‘The Time to visualise what will fall under the harrow of war is before the harrow is set in motion. Afterwards comes in Inevitableness with iron lips, and Fatalism with unscrutinising gaze, and Us with filmed eyes, and Instinct with her cry, “Do not look too closely, seeing one must keep one’s senses!”’

British Strategy—The Great War Council, August 5—Four Divisions or Six—Changes in the Cabinet—Lord Kitchener: Secretary of State for War—Organisation of the British Armies—Lord Kitchener’s Task—The Royal Naval Division—Departure of the German and Austrian Ambassadors—The Board of Admiralty in War—Responsibilities of the First Lord—Procedure—The German Method—Relative Naval Strength—The Prospects of Battle—British Command of the Sea—Paralysis of the German Mercantile Marine—Frustration of the German Attack on Trade—The Goeben at Messina on August 5—Knowledge and Dispositions of Sir Berkeley Milne—Orders to the Indomitable—The Southern Exit—No Contact with the French—The Goeben and Breslau leave Messina—Rear-Admiral Troubridge’s Successive Decisions—Second Escape of the Goeben—Explanations—A Sinister Fatality—Final Abandonment of the Pursuit—Transportation of the British Army to France—Instructions to Sir John Jellicoe—Covering Movements of the Fleet—Safe Passage of the Army—The Deadly Hush.

The entry of Great Britain into war with the most powerful military Empire which has ever existed was strategically impressive. Her large Fleets vanished into the mists at one end of the island. Her small Army hurried out of the country at the other. By this double gesture she might seem to uninstructed eyes to divest herself of all her means of defence, and to expose her coasts nakedly to the hostile thrust. Yet these two movements, dictated by the truest strategy, secured at once our own safety and the salvation of our Allies. The Grand Fleet gained the station whence the control of the seas could be irresistibly asserted. The Regular Army reached in the nick of time the vital post on the flank of the French line. Had all our action been upon this level, we should to-day be living in an easier world.

The differences which had prevailed about entering the war were aggravated by a strong cross-current of opinion, by no means operative only in the Cabinet, that if we participated it should be by naval action alone. Men of great power and influence, who throughout the struggle laboured tirelessly and rendered undoubted services, were found at this time resolutely opposed to the landing of a single soldier on the Continent. And, if everything had not been prepared, if the plan had not been perfected, if it had not been the only plan, and if all military opinion had not been industriously marshalled round it—who shall say what fatal hesitancy might not have intervened?

On the afternoon of August 5 the Prime Minister convened an extraordinary Council of War at Downing Street. I do not remember any gathering like it. It consisted of the Ministers most prominently associated with the policy of our entering the war, the chiefs of the Navy and the Army, all the high military commanders, and in addition Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts. Decision was required upon the question, How should we wage the war that had just begun? Those who spoke for the War Office knew their own minds and were united. The whole British Army should be sent at once to France, according to what may justly be called the Haldane Plan. Everything in that Minister’s eight years’ tenure of the War Office had led up to this and had been sacrificed for this. To place an army of four or six divisions of infantry thoroughly equipped with their necessary cavalry on the left of the French line within twelve or fourteen days of the order to mobilise, and to guard the home island meanwhile by the fourteen Territorial Divisions he had organised, was the scheme upon which, aided by Field-Marshals Nicholson and French, he had concentrated all his efforts and his stinted resources. It was a simple plan, but it was a practical plan. It had been persistently pursued and laboriously and minutely studied. It represented approximately the maximum war effort that the voluntary system would yield applied in the most effective and daring manner to the decisive spot; and mobilisation schemes, railway graphics, time-tables, the organisation of bases, depots, supply arrangements, etc., filling many volumes, regulated and ensured a thorough and concerted execution. A commander whose whole life led up to this moment had been chosen. All that remained to be done was to take the decision and give the signal.

At this point I reported on behalf of the Admiralty that our mobilisation being in every respect complete and all our ships in their war stations, we would waive the claim we had hitherto made in all the discussions of the Committee of Imperial Defence that two Regular Divisions should be retained in Great Britain as a safeguard against invasion, and that so far as the Admiralty was concerned, not four but the whole six divisions could go at once; that we would provide for their transportation and for the security of the island in their absence. This considerable undertaking was made good by the Royal Navy.

Discussion then turned upon the place to which they should be dispatched. Lord Roberts inquired whether it was not possible to base the British Army on Antwerp so as to strike, in conjunction with the Belgian armies, at the flank and rear of the invading German hosts. We were not able from an Admiralty point of view to guarantee the sea communications of so large a force on the enemy side of the Straits of Dover, but only inside the Anglo-French flotilla cordon which had already taken up its station. Moreover, no plans had been worked out by the War Office for such a contingency. They had concentrated all their thought upon integral co-operation with the French left wherever it might be. It was that or nothing.

Another discussion took place upon how far forward the British Expeditionary Force should be concentrated. Some high authorities, dwelling on the fact that the mobilisation of the British army had begun three days later than the French, were for concentrating it around Amiens for intervention after the first shock of battle had been taken. But in the end Sir John French and the forward school had their way and it was felt that we must help France in the way the French Staff thought would be most effective.

