The Silent Watchers England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It

CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VII IN THE SOUTH SEAS: THE DISASTER OFF CORONEL Sunset and evening star *         *         *         * And after that the dark. During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of the British cruiser Monmouth , the senior English Naval Officer on the China Station, and Admiral Count von Spee, commanding the German Far-Eastern Squadron, were close and intimate friends. The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers and men of the two squadrons. The English and Germans discussed with one another the chances of war between their nations, and wished one another the best of luck when the scrap came. The German Squadron, which has since been destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser’s Navy. It was commanded by professional officers and manned by long-service ratings. It had taken for its model the English Navy, and it had absorbed much of the English naval spirit. Count von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentleman, and with Captain von Müller, who afterwards made the name of the Emden immortal, was worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let us always be just to those of our foes who, though they fight with us terribly, yet remain our chivalrous friends. I will tell a pretty story which will illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed between the English and German squadrons during those two years before the war. In December 1912 the Monmouth was cruising in the Gulf of Pechili, which resembles a long flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron off Chifu, in the neck of the bottle, received word from a correspondent that the second Balkan War had brought England and Germany within a short distance of “Der Tag.” Von Spee and his officers did not clink glasses to “The Day”; they were professionals who knew the English Navy and its incomparable power; they left silly boastings to civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel who had not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought first of his English friend who, in his elderly cruiser, was away up in the Gulf at the mercy of the German Squadron, which was as a cork in its neck. He at once dispatched a destroyer to find the Monmouth’s captain and to warn him that though there might be nothing in the news it were better for him to get clear of the Gulf. “There may be nothing in the yarn,” he wrote, “I have had many scares before. But it would be well if you got out of the Gulf. I should be most sorry to have to sink you.” When the destroyer came up with the Monmouth she had returned to Wei-hai-wei, and the message was delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an answer somewhat as follows: “My dear von Spee, thank you very much. I am here. J’y suis, J’y reste. I shall expect you and your guns at breakfast to-morrow morning.” War did not come then; when von Spee did meet and sink the Monmouth she had another captain in command, but the story remains as evidence of the chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and skilful von Spee. In November 1913 the Monmouth left the China Station, and before she went, upon November 6th, her crew were entertained sumptuously by von Spee and von Müller. She was paid off in January 1914, after reaching home, but was recommissioned in the following July for the test mobilisation, which at the moment meant so much, and which a few weeks later was to mean so much more. When the war broke out, the Monmouth , with her new officers and men, half of whom were naval reservists, was sent back to the Pacific. The armoured cruiser Good Hope , also commissioned in July, was sent with her, and the old battleship Canopus was despatched a little later. Details of the movements of these and of other of our warships in the South Atlantic and Pacific are given in the chapters entitled “The Cruise of the Glasgow .” The Glasgow had been in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of war, and was joined there by the Good Hope and Monmouth . Meanwhile war had broken out, and we will for a few moments consider what resulted. The Emden , Captain von Müller, was at the German base of Tsing-tau, but Admiral von Spee, with the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , was among the German Caroline Islands far to the south of the China Sea. The Dresden was in the West Indies and the Leipzig and Nürnberg on the West Coast of Mexico (the Pacific side). The Japanese Fleet undertook to keep von Spee out of China waters to the north, and the Australian Unit—which then was at full strength and included the battle cruiser Australia with her eight 12-⁠inch guns and the light cruisers Melbourne and Sydney , each armed with eight sixes—made themselves responsible for the Australian end of the big sea area. The Emden , disguised as an English cruiser, with four funnels—the dummy one made of canvas—got out of Tsing-tau under the noses of the Japanese watchers, made off towards the Indian Ocean, and pursued that lively and solitary career which came to its appointed end at the Cocos-Keeling Islands, as will be described fully later on in this book. The Australian Unit, burning with zeal to fire its maiden guns at a substantial enemy, sought diligently for von Spee and requisitioned the assistance of the French armoured cruiser Montcalm , an old slow and not very useful vessel which happened to be available for the hunt. Von Spee was discovered in his island retreat and pursued as far as Fiji, but the long arm of the English Admiralty then interposed and upset the merry game. We were short of battle cruisers where we wanted them most—in the North Sea—so the Australia was summoned home and the remaining ships of the Unit, no longer by themselves a match for von Spee, were ordered back to Sydney in deep disgust. “A little more,” declared the bold Australians, who under their English professional officers had been hammered into a real Naval Unit, “and we would have done the work which the Invincible and Inflexible had to do later. If we had been left alone there would not have been any disaster off Coronel.” While one can sympathise with complaints such as this from eager fire-eaters, one has to accept their assertions with due caution. The German High Seas Fleet was at that time a more important objective than even von Spee. So the Australia sailed for England to join up with the Grand Fleet, and von Spee had rest for several weeks. He was not very enterprising. Commerce hunting did not much appeal to him, though his light cruisers, the Dresden and Leipzig , did some little work in that line when on their way to join their Chief at Easter Island where the squadron ultimately concentrated. On the way across, von Spee visited Samoa, from which we had torn down the German flag, but did no damage there. On September 22nd, he bombarded Tahiti, in the Society Islands, a foolish proceeding of which he repented later on when the Coronel action left him short of shell with no means of replenishment. For eight days he stayed in the Marquesas Islands taking in provisions, thence he went to Easter Island and Masafuera, and so to Valparaiso, where the Chilean Government, though neutral, was not unbenevolent. He was for three weeks at Easter Island (Chilean territory), coaling from German ships there, and in this remote spot—a sort of Chilean St. Kilda—remained hidden both from the Chilean authorities and from our South Atlantic Squadron. We must now return to the British Squadron which had been sent out to deal with von Spee as best it might. Cradock with such a squadron, all, except the light cruiser Glasgow , old and slow, had no means of bringing von Spee to action under conditions favourable to himself, or of refusing action when conditions were adverse. Von Spee, with his concentrated homogeneous squadron, all comparatively new and well-armed cruisers, all of about the same speed of twenty-one or twenty-two knots, all trained to a hair by constant work during a three years’ commission, had under his hand an engine of war perfect of its kind. He could be sure of getting the utmost out of co-operative efforts. The most powerful in guns of the English vessels was the battleship Canopus , which, when the action off Coronel was fought, was 200 miles away to the south. She bore four 12-⁠inch guns in barbettes—in addition to twelve sixes—but she was fourteen years old and could not raise more than about thirteen to fourteen knots