CHAPTER X
THE MORAL EFFECT
The moral effect on the enemy was shown, to a certain degree, almost at once. The fact that they thought it necessary to indulge in falsehood to appease their own countrymen, although they must have realised that the truth would inevitably become known, was clear enough proof that their morale was badly shaken.
Their earliest report stated that the attack had failed and that three British cruisers had been sunk at Zeebrugge. The latter portion of the statement was correct. The ships had, indeed, been sunk—by ourselves. All reference to the destruction of the viaduct was withheld until later. The fact of no prisoners being captured from any of the three British cruisers was never mentioned. As soon as our own reports had been circulated, the German authorities apparently considered it necessary to account for our success by stating that some Belgian fishermen had been arrested for piloting our vessels into position! Imagine, for a moment, the effect on our own public if they heard that the enemy had attacked Dover, stormed the breakwater and remained in possession of it for over an hour, destroyed the railway jetty, and blocked the entrance. Even such a case as that would not be wholly analogous, for the blockships at Zeebrugge had sunk themselves nearly a mile inside the outer entrance. Imagine the outcry and the question, "What is the Navy doing?" It is not difficult to conceive the downfall of highly placed personages and the feeling of insecurity that would pervade the atmosphere in our own country. Not only would the public be shaken by such news, but the loss of morale would be felt in the fighting services, firstly as a result of their own ineptitude, and secondly because of the visions of further enemy operations which would be conjured up.
Some such effect as described above was inevitable amongst both the German civilian element and their fighting services. We know that the operation caused a great scare at Bruges. Many of the German officials there hurriedly collected their effects ready for evacuating the city; it had been reported that the allies were landing an immense force on the coast of Flanders.
It is not generally known that friendship between the German Navy and Army was conspicuous by its absence. They had been at daggers drawn for some years; the Crown Prince himself was in the habit of being openly rude to naval officers of high rank. This antagonism was evidenced recently in a letter written by a certain German general to his brother-in-law, a young officer in our Navy. Apparently the general hated the German Navy to such an extent that his letter remarked that there were two British officers with whom he particularly desired to shake hands—one was the officer in charge of our siege guns on the Flanders coast and the other was the officer commanding the attack on Zeebrugge; his friendly feelings arose from the fact that these two officers had "put it across" that section of the German Navy which had charge of the Flanders coast defences.
The German Information Bureau had never ceased to sing the praises of their Navy; that fact was conducive to increasing the shock received by the enemy when they learned the truth. Many excuses have been invented in Germany to account for the fact that the final breakdown of morale which immediately preceded the ignominious flight of their War Lord emanated from the so-called High Seas Fleet, and that this breakdown coincided with the receipt of orders to try conclusions with our fleet. It can hardly be styled far-fetched if one suggests that the loss of morale was intimately connected with the situation at sea. It is also not outside the bounds of possibility that, in some measure, the events of St. George's Day, 1918, assisted towards the débâcle. A certain highly placed German official at Bruges certainly exaggerated when he averred that "the hopes of the Fatherland were buried at Zeebrugge," but such a statement as that clearly indicates the weakening of confidence.
The other aspect of the effect on morale may be worthy of mention. I refer to the effect on our own public, on our fighting services, and on neutral and Allied countries.
The great German military offensive, which everybody realised indicated the supreme effort on the part of the enemy, was in full swing in the month of April. The Allied troops were stubbornly contesting every inch of ground, but were being steadily pushed back on important sections of the main battle front. The British Fifth Army had suffered appalling losses. The Allies had their backs to the wall. The tension at home was apparent in all walks of life, and the extremely anxious days of 1914 were being repeated. Future generations will never be able to realise the depression and anxiety which pervaded the public mind. Everybody was wondering what the outcome would be, and there were days when one hardly dared to scan the morning paper. That very fact had provided us with an additional reason for wishing to register a success.
There is very little doubt that the success attained had a marked effect on the public; the latter fairly jumped at the opportunity to show enthusiasm. In addition to that, the public palate was tickled by the unusual and apparently spectacular nature of the attack.
This sudden rise of the "moralometer" served a good purpose. The pessimist changed his tune, the optimist earned the qualification "cheery." To those ignorant of naval matters the operation seemed to have bordered on the accomplishment of the impossible. "We always knew," they declared, "that our fighting men were invincible." Their old certainty of ultimate victory was re-born. That was all to the good. Modern war is national war. War is not merely a struggle between fighting forces, but between the opposing "crowds." The destruction of an enemy's Army or Navy is of primary importance as a means to an end, but the ultimate end and aim of each belligerent is to exert influence on the "crowd," to nourish the will to win amongst their own public and to bring about a feeling of hopeless despair, a complete loss of morale, throughout the enemy's country. It is for that important reason that the sentiments of one's own public must ever be borne in mind by the Higher Command.
The receipt of the news on the western front is reported to have been beneficial. Every fighting force must occasionally have its dark days; they are never so dark that news of success on another front will fail to bring a ray of light. Those of us in the fleet itself had often experienced such feelings of elation when our military brothers had brought off a "coup." The Navy and Army, and the Air Force with them, are one at heart. The fighting services are interdependent. Our Navy cannot win a war unaided any more than our Army can prevent Great Britain from being defeated by starvation. The waging of war, in the case of a maritime country which is unselfsupporting, cannot rightly be divided into naval warfare, military warfare, and combined naval and military operations, though the three types are commonly referred to and in that order. All war in which the British Empire is involved is in the nature of combined naval and military warfare. The actions of one arm are inevitably reflected in the other.
The Grand Fleet, from which so many of our officers and men were drawn for the operation on St. George's Day, was naturally elated at the result. Certainly the morale in the fleet had always been of a high order, but an extra touch of enthusiasm was not without value.
Of the effect in neutral countries I am not competent to speak, but I have some personal knowledge of the manner in which the news was received in the United States. The enthusiasm in that part of the world was genuine enough and undoubtedly assisted to cement the friendship between that country and our own Empire, a friendship which has a firm foundation even if the latter be occasionally hidden beneath a political superstructure which we are apt to mistake for the foundation itself.