When I next went to the Cabinet after the declaration of war, I found myself with new companions. During the previous seven years Lord Morley had always sat on the left of the Prime Minister, and I had always sat next to Lord Morley. Many a wise and witty admonition had I received pencilled in scholarly phrase from my veteran neighbour, and many a charming courtesy such as he excelled in had graced the toilsome path of business. He had said to me on the Sunday of Resolve, ‘If it has to be, I am not the man to do it. I should only hamper those like you who have to bear the burden.’ Now he was gone. In his place sat Lord Kitchener. On my left also there was a fresh figure—the new Minister of Agriculture, Lord Lucas. I had known him since South African War days, when he lost his leg: and to know him was to delight in him. His open, gay, responsive nature, his witty, ironical, but never unchivalrous tongue, his pleasing presence, his compulsive smile, made him much courted by his friends, of whom he had many and of whom I was one. Young for the Cabinet, heir to splendid possessions, happy in all that surrounded him, he seemed to have captivated Fortune with the rest.

Both these two men were marked for death at the hands of the enemy, the young Minister grappling with his adversary in the high air, the old Field Marshal choking in the icy sea. I wonder what the twenty politicians round the table would have felt if they had been told that the prosaic British Cabinet was itself to be decimated in the war they had just declared. I think they would have felt a sense of pride and of relief in sharing to some extent the perils to which they were to send their countrymen, their friends, their sons.

At the Council of War on August 5 Lord Kitchener had not yet become Secretary of State for War, but I knew that his appointment was impending. The Prime Minister, then also Secretary of State for War, could not possibly be burdened with the continuous flow of inter-departmental work proceeding between the War Office and the Admiralty and requiring to be transacted between Ministers. He therefore invited Lord Kitchener to undertake ministerial charge of the War Office, and the Field-Marshal, who had certainly not sought this post in any way, had no choice but to accept.

My relations with Lord Kitchener had been limited. Our first meeting had been on the field of Omdurman, when as a lieutenant in the 21st Lancers I had been sent back to report verbally to the Commander-in-Chief the position of the advancing Dervish Army. He had disapproved of me severely in my youth, had endeavoured to prevent me from coming to the Soudan Campaign, and was indignant that I had succeeded in getting there. It was a case of dislike before first sight. On my side, I had dealt with his character and campaigns in two bulky volumes conceived throughout in a faithful spirit of critical impartiality. It was twelve years before I saw him again, when we were formally introduced to each other and had a brief talk at the Army Manœuvres in 1910. I got to know him a little at the Malta Conference in 1912, and thenceforward we used to talk over Imperial Defence topics when from time to time we met. On these occasions I had found him much more affable than I had been led to expect from my early impressions or from all I had heard about him. In the week before the war we had lunched and dined together two or three times, and we had discussed all the possibilities so far as we could foresee them. I was glad when he was appointed Secretary of State for War, and in those early days we worked together on close and cordial terms. He consulted me constantly on the political aspects of his work, and increasingly gave me his confidence in military matters. Admiralty and War Office business were so interlaced that during the whole of the first ten months we were in almost daily personal consultation. I cannot forget that when I left the Admiralty in May, 1915, the first and, with one exception, the only one of my colleagues who paid me a visit of ceremony was the over-burdened Titan whose disapprobation had been one of the disconcerting experiences of my youth.

As is well known, the British armies on mobilisation consisted of a highly organised expeditionary force of six Regular Divisions of Infantry and a Cavalry Division. In addition there were two Regular Infantry Divisions, the 7th and 8th, which had to be collected from their garrisons all over the Empire or formed out of troops surplus to the Expeditionary Force at home; and it was decided also to employ two divisions, half British and half native, from India. Behind these trained forces, unquestionably of a very high order, stood fourteen Territorial Divisions and thirteen Mounted Brigades to whom the defence of Britain must be confided. These were little trained, lightly equipped with artillery, but composed of farsighted and intelligent men who had not waited for the hour of danger to make their country’s cause their own. In six months or, as some thought, in a shorter period, such troops could be made to play their part.

Lord Kitchener now came forward to the Cabinet, on almost the first occasion after he joined us, and in soldierly sentences proclaimed a series of inspiring and prophetic truths. Every one expected that the war would be short; but wars took unexpected courses, and we must now prepare for a long struggle. Such a conflict could not be ended on the sea or by sea power alone. It could be ended only by great battles on the Continent. In these the British Empire must bear its part on a scale proportionate to its magnitude and power. We must be prepared to put armies of millions in the field and maintain them for several years. In no other way could we discharge our duty to our allies or to the world.

These words were received by the Cabinet in silent assent; and it is my belief that had Lord Kitchener proceeded to demand universal national service to be applied as it might be required, his request would have been acceded to. He, however, proposed to content himself with calling for volunteers, and in the first instance to form six new regular divisions. It would have been far better to have formed the new volunteers upon the cadres of the Territorial Army, each of which could have been duplicated or quadruplicated in successive stages. But the new Secretary of State had little knowledge of and no faith in the British territorial system. The name itself was to him a stumbling-block. In the war of 1870 he had been present at a battle on the Loire, probably Le Mans, in which the key of the position, confided to French territorial troops, had been cast away, entailing the defeat of the whole army. He dwelt on this incident to me on several occasions, and I know it had created fixed impressions in his mind. Vain to explain how entirely different were the characters of the troops forming the French and British territorial forces—the former aged conscripts in their last periods of service; the latter keen and ardent youths of strong military predilections. They were territorials, and that was the end of it.

This at the very outset aggravated the difficulties of his already gigantic task. He set himself to create the cadres first of six, then of twelve, and ultimately of twenty-four ‘Kitchener Army’ divisions, at the same time that the recruits were pouring in upon him by the hundred thousand. That this vast feat of improvisation was accomplished must certainly rank among the wonders of the time.

