"O, do but think you stand upon the rivage and behold a city on th' inconstant billows dancing
"For so appears this fleet majestical."
In August 1914, Britain went to war with a very small army
and the greatest navy the world had ever seen.
The first duty of the Royal Navy was to defend the British Isles
against dangers defined earlier by Sir Walter Raleigh.
There are two ways in which England may be afflicted -
one, by invasion, the other by impeachment of our trades.
100 years after Raleigh, the Marquis of Halifax wrote:
To the question, "What shall we do to be saved in this world?"
there is no other answer but this - "Look to your moat."
The first article of an Englishman's political creed must be
that he believeth in the sea.
Ever since Trafalgar in 1805,
Britain's "fleet majestical" had been the envy and despair of other powers.
"Wherever there's water to float a ship," said Napoleon, "we're sure to find YOU in the way."
In 1900, Germany began to build a fleet - a BATTLE fleet.
Admiral von der Goetz told the Reichstag:
The maritime superiority of Great Britain, overwhelming now, will remain considerable in the future,
but she is compelled to scatter her forces all over the world.
With the increases about to be made in the German fleet,
we will be able to measure our strength with ordinary British naval forces in home waters.
The very foundations of Britain's security were placed in hazard. The threat was unmistakable.
Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, expressed its extent:
If the German fleet ever becomes superior to ours, the German army can conquer this country.
There's no such risk to Germany,
for however superior our fleet was, no naval victory would bring us any nearer to Berlin.
There were two courses open to Britain - negotiate to limit the German fleet or increase her own.
In 1908, the Kaiser ruled out negotiation.
A good understanding with the English is not desirable
at the cost of the completion of the German fleet.
If the British want war, they can have it. We are not afraid of it.
Britain met the challenge by stripping her overseas stations
and concentrating her navy in home waters.
Sir John Fisher, First Sea Lord, wrote reassuringly:
We will soon have in home waters two fleets, each of which is superior
to the entire German fleet fully mobilised for war,
so sleep easy in your beds.
Battleships and cruisers returned home from distant oceans -
a holiday for the Arab smuggler or the Malay buccaneer.
It was not enough. In 1906, Britain had launched HMS Dreadnought - faster, bigger, more heavily armed.
All existing battleships were rendered obsolete.
In theory, all the shipbuilding nations were now on equal terms.
The naval race began.
Bigger ships,
heavier armaments,
12 inch guns,
13.5 inch guns,
15 inch guns.
When war began, it was Britain who had won the race.
She had 24 dreadnoughts and battle cruisers ready to fight, to Germany's 16,
AND the moral advantage of a century of unchallenged supremacy.
One officer said at the outbreak of war,
"I'm quite sure all of us will find our bones lying at the bottom of the sea within the next ten days
"and I have decided to eat nothing till my death but caviar."
He kept that up for three days and then gave up to avoid bankruptcy.
To Britain's naval strength was added that of France.
German policy had made allies of the old enemies of Trafalgar.
Together, the allied fleets ringed the German and Austrian fortress of Europe.
Colonial possessions provided the British, French and German fleets
with bases for supplies and repairs.
They also formed a network of radio stations,
connecting distant squadrons with their home command.
Above all, they served as coaling stations.
To steam ships, coal was life.
A heavy ship ate a ton of coal for every mile steamed at high speed.
When she refuelled, up to 2,000 tons of coal would have to be loaded into her bunkers.
So, across the world, the naval powers had built up chains of coaling stations.
The filthy colliers that replenished them were the sinews of naval glory.
Coaling ship was a hated task, which might take from dawn to dusk, or longer.
Breaking the surface of the coal was fine, but as you got lower and lower into the hold, it got terrible.
You was eating coal dust all the time you were down there. Your nose, your eyes got blocked up.
We was jolly thankful when we was finished.
