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010 - British Navy Officers and men of the navy What the British navy is and what it fights for · Military Strategies Mountain and Naval Warfare

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Speaker 1: Part ten of two essays on military history, strategy and
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Speaker 1: Tactics Mountain Warfare nineteen o nine and Naval Strategy nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventeen by various This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Part ten British Navy, Chapter nine, Officers and Men of
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Speaker 1: the Navy, Sailor, what of the debt we owe you?
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Speaker 1: Day or night? Is the peril? More? Who so dull
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Speaker 1: that he fails to know you? Sleepless guard of our
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Speaker 1: island shore, safe the corn to the farm yard, taken
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Speaker 1: grain ships, safe upon all the seas homes in peace,
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Speaker 1: and a faith unshaken Sailor what do we owe for these?
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Speaker 1: The late Viscount Stuart. No picture of the war work
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Speaker 1: of the British Navy could be complete without some account
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Speaker 1: of its officers and men. From what has already been said,
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Speaker 1: the nature of the qualities demanded of them will have
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Speaker 1: been realized. In the general direction of the Navy by
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Speaker 1: the Admiralty. There have been required calm reflection, profound insight,
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Speaker 1: strategic imagination, sound and swift judgment as to the full
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Speaker 1: use and the yet ill understood limitations of sea power,
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Speaker 1: an abundant spring of action, and the unflinching resolution to
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Speaker 1: give effect to the utmost to the striking and controlling
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Speaker 1: force of the naval arm. In the commander in chief
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Speaker 1: of the Grand Fleet, there was needed the high ability
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Speaker 1: to administer and exercise the command, to inspire officers and
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Speaker 1: men of every rank and raiding in the fleet with zeal,
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Speaker 1: efficiency and devotion, as well as sleepless vigilance in the
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Speaker 1: long waiting for the enemy, an instant readiness for action
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Speaker 1: at all time. The Commander in Chief does not work alone.
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Speaker 1: He has a staff who collaborate in these duties and
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Speaker 1: give effect to his plans, and Admiral's secondary in command,
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Speaker 1: who have no light task in directing the work and
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Speaker 1: operation of the larger elements of the fleet. Sir John Jellicoe,
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Speaker 1: who was appointed to the Grand Fleet at the beginning
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Speaker 1: of the war, was a master of the high attainments
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Speaker 1: required for his office, and it was he who created
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Speaker 1: the base of his operations, organized all the agencies of
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Speaker 1: his command, and exercised that command with consummate ability. The
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Speaker 1: instrument he had shaped and handled so capably fell to
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Speaker 1: the charge of Sir David Batey, a most gallant officer
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Speaker 1: eminently fitted to use it, whose temperament is the very
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Speaker 1: spirit of action, and yet who forms his plans in
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Speaker 1: the mold of cool reflection. Happily, for the British Navy,
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Speaker 1: the fire of action is mingled in its officers with
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Speaker 1: the ice of thought. They know when to strike, and
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Speaker 1: when they strike, they strike hard. Great responsibilities have rested
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Speaker 1: on the captal of His Majesty's ships. They showed in
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Speaker 1: the Jutland Battle, in which they were tried by the
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Speaker 1: searching test of decisive action, that they possessed the ability
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Speaker 1: to inspire and discipline their men, and to put forth
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Speaker 1: the maximum of the fighting power of the ships. Officers
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Speaker 1: in detached command, away from the fleet have rendered very
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Speaker 1: great services. The junior officers are beyond praise by universal testimony.
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Speaker 1: Their devotion, courage, and ever ready professional skill in every
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Speaker 1: test of emergency and endurance have never been excelled. The
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Speaker 1: officers of the destroyers are men above price. The commanders
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Speaker 1: of submarines, who have even carried their enterprise into the
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Speaker 1: Baltic and risked the perils of mine and gun in
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Speaker 1: the narrow waters of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, are
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Speaker 1: officers who have won new laurels for the fleet. The
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Speaker 1: men of the lower deck, wherever they serve, give daily
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Speaker 1: proof of the bravery, hardihood, cheerfulness and long endurance which
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Speaker 1: have always been the qualities of British seamen. Let Sir
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Speaker 1: John Jellicoe speak of them as he knew them. Nothing
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Speaker 1: can ever have been finer than the coolness and courage
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Speaker 1: shown in every case where ships have been sunk by
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Speaker 1: mines or torpedoes. Discipline has been perfect, and men have
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Speaker 1: gone to their deaths not only most gallantly, but most unselfishly.