The arguments against compulsory service, cogent as they no doubt were, were soon reinforced by the double event of overwhelming numbers of volunteers and of a total lack of arms and equipment. Apart from the exiguous stores held by the Regular Army, there was literally nothing. The small scale of our military forces had led to equally small factories for war material. There were no rifles, there were no guns; and the modest supplies of shells and ammunition began immediately to flash away with what seemed appalling rapidity. Many months must elapse, even if the best measures were taken, before new sources of supply even on a moderate scale could be opened up. One was now to learn for the first time that it took longer to make a rifle than a gun; and rifles were the cruellest need of all. We had nothing but staves to put in the hands of the eager men who thronged the recruiting stations. I ransacked the Fleet and the Admiralty stores and scraped together another 30,000 rifles, which literally meant another 30,000 men in the field. Afloat only the Marines would have their rifles; Jack must, in the last resort trust to his cutlass as of old.

At the moment when Lord Kitchener began the formation of his first six new army divisions and before the great rush of recruits had begun, I offered him the Royal Naval Division, which he gladly accepted. Before the war we had foreseen the fact that the Navy would on mobilisation have many thousands of men in their depots for whom there would be no room in any ship of war that we could send to sea. I had therefore proposed to the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1913 the formation of three brigades, one composed of Marines and the other two of men of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and of the Royal Fleet Reserve. These brigades it was intended to use to assist in home defence in the early stages of a war. The cadres were therefore easily formed from the available resources. The Marine Brigade was already virtually in existence, and it was clear that all three would be ready for action long before any of the new troops that were being raised. The Naval Volunteers, who longed to serve afloat, accepted the new task with many heartburnings but with boundless loyalty. Alas, for most of them it proved a fateful decision. Few there were of that gallant company that survived unscathed. As for their deeds, they will not be forgotten in the history even of these crowded times.^[32]

It fell to my lot to prescribe the arrangements for the departure of the German Ambassador and, eight days later, of his Austrian Colleague. Accordingly on the morning of August 5 I sent my Naval Secretary Admiral Hood in uniform to the German Embassy desiring to know in what manner we might facilitate Prince Lichnowsky’s wishes and convenience. While the German mob were insulting and even pelting the departing French and British Ambassadors, we set ourselves to work with meticulous care to secure the observance of every propriety and courtesy towards those for whom we were responsible. Prince Lichnowsky has given his own record of his ceremonious treatment, which appeared to make a marked impression upon his mind.

To Count Mensdorf, the Austrian Ambassador, I wrote as follows:—

‘My Naval Secretary Admiral Hood, who brings this letter, is instructed to put himself at your disposal in arranging for the comfort and convenience of your journey by sea. If there is any way in which I can be of service to you at this time, you will not I hope fail to command me.

Although the terrible march of events has swept aside the ancient friendship between our countries, the respect and regard which spring from so many years of personal association cannot pass from the hearts of your English friends.’

The Austrian Ambassador asked that a ship might be provided to take him direct to Trieste, and that consideration might be shown to a number of unhappy Austrian non-combatants long resident in London who now had to fly the country. I therefore arranged that upwards of 200 persons should embark in the Ambassador’s ship. I felt sure that in taking these measures I was acting in accord with what British dignity required.

The position of the Admiralty in relation to the Fleet, and of the First Lord in relation to his naval colleagues under conditions of war requires explanation. The control of the main armies was divided between the War Office and General Headquarters, but in the Admiralty these functions were inevitably combined to a far larger extent. The Naval Commander-in-Chief, living with his actual fighting Fleet and always ready at a few hours’ notice to lead it personally into full battle, stood much nearer to the event than his military counterpart. The staff which he could accommodate upon his flagship, the volume of business which he could transact, were necessarily limited by physical conditions. Everything must be ready to move at the shortest notice into extreme danger, and Staff, office, organisation, Commander-in-Chief, might vanish out of existence in an instant. The first duty of the Commander-in-Chief was to keep his mind and body fit for the supreme task of personally commanding the mighty array of ships when in contact with the enemy. The vigilant guarding of the Fleet from danger, its training for battle, its organisation, its efficiency and the direct personal conduct of individual operations were all concentrated in one man. But this was enough. It was the duty of the Admiralty so far as possible to shield him from all further responsibilities or anxieties, to lap him round with securities and assistance and to bear all other parts of the great load of war themselves.

The Admiralty itself was also in direct contact with the event. It not only exercised administrative control over the Navy and over the whole of the preparations for strengthening and developing the Fleet; it not only determined the strategic distribution of our naval power in every theatre; but from its wireless masts or by cable it issued information often of a vital character to ships in many instances actually in contact with the enemy. It was the only place from which the supreme view of the naval scene could be obtained. It was the intelligence centre where all information was received, where alone it could be digested, and whence it was transmitted wherever required. It moved the fleets, squadrons and flotillas out of harbour when information pointed to enemy’s activities being probable. It specified the minimum forces which should be employed in any operation, while leaving the Commander-in-Chief free to add to them at his discretion. Apart from actual battle or the tactical conduct of particular operations, in which the Admiralty never interfered, it decided every important question arising out of the conduct of the naval war. Robed in the august authority of centuries of naval tradition and armed with the fullest knowledge available, the Board of Admiralty wielded unchallenged power.

