During that time American lives had been lost in the sinking of the Laconia, Vigilancia, Healdton, and Aztec; while there was made public the German intrigue with Mexico in which she had promised the latter the states of Texas and Arizona. It was with this in mind, no doubt, that President Wilson, on April 3d, spoke as follows: "Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbours' states with spies, or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical position of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquests. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover, and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts, or behind the carefully guarded conferences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion demands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs." As regarded the submarine campaign, he said, "Vessels of every kind, whatever their flags, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without a thought of help or mercy for those on board—the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conducts through the prescribed areas by the German Government itself, and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or principle." Proclaiming it to be America's duty to take up such a challenge, he finished his address to Congress in memorable words. "To such a task," he said, "we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."
Such was America's entrance, with a gesture worthy of her, and in which none more than Britain might take a greater pride; and it would be quite impossible to overestimate the immediate moral value of her action. Though it was, of course, clear that, not for many months, could her full weight be felt in Europe, there had been placed at the disposal of the Entente's anxious statesmen not only the unplumbed resources of another continent, but a new spring of unjaded enthusiasm at a peculiarly troubled stage of the war. Of the subsequent growth of the American armies, of their historic rush over the Atlantic in the following spring, and of the self-abnegation with which, at a critical moment, they allowed themselves to be brigaded with the British and French forces, we may not write here, save in so far as their navy and ours made this possible. Here we must confine ourselves to a brief survey of the American effort at sea, prefacing all that follows with the reminder that, no less than ourselves, the United States' navy shared in the great traditions bequeathed by the Elizabethan admirals.
To such as were familiar with its inner life, that had indeed long been manifest; and we have already referred to a couple of incidents in which it had become apparent to the world at large. In the fight of the Chesapeake against the Shannon, wherein both victor and vanquished shared an equal glory, and, in the action of Lieutenant Hobson at Santiago, its true lineage had shone out; while no English-speaking sailor of modern times had gloried in it more eloquently than Admiral Mahan. At the same time, separated by thousands of miles, on either side, from any potential foe; self-dependent, owing to its vast inner resources, for almost every material of industry; and with but few colonies, scattered over the world, whose interests required protection, America's attitude toward naval expansion had necessarily been somewhat different from our own. It had seemed rather an adjunct to her great natural defences than the vital condition of her existence; and the reflection of this had been clearly visible in her recent programmes of construction. Thus in 1909, 1910, and 1911 only two new battleships had been authorized each year. In 1912 and 1913 this number had been reduced to one; while, in 1914, though three had been authorized, two second-class battleships had been sold to Greece.
In that year, however, the naval staff had issued a rather disquieting report; and, in the three years that followed, very considerable strides were made in the direction of strengthening the Fleet. Always admirable in personnel, and with a considerable maritime population upon which to draw, fresh attention was paid to her reserves, which, on her entrance into the war, were organized in four classes; and, in the strictly offensive sense, it was at sea that her help as a combatant was the soonest felt. Weakest in cruisers, and entirely lacking in high-speed, heavy-gunned battle-cruisers, she possessed fourteen battleships of the dreadnought type with another score of the second and third classes. Of her dreadnoughts six—the Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada, New York, and Texas—mounted 14-inch guns, the first two carrying twelve of these, with a secondary armament of twenty-two 5-inch guns, and the last four carrying ten, with a secondary armament of twenty-one 5-inch guns respectively. Five other battleships were still in course of construction on her entrance into the war. She had also nearly a hundred destroyers and torpedo-boats, and something over sixty submarines, and was soon to be producing fast sub-chasers, as she called them, in very large numbers. Manned, as all these were, by a personnel not only eager and intelligent, but combining a nationally typical self-confidence with the modesty and discipline of true seamen, the American navy was thus a timely reinforcement of the most valuable kind; and it was made doubly so by the prompt generosity with which it lent itself to the existing commands.
Nothing else, indeed, was to have been expected, since the relations between the British and American navies had always been a little in advance, perhaps as regarded cordiality, of those prevailing between their respective countries. Even when they were opponents in the war that should never have been they had sincerely and consistently respected each other; and, for the last hundred years, whenever they had foregathered, it had been with a more than formal friendliness. "It has been a rule," wrote the doyen of American admirals, the late Admiral Dewey, in 1913, "that wherever a British and an American ship meet, their officers and their crews fraternize. The two services speak the same language, they have a common inheritance of naval discipline and customs. Exchanges of visits, which are ceremonial where other nations are concerned, become friendly calls in a congenial atmosphere."