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Speaker 1: One heard on all sides of numerous instances of men
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Speaker 1: giving up on these occasions the plank which had supported
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Speaker 1: them to some more feeble comrade, and I feel prouder
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Speaker 1: every day that passes that I command such men during
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Speaker 1: the period of waiting and watching. They are cheerful and
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Speaker 1: contented in spite of the gray, dullness of their lives.
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Speaker 1: It would not be difficult to single out instances from
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Speaker 1: the records of the War of constructive power in thought
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Speaker 1: and sol sound and swift judgment in action, as well
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Speaker 1: as of the splendid courage, enterprise, dash and resolution. Call
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Speaker 1: it what you will. In the crisis of battle, and
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Speaker 1: in moments of stress, exhibited in a manner rarely exampled
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Speaker 1: in naval warfare. The British Fleet has been rich in
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Speaker 1: the mental endowments of its officers, showing them to possess
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Speaker 1: grasp and insight and moral force to dominate hesitation and
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Speaker 1: sustain action in the tremendous emergencies of battle, and when
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Speaker 1: confronted with the most formidable responsibilities. Excitement has never carried
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Speaker 1: them away. Judgment has worked through all their endeavors, as
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Speaker 1: in the long watches and waiting it has sustained them.
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Speaker 1: Eulogy is not required. Nothing that has been said exceeds
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Speaker 1: the merits of officers and men. It is right that
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Speaker 1: these things should be understood. The man is more than
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Speaker 1: the machine, and the finest fleet and most compleet material
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Speaker 1: equipment are dead and inert without the living power of
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Speaker 1: the officers who command and the men who man the
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Speaker 1: ships and vessels of every class. It is they who
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Speaker 1: have done and are doing the work of the Navy
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Speaker 1: in the war. They and not their ships, have given
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Speaker 1: security to the British isles, have kept the seas and
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Speaker 1: oceans open for the Allies, have safeguarded every interest afloat,
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Speaker 1: and have worked, and are working day and night to
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Speaker 1: defeat the purposes of the enemy. We now turn to
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Speaker 1: a consideration which is of paramount importance for a right
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Speaker 1: understanding of the Navy's work in the war. England is
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Speaker 1: the support of all her continental allies. If she should
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Speaker 1: suffer or lose her power of supplying them with armies
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Speaker 1: and arms, or should weaken in her offensive, the allies
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Speaker 1: would collapse. This is a fact of primary importance. The
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Speaker 1: Germans realize it fully. They hesitated nothing in their efforts
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Speaker 1: to strike at England. They publicly declared that they would
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Speaker 1: reduce her by famine. They struck at her mercantile marine,
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Speaker 1: not merely at ships which were armed and engaged in
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Speaker 1: the naval service in such large numbers, but at the
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Speaker 1: ordinary cargo vessels, including neutral vessels carrying British supplies and
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Speaker 1: a fishermen pursuing their regular avocations, who under the Hague Conventions,
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Speaker 1: were with their boats, tackle, rigging gear and cargoes to
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Speaker 1: be exempt from capture and still more from destruction of
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Speaker 1: the officers and men of these services. We must speak also,
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Speaker 1: it became necessary, in the conditions which had arisen, to
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Speaker 1: bring the whole mercantile marine under naval direction and orders,
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Speaker 1: and practically it is embodied with the Navy, and provided
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Speaker 1: for the most part with armaments for defense, and closely
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Speaker 1: in touch with a great protective organization. When mister bout
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Speaker 1: four was First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking in the
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Speaker 1: House of Commons on March seventh, nineteen sixteen, he directed
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Speaker 1: special attention to this aspect of naval work, not merely
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Speaker 1: to the service of ships flying the White ensign, but
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Speaker 1: to that of transports, and of merchant and cargo vessels
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Speaker 1: and their officers and men conveying imports and exports, and
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Speaker 1: the supplies required by the Allied armies. On them. He said,
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Speaker 1: we depend not less than on our armed forces for
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Speaker 1: maintaining the necessary economic basis upon which all war must
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Speaker 1: ultimately be waged. There were, as he said, thousands of
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Speaker 1: officers and men whose ships had been sunk under them
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Speaker 1: by mine and submarine, and yet who had cheerfully signed
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Speaker 1: on again and were not to be driven from their
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Speaker 1: ancient heritage of the sea. England depends upon her mercantile
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Speaker 1: marine or her national existence to a great extent. Her
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Speaker 1: food and raw materials are in its charge, and it
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Speaker 1: also brings without ceasing hundreds of thousands of tons of
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Speaker 1: munitions of many kinds required by the Allies. When therefore,
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Speaker 1: we estimate the work of the Navy in the war,
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Speaker 1: we must give to the merchant branch of the Sea
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Speaker 1: Service the position it deserves as an absolute and primary
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Speaker 1: necessity to England and her allies. The nobility of the
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Speaker 1: work carried on by the officers and men of the
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Speaker 1: Merchant Service and the fishermen, whether in armed ships, mine
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Speaker 1: trawlers or cargo vessels, is a dominant note of the war.
