And I hope you’ll breathe his name in all your prayers,
And don’t forget.
For he’s you and me and all,
And if his old walls fall,
Earth would close for alterations and repairs,
Burn the map!”
This sailor poet expresses in his homely way the exact truth. Admiral Jellicoe had indeed a good many things to think about; and while he was keeping his ceaseless watch in the North Sea he had the grief of hearing that his old father, a seaman like himself, had died in the Isle of Wight. He could not be at his father’s death-bed; he could not follow his father’s coffin to the burial. His place was at the post of duty and of danger.
I have said that in the first months of the war the German Fleet would not come out from under the shelter of the German fortress guns. But you must not think that its commander, Admiral von Ingemohl, a very gallant seaman, was content to do nothing. He counted on taking some of our ships by surprise, and so making matters more equal before having a regular big battle. But as we shall see, he found that Admiral Jellicoe could play at that game too.
II
The Germans may be said to have drawn first blood at sea.