There remains the question of the airship, which was also being developed during the period 1914–16, but as this matter was not within the province of the Fleet, it is unnecessary to touch upon it here.

V.—The Blockade

The story of the development of the Grand Fleet would be incomplete without reference to the Blockade, and, in particular, to the work of the 10th Cruiser Squadron. In the early days of the War, the 10th Cruiser Squadron consisted of the ships of the “Edgar” class—vessels at least twenty years old; and during August, 1914, the Admiralty commissioned three armed merchant ships, the Mantua, Alsatian and Oceanic, to strengthen the squadron for blockade work; the latter ship was lost by shipwreck in September of that year.

The Blockade in those early days was carried out by the 10th Cruiser Squadron and by the other cruiser squadrons attached to the Grand Fleet. During November, 1914, the ships of the “Edgar” class were withdrawn owing to their unseaworthy condition, and the ships’ companies utilised to commission a number of additional armed merchant cruisers. By the end of December, 1914, the squadron consisted of eighteen ships, being raised later to a strength of twenty-four ships. A very large proportion of the officers and men of the reconstituted 10th Cruiser Squadron belonged to the Mercantile Marine.

The advent of so large a squadron of these vessels called for a considerable organisation for their maintenance; they were based on Liverpool for all the heavy work of upkeep, whilst a secondary advanced base at Swarbachs Minn, on the west coast of the Shetland Islands, was gradually developed, and obstructed against submarine attack. The work of organisation was carried out by Rear-Admiral de Chair, who commanded the squadron, ably seconded by Rear-Admiral H. H. Stileman, the Senior Naval Officer at Liverpool, to whom we were much indebted for hearty co-operation and efficient organisation at the base.

The work of the squadron consisted in intercepting and boarding all vessels bound into or out of the northern entrance to the North Sea, and this work could obviously not be carried out in the face of the German submarines without heavy risk to the ships. The danger was greatest during the operation of boarding, as the examining vessel was obliged to stop to lower the boarding-boat. As the number of German submarines increased, the squadron was necessarily withdrawn to positions further removed from the enemy submarine bases, and the Blockade line, after the spring of 1915, ran generally from the Orkneys and Shetlands past the Faroe Islands to Iceland, and when freedom from ice rendered passage round the north of Iceland possible, ships operated in that neighbourhood.

A careful organisation of the movements of the ships was necessary to cover such an immense area of the sea, and to provide that all ships should, as far as possible, be intercepted. Even in the case of ships of such large coal endurance as the armed merchant steamers, it was not possible to keep much more than one-half the number in commission on an average on the patrol line at the same time. The remainder were either in port refitting and refueling, or were en route to and from the bases. The distance from the middle of the patrol line to Liverpool was some 600 miles, so that two days were occupied in the passage each way.

Plan No. 2.

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