THE FLEET THAT LOST ITS SOUL
Sailors and especially fighters on the sea have in all ages possessed the noblest and bravest of souls and the finest morale. This is why the British sailors have felt so bitter about the atrocities committed by the German U-boats. In case a ship is sinking, the members of the crew do not expect to leave her until all the passengers are in the lifeboats, and the captain is always the last man to leave. Sometimes he prefers to go down with his ship so that it may never be said that his soul failed him. For sea fighters in U-boats to disregard this traditional chivalry of the sea and to sink merchant ships without warning and without assuring the passengers of their safety seemed to the sailors of other lands like giving up the high ideals that had grown out of their dangerous calling—like poisoning their souls with deceit and violence.
Most naval officers would rather die than surrender. Captain Lawrence, fighting for America in the war of 1812, wounded and dying, cried to his men, "Don't give up the ship." To fight rather than to surrender even in the face of the greatest odds has been for centuries the idea of sea fighters.
Admiral Cervera at Santiago in 1898 knew he was outmatched by the American fleet waiting for him off the harbor; but he brought his ships out and made a brave fight in trying to escape. Lieutenant Hobson knew there were terrible odds against him when he and his little company went in under the guns of the forts and attempted to block the channel. In the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians in the Sea of Japan with their ships foul and barnacled after a voyage of thousands of miles were not afraid to face certain defeat. Brave men do not lose their souls in the face of tremendous odds or even in the face of sure death.
Did the soul of Private George Dilboy of Somerville, Massachusetts, faint in him when he charged alone the German machine gun? He had come with his platoon up a little rise to a railroad track at the top, when suddenly an enemy machine gun opened fire upon them at about one hundred yards distance. Dilboy did not throw himself on the ground to escape the bullets. No, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and standing in plain sight of the German gunners, began to fire at them. As they were partially hidden he was not sure of his aim. So he ran down the embankment and across a wheat field towards them. The machine gun was immediately turned upon him and before he reached it, he fell with one leg nearly severed above the knee by the rain of lead and with several bullets through his body. Half crouched on the only knee left him, he aimed at the gunners one after another until he had killed or dispersed them all, and then fainted and died. He had advanced in the face of certain death, but had saved the lives of many of his comrades, for the gun had to be captured to gain their objective.
The brute is usually a coward at heart. The sinking of unarmed merchant ships and of hospital ships by the German U-boats, the bombing of undefended towns and hospitals, and the firing upon Red Cross workers were acts of brutes and cowards. So it is not strange that the great German fleet which all through the war, except at the battle of Jutland, had hidden in security behind the guns of Heligoland and the defenses of the Kiel Canal lost its soul when, as a last hope, it was ordered out to fight the Allied fleet. The German sailors knew the battle would really be a gigantic sacrifice and refused to fight it for the Fatherland.
There is always a very slight chance that through accident or some peculiar combination of unusual circumstances, a battle even against very great odds may be won. The German fleet had this chance—a very, very slight one, to be sure; and did not take it. The fleet had lost its soul.
Two weeks later, after the signing of the armistice, the German fleet surrendered to the Allies. It was the greatest, the most amazing, and some add, the most shameful surrender in the naval history of the world. It was also the greatest concentration of sea power and the most magnificent spectacle old ocean has ever witnessed.
The surrender was demanded by the terms of the armistice and was made on November 21, according to the program laid down by the commander of the British fleet. It was not the surrender of a foe beaten in a fair battle and yet recognized by his enemies as worthy of his steel. It was the surrender of a foe who declined to fight with the strong and the armed, but who had taken every opportunity to kill the weak and the defenseless. The British sailors could not forget, and they say they never will, the barbarous treatment of their brothers in the merchant marine by the German U-boats. There was therefore none of the sympathy and the fraternization that usually has accompanied a great surrender at sea.
On the afternoon of the day before the surrender the following notice was posted on all the Allied ships:—
"Let it be impressed on all—officers and men—that a state of war exists during the armistice. Their relations with officers and men of the German navy with whom they may now be brought in contact are to be strictly of a formal character in dealing with the late enemy, while courteous.
"It is obligatory that the methods by which they waged war must not be forgotten. No international compliments are to be paid, and all conversation is forbidden except in regard to the immediate business to be transacted.
"If it should be necessary to provide food for the German officers and men, they should not be entertained, but it should be served to them in a place specifically set. If it should be necessary to accept food from the Germans, the request is made that it be similarly served."
[Illustration: The British Cruiser Curacoa, Admiral Tyrwhitt's flagship, leading out one column of British cruisers at the surrender of the German navy. Overhead is a captive or "kite" balloon. As used in naval work, it is attached to an anchored or moving ship by a small steel cable, by which it is regulated for purposes of observation. The tubular surfaces which give the balloon the appearance of an elephant's head are not filled with hydrogen gas, but are inflated by the winds at high altitudes, thus keeping the balloon relatively steady like a kite with a long tail. The stationary balloon is such a good target for anti-aircraft guns that the observers are supplied with parachutes, the type of which appears on page 341.]
Later, notices were posted giving the hour when they were to meet the Germans and requiring every precaution to be taken against treachery.
"At 9:40 the Battle Fleet will meet the German fleet. Immediate readiness for action is to be assumed."
They would not trust the people to whom solemn treaties were but scraps of paper, and whose necessity made any act however treacherous appear to them to be a right one.
The Allied fleets were anchored on the night of November 20 in the Firth of Forth above and below its famous bridge. The United States was represented by the New York, the Florida, the Arkansas, and the Wyoming, and France by a cruiser and two destroyers. Ships from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia were also in line. There were nearly four hundred warships in the Allied fleet, including sixty dreadnoughts, fifty cruisers, and over two hundred destroyers.
At four o'clock on the morning of Friday, November 21, the great Battle Fleet weighed anchor and one by one steamed out to sea. It was, even in the darkness, a wonderful and thrilling sight, an exhibition of sea power never before seen in the history of mankind.
Picture that scene in the gray darkness before the dawn. Mile after mile of mighty dreadnoughts and swift cruisers and destroyers weighing their anchors one by one until four hundred mighty engines of war slipped almost silently from their places, each leaving a trail of black smoke behind. As you imagine the scene as it would appear to the eye, can you realize its significance and what it all meant? Do the people of the United States fully understand that but for England's magnificent fleet their great coast cities would have been bombarded or obliged to pay a ransom; and that without the Grand Fleet the war would have been lost to selfish autocracy? Let us never forget England's service.
The German line, each ship flying the German naval flag at the main top, consisted of thirteen of the dreadnought or superdreadnought class, seven light cruisers, and fifty destroyers, and was over twenty miles in length. Each column of the Allied fleet was almost twice as long as this. Over them flew a British naval airplane.
The surrendered ships, guarded on both sides, steamed on towards the anchorage selected for them near May Island at the entrance to the Firth of Forth; and reached there about two o'clock in the afternoon. Admiral Beatty from his flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, issued the following signal to the fleet: "The German flag will be hauled down at sunset today. It will not be hoisted again without permission."
