ADMIRAL BEATTY.
WANTED A FIGHT, ?UT WAS GIVEN A MEETING.
"Request you will report on sinking of U-93, as same appeared avoidable." "Torpedoes you failed to send with latest convoy of submarines you will forward by next transport." "You will stop using your wireless till further orders." The above are three wireless messages typical of those that Admiral Beatty has been sending across the seas to Kiel these last few days (says the London Daily Mail). Few who were up with the Grand Fleet for the recent surrender have returned without a reverence for the whole attitude and bearing of the British Commander-in-Chief.
Deprived of his Trafalgar, Beatty has been sending wireless broadside after broadside into the Huns. Said a commander at Rosyth, "They are eating the dirt thrown them by Beatty." So they have been.
•Beatty is a disgusted, disappointed man. To "get" his mentality you want to recall to mind a prize fight that took place at Reno, State of Nevada, some years ago—the Johnson versus Jeffries fight. For months before the contest the two camps watched one another like cats on a wall. As for the opponents themselves, they never met. Their tricks and training and intentions were shrouded in secrecy. And then the crashing climax echoing across a continent.
Well, supposing there had been no climax.
Supposing, instead, that on the day, Jeffries had entered the ring and cringingly whined: "I'm frightened! I won't tight!"
Imagine the disgust of the vast assembly—the Grand Fleet! Imagine the of Johnson's trainer—Admiral Sir David Beatty! Beatty had lived and dreamed and pondered the day for four long years. Shortly before Armistice Day he assembled his men in "Big Lizzie." "Men," he said in that abrupt, incisive way of his, biting his words, "they're coming out. I always said they would." A week later he repeated the same address. On the day of the great surrender he again addressed his tars. "Men," he began, "I always told you they'd come out Not on a piece of string, though!" The High Sea Fleet on a piece of string! Was the thing ever better expressed? In all this wide war no more dramatic day than November 21st has passed us by. The spectacular side, great gray ships, steaming in battle array, meant nought—ordinary manoeuvres.
It wasn't the ships that mattered, but the men in them. For people who like to play with human emotions it was an unreturning orgy. The Huns who so arrogantly goose-stepped across the bodies of outraged women—four yeai-s ago—in the waters of the Firth of Forth now cringed to heel like a dog with its tail between its legs! 'To think we've waited all these years to fight them," ruminated a British admiral, "and now to have go out and meet them by appointment, like meeting a girl—only they'll be punctual!" Admiral Beatty knows all about that. He is a disgusted, disappointed man. and his every gesture has emphasised the fact. He is out to humiliate the Hun, to make him eat worms. In all his messages you will detect a virile undercurrent of contempt. To dishonor the sea by murder was bad enough; to follow up with cowardice—only Germans could do that, rank materialists reasoning: "Is it going to serve any useful purpose if we come out ?" and deciding in the negative. Beaten bullies with a moral kink.
Beatty knows all that, and is acting accordingly. And is going on acting so. Icy courtesy. Granite firmness. Contempt.
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Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1919, Page 7
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580ADMIRAL BEATTY. Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1919, Page 7
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