As these conditions arose naturally and inevitably and will certainly be reproduced in one form or another should there be a future war, it is of high importance to pierce beneath the corporate responsibility of this organism and lay bare how the machine actually worked. In practice it resolved itself, and could only resolve itself, into the intimate comradeship and co-operation of the First Lord and the First Sea Lord, with the Chief of the Staff, not at this time a member of the Board, standing at their side. By the Letters Patent and Orders in Council constituting his office, the First Lord is responsible to Crown and Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty. In virtue of this he delegates to an eminent sailor the responsibility for its technical and professional conduct. But he cannot thus relieve himself either in theory or in fact. He is held strictly accountable for all that takes place; for every disaster he must bear the blame. The credit of victories rightly goes to the commanders who gain them; the burden of defeat or miscarriage must be shouldered by the Admiralty, and the censures of the nation fall primarily upon its Head.

How then is a civilian Minister appointed for political or parliamentary reasons and devoid of authoritative expert knowledge, to acquit himself of his duty? Clearly it depends upon the character, temperament and capacity both of the First Lord and the First Sea Lord. They must settle it between themselves, and if they cannot agree wholeheartedly on the momentous problems with which they are confronted in swift succession, another combination must be chosen by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. I interpreted my duty in the following way:—I accepted full responsibility for bringing about successful results, and in that spirit I exercised a close general supervision over everything that was done or proposed. Further, I claimed and exercised an unlimited power of suggestion and initiative over the whole field, subject only to the approval and agreement of the First Sea Lord on all operative orders. Right or wrong, that is what I did, and it is on that basis that I wish to be judged.

In practice the difficulties were less than would be imagined. Indeed, over long periods of unending crisis and tension the machine worked very smoothly. The Second, Third and Fourth Sea Lords dropped back upon the outbreak of war into the positions the ‘Supply Boards’ had occupied in the great naval wars of the past. They were the providers of men, of ships and of stores. They took no part, or only a very occasional part, in strategic decisions. It was the responsibility of the First Sea Lord to keep the Second Sea Lord fully informed of what was in progress in order that the latter could replace him temporarily at a moment’s notice. In practice, however, both Prince Louis and Lord Fisher worked more closely with the Chief of the Staff, and these two presented themselves to me always in full accord.

The constitutional authority of the Board of Admiralty was exercised at that time in accordance with long custom by two Members of the Board, sitting together with the Secretary of the Admiralty. Thus the Admiralty War Group at the beginning of the struggle consisted of the First Lord, the First Sea Lord, the Chief of the Staff and the Secretary. To these were added, when the First Sea Lord wished and on particular occasions, the Second Sea Lord and certain special advisers, of whom more anon. We met every day and sometimes twice a day, reviewed the whole position and arrived at a united decision on every matter of consequence. The execution was confided to the Chief of the Staff. The Secretary registered, recorded, and, apart from the orders given by the War Staff, took the consequential action. Besides our regular meetings the First Sea Lord and I consulted together constantly at all hours. Within the limits of our agreed policy either he or I gave in writing authority for telegrams and decisions which the Chief of the Staff might from hour to hour require. Moreover, it happened in a large number of cases that seeing what ought to be done and confident of the agreement of the First Sea Lord, I myself drafted the telegrams and decisions in accordance with our policy, and the Chief of the Staff took them personally to the First Sea Lord for his concurrence before dispatch. In addition to these urgent executive matters, the regular flow of Admiralty papers passed upwards from the First Sea Lord or other Lords to me for decision by minute; and I further, by minutes and memoranda, initiated discussion and action over the whole area of naval business.

The advantages and disadvantages of these methods must be judged by their general results; but it is instructive to compare them with those which we now know prevailed at the German Admiralty. On the outbreak of war, the Naval Secretary of State von Tirpitz, himself an admiral, found himself cut off entirely from the strategical and quasi-tactical control of the fleets, to such an extent that he declares ‘he did not know the naval war plans.’ He was confined to purely administrative business, and thus charged, he was carried off as an adjunct to the Emperor’s suite at Great Headquarters. The Naval Staff, headed in the first instance by von Pohl, alone had the ear of the Emperor and received from the lips of the All-Highest indications of his Imperial pleasure. The position of Admiral von Tirpitz was therefore most unhappy. The Naval Staff warded him off the Emperor as much as possible, and persuaded the Emperor to repulse his efforts to break in. The Emperor, oppressed with the whole burden of the State, gave to the Staff from time to time directions and uttered passing expressions which thereafter operated with irresistible authority. It is to this state of affairs that Admiral von Tirpitz ascribes the paralysis which gripped the German Fleet through the first critical months of the naval war. This it was, according to him, that lost the opportunity of fighting the supreme battle under the least unfavourable conditions, enabled the control of the seas to pass into our hands practically without a struggle, and secured the uninterrupted transport of our armies to the Continent. If our solution of the difficult problem of naval war direction was imperfect, so also was that of our enemy.