# Only one more day of coaling
# One more day
# Oh, rock 'n' roll me over
# Only one more day!
# Only one more day a-working
# One more day
# Oh, rock 'n' roll me over
# Only one more day! #
In 1914, Britain placed entire trust in the Royal Navy -
supreme, invincible repository of imperial might.
"Sleep quiet in your beds," Admiral Fisher had said.
"We will be incomparably superior to the entire German fleet."
Yet there were those who were uneasily conscious of new factors.
A naval revolution had been in progress...
underwater.
The mine and the submarine created dangers to which the largest dreadnoughts were vulnerable.
No-one knew how these underwater weapons would affect the great fleets.
One American admiral said, "Damn the torpedoes. Full steam ahead."
Observers knew Britain had lagged behind in developing underwater armaments.
We had no efficient mine, no proper minesweepers,
no measures for guarding our ships against mines, no anti-submarine precautions, no safe harbour.
Poor defences for the fleet in its own waters upset Commander-in-Chief Admiral Jellicoe.
I was far more concerned for the safety of the fleet
when it was at anchor in Scapa Flow in the early days of the war
than I was when the fleet was at sea.
Unsuspected uncertainties hovered around the Royal Navy as it went to war.
Germany had acquired a colonial empire in Africa and the Pacific -
more than four times the area of her homeland,
and she had developed a huge export trade.
In the Far East was the only naval force outside the North Sea to carry the flag of Imperial Germany,
the German Asiatic Squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee.
This alone defended Germany's Pacific colonies.
The allies planned von Spee's immediate destruction -
take away his bases, his radio and coaling stations, and his squadron would be helpless.
The first to be seized was Samoa.
Palms and sands and lazy islanders ringed by the glamorous South Seas.
This was where Robert Louis Stevenson of Treasure Island had died and been buried.
"That ridiculous island!" the Kaiser called it.
There was no fighting in Samoa.
A party of New Zealanders came ashore to accept the German surrender with due ceremony.
The black and red and white flag of Germany came down the mast and the Union flag flew in its place.
On the same day, the BEF was marching back from Mons
and Le Cateau in dour exhaustion.
On September 10th, the remote tropical war moved to another German island, New Pomerania,
off the coast of New Guinea.
There was a brisk action, ending in an Australian victory.
On September 15th, the whole of German New Guinea surrendered.
Australia, in her first campaign of conquest,
had added 90,000 square miles to the British Empire
at a cost of six dead and four wounded.
But Germany's strongest Pacific colony and von Spee's main base
was Tsingtao on the Kiaochow Peninsula of China.
Its Governor telegraphed Berlin:
Tsingtao is impregnable. It cannot be taken from the sea and no-one would try from the land.
But it could be besieged.
Japanese, British and Indian troops landed on September 2nd.
The Japanese had a problem.
They couldn't tell a German European from an English one.
We sent out a mixed patrol - ourselves and the Japanese.
They shot one of our men. They say we look the same as the Germans.
They gave us Japanese kimonos, down to our thighs, with capes.
When we all wore kimonos, we were all chaps together. There were no more accidents.
The siege of Tsingtao went on for nine weeks.
The Japanese brought Howitzers to smash the forts as the Germans had smashed Liege and Namur.
We were out resting now on the 6th and 7th and we were behind a range, nice cover.
And all of a sudden, there was a Japanese officer coming on horseback, full gallop.
He said, "Germans finish, Germans finish. White flag is up."
They surrendered on Sunday morning, 7th November.
Now the last islands to fly the German flag in the Pacific fell one by one.
The Marianas and the Carolines and the Marshalls and Bougainville.
One by one, Admiral von Spee lost his hopes of coal and succour.
His sleek ships steamed on in isolation. Winston Churchill described his dilemma:
With the blockade of Tsingtao, he was cut off from his only base on that side of the world.
To steam at full or high speed for any length of time on any quest
was to use up his life rapidly.
He was a cut flower in a vase - fair to see, yet bound to die.
Germany's African empire was crumbling too.
In August, Togoland fell.