except for an occasional burst. Any one of von Spee’s ships, with 50 per cent. more speed, could have made rings round her. Had Cradock waited for the Canopus ,—as he was implored to do by her captain, Grant,—and set the speed of his squadron by hers, von Spee could have fought him or evaded him exactly as he pleased. “If the English had kept their forces together,” wrote von Spee after Coronel, “then we should certainly have got the worst of it.” This was the modest judgment of a brave man, but it is scarcely true. If the English had kept their forces together von Spee need never have fought; they would have had not the smallest chance of getting near him except by his own wish. Admiral Cradock flew his flag in the armoured cruiser Good Hope , which, though of 14,000 tons and 520 feet long, had only two guns of bigger calibre than 6-⁠inch. These were of 9.2 inches, throwing a shell of 380 lb., but the guns, like the ship, were twelve years old. Her speed was about seventeen knots, four or five knots less than that of the German cruisers she had come to chase! The Monmouth , of the “County Class,” was as obsolete as the Good Hope . Eleven years old, of nearly 10,000 tons, she carried nothing better than fourteen 6-⁠inch guns of bygone pattern. She may have been good for a knot or two more than the Good Hope , but her cruising and fighting speed was, of course, that of the flagship. The one effective ship of the whole squadron was the Glasgow , which curiously enough is the sole survivor now of the Coronel action, either German or English. Out of the eight warships which fought there off the Chilean coast on November 1st, 1914, five German and three English, the Glasgow alone remains afloat. She is a modern light cruiser, first commissioned in 1911. The Glasgow is light, long and lean. She showed that she could steam fully twenty-five knots and could fight her two 6-⁠inch and ten 4-⁠inch guns most effectively. She was a match for any one of von Spee’s light cruisers, though unable to stand up to the Scharnhorst or Gneisenau . The modern English navy has been built under the modern doctrine of speed and gun-power—the Good Hope , Monmouth , and Canopus , the products of a bad, stupid era in naval shipbuilding, had neither speed nor gun-power. The result, the inevitable result, was the disaster of Coronel in which the English ships were completely defeated and the Germans barely scratched. The Germans had learned the lesson which we ourselves had taught them. When one considers the two squadrons which met and fought off Coronel, in the light of experience cast by war, one feels no surprise that the action was over in fifty-two minutes. Cradock and his men, 1,600 of them, fought and died. Sunset and evening star *       *       *       *       * And after that the dark. The Glasgow would also have been lost had she not been a new ship with speed and commanded by a man with the moral courage to use it in order to preserve his vessel and her crew for the further service of their country. Von Spee, who had the mastery of manœuvre, brought Cradock to action when and how he pleased, and emphasised for the hundredth time in naval warfare that speed and striking power and squadron training will win victory certainly, inevitably, and almost without hurt to the victors. Like the Falkland Islands action of five weeks afterwards, that off Coronel was a gun action. No torpedoes were used on either side. Probably it was one of the last purely gun actions which will be fought in our time. At the end of October the British and German squadrons were near to one another, though until they actually met off Coronel the British commanders did not know that the concentrated German Squadron was off the Chilean coast. Von Spee knew that an old pre-Dreadnought battleship had come out from England, though he was not sure of her class. He judged her speed to be higher than that of the Canopus , which, though powerfully armed, was so lame a duck that she would have been more of a hindrance than a help had Cradock joined up with her. Von Spee had an immense advantage in the greater handiness and cohesiveness of his ships. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were sisters, completed in 1907, and alike in all respects. Their shooting records were first-class; they were indeed the crack gunnery ships under the German ensign. Their sixteen 8.2-⁠inch guns—eight each—fired shells of 275 lb. weight, nearly three times the weight of the 100-⁠lb. shells fired from the 6-⁠inch guns which formed the chief batteries of their opponents the Good Hope and Monmouth . They were three months out of dock but they could still steam, as they showed at Coronel, at over twenty knots in a heavy sea. The light cruisers Dresden , Leipzig and Nürnberg were not identical though very nearly alike. Their armament was the same—ten 4.1-⁠inch guns apiece—and their speed nearly the same. The Dresden was the fastest as she was the newest, a sister of the famous Emden . None of the German light cruisers was so fast or so powerful as the Glasgow , but together they were much more than a match for her, just as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau together were more than a match for the Good Hope and Monmouth . When, therefore, von Spee found himself opposed to the British armoured cruisers he was under no anxiety; he had the heels of them and the guns of them; they could neither fight successfully with him nor escape from him. The speedy Glasgow might escape—as in fact she did—but the Good Hope and the Monmouth were doomed from the moment when the action was joined. I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the rival squadrons at the risk of being wearisome since an understanding of their qualities is essential to an understanding of the action. On October 31st, the Glasgow put into Coronel, a small coaling port near Concepcion and to the south of Valparaiso, which had become von Spee’s unofficial base. He did not remain in territorial waters for more than twenty-four hours at a time, but he got what he liked from German ships in the harbour. The Glasgow kept in wireless touch with the Good Hope and Monmouth , which were some fifty miles out at sea to the west, and von Spee picked up enough from the English wireless to know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel. At once he despatched the Nürnberg to shadow the Glasgow , to stroll as it were unostentatiously past the little harbour, while he with the rest of the squadron stayed out of sight to the north. In the morning of November 1st out came the Glasgow and made for the rendezvous where she was to join the other cruisers and the Otranto , an armed liner by which they were accompanied. The wireless signals passing between the watching Nürnberg and von Spee were in their turn picked up by the Good Hope , so that each squadron then knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradock, an English seaman of the fighting type, determined to seek out the Germans, though he must have suspected their superiority of force. Neither side actually knew the strength of the other. Cradock spread out his vessels fan-wise in the early afternoon and ordered them to steam in this fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east. THE SOUTH SEAS. At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships on either side began to sight one another, and until they did so Cradock had no knowledge that he had knocked up against the whole of the German Pacific Squadron. The German concentration had been effected secretly and most successfully. When the Scharnhorst , von Spee’s flagship, first saw the Glasgow and Monmouth they were far off to the west-south-west and had to wait for more than half an hour until the Good Hope , which was still farther out to the west, could join hands with them. Meanwhile the German ships, which were also spread out, had concentrated on the Scharnhorst . They were the Gneisenau , Dresden , and Leipzig , for the Nürnberg had not returned from her watching duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the Germans were getting between his ships and the Chilean coast, and that he would be at a grave disadvantage by being silhouetted against the western sky, tried to work in towards the land. But von Spee, grasping his enemy’s purpose, set the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau going at twenty knots due south against a heavy sea and forced himself between Cradock and the coast. When the two light cruisers drew up, the four German ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers and between them and the land. All these preliminary manœuvres were put through while the two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and they determined the issue of the subsequent action. For von Spee, having thrust the English against the background of the declining sun and being able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this position and to decide absolutely the moment when the firing should begin, had effectively won the action before a shot had been fired. So long as the sun was above the horizon the German ships were lighted up and would have made admirable marks could Cradock have got within range. But von Spee had no intention of letting him get within range until the sun had actually set and had ceased to give light to Cradock’s gunners. His own men for an hour afterwards could see the English ships standing out as clearly as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas screen. “I had manœuvred,” wrote von Spee to a friend, on the day following the action, “so that the sun in the west could not disturb me. . . . When we were about five miles off I ordered the firing to commence. The battle had begun, and with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite calmly.” He might well be calm. The greater speed of his squadron had enabled him to outmanœuvre the English ships, and to wait until the sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English no mark at all. He might well be calm. Darkness everywhere, except in the western sky behind Cradock’s ships, came down very quickly, the nearly full moon was not yet up, the night was fine except for scuds of rain at intervals. Between seven and eight o’clock—between sunset and moonrise—von Spee had a full hour in which to do his work, and he made the fullest use of the time. At three minutes past seven he began to fire, when the range was between five and six miles, and he hit the Good Hope at the second salvo. His consort the Gneisenau did the same with the Monmouth . It was fine shooting, but not extraordinary, for the German cruisers were crack ships and the marks were perfect. At the third salvo both the Good Hope and Monmouth burst into flames forrard, and remained on fire, for German shell rained on them continually. They could rarely see to reply and never replied effectively. The Good Hope’s lower deck guns were smothered by the sea and were, for all practical purposes, out of action. Yet they fought as best they could. Von Spee slowly closed in and the torrent of heavy shell became more and more bitter. We have no record of the action from the Good Hope and Monmouth , for not a man was saved from either ship. The Glasgow , which, after the Otranto had properly made off early in the action—she was not built for hot naval work—had both the Dresden and the Leipzig to look after, could tell only of her own experiences. Captain Luce in quiet sea service fashion has brought home to us what they were. “Though it was most trying to receive a great volume of fire without a chance of returning it adequately, all kept perfectly cool, there was no wild firing, and discipline was the same as at battle practice. When a target ceased to be visible gun-layers simultaneously ceased fire.” Yet the crews of active ratings and reservists struggled gamely to the end. It came swiftly and mercifully. We have detailed accounts of the action from the German side, of which the best was written by von Spee himself on the following day. There is nothing of boasting or vainglory about his simple story: though the man was German he seems to have been white all through. I have heard much of him from those who knew him intimately, and willingly accept his narrative as a plain statement of fact. Given the conditions, the speed and powers of the opposing squadrons, the skilful preliminary manœuvres of von Spee before a shot was fired, and the veil of darkness which hid the German ships from the luckless English gunners, the result, as von Spee reveals it, was inevitable. He held his fire until after sunset, and then closing in to about 10,000 yards—a little over five miles—gave the order to begin. He himself led the line in the Scharnhorst and engaged the Good Hope , the Gneisenau following him took the Monmouth as her opposite number. The Leipzig engaged the Glasgow , and the Dresden the Otranto . The shell from the 8.2-⁠inch batteries of the German armoured cruisers—each could use six guns on a broadside—got home at the second salvo and the range was kept without apparent difficulty. The fires which almost immediately broke out in the Good Hope and Monmouth gave much aid to the German gunners, who, when the quick darkness of the southern night came down, were spared the use of their searchlights. “As the two big enemy ships were in flames,” writes one careful German observer, “we were able to economise our searchlights.” Then, closing in to about 5,000 yards, von Spee poured in a terrific fire so rapid and sustained that he shot away nearly half his ammunition. After fifty-two minutes from the firing of the first shell the Good Hope blew up. “She looked,” wrote von Spee, “like a splendid firework display against a dark sky. The glowing white flames, mingled with bright green stars, shot up to a great height.” Cradock’s flagship then sank, though von Spee thought for long afterwards that she was still afloat. The Otranto had made her escape, but the Monmouth , which could not get away, and the Glasgow —which at any moment could have shown the enemy her heels—still continued the unequal fight. The night had become quite dark, the flames in the Monmouth had burned out or been extinguished, and the Germans had lost sight of their prey. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau worked round to the south, and the Leipzig and Dresden were sent curving to the north and west, in order to keep the English ships away from the shelter of the land. Just then the light cruiser Nürnberg , which had been sent upon the scouting expedition of which I have told, arrived upon the scene of action and encountered the crippled Monmouth . Had the English cruiser been undamaged, she could soon have disposed of this new combatant, but she was listing heavily and unable to use her guns. Running up close the Nürnberg poured in a broadside which sent the Monmouth to the bottom. The Glasgow , badly damaged above water, but still full of speed and mettle, could do no more. The big German cruisers were coming up. Her captain took the only possible course. Shortly before the stricken Monmouth disappeared under the waves he made off at full speed. No one was picked up, either from the Good Hope or the Monmouth . Von Spee, who was not the man to neglect the rescue of his drowning enemies, gives an explanation. He was far from the Good Hope when she blew up, but the Nürnberg was quite close to the foundering Monmouth ; why was no attempt made at rescue in her case at least? It was dark and there was a heavy sea running, but the risks of a rescue are not sufficient to excuse the absence of any attempt. The Nürnberg had not been in the main action, she was flying up, knowing nothing of what had occurred, when she met and sank the Monmouth . Her captain saw other big ships approaching and thought that one of them was the Good Hope . This is von Spee’s excuse for the omission of his subordinate to put out boats—or even life lines—but one suspects that the captain of the Nürnberg had a bad quarter of an hour when next he met his chief. The German squadron was undamaged, scarcely touched. Three men were wounded by splinters in the Gneisenau . That is the whole casualty list. One 6-⁠inch shell went through the deck of the Scharnhorst but did not explode—the “creature just lay down” and went to sleep. “It lay there,” writes von Spee, “as a kind of greeting.” The light German cruisers were not touched at all. But though the German squadron had come through the fight unharmed, it had ceased to be of much account in a future battle. The silly bombardment of Tahiti, and the action off Coronel, had so depleted the once overflowing magazines that not half the proper number of rounds were left for the heavy guns. No fresh supplies could be obtained. Von Spee could fight again, but he could not have won again had he been opposed to much lighter metal than that which overwhelmed him a few weeks later off the Falkland Islands. On the second day after the action von Spee returned to Valparaiso. Though his own ship had fought with the Good Hope and he had seen her blow up he did not know for certain what had become