not appear itself, or appears only in the background, and striking open blows at rare intervals, though lost to most, is emphasised to the careful reader by the events of this war and of the half-century that followed.'

It is this pressure which we have sought to impose on the Central Powers by a blockade of ever-increasing stringency. How far we have succeeded cannot be stated definitely. The German declaration of Feb. 2, 1915, alleged that the 'war area' round our coasts was established in retaliation for our assumed illegal action. 'Since the shutting off of food supplies has come to a point when Germany no longer has sufficient food for her people, it has become necessary to bring England to terms by the exercise of force.' Yet, long after this date, the Imperial Chancellor and Herr von Batocki, Director of Food Supplies, declared that, notwithstanding much constriction, the nourishment of the German people was not endangered. Either the first statement was untrue, or there had been a gross miscalculation. Undoubtedly there is great scarcity in Germany, but the organising genius of the German people is directed to forestalling its consequences. The procedure in cutting off supplies from Germany is precisely analogous to the prevention of supplies reaching a besieged fortress. The rectitude of the procedure was set forth in the Reichstag, on March 4, 1892, by no less a person than General von Caprivi, then Imperial Chancellor, who said:

'The more a country depends on maritime commerce, the more necessary is it to cut all its communications in case of war at sea. Such a country might have need of this commerce for its food supplies and for the raw materials necessary for its industries. I am of opinion that to interrupt the enemy's navigation will remain an indispensable means of the struggle. He who makes war wishes to attain his ends; and, when he possesses the energy, he succeeds by employing every possible means, including, in war at sea, that of interrupting the communications of his enemy. No one can renounce this supreme weapon. It is, moreover, what is done in land warfare. If anyone during the Siege of Paris had sent a train of provisions towards the French Capital, that train would have been arrested. It is the same at sea.'

* Speech quoted in L'Homme Enchainé,' Feb. 27, 1915.

From these remarks on our blockade of Germany we are brought to a consideration of the very serious and important question of certain limitations of naval power, which are visible in the present war. It is a self-evident proposition that ships of war cannot operate on land, except in so far as the range of their guns may enable them to attack places lying in the vicinity of the coast, or of the bank of some great river which naval vessels may be able to ascend. Therefore, unless naval forces. can meet and engage the naval forces of the enemy, or can injure him by inflicting damage upon vulnerable and important places on his coast, they can act against him only by destroying his mercantile shipping, or driving it to port, and generally in the way of blockade. This has been the work of the Navy in the war. It seems certain that, in the conditions of modern states, it becomes more than ever difficult to exert that 'pressure on the vitals' of a nation to which Admiral Mahan has referred. Methods of food conservation, cold storage, the introduction of food substitutes through the use of natural products, such as nuts and nut-oil, and, in the domain of industry, of fibres and woods which it was not necessary to use in peace time, have strengthened resistance against the effects of blockade.

Increased means of inland communication have had a powerful influence in the same direction. If Germany had had no other means than the horse-waggons and river transport of former times for the collection and distribution of food, the war might conceivably have been over by this time. But the magnificent internal communications of the Central Powers enable them to draw supplies from the rich grain districts of Hungary and the countries bordering the Adriatic, and from Bulgaria, Turkey in Europe and Asia Minor. Vast supplies of corn and other produce were drawn from Rumania; and the rapid development of force to conquer that country, after she had joined the Allies, was sufficiently explained by the immense value of her resources in grain and oil. All these things add very greatly to the means of resisting the pressure of the naval blockade; and we know also that all our efforts have not prevented supplies from reaching Germany from and through Sweden and other neutrals.

Moreover, though naval action is limited by the enemy's coasts, the enemy enjoys the immense advantage of his central position which our Navy cannot touch, and of interior lines for the free movement of his troops. The German road to the East is made practically invulnerable by nature. The railway from Belgrade to Constantinople has better protection than almost any other similar route in the world. It adds immensely to the resources of the Central Powers. The Germans have also been able to utilise their forces in a way impossible to the Allies, by transporting them rapidly from front to front; and with these movements the Navy has not enabled us to interfere.

The power of the impending stroke, which belongs primarily to naval strategy, is now possessed in some degree by land forces. Armies may be immobilised, because we do not know where the enemy will make his stroke. An 'Army of Egypt' was announced as being organised; and the danger caused defensive preparations to be made and troops assembled in that country on a greater scale than was actually required by the military situation. Naval forces may themselves be augmented by means of internal communications, and German submarines have been sent in sections to be assembled at Trieste or Pola, and have also made their appearance in the Danube and the Black Sea.