A study of the tables and diagrams set out in the Appendix^[33] shows that our known margin of superiority in Home Waters was smaller then than at any subsequent moment in the war. The Grand Fleet as concentrated in its Northern war station on August 1, 1914, comprised 24 vessels classified as ‘Dreadnoughts’ or better. In addition the battle cruiser Invincible was at Queenstown watching the Atlantic, the two Lord Nelsons were with the Channel Fleet, and three battle cruisers were in the Mediterranean. The Germans actually mobilised 16 ships similarly classed.^[34] We could not be absolutely certain, though we thought it unlikely, that they might not have ready two, or even three, more; and these of the greatest power. Happily, every British ship was ready and in perfect order. None was under repair. Our strength for an immediate fleet action was 24 to a certain 16 and a possible 19. These figures do not, as the tables in the Appendix reveal, do justice to the full material strength of the British Fleets as a whole, still less to the gun-power of the British Line of Battle, which after the Dreadnoughts comprised eight King Edwards markedly superior to the next eight Germans. But apart from all that may be said on this, and of the confidence which it inspired, the fact remains that from five to eight Dreadnoughts was all the certain numerical superiority we had. There was not much margin here for mischance, nor for the percentage of mechanical defects which in so large a Fleet has to be expected, and no margin whatever for a disaster occasioned by surprise had we been unready. To a superficial observer who from the cliffs of Dover or Portland had looked down upon a Battle Squadron of six or seven ships, lying in distant miniature below, the foundation upon which the British world floated would have presented itself in a painfully definite form. If the intelligence and courage of British seamen were not all that we believed them to be; if the workmanship which had built these great vessels were not honest and thorough; if our seamanship or our gunnery had turned out to be inferior; if some ghastly novelty or blunder supervened, the battle might be very even.

It is easy to understand how tense were the British naval expectations. If the German Navy was ever to fight a battle, now at the beginning was its best chance. The German Admiralty knew, of course, what ships we had available, and that we were mobilised, concentrated and at sea. Even if they assumed the extraordinary fact that every one of our Dreadnoughts was ready and that not one of them had developed a defect, they could fight to German eyes a battle 16 against a maximum 27—heavy odds from their point of view, still heavier when the survey was extended to the whole of the Fleets, but yet odds far less heavy than they would have to face after six months, after twelve months or at any later period. For look at the reinforcements which were approaching these two opposing Fleets. They must assume that, in addition to completing our own vessels, we should requisition every battleship building for a foreign Power in our yards, and on this basis seven great ships must join the Grand Fleet within three months, and twelve great ships within six months, against which only three in three months and five in six months could be reckoned on their side, leaving the balance in three months at 34 to 19 and in six months at 39 to 21; and this took no account of three battle-cruisers in the Mediterranean and one (Australia) in the Pacific which obviously we could bring home if necessary.

Here then, was the least unfavourable moment for Germany; here was the best chance they would ever see. Was it not also the strategic moment? Might they not assume that the transportation of the British Army to France would be a grave preoccupation for the Admiralty? Was it not clear that a victory, even a partial victory, would be more fruitful at this juncture than at any other? Forty-two fast German merchant cruisers needed only a breathing space to get loose and to arm upon the seas, requiring afterwards to be hunted down one by one. Might not above all the interruption and delay in the transportation of the Army be of real effect in the supreme trial of strength on land? The German Staff believed in a short war. They were staking everything upon a supreme trial of strength on land. Why should not the German Fleet be hurled in too and play its part for what it was worth in the supreme decision? To what other use could it ever be put?

We therefore looked for open battle on the sea. We expected it and we courted it. The news that the two Navies were approaching each other to take a decision in blue water would have been received in the Fleet with unaffected satisfaction, and at the Admiralty with composure. We could not send our Grand Fleet into the minefields and submarine-infested areas of the Heligoland Bight. But had battle been offered by the enemy under any conditions which did not put us at a serious disadvantage, it would have been at once accepted.

In fact, however, the sober confidence of the Admiralty was based upon calculations of relative naval strength, the soundness of which was not disputed by the German Naval Staff. Even von Tirpitz, the advocate of action, writes (p. 356): ‘Against an immediate fight was the fact that the whole English Fleet was ready for battle when the war broke out owing to the test mobilisation, whereas only our active squadrons were ready.’ ‘Great Britain,’ says the Official German Naval History, ‘... had secured extensive military advantages by her test mobilisation and her subsequent measures, regardless of the uneasiness necessarily provoked thereby ... which advantage Germany could not counter or overtake.’ The German Staff felt that even if this was the best chance for a trial of strength, it was still a chance so hazardous and even so forlorn that it was not worth taking; and their Battle Fleet remained hoarded up in harbour for an ignominious day, imposing upon the British, no doubt, a continued and serious expenditure of our resources for naval purposes, gaining for Germany substantial advantages of a secondary character, but not exercising any decisive influence upon the whole course of the war.

So we waited; and nothing happened. No great event immediately occurred. No battle was fought. The Grand Fleet remained at sea: the German Fleet did not quit the shelter of its harbours. There were no cruiser actions. A German minelayer sowing a minefield off Harwich was chased and sunk by a flotilla of destroyers led by the Amphion; and the Amphion returning, was blown up on the German minefield. Otherwise silence unbroken by cannon brooded over the broad and narrow waters. But during that silence and from its first moment the sea-power of Great Britain ruled unchallenged throughout the world. Every German cruiser in foreign waters vanished into the immense spaces of the sea; every German merchant ship, from the earliest moment when the entry of Britain into the war became apparent, fled for neutral harbours. Seven out of eight, potential commerce destroyers, were bottled up without ever a shot being fired. German seaborne trade outside the Baltic ceased to exist from the night of August 4. On the other hand, after a few days of hesitation the swarming mercantile marine of Britain, encouraged by a Government insurance of no more than six per cent., began to put to sea; and even before the main armies had met in battle on the Continent, the whole vast ocean traffic of the British Empire was proceeding with the utmost activity. By the end of August the rate of insurance had already fallen to six per cent. and the Admiralty was able to announce that of the forty-two German liners from whom attacks on trade were to be apprehended, eleven were tied up unarmed in harbours of the United States watched outside territorial limits by British cruisers, six had taken refuge in other neutral harbours, where they were either dismantled or observed, fourteen were in German ports gripped by the blockade, six were held as prizes in British hands, and only five remained unaccounted for and unlocated. The fate of these five will be recounted later.

