| Astern fire: | Broadside: | Ahead fire: |
|---|---|---|
| 8 12in. | 10 12in. | 6 12in. |
A week afterwards the thunderbolt fell; the crisis found the First and Second Fleets ready in all respects for war, and, after additional reserves had been called out on Sunday, August 2nd, the Admiralty was able to give the nation a certificate that by 4 a.m. the following morning the British Navy had been raised from a peace footing to a war footing, and was fully mobilised.
Immediately the curtain fell, hiding from view the movements of all British men-of-war, not only in the main strategical theatre, but in the outer seas. Two battleships, which had just been completed for Turkey by those whom Mr. G. H. Perris had denounced only a short time before in his pamphlet as the “War Traders,” were taken over by the Admiralty, proving valuable accessions to our naval strength. Two swift destroyer-leaders were also compulsorily purchased from Chile, the appointment of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe as supreme British Admiral of the Home Fleets was announced, and all the preliminaries to the great war drama on the sea were completed without delay, confusion, or panic. The nation will remember in gratitude the courage and decision exhibited by Mr. Churchill in the hour of supreme crisis. He proved himself a statesman.
This is not the place to relate the story of the renaissance of British military power. The virtue of the measures adopted by Lord Haldane as Secretary for War lay in the fact that he did homage to the essential principle which must underlie all schemes of defence by an island kingdom, which is the nerve centre of a maritime Empire. As in Opposition he had been foremost in advertising our dependence upon the sea, so in office, as Minister responsible for the Army, he based all his schemes on the assumption that the British Army is the projectile of a supreme fleet, to be hurled oversea as soon as the naval authority is able to give guarantee of safe passage. It was in the light of this essential truth that the Expeditionary Force was organised, and the Volunteers converted into the Territorial Army. Mistakes were, no doubt, made; no man who avoids them can ever expect to do anything. But at practically no additional expense, and without, therefore, withdrawing a penny from the necessary provision of the fleet, Lord Haldane initiated and completed military schemes, the value of which became apparent when we were confronted with the necessity of entering upon a contest with two of the great military powers of Europe, which possessed fleets of such a standing that they could offer challenge to our supremacy afloat.
The survey of British naval policy in the years immediately preceding the war would be incomplete were no reference made to the fact, of which we were insistently reminded when hostilities opened, that sea power, even more than military power, must stand defeated from the very outset, unless it is supplemented by economic power. In the past the weakness of all democracies when faced by war has been apparent. However great the power on the sea, however formidable the military arm ashore, the real strength of a people lies in itself. It must be ready on the instant to organise every department of life on a war basis. Armed forces which have not behind them a resolute community are robbed of more than half their power. A feeling of panic is always apt to infect a democracy, and then under the palsy of fear the tendency is for pressure to be brought to bear on the supreme naval and military authorities, with the result that strategic plans, matured in peace, become confused and ineffective. An illustration of the influence of the fears of the civil population upon war policy was furnished during the Spanish-American War. Under the pressure of nervous public opinion, the Naval Board was compelled to depart from the sound strategy of concentration upon the main objective, and to dissipate no little of the power at its command in order to provide some measure of local protection for various coast towns. Fortunately, British naval policy had been developed on lines which minimised this peril, and our economic resources had been surveyed, and adequate preparations made to afford to our sea power every possible economic support. As to the first, fear of invasion or raids, the coast and port guard ships, with little more than skeleton crews, had been abolished; in their place patrol flotillas of destroyers and submarines had been created to keep an efficient and active watch and ward along the sea frontier which the enemy at our door might threaten. This provision was supplemented by the mobilisation of all our national resources, under the direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. When Mr. Balfour founded this body he builded better than he knew. When war came not only were the main fleets not tied to our shores, but every department of State had before it a complete plan of the duty which it had to perform in order to give that national support to the fleet, without which it could not hope to achieve victory.
During the years which immediately preceded war the Committee of Imperial Defence was quietly at work co-ordinating the naval and military arms, and laying the foundation of a wide-spreading organisation. On July 25th, 1912, Mr. Asquith, in a speech in the House of Commons, gave the nation some conception of the character of one aspect of the work which was then being quietly performed by this small body, unrecognised by our Constitution, and regarded, as it had been since its birth, with no little suspicion and distrust. Mr. Asquith related that the Committee of Imperial Defence had appointed what was styled “a sub-committee for the co-ordination of departmental action at the outbreak of war.” Describing this particular work of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Mr. Asquith added:
“This sub-committee, which is composed of the principal officials of the various Departments of State, has, after many months of continuous labour, compiled a War-Book. We call it a War-Book—and it is a book which definitely assigns to each Department—not merely the War Office and the Admiralty, but the Home Office, the Board of Trade, and every Department of the State—its responsibility for action under every head of war policy. The Departments themselves, in pursuance of the instructions given by the War-Book, have drafted all the proclamations, Orders in Council, letters, telegrams, notices, and so forth, which can be foreseen. Every possible provision has been made to avoid delay in setting in force the machinery in the unhappy event of war taking place. It has been thought necessary to make this Committee permanent, in order that these war arrangements may be constantly kept up to date.”
What happened in the last days of July, 1914? During the period of strained relations, the War-Book was opened, and every official in every State Department concerned—eleven in all—had before him a precise statement of exactly what contribution he had to make in mobilising the State as an economic factor for war. Proclamations, Orders in Council, letters, and telegrams flowed forth throughout the British Isles, and to the uttermost parts of the Empire, in accordance with the pre-arranged plan which had been so assiduously elaborated. Hardly had the Navy been mobilised, the Army Reserves called out to complete the regular Army, and the Territorials embodied, than the nation realised that, without confusion, it had itself been placed upon a war footing. The creation of the British War-Book must be acclaimed as a monument to the perspicacity of Mr. Asquith and the Ministers who assisted him on the Committee of Defence, and to the splendid labours of the Secretary of the Committee, Captain Maurice Hankey, C.B., and the small staff associated with him. This organisation, which owed so much to the “staff mind” of its former secretary, Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Ottley, imposed upon the nation a charge of only about £5,000 a year, which was returned increased by a thousandfold when the crisis came, and the United Kingdom, existing under the most artificial conditions owing to its dependence on the sea for food and raw materials, was prepared, for the first time in its history, to offer to its fleets and armies the wholehearted and organised support of the richest nation in the world.
When the curtain fell upon the seas, the nation had the assurance that everything which foresight could suggest had been done to make secure our essential supremacy. The newspapers preserved a discreet silence as the Home Fleets took up their stations in the main strategical area. They were convinced, by irrefutable evidence, that adequate power had been concentrated in this theatre to enable the North Sea to be sealed, thus confining the main operations of the naval war to one of the smallest water areas in the world.
Those who study the conspectus of British sea power at the moment when the fog of war hid from view all that was occurring in distant waters would miss the real significance of the picture which British sea power presented at this dramatic moment if they failed to recognise the means by which the British Navy was able to impose an iron grip upon the great highways which are the life blood of British commerce. When war occurred the British sea power was predominant in all the outer seas in contrast with every other Power engaged in hostilities. At every point the British fleet was supreme in contrast with every other Power now engaged in hostilities. Austria and Italy were hardly represented outside the Mediterranean; Germany had only one armoured ship and two small cruisers in the Mediterranean and a few small cruisers in the Atlantic; in the Pacific, though she had the largest squadron of any Continental Power, the Admiralty regarded our forces as being at least twice as strong. This balance of strength was maintained in accordance with the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.