ld give out. When that
happy consummation would be arrived at, it was in the winter of
1914-15 impossible to say and fruitless to take a shot at.

The Director of Military Operations received copies of most Foreign
Office telegrams as a matter of course, and during the early months of
the war many of these documents as they came to hand were found to be
concerned with that very ticklish question, the maritime blockade. The
attitude taken up by those responsible in this country regarding this
matter has been severely criticized in many quarters, certain organs
of the Press were loud in their condemnation of our kid-glove methods
in those days, and the Sister Service seemed to be in discontented
mood. But there was a good deal to be said on the other side. Lack of
familiarity with international law, with precedents, and with the
tenour and result of the discussions which had at various times taken
place with foreign countries over the manners and customs of naval
blockade, made any conclusions which I might arrive at over so complex
a problem of little profit. But it always did seem to me that the
policy actually adopted was in the main the right one, and that to
have bowed before advocates of more drastic measures might well have
landed us in a most horrible mess. You can play tricks with neutrals
whose fighting potentialities are restricted, which you had better not
try on with non-belligerents who may be able to make things hot for
you. The progress of the war in the early months was not so wholly
reassuring as to justify hazarding fresh complications.

In his book, "_1914_," Lord French has dealt at some length with an
operations question which was much in debate during the winter of
1914-15. He and Mr. Churchill were at this time bent on joint naval
and military undertakings designed to recover possession of part, or
of the whole, of the Belgian coast-line--in itself a most desirable
objective. Although I did not see most of the communications which
passed between the French Government and ours on the subject, nor
those which passed between Lord Kitchener and the Commander-in-Chief
of the B.E.F., I gathered the nature of what was afoot from Sir J.
Wolfe Murray and Fitzgerald, as also from G.H.Q. in France, and
examined the problem which was involved with the aid of large-scale
maps and charts and such other information as was available. The
experts of St. Omer did not appear to accept the scheme with
absolutely who