In September, the Cameroons.
South West Africa was attacked.
The operation was delayed by a rebellion of Afrikaners
who wanted to reverse the result of the Boer War.
Rebels were killed, dispersed or captured, but the Germans had been granted a respite.
But by the summer of 1915, the Union flag flew over the whole of this vast territory.
The first invasion of German East Africa ended in rout.
A British and Indian force, poorly commanded and poorly trained,
landed on the swampy coast.
Amid muddles and misunderstandings, they were attacked by well-trained African askaris
under a great German commander - Colonel von Lettow-Vorbech.
The British, their invasion hopes shattered by dysentery and gunfire, withdrew after four days,
leaving behind 800 dead and many prisoners,
as well as enough guns and ammunition, coats and blankets, to supply the Germans for years.
Von Lettow-Vorbech and his mobile force of never more than 15,000
harassed up to 130,000 allied troops
till the very end of the war.
East Africa held out but the German Empire disappeared from the map.
Her merchant fleet also disappeared.
The blockade, mounted by the British Navy on the first day of war, was doing its work.
German merchant ships were penned up in ports all around the world.
Ships of neutral nations were prevented from bringing her any materials of war.
This created instant friction between Britain and America. Lloyd George wrote:
Germany's chief power was on land, Britain's on the sea.
Germany's invasion of Belgium, her devastation of France might arouse disinterested wraths in America,
but it did not touch American pockets.
On the other hand, Britain's firm measures to stop contraband of war
from reaching Germany and her wide interpretation of "contraband"
caused serious inconvenience to American shipping and direct interference with American business.
It was a test of diplomacy, as Britain and Germany competed for America's sympathy.
President Wilson's confidential advisor said:
The British have gone as far as they could in violating neutral rights,
though they have done it in the most courteous way.
President Wilson had determined to keep America out of war. He contented himself with protests.
And now, under the protection of the Royal Navy,
soldiers from Britain and the British Empire poured unmolested into France and Egypt.
In October, the first Canadian contingent left Halifax, Nova Scotia, for France,
over 31,000 soldiers -
the greatest concentration ever carried by ship in one journey.
Everywhere the oceans were a broad and safe high road for the allies -
for troops from India sailing to protect the oil fields of the Gulf,
for Australians and New Zealanders bound for Egypt where Indian and British soldiers
were defending the Suez Canal against the Turk.
In all this vast traffic, not one soldier was lost through German naval attacks.
The same sea power protected Britain's merchant trade,
more vital now than ever before.
Everywhere the allies sailed safely over the oceans, under the wing of the Royal Navy.
But it is the duty of a fleet to destroy enemy warships.
On August 28th, the Admiralty planned a daring assault, deep into German home waters.
The destination, Heligoland Bight,
the stretch of sea between the armed island fortress of Heligoland
and the mouths of the Elbe and the Jade, where the main German fleet was concentrated.
The Admiralty knew that German destroyers patrolled this area every night.
They'd planned a trap for the Germans.
But when German light cruisers appeared, the British destroyers found themselves in difficulties.
Then an impressive new element surged into the battle - Admiral Beatty's battle cruisers.
They quickly pounded the German cruisers into wrecks with their big guns.
Admiralty signalling muddles caused much confusion amongst the British squadrons,
but the action was an unqualified British success.
They lost no ships. The Germans lost three cruisers and a destroyer.
Admiral Tirpitz, creator of the fleet, lamented:
It was a day fateful for the work of our navy.
The Emperor did not want losses of this sort.
Orders were issued by the Kaiser to restrict the initiative of the commander-in-chief of the fleet.
The loss of ships was to be avoided. Sorties and other undertakings must be approved by the Kaiser.
Germany turned to her underwater weapons.
The frightening potential of mine and torpedo were still a haunting enigma.
Soon, they gained an outstanding and ominous success.