Nor had more solid evidence been lacking of the genuine alliance of which both navies were conscious. Thus in 1859, when the Toey-Wan, a British chartered steamer, in the Pei River, was enduring an extremely heavy fire from the Chinese forts, the American flag-officer, Josiah Tatnall, who was present on the occasion, turned to a junior officer and exclaimed, "Blood is thicker than water," ordered his boat to be manned, and, with his own crew, took the place of the fallen British gunners. Later, when Admiral Dewey himself, while blockading Manila, during the Spanish-American War, was in serious difficulties owing to the attitude of the German admiral present in the Bay, it was the action of Captain Chichester, the senior British officer, in upholding Admiral Dewey's position under international law, that prevented the development of an awkward and potentially serious situation.
Divided into three main commands—the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Asiatic, each in charge of a full admiral, the only other full admiral in the American navy was the Chief of the Naval Staff at Washington. This officer, roughly corresponding with our own First Sea Lord, was in charge of all operations, the Secretary of the Navy, corresponding with our First Lord, being a civilian official of Cabinet rank. Of the three sea commands, the Atlantic was considerably the most important, and contained the chief proportion of the latest and most powerful vessels of the American navy. This command was held, during the American intervention, by a distinguished officer, Admiral Mayo, the naval administration at Washington being in the able hands of Admiral Benson, while to the command of all American naval forces operating in European waters was appointed Vice-Admiral W. S. Sims.
Born in Canada, formerly a naval attaché in London, and distinguished, throughout his career, by a remarkable combination of vision, initiative, and mastery of detail, Vice-Admiral Sims (later to become Admiral on the retirement of the admiral of the Asiatic Fleet) was the obvious choice for a position requiring very rare and special abilities. A close friend and admirer, in earlier days, of the British gunnery expert, Sir Percy Scott, Admiral Sims had been largely responsible for wide-spreading reforms in American gunnery methods—reforms carried through, not without opposition, by his characteristic tact and driving force. Always ready, at first hand, to examine the ideas of his most junior officers, invariably loyal to them, and caring nothing for personal dignity so that the war might be won in the speediest fashion, it was little wonder not only that he was idolized by all who served under him, but that his British colleagues could have asked for no more able or inspiring a helper.
Beginning in April, 1917, with five officers and a room or two, the United States Naval Headquarters in London had expanded, by the end of the war, to a total personnel of 912 occupying several large houses—notwithstanding that, during the whole time, Admiral Sims himself had scarcely missed a single attendance at the usual daily conference at the British Admiralty. Under him at sea, and at the various subsidiary bases, with which we shall presently deal more particularly, there were serving by November, 1918, nearly 5,000 officers and 76,000 men. Not until it is remembered that these fifteen bases were scattered between Queenstown in Ireland and Corfu in Greece, between Inverness in the North of Scotland and Bizerta near Algiers; that every one of them had to be created while the war was in active progress, and that simultaneously, both in Europe and America, thousands of untrained men and officers had to be educated—can some idea be formed of the administrative miracle expressed in the full contribution of American sea-power.
Declaring war in April, 1917, America's first naval units to appear in European waters were the destroyers that arrived in May to operate from Queenstown in the south of Ireland. Perhaps the most valuable of all, they arrived at a peculiarly appropriate moment. The submarine warfare was then at its most destructive stage; the British destroyer crews, at the end of their third winter, were beginning to show signs of staleness; while, owing to the demands upon them in every quarter and especially by the Grand Fleet, it had so far been impossible fully to develop the convoy-system of merchant shipping later so successful. The arrival of these destroyers, therefore, was trebly welcome; and they placed themselves, without reservation, at the British Admiral's disposal. Reporting immediately upon arrival to Vice-Admiral Lewis Bayly, he enquired how soon they would be ready for duty. "As soon as we have re-fueled, sir," replied the Senior American Officer; and that remained the keynote of all their activities. By the end of June, twenty American destroyers were regularly at work in the Queenstown area; and, by the end of the war, though they were still under the British Admiralty, there were none but American destroyers at this base.