of her. This well illustrates the small value of observers’ estimates of damage done to opponents during the confusion of even the simplest of naval fights. Distances are so great and light is so variable. The destruction of the Monmouth was known, but not that of the Good Hope . So von Spee made for Valparaiso to find out if the English flagship had sought shelter there. Incidentally he took with him the first news of his victory, and the large German colony in the Chilean city burned to celebrate the occasion in characteristic fashion. But von Spee gave little encouragement. He was under no illusions. He fully realized the power of the English Navy and that his own existence and that of his squadron would speedily be determined. He “absolutely refused” to be celebrated as national hero, and at the German club, where he spent an hour and a half, declined to drink a toast directed in offensive terms against his English enemies. In his conduct of the fights with our ships, in his orders, in his private letters, Admiral von Spee stands out as a simple honest gentleman. He was a man not very energetic. Though forcible in action and a most skilful naval tactician, he does not seem to have had any plans for the general handling of his squadron. If an enemy turned up he fought him, but he did not go out of his way to seek after him. He dawdled about among the Pacific Islands during September and at Easter Island during most of October; after Coronel he lingered in and out of Valparaiso doing nothing. He must have known that England would not sit down in idle lamentation, but he did nothing to anticipate and defeat her plans for his destruction. His shortage of coal and ammunition caused him to forbid the commerce raiding which appealed to the officers of his light cruisers, and probably the same weakness made him reluctant to seek any other adventures. For five weeks he made no attempt even to raid the Falkland Islands, which lay helplessly expecting his stroke, and when at last he started out by the long safe southern route round the Horn, it was to walk into the mouth of the avenging English squadron which had been gathered there to receive him. One thing is quite certain: he heard no whisper of the English plans and expected to meet nothing at the Falkland Islands more formidable than the Canopus , the Glasgow , and perhaps one or two “County Class” cruisers, such as the Cornwall or Kent . He never expected to be crunched in the savage jaws of two battle cruisers! While this kindly, rather indolent German Admiral was marking time off the Chilean coast, the squadron which was to avenge the blunder of Coronel was assembling from the ends of the earth towards the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian coast. The Bristol , a sister of the Glasgow , had come in from a long cruise in the West Indies, during which she had met and exchanged harmless shots with another German wanderer, the Karlsruhe . The Invincible and Inflexible were racing down from the north. The Cornwall and Kent , burning to show that even “County” cruisers were not wholly useless in battle, and the armoured cruiser Carnarvon were already in the South Atlantic. The poor old Canopus and the Glasgow had foregathered at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands on November 8th, but were immediately ordered north to Montevideo to meet the other cruisers on the passage south. They left in accordance with these orders, but the Canopus was turned back by wireless, so that Port Stanley might have some naval protection against the expected von Spee raid. Here the Canopus was put aground in the mud, painted in futurist colours, and converted into a land fort. With her four 12-⁠inch guns she could at least have made the inner harbour impassable to the Germans. The Glasgow docked for repairs at Rio, and then joined the avenging squadron which had concentrated off Brazil, and with them swept down to the Falkland Islands which were reached upon the evening of December 7th. All the English ships, to which had been committed the destruction of von Spee, had then arrived. The stage was set and the curtain about to go up upon the second and final act of the Pacific drama. Upon the early morning of the following day, as if in response to a call by Fate, von Spee and his squadron arrived. After five weeks of delay he had at last made up his mind to strike. CHAPTER VIII IN THE SOUTH SEAS: CLEANING UP Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer . . . And all the clouds that lour’d In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. The naval operations which culminated in the action off the Falkland Islands are associated vividly in my mind with two little personal incidents. On November 12th, 1914, a week after the distressful news had reached this country of the destruction by the enemy of the cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth off the Chilean coast, a small slip of paper was brought to me in an envelope which had not passed through the post. I will not say from whom or whence that paper came. Upon it were written these words: “The battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible have left for the South Atlantic.” That was all, twelve words, but rarely has news which meant so much been packed into so small a space. The German Sea Command would have given a very great deal for the sight of that scrap of paper which, when read, I burned. For it meant that two fast battle cruisers, each carrying eight 12-⁠inch guns, were at that moment speeding south to dispose for ever of von Spee’s Pacific Squadron. The battle cruisers docked and coaled at Devonport on November 9th, 10th and 11th; hundreds of humble folk like myself must have known of their mission and its grim purpose, yet not then nor afterwards until their work was done did a whisper of their sailing reach the ears of Germany. The Invincible and Inflexible coaled off St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, and again south of the Line. At the appointed rendezvous off Brazil they were joined by the Carnarvon , Kent , Cornwall , and Bristol , the armed liner Orama , and many colliers. Weeks had passed and yet no word of the English plans, even of the concentration in force, reached von Spee, who still thought that he had nothing more formidable to deal with than a few light cruisers and the old battleship Canopus . Nothing is more difficult to kill than a legend, and perhaps the most invulnerable of legends is that one which attributes to the German Secret Service a superhuman efficiency. I offer to the still faithful English believers two facts which in a rational world would blast that legend for ever: the secret mission of the Invincible and Inflexible to the Falkland Islands in November-December 1914, and the silent transport of the original British Expeditionary Force across the Channel during the first three weeks of war. And yet, I suppose, the legend will survive. The strongest case, says Anatole France in Penguin Island , is that which is wholly unsupported by evidence. The second incident which sticks in my mind was a scene in a big public hall on the evening of December 9th. Lord Rosebery was in the middle of a recruiting speech—chiefly addressed, as he plaintively observed, to an audience of baldheads—when there came a sudden interruption. Pink newspapers fluttered across the platform, the coat tails of the speaker were seized, and one of the papers thrust into his hands. We all waited while Lord Rosebery adjusted his glasses and read a stop-press message. What he found there pleased him, but he was in no hurry to impart his news to us. He smiled benevolently at our impatience, and deliberately worked us up to the desired pitch of his dramatic intensity. Then at last he stepped forward and read: “At 7.30 a.m. on December 8th the Scharnhorst , the Gneisenau , the Nürnberg , the Leipzig , and the Dresden were sighted near the Falkland Islands by a British Squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee. An action followed in the course of which the Scharnhorst (flying the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee), the Gneisenau , and the Leipzig were . . . sunk .” At that word, pronounced with tremendous emphasis, 6,000 people jumped to their feet; they shouted, they cheered, they stamped upon the floor, they sang “Rule Britannia” till the walls swayed and the roof shuddered upon its joists. It was a scene less of exultation than of relief, relief that the faith of the British people in the long arm of the Royal Navy had been so fully