Britain's Sea Story.

12. The Navy in the Great War.

The sea is ours—those shielding lines of billows,
Those rippling sheaves of armour stern and grey,
That's why we sleep secure upon our pillows,
Let come what may.

The sea is ours; we paid the price to win it—
That price the page of history can unfold;
That's why our hearts of oak keep guard each minute,
For what we have, we hold.

Gold-braided admiral and bold sea-rover—
Old days and new cement Britannia's power;
So still our breed, as future years pass over,
Shall claim, "The sea is ours!"

The British Empire is based on that seasupremacy which, a fighting Navy, backed up by an efficient merchant Navy, has gained and still retains. The strategic keys of the world are the Straits of Dover, Gibraltar, Bab-el-Mandeb, and Malacen, and the Suez and Panama Canals. Britain holds all these except the last, which belongs to America and is therefore open to her Allies. At these points, as well as at all the other important strategical positions along the communications of the world, the British Navy keeps watch and ward.

But the term "British Navy" has taken on a new meaning since the Great War began. The Navy has added over 2,500 vessels to its pre-war strength—vessels taken over from the mercantile marine and now doing duty as troop and horse transports, observation and ammunition ships, hospital ships, oil-tankers, colliers, balloon-ships, meat-carriers, and in countless other capacities. A further addition to the Navy is the patrol fleet of motor-boats, tugs, yachts, drifters, and trawlers, engaged in net-watching, ram- page 300 ming submarines, sweeping the fairways for mines, deviating the traffic when they find a nest of German "eggs," hatching them by gun-fire, laying British mines, and charting areas so guarded. Not the least of their services is the rescue of U-boat victims, ruthlessly abandoned on rafts or in small boats to the pitiless waves.

To-day this mighty Navy is everywhere—a far-flung line of ships reaching from Ostend up through the North Sea, along the coast-line of Australasia, across the stormy North Atlantic, down the coasts of Scotland and Ireland to Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal to India, with an encircling branch line of ships round Africa. It reaches out from India to join its ally, the Japanese Navy, then stretches to Australasia, and to the waters round South America, thus completing its patrol of the seven seas.

Why is all this necessary when the high-sea fleet of Germany rides at anchor in the Kiel Canal, whither it fled pell-mell after the Battle of Jutland?. It is because some raider more adventurous than the rest may slip through the covering mine-fields under favour of fog and murk, and work havoc among our commerce, as the "Karlsruhe" did. Besides, many German" ships, out on the seas when war was declared in 1914, fled at that time to their nearest neutral port for sanctuary. Some of these escape from time to time, and go forth as privateers, having been supplied with ammunition and stores from one of the many neutral ships that Germany has bribed to enter her service. Therefore our ships must go and come continuously along the waterways, ready to hunt down these sea-hawks, and hold up all shipping in their search for contraband.

Thus, while every trade route in the world is open to Great Britain, Germany's fleet and mercantile marine have been chased, off the surface of the page 301 oceans, and she has taken refuge in submarines beneath the waters. These hidden foes are a grave menace to us and only the ceaseless vigilance and unconquerable spirit of our seamen have averted disaster. Many fine ships have received their death-blows, but still the Navy carries on, while Great Britain speeds

A Submerged Submarine as Seen from an Aeroplane.

page 302 up her shipyards and develops her defensive agencies for meeting submarines.

So far the destroyers have been most effective, and both British and American destroyers are accounting for a large number of U-boats. In the

Destroyee Sinking a Submarine.

Battle of Jutland our destroyers were at close grips with the enemy, parrying blows aimed at bigger ships and striking blows themselves, and, after preventing the German torpedoes from getting home in the flanks of our dreadnoughts, they drove down the enemy's line. page 303 With splendid dash the "Shark" raced down between two lines of German destroyers, discharging her torpedoes right and left at close range. She sank two and damaged others before, struck in her own vitals, she sank beneath the waves. If, we had enough destroyers, the submarines, which sink our merchantmen mostly by gun-fire, would be forced to stay under water and limit their attacks to the small number of torpedoes they could carry. The fishing-net for catching" tin-fish "is very useful, and is being improved. The seaplane is good as a scout for finding sub-marines, and as a machine from which bombs can be dropped. If the submarine bases could be attacked the destruction of these ships would soon be accomplished; but a navy cannot invite annihilation by going into mined harbours. However, as the inventive genius of England and America is concentrated on our submarine trouble a sure cure for it is certain to be devised in the near future.

