The onset period was ended; but the issue had not been settled as in 1870. France and England had not been knocked out in the first round. To this extent the supreme German endeavour had miscarried. Nevertheless a great advantage had been secured by our enemies, inasmuch as it was now apparent that the ensuing campaign—the grip of war—would be contested, not on German soil, but in France and Belgium.
LIMITATIONS OF SEA POWER
The value of the assistance which the British Navy would be able to render to the cause of the Triple Entente was a consideration of the highest importance. But while the fleet, if the national confidence in it were justified, would render invaluable assistance to military operations, it was necessary to bear in mind—what Englishmen in recent times have been very apt to forget—that no success at sea, whether it consisted in the wholesale destruction of hostile ships, or in an absolute blockade of the enemy's coast, could by itself determine the main issue of a European contest of this character. Disaster in a land battle could not be compensated for, nor could the balance of power be maintained, by any naval victory. War would not be brought to an end favourable to the Triple Entente, even by a victory as complete as that of Trafalgar. It is also well to remember that peace came, not after Trafalgar, but after Waterloo, nearly ten years later.
The strange idea that the security of the British Empire can be maintained by the Navy alone, seems to be derived by a false process of reasoning, from the undeniable truth, that the supremacy of our Navy is essential to our security. But though it is essential—and the first essential—it is not the only essential of security.
An insular Power, largely dependent on sea-borne food supplies and raw materials for its industries—a Power which governs an empire in the East, which has dependencies scattered in every sea, which is politically united with immense but sparsely peopled dominions in the four quarters of the globe—must keep command of the sea. If that supremacy were once lost the British Empire, as an empire, would come to an end. Its early dissolution would be inevitable. Therefore it is true enough to say that if the German Alliance—or any other alliance—were to win a decisive naval victory against Britain, it would end the war completely and effectively so far as we were concerned.
But the converse is not the case, and for obvious reasons. In a contest with a continental enemy who conquers on land, while we win victory after victory at sea, the result will not be a settlement in our favour, but a drawn issue. And the draw will be to his advantage, not our own. For having overthrown the balance of power by reason of his successful campaign and invasions, he will then be free to concentrate his whole energies upon wresting away naval supremacy from the British Empire. In time the Sea Power which is only a Sea Power will be overborne with numbers, and finally worsted by the victorious Land Power. For how is it possible to fight with one hand against an enemy with two hands? The fleets of Europe which at last must be combined against us, if we allow any rival to obtain a European predominance, are too heavy odds. German preparations alone were already causing us grave anxiety nearly three years before the Agadir crisis occurred. How then could we hope to build against the whole of Europe? Or even against half of Europe, if the other half remained coldly neutral?
[[1]] In all about 160,000 men, of whom some 25,000 were non-combatants.
[[2]] Such, for instance, as the fact that the time-table of German mobilisation appeared to be somewhat more rapid than that of the French, and much more so than that of the Russians.
[[3]] The first Balkan war broke out in the autumn of 1912.