THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1918. THE NAVY AND THE WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17008, 15 November 1918, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1918. THE NAVY AND THE WAR.

For the victory that has ended the war an incalculable debt of gratitude is duo to the British Navy. Such an acknowledgment in no sense disparages the work of the armies in the field: theirs is the glory of actually finishing the war, as theirs has been the unspeakably strenuous task of parrying the onslaughts of the enemy during all the years of his military daring. Nor does the recognition fail to take into account the Bplendid service of the navies of our Allies: they have done great things, and even in this remote unit of our marine Empire we have been placed under obligation to some of them. Acknowledgment of the British Navy's contribution to final victory does not exclude, moreover, a full appreciation of the service of the whole British mercantile marine. That marine was peculiarly the target of German attack; its cargo vessels and passenger ships, as well as neutral vessels carrying British supplies, were subjected to attacks aa customarily brutal as they were usually unwarranted. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Balfour directed special attention to the service of the mercantile marine, which had then become practically embodied in the navy. Sir Henry Jackson, when First Sea Lord, stressed the value of that service; and Sir John Jellicoe has emphatically asserted that there is no room in the navy for anything but the most sincere admiration and respect for the officers and men of the mercantile marine. That branch of the Sea Service has been conspicuous for heroism and efficiency. But supreme in achievement, as it is unrivalled in organisation, is the Grand Fleet; and second only to it are the other units that assist in the defence of British shores and keep open the highways of the deep.

It was well for the world that the British Navy was both efficiently equipped and completely mobilised when war broke out. But for that fact, the land that no invader had trodden since 1066 would have been inviolable no longer; its commerce and industries would have been crippled, and its capability of taking any real share in the struggle would have been destroyed. In this war, as in those wars of which John Hollond wrote in his quaint words of 1638, " the naval part is the thread that runs through the whole wooft, the burden of the song, the scope of the text." Anticipation of this crucial service led to the maintenance of the Navy's efficiency, and a fortunate circumstance enabled the First Fleet, with its attendant flotilla, to slip away from its anchorage at Portland the day after Austria had declared war, and to take immediate command of the sea. That promptness was of inestimable value to the Allies. "Time is everything," said Nelson once; "five minutes makes the difference between a victory and & defeat" Drake uttered the same truth in his warning of years before: "The advantage and gain of time and place will be the only and chief means for our good." By the readiness of the Fleet, surprise attack by the foe was forestalled, and the safe transport of Britain's expeditionary force to France was assured. Co-operation with the fleets of our Allies was speedily established, and the great task for whose performance the Fleet had its being was well begun. Thereafter, the issue of the naval campaign was never seriously in doubt. There were fortunes of war that aided the enemy, as in the escape of the Goeben and the Breslau, and the victory of Von Spee off Coronel, a* well as the exploits of the Emden's raids. But they were all avenged; and the Falklands fight of Sir Frederick Sturdee and the destruction of the Emden by H.M.A.B. Sydney will not easily be forgotten. So will it be with the share of the Fleet in the attempt to force the Dardanelles and in the landings on Gallipoli; while Heligoland and Jutland, Ostend and Zeebrugge will be names of renown for the Fleet in all British history. The fondness of the German fleet for harbour has been incontrovertible proof of the prowess of Britain's Navy. v.

But it is the least spectacular of that Navy's achievements in the war that gives chief witness to its endurance and heroism: that is the watch in the grey North Sea. That unwearying patrol, maintained sleeplessly through years that brought cold and storm while yet the enemy came not out, has but Heligoland and Jutland to relieve its dull monotony of vigilance. So Howe's famous victory in the Wars of the Revolution followed a year of uneventful watching; and so Nelson, lay two years before Toulon, and Cornwallis more than two years before Brest, ere action was possible. Mahan's description of the vigils of the Napoleonic days fitß the North Sea campaign. "Thoy were dull, weary, eventless months, those rjionths of waiting and watching of the hi# ships before the French arsenals. Purposeless they surely seemed to many, but they savod England. Tho world has never Been a, more impressive demonstration of the influence of Boa power upon its history, Thoso far-distant, storm beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and tho dominion of tho world." Such a bulwark of liberty the Grand Fleet kept between Prussian brutality and the civilised world. That it maintained an effective blockade of Germany, as far as was possible, is now getting convincing: proof; but the glory of its achievement lies in the significant fact that the naval weapon with which Germany planned to win world-wide dominion haß been practically kept in its scabbard until the Allies could demand its surrender.