The Germans have spoken a good deal during the war of 'Moltke' defeating 'Mahan'; and it was doubtless with such facts as are adduced above in his mind that Prof. Jäckh, a distinguished German Orientalist, declared his belief, in February 1916, that in the long run land power would show its superiority over sea power, 'whatever British and American theorists might say.' British policy ran generally counter to the construction of the Baghdad railway. Land communication through the heart of Europe into Asia was instinctively felt to be opposed to the interests of the great Sea Power. Doubtless the Anatolian railway was of enormous advantage to Turkey, but the control of the work carried onward to Baghdad, and intended to be carried down to the Persian Gulf, was obviously intimately bound up with our ability to carry help to India and the East. The enormous improvement of territorial communications

railways, telegraphs, etc.—has undoubtedly done much to neutralise the superiority of Sea Power in some parts of the world.

It is gratifying to turn from the limitations of naval power indicated above, which cannot be questioned, to one of its greatest triumphs. History has no parallel for the gathering of our armies in this war, the despatching of them to many theatres of the hostilities, the constant supplying of them with guns, munitions and stores of every imaginable kind, the furnishing of our Allies with everything that their forces require-all this accomplished under the sure shield of naval protection. Not a soldier has gone afloat but a sailor has carried him on his back. We have gathered armies and supplies from every Dominion and Colony, and sent them to France, to Salonika, the Dardanelles, Egypt, Macedonia, India and Africa. Wherever the sea could carry troops or supplies, if they were required, they went. Because of the supremacy of our sea power, Archangel became filled with the ships of every friendly nation. Through Archangel have poured enormous supplies for the Russian armies; and the port, from being a sleepy harbour, became as busy a place as could be found anywhere on the continent of Europe, unless it were some port on the French coast of the Channel filled with the ceaseless va et vient of the great armies which have fought on the Yser and the Somme. Mr Balfour, in his speech on the Navy Estimates, March 7, 1916, indicated the magnitude of the work that had then been achieved.

'If you take the distance between Archangel in the north and Alexandria in the eastern base of the Mediterranean you will find that distance to be about 5000 miles; and those 5000 miles had in a large part to be guarded solely by the British fleets, and in another part had to be guarded by British fleets combined with those of our Allies, but in a manner which threw necessarily an immense strain upon the British Fleet. About 4,000,000 combatants have been transported under the guardianship of the British Fleet, 1,000,000 horses and other animals, 2,500,000 tons of stores, and, in addition, 22,000,000 gallons of oil for us and for our Allies. . . . This, in the presence, not of German cruisers, but of German submarines, threw an enormous task upon the British Navy which could

hardly be foreseen, still less provided against, in the first days of the war. .. If you had laid the matter before some professor of the theory of warfare or some student of military and naval history, I do not believe he would for a moment have admitted the possibility, in the face of the special difficulties with which we have to deal, of maintaining these enormous armies in Egypt, the Dardanelles, Salonika, to say nothing of Mesopotamia, or of the Colonial operations in East Africa or in the Cameroons-of carrying out such an operation as that without suffering immense losses, even if the operation could be carried out at all, in any circumstances, with the resources at the disposal even of the greatest Naval Power in the world.

Incalculable in their value have been the services thus rendered by the Navy to the country and the Allies. During the despatch of the original Expeditionary Force to France, cruisers, destroyers, naval aircraft and submarines were on the watch, and the patrol was maintained, day and night without relief, until the army had been effectively transported. The service has been continued ever since, and we can pay no higher tribute to the Navy than to say that not a single man has been lost owing to enemy attack during the whole of these operations, except in the case of one or two transports in the Eastern Mediterranean.

There would be no hyperbole in saying that without the command of the sea, exercised by the Allied Navies, and certainly in the fullest measure by the British Navy, embodying in itself and in its work the best elements of the mercantile marine and the fisheries, the task of the Allies would have been hopeless and the triumph of the enemy secure. Sea power has not only maintained our communications, but has also protected the rear and flank of the Western armies against all enemy operations. In the Baltic the Russian Fleet, as Admiral Kanin, who was then in command, stated, supported the Russian army, protected its flank from being enveloped and made impossible a German advance on Petrograd. In the same sea British submarines, with splendid daring, have operated to the restriction of German trade with Sweden, endangering important food and mineral supplies. In the Mediterranean, sea power has played a predominant part. The two thousand miles of sea which