The Achievement of the British Navy in the World-War

by John Leyland

Anon.

The British Navy fights for the great ideals of the people, acting upon the lines of old and loyal traditions; but, while doing so, it has encountered the desperate devices of the enemy, who has used the latest achievements of scientific and mechanical invention in such a manner as to overthrow many preconceived methods and accepted conventions of naval warfare. We have already spoken of the submarine. Now we shall see what the mine is, and how it is dealt with by the Navy and the services the Navy controls. It has been said, with much truth, that the essence of war is violence and that moderation in war is futility. It is also true, as we see, in the cruel operations of Zeppelins and bomb-dropping aeroplanes, and not less in the attacks of submarines, as directed by the Germans and their allies, that the non-military populations suffer the horrors of war in much greater degree than was the case in the wars even of recent times.

But the Germans, at the very beginning of the war, outraged neutral sentiment by employing ostensible merchant and passenger vessels, flying neutral flags, and without giving warning to the neutrals, in the deadly work of scattering mines indiscriminately in the open sea on the main lines of trade. They acted in direct contravention of the rules of war as previously accepted. These disguised mining vessels had traversed the trade routes as if pursuing peaceful purposes, thus enjoying the immunities which had always been accorded to innocent neutral vessels, and yet they had wantonly endangered the lives of all who traversed the sea, whether neutral or enemy. The Admiralty were soon able to declare publicly that this mine-laying under a neutral flag, as well as reconnaissance conducted by trawlers and even by hospital ships and neutral vessels, had become the ordinary methods of German naval warfare. The later history of the war shows how far the Germans were prepared to go in casting off any restraint in their efforts to do injury to their enemies. They compelled the British Admiralty to adopt counter-measures.

For years past the Germans had devoted unremitting attention to the study and practice of mining and the production of very powerful types of mines. In that respect they were undoubtedly ready. The state of war between England and Germany began at 11 p.m. on August 4th, 1914, and on the morning of the next day German mines were being laid on the east coast of England. The Königin Luise, a former Hamburg-Amerika liner of 2,163 tons, was caught in the act, off the Suffolk coast, and was sunk by the light cruiser Amphion and the Third Torpedo Flotilla. On the next day the Amphion herself, the first British warship destroyed in the war, fell a victim to the mines she had laid. This disguised mine-layer had initiated a practice, which has since been many times followed in the war, of throwing mines overboard in the track of pursuing vessels. It was resorted to by the retreating Germans in the battle of the Dogger Bank. Here it may be remarked that the Germans have always claimed the right to subject every consideration to their necessity to win, though at The Hague Conference of 1907, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, the German delegate, said that conscience, good sense, and the duty imposed by the principles of humanity would constitute the most effective guarantee against abuse, and he proclaimed—“je le dis à haute voix”—that German naval officers would always fulfil “in the strictest fashion the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of humanity and civilisation.”

Any technical description of German mines would be out of place here; but it may be said that generally they approximate to a spherical shape, and are provided with projecting “horns,” almost in the shape of drumsticks, concussion with which is calculated to break a small phial within, whose contents cause the detonation of the enormous charge of T.N.T. explosive. Each mine is provided with a sinker, which drops to the bottom, and is attached to the mine by a cable or sounding-line paid out by special mechanism to any desired length, whereby the mine may be kept at the intended depth below the surface. There are other types of mines, and in particular one of cylindrical form, containing a prodigious quantity of explosive and capable of the widest destruction. This has probably been used only in special situations. The ordinary mines can be laid with great rapidity by a specially fitted mine-layer, provided with rotary gear, bringing mine after mine along a special track to the dropping position. The drifting mines which the Germans at the very beginning of the war set afloat in the main trade route from America to Liverpool, viâ the North of Ireland, can be laid with still greater rapidity.

When mine-laying in British waters by surface boats was made extremely risky, or almost impossible, the Germans resorted to the employment of submarine mine-layers, one of which was exhibited in the Thames. Vessels of this class, so far as they are known, probably carry a maximum of twelve big mines in six shoots or air-locks, the lower mine in each shoot being released by means of a lever, after which the other drops into its place, ready to be let go in the same way. The boat exhibited in London and elsewhere was of a rough, rudimentary character, indifferently built, and her speed was probably not more than six or eight knots. Undoubtedly many of the submarine mine-layers are of better type. They are constantly at work especially on the east coast of England, and some losses have resulted; but the effect of their operations is nearly always overcome by the means adopted by the Navy.

The first measure set on foot by the Admiralty was to organise a system of search for suspicious craft, and to declare the North Sea a war area, within which it was dangerous for any vessel to navigate except through channels indicated by the naval authorities. The Germans replied with their now famous and futile blockade order of February, 1915. New regulations were issued from time to time regulating navigation through the British mine-fields, and the result has been, in association with the patrols, to exercise a very close supervision over the navigation in home waters. As to distant mining operations of the enemy, the First Lord of the Admiralty stated, on March 8th, 1917, that they had been carried very far, and the P. & O. liner Mongolia, sunk off Bombay on June 23rd, 1917, was not the only vessel mined in the Arabian Sea. From time to time it has been announced that mails for and from the East and Australia have been lost at sea.

It is an inspiring thing to turn from this picture of mines and the scattering of them by the enemy to another picture—that of the gallant and successful manner in which the Navy, and the mine-trawlers and other vessels embodied in its service and employed in the ceaseless patrols, have grappled with the deadly menace of the mine. Ever patrolling the British coasts, ever facing death, often speeding to the help of vessels mined, torpedoed, or otherwise in distress, the glorious men who man these craft have inscribed their names in letters of gold on the roll of British honour and fame at sea. It was a marvellous thing, this embodiment of the vast mine-sweeping and patrolling service in the work of the Navy in the war. From all the coasts fishermen have come, with their trawlers converted from the craft of winning fish at sea, to the sterner work of bringing up and destroying the strange harvest of deadly mines which endanger all life at sea. Many a trawler has been sunk by contact with her fatal captures; others have been sunk by hostile fire and bombing by enemy aeroplanes, but never have the brave seamen quailed in the service of the country and the Allies, and in every port men are to be met whose craft have been sunk under them, and who have hastened to sea again.

Hundreds of ships, drawn from the mercantile marine and the fisheries, steam yachts, motor boats, armed launches, and vessels of other classes, are employed in such dangerous work. They share the trials of war, wind, and weather with the regular naval patrols. Sir Edward Carson, when First Lord of the Admiralty, directed attention to the magnificent work of the mine-trawlers of these patrols. The force employed at the beginning of the war numbered about 150 small vessels, but increased to 3,000 or more. The whole nation should understand what mine-sweepers were doing. “The thousands of men engaged in this operation are the men who are feeding the whole population of this country, from morning till night, battling with the elements as well as the enemy, facing dangers under the sea. A mine-sweeper carries his life in his hands at every moment, and he does it willingly.” Later again he expressed his thanks and the thanks of the nation for the splendid work they had accomplished. Of all the seamen who had so deservedly earned the gratitude of the country none had had more arduous and dangerous duties to perform than the gallant fellows in the patrols.

They have worked in reliefs day and night at sea, though sometimes driven to port by the fury of the elements, and they brave every kind of weather. As Admiral Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol, has said, with reference to the security with which thousands of merchantmen had passed through the waters in his control, “no figures could emphasise more thoroughly the sacrifice made by the personnel of the patrols and the relative immunity ensured to the commerce of their country.” They have trawled for mines not only in British but in distant waters. Their magnificent work under fire, and attacked by bomb-dropping aeroplanes, at the Dardanelles will never be forgotten.