er quantities, both from the Mother Country
and from the Empire, Allies, and Neutrals overseas. In addition to
this the British oversea trade routes had to be kept open and the
German ones closed; fisheries protected on one side, attacked on the
other; and an immense sea service carried on for our Allies as well.

Some staggering facts and figures will be given in the chapter called
"Well done!" Here we shall only note that the Navy, with all its
Reserves and Auxiliaries, grew from two and a half million tons of
shipping to eight millions before the war was over. This means that
the Navy, in spite of all its losses, became bigger than any other
country's navy, mercantile marine, fishing fleet, river steamers, and
all other kinds of shipping, put together, since the world began. When
we add the British mercantile marine, British shipbuilding, the British
fishing fleets, and all the shipping interests of the Empire overseas,
we shall find that British sea-power of all kinds equalled all the
sea-power of all the rest of the world together. Destroy that
sea-power and we die.

Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off the north of Scotland was a
perfect base for the Grand Fleet, because it was well placed to watch
the way out of the North Sea through the two-hundred-mile gap between
Norway and the Shetlands, and also because the tremendous tidal
currents sweeping through it prevented submarines from sneaking about
too close. Six hundred miles south-east was the German Fleet, near the
North Sea end of the Kiel Canal. Between lay a hundred and twenty-five
thousand square miles of water on which, taking one day with another
the whole year round, you could not see clearly more than five miles.
This "low average visibility" accounts for all the hide-and-seek that
suited German tricks so well.

Within three hours of the British Declaration of War two British
submarines were off for Heligoland, where they spied out the enemy's
fleet. From that time on every German move was watched from under the
water, on the water, or over the water, and instantly reported by
wireless to the Admiralty in London and to the Grand Fleet based on
Scapa Flow.

Then, when the first British army began to cross into France, the Fleet
covered its flank against the Germans, and went on covering it for
fifty-one months without a break, through cold and wet, through
ceaseless watching, and through many fights.

The first fight was off Heligoland, whe