3;n F J. C. Walsh THE DANGER ZONE £ THE POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES REGARDING NAVY AND MERCHANT MARINE. AN HISTOR- ICALLY ACCURATE REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE AT WASHINGTON ON LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT. 16 "Nothing but the truth" is. 4 Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister of England (after conclu- sion of Boer War) : "There have been great colonial and maritime powers, four or five, but they have always fallen. . If we ever allow our defenses at sea to fall to such a point of inefficiency that it is as easy, or nearly as easy, to cross the sea as it is to cross a land frontier, our great Empire, stretching to the ends of the earth, sup- ported by maritime force in every part of it, will come cluttering to the ground whenever a blow at the metropolis of England is struck." Prince Bernhard Von Bulow, German Chancellor, from his book, "Imperial Germany," p. 20: "The policy of no state in the world is so firmly bound by tradi- tion as that of England; and it is in no small degree due to the unbroken continuity of her foreign policy, handed down from cen- tury to century, pursuing its aims on definite bines, and independent of the changes of party government, that England has attained such magnificent successes in world politics. The Alpha and Omega of English policy has always been the attainment and maintenance of English naval supremacy. To this aim all other considerations, friendships as well as enmities, have always been subordinated." Homer Lea (American) "The Day of the Saxon," p. 36: "The political relationship between the United States and the British Empire must be regarded in the same light as that of other races. Whatever are their strong wants, these will determine their friendship, no stronger nor weaker than that of other nations. Whenever the angles of their interests become acutely convergent, there will be rumors of strife; and when they meet, war will ensue." Homer Lea, "Valor of Ignorance," p. 191: "Japan's strategic position on the north Asian coast gives her complete control of it and of all the trade routes that diverge from its shores. . . . Japan is now supreme, in a military and naval sense, on the Asian coast north of Hong Kong. . . (196). Possessed of the Philippines, Japan would complete her chain of fortresses from Kamchatka to the Indian Ocean. With her castles put up on the mountain tops of these seas, races of man could bay in vain." 3 Roland G. Usher (American), "Pan- Americanism/' p. 340: "England will object . . . to a great American merchant marine. Her notion of an adequate merchant marine for herself is based upon the number of ships needed in time of war to carry the supplies on which she depends. . . . Her merchant marine must be placed in time of peace on a war footing and requires for its support in time of peace a very great volume of freight. The nation can afford to own it only so long as it sustains itself. The prosperity of her fleet and therefore its existence is immediately threatened by the creation of other great fleets which rob her own of its livelihood by taking from it a part of the world's carrying trade. ... A serious crisis will result for English shipping of a nature which the sea power can only solve by aggres- sive action." Gerard Fiennes (English), "Sea Power and Freedom," p. 246: "If the whole meaning of the Ocean Empire become plain, then a way may be found for the application of the British ideal, suit- ably modified, to the whole family of nations which dwell under the British flag. The solution is not to be looked for in a crude equality of conditions promiscuously applied. . . . The first step is to be found in the conception of an organic realm, knit together by sea power." The references to authors in the footnotes are to the following works : Homer Lea, The Day of the Saxon, and The Valor of Ignorance. A. G. Gardiner, The Anglo-American Future. Gerard Fiennes, Sea Power and Freedom. Roland G. Usher, Pan-Americanism. THE DANGER ZONE The Washington Conference An International Conference having been called by President Harding to consider plans for the limitation of naval armaments, and the delegates from the United States, England, Japan, France, Italy and other coun- tries having assembled on November 11, 1921, the chair was taken by Hon. Chaises Evans Hughes, Secretary of State for the United States. The business of the con- ference having been announced from the chair, the fol- lowing discussion took place. Mr. Arthur Balfour (speaking for England) Let us address ourselves to the pertinent facts. What are they? In the year 1900 England was in complete and rec- ognized control of all the seas. (i) In or about that year Russia evidenced a desire to assert her sea strength in the Pacific. This we resented. Russia's ambitions, fortunately for us, ran counter to Japan's as well as to our own. We therefore encouraged Japan, and in the war that ensued Russia's sea force was destroyed. Immediately afterward, it became evident that Ger- many did not see her way to pursue her commercial de- velopment over seas through the agency of England's merchant marine. Facing the same issues which it is evident you are studying today, the Germans built a large merchant marine and created a great fleet for the express purpose of holding in their own hands factors able to establish that continued contact with the markets of the world which had Come to be the paramount in- < J > Admiral Mahan, quoted by Fiennes, p. 161: "Before that war (Span- ish Succession) England was one of the sea powers ; after it she was the sea power, without any second. This power she held alone, unshared by friend and unchecked by foe." terest of Germany. This we in England could not al- low to go on. (2) Our requirement is a merchant marine based upon the number of ships needed in time of war to carry the sup- plies we require. As the amount of carrying trade is limited, and as the creation of other great fleets would rob ours of part of the business necessary to its existence on the scale our security requires, Germany's merchant fleet created for us a problem which could} only be solved by aggressive action. Foreseeing this, Germany built a navy for the protection of her marine, m I point out to you in passing that should you decide to follow the same course the problem for us will be the same as that presented to us by Germany. w Obliged to give our attention to what Germany was doing, we withdrew our fleets from, the Pacific and from the West Atlantic, and stationed them in the North Sea. We left the Pacific to Japan, the West Atlantic '.2) Von Bulow: A French friend said to me: "You will not be able to complete your naval programme, for before long England will confront you with the alternative between ceasing your construction of ships or seeing the English fleet put out to sea." Army and Navy Gazette, London, 1904: "Once before we had to snuff out a fleet which we believed might be used against us." (3) Fiennes, p. 223: We have the largest mercantile marine as well as the strongest war navy in the world . . . and our mercantile strength in time of peace has given our navy strength in time, of war. . . . Other nations have been relieved of the necessity of developing resources of their own overseas, and the time of crisis found all