Chapter 37

SURRENDER!

(1918)

As Jutland broke the spirit of the Germans who fought on the surface so minefields, netting, convoys, patrolling, and Q boats broke the spirit of those who fought in submarines. Drake's Sea-Dogs would take their chance of coming home alive when the insurance on their ships used to be made by men whom Shakespeare calls the "putters-out of five for one." As we say now, the chances were five to one against the Sea-Dog ship that went to foreign parts in time of war. But, when the odds reached four to one against the German subs, the German crews began to mutiny, refusing to go aboard of what they saw were fast becoming just new steel coffins of the sea. A Belgian maid, compelled to slave for officers of German submarines at Zeebrugge, kept count of those who returned alive. The same number, twenty, always boarded in the house. But, before the British came and drove the Germans out, no less than sixteen of her twenty masters had stepped into dead men's shoes.

Finally, in the early morning of November the 3rd, when, in wild despair, the Kaiser ordered the whole Fleet out for one last fight, the men of aircraft, surface craft, and submarines alike refused point blank to go; and the German Revolution then and there began. It was the German Navy that rose first, brought to its senses by the might of British sea-power. The Army followed. Then the people.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (the 11th of November, 1918) the _Cease fire!_ sounded on every front by sea and land and air; for that supremely skilful hero, Marshal Foch, had signed the Armistice as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied Armies on the Western Front. One of the terms of this famous Armistice was that Germany should surrender her Fleet to the Allies in the Firth of Forth, where the British Grand Fleet was waiting with a few French and American men-of-war. Never in the whole world's history had such a surrender taken place. But never in the whole world's history had any navy broken the laws of war so shamefully as the German Navy had. And never in the whole world's history had any navy been more truly great or so gloriously strong as the British Navy had become.

On Friday the 15th of November the German cruiser _Königsberg_ steamed into the Firth of Forth and anchored near Inchcape, which, aptly enough, is famous in Scottish song as the death-place of a murderer and pirate. "Beatty's destroyer," H.M.S. _Oak_, unlike all other craft in her gala coat of gleaming white, then took Admiral von Meurer aboard the British flagship, _Queen Elizabeth_, where Beatty sat waiting, with the model of a British lion on the table in front of him (as a souvenir of his former flagship, _Lion_) and a portrait of Nelson hanging on the wall behind.

The hundred and fifty surrendered submarines went slinking into Harwich, the great British North Sea base for submarines. But the seventy-four surface craft came into the Firth of Forth on the 21st of November: sixteen dreadnoughts, eight light cruisers, and fifty destroyers.

"09.40 Battle Fleet meet German Fleet" was the unique order posted up overnight in the _Queen Elizabeth_. But long before that hour the stately procession began filing out to sea. H.M. SS. _Canada_, _Australia_, _New Zealand_, and _South Africa_, were there to remind us that "United we stand, divided we fall." Admiral Grasset was there in the _Aube_ to remind us that the French and British had been brothers-in-arms for fifty-one months of furious war. Admirals Rodman and Sims were there in the U.