ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John
Читать онлайн.Год выпуска 0
isbn 9788075833518
Автор произведения Buchan John
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Had the spectator looked seaward, the sight would have been not less marvellous. On every ocean of the world he would have observed the merchantmen of the Allies bringing supplies for battle. But in the North Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, and in the English Channel and the North Sea he would have seen uncanny things. Vessels would disappear as if by magic, and little warships would hurry about like some fishing fleet when shoals are moving. The merchantmen would huddle into packs, with destroyers like lean dogs at their sides. He would have seen in the Scottish firths and among the isles of the Orkneys a mighty navy waiting, and ships from it scouring the waters of the North Sea, while inside the fences of Heligoland lay the decaying monsters of the German fleet. And in the air, over land and sea would have been a perpetual coming and going of aircraft like flies above the pool of war.
The observer, wherever on the globe his eyes were turned, would have found no area immune from the effects of the contest. Every factory in Europe and America was humming by night and day to prepare the material of strife. The economic problems of five continents had been transformed. The life of the remotest villages had suffered a strange transformation. Far-away English hamlets were darkened because of air raids; little farms in Touraine, in the Scottish Highlands, in the Apennines, were untilled because there were no men; Armenia had lost half her people; the folk of North Syria were dying of famine; Indian villages and African tribes had been blotted out by plague; whole countries had ceased for the moment to exist, except as geographical names. Such were but a few of the consequences of the kindling of war in a world grown too expert in destruction, a world where all nations were part one of another.
The war was an Allied victory, but let us be very clear what that means. It delivered the world's freedom from a deadly danger, and, though the price was colossal, the cause was worthy. But its positive fruits must be sought elsewhere—in that impulse to international brotherhood caused by the revulsion from the horrors of international strife, and the war's vindication of the essential greatness of our common humanity. Its hero was the ordinary man. Victory was won less by genius in the few than by faithfulness in the many.
The horrors of the four years sickened the world of war, and made thinking men realize that some other way than this monstrous folly must be found of settling disputes between peoples. A League of Nations was one of the first articles of peace, and the League then founded has already, in spite of hindrances and setbacks, and the opposition of an all too narrow patriotism, made itself a power in the world. If civilization is to endure the League must prosper, for the world cannot stand another such carnival of destruction. The League means the enforcement of law throughout the globe, so that the nations as regards each other shall live in that state of orderly liberty which a civilized power ensures for its citizens. That purpose, as we have learned from bitter experience, is not a dream of idealism, but the first mandate of common-sense.
No honest sacrifice can be made in vain. In war sacrifice is mainly of the innocent and the young. This was true of every side. Most men who fell died for honourable things. They were inspired by the eternal sanctities—love of country and home, comradeship, loyalty to manly virtues, the indomitable questing of youth. Against such a spirit the gates of death cannot prevail. We may dare to hope that the seed sown in sacrifice and pain will yet quicken and bear fruit to the purifying of the world, and in this confidence await the decrees of that Omnipotence to whom a thousand years are as one day.
THE END.
THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND
PRELIMINARIES.
From the opening of the war the British Navy had been sustained by the hope that some day and somewhere they would meet the German High Sea Fleet in a battle in the open sea. It had been their hope since the hot August day when the great battleships disappeared from the eyes of watchers on the English shores. It had comforted them in the long months of waiting amid the winds and snows of the northern seas. Since the beginning of the year 1916 this hope had become a confident belief. There was no special ground for it, except the general one that as the case of Germany became more desperate she would be forced to use every asset in the struggle. As the onslaught on Verdun grew more costly and fruitless, and as the armies of Russia began to stir with the approach of summer, it seemed that the hour for the gambler's throw might soon arrive.
The long vigil was trying to the nerve and temper of every sailor, and in especial to the Battle Cruiser Fleet, which represented the first line of British sea strength. It was the business of the battle cruisers to make periodical sweeps through the North Sea, and to be first upon the scene should the enemy appear. They were the advance guard, the corps de choc of the Grand Fleet; they were the hounds which must close with the quarry and hold it till the hunters of the Battle Fleet arrived. Hence the task of their Commander was one of peculiar anxiety and strain. At any moment the chance might come, so he must be sleeplessly watchful. He would have to make sudden and grave decisions, for it was certain that the longed-for opportunity would have to be forced before it matured. To bring the enemy to action risks must be run, and the strength of a fleet is a more brittle and less replaceable thing than the strength of an army. New levies can be called for on land, and tolerable infantry turned out in a few months, but it takes six years to make a junior naval officer, it takes two years to build a cruiser, and three years to replace a battleship. The German hope was by attrition or some happy accident to wear down the superior British strength to an equality with their own. A rash act on the part of a British Admiral might fulfil that hope; but on the other hand, without boldness, even rashness, Britain could not get to grips with her evasive foe.
So far Sir David Beatty and the battle cruisers had not been fortunate. We must not regard the North Sea at the time as an area where only British and neutral flags were flown. From the shelter of the mine-strewn waters around Heligoland the German warships made occasional excursions, for they could not rot for ever in harbour. Germany's battle cruisers had more than once raided the English coasts. Her battleships had made stately progresses in short circles in the vicinity of the Jutland and Schleswig shores. But so far Sir David Beatty had been unlucky. At the battle of the Bight of Heligoland on August 28th, 1914, his great ships had encountered nothing more serious than enemy cruisers. At the time of the raid on Hartlepool in December of the same year he had just failed, owing to fog, to intercept the raiders. In the battle of the Dogger Bank on January 24th, 1915, an accident to his flagship had prevented him destroying the whole German fleet of battle cruisers. It was clear that the German fleet, if caught in one of their hurried sorties, would not fight unless they had a very clear advantage. Hence, if the battle was to be joined at all, it looked as if the first stage, at all events, must be fought by Britain against long odds.
On Tuesday afternoon, May 30th, the bulk of the British Grand Fleet left its bases on one of its customary sweeps. It sailed in two divisions. To the north was the Battle Fleet under Sir John Jellicoe—the 1 st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Battle Squadrons : one Battle Cruiser Squadron, the 3rd, under Rear-Admiral the Honourable Horace Hood ; the 1 st Cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bart. ; the 2nd Cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral Heath; the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron under Commodore Le Mesurier, and the 4th, 11 th, and 12th Destroyer Flotillas. Further south moved the Battle-Cruiser Fleet under Sir David Beatty—the 1st and 2nd Battle-Cruiser Squadrons, the 5th Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas, containing