A Short History of
the Naval War
1914-1918
BY
ARCHIBALD HURD
AND
H. H. BASHFORD
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
To the generous help and criticisms of many participants inthe events hereafter recorded, and particularly to AdmiralsViscount Jellicoe of Scapa Flow and W. S. Sims of theUnited States Navy; to Vice-Admirals Sir F. DovetonSturdee and Sir Reginald H. Bacon; and to Lieutenaut-CommanderA. D. Turnbull of the United States Navy, theauthors desire to express their most grateful acknowledgment.
CONTENTS
Foreword
CHAPTER
I. August 4, 1914
II. The Battle of the Bight
III. Coronel
IV. The Battle of the Falkland Islands
V. Back to the North Sea
VI. The Seamen at Gallipoli
VII. Sub-mariners of England
VIII. The Battle of Jutland
IX. The Dover Patrol
X. The Sealing of Zeebrugge and Ostend
XI. The Coming of the Americans
XII. The Harvest of Sea Power
Index
In the years immediately preceding the GreatWar, already so hard to reconstruct, it was notuncommonly suggested that the British seafaringinstinct had begun to decline. In our professionalnavy most thinkers had confidence, as in a splendidmachine ably manned; but, as regarded the populationas a whole, it was feared that modern industrialismwas sapping the old sea-love. That this has beendisproved we hope to make clear in the followingpages—a first attempt, as we believe, to give, innarrative form, a reasonably complete and consecutivehistory of the naval war. We have indeed gonefurther, for we have tried to show not only that thespirit of admiralty has survived undiminished, butthat we have witnessed such a re-awakening of it,both in Great Britain and America, as has had noparallel since the days of Elizabeth. We have alsotried to make clear that, in a thousand embodiments,in men and boys fallen or still living, it has shone witha spiritual even more than any material significance;and that it has again declared itself to be the peculiarexpression in world-affairs of the English-speakingraces.
Nor was the little apparent interest shown, justbefore the war, in the navy and the navy's exercisesvery remarkable. Our attitude, as a people, toward{x}it had always been a curious union of apathy andadventure. We had been sea-worshippers so longthat our reverence had often been dulled by muchfamiliarity, and to such an extent, at times, that, onlyby the supremest efforts, had we, as a nation,escaped catastrophe. Bu