Years before the first shot was fired the French and British Navies had
prepared their plans for blockading the Austrians in the Adriatic and
the Germans in the North Sea. The French were more than a match for
the Austrians, the British more still for the Germans. But the
Austrians had their whole navy together, while the Germans also had at
least nine-tenths of their own. So the French and British, in their
efforts to keep the seaways open for friends and closed to enemies, had
to reckon with the chances of battle as well as with those of blockade.
The Austrians never gave much trouble, except, like the Germans, with
their submarines; and after the Italians had joined us (May 1915) the
Austrian Navy was hopelessly outclassed.
But the Germans were different. By immense hard work they had passed
every navy in the world except the British; and they were getting
dangerously close even to that. Their Navy did not want war so soon;
and no Germans wanted the sort of war they got. Their Navy wanted to
build and build for another ten or twenty years, hoping that our
Pacifist traitors (who were ready for peace at any price, honour and
liberty of course included) would play the German game by letting the
German Navy outbuild the British.
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