The blockade maintained through the winter at the Strait of Otranto was exceedingly arduous and filled with peril. Enemy destroyers and submarines were at work, issuing from the wonderful island fringe of the Dalmatian coast, and the French knew their peril. The armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta was sunk by submarine attack, with the loss of Rear-Admiral Sénès, who was in command, and every officer on board, as well as nearly 600 men. The armoured cruiser Waldeck-Rousseau suffered damage by torpedo, and the new Dreadnought Jean Bart, with Admiral Boué de Lapéyrère, the French Admiralissimo of the combined fleets, on board, was touched, though only slightly injured. There were other submarine attacks and losses of small craft, and some losses were inflicted upon the enemy. British cruisers were attached to the French Flag during these operations, and they continued to co-operate with the French and Italians in Adriatic waters and in the Ægean, where the French and Allied naval forces were the guard of all the operations at Salonika and in the Piræus. Fleets and armies have co-operated in the Mediterranean from the very beginning of the war. In May, 1917, the British monitors, which, with the converted cruisers, had been operating with the military expedition against the Turks and Bulgarians, appeared in the Adriatic, and rendered valuable aid to the Italians in their advance towards Trieste. The naval coalition has been a marvel of effective organisation.

German professors have sometimes said that the land would sooner or later beat the sea—that “Moltke” would become the victor over “Mahan.” That is the convinced opinion of the Pan-Germans, who say that the railway will yet prove the more rapid and the more secure means of transport than the steamship. The lines from Antwerp by Cologne to Vienna, and from Hamburg to Berlin, and thence through the very heart of Europe to Vienna, and on by Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople, and from the opposite shore of the Bosphorus to Baghdad and down to the Gulf, and by a branch through Persia to the confines of India, were to give commercial and, perchance, military command of two continents. Enterprise by the branch railway through Aleppo and Damascus against Egypt, with a view to further developments in Africa, was related to this conception of land-power. The measures adopted by the Allies for the reconstitution of Serbia, the expeditions to the Dardanelles and Salonika, the strong action taken in Greece, the naval movements on the coast of Syria, the operations in the Sinai peninsula and Palestine, and the expedition from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad were the answer to these gigantesque projects of the enemy.

Behind them all lay the working of the fleets. Every class of ship and almost every kind of vessel employed in naval warfare has been used in one or other of these operations—the battleship, cruiser, destroyer, torpedo-boat, submarine, mother ship, aeroplane, aircraft-carrier, mining vessel, river gunboat, motor launch, mine-trawler, armed auxiliary, special service vessel, transport, store ship, collier, oiler, tank, distilling ship, ordnance vessel, hospital ship, tug, lighter, and a crowd of other craft. All these are required for the work of the Navy in the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, and they have been employed with a quality of seamanlike skill, enterprise, resource, courage, and success such as the history of the sea has no previous record of. The appearance at the Golden Horn of a British submarine, which had traversed a Turkish mine-field, was the sign of new powers in naval warfare. We are lost in admiration of the self-sacrifice of officers and men, both of the regular naval service and of the mercantile marine and the fisheries, the latter being the heroes of the perilous work of mine-sweeping. The British and French navies, and the vessel representing the Russian Navy, acted in the closest co-operation, and all the naval forces worked in intimate association with the armies.

Where there was failure, the failure was due to the inevitable limitations of sea-power, which has already been suggested with reference to the North German coast, Zeebrugge, and the Montenegrin and Albanian coasts. The history of the Dardanelles expedition will not be written here. Beginning with a bombardment of the entrance forts on November 3rd, 1914, which had little other effect than to stimulate the defence, continued after an interval of months by the great naval attacks in March, 1915, in which enormous damage was done to the forts at the entrance and, to some extent, at the Narrows, but with the loss of British and French battleships by the action of gunfire and drifting mines, the enterprise concluded with the landing of the Allied armies in the Gallipoli peninsula. The troops were compelled by outnumbering forces and concentrated gunfire to withdraw. The combined attack should have been made at the beginning. The unaided naval attack had merely stimulated the defence. Here was the greatest demonstration of which there is record of the limitation of sea-power. In the attack of such a military position naval forces are essential, but military operations are required if the desired success is to be attained.

This is true of all the operations in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Sea-power gave the means by which the army drove back the Turks from Egypt, and it was the support of the advance in Sinai and Palestine. It gave protection to the transports which carried troops and Army requirements to Salonika and the Piræus, patrolling the routes or providing convoy for the ships. The enemy realised his opportunity, and his submarines began to develop great activity in the Mediterranean. Certain transports were sunk and an attempt was made to cut the communications of the expeditionary forces with their base. Some considerable losses were suffered thereby, but gradually systems were developed which gave a reasonable sense of security. The British, French, and Italian flotillas were employed, and that of Japan came to their aid. Never had such naval co-operation been witnessed before. We cannot separate the advance in Mesopotamia from the Mediterranean operations because the same object inspired both—viz., that of arresting the threatened development of German commercial and military power, through Asiatic Turkey to the Persian Gulf, and through Persia to the borders of India. The first advance to Kut-el-Amara and Ctesiphon proved disastrous because undertaken with inadequate means; but the Navy rendered brilliant service, and, in the second advance, a sufficient river flotilla of gunboats and transports made possible the advance to Baghdad and beyond. The naval flotilla co-operated with most excellent effect in this advance, played havoc with enemy’s craft, and recaptured H.M.S. Firefly, which had been lost in the retreat from Ctesiphon.

Thus we see the Navy operating in the great central theatre of war and on its outlook to the East, exerting influence, transporting troops, forming the base of armies, and everywhere proving an essential factor in all that was done. It was confronted in the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, with the new weapon of the submarine in very active form. That menace, and the campaign against it, shall be the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER V
Dealing with the Submarines

My name is Captain Kidd,
Captain Kidd.
My name is Captain Kidd,
Captain Kidd.
My name is Captain Kidd,
And wickedly I did;
God’s laws I did forbid,
As I sailed.

Old Nautical Ballad.