CONSEQUENCES

War is made up of successes and failures. We English do not forget our successes, but we have an incorrigible habit of wiping from our minds the recollection of our failures. Which is a very bad habit, for as every man realises, during his half-blind stumbles through life, failure is a most necessary schoolmistress. Yet, though civilians seem able to bring themselves to forget that in war we ever fail of success, soldiers and sailors do not forget, and are always seeking to make of their admitted mistakes, stepping stones upon which they may rise to ultimate victory. On land one may retrieve errors more readily than at sea, for movements are much slower and evil results declare themselves less rapidly. I am now compelled to write of a failure at sea very early in the war, which was not retrieved, and which had a trail of most disastrous consequence; and I hope to do it without imputing blame to anyone, no blame, that is, except for the lack of imaginative vision, which is one of our most conspicuous defects as a race.

All of those who read me know that the blows which we have struck in France and Flanders, ever since the crowning victory of the Marne—that still unexplained miracle which saved western civilisation from ruin—are the direct consequence of the success in the North Sea of our mobilised fleets in August, 1914. But few know—or if they do, have pushed the knowledge testily from their minds—of a failure in the Mediterranean, also in August of 1914, a failure which at the time may have seemed of little account, yet out of which grew in inevitable melancholy sequence, a tragical train of troubles. Though we may choose to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably long. Nothing would be more unfair than to lay at the door of the Navy the blame for all the consequences of a failure which, it has been officially held, the officers on the spot did their utmost to avert. Men are only human after all, and the sea is a very big place. We need not censure anyone. Still, we should be most foolish and blind to the lessons of war if we did not now and then turn aside from the smug contemplation of our strategical and tactical victories, and seek in a humble spirit to gather instruction from a grievous pondering over the consequences of our defeats. And of this particular defeat of which I write the results have been gloomy beyond description—the sword in the balance which threw Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies, and all the blood and the tears with which the soil of the Near East has been soaked.

When war broke out all our modern battleships were in the North Sea, but of our nine fast battle cruisers four were away. The Australia was at the other side of the world, and the Inflexible (flag), Indomitable and Indefatigable were in the Mediterranean. We also had four armoured cruisers, and four light cruisers in the Mediterranean—the armoured Defence, Duke of Edinburgh, Warrior and Black Prince, the light fast Gloucester of the new “Town” class, a sister of the Glasgow and the Bristol, and three other similar cruisers. The Germans had in the Mediterranean the battle cruiser Goeben, as fast, though not so powerfully gunned, as the three Inflexibles of ours. She carried ten 11-⁠inch guns, while our battle cruisers were each armed with eight 12-⁠inch guns. The Goeben had as her consort the light cruiser Breslau, one of the German Town class built in 1912, a newer and faster edition of the earlier Town cruisers which were under von Spee in the Pacific and Atlantic. She could have put up a good fight though probably an unsuccessful one against the Gloucester, but was no match for the Defence, the Warrior, the Black Prince or Duke of Edinburgh. Our squadrons in the Mediterranean were, therefore, in fighting value fully three times as powerful as the German vessels. Our job was to catch them and to destroy them, but unfortunately we did not succeed in bringing them to action. The story of their evasion of us, and of what their escape involved is, to my mind, one of the most fascinating stories of the whole war.

War officially began between France and Germany upon August 3rd at 6.45 p.m. when the German Ambassador in Paris asked for his passports, and between Great Britain and Germany upon August 4th at 11 p.m., when our ultimatum in regard to Belgium was definitely rejected. But though then at war with Germany, England did not declare war on Austria until midnight of August 12th. A queer situation arose in the Mediterranean as the result of these gaps between the dates of active hostilities. Upon August 4th, the German cruisers could and did attack French territory without being attacked by us, and all through those fateful days of August 5th and 6th, when our three battle cruisers were hovering between Messina and the Adriatic and our four armoured cruisers were lying a little to the south off Syracuse, Italy was neutral, and Austria was not at war with us. Our naval commanders were in the highest degree anxious to do nothing which could in any way offend Italy—whose position as still a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria and Germany was delicate in the extreme—and were also anxious to commit no act of hostility towards Austria. Upon August 4th, therefore, their hands were tied tight; upon the 5th and 6th they were untied as against the German cruisers, but could not stretch into either Italian or Austrian waters. The German Admiral took full advantage of the freedom of movement allowed to him by our diplomatic bonds.