All fell out in these respects, therefore, in broad accordance with the views set forth in my memorandum on commerce protection of August 23, 1913, revised in April, 1914, which is printed in full in the Appendix for the benefit of the thorough.^[35] None of those gloomy prophecies which had formed the staple of so many debates and articles, that our merchant ships would be hunted from the seas by German raiders, that scores of additional British cruisers would be required for commerce protection, that British merchant ships once safe in harbour would not venture to sea, materialised; and they might be relegated to the limbo of exploded alarms. The three great naval dangers which had bulked most largely in our minds in the years before the war—first, the danger of surprise of the Fleet; second, the Mine danger; third, the paralysis of our seaborne trade—rolled away behind us like giant waves which a ship has finally surmounted.

More than a hundred years had passed since the British Navy had been called upon to face an emergency of the first magnitude. If a hundred years hence, in similar circumstances, it is found equally ready, we shall have no more reason to complain of our descendants than they have reason to complain of us.

It is time to return to the Mediterranean.

Admiral Souchon, the German Commander, having outdistanced our shadowing cruisers in the darkness of the night, pursued his course to Messina, where he arrived with the Goeben and Breslau on the morning of August 5. He had already received, as we now know, a telegram sent from Nauen at 1.35 a.m. on the preceding day by the German Admiralty. This message gave him all-important information. It stated that an alliance had been concluded between Germany and Turkey, and directed him to proceed to Constantinople immediately. Of this treaty we knew nothing. All our reports were of an entirely different tenor; nor was it till long afterwards that we learnt the true attitude of Turkey at this hour.

On arrival at Messina the Goeben and Breslau began to coal from German colliers. This occupied the whole of the day, the whole of the night and the greater part of the next day, the 6th. Exactly thirty-six hours elapsed before the Goeben moved. Meanwhile the light cruiser Gloucester, watching off the Southern exit of the Straits of Messina, reported at 3.35 p.m. on August 5 to Sir Berkeley Milne that the strength of the wireless signals she was taking in indicated that the Goeben must be at Messina.

The British Commander-in-Chief had left the Malta Channel in his flagship the Inflexible after midnight of August 4, and at about 11 a.m. on August 5 he had assembled all his three battle cruisers and two light cruisers off Pantellaria island, midway between Sicily and the African coast.^[36] According to his own published account^[37] he had learned on the 4th that the German mail steamer General was remaining at Messina at the disposition of the Goeben. He therefore believed throughout the whole of the 5th that ‘the Goeben, Breslau and General were all at Messina.’ His belief was correct.

One of his battle cruisers, the Indomitable, had to coal. He sent her to Biserta. This was an important decision. Considering that he believed that the Goeben was at Messina, and that he intended himself to watch to the Northward with two battle cruisers, some authorities have held that it would have been a sensible precaution to let this third ship coal at Malta, where facilities were certain and instant, and whence she could so easily move to close the Southern exit from Messina, or join Rear-Admiral Troubridge in the mouth of the Adriatic, as that officer had been led to expect.^[38] By sending the Indomitable to coal at Malta, he could have placed two battle cruisers watching the Northern exit and one at the Southern. But the Commander-in-Chief decided to keep all three battle cruisers together in his own hand and to patrol off the Western end of Sicily between Sardinia and Biserta. The Southern exit was therefore left completely open to the Goeben: and a severe action was reserved for Rear-Admiral Troubridge if, as seemed likely, she ran up the Adriatic.

At 5 p.m. on the 5th Sir Berkeley Milne received the signal sent by the Gloucester at 3.35 p.m. reporting the presence of the Goeben at Messina. Here was certain confirmation of his belief. He was at this moment about 100 miles West of Sicily. He continued however to cruise with his two ships between Sicily and Sardinia, and as late as the evening of August 6, his orders to the Indomitable were still to join him thereabouts. He did this because he considered that placing all three battle cruisers in this position was his surest way of carrying out the instructions of the Admiralty telegram of July 30 about aiding the French in the transport of their African army. That it was one method of carrying out these orders cannot be disputed, and the Admiral has set out in his book the reasons which led him to adopt it. The superior speed of the Goeben made it necessary, he states, if he were to intercept her, that he should stand a long way off and have timely notice of her approach. To place his whole force in this way between her and the French transports was, he argues, the best chance of catching the Goeben if she tried to attack them. He reported his intended dispositions late on the 4th to the Admiralty, whose only comment upon them was, ‘Watch over the Adriatic should be maintained for the double purpose of preventing the Austrians from coming out or the Germans from entering.’ The exceedingly prompt manner in which the Goeben had been found, although in the open sea, on the 4th had given the Admiralty the feeling that the Admiral on the spot had a grip of the situation and needed no further directions.

