it. And the navy grew while it waited.

It was not the work of a day, though, nor of a generation, to match
the sea power that Great Britain had spent centuries in building. Try
as she would, strain men, ordnance plants, and shipyards to the
breaking point, Germany could not catch up with her great rival. The
first half of the new year saw no matching of the grand fleets. It did
produce a few gallant combats, and was marked by a melancholy
succession of German submarine attacks on defenseless craft. The
sacrifice of lives among neutrals and the Allies cast a pall upon the
world.

Naval losses up to August 1, 1915, had been considerable on both sides
without crippling any one of the belligerents. No sooner was a
warship sunk than there were two to replace it. Every country engaged
took effective steps to preserve such maritime power as it had, and
Great Britain worked harder than any of the others, for her existence
depended upon it.

The first year of the conflict cost England thirty-two fighting craft,
great and small. France lost thirteen, Russia five, Japan three, a
total of fifty-three. The combined tonnage was 297,178. To
counterbalance this Germany lost sixty-seven war vessels, Turkey five
and Austria four, the seventy-six ships having an aggregate tonnage of
206,100. The difference of 91,078 gross tons in favor of Germany and
her partners in war was offset by the number of fast German cruisers
which fell victims to the Allies, and by the numerical inferiority of
the Central Powers' combined fleets.

On August 1, 1915, the naval situation was identical with that of
August 1, 1914. Great Britain, aided materially by France, and her
other allies, in a lesser degree, stood ready to do battle with the
Teuton sea forces whenever opportunity offered. She had won every
important engagement with the exception of the clash off the coast of
Chile, and could look calmly forward, despite the gnawing of German
submarines at her commerce. With every gun and man primed for the
fight, with the greatest collection of armed vessels ever known lying
at ports, merely awaiting the word, she felt supremely ready.

The lives of 1,550 persons were lost during the first year of the war
through the sinking of merchant ships, nearly all of which were
torpedoed. This applied to vessels of the Allies alone, twenty-two
persons having been lost with neutral ships. The total of tonnage
destroyed between February 18, 1915, when the German e