THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1936 SHORT MEMORIES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 79, 14 March 1936, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1936 SHORT MEMORIES.

Just now, when there is so much shuffling and reshuffling of the cards in international relationships, when no one seems at all sure, even from day to day, how nations will group themselves in the many controversies that arise, we can scarcely but note how little the friendships and alliances of wartime enter into consideration. In all the wrangling that is going on rarely, if ever, do we hear any recalling of the critical day when countries now at variance were fighting side by side, some of them for the preservation or restoration of their national existence. As for the expression of any sense of gratitude for help given and salvation secured, that seems to enter not at all into all the many talks among the diplomatists who now have charge of the world’s affairs. Wartime associations would appear to be almost entirely forgotten and nothing much is left after that dire struggle but rancours and recriminations and the attribution of the most selfish oE motives even among those who fought to the death in what was then regarded as a common cause. But, if we see in all this a sad lack of international gratitude, are we able to say very much better of the national gratitude due by the different nations to the great leaders who fought the war for them? Indeed, when we come to think how, only some twenty years ago, and less, we were all hanging anxiously upon their every movement, how we gloried in their successes, how we were downcast by their failures, how on our own side we rejoiced in their ultimate triumph, what heroes we made of them, it is hard to believe the relative obscurity into which their names have so quickly fallen. It is only when, as has happened this week, one of them passes finally from this earthly scene that our so short memories get a jolt and we recall, but even then in the most perfunctory way, some little of the great debt we owe them. For a few days among some of us, but sadly few, their achievements may be revived and made the subject of casual conversation, but for the great majority of the present generation they simply die and are buried. We may be sure, however, that their names and their deeds and all they really meant in Hie world’s great crisis will be perpetuated in history and their true value assessed by generations that knew them not in the flesh Among them all the name of Admiral of the Fleet, David, Earl Beatty, of the North Sea, will find a forward place. For those of us who can recall the war while in progress his was the outstanding

and spectacular naval personality in it. In the popular eye he far outshone the man under whom he eventually served, Admiral Earl Jellicoe, whom he has now so closely followed to the grave. Though so essentially different in character and in method, they were probably, for the successful conduct of the war, a very well met pair, providing between them the characteristics essential to ultimate victory. It was undoubtedly the early lessons which Beatty impressed upon Germany’s naval com manders and directors in the Heligoland Bight and at the Dogger Bank that led to the bottling up of the Kaiser’s fleet for so long. It was there that they had impressed upon them the fact that the fighting spirit of the British Navy still survived and had to be counted with. When they did venture to emerge it was Beatty’s bold tactics that brought about at Jutland a position which might have ended in the greatest naval victory in history but for Nature coming to Germany’s rescue with an evening mist. Whether Jellicoe made the most and best of the opportunity thus afforded him is still, and perhaps for all time will be, a matter of controversy among naval experts. Possibly the best summing up as between Jellicoe and Beatty is that of the historian -who says: “If Beatty had been in supreme command in 1914 and had adopted a more daring policy than did Jellicoe, he might have shortened the war by years by the destruction of the German fleet. On the other hand, he might have ruined the British Empire by incurring a disaster.” In any event, Jutland saw the practical end of the German High Fleet’s activities and it fell to Beatty’s lot to accept its surrender at Scapa Flow. In broad result, to these two men, in whatever proportions, the Empire owes a debt of gratitude which we of the present day are but scantily paying. |