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Wood, William (William Charles Henry), 1864-1947

"Flag and Fleet How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas"

Officers and men were cool and determined, with
a cheeriness that would have carried them through anything. The
heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all. I cannot express the
pride with which the spirit of the Grand Fleet filled me."
_Results_. Jutland taught the German Navy what every one should have
known before: that whenever tyrants have tried to lord it over all the
world they have always had to reckon with the British Navy first, and
that this Navy has never failed to lay them low. More things were
wrought by Jutland than the British Empire thinks, and more, far more,
than other people, for lack of knowledge, can imagine. There was a
regular, unbreakable chain of cause and effect, and Jutland was the
central link.
To conquer their bully's "place in the sun" of the white man's empire
overseas the Germans built their Navy. But the Grand Fleet blockaded
it so well that the Germans clamoured for a fight to wipe the British
off the sea and to let the German merchant ships get out. Jutland
settled that. From Jutland on to the end of the war the German
bluejackets could never again be led against the British on the surface
of the sea.


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