War on and under the Sea (1)

You will remember how hard the Germans had worked, building warships,
with the hope that one day their navy might be the strongest in the
world. At the outbreak of the great war in 1914 they were still far
behind England in naval power. On the other hand, it was necessary for
the English to keep their navy scattered all over the world. English
battleships were guarding trade routes to Australia, to China, to the
islands of the Pacific. The Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar, the
Island of Malta--all were in English hands, and ships and guns were
needed to defend them.

The German navy, on the other hand, with the exception of a few
cruisers in the Pacific Ocean and two warships in the Mediterranean,
was gathered in the Baltic Sea, the southeastern part of the North
Sea, and the great Kiel Canal which connected these two bodies of
water. It was quite possible that this fleet, by making a quick dash
for the ports of England, might find there only a portion of the
English ships and be able to overwhelm them before the rest of the
English navy should assemble from the far parts of the earth.

Winston Churchill, whose name you have read before, had the foresight
to assemble enough English vessels in home waters in the latter part
of the month of July, 1914, to give England the upper hand over the
fleet of Germany. As a result, finding the British too strong, the
Germans did not venture out into the high seas to give battle. A few
skirmishes were fought between cruisers, then some speedy German
warships made a dash across the North Sea to the coast of England,
shelled some small towns, killed several men, women, and children and
returned, getting back to the Kiel Canal before the English vessels
arrived in any number.

A second raid was attempted a few weeks later but by this time the
British were on the watch. Two of the best German cruisers were sunk
and the others barely escaped the fire of the avengers.

About the first of June, 1916, a goodly portion of the German fleet
sailed out, hoping to catch the British unawares. They were successful
in sinking several large ships, but when the main British fleet
arrived they began in turn to suffer great losses, and were obliged to
retire. With the exception of these two fights and two other battles
fought off the coast of South America (in the first of which a small
English fleet was destroyed by the Germans, and in the second a larger
British fleet took revenge), there have been no battles between the
sea forces.

The big navy of England ruled the ocean. German merchant vessels were
either captured or forced to remain in ports of neutral nations.
German commerce was swept from the seas, while ships carrying supplies
to France and the British Isles sailed unmolested--for a time. Only in
the Baltic Sea was Germany mistress. Commerce from Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark was kept up as usual. Across the borders of Holland and Switzerland came great streams of imports. Merchants in these little
countries bought, in the markets of the world, apparently for
themselves, but really for Germany.

However, not for long did British commerce sail unmolested. A new and
terrible menace was to appear. This was the submarine boat, the
invention of Mr. John Holland, an American, but improved and enlarged
by the Germans. In one of the early months of the war three British
warships, the Hogue, the Cressy, and the Aboukir, were cruising about,
guarding the waters of the North Sea. There was the explosion of a
torpedo, and the Hogue began to sink. One of her sister ships rushed
in to pick up the crew as they struggled in the water. A second
torpedo struck and a second ship was sinking. Nothing daunted by the
fate of the other two, the last survivor steamed to the scene of the
disaster--the German submarine once more shot its deadly weapon, and
three gallant ships with a thousand men had gone down.

This startled the world. It was plain that battleships and cruisers
were not enough. While England controlled the surface of the
sea, there was no way to prevent the coming and going of the German
submarine beneath the waters. All naval warfare was changed in a
moment; new methods and new weapons had to be employed.