On September 22nd, near the Dutch coast,
one of Germany's oldest U-boats, the U-9,
sighted a patrol of three British cruisers -
the Hoog, the Aboukir, and the Crecy.
Within an hour, all three were sunk with the loss of 1,400 lives -
more men than Nelson lost in all his battles.
On October 27th, Audacious, a new British dreadnought, hit a mine and blew up.
All the crew were saved, but it was another alarming sign of the shift in balance of naval war.
On the surface, Germany boasted one conspicuous success.
The cruiser Emden, detached from von Spee's squadron,
was pursuing a brilliant career of destruction in the busy sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.
She was a Scarlet Pimpernel of the sea - gallant, elusive, surprising.
Emden's exploits rang round the world.
She captured or sank merchant ship after merchant ship.
If they were colliers, she filled up and took a new lease of life.
Eight British men-of-war combed the Indian Ocean for her in vain.
Marine insurance rates rocketed.
She delayed the sailing of a New Zealand troop convoy.
She entered Penang Harbour and sank a Russian and a French warship.
One night, she entered the port of Madras, turned on her searchlights and gunned the shore oil tanks.
They were wrecked and a 1½ million gallons went up in smoke.
In Britain, the Admiralty's prestige was shaken,
as even the First Lord, Winston Churchill, had to admit:
The press and the public was not in a position to understand all that the Admiralty was doing.
They saw only a few German cruisers doing whatever they chose and sinking British merchantmen.
A great deal of discontent made itself felt and heard.
After two profitable months, Emden sailed to the Cocos Islands
and sent a landing party ashore to wreck the radio station.
But the new weapon of radio was her undoing.
The operator had already signalled for help
and the Australian cruiser Sydney was on her way.
HORN BLARES
Emden, outgunned and outranged, ran herself onto a reef.
The Indian Ocean was safe again.
Now the flame of German naval imperialism was flickering out. Only von Spee remained.
From the outbreak of war, he eluded his pursuers, alone, with his five ships, cut off from his colonies,
he steamed on in the empty vastness of the Pacific.
Every day, Churchill studied charts of his possible position,
pondering where the Asiatic squadron may be.
At last, news came that it was sailing towards the coast of Chile.
Admiral Cradock, commanding a British squadron in the Pacific, was ordered to hunt him down.
Cradock wrote:
Somehow I think we will say, "How do you do?" to the Teutonic gentlemen.
We don't want any more disappointments.
Cradock with the old cruisers, Good Hope and Monmouth,
and the light cruiser Glasgow and the merchant cruiser Otranto,
found von Spee near the bay of Coronel, off the coast of Chile.
We formed single line ahead...
..and Good Hope fired a ranging shot, which was short.
The enemy then opened up with relevant salvoes.
We did not possess that method of firing,
but it soon became apparent to us
that both the Monmouth and the Good Hope were under severe punishment for about an hour.
There was a terrific explosion in the Good Hope
and she went up like a huge bouquet...
and disappeared.
And after that, they concentrated on the Monmouth and us.
And the Monmouth was soon in trouble and could make little effective reply.
The Monmouth sank and the whole crew was drowned.
Cradock too was drowned with the crew of the Good Hope.
A fellow admiral said of him:
Poor Kit Cradock - he'd always wanted to die on the hunting field or in action.
News of the black defeat at Coronel staggered a British public
reared on the legend of an unconquerable navy.
U-boats, mines, the Emden, and now a British squadron smashed in a fair fight.
The Admiralty, already under heavy criticism, reacted ferociously.
The battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible were ordered out to find von Spee and destroy him.
There was to be no delay. The admiral's superintendent Davenport
reports the earliest completion date of Invincible and Inflexible is midnight, 13th November.
Admiralty to C-in-C Davenport, ships are to sail Wednesday 11th November.
They are needed for war service and must conform.
If necessary, dockyard men should be sent away IN the ships to return as opportunity may offer.
YOU are responsible for despatching the ships in an efficient condition.
