CHAPTER IV
The Grasp of the Mediterranean[B]
SEA- AND LAND-POWER
Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode;
Our oaks secure, as if they there took root,
We tread on billows with a steady foot.
Edmund Waller, 1656.
It is important next to consider the situation in the Mediterranean, where sea-power is of momentous importance to the Allies. In those historic waters the fate of many nations has been decided. They are a vital link and the highway of the British Empire. Between Gibraltar and Port Said two thousand miles of British welfare lie outrolled. To France, with her great possessions in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunis, the importance of this sea highway is supreme. She must, in this war and at all times, traverse its waters or she will be undone. Italy has won a great position In the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and she would wither away and perish if either fell under enemy control. Trieste is her object, and she has proclaimed a protectorate over Albania the better to establish her power in the Adriatic, and she has her new possessions in the Libia Italiana of Northern Africa. From the operations in the Mediterranean we shall learn something more of the relation of sea-power to land operations, and of the limitations of that power, and we shall see the allied navies of England, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan in co-operation. We shall know why the enemy made a great submarine stroke in the Mediterranean when everything else at sea had failed.
[B] See [Map II.], at end of book.
The French battleship squadrons were concentrated in the Mediterranean before the war. The cruiser squadron in the Channel, like David against Goliath, was willing to encounter even the whole German High Sea Fleet; but the French had been assured of British co-operation, and all danger was forestalled. In the Mediterranean the Goeben and Breslau had come west, and had bombarded Bona and Philippeville; but the French Admiral, going south from Toulon, was on their heels, and they fled to the east again, running the gauntlet of the British squadron on their way to join the Turks.
They had intended to raid the French transports at sea. At this time the French were bringing their troops from Algeria and Tunis, amounting in all to nearly 100,000 men, with guns, horses, mules, stores, ammunition, hospitals, tent equipment, and all the requirements for field service, to join the main army in France. It was a great responsibility for the French Navy, increased many-fold when troops began to come from their eastern possessions through the Suez Canal.
Failure would have meant disaster. But the whole of the transport work was managed without the loss of a man or a horse, and was a wonderful success. It could hardly have taken place with so much security if the British squadron had not been in the Mediterranean, and not at all if the Grand Fleet had not held the German High Sea Fleet fast in its ports by the blockade in the North Sea. From that time forward for many months, until the Italians came into the war, on May 23rd, 1915, the French squadron was employed in neutralising the Austro-Hungarian Fleet in the Adriatic, which did not dare to move. The blockading squadron was extended across the Strait of Otranto, with occasional sweeps to the northward, to control hostile operations, if possible, at Cattaro and along the Dalmatian coast up to the approaches to Pola, where the submarine Curie was entangled, and lost to the Austrians. The French base for these operations was at Malta, but an advanced base was established in the island of Lissa. The blockade was completely successful in checking every effort of the Austrians to strike at the stream of transport in the Mediterranean, though it could not avail to save Montenegro or hold back the Austrians in their advance into Albania. No fleet can operate beyond the range of its guns, unless its flying officers carry their bombs into inland countries.