justified. Cradock and the gallant dead of Coronel had been avenged. The mess had been cleaned up. “I thought,” said Lord Rosebery, as soon as the tumult had died down, “I thought that would wake you up.” At Devonport the Invincible and Inflexible had been loaded “to the utmost capacity,” not only with stores and ammunition for their own use, but with supplies to replenish the depleted magazines of their future consorts. They steamed easily well out of sight of land, except when they put in to coal off St. Vincent, and made the trip of 4,000 miles to the rendezvous near the line in a little over fourteen days. They cleared the Sound in the evening of November 11th, and found the other cruisers I have mentioned awaiting them at the appointed rendezvous off the Brazilian coast in the early morning of November 26th. Two days passed, days of sweltering tropic heat, during which the stores, brought by the battle cruisers, were parcelled out among the other ships and coal was taken in by all the ships from the attendant colliers. The speed of a far-cruising squadron is determined absolutely by its coal supplies. When voracious eaters of coal like battle cruisers undertake long voyages, it behoves them to cut their fighting speed of some twenty-eight knots down to a cruising speed of about one-half. By the morning of Saturday, November 28th, the now concentrated and fully equipped avenging Squadron was ready for its last lap of 2,500 miles to the Falkland Islands. The English vessels, spread out in a huge fan, swept down, continually searching for the enemy off the coasts of South America, where rumour hinted that he had taken refuge. The several ships steamed within the extreme range of visible signalling—so that no tell-tale wireless waves might crackle forth warnings to von Spee. It was high summer in the south and the weather glorious, though the temperature steadily fell as the chilly solitudes of the Falklands were approached. No Germans were sighted, and the Falkland Islands were reached before noon on December 7th. The Squadron had already been met at the rendezvous and joined by the light cruiser Glasgow . The old Canopus , so slow and useless as a battleship that she had been put aground on the mud of the inner harbour (Port Stanley) to protect the little settlement there, was found at her useful but rather inglorious post. Most of the vessels anchored in the large outer harbour (Port William) and coaling was begun at once, but though it was continued at dawn of the following day it was not then destined to be completed. Up to this moment the plans of Whitehall had worked to perfection. The two great battle cruisers had arrived at the rendezvous from England, the Squadron had secretly concentrated and then searched the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands had been secured from a successful surprise attack which would have given much joy to our enemies, yet not a whisper of his fast-approaching doom had sped over the ether to von Spee. Throughout the critical weeks of our activity he had dawdled irresolutely off Valparaiso. All our ships were ready for battle, even the light cruiser Glasgow , so heavily battered in the Coronel action that her inside had been built up with wooden shores till it resembled the “Epping Forest,” after which the lower deck had christened it, and she had a hole as big as a church door in one side above the water-line. She had steamed to Rio in this unhappy plight and had been there well and faithfully repaired. Captain Luce and his men were full of fight; they had their hurts and their humiliation to avenge and meant to get their own back with interest. They did; their chance came upon the following day, and they used it to the full. Whitehall had done its best, and now came a benevolent Joss to put the crowning seal upon its work. Coronel was bad black Joss, but the Falkland Islands will go down to history as a shining example of the whiteness of the Navy’s good Joss when in a mood of real benignity. We desired two things to round off the scheme roughed out at the Admiralty on November 6th: we wanted—though it was the last thing which we expected—we wanted the German Pacific Squadron to walk into the trap which had so daintily been prepared, and they came immediately, on the very first morning after our arrival at the Falkland Islands, at the actual moment when Vice-Admiral Sturdee and Rear-Admiral Stoddart (of the Carnarvon ), with heads bent over a big chart, were discussing plans of search. They might have come and played havoc with the Islands on any morning during the previous five weeks, yet they did not come until December 8th, when we were just ready and most heartily anxious to receive them hospitably. We wanted a fine clear day with what the Navy calls “full visibility.” We got it on December 8th. And this was a very wonderful thing, for the Falkland Islands are cursed with a vile cold climate, almost as cold in the summer of December as in the winter of June. It rains there about 230 days in the year, and even when the rain does not fall fog is far more frequent than sunshine. The climate of the Falklands is even some points more forbidding than the dreadful climate of Lewis in the Hebrides, which it closely resembles. Yet now and then, at rare intervals, come gracious days, and one of them, the best of the year, dawned upon December 8th. The air was bright and clear, visibility was at its maximum, the sea was calm, and a light breeze blew gently from the north-west. Our gunners had a full view to the horizon and a kindly swell to swing the gunsights upon their marks. For Sturdee and his gunners it was a day of days. Had von Spee come upon a wet and dull morning all would have been spoiled; he could have got away, his squadron could have scattered, and we should have had many weary weeks of search before compassing his destruction. But he came upon the one morning of the year when we were ready for him and the perfect weather conditions made escape impossible. Our gunnery officers from their spotting tops could see as far as even the great 12-⁠inch guns could shoot. When the Fates mean real business there is no petty higgling about their methods; they ladle out Luck not in spoonfuls but with shovels. The Squadron which had come so far to clean up the mess of Coronel was commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, who had been plucked out of his office chair at the Admiralty—he was Director of Naval Intelligence—and thrown up upon the quarter-deck of the Invincible . He was the right man for the job, a cool-headed scientific sailor who would make full use of the power and speed of his big ships and yet run no risk of suffering severe damage thousands of miles away from a repairing base. Those who criticise his leisurely deliberation in the action, and the long-range fighting tactics which dragged out the death agony of the Scharnhorst for three and a half hours and of the Gneisenau for five, forget that to Sturdee an hour or two of time, and a hundred or two rounds of heavy shell, were as nothing when set against the possibility of damage to his battle cruisers. His business was to sink a very capable and well-armed enemy at the minimum of risk to his own ships, and so he determined to fight at a range—on the average about 16,000 yards (9½ land miles)—which made his gunnery rather ineffective and wasteful, yet certain to achieve its purpose in course of time. Just as von Spee at Coronel, having the advantage of greater speed and greater power, could do what he pleased with the Good Hope and Monmouth , so Sturdee with his battle cruisers could do what he pleased with von Spee. The Invincible and Inflexible could steam at twenty-eight knots—they were clean ships—while the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau , now five months out of dock, could raise little more than twenty. The superiority of the English battle cruisers in guns was no less than in speed. Each carried eight 12-⁠inch guns, firing a shell of 850 lb., while von Spee’s two armoured cruisers were armed with eight 8.2-⁠inch guns, firing shell of 275 lb. Sturdee, with his great advantage of speed, could set the range outside the effective capacity of von Spee’s guns, secure against anything but an accidental plunging shot upon his decks, while the light German 6-⁠inch armour upon sides and barbettes was little protection against his own 12-⁠inch armour-piercing shell. Sturdee could keep his distance and pound von Spee to bits at leisure. The “visibility” was perfect, space was unlimited, the Germans had no port of