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Speaker 1: Their heroism has been conspicuous, and, as was stated by
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Speaker 1: Admiral Sir Henry Jackson when he was First Sea Lord
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Speaker 1: of the Admiralty, the facility with which they learned to
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Speaker 1: carry out their duties as part of a trained fighting
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Speaker 1: force was extraordinary. The Allied nations, he said, owe them
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Speaker 1: a deep debt of gratitude for their response, as well
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Speaker 1: as for their indomitable pluck and endurance. There is no
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Speaker 1: room in the Navy for anything but the most sincere
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Speaker 1: admiration and respect for the officers and men of the
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Speaker 1: Mercantile Marine, said Sir John Jellicoe. They had practically become
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Speaker 1: a part of the fighting force, sharing in the work
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Speaker 1: of the Navy in the war, and their courageous conduct
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Speaker 1: and unflinching devotion to duty have gained the testimony of
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Speaker 1: naval officers everywhere, not only in the British service, but
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Speaker 1: in the Allied navies which have come into contact with them.
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Speaker 1: Of the magnificent service of the mind drawlers we have
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Speaker 1: spoken in a previous chapter. Let this chapter conclude with
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Speaker 1: an appeal to England and her allies to remember the
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Speaker 1: great and enduring services of British seamen. They do not
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Speaker 1: often speak of one another, sometimes as by a flash,
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Speaker 1: as when Sir John Jellicoe wrote of his men, the
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Speaker 1: truth is revealed. It was that taciturn old officer, Sir
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Speaker 1: John Jervis, who said of Troubridge that he had honor
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Speaker 1: and courage as bright as his sword. The torch is
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Speaker 1: handed on from one officer to another. There are many
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Speaker 1: qualities among them. The fire of Drake meets the resolute
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Speaker 1: gravity of Blake. The long reflection of Kempenfeldt is the
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Speaker 1: foil to the fierce glow of Nelson. The tradition is continuous.
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Speaker 1: Sir John Jellicoe could find no words to do justice
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Speaker 1: to his officers and men. In the day and night
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Speaker 1: actions of the Jutland Battle. The glorious traditions of the
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Speaker 1: past were worthily upheld. Sir David Batey showed his fine
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Speaker 1: qualities of gallant leadership, high determination, and correct strategic in sight.
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Speaker 1: Great qualities were manifested by every rank and raiding down
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Speaker 1: in the engine rooms, seeing nothing of the battle, men
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Speaker 1: were working like titans, and some ships reached speeds which
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Speaker 1: they had never before attained. This was great service for
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Speaker 1: England and her allies. There is sometimes a tendency to forget,
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Speaker 1: to lose proportion, also in censoring seamen for not doing
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Speaker 1: what the power of the sea alone can never achieve.
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Speaker 1: Howe was burned in effigy in London, almost at the
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Speaker 1: very time when he was fighting his glorious Battle of
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Speaker 1: Quiberon Bay, braving the perils of rocks which were charted
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Speaker 1: and known, and not be it noted of submarines and
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Speaker 1: mines which are invisible and unknown. As the sarcastic songster wrote,
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Speaker 1: at the time when Hawk did bang, monsieur Conflans, you
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Speaker 1: sent us beef and beer. Now Monsieur viet to weave,
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Speaker 1: not to eat, since you have not to fear, and
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Speaker 1: so Nelson spoke, I will only apply, he said some
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Speaker 1: very old lines wrote at the end of some former war.
