I was working on this for a little while, the idea came to me several weeks ago. The basic premise is two-fold. The British Empire lived and died by its shipping, either trading its own wares, or carrying those of others. Therefore it was imperative to defend this trade. To do so was complicated, however. For the British lacked the power to strike their European rivals decisively in their metropoles and either subjugate or dismember them. Thus Englands failure in the Hundred Years War was a colossal failure. France thenceforth was solidified and indestructible. Accordingly, no matter how great the victories Britain won at sea or in the colonies, total elimination of the French threat was impossible with the resources she commanded. The danger always remained that France, left in secure possession of her metropolitan harbours, her teeming millions, her natural wealth, would rise up and fight again. There was no possible way for the British to remove this threat. No matter what the British did, in a decade, perhaps two, whenever it suited them, the French could rebuild their fleets and take the seas once more. To ensure that this danger was reduced to an absolute minimum, Britain at length decided that the total annexation of French possessions beyond Europe was necessary to deny them bases to operate against British shipping in the far corners of the globe. This in turn alleviated the pressures on the Royal Navy, who in the end was required only to maintain their watch on the harbours of France herself, Brest, the Basque Roads outside Rochefort on the Charente, and at Toulon. The watching of these harbours in Europe will be dealt with in the subsequent treatise, which I wont post now. I do, however, wish to post a sort of addendum to the present text, all quotes from Churchills works concerning Britains later, rival, Germany, for whom the same strategies and the same factors held good, that give one a more clarified image of the arguments outlined. The table following sets forth the rival forces in the western Pacific at the outbreak of war. Even without the ships employed by Japan or the great Japanese reserves which lay behind them, the superior strength of the Allies was overwhelming. But the game the two sides had to play was by no means as unequal as it looked. It was indeed the old game of Fox and Geese. The two powerful German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with their two light cruisers, formed a modern squadron fast and formidable in character. Our battle-cruiser Australia could catch them and could fight them single-handed. The Minotaur and the Hampshire could just catch them and, as we held, could fight them with good prospects of success; but it would be a hard fought action. If the Triumph were added to Minotaur and Hampshire, there was no risk at all in the fight but almost insuperable difficulty in bringing the enemy to action. Among the light cruisers, the Yarmouth, Melbourne, Sydney and the Japanese Chikuma could both catch and kill Emden or Nürnberg. Of our other light cruisers Fox and Encounter could have fought Emden or Nürnberg with a chance of killing or at least of crippling them. Our remaining crusiers could only be used in combination with stronger vessels. With out forces aided by two French and two Russian ships and by the Japanese to the extent which will be described, the Admiralty had to protect all the expeditions, convoys and trade in the Pacific. To wit—— The New Zealand convoy to Australia. The Australian and New Zealand convoy from Australia to Europe. The convoy of the British Far Eastern garrisons to Europe. The convoy of Indian troops to relieve our Far Eastern garrisons. The expedition to Samoa. The expedition to New Guinea. All these were in addition to the general trade, which continued uninterruptedly. Admiral von Spee, the German Commander in the Pacific, had therefore no lack of objectives. He had only to hide and to strike. The vastness of the Pacific and its multitude of islands offered him their shelter, and, once he had vanished, who should say where he would reappear? On the other hand, there were considerable checks on his action and a limit, certain though indefinite, to the life of his squadron. With the blockade of Tsing Tau he was cut from his only base on that side of the world. He had no means of docking his ships or executing any serious repairs, whether necessitated by battle or steaming. The wear and tear on modern ships is considerable, and difficulties multiply with every month out of dock. To steam at full speed or at high speed for any length of time on any quest was to use up his life rapidly. He was a cut flower in a vase; fair to see, yet bound to die, and to die very soon if the water was not constantly renewed. Moreover, the process of getting coal was one extraordinary difficulty and peril. The extensive organisation of the Admiralty kept the closest watch in every port on every ton of coal and every likely collier. The purchase of coal and the movement of a collier were tell-tale traces which might well lay the pursuers on his track. His own safety and his power to embarrass us alike depended upon the uncertainty of his movements. But this uncertainty might be betrayed at any moment by the movement of colliers or by the interception of wireless messages. Yet how could colliers be brought to the necessary rendezvous without wireless messages? There existed in the Pacific only five German wireless stations, Yap, Apia, Nauru, Rabaul, Angaur, all of which were destroyed by us within two months of the outbreak of war. After that there remained only the wireless on board the German ships, with which it was very