On Wednesday November 11th, the two great ships under Admiral Sturdee,
steamed south towards the South Atlantic and the Falkland Islands.
45 allied warships were now after von Spee's blood.
He had no illusions.
We have at least contributed in a certain measure to the glory of our arms.
Although that cannot signify greatly against the enormous number of British ships.
Unknown to each other, von Spee and Sturdee were steaming towards the same place at the same time -
the Falklands.
Sturdee arrived first. He was coaling the morning after and received the signal -
a four-funnelled and a two-funnelled man-of-war in sight.
The ships he was scouring the ocean for were sailing into his arms.
The British crews worked feverishly to prepare their ships for the chase.
The Germans, at first, thought they had surprised a cruiser squadron,
then suddenly the Germans saw the tripod masts - battle cruisers.
They meant certain death.
The battle cruisers swept out of the harbour.
For three hours, they chased von Spee, eating up his 15-mile lead.
At nine miles, Sturdee opened fire.
The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau fought back gallantly, but they had no hope.
We could feel one or two shots coming and hitting us.
We could hear the shots piercing the funnels and the superstructure and the casings and...
but we were assured, from time to time, from the bridge, that all was going well.
Sturdee's advantage was overwhelming,
but British gunnery was uneven and many shells that did land on target failed to pierce the German armour.
It was five hours before Scharnhorst sank and Gneisenau soon followed her.
The Kent finished off the light cruiser Nurnberg.
She was on fire, fore and aft, and some of them were jumping into the water,
on bits of wreckage, so as to get to us, but the seas were icy cold.
We all had the impression that those Germans were very plucky people.
I actually saw one man pull out a flag that was aft.
He got hold of it and I saw him as he was sinking under the water
still waving that flag as that ship went down - "Deutschland still uber alles".
Only one light cruiser escaped.
Coronel was avenged at the expense of three-quarters of the battle cruisers' ammunition,
and some disturbing questions about the quality of British gunnery.
A month later, another battle raised more questions -
this time about British signalling.
A British battle cruiser force in the North Sea met a smaller German one near the Dogger Bank.
MAN SHOUTS COMMANDS
Their heavy cruiser Blucher was badly hit and burning.
She began to slow down. The British flagship also damaged and her radio gone
flag signalled the other ships to continue chasing the fleeing Germans.
By a combination of mistakes, the force stopped pursuing and turned on the doomed Blucher.
We annihilated her, brought her to rest,
and she was in a very bad position,
but the most extraordinary thing about it
was that she was heeling over and there must have been over 1,000 men
clambering up the deck onto the side of the ship and she steadily rolled over again,
so they were sliding down the side of the ship into the water.
The German battle cruisers escaped.
Safe in harbour after their brief foray, they returned to their passive role,
but recreation was not victory.
The German fleet had little to show after six months of war,
except confirmation of the Kaiser's fears -
the British grand fleet was too strong for them. Morale was in danger.
The Kaiser had to issue a special order to his fleet.
I urge you to maintain a spirit of cheerful fulfilment of duty,
even when there has so far been no opportunity in the face of the enemy
or where in all human probability no such opportunity is likely to occur at all.
The German navy had failed.
But the British had not entirely succeeded.
Six months of war revealed weaknesses in British training -
a training of character and seamanship in the tradition of Drake and Nelson,
but less adapted to the technology of modern naval war.
There had been grave signalling errors and Sturdee took five hours to sink von Spee,
whereas, at Coronel, von Spee had destroyed Cradock in an hour.
The main base at Scapa Flow was weakly defended against U-boats.
Observers noted defects in British equipment and in tactics.
The long lack of a naval staff was beginning to tell,
yet the balance sheet was in Britain's favour.
The German Navy might still be powerful and intact,
but her fleet was in harbour, her merchant ships were gone, and her colonies were seized.
In the first months of the war, the Royal Navy had done its job.
Only a few sensed the absence of the Nelson touch,
and of the tremendous superior might of Nelson's day.