the important links in the chain of communi- cations in our hands. Fiennes, p. 222: Apart from the great military stations like Gibraltar, Aden, Simon's Bay, Colombo, Singapore and Hong Kong, and sometimes combined with them, we have acquired an unsurpassed chain of coaling sta- tions and commercial ports all over the world, so that the world's traffic, with the exception of that of the United States and South American ports, mainly passes over routes in which all the stations are British. Hence it follows that the things requisite for ocean travel — coal, supplies, repairing yards and so forth — are mostly to be found in British ports. < 4 > Usher, p. 157: The potential power of England is enormous. Our whole foreign trade is in her hands, all our approaches are at the mercy of her fleet. (P. 342) An attempt by the United States to ensure its independence of the sea power involves an extensive alteration in England's present position in the world. to the United States,™ and encouraged you both to build up to what we thought were the requirements of our safety in our absence. Thanks to your subsequent assist- ance there is no more German problem for us. Her navy has been destroyed and her merchant marine has been scattered. We have no naval competition left in Europe more serious than could be offered by a fleet of fishing smacks.™ There is likewise no merchant marine competition which we, need to consider as serious. In the time during which we have permitted you to act without our apparently noticing what you were about, you have both entered, to some extent, upon the same course as Germany. As from today, that policy must cease. We are prepared to resume, as against Japan, the supremacy of the Pacific, (7) and as against the United States the supremacy of the Atlantic. This applies to merchant marine as well as to navies. <5> Homer Lea, The Day of the Saxon, p. 88: The defeat of Russia has diverted that power's action against India; Japan has become more power- ful in the Pacific than the British Empire; the Japanese sphere of political and economic expansion is inclusive of all British interests in the Pacific; England was deprived of her advantageous position of being the only insular power in the world by the creation of another naval nation whose geograph- ical relationship to Asia is identical with that of England to Europe. ... A second insular power has been born to live as it has lived, and to loot as it has looted the highways of the sea. Usher, p. 192: The growth of the German navy robbed the English of their control of the Pacific. To meet the aggression of the Germans and defend England, they were compelled to withdraw the effective English ships from the Pacific as well as from the Gulf of Mexico, and concentrate them in the English Channel. < 6 > Gardiner, p. 92: The German challenge has gone, and all the sea power of the continent combined would be hardly more formidable against the British Navy than a fleet of fishing smacks. < 7 > Usher, p. 193: As their own naval stations and factories were not of naval importance to Japan, these they would expect to retain, but all except a few English ships should be withdrawn from the Pacific. . . . They did not fail to intimate that the circumstance of Japanese control would be entirely dependent, in case of their own victory in Europe, upon the manner in which it was, and was about to be, exercised. Victorious in the Atlantic, they would no longer be foreclosed sending to the Pacific a fleet easily large enough to defeat the Japanese and extend English sovereignty as far as they desired. We propose, and are able, to dominate the industrial and commercial development of China, in the one sphere, and the similar development of South America in the other sphere, and your future plans, both for naval and merchant marine development, must be made to conform to what we regard, as essential to our requirements. We cannot allow any increase in Japan's naval or merchant strength which might ultimately involve a challenge to our position in India, and Australasia, nor any increase in America's naval or merchant strength which might involve a similar challenge to our strength in Africa, in South America and in China. As to the carrying trade of Europe, having disposed of the rivalry of Germany, we are not willing to admit the development of a new rivalry on the part of Ameri- ca, beyond a proportion acceptable to us; nor to permit the extension of American naval power to a point at which the American merchant marine might think itself adequately supported in the effort to secure a larger share. m < 8 > Homer Lea, The Day of the Saxon, p. 67: Had India not been where it is, there would have resulted no British Empire. Only because India is Brit- ish are the Mediterranean and Red Seas, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, the Suez, the coasts of Asia Minor under Saxon sovereignty. For the same reason Africa is principally British as well as Mauritius, Seychelles, Burma, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. India, in a military sense, is the British Empire, and only as long as the Saxon domin- ion over it continues unbroken and its frontiers remain inviolate will it be possible for the British Empire to endure. < 9 ) Sea Power and Freedom: Gerard Fiennes, p. 145: "It is a matter of dispute to this day upon whom the responsibility rests for the actual out- break (with the Dutch). This is commonly the case with "inevitable" wars; those, that is, which occur because there is no room for both aspirants to walk side by side along their chosen path. P. 146: The causes of the conflicts between the British and the Dutch are, after all, best summed up in the blunt, almost cynical speech attributed to Monk, "What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade which the Dutch now have!" That depended on our success in secur- ing the position of waywarden of the highway of nations, the sea. David Urquhart, writing before Crimean War, quoted by von Bulow: "Our insular position leaves us only the choice between omnipotence and im- potence." 8 Having recognized these fundamentals , and you hav- ing conceded that our ability to enforce our wishes was finally established by your consent to the sinking of the German navy, the only possible European force whose continued existence you might have utilized as a make weight against us, it remains for the other parties to this conference to agree with us upon a basis of future action which will stereotype the present relative positions. Usher, p. 333: The ethics of independence are literally those of self- defence ! The unassailable right of every nation to control the factors essen- tial to its territorial integrity, its economic prospertiy and its international status. try and commerce within the United States has been accompanied at all stages by the setting up of the trans- portation facilities needed in connection therewith; and that a forcible dislocation is involved, now that we have progressed to the state where we have a large and in- creasing concern in international Commerce, in any ar- bitrary interruption of the control of our transportation facilities at the seaboard . (l2) We cannot be asked to eliminate from our trade the profits of sea freight, brokerage and insurance, (13) nor can we substitute, for a merchant marine adequate to our