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Speaker 1: Our God and sailor we adore in times of danger,
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Speaker 1: not before the danger passed. Both are alike requited. God
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Speaker 1: is forgotten and the sailor slighted. Now the object of
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Speaker 1: this book is to show what are the services of
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Speaker 1: the British Navy to England and to the allies. Its
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Speaker 1: influence has been visible throughout the world, working everywhere with
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Speaker 1: unexampled success. It operates solely because of the qualities and
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Speaker 1: sacrifices of its officers and men. To them a high
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Speaker 1: tribute must be paid. Chapter ten. What the British Navy
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Speaker 1: is and what it fights for? Where shall the watchful
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Speaker 1: son England, my England match the master work you've done,
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Speaker 1: England my own? When shall he rejoice again such a
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Speaker 1: breed of mighty men as come forward one to ten
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Speaker 1: to the song on your bugles blown, England, Down the
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Speaker 1: years on your bugles blown. W. E. Henley. Antagonism between
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Speaker 1: England and Germany became the central fact in the international
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Speaker 1: situation many years before the war, there seemed to be
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Speaker 1: a fundamental antithesis between the ideals of the two peoples.
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Speaker 1: The freedom of the Englishman, guaranteed to him by sea power,
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Speaker 1: appeared effeminate and undisciplined weakness to the German. The freedom
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Speaker 1: of the German, guaranteed to him only by the military
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Speaker 1: strength of his autocratic state, was regarded as feudal dependence.
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Speaker 1: By the Englishman. Not to bring about a conflict, but
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Speaker 1: to avert one, or, if the worst came to the worst,
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Speaker 1: to engage in one with success was the motive of
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Speaker 1: British policy. There was no visible ground for German aggression,
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Speaker 1: but deep seated a antagonism was the element of danger
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Speaker 1: which successive premiers and foreign ministers had had to take
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Speaker 1: account of in appraising their country's future. And with the
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Speaker 1: guidance of their colleague at the Admiralty, who base his
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Speaker 1: judgment on that of his naval advisers, they had obtained
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Speaker 1: the means to build up the fleet which was to
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Speaker 1: be the country's and empire's defense. Armageddon was foreseen. Though
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Speaker 1: there was hope against hope that in the Great Crisis,
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Speaker 1: the dire struggle might be averted. It was known that
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Speaker 1: Belgium and France would have need of England if the
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Speaker 1: dogs of war were let slip. Many soldiers and writers
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Speaker 1: had pointed out that Belgium would become the inevitable pathway
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Speaker 1: of aggression. German writers had declared it an injury that
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Speaker 1: the Congress of Vienna had not established Germany on the
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Speaker 1: North Sea, and Arndt had expressed the ardent desire of
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Speaker 1: the German heart to reconquer the great western rivers, implying
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Speaker 1: the domination of the seas. There were dangers in these
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Speaker 1: lesser countries, they were full of possibilities. Qui trou mbrosa
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Speaker 1: mau etrante Belgium would cry aloud for English help. As
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Speaker 1: to Italy, it was difficult to believe that she could
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Speaker 1: hold to her compact with the central powers. Russia, it
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Speaker 1: was known, would be against them. Thus, in all her
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Speaker 1: naval efforts, long before the war, England, while guarding her
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Speaker 1: own interests, was working and building up her naval strength,
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Speaker 1: in conscious knowledge of the duty she might one day
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Speaker 1: have to her friends, who might now become her allies.
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Speaker 1: This is a very important point, and it leads to
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Speaker 1: a brief survey of great sacrifices and unstinted efforts which
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Speaker 1: Englishmen have made in the past. The fleet that went
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Speaker 1: into the war was the most powerful, best organized, and
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Speaker 1: best equals whipped in every essential particular in the world.
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Speaker 1: Yet for a very long anterior period Englishmen had remained
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Speaker 1: unconscious of what they owed to the fleet. They had
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Speaker 1: fought brilliant campaigns in China, Afghanistan, India, Burma, the Crimea,
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Speaker 1: Abyssinia and elsewhere in which the navy was a most
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Speaker 1: essential factor, though it had scarcely appeared in the public eye.