Sir Berkeley Milne had not, however, succeeded in communicating with the French Admiral, although he had made repeated attempts by wireless and had sent the Dublin to Biserta with a letter. He did not know where the French Fleet or the French transports were. He did not tell the Admiralty this. The Admiralty for their part, after the general telegram of August 4 enjoining immediate consultation with the French, assumed that the two Commanders-in-Chief in the Mediterranean were acting in concert. They did not therefore ask the French for any information, nor was any volunteered by the French Admiralty. Any inquiry addressed to Paris would have elicited the fact that the French had changed their plans and that no transports were yet at sea. All parties were on this point to some extent in fault.

Meanwhile the British Ambassador in Rome was endeavouring to tell the Admiralty as soon as the pressure on the wires allowed that the Goeben was at Messina. The news did not reach London till 6 p.m. on August 5. The Admiralty passed it without comment, though with some delay, to Sir Berkeley Milne, who already knew from other sources. It is a fair criticism on the Admiralty that they did not immediately they knew the Goeben was at Messina authorise the British ships to follow her into the Straits. The point was not put to me either by the First Sea Lord or the Chief of the Staff, and as I had not myself been concerned in initiating or drafting the telegram about rigidly respecting Italian neutrality, it was not specially in my mind. Had it been put to me I should at once have consented. This was no petty incident and the prize was well worth the risk of vexing the Italians. In fact, permission to chase through the Straits was given by the Admiralty unasked to Sir Berkeley Milne, as soon as it was realised that the Goeben was escaping unblocked to the Southward. It was then too late.

In pursuance of the orders he had received from Germany, Admiral Souchon with the Goeben and Breslau, having at length completed coaling and made his will, steamed out of Messina harbour at 5 p.m. on August 6, cleared for action and with his bands playing. He no doubt expected to encounter at least one and possibly two of the British battle cruisers as soon as he was outside territorial waters. In view of the fact that, as he was aware, his position must have been accurately known to the British Commander-in-Chief for many hours, this assumption was not unreasonable. Unhappily, as has been described, every one of the three British battle cruisers was otherwise engaged. Thus when the German Admiral rounded the Southern point of Italy and turned Eastward, the only three antagonists whose combination of power and speed he had to dread were already far astern.

Still there was the British armoured cruiser squadron watching the Adriatic. This squadron consisted of four good ships, viz. Defence, Warrior, Duke of Edinburgh and Black Prince. It was commanded by Rear-Admiral Troubridge, who had also under his orders eight destroyers, and was being joined by the light cruiser Dublin and two more destroyers from Malta. It is necessary to restate the facts of this officer’s action.

On the assumption—which was dominant—that the Goeben would make for Pola, Admiral Troubridge was well placed for meeting her. It was not until he heard from the Gloucester that she had turned South and was persistently steering on a South-Easterly course that any new decision was required from him. He received no orders to quit his station from Sir Berkeley Milne. He was in constant hope of receiving a battle cruiser. But Admiral Troubridge decided to act on his own responsibility. Eight minutes after midnight of August 6 (i.e. 0.08, August 7) he gave orders to his four cruisers and his eight destroyers to steam Southward at full speed for the purpose of intercepting the Goeben. He also signalled to the Dublin (Captain John Kelly) at that moment coming from Malta to join him with the two extra destroyers, to head her off. He reported his decision to the Commander-in-Chief. Thus at midnight August 6–7 sixteen British vessels were converging upon the Goeben and Breslau and were in positions from which they could hardly fail to intercept the enemy shortly after daylight. At 3.50 a.m., however, after further reflection and having received no orders or reply from Sir Berkeley Milne, Admiral Troubridge became convinced that he could not hope to engage the Goeben under the advantageous conditions of the half light of dawn, and that in an action fought in broad waters in full daylight, his four ships would be sunk one after another by the Goeben, who all the time would keep outside the range—16,000 yards—of the British 9.2–inch guns. This is thought by some naval officers to be an extreme view. The limited ammunition of the Goeben would have had to have been wonderfully employed to have sunk all four British armoured cruisers seriatim at this long range.^[39] Moreover, if the Goeben and Breslau had become involved in an action, it is hard to believe that none of the sixteen British cruisers and destroyers which were available could have closed in upon them and attacked them with gun or torpedo. All the destroyers were capable of reaching the enemy and could have found their opportunity to attack. It would have been indeed a prodigious feat on the part of the Germans to dispose of so many antagonists at once. However, the Admiral came to the conclusion that the Goeben was ‘a superior force’ which by his instructions, passed to him by the Commander-in-Chief, he was not to engage. And in this conclusion he has been sustained by a British naval court-martial.

He thereupon desisted from his attempt to intercept the Goeben, turned his ships and destroyers and entered the harbour of Zante about 10 a.m. preparatory to resuming his watch in the Adriatic. The Dublin and her two destroyers having asked and been refused permission to make a daylight attack, had attempted to intercept the Goeben before dawn, but did not succeed in finding her in the darkness.

By 6 o’clock therefore on the morning of August 7 the Goeben, already the fastest capital unit in the Mediterranean, was steaming on an unobstructed course for the Dardanelles, carrying with her for the peoples of the East and Middle East more slaughter, more misery and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.

Thus of all the British vessels which were or could have been brought within effective distance, none did anything useful excepting only the two light cruisers Dublin and Gloucester, commanded, as it happened, by two brothers. The Dublin (Captain John Kelly) as we have seen did all in her power to place herself athwart the enemy’s course and to fight him by night or day; and the Gloucester (Captain W. A. Howard Kelly) hung on to the heels of the Goeben till late in the afternoon, in extreme danger and with the utmost tenacity, and only relinquished the chase under the direct orders of the Commander-in-Chief.

