ocean. We do not, of course, know what Germany has been
doing since the war began on August 1, 1914; but all accounts show
that Germany, like all the other belligerent Powers, has been adding
units of material and personnel to her navy much more rapidly than
they have been destroyed; as well as perfecting her strategy, under
the influence of the war's stimulus. Leaving out of consideration,
however, what she may have been doing since the war began, and
neglecting any unauthenticated accounts of her status before it
started, we know positively that in 1913 the maneuvers of the German
fleet were executed by a force of 21 battleships, 3 battle cruisers,
5 small cruisers, 6 flotillas of destroyers (that is 66 seagoing
torpedo vessels), 11 submarines, an airship, a number of aeroplanes
and special service ships, and 22 mine-sweepers--all in one fleet,
all under one admiral, and maneuvered as a unit. _This was nearly
three years ago, and we have never come anywhere near such a
performance_. In January, 1916, the United States Atlantic fleet,
capable as to both material and personnel of going to sea and
maneuvering together, consisted of 15 battleships and 23 destroyers,
2 mine-depot ships, and 1 mine-training ship, and 4 tugs fitted
as mine-sweepers--with no submarines, no aircraft of any kind, no
scouts (unless the _Chester_ be so considered, which was cruising
alone off the coast of Liberia, and the _Birmingham_, which was
flag-ship to the destroyer flotilla). This was the only fleet that
we had ready to fight in January, 1916; because, although more
battleships could have been put into commission, this could have
been done only by putting out of commission certain smaller vessels,
such as cruisers and gunboats; and the battleships would have had
to be put into commission very hurriedly, filled up with men fresh
from other ships, and no more ready to fight in the fleet against
an enemy (whose ships were fully manned with well-trained officers
and men, accustomed to the details of their respective ships, and
acquainted with each other) than the _Chesapeake_ was ready to
fight the _Shannon_.

3. In case our system is not so good as that of--say Germany--or
of any other country having a system equally excellent, we shall
_never_ be able to contend successfully against that navy, under
equal strategic conditions, unless we have an excess over her in
numbers of personnel and material sufficient to counteract our
inferiority in