Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas

by William Wood

But when we turn to the German "Submarine Blockade" of the British Isles we find something quite different; for the German submarines sank every ship they could, and they generally were as utterly careless about the lives of the crews as they were about the cargo, no matter what the cargo was. In short, Germany tried everything, no matter how wrong, that could possibly hurt the hated British. She did let some neutral ships go by without attacking them. But that was only because she did not want to turn all the neutrals into enemies; and nothing proves better what a fiendish crime her "Submarine Blockade" really was than the fact that it forced even the Peace Party in the United States to change its mind about the war.

For thirty-two months this Peace Party kept the United States out of a war waged by Germany against the freedom of the world. There were a good many reasons why. Most Americans knew next to nothing about the affairs of Europe; and Germans had long been busy poisoning their minds against the French and British. Then, Washington and other Presidents had often advised them not to meddle with anything outside of America; and President Wilson had even said there was such a thing as being "too proud to fight."

Of course the Pacifists were against all war, even when their refusing to fight on the side of right forced them to help the side of wrong. They had plenty of money, some of it German, and they made almost as much trouble as the Germans and pro-Germans themselves. Then, the Germans, pro-Germans, and Pacifists raised the bogey of trouble for the United States at home, while there did not seem to be much danger of getting hurt from abroad. Finally, business was booming as it had never boomed before. The Americans made twelve-and-a-half thousands of millions of dollars out of the war, clear net profit up to the end of 1918.

The War Party said the whole war was about a question of right and wrong, and that the French and British were right, while the Germans were wrong. They said that Americans were safe because the British Navy barred the way, that all the British oversea Dominions had fought from the first, though not obliged to send a ship, a dollar, or a man except of their own free will. They said that every American patriot should be very proud to fight for the freedom of the world and very much ashamed to let the French and British uphold the cause of right alone. They said that the German submarines had already murdered many Americans, that many other Americans, ashamed to see their country hanging back, were already enlisting in Canada, England, and France, and that although business was certainly booming, beyond the wildest dreams of the keenest money-makers before the war, yet this vast wealth was too much like blood-money, since the French and British were suffering immense losses in lives and money and in everything but honour, while the Americans, losing nothing in lives, were making vast hoards of money out of a cause that really was their own—the cause of right and freedom.

Slowly but surely the War Party gained, as more and more members of the Peace Party began to see the truth. But still, after twenty-seven months, the most popular cry among those who voted President Wilson in for a second term was "he kept us out of war." Three months later the German "Submarine Blockade" began (February 1917). Then, two months later still, most of the Peace Party, seeing that their own ships would be sunk just as readily as French or British ships, gave their vote for war.

It was a glorious moment in world-history when British, French, and Americans at last stood side by side. The American Navy led the way, joining the hunt for German submarines with a keenness whetted by having been held back so long. The Army followed, bit by bit, until two million men had gone to Europe, thanks chiefly to the British ships that took them there. The Nation backed both Army and Navy with vast sums of money, which it could so easily afford, and with patriotic work of every splendid kind.

But the war lasted only nineteen months longer; and in that time the Americans were not able to do anything like what the Allies had done before and still were doing. The entire American loss in men (killed, wounded, and prisoners) was over one-quarter million. But Canada's loss of over two hundred thousand was ten times as great in proportion; for there are twelve-and-a-half times as many people in the United States as there are in Canada. In the same way the losses of France and Great Britain were each more than twenty times greater than that of the United States. In ships and money the difference is far more striking still. The British alone lost one-and-a-half times as many ships as all the rest of the world put together. But the Americans have actually gained, owing to the number of interned German vessels they seized in their ports. As for money: the British, the French, and all the Allies have spent so much in fighting for the freedom of the world that neither they nor their children, nor their children's children, can ever pay the vast debt off; while the United States have made, on their own showing, the twelve-and-a-half "billions" mentioned already.

These few facts (there are hundreds more) will show you a little of what the Great War means to the world, what the British Navy meant to the war, and what Jutland meant to both the war and the world, by sweeping the German Navy off the surface of the sea, and so bringing on the "Submarine Blockade" that itself forced the American Government to fight in self-defence.