needs, dependence upon such facilities of ocean trans- port as England is willing to furnish us, (H) together with such ships of our own as she is willing to have us operate. (12) Mahan, quoted by Fiennes, p. 157 : "A nation cannot live indefinitely off itself, and the easiest way in which it can communicate with other people and renew its own strength is upon the sea." (is) Usher, p. 335: Independence of the sea power . . . would provide for the continuance of our contact with the international market upon which depends our prosperity. The profits of freight, brokerage and insurance, which now are paid to England, would come to us. Fiennes, p. 248: The Civil War destroyed the American mercantile marine, and the great spurt of development which followed constrained the Amer- icans to pay the interest of their loans to a large extent in the freights earned by British ships. Gardiner, p. 24-5: Describes how Lord John Russell decided to seize the Alabama, submitting new evidence to Sir John Harding, Queen's ad- vocate. (Quotes Charles F. Adams) "He (H.) just then broke down from nervous tension and thereafter became hopelessly insane. His wife, anxious to conceal from the world her husband's condition, allowed the package to lie undisturbed on his desk for three days — days which entailed the destruction of the American merchant marine; and it was on the first of these days, Saturday, July 26, 1862, that Captain Bullock, the Con- federate agent who ordered the ship 'received information from a private but most reliable source that it would not be safe to leave the ship at Liverpool another 48 hours'." (On Monday, under pretense of making a trial trip, the Alabama, alias the Service, alias the 290, sailed out to sea.) Gardiner: "This was the severest blow struck at the cause of the North from any external source. The American mercantile marine was destroyed by a ship built in a British yard and manned by British seamen whose achievements were openly applauded in the British press and by British passengers, who hailed it with cheers as they passed it at sea." (i*) Usher, p. 331: We cannot expect to maintain our supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and continue to depend upon some European power for the use of its merchant marine. 10 We cannot subject our whole economic position to the perils involved m dependence upon England, *wheri England's capacity for service to our trade is liable to interruption by her diplomatic difficulties with other powers, or by the exigencies contingent upon her being at war with one of them. We have had quite recently too much of that. Neither can we contemplate having our ships com- mandeered and our foreign commerce interrupted in such a war, and so we must have naval power sufficient to discourage those who might be disposed, in their own interest, to put an end to our sea borne commerce, there- by exposing us to grave economic crises. (15) The American marine must grow according to the needs of the United States, the ultimate object being to make it large enough to care for all exports and im- ports at a time when other carriers are engaged in the war concerns of their owners. Its growth cannot be determined upon, and arbitrarily limited by, the as- sumed necessity of England to possess in peace times a profit earning merchant fleet sufficiently large for her supposed needs in war time. {m < 15 > Usher, p. 336: Until we are free from the English merchant fleet and from the control of all the approaches to the Western Hemisphere by the English navy, we shall not be able to act in foreign affairs contrary to the policies and interests of the sea power without immediately entailing upon ourselves an economic crisis of the first magnitude. < 16 > Usher, p. 429: Disarmament will surely cost us all our national ambi- tions, present and future. We shall be compelled to throw ourselves upon the mercy of England in the Atlantic and Japan in the Pacific, and depend upon their forbearance, generosity and keen sense of their own interests to allow us such rights as are indispensable . . . Our privileges will necessarily be measured by their interests rather than ours. . . . An adequate merchant marine we shall be compelled to renounce and perforce rest satisfied with such facilities of ocean transport as the sea power provides us, ... in addi- tion to such merchant fleet as it is willing to have us build. A merchant ma- rine, capable of carrying all our commerce and maintaining our independ- ence, we can never have, for its very existence will at once arouse the appre- hensions of the European power whose control of the sea rests fundamental- ly upon its own defensive needs and which will therefore scent aggression and danger and decline to permit us to develop such a merchant fleet. 11 It must also be noted that the size of the American navy is in some sense dictated by the state of national insecurity arising from England's possession or control of the sea routes to our eastern coast. Our recent establishment of freight and passenger services to northern Europe in American ships has been followed by your demand to be allowed to fortify Irish ports and establish military air services on land in Ire- land, action which we can only interpret as being taken with our future European relations in view. Moreover, on our side of the Atlantic , you maintain a fortified naval station at Halifax in easy reach of our great centres of population, while your series of out- posts in the West Indies, culminating in Jamaica}™ constitute a permanent menace to our interest in the Panama canal. We know that while the French con- structed the Suez Canal, its present possession and ownership m) are with you who dominate the Mediter- ranean from Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and Aden. We know, too, that from the first you have claimed equality with ourselves in the western hemisphere^ that you proposed it at the time the Monroe Doctrine was formu- (17) Fiennes, p. 221: We have acquired "the gates of the world" with the exception of Constantinople, the eventual possession of which is at present (1918) in doubt. . . . Jamaica is as well placed as Cuba for controlling the exit of the Panama canal. Usher, p. 94: England wished to control the Western Hemisphere without fighting for it. . . . Canning suggested a joint protest of the United States and Great Britain directed to the Holy Alliance, against the recon- quest in favor of Spain of her late colonies, and also suggested that the note 12 lated, that you insisted upon it when an isthmian canal was first suggested, that you claimed equal treatment in that canal when actual construction was to be under- taken, and that you regard as final recognition of your equality of status the repeal by Congress of the laws granting favors to certain American ships in the Canal built by the American people. We cannot concede to you equality of interest in that quarter, but must re- gard our interest in the canal as paramount, and must assert our right to defend it. We realize that your possessions in the West Indies lie across our trade route to South America, and your proposal to fortify Ireland, to provide a check upon our commerce with Europe at your pleasure, warns us what to expect if our commerce with South America increases beyond your liking. Finally, we cannot agree to limit our strength upon