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Speaker 1: It was therefore from a low ebb that the British
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Speaker 1: Navy rose to the high water mark of the war.
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Speaker 1: It was not until about the year eighteen eighty two
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Speaker 1: that the tide began to turn, driven forward by the
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Speaker 1: lively breeze of a very useful agitation in which the
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Speaker 1: late mister W. T. Snead took a prominent part, and
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Speaker 1: which is believed to have been inspired by the present
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Speaker 1: Lord Fisher and the late mister Arnold Forster. A great
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Speaker 1: shipbuilding scheme was put in hand in eighteen eighty nine.
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Speaker 1: Ever since that time, under far seeing First Lords and
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Speaker 1: first Sea Lords of the Admiralty, the task of asserting
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Speaker 1: British naval supremacy has gone forward. Expenditure on the navy
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Speaker 1: mounted from thirty one million pounds in nineteen oh one
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Speaker 1: to fifty one million, five hundred thousand pounds in nineteen fourteen,
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Speaker 1: which latter was thought a monstrous figure, but it was
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Speaker 1: not a penny too much for the great interests which
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Speaker 1: had to be safeguarded. Battleships of increased power, cruisers of
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Speaker 1: many classes, destroyers, submarines and auxiliaries were built. Lord Fisher
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Speaker 1: came to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord in nineteen
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Speaker 1: oh four, and during the subsequent six years an enormous
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Speaker 1: work was carried on the battleships, culminated in the dreadnoughts,
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Speaker 1: that class of ships with a main armament of all
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Speaker 1: big guns. The cruisers in the battle cruisers destroyers grew
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Speaker 1: more numerous and of much greater power. Submarines were developed
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Speaker 1: in range and sea keeping qualities. None of these types
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Speaker 1: have stood still. The dreadnought developed into the super Dreadnought,
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Speaker 1: and the latter has developed into the ships of powers
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Speaker 1: before undreamed, of which no one has yet described. The
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Speaker 1: submarine has been changed out of recognition, and no one
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Speaker 1: suspects what these British vessel scan and will do when
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Speaker 1: the day really comes. All these mechanical developments of the fleet,
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Speaker 1: which are so essential at the present time, grew out
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Speaker 1: of the impetus given in and after the year nineteen
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Speaker 1: o four. But that was not the only thing which
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Speaker 1: placed the country in such a position of advantage. At
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Speaker 1: the beginning of the war, the battle fleet and cruiser
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Speaker 1: squadrons had been reorganized to coincide with the needs of
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Speaker 1: the Empire. Owing to the shifting of the stress of
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Speaker 1: naval power from the Atlantic and the Channel to the
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Speaker 1: North Sea. Some squadron in distant waters were reduced in
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Speaker 1: strength to correspond with the requirements, and non fighting ships
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Speaker 1: vessels too weak to fight and too slow to run
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Speaker 1: away were brought home from distant seas and their officers
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Speaker 1: and men were made available for modern ships. A system
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Speaker 1: of nucleus crews was adopted for the reserve ships to
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Speaker 1: facilitate mobilization and to make sure that the ships would
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Speaker 1: be really fit for sea. Before that time, the whole
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Speaker 1: fleet had been pivoted on the Mediterranean, and a British
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Speaker 1: warship was rarely seen in the North Sea. By progressive steps.
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Speaker 1: The naval front was changed from the south to the east.
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Speaker 1: On the east coasts of the United Kingdom, destroyer and
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Speaker 1: submarine flotillas were based on ports prepared for them. A
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Speaker 1: great dockyard was erected at Roysseth, and all along the
20:54
Speaker 1: coast naval bases were developed, and every preparation was made
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Speaker 1: for the possibility of war. These were developments of great significance,
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Speaker 1: and the immense and growing strength of the British fleet
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Speaker 1: justified the French in concentrating their battle squadrons in the
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Speaker 1: Mediterranean and leaving at breast and in the Channel only
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Speaker 1: a division of cruisers supported by flotillas. Fleets of warships
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Speaker 1: are meant to fight when the need for fighting comes,
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Speaker 1: but there was no affront to Germany, no cause for
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Speaker 1: resentment or agitation in the concentration of the main strength
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Speaker 1: of the British fleet in such places and with such
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Speaker 1: bases that they could carry their power into the North Sea.