Various explanations have been offered for the failure to bring the Goeben to action after the declaration of war, and every telegram sent by the Admiralty was searched to find phrases which could justify or palliate what had occurred. For instance, it was pleaded that the sentence in the Admiralty telegram to the Commander-in-Chief of July 30, ‘Do not at this stage be brought to action against superior forces except in combination with the French as part of a general battle,’ justified Admiral Troubridge in refraining from attacking the Goeben with his four armoured cruisers. On this it may be observed that this sentence is clearly shown by the context to refer to the Austrian Fleet against whose battleships it was not desirable that our three battle cruisers should be engaged without battleship support. Secondly it was contained in a telegram giving the Commander-in-Chief general directions for the strategic conduct of the naval campaign in the Mediterranean. It was not intended by the Admiralty to govern tactical action. The words, however, acquired a more particular significance when they were repeated—as they were—by the Commander-in-Chief to his subordinate Admiral Troubridge. But even so it ought not to have been treated as a veto upon British ships ever engaging superior forces however needful the occasion. This was an unreasonable reading of the Admiralty instructions. On such a reading both the Gloucester and the Dublin were guilty of disobedience. On such a reading, pedantically construed, no individual British ship in the Mediterranean would have been allowed to fight a vessel stronger by a single gun. Nobody ever honestly supposed that such doctrines were being laid down by the Admiralty. Moreover, the self-same telegram specifically emphasised the importance of bringing the Goeben to action and singled out that vessel particularly among all the hostile forces in the Mediterranean. No such conception of his duty was taken by either of the Captains Kelly. Nor was it the view of Sir Berkeley Milne himself; for he disapproved strongly of Admiral Troubridge’s abandonment of the chase.

Again it has been urged that the sentence, ‘Your first task should be to aid the French in the transportation of their African army,’ imposed upon Sir Berkeley Milne the duty of placing all three of his battle cruisers west of Sicily. Thus wrested from their context and from the whole series of Admiralty telegrams, these directions have been made to serve as an explanation. Against them must be read the full text. On July 30, ‘Your first task should be to aid the French in the transportation of their African army by covering and if possible bringing to action individual fast German ships, particularly “Goeben.”‘^[40] And again, on August 2, ‘Goeben must be shadowed by two battle cruisers.’ And again on August 3, ‘Goeben is your objective. Follow her and shadow her wherever she goes, and be ready to act on declaration of war, which appears probable and imminent.’ And again on August 4, ‘Good. Hold her. War imminent.’

Certainly if the Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean had in reliance upon these dominant and reiterated instructions managed to put one battle cruiser each side of the Straits of Messina, instead of all on one side, and if in consequence he had brought the Goeben to action, as would have been inevitable, and if he had thus protected the French transports in the most effectual manner by fighting the Goeben, no one could have found fault with him on the score that he had exceeded his orders.

The reader is now in a position to form his own judgment on this affair. I have indicated plainly the point on which the Admiralty was in fault, namely, in not spontaneously lifting the prohibition to enter Italian waters the moment we learned the Goeben was at Messina. The conduct of Rear-Admiral Troubridge was subsequently investigated by a Court of Inquiry composed of the three Commanders-in-Chief of Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham. As the result of their report, he was tried by court-martial at Portland in September and honourably acquitted of all blame. His career in the Navy was, however, at an end, the general feeling of the Service not accepting the view that the four armoured cruisers and other vessels at his disposal ought not to have fought the Goeben. In view of his acquittal he was appointed to take charge of the naval guns which we sent with a mission to Serbia. In this capacity his work was distinguished and successful. He gained the confidence and respect of the Serbians and their Government, and he proved on numerous occasions that whatever might be thought of his reasons for not attacking the Goeben, want of personal courage was not among them.

After studying the reports of Sir Berkeley Milne and other officers concerned, the First Sea Lord recorded the opinion that Admiral Milne had taken the best measures with the force at his disposal, that his dispositions were the proper ones, and that they were successful inasmuch as they prevented the Germans from carrying out their primary rôle of interrupting French troops crossing from Africa. On this I find that my sole comment was (August 27): ‘The explanation is satisfactory; the result unsatisfactory.’ Thereafter on August 30, 1914, the Admiralty issued a statement that: ‘The conduct and dispositions of Sir Berkeley Milne in regard to the German vessels Goeben and Breslau have been the subject of the careful examination of the Board of Admiralty with the result that their Lordships have approved the measures taken by him in all respects.’

In all this story of the escape of the Goeben one seems to see the influence of that sinister fatality which at a later stage and on a far larger scale was to dog the enterprise against the Dardanelles. The terrible ‘Ifs’ accumulate. If my first thoughts on July 27 of sending the New Zealand to the Mediterranean had materialised; if we could have opened fire on the Goeben during the afternoon of August 4; if we had been less solicitous for Italian neutrality; if Sir Berkeley Milne had sent the Indomitable to coal at Malta instead of Biserta; if the Admiralty had sent him direct instructions when on the night of the 5th they learned where the Goeben was; if Rear-Admiral Troubridge in the small hours of August 7 had not changed his mind; if the Dublin and her two destroyers had intercepted the enemy during the night of the 6th–7th—the story of the Goeben would have ended here. There was, however, as it turned out, one more chance of annulling the doom of which she was the bearer. That chance, remote though it was, the Fates were vigilant to destroy.