the sea to what is agreeable to you when we have had so many, and some of them so recent, examples of your readiness to crush your rivals, i20) to make your own inter- should recognize the equality of interests which England and the United States possessed in the Western Hemisphere. Its purpose was apparently to secure from the United States an official recognition of England's new do- minion in the Gulf of Mexico and South America. Adams . . . pointed out, the protection of the new republics by the English sea power meant simply their transfer from Spain to England, and before Monroe's message was read, Adams' prescience was demonstrated correct by an agreement between France and England to prevent the reconquest of the republics. This settled the question of their independence. (20) Fiennes, p. 165: Byng, afterwards Lord Torrington, fell upon the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro and completely destroyed it. The morality of Torrington's attack need not be discussed . . . [it was done] to serve the maritime purposes of Britain, one of which was to stereotype the naval weakness of Spain. If defence be thought necessary, it is to be found in the fact that . . . encounters (on the sea) continued to be of frequent occur- rence, while nations remained formally at peace with each other. P. 202: There are few incidents on which the British people look back with more sincere regret than the battle of Copenhagen (1801). But regret springs solely from the sentiments of admiration and friendship . . . and from no doubts as to the justice or expediency of the course taken. How- ever justified intrinsically the complaints of the Danes might have been (the countries were at peace), the greater issues at stake demanded that they be laid on one side, forcibly if need be." P. 212: Great Britain (again) seized the Danish fleet in 1807. 13 est the measure of the privilege you will allow to others to serve theirs, and even to employ force against utterly unprotected peoples, guiltless of offense against you, if you foresee a resulting benefit for your own commerce or an increase of your political power}™ We are ready to discuss with you the part we should take in providing a police force for the sea which will assure equal opportunities to all who use it, but the sav- ing produced by a mere scaling down of expense, con- ditional upon assent to your supremacy, would be too heavily purchased by the resulting compromise of our independence and by leaving our future progress sub- ject to your view of what England's interest is, or what you may at any time foresee that interest will be. With regard to the Pacific, the fact of your rivalry with Japan has all along been evident, and there was final proof of it in your adopting the equator as the line not to be passed by one or the other when dividing in advance the then possessions of Germany in that ocean. That this division, made prior to the entrance of the United States into the war, and rendered possible in practice by our participation, was made without concern <2D Usher, p. 438: As the price of disarmament, we shall trust ourselves to the sufferance and good will of other nations, not expecting them to ag- grandize themselves at our expense, but ready to accept the worst if they decide to act selfishly rather than with generosity. Is it not perhaps wise for us to ask whether they are at present ready to treat us in the spirit in which we propose to deal with them? Do they show at present a conspicuous will- ingness to advance each other's interests? Have they forborne to promote their own where they knew them to be inimical to others? Have they hesi- tated to employ the force at their command to further their interests against peoples unprotected and utterly innocent of offense? Can we wisely accept their interpretation of their interests as the measure of our privileges? Gardiner, p. 93: "It is not difficult to conceive a jingo president ready to sacrifice anything for a renewal of power, inflaming the whole continent with a naval panic, perhaps against Japan, and inaugurating a ship-building programme that will seem to challenge the British supremacy at sea. We know what would follow — the familiar cry of two keels to one,' the frenzy of the incendiary press in both countries, the following excitement, the incidents — Morocco, Agadir, Bosnia and the rest under other names — perilously passed, and the final inevitable catastrophe." 14 for the United States is shown by the resulting inclu- sion of Japanese possessions within our triangle— Ha- waii Samoa, Guam— an obvious menace to our influence in the Pacific. Moreover, by this action, confirmed at Paris, the naval forces of Japan will have been brought seven days nearer the United States. Still, as between yourselves, the patent fact is that the line of Japan's advance has been brought down to where it impinges upon the northern line of your Indiana Australasian Empire, this convergence of power being evidently un- comfortable to Australia and New Zealand, and also to yourselves as regards India. We recognize that, while you parted reluctantly with the sea supremacy of the Pacific, you are now in posi- tion to resume it from Japan, and will doubtless wish to do so unless you foresee that you may have occasion to utilize Japan's force in the effort to enfeeble our po- sition in the Pacific, in which case Japan's tenure might be permitted to continue until you could deal with her single handed. It is very clear from your history that while you hold sea power to be essential to an insular power, you also hold supremacy in all the seas to be the right of one in- sular power, your own, not to be divided with another power because it happens to be insular. Russia and Germany being now out of your way, and Japan being forced by her position to grow on the sea, which is what you most disapprove, it is easy to see that you may now turn to China to procure the overthrow of Japan, which would have the additional result of adding a paramount interest in China to the protection of your Indian sphere. It would simplify matters, no doubt, for you, to have Japan and the United States engage in a 15 struggle over Pacific concerns which would end in our mutual helplessness, and the impotence of one. While the future of China is one, it is only one of our chief concerns, and these preliminaries of destruction do not commend themselves as the method to be preferably pursued. The United States cannot abandon her right to extend her commerce, as suitable occasion may arise, in the markets of Europe, or in the markets now open- ing, and certain to attain great importance in this cen- tury, in South America, Asia and Africa; nor to take such measures as will protect that commerce as it grows. it EPILOGUE I. In the Danger Zone "To help avert the insanity and wickedness of building a navy against the United States" is one of the two reasons given by the late Lord Fisher for publishing his book of "Memories." Is it an unfair inference that the old sea warrior assumed the probability of the thing being done which he was so anxious to avert? Or that he knew it was already begun? What is certain is that if the United States is in any likelihood of being listed as next on the slate, there is great profit to be had in learning, as it can be learned in these books of Fisher's (Memories and Records), the process of making war upon Ger- many, the last one on the slate. The old gentleman was quite frank about it all. He wasn't what one would call bashful, for there is an engaging chuckle running all through his narration, but he does tell the story, and he tells it well. * * * The tale begins in 1899, when he was sent by Lord Salisbury to the Peace Conference at The Hague. 