We managed to land our “contemptible” little army (as the Kaiser was pleased to term it) of 170,000 men, and place it in battle array on the Belgian soil without our enemy knowing when it arrived or where it was placed, and it was this ignorance of the whereabouts of our forces which we are now told enabled us to turn the defeat of the Marne into a victory.
On the seas our fleet was able to dispose of the German Pacific fleet by sinking it in the battle off the Falkland Islands. The raiders were, however, successful in destroying much shipping before they were run to earth by our navy, which in the end destroyed or captured them. The credit of destroying the “Cap Trafalgar” after a severe fight belongs to a Liverpool merchant ship, the “Carmania.”
The war, however, developed new engines of maritime warfare—the submarine, the mine, and the seaplane—and our enemies speedily let it be known that they intended to carry out the traditions of their Hun forbears, and pursue a ruthless war, in which they would slay every man, woman and child, however peaceful might be their occupations, if they stood in their way—a policy which they carried out with the greatest cruelty, outraging every dictate of humanity.
The U boats, whose legitimate sphere was only to attack warships or those carrying troops or munitions, broke the laws of nations, and attacked Hospital ships, sinking them with their freight of suffering humanity, passenger steamers, and merchantmen of every kind, not merely sinking them, leaving their people to drown or perish, but in many cases adding to their death struggles by firing upon them while in the water, or turning them adrift in their boats hundreds of miles away from the land.
Germany had realised at an early date in the war that she had no chance of defeating our Navy in regular warfare, and that the submarine was not a very effective weapon against a battleship; and therefore, after declaring a submarine blockade of British commerce, entered upon a submarine campaign against our merchant shipping, in which she met with varying success. Between the 24th February and the 13th October, 1916, she sank 183 ships and 144 fishing vessels, the highest number in one week being 35; and in the following year, between February 26th and November 18th (in nine months) the German submarine sank 661 vessels of over 1,600 tons, 247 under 1,600 tons, and 161 fishing craft; the number of ships unsuccessfully attacked being 550. During the war upwards of 8,000 British sailors lost their lives through submarine attacks.
SS. “Oceanic,” No. 2, 1899
Submarines which at first were limited in the range of their operations by the amount of fuel they could carry, and could only conduct their nefarious warfare within the waters immediately surrounding Great Britain, were eventually built of sufficient size to be able to destroy our shipping when two or three hundred miles to the west of Ireland, and two or three U boats were constructed large enough to cross the Atlantic and destroy some shipping on the American coast; they were also armed with guns, which they freely used. Various estimates were put out as to the number of submarines afloat. They seemed to ever increase in numbers, and in their boldness and unscrupulous mode of warfare. Sometimes their attacks slacked off, as we are now told, while the Kaiser had passing qualms of conscience. Their movements were directed by wireless, and there is little doubt that they had sympathizers on the British coast, from whom they received information. The sinking of our shipping became alarming, sometimes, at the week-ends, the total reaching twenty and more steamers for the two days.
This was the condition of things with which our merchant fleet had to contend. Traversing day by day and hour by hour waters reeking with death and destruction, they knew that a submarine attack probably meant death to a large number of the people on board, perhaps all; but the British sailors heeded it not, their country’s call sounded in their ears, and without hesitation they went to sea, not only in ships engaged in commerce, but also in vessels acting as armed cruisers and as patrol ships, sweeping the seas in search of the enemy’s raiders; or as transports, in which they conveyed nearly a million of British troops from the most distant parts of the world, and two millions of American troops across the Atlantic, with all their munitions of war and all their impedimenta. Such a brilliant performance must for all time stand forth as one of the greatest achievements in the world’s history. Nor was the great and heroic work of our sailors limited to merchant ships. Our fishing fleets, fitted as minesweepers, carried on without flinching, the highly dangerous task of sweeping the seas to find and destroy the mines which the enemy had strewn in all its pathways. Even their mines were diabolically constructed to destroy innocent life, for contrary to international law, they remained active even after they were detached from their moorings, and were floating about. They were also sown by night, in the busy channels frequented by cross channel steamers and our fishing fleets. That all this was carefully thought out and “according to plan,” is proved by the fact they could and did discriminate where and what their submarines attacked, for the Isle of Man boats were immune from attack, because it was known that they regularly carried large numbers of German prisoners of war. The patrol and mine-sweeping services conducted by our fishermen and many yachtsmen were most arduous, exposed not only to submarines and mines, but to the cruel, cold winter weather and heavy seas; yet they never faltered in their duty.