OUR DEBT TO THE NAVY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 42, 13 November 1918, Page 6

OUR DEBT TO THE NAVY

Any one. of a number of the contributions made by Great Britain to the organised strength of the Allied nations might be pointed out as indispensable to the victory which has restored the foundations of peace and security in the world, but it is an elementary fact that if she had not been able to* gain command of the seas when the war began and hold it through the years of conflict that followed all efforts made by herself and her Allies in 'other directions would have' been vain. This fact is the measure of the ser- ' vice rendered to the Allied cause [by the British Navy—"that great silent fundamental force which, though small in numbers, has made possible the success of the armies." 11/ in no way detracts from the commanding . achievement of the Navy that to the last, it was denied the final and decisive conflict • with the German Fleet, upon which its hopes were eagerly set. The First Lord of the Admiralty (Sire Eric Geddes) lately revealed tho fact that in the closing days of October the enemy fleet was ordered to put to sea, and its crews refused to obey. No strained or illfounded claim was made by the First Lord when he named British sea-power as the factor responsible for tho collapse of discipline in the German fleet and the outbreak of revolutionary disorders. _ Cowed and intimidated by a force it dared not face, the German fleet was defeated as it lay in its 'harbours pf refuge. The moral catastrophe to which it succumbed was an appropriate concluding event in a sea war in which tho influence of the British Navy was not less decisive for the fact that the enemy's main forces as a rule kept safely out of rcach. It is in some respects an examplo of ironic fate that the British Navy, a, fighting organisation, of incomhas been permitted in this war to do comparatively little lighting. On the only occasions on which the enemy brought his capital ships within reach, at the Dogger Bank and at Jutland, it was very _ conclusively demonstrated that if he ventured upon a full conflict his fate would be annihilation. In the attack on Zcebrugge and Ostend tho Navy surpassed its own traditions. With these conspicuous exceptions the naval fighting of the war consisted largely of minor actions, which, from the point of view of the British Navy,_ arose very often in connection with intercepting and checkmating tho cut-a-nd-nm raids of an enemy who desired nothing less than a straight-out contest for supremacy. At every opportunity or sign of an opportunity, the Navv threw itself upon tho enemy with all imaginable zest. On every such occasion it fought with the grim intensity of purpose and utter contempt of danger which are its birthright and tradition. But its common fate was to keep an unrewarded vigil, baulked of its heart's desire. Thirsting for battle, it was in'general denied battle. The fact demands all possible prominence, because in theso conditions the task' of the Navy was made infinitely more arduous'and difficult than if the enemy fleet had,been within.reach. The task in itself was of staggering immensity. To tho end of the war the British Fleet took the lion's share in holding and "policing the seas of practically the; whole world. Had it lost control of tho seas the Allied communications everywhere would have been cut, and all hope of victory over the Central Empires would have disappeared. What the Navy has 'done in the. way of foutwarding military operations is indicated in Sir Euic Geddes's- recent statement that twenty-two million Allied troops crossed and'rccrossed the seas during the war period, with, a total loss of under five thousand lives. This represents a colossal achievement in the protection of sea communications, but it is only an item in what'the Navy has done. It has rendered services as vital in protecting _ the transportation of war material an'd supplies, of raw material for industries, and of the food of countless millions.- Sir lan Hamilton said of the Gallipoli expedition that the Navy had been tho father and mother of the Army. What the Navy did for the military forces landed on' Gallipoli it has been doing on a- vastly greater scale throughout the war for' the whole Allied -world. With all its tireless vigilance it was unable to prevent a heavy destruction of merchant shipping by enemy submarines, but tho surprising thing is not that some shipping, was destroyed, but that lines of sea traffic were unbrokcnly maintained and that such wonderful progress was made towards clearing the seas of U-boat raiders. In bottling up a powerful fleet and .ultimately reducing its value to that of scrap-iron, in policing tho seas of the' world, and in coping successfully with tho enemy's .furtive attacks, the British Navy solved problems which might well have been supposed to defy solution. Wonder and gratitude arc equally awakened by tho contemplation of what it accomplished. It brought great resources to bear. At the'beginning of the war it held the seas with 150,000 sailors. In the closing stages this number had increased to half a million. A tonnage of two and a half millions when the war_ opened increased before the end to eight millions, the increased total including the tonnage of the auxiliary fleet. The British Navy easily overtopped that of any other nation in 1914. To-day it is by far 1 the greatest and most formidable aggregation of naval force the world has ever seen. But impressive as it is in point of numbers and magnitude of material resources, it could not have approached the colossal achievement which stands to its credit in the war had not its ofliccrs and men been richly endowed with the best qualities of our race. Tho British Navy is something moro 'than a fighting force wonderfully efficient in training and mechanical organisation—capable in a marvellous degree of adjusting itself to such unexampled demands as wero, made, by U-boat piracy in the war which is now over. Our Navy is an order of the sea which demands of every man his best, which sets | up unfaltering devotion to duty at all times and in all circumstances | not as an ideal to be approached . but as a working rule of every day.