refuge, and from dawn to sunset Sturdee had sixteen hours of working daylight. He was in no hurry, though one may doubt if he expected to take so unconscionable a time as three and a half hours to sink the Scharnhorst and five hours to dispose of the Gneisenau . It was not that Sturdee’s gunnery was bad—relatively, that is, to the gunnery of other ships or of other navies. The word bad suggests blame. But it was certainly ineffective. After the Falkland Islands action, and after those running fights in the North Sea between battle cruisers, it became dreadfully clear that naval gunnery is still in its infancy. All the brains and patience and mechanical ingenuity which have been lavished upon the problem of how to shoot accurately from a rapidly moving platform at a rapidly moving object, all the appliances for range-finding and range-keeping and spotting, leave a margin of guesswork in the shooting, which is a good deal bigger than the width of the target fired at. The ease and accuracy of land gunnery in contrast with the supreme difficulty and relative inaccuracy of sea gunnery were brought vividly before me once in conversation with a highly skilled naval gunner. “Take a rook rifle,” said he, “put up a target upon a tree, measure out a distance, sit down, and fire. You will get on to your target after two or three shots and then hit it five times out of six. You will be a land gunner with his fixed guns, his observation posts, his aeroplanes or kite balloons, his maps upon which he can measure up his ranges. Then get into a motor-car with your rook rifle, get a friend to drive you rapidly along a country road, and standing up try what sport you make of hitting the rabbits which are running and jumping about in the fields. That, exaggerated a bit perhaps, is sea gunnery. We know our own speed and our own course, but we don’t know exactly either the enemy’s speed or the enemy’s course; we have to estimate both. As he varies his course and his speed—he does both constantly—he throws out our calculations. It all comes down to range-finding and spotting, trial and error. Can you be surprised that naval gunnery, measured by land standards, is wasteful and ineffective?” “No,” said I, “I am surprised that you ever hit at all.” The English Squadron began to coal at half-past three upon that bright summer morning of December 8th, and the grimy operation proceeded vigorously until eight o’clock, when there came a sudden and most welcome interruption. Columns of smoke were observed far away to the south-east, and, presently, the funnels of two approaching vessels were made out. There were three others whose upper works had not yet shown above the horizon. Coaling was at once stopped and steam raised to full pressure. Never have our engineer staffs more splendidly justified their advance in official status than upon that day. Not only did they get their boilers and engines ready in the shortest possible time, but, in the subsequent action, they screwed out of their ships a knot or two more of speed than they had any right to do. The action was gained by speed and gun power; without the speed—the speed of clean-bottomed ships against those which, after five months at sea, had become foul—the power of the great guns could not have been fully developed. So, when we remember Sturdee and his master gunners and gunnery officers in the turrets and aloft in the spotting tops, let us also remember the master engineers hidden out of sight far below who gave to the gunners their opportunity. The battle cruisers, whose presence it was desired to conceal until the latest moment, poured oil upon their furnaces and, veiled in clouds of the densest smoke, awaited the rising of the pressure gauges. In the outer harbour the light cruisers collected, and from her immovable position upon the mud-banks the old Canopus loosed a couple of pot shots from her big guns at the distant German at a range of six miles. Admiral Graf von Spee and his merry men laughed—they knew all about the Canopus . Then, when all was ready, the indomitable Glasgow , the Kent (own sister to the sunken Monmouth ), and the armoured Carnarvon issued forth to battle. In the words of an eye-witness, later a prisoner, “The Germans laughed till their sides ached.” A few more minutes passed, and then, from under the cover of the smoke and the low fringes of the harbour, steamed grandly out the Invincible and Inflexible , cleared for action, their huge turrets fore and aft and upon either beam bristling with the long 12-⁠inch guns, their turbines working at the fullest pressure, the flag of Vice-Admiral Sturdee fluttering aloft. There was no more German laughter. Von Spee and his officers and men were gallant enemies, they saw instantly the moment the battle cruisers issued forth, overwhelming in their speed and power, that for themselves and for their squadron the sun had risen for the last time. They had come for sport, the easy capture of the Falkland Islands, but sport had turned upon the instant of staggering surprise to tragedy; nothing remained but to fight and to die as became gallant seamen. And so they fought, and so they died, all but a few whom we, more merciful than the Germans themselves at Coronel, plucked from the cold sea after the sinking of their ships. The German Squadron—the two armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , each with eight 8.2-⁠inch guns, and the three light cruisers Nürnberg , Dresden , and Leipzig , each armed with ten 4.1-⁠inch guns—made off at full speed, and for awhile the English Squadron followed at the leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about twenty knots so as to keep together. It was at once apparent that our ships had the legs of the enemy, and could catch them when they pleased and could fight at any range and in any position which they chose to select. That is the crushing advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun power a fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if no port of refuge be available for him. In weight and power of guns there was no possible comparison. The Invincible and Inflexible , which had descended from the far north to swab up the mess of Coronel, were at least three times as powerful as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , crack gunnery ships though they might be. Their 12-⁠inch guns could shoot with ease and with sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range beyond the full stretch of the German 8.2-⁠inch weapons however deftly they might be handled. Their 10-⁠inch armour upon the turrets and conning-tower was invulnerable against chance hits when closing in, and the armoured decks covering their inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The chances of disaster were reduced almost to nothingness by Sturdee’s tactics of the waiting game. When at length he gave the order to open fire he kept out at a distance which made the percentage of his hits small, yet still made those hits which he brought off tremendously effective. A bursting charge of lyddite in the open may do little damage, even that contained in a 12-⁠inch shell, but the same charge exploded within the decks of a cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destructiveness. Presently the German Squadron divided, the enemy light cruisers and attendant transports seeking safety in flight from our light cruisers despatched in chase while the armoured cruisers held on pursued by the two battle cruisers and the armoured Carnarvon , whose ten guns were of 7.5- and 6-⁠inch calibre. The Carnarvon , light though she was by comparison with the battle cruisers, did admirable and accurate work, and proved in the action to be by no means a negligible consort. There was no hurry. A wide ocean lay before the rushing vessels, the enemy had no opportunity of escape so long as the day held clear and fine, and the English ships could close in or open out exactly as they pleased. During most of the fight which followed the Invincible and Inflexible steered upon courses approximately parallel with those of the Germans, following them as they dodged and winded like failing hares, always maintaining that dominating position which in these days of steam corresponds with Nelson’s weather gauge. It followed from their position as the chasers that they could not each use more than six guns, but this was more than compensated for by the enemy’s inability to use more than four of his heavier guns in the Scharnhorst or Gneisenau . I have met and talked with many naval officers and men who have been in action during the