dangerous to breathe a word into the ether. Such was the situation of Admiral von Spee. - Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, pages 316-318 On an August morning, behold the curious sight of a British Cabinet of respectable Liberal politicians sitting down deliberately and with malice aforethought to plan the seizure of the German colonies in every part of the world! But our sea communications depended largely upon the prompt denial of these bases or refuges to the German cruisers; and further, with Belgium already largely overrun by the German armies, every one felt that we must lose no time in taking hostages for her eventual liberation. Accordingly, with maps and pencils, the whole world was surveyed, six separate expeditions were approved in principle and remitted to the Staffs for study and execution. An enterprising Captain had already on the outbreak of war invaded the German colony of Togoland. We now proposed, in conjunction with the French, to attack the Cameroons——a much more serious undertaking. General Botha had already declared his intention of invading German South-West Africa. The New Zealand and Australian Governments wished at once to seize Samoa and the possessions in the Pacific. An Anglo-Indian expedition was authorised for the attack of German East Africa. The Staff work in preparation for the military side of this last expedition was by no means perfect, and resulted in a serious rebuff. The transportation of the expeditionary forces simultaneously in all these different directions while the seas were still scoured by the German cruisers threw another set of responsibilities upon the Admiralty. - ibid pages 305-306 When the war began the Germans had the following cruisers on foreign stations: Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Emden, Nürnberg, Leipzig (China),; Königsberg (East Africa and Indian Ocean); Dresden, Karlsruhe (West Indies). All these ships were fast and modern, and every one of them did us serious injury before they were destroyed. There were also several gunboats: Geier, Planet, Komet, Nusa and Eber, none of which could be ignored. In addition, we expected that the Germans would try to send to sea upwards of forty fast armed merchantmen to prey on commerce. Our arrangements were, however, as has been narrated, successful in preventing all but five from leaving harbour. Of these five the largest, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, was sunk by the Highflyer (Captain Buller) on August 26: the Cap Trafalgar was sunk on September 14 by the British armed merchant cruiser Carmania (Captain Noel Grant) after a brilliant action between these two naked ships; and the three others took refuge and were interned in neutral harbours some months later. Our dispositions for preventing a cruiser and commerce-raide attack upon our trade were from the outset very largely successful, and in the few months with which this volume deals, every one of the enemy ships was reduced to complete inactivity, sunk or pinned in port. Nevertheless, it is fair criticism that we ought to have had more fast cruisers in foreign waters, and in particular that we ought to have matched every one of the German cruisers with a faster ship as it was our intention to do. The Karlsruhe in the West Indies gave a chance to our hunting vessels at the outbreak of the war, and the Königsberg in the Indian Ocean was sighted a few days earlier. But our ships were not fast enough to bring the former to action or keep in close contact with the latter till war was declared. As will be seen, nearly every one of these German cruiers took its prey before being caught, not only of merchant ships but of ships of war. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the Monmouth and Good Hope, the Königsberg surprised and destroyed the Pegasus, and the Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet. Certainly they did their duty well. The keynot of all the Admiralty dispositions at the outbreak of war was to be as strong as possible in home waters in order to fight a decisive battle with the whole German Navy. To this end the foreign stations were cut down to the absolute minimum necessary to face the individual ships abroad in each theatre. The fleet was weak in fast light cruisers and the whole of my administration had been occupied in building as many of them as possible. None, of the Arethusas had, however, yet reached the Fleet. We therefore grudged every light cruiser removed from home waters, feeling that the Flet would be tactically incomplete without its sea cavalry. The principle of first things first, and of concentrating in a decisive theatre against the enemys main power, had governed everything, and had led to delay in meeting an important and well-recognised subsidiary requirement. The inconvenience in other parts of the globe had to be faced. It was serious. Nowhere did this inconvenience show itself more than in the Indian Ocean. After being sighted and making off on the 31st of July, the Königsberg became a serious preoccupation on all movements of troops and trade. Another fast German cruiser, the Emden, which on the outbreak of war was on the China station, also appeared in the middle of September in Indian waters, and being handled with enterprise and audacity began to inflict numerous and serious losses upon our mercantile marine. These events produced consequences. - ibid pages 308-309 https://facebook/notes/james-kenneth-rooney/inherently-defensive-character-of-british-imperialism-and-sea-power/765882266783376?pnref=story
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 23:25:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015