Seaplanes on a Battleship. (One is being hoisted on board.)

In the meantime the brawny arms of our shipbuilders are helping our seamen; for it is ships, ships, and more ships that they want. To a ceaseless anvil chorus, to the ring and din of riveting-hammers, mighty ships are growing apace. Some stand almost ready for launching; other huge structures tower aloft, a wild complexity of steel joists and girders, dimly showing the outlines of leviathans yet to be. Snorting engines puff up and down; cranes swing giant arms to the sky; ponderous lathes turn; and monstrous machines cut through steel plates as if they are made of cheese. Truly has Britain learned her lesson—that if she would retain the Empire she has won, she must keep her Navy so numerically and materially strong that it is in all respects equal to its great responsibilities, "On the Navy, under the good Providence of God, our wealth, prosperity, and peace depend." But when we say "on the Navy" so much depends, we do not mean on steel ribs and oaken timbers alone, but, above all, on that distinctive courage, tempered by a traditional and stoic discipline, which, from our boy seamen, to our great Sea Lords, burns in them all—an illuminating fire. This was the quality that sustained Jack Cornwell at his post till the last British gun had boomed out its note of victory. This was the same superb endurance that gave strength to young Musgrave, who, when his ship, the "Aboukir," was torpedoed, swam from it to the "Hogue," and, when the "Hogue" went down under his feet, swam again to the "Cressy," which, in her turn, cast him forth upon the waters. And the boy—such a young lad—swam again to wreckage, and kept afloat till picked up by a friendly Dutch boat. There was also the boy midshipman who was left in sole command of the last survivors of his ship, and who, having shepherded them to the boats, started singing to keep up their spirits. And yet again, there was the boy of the Battle of Jutland

The Building of a Battleship.

1. The timber round the battleship 2. The keel-plate. 3. The magazine bulkhead, the first portion to be erected upright. 4. The ship ready for launching. 5. Placing 11 tons of armour-plate in position. 6. Twelve-inch gun ready for hoisting aboard.

who successfully navigated his ship home, although her steering-gear had broken down.

Boy after boy of British blood and breeding has proved himself a hero in circumstances terrible enough to make strong hearts quail; and it is this heroic fibre in our seamen that is an even more valuable asset to Britain than her mighty fleet.

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed,
Vain, those all-shattering guns,
Unless proud England keep, untamed,
The strong heart of her sons!

Dates for the Month (November).—1st—Old-age pensions became law, 1898; Naval action off Coronel, South America, 1914: 5th—Great Britain declared war on Turkey, 1914: 7th—Fall of Tsingtau: 14th—Field-Marshal Earl Roberts died, 1914: 15th—Domesday Book compiled, 1086: 16th—Suez. Canal opened, 1869: 20th—Failure of the German efforts to reach Calais, 1914: 23rd—British bombardment of Zeebrugge, 1914; Serbian Army retreated, 1915: 24th—Tasmania discovered, 1642: 28th—First occasion on which New Zealand women exercised the franchise, 1893: 29th—Education Act providing for the free and compulsory education of children passed, 1877; Chatham Islands discovered by Lieutenant Broughton in H.M.S. "Chatham," 1791; King George visited the front, 1914: 30th—St. Andrew's Day.

[On the 7th December, 1914, the South African rebellion collapsed, thus enabling General Botha to undertake the conquest of German South-west Africa. On the 8th the British Squadron under Admiral Sturdee defeated Admiral von Spee's squadron off the Falkland Islands; four of the enemy's ships, the "Scharrhorst," the "Gneisenau," the "Leipzig," and the "Nurnberg," being sunk. On the 17th the Turkish suzerainty over Egypt ended; and on the 18th a new Khedive—Prince Hussein Kamel Pasha—loyal to Britain, was appointed. On the 3rd December, 1915, General Townshend reached Kut-el-Amara. On the 19th December, 1915, the Allies' troops were withdrawn from Anzac and Suvla Bay.]

On appropriate days the school flag might be hoisted