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Speaker 1: Force attracts force in strategy as in physics, and the
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Speaker 1: growth of the German high sea fleet at Willimshoven with
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Speaker 1: the Great Sea Canal thence to Keel on the Baltic
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Speaker 1: inevitably brought about the British concentration. How magnificently advantageous was
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Speaker 1: the positions cured has already been shown in an earlier chapter.
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Speaker 1: It has also been explained that by the strategic position
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Speaker 1: occupied by the Grand Fleet and the grip held on
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Speaker 1: the entrance to the channel at Dover, the North Sea
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Speaker 1: became strategically a closed sea, a marum klausum. This fact,
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Speaker 1: which is a fact of geography as well as of
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Speaker 1: strategic concentration, has made the enemy restive and resentful. We
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Speaker 1: are described as the tyrants of the seas, and the
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Speaker 1: freedom of the seas became a catchword of the Germans.
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Speaker 1: Every ruler who has felt the hard pressure of British
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Speaker 1: sea power, whether his name was Lewis or Napoleon or
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Speaker 1: villam has perhaps inevitably taken this line in denouncing US
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Speaker 1: to Neutrals and endeavoring to array Neutrals against us. In
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Speaker 1: an earlier stage of the present war, this was the
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Speaker 1: consistent plea of German statesmen. But when they instructed their
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Speaker 1: sea officers to Saint Lusitania and many other ships, and
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Speaker 1: when they threatened with disaster neutral ships which approached the
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Speaker 1: British isles, they became themselves the tyrants of the sea
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Speaker 1: in a very real sense, and they thus arrayed the
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Speaker 1: United States and other states against themselves, and brought a
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Speaker 1: new armada to strengthen the already superior British fleet. The
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Speaker 1: war is a fight for freedom. The British Navy is
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Speaker 1: fighting and glad to have the Allied navies fighting in
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Speaker 1: co ordination with it, for the liberation of oppressed nations
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Speaker 1: and countries from military domination. Command of the sea implies
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Speaker 1: no restriction of navigation. It exists only in war time.
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Speaker 1: In time of peace, the British Navy guaranteed the freedom
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Speaker 1: of the seas and will guarantee it again when the
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Speaker 1: war is at an end. We cannot do better than
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Speaker 1: quote on this question what the distinguished American writer Admromaeon said.
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Speaker 1: Why do British innate political conceptions of popular representative government,
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Speaker 1: of the balance of law and liberty prevail in North
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Speaker 1: America from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico,
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Speaker 1: from the Atlantic to the Pacific, because the command of
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Speaker 1: the Sea at the decisive era belonged to Great Britain.
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Speaker 1: In India and Egypt, administrative efficiency has taken the place
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Speaker 1: of a welter of tyranny, feudal struggle and bloodshed, achieving
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Speaker 1: thereby the comparative welfare of the once harried populations. What
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Speaker 1: underlies this administrative efficiency the British Navy assuring in the
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Speaker 1: first place British control and therefore communication with the home country,
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Speaker 1: whence comes the local power without which administration everywhere is futile. What,
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Speaker 1: at the moment when the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed ensured
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Speaker 1: beyond peradventure the immunity from foreign oppression of the Spanish
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Speaker 1: American colonies in their struggle for independence, the command of
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Speaker 1: the sea by Great Britain, backed by the feeble Navy,
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Speaker 1: but imposing strategic position of the United States with per
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Speaker 1: swarm of potential commerce destroyers, which a decade before had
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Speaker 1: harassed the trade even of the Mistress of the seas.
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Speaker 1: In concluding, therefore, we see how the British Navy, having
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Speaker 1: served Great Britain and the British Empire so efficiently and
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Speaker 1: so well in every interest and possession, fighting constantly against
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Speaker 1: every stealthy device of the enemy, has served the allies
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Speaker 1: not less well and worthily. And we discover too that
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Speaker 1: the Navy is ever friendly to nutrients powers, and that
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Speaker 1: the command of the sea, which it exercises in the war,
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Speaker 1: is the panoply of freedom and liberty throughout the world.
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Speaker 1: End of Part ten. End of two essays on military history,
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Speaker 1: strategy and tactics Mountain Warfare nineteen o nine and Naval
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Speaker 1: Strategy nineteen seventeen by various