Let us now come to the story of the escape of the two German cruisers, indicate as clearly as may be how it occurred, and suggest how the worst consequences of that escape might have been retrieved by instant and spirited action on the part of our Government at home. Naval responsibility, as distinct from political responsibility, ended with the escape of the Goeben and Breslau and their entry into the Dardanelles on the way up to Constantinople which then, and for nearly three months afterwards, was nominally a neutral port.

On July 31st, 1914, the Goeben, a battle cruiser armed with ten 11-⁠inch guns, and with a full speed of twenty-eight to twenty-nine knots, was at Brindisi in the territorial waters of Italy, a country which was then regarded by the Germans as an ally. She was joined there on August 1st by the Breslau, a light cruiser of some three knots less speed than the Goeben and armed only with twelve 4.1-⁠inch guns. The German commanders had been warned of the imminence of hostilities with France—and, indeed, upon that day French territory had been violated by German covering troops, though war had not yet been declared. The French Fleet was far away to the west, already busied with the transport of troops from Algeria and Morocco to Marseilles. Based upon Malta and in touch with the French was the British heavy squadron of three battle cruisers. The Indefatigable, a heavier and faster vessel than either of the sisters Inflexible or Indomitable, was certainly a match for the Goeben by herself; the three battle cruisers combined were of overpowering strength. Accompanying the battle cruisers was the armoured cruiser squadron—Black Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, Warrior and Defence—together with the light cruiser Gloucester. The other light cruisers and the destroyer escort do not come directly into my picture. The Gloucester—which, as she showed later, had the heels of the Breslau though not of the speedy Goeben—was despatched at once to the Adriatic to keep watch upon the movements of the Germans. So long as the Germans were in the Adriatic, the English Admiral, Sir Berkeley Milne, could do nothing to prevent their junction with the Austrians at Pola, but upon August 2nd, they both came out and went to Messina, and so uncovered the Straits of Otranto, which gave passage between Messina and the Adriatic. The English battle cruisers then steamed to the south and east of Sicily, bound for the Otranto Straits. Rear-Admiral Troubridge, in command of the English armoured cruisers, remained behind.

THE MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONS.

Upon August 1st, the Italian Government had declared its intention to be neutral, and upon the 3rd the Italian authorities at Messina refused coal to the German ships, very much to the outspoken disgust and disappointment of the German Admiral who had reckoned Italy as at least passively benevolent. But being a man of resource, he filled his bunkers from those of German vessels in the harbour, and early in the morning of August 4th—having received news the previous evening that war had broken out with France, and was imminent with England—dashed at the Algerian coast and bombarded Phillippeville and Bona, whence troops had been arranged to sail for France. When one reflects upon the position of Admiral Souchon, within easy striking distance of three English battle cruisers, which at any moment might have been transformed by wireless orders into enemies of overwhelming power, this dash upon Phillippeville and Bona was an exploit which would merit an honourable mention upon any navy’s records. Souchon did, in the time available to him, all the damage that he could to his enemy’s arrangements, and then sped back to Messina, passing on the way the Inflexible (flag), Indomitable, and Gloucester, which had thus got into close touch with the Germans, though they were not yet free to go for them. The enterprising Souchon had cut his time rather fine, and come near the edge of destruction; for though at the moment of passing the Inflexible and Indomitable England was still at peace with Germany, war was declared before he reached the neutral refuge of Messina on August 5th. Milne’s hands were thus tied at the critical moment when he had both the elusive German cruisers under the muzzles of his hungry guns.