'T made great friends with General Gross von Schwartzhoff and Admiral Von Siegel, the military and naval German delegates, and I then (in 1899) im- bibed those ideas as to the North Sea being our battleground, which led to the great things between 1902 and 1910." (Records, p. 65.) We get a hint of the conversation. "Gross Von Schwartzhoff told me on the sands of Scheveningen, 'Your navy can strike in thirteen hours; our army can't under thirteen days'." (Memories, p. 113.) Three years later, in 1902, England having made her first treaty of Alliance with Japan, Fisher began to put into effect the one idea he had got hold of at the Peace Conference, preparation for war against one of the powers represented there. He went to the Admiralty in that year as second Sea Lord, and became first Sea Lord in 1904. His purpose, for which he constantly prepared, was to wipe out the German fleet before it got to be too strong, and then, when a land war came, to land an army on the Baltic within a short march of Berlin. "It is the Russian army we want to enter Berlin, not the English or French," he wrote long after- wards (R. p. 225), and he wanted the British navy to be unchal- lenged, so it could take them there. Already, in 1904, he wanted to begin practising operations of the sort. "I yesterday sent plans to 17 French for embarking the whole of his first army corps, and we'll land him like Hoche's army in Bantry Bay." (M. p. 172). However, he did not formally avow his secret until 1907, when he confided it to King Edward VII. "I approached His Majesty, and quoted certain apposite sayings of Mr. Pitt about dealing with the probable enemy before he got too strong. It is admitted that it was not quite a gentlemanly sort of thing for Nelson to go and destroy the Danish fleet at Copenhagen without notice, but 'la raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure' " (M. p. 34). "It seemed to me simply a sagacious act on England's part to seize the German fleet when it was so very easy of accomplishment in the manner I sketched out to His Majesty." (M. p. 35.) * ♦ * So certain was he of war with Germany that in 1905 (about the time Japan had disposed of Russia, and the Anglo- Japanese treaty had been renewed) he "brought 88 per cent of the British fleet into close proximity to Germany, and made its future battle ground in the North Sea its drill ground." (M. p. 75.) Later, in one of his quarrels with "old women of both sexes," he told how "they squirmed when I concentrated 88 per cent of the British fleet in the North Sea, and this concentration was only found out by acci- dent, and so published to the ignorant world, by Admiral Mahan in the Scientific American." (M. p. 51.) Mahan had noticed that 88 per cent of England's guns were just then pointed at Germany. "What's all the shootin' ?" asks the tavern servant in Mr. Cohan's play. Why were all the guns turned on Germany? In 1906 it was because "a general commercial and political rivalry has caused bad blood." (R. p. 108.) Fisher wrote to the King in 1908 "that we have eventually to fight Germany is as sure as anything can be, solely because she can't expand commercially without it." (M. p. 22.) "Can you manage," he wrote to Lord Esher in 1907, "to be at my room today to see arrangements for swallowing the whole German mercantile marine?" (M. p. 182.) By 1911, "I happen to know in a curious way that the Germans are quite assured that 942 merchant steamers would be 'gobbled up' in the first 48 hours of war" (M. p. 203). One of his own doctrines was "a successful mercantile marine leads to a successful war navy." (R. p. 98). His reasoning was of childlike simplicity. To grow, Germany would have to go on the sea. England wouldn't let her. Therefore Germany must fight England. Therefore his business was to keep Germany off the sea. (Already in 1902, while he was in the Mediterranean, he wrote home "it is absolutely obligatory for us to have these (floating) mines instantly for war against Ger- 18 many.") Therefore he addressed himself "to that great task. . . . the preparation for a German war which Lord Fisher had predicted in 1905 would certainly occur in August, 1914, in a written memorandum." (M. p. 75.) The memorandum was ad- dressed to Lord Esher, who showed it to Sir Maurice Hankey in April, 1918. "He showed one letter of yours dated in 1904 de- scribing in detail the German submarine campaign of 1917." (R. p. 169.) When 1910 came along, Fisher, walking amongst his roses, informed Hankey that the war would start in August, 1914, and that Mr. Asquith would leave office in November, 1916. (R. p. 206.) Already he was able to predict that Jellicoe would head the navy and French, Haig, Plumer and others be at the top in the army. It was all being engineered, the men were being picked. And all because Germany had to make war, since she could not progress commercially unless she did so; England would not let her. * * * The Germans knew what was in the air. In 1906 the Emperor saw Mr. Beit, the South African money magnate, and "said to Beit that I was dangerous, that he knew my ideas in regard to the Baltic being Germany's vulnerable spot, and he had heard of my idea for the 'Copenhagening' of the German fleet." (M. p. 49.) "England wants war: not the King — not, perhaps, the government; but influential people like Sir John Fisher. . . . He thinks it is the hour for an attack, and I am not blaming him. . . . But Fisher forgets that it will be for me to deal with the 100,000 men when he has landed them." (M. p. 47.) So late as 1909, Fisher was able to write, "The Germans are not building in this feverish haste to fight you. No! it's the daily dread they have of a second Copenhagen." (M. p. 188.) There were then "Two complete fleets in home waters, each of which is incomparably superior to the whole German fleet mobilized for war." (M. p. 188.) If all this disarranges somewhat the assumption, to which we have become habituated by repetition, that England had to transfer 88 per cent of her guns to the place where they were pointed at Germany because German naval power was threatening England, and makes it look rather more as if they were put there to force Germany to build against England, Lord Fisher would not have shrunk from the implication. He tells how, in 1904, after figuring out what the Germans would be compelled to do in the meantime, and having fixed the date of the resulting war for 1914, he decided that, when the time came, "those d — d Germans, if old Tirpitz is only far-seeing enough," would make the German coast region 19 unsafe for surface ships. So he calculated how far off he would have to keep his navy to be safe from torpedo boat attacks, and with a pair of compasses located an unknown land locked harbor which turned out to be Scapa Flow. (R. p. 215.) "And the fleet went there forty-eight hours before the war;" (R. p. 216) was there in fact, and ready to pounce, in those days when "we de- ceived the German Ambassador in London and the German nation by our vacillating diplomacy/' (R. viii) the days when, in Mr. Bernard Shaw's analysis, they wanted to be quite sure Germany was actually at war before letting anyone know what they really meant to do when she became so. "The German destroyers could not get to Scapa Flow and back at full speed. Their fuel ar- rangements were inadequate for such a distance." (M. p. 46.) * # # This Scapa Flow discovery was in 1904. In 1906 and 1907 there was no sign of war except commercial rivalry. "In March, 1907. . . . Germany had not laid down a single Dreadnought, nor had she commenced building a single battleship or big cruiser for eighteen months . . . they were convinced their existing battle fleet was utterly useless. . . . England had ten Dreadnoughts built and building, while Germany had not begun even one Dread- nought. . . . We have 123 destroyers and 40 submarines. The Germans have 48 destroyers and 1 submarine. . . . Von Tir- pitz has just stated, in a secret official document, that the English navy is now four times stronger than the German navy" (M. pp. 31-32). This was the moment chosen to recommend to the King the "Copenhagening" of which the Kaiser knew a year before, to avert which the Germans were "feverishly" building two years later. In 1908j "Secret. Tirpitz asked a mutual civilian friend to inquire very privately of me whether I would agree to limiting size of ships and guns. I wrote back by return of post 'Tell him I'll see him d — d first.' (Them's the very words.)" (M. p. 184.) Germany was forced to build big ships, and to deepen the Kiel canal to get them out to sea, and the minute it was done, at the exact time Fisher had calculated, someone conveniently killed the Austrian archduke and brought on the war. On May 5, 1908, Lord Fisher was able to report that, "the navy can take on all the navies of the world put together" (M. 186) — so he naturally insisted on six more Dreadnoughts and a policy of 2 keels for 1. He got both, and by 1911 had "twice as many Dread- noughts as Germany, and a number greater by one unit than the whole of the rest of the world put together." (M. p. 201.) In- cidentally, the 2 keels to 1 policy "is of inestimable value because 20 it eliminates the United States navy, which never ought to be men- tioned — criminal folly to do so." (M. p. 199.) Meanwhile, by way of increasing the factor of safety, and look- ing to the future, there came the plan for the new Pacific fleet, whose "inwardness" both the Cabinet and the press failed to see. Sir Joseph Ward of New Zealand saw it. "It means, eventually, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India running a complete navy. We manage the job in Europe. They manage the job . . . as occasion requires. * * * "As occasion requires." Writing in 1906, Lord Fisher affirmed that the building programme from year to year had to be arranged with an eye to the future. "For the moment, it would be safe to build against Germany only. But we cannot build for the mo- ment. . . . The ships we lay down this year may have their influence on the international situation twenty years hence, when Germany — or whoever our most likely antagonist may then be — may have the opportunity of the co-operation (if only temporary) of another great naval power." (R. p. 108.) "Great Britain must, it is agreed, maintain at all costs the command of the sea. There- fore we must be decisively stronger than any possible enemy." (R. p. 107.) The "possible enemies" will have a chance to discuss this at Washington in November. They will all be there, and Germany will not be of the number. Looking to the future, supposing the future to find others than the English merchant marine on the sea, it will not be fair, simply because the German submarines have been disposed of, to ignore what the old Viking had to say about this arm of the service. He was, as always, engagingly frank about it. In a letter sent, via the press, to his "Dear old Tirps," on the occasion of the latter's dismissal in 1916, he wrote: "I don't blame you for the sub- marine business. I'd have done it myself, only our idiots in England wouldn't believe when I told 'em." (M. p. 45.) He meant every word of it. The fact that there were no German merchant ships at sea saved him the trouble of proving it. In an official memorandum written three months before the war, speaking of "the submarine and commerce," he argued the whole question. "It is impossible for the submarine to deal with commerce in the light and provisions of accepted international law. . . . There is nothing else the submarine can do but sink her capture . . . 21 Barbarous and inhuman as it may appear, if the submarine is used at all against commerce, she must sink her captures . . . The essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility." (R. p. 179.) On one occasion, when he wanted submarines and Parliament wouldn't vote him the money, he got them all the same. "I was First Sea Lord, and I acted for both the Financial Secretary (Runciman) and the First Lord (McKenna) in their absence. It wasn't justified, but I did it. So I was the tria juncta in uno; and I referred, as First Sea Lord, a matter to the Financial Sec- retary for his urgent and favourable consideration, and he favour- ably commended it to the First Lord (of the Admiralty), who invariably cordially approved. It was all over in about a minute. Business buzzed. Well, the Treasury could not make out how all those submarines were being built — where the devil the money was coming from. . . . As an outcome of that time I left the Admiralty with 61 good submarines and 13 building. The Ger- mans, thank God, had gone to the bottom with their first sub- marine, which had never come up again, and the few more they had were not much use." (M. p. 59.) All's fair in war. * * * It must not be thought that, for all his good opinion of himself, there was anything of the "Alone I did it" about Lord Fisher's recital of the preparations for the war into which England's then great commercial rival was being maneuvered. Bismarck had noted in his day that the relations between Russia and Germany "often found their centre of gravity far more in the reports of the military attaches than in those of the officially accredited envoys." Inci- dentally, he averred that "the archives of the Foreign Office in London are more carefully guarded than those of other places," and, on occasion, high officials select papers for publication "with great care and attention." Certainly one cannot read the chapter, in "Memories," Letters to Lord Esher, without discerning that whatever might have been the surface politics of the time, or how- ever convincing might be the various controversial "White Papers" issued after the war began, there was, from 1903 until the crisis, a perfect concert between the naval genius and others who were thinking of the same problem and bringing their best thought to bear upon it. The picking of French, Smith-Dorrien and Plumer, long in advance, for the work they ultimately did in France, was no accident. Haig was sent for from India in 1904, because "we must have youth and enthusiasm." Another general was chosen because he was "young and energetic and enthusiastic." It was 22 a time of clearing out the "old gang" and bringing in new men of whom "every one must be successful men." Asquith, Balfour, Lloyd George, McKenna, Churchill, are all seen to have been helpful behind the scenes, in ways that might not easily have been guessed from their public appearances at times. Gen. French and military assistants conferred, 1911, with the French, and the ground where the war was afterwards fought was gone over. Colonel Repington begins his diary with an account of how, as early as 1906, he and the French military attache in London went over to Paris to submit plans for English military co-opera- tion, where they found the French general staff studying plans for an apprehended war with England. King Edward, while he lived, was the keystone of the arch of preparation. And yet, with all this, it was still not only possible, but natural, for English public men, a few months before the war began, to be considered perfectly credible, by a peace loving public, when they pronounced war between England and Germany "unthinkable." And Prince von Bulow, in his book published just before the war began, congratulated Germany upon having come safely through the Danger Zone. 23 II. The Pacific It is to be observed that when the Pacific is mentioned in present day newspaper articles, the subject is almost invariably dealt with as though only two powers were concerned, the United States and Japan. The fact is, however, that there is a third power, the British Empire, whose naval strength in the Pacific could be, within two months, greater than that of either of the others, and, for all that anyone knows to the contrary, may be so now. Of the three, the one at the moment in the most difficult situation is Japan. The military consciousness of America seems to be busy just now marking Japan as a fixed point against which antagonism is to be directed. Also, it is evident that the central subject of discussion at the Imperial Conference in London this last summer was the future relation of the Empire to Japan, with Canada, Australia and New Zealand protesting strongly against the formal renewal of the offensive and defensive alliance which has lasted since 1902-1905. The five old gentlemen who are charged to do the thinking for Japan, and who up to now have done it marvellously well, the famous Elder Statesmen, now know that there is great and present danger of their whole work of the past forty years being undone, unless they are most sagaciously careful, in a single disastrous period of less than three months. The assumption of hostility between Japan and the United States rests upon two main bases. The first is the military hypothesis that Japan seeks the absolute domination of the Pacific, including possession of the western coast of North America. The second is that the United States does not intend to be shut out of the trade with China, or to be admitted there upon sufferance of Japan. (The same applies, in a way, to Siberia.) One does not need to be endowed with the wisdom of the Elder Statesmen to see that, if the intention is to possess both the eastern and the western shores of the Pacific, then even supposing England stood aloof while the conquest was being made, she would have to intervene immediately afterwards. If the Japanese took California, Oregon and Washington, they would have to go on to British Columbia. If they did this much, Australia and New Zealand 24 would be but a morsel for breakfast some fine morning. If they took the Philippines, with Guam and Hawaii on the way to San Francisco, they would naturally take Hong Kong and Singapore also. England would grow distracted about India. A bid by Japan for absolute supremacy in the Pacific, therefore, would bring not merely 88 per cent, but if need be 98 per cent of Eng- land's guns to pointing at Japan. The seizure of Hawaii by Japan would bring all these guns into instant action, unless, indeed, it were thought judicious to let Japanese and American navies engage for a period of wholesome mutual destruction before turning loose; in which case England would take Hawaii for herself at the end of the game. * * * In the second matter, that of commerce in China, Japan's posi- tion is complicated. She needs continental resources to support her insular power, and the continent most easily available to her is Asia. To be sure of getting them, at need, she much be safe in the seas between, and from Sakhalien to Formosa she is guarding the narrow sea gates, or preparing to guard them. She feels that she could do this with one ship defending for two attacking, which is about the present proportion between the Japanese and American navies. But the calculation leaves out of account the English navy, and we may be quite sure Japan has not forgotten it. This is the position in Northern China. But in Southern China, along the valley of the Yang-tze, England has claimed, and what is more, has exercised a right of priority for her trade.* ... It is the best part of China. Han Kow is a seaport as far inland as Montreal, and English gunboats have penetrated inland so many hundreds of miles farther that their officers could, see the mountains of Tibet. Assured possession here England would regard not only as a choice commercial opportunity, but as one more far flung bulwark for the security of her empire in India. Between Japan, with the special sphere she wants in the North, and England, with the sphere England wants in the South, comes the United States. But America does not ask for a special inter- *Hayashi, Secret Memoirs, p. 186: "The British Foreign Minister, as the result of agitation by some members of the Cabinet, wished to extend the scope of the alliance (1902) so as to include the protection of the British interests in India in case of necessity. The arguments advanced by Lord Lanclsdowne were, briefly, that Japan under the treaty obtained protection for her enormous interests in Korea, but Great Britain only obtained pro- tection for her interests in the Yang-Tze valley p. 189. 'I could only repeat that British interests along the Yang-Tze were in no way behind those of Japan in Korea." 25 mediate sphere. She insists upon the open door in all China, equal trading opportunity for all who come to trade with that ancient, and now awakening, empire of four hundred millions. In this matter of commerce, therefore, neither of the others is her friend, as yet. And in respect of the power by regard for which the issue will be decided, this is the position. England and Japan have divided the western Pacific between them with (bar some exceptions favorable to England) the equator as a serviceable boundary; and into these juxtaposed fields the United States pro- jects a great naval wedge, of which the point is at Manila and the base rests upon naval stations at Samoa, Hawaii and the Aleutian islands. Plainly, if England and Japan decide for a partition of China, as to its commerce, into mutually satisfactory spheres of interest, there follows a renewal of the alliance with this definite purpose as the underlying object — and the elimination of the American wedge in convenient season. This means the other two against the United States. # * # But that there is an objection to this solution, on the part of Japan, is clear from her whole history. Granted that she will want a special sphere if there are to be other special spheres, there is greater safety for her, and as much opportunity, in there being no special spheres at all. Everything proves that her one permanent policy is the elimination of European spheres, posses- sions, footholds, from Asia on the Pacific altogether. She has put Russia out. She has put Germany out. England and France re- main to be put out, if ever the patiently awaited opportunity ar- rives. Secure and long continued operation of the American open door policy would achieve, by indirection, the essence of this per- manent policy of Japan's, and would lead, in time, to its perfect fulfilment. It is not Japan, therefore, that is to be reckoned with as likely to interpose a barrier to the success of the American policy, but rather England, with her desire for the Yang-tze valley. Japan's real wish would be to side with America in the matter, and if it turns out that she must be counted against this the reason will be that she has made a cold calculation of England's ability to enforce her requirements. If in that case the United States fought Japan to enforce the open door policy, it would be with the sure prospect of having to fight England also — both together or one after the other. If, in such conditions, Japan elected to go with the United 26 States for the Open Door, a preliminary requirement for Japan would be an alliance with Russia. At the moment, Russia is hardly, perhaps, in position to make such an alliance, although the Soviet government's recent diplomatic success over England in Persia cer- tainly gives food for reflection. Again, if Japan were to come down on the American side, there would follow, inevitably, a diplomatic competition between America and England for the favor of China. Russia could not venture on an alliance with Japan without knowing where Germany stood. And if Japan did join with Russia it would mean a western added to an eastern threat against India, and England would at once attack Japan on the sea. No better opportunity would ever be likely to offer to drive from the sea, or into her own register, the splendidly efficient merchant ma- rine the Japanese have built and operated since the chance to do so came to them with England's departure from the Pacific in 1905 with the deliberate intention of putting an end to German com- petition in commerce, merchant marine and naval armament. # * # Surely, indeed, the Elder Statesmen must walk warily. Surely, we may depend, they know it well. The day the German fleet surrendered was not a day from which they could date an era of serene and uneventful comfort. 27 III. The Atlantic America's difficulty is, in many ways, not unlike that of Japan. As we have seen, the Pacific is a three power affair, and China is (apart from China) a three power affair. In neither case is the preponderance of power with the United States. But there is more. The western hemisphere is a two power affair, and not, as we had been rather disposed to assume without examination, a region dominated! by the United States. The British Empire is a continental power in Canada, a naval power in the north Atlantic, a naval power on the Canadian Pacific coast, a naval power in the Caribbean and in front of the canal, an almost unrivalled mer- chant power in the Atlantic waters of South America — but be- ginning to sense United States competition, able to place effective, ultra-modern naval power on that ocean, and in as good a position as the United States on the South American Pacific coast. Late re- ports indicate that she is about to fortify certain South Sea islands. * * * This is a two power continent (again barring South America, which is a congeries of states, whose interests, determined by sea routes and exchange facilities, work rather towards Europe than towards North America), and while one of the two has always had, and still claims, mercantile and naval maritime supremacy, the other is now, for the first time, certainly the first time in sixty years, moving into both fields — with an eye on first place. Doubtless when Mr. Wilson spoke in St. Louis in 1916 of America's need for an "incomparable navy" he envisaged the situation that is now being faced by his successor. Needing it, as Mr. Wilson saw, and as we see from this analysis of the present position, in China, in the Pacific and on the North, Central and South Atlantic, is one thing. Having it, as Mr. Harding and Mr. Hughes see, is quite another thing. Getting it, in the light of Germany's much less ambitious effort, is something that brings us, as the need has already brought us, far into the danger zone. Once there, every move is under study by the best trained and most competent ob- servers the world has ever seen, stationed on their quiet lookout in a "murky London street," in the offices of the British Admiralty.* *J. A. Cramb (English), Germany and England, p. 46: England is a na- tion schooled in empire from the past, the power which once belonged to the few gradually passing more and more into the ranks of the English race itself, so that you have for the first time in history at once a nation and a' democracy that is imperial . . . pp. 68-70. Now for what have these wars been fought? Can one detect underneath them any governing idea, controll- ing them from first to last? I answer at once: There is such an idea, and that idea is the idea of empire. All England's wars for the past five hun- dred years have been fought for empire. . . . What was the stake for which England fought in her battles against Bonaparte? TRe stake was world- empire, and Napoleon knew it well. . . . Here, then, we have this transcen- dental force governing the wars of England. 28 What, no doubt, it is meant to propose, on the part of the United States, at this conference, is a scaling down of naval expenditures, upon a basis as nearly as possible approaching equality in the ultimate strength of the participants, so as to provide for a sea police, or something like that; operating quite outside the field of diplomatic contentions ; and then a settlement of outstanding issues, such as the China trade business, on such a plan as would be pos- sible if there were such a force, and not, as happens to be the case, where there is a "supreme" navy, and a hard pressed second in- sular power, and a two power hemisphere with one of the powers in the danger zone. Perhaps it will be safe to conclude that instead of the leading conferees stating the issues with the absolute frankness indicated in the quite impossible "nothing but the truth" method adopted for them in an opening chapter, they will, on the contrary, keep just as far away from such language as they possibly can. But that will not alter the substantial accuracy of the statement of what is really being considered at Washington. They talked nothing but the avoidance of war at the Peace Conference at the Hague in 1899, but it was from the Hague, nevertheless, that Sir John Fisher took home to England the idea of war with Germany. There will be men at Washington, too, who will make no speeches, but who, if they find the United States intractable, unwilling to adopt their root ideas as to what the sea is and where its supremacy should rest, will never rest until America has been involved in a war by which her power has been reduced and her prestige destroyed, if all that can be managed and contrived. Fortunately, there are guide posts to safety, even in The Danger Zone. Chicago, October 1, 1921. 29 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS KENFIELD-LEACH CO., CHICAGO