of 
Zeebriigge, robbed of the facilities for equipment and repara- 
tion which the Bruges docks afford, is little indeed. It is 
little more than an anchorage and a refuge. To close 
Zeebriigge to the enemy called for an operation as daring ^ 
and as intricate as was ever attempted. Success depended 
ui>on so many factors, of which the right Weather was the 
least certain, that it was no wonder that the expedition 
started again and again witfiout attempting the blow it set 
out to strike. Its final complete success at Zeebriigge was 
a veritable triumph of perfect planning and organisation 
and command. It came at a critical moment in the cam- 
paign. A month before the enemy, by his great attack at 
St. Ouentin, had achieved by far the greatest land victory of 
the war. He had followed' this up by further attacks, and 
seemed to add to endless resources in men a ruthless deter- 
mination to employ them for victory. The British and 
French were driven to the defensive.' Not to be beaten, 
not to yield too much ground, to exact the highest price for 
what was yielded, this was not a very glorious role when the 
triumphs on the Somme and in Flanders of 1916 and 1917 
were remembered. It cannqt be questioned that the original- 
ity, the audacity, and the success of Vice-Admiral Keyes' 
attacks on Zeebriigge and Ostend, gave to all the Allies just 
that encouragement which a dashing initiative alone can give. 
It broke the monotony of being always passive. 
But the new minefields, the barrages, the sealing of 
Zeebriigge, these were far from being the only fruits of the 
changes at Whitehall. A sortie by Breslau and Goeben from 
the Dardanelles, which ended in "the sinking of a couple of 
German monitors and the loss of a light German cruiser 
on a minefield, directed attention sharply to the situation 
in the Middle Sea. There was a manifest peril that the Rus- 
sian Fleet might fall into German hands and make a junction 
with the Austrian Fleet at Pola. Further, the losses of the 
Alhes by submarines in this sea had for long been undul\- 
heavy. A visit of the First Lord to the Mediterranean did 
much to put these- things right. First steps were taken in 
reorganising the command and, before the changes had ad- 
vanced very far, an astounding exploit by two officers of the 
Italian Navy resulted in the' destruction of two Austrian 
dreadnoughts, and relieved 'the Allies of any grave danger 
in this quarter. 
Meantime it had become known that a powerful American 
squadron had joined the Grand Fleet, that our gallant and 
accomplished Allies had ddopted British signals and British 
ways, and had become in every respect perfectly amalgamated 
with the force they had so greatly strengthened. And though 
little was said about it in the Press, it was evident enough 
that the moral of the Lerwick convoy had been learned, nor 
was there the least doubt that the Grand Fleet, under the 
command of Sir David Beatty, had become an 'instrument 
of war infinitely more flexible and efficient than it had ever 
been. His plans and battle orders took every contingency 
into council so far aS human foresight made" possible. A't 
Jutland, at tlje Dogger Bank, and in the Heligoland Bight, 
Admiral Beatty had shown his power to" animate a fleet b}' 
his own fighting spirit and to combine a unity of action with 
the independent initiative bf his admirals, simply because he 
had inspired all of them with a common doctrine of fighting 
Under such auspices there could be little doilbt that our 
mam forces in northern waters were ready for battle with a 
completeness and an elasticity that left nothing to chance 
But if we are to look for the chief fruit of last year's revolu- 
tion, we, shall not find it in the reorganised Grand Fleet, nor 
in the new initiative and aggression in the Narrow Seas', for 
the ultimate results of which we still have to wait If the 
enemy despairs both of victory on land or of such success as 
will give him a compromise peace, if he is faced by disintegra- 
tion at home and, driven to a desperate stroke, sends out 
his Meet to fight, we shall then see, but perhaps not till then 
what the changes of last year have brought about in our 
hghting forces. Meantime, the success of the great reforms 
cari be measured quite definitely. In the months of May 
and June over half a million American soldiers were landed 
in 1« ranee, sixty per cent of whom were carried in British 
ships. No one in his senses in Mdy or June last year would 
have thought this possible. " 
Looked at largely, then, last year's revolution at White- 
hall is in all ways the most astonishing and the most satis- 
factory naval event of the last four years. P is the 
most satisfactory event, because its results have been so 
nearly what was foretold and because it only needs for 
the work to be completed for all the lessons of the war to be 
rightly applied. 