present war, and have long since ceased to put a question which received an invariable answer. I used to inquire “Were you excited or sensibly thrilled either when going into action or after it had begun?” This was the substance though not the words of the question. One does not talk in that land fashion with sailor-men. The answer was always the same. “Excited, thrilled, of course not. There was too much to do.” An action at sea is glorified drill. Every man knows his job perfectly and does it as perfectly as he knows how. Whether he be an Admiral or a ship’s boy he attends to his job and has no time to bother about personal feelings. Naval work is team work, the individual is nothing, the team is everything. This is why there is a certain ritual and etiquette in naval honours; personal distinctions are very rare and are never the result of self-seeking. There is no pot-hunting in the Sea Service. Not only are actions at sea free from excitement or thrills, but for most of those who take part in them they are blind. Not one in twenty of those who fight in a big ship see anything at all—not even the gun-layers, when the range is long and they are “following the Control.” Calmly and blindly our men go into action, calmly and blindly they fight obeying exactly their orders, calmly and blindly when Fate wills they go down to their deaths. In their calmness and in their blindness they are the perfected fruits of long centuries of naval discipline. The Sea Service has become highly scientific, yet in taste and in sentiment it has changed little since the days of Queen Elizabeth. The English sailor, then as now, has a catlike hatred of dirt, and never fights so happily as when his belly is well filled. The officers and men of the battle cruisers had been coaling when the enemy so obligingly turned up, and they had breakfasted so early that the meal had passed from their memories. There was plenty of time before firing could begin. So, while the engineers sweated below, those with more leisure scrubbed the black grime from their skins, and changed into their best and brightest uniforms to do honour to a great occasion. Then at noon “all hands went to dinner.” The big guns of the battle cruisers began to pick up the range of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at five minutes to one, three hours after the chase had begun, when the distance from the enemy’s armoured cruisers was some 18,000 yards, say ten land miles. And while the huge shots fly forth seeking their prey, let us visit in spirit for a few minutes the spotting top of the Invincible , and discover for ourselves how it is possible to serve great guns with any approach to accuracy, when both the pursuing and pursued ships are travelling at high speed upon different courses during which the range and direction are continually varying. The Invincible worked up at one time to twenty-nine knots (nearly thirty-four miles an hour), though not for long, since a lower speed was better suited to her purpose, and the firing ranges varied from 22,000 yards down to the comparatively close quarters of six miles, at which the Scharnhorst and, later, the Gneisenau were sent to the bottom. From the decks of the Invincible , when the main action opened, little could be seen of the chase except columns of smoke, but from the fire control platform one could make out through glasses the funnels and most of the upper works of the German cruisers. At this elevation the sea horizon was distant 26,000 yards (about 15½ land miles), and upon the day of the Falkland Islands fight “visibility” was almost perfect. When an enemy ship can be seen, its distance can be measured within a margin of error of half of one per cent.—fifty yards in ten thousand; that is not difficult, but since both the enemy vessel and one’s own ship are moving very fast, and courses are being changed as the enemy seeks to evade one’s fire or to direct more efficiently his own guns, the varying ranges have to be kept, which is much more difficult. It follows that three operations have to be in progress simultaneously, of which one is a check upon and a correction of the other two. First, all the range-finders have to be kept going and their readings compared; secondly, the course and speed of one’s own ship have to be registered with the closest accuracy and the corresponding speeds and courses of the enemy observed and estimated; thirdly, the pitching of one’s shots has to be watched and their errors noted as closely as may be. All this delicate gunnery work is perfectly mechanical but chiefly human. The Germans, essentially a mechanically inhuman people, try to carry the aid of machinery farther than we do. They fit, for example, a gyroscopic arrangement which automatically fires the guns at a chosen moment in the roll of a ship. We fire as the roll brings the wires of the sighting telescopes upon the object aimed at, and can shoot better when a ship is rolling than when she is travelling upon an even keel. We believe in relying mainly upon the deft eyes and hands of our gun-layers—when the enemy is within their range of vision—and upon control officers up aloft when he is not. German gunnery can be very good, but it tends to fall to pieces under stress of battle. Ours tends to improve in action. Machinery is a good servant but a bad master. As the shots are fired they are observed by the spotting officers to fall too short or too far over, to one side or to the other, and corrections are made in direction and in range so as to convert a “bracket” into a “straddle” and then to bring off accurate hits. When, say, the shots of one salvo fall beyond the mark and the shots of the next come down on the near side, the mark is said to be “bracketed.” When the individual shots of a salvo fall some too far and others too short, the mark has been “straddled.” A straddle is a closed-in bracket. At long ranges far more shots miss than hit, and we are dealing now with ranges up to ten or twelve miles. The bigger the gun the bigger the splash made by its shell when striking the water, and as the spotting officers cannot spot unless they can clearly make out the splashes, there is an accuracy—an ultimate effective accuracy—in big guns with which smaller ones cannot compete however well they may be served. For, ultimately, in naval gunnery, when ships are moving fast and ranges are changing continually, we come down to trial and error. We shoot and correct, correct and shoot, now and then find the mark and speedily lose it again, as the courses and speeds are changed. Unless we can see the splashes of the shells and are equipped with guns powerful enough to shoot fairly flat—without high elevation—we may make a great deal of noise and expend quantities of shell, but we shall not do much hurt to the enemy. The Falkland Islands action was the Royal Navy’s first experience in long-range war gunnery under favorable conditions of light—and it was rather disappointing. It revealed the immense gap which separates shooting in war and shooting at targets in time of peace. The battle cruisers sank the enemy, and suffered little damage in doing their appointed work, and thus achieved both the purposes which Admiral Sturdee had set himself and his men. But it was a wasteful exhibition, and showed how very difficult it is to sink even lightly armoured ships by gun-fire alone. Our shells at the long ranges set were falling steeply; their effective targets were not the sides but the decks of the Germans, which were not more than seventy feet wide. If one reflects what it means to pitch a shell at a range of ten miles upon a rapidly moving target seventy feet wide, one can scarcely feel surprised that very few shots got fairly home. We need not accept au pied de la lettre the declaration of Lieutenant Lietzmann—a damp and unhappy prisoner—that the Gneisenau , shot at for five hours, was hit effectively only twenty times, nor endorse his rather savage verdict that the shooting of the battle cruisers was “simply disgraceful.” But every competent gunnery officer, in his moments of expansive candour, will agree that the results of the big-gun shooting were not a little disappointing. The Germans added to our difficulty by veiling their ships in smoke clouds and thus, to some extent cancelled the day’s “visibility.” No enemy could have fought against overwhelming odds more gallantly and persistently than did von Spee, his officers, and his highly trained long-service men. Many times, even at the long ranges at which the early part of the action was fought, they brought off fair hits upon the battle cruisers. One 8.2-⁠inch shell from the Scharnhorst wrecked the Invincible’s wardroom and smashed all the furniture into chips except the piano, which still retained some wires and part of the keyboard. Another shell scattered the Fleet Paymaster’s money-box and strewed the decks with golden bullets. But it was all useless. Though the Invincible was the leading ship, and at one time received the concentrated fire of both the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau , she did not suffer a single casualty. And, while she was being peppered almost harmlessly, her huge shells, which now and then burst inboard the doomed German vessels, were setting everything on fire between decks, until the dull red glow could be seen from miles away through the gaping holes in the sides. It was a long-drawn-out agony of Hell. Firing began seriously at 12.55 and continued, with intervals of rest for guns and men, till 4.16, when the Scharnhorst sank. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of Hell! Through it all the Germans stuck to their work, there was no thought of surrender; they fought so long as a gun could be brought to bear or a round of shell remained in their depleted magazines. Every man in the Scharnhorst was killed or drowned; the action was not ended when she went down and her consort Gneisenau , steaming through the floating bodies of the poor relics of her company, was compelled to leave them to their fate. For nearly two hours longer the Gneisenau kept up the fight. The battle cruisers and the smaller Carnarvon closed in upon her, and at a range of some six to seven land miles smashed her to pieces. By half-past five she was blazing furiously fore and aft, and at two minutes past six she rolled over and sank. Her guns spoke up to the last. As she lay upon her side her end was hastened by the Germans themselves, who, feeling that she was about to go, opened to the sea one of the broadside torpedo flats. She sank with her ensign still flying. If the whole German Navy could live, fight, and die like the Far Eastern Pacific Squadron, that Service might in time develop a true Naval Soul. Those of the crew who remained afloat in the water after the Gneisenau sank were picked up by boats from the battle cruisers and the Carnarvon —we rescued 108 officers and men. Admiral Sturdee sent them a message of congratulation upon their rescue and of commendation upon their gallantry in battle, and every English sailor did his utmost to treat them as brothers of the sea. Officers and men lived with their captors as guests, not as prisoners, in wardroom and gun-room, and on the lower deck the English and Germans fought their battle over again in the best of honest fellowship. “There is nothing at all to show that we are prisoners of war,” wrote a young German lieutenant to his friends in the Fatherland, expressing in one simple sentence—though perhaps unconsciously—the immortal spirit of the English Sea Service. A defeated enemy is not a prisoner; he is an unhappy brother of the sea, to be dried and clothed and made much of, and to be taught with the kindly aid of strong drink to forget his troubles. There is little of exhilaration about a sea fight, such as that which I have briefly sketched. It seems, even to those who take part in it, to be wholly impersonal and wholly devilish. Though its result depends entirely upon the human element, upon the machines which men’s brains have secreted and which their cunning hands and eyes direct, it seems to most of them while in action to have become nothing loftier than a fight between soulless machines. One cannot wonder. The enemy ship—to those few of the fighting men who can see it—is a spot upon the distant horizon from which spit out at intervals little columns of fire and smoke. There is no sign of a living foe. And upon one’s own ship the attention of everyone is absorbed by mechanical operations—the steam steering gear, the fire control, the hydraulic or electric gun mechanism, the glowing fires down below fed by their buzzing air fans, the softly purring turbines. And yet, what now appears to be utterly inhuman and impersonal is in reality as personal and human as was fighting in the days of yard-arm distances and hand-to-hand boarding. The Admiral who, from his armoured conning-tower, orders the courses and maintains the distances best suited to his terrible work; the Fire Director watching, aiming, adjusting sights with the minute care of a marksman with his rifle; the officers at their telescopes spotting the gouts of foam thrown up by the bursting shells; the engineers intent to squeeze the utmost tally in revolutions out of their beloved engines; the stokers each man rightly feeling that upon him and his efforts depends the sustained speed which alone can give mastery of manœuvre; the seamen at their stations extinguishing fire caused by hostile shells; the gunners following with huge blind weapons the keen eyes directing them from far aloft; all these are personal and very human tasks. A sea fight, though it may appear to be one between machinery, is now as always a fight between men. Battles are fought and won by men and by the souls of men, by what they have thought and done in peace time as a preparation for war, by what they do in war as the result of their peace training. The whole art of successful war is the concentration upon an enemy at a given moment of an overwhelming force and the concentration of that force outside the range of his observation. Both these things were done by the Royal Navy between November 6th and December 8th, 1914, and their fruits were the shattered remains of von Spee’s squadron lying thousands of fathoms deep in the South Atlantic. But nothing which the Admiralty planned upon November 6th would have availed had not the Royal Navy designed and built so great a force of powerful ships that, when the far-off call arose, two battle cruisers could be spared to travel 7,000 miles from the North Sea to the Falkland Islands without sensibly endangering the margin of safety of the Grand Fleet at home. While the Invincible and Inflexible were occupying the front of the battle stage and disposing of the hostile stars, the English light cruisers were enjoying themselves in the wings in a more humble but not less useful play. The cruiser Kent astonished everybody. She was the lame duck of the Squadron, a slow old creature who could with extreme difficulty screw out seventeen knots, so that, in the company of much faster boats, her armament of fourteen 6-⁠inch guns appeared to be practically wasted. Yet this elderly County cruiser, so short of coal that her fires were fed with boats, ladders, doors, and officers’ furniture, got herself moving at over twenty-one knots, chased and caught the Nürnberg —which ought to have been able to romp round her if one of her boilers had not been out of action—and sank the German vessel out of hand. Afterwards her officers claimed with solemn oaths that she had done twenty-four knots, but there are heights to which my credulity will not soar. One is compelled on the evidence to believe that she did catch the Nürnberg , but how she did it no one can explain, least of all, I fancy, her Engineer Commander himself. The Leipzig was rapidly overhauled by the speedy Glasgow , who sank her with the aid of the Cornwall and so repaid in full the debt of Coronel. The cruiser Bristol , a sister of the Glasgow , was sent after the German Squadron’s transports and colliers, and, in company with the armed liner Macedonia , “proceeded,” in naval language, “to destroy them.” Out of the whole German Squadron the light cruiser Dresden (own sister to the Emden ) alone managed to get away. She had turbine engines and fled without firing a shot. She passed a precarious hunted existence for three months, and was at last disposed of off Robinson Crusoe’s Island on March 14th, 1915. The Glasgow , still intent upon collecting payment for her injuries, and our aged but active friend the Kent , were in at her death, which was not very glorious. I will tell her story in its proper place. So ended that most dainty operation, the wiping out of the German Pacific Squadron and the cleaning up of the Mess of Coronel. Throughout, our sailors had to do only with clean above-water fighting. There were no nasty sneaking mines or submarines to hamper free movement; the fast ship and the big gun had full play and did their work in the business-like convincing fashion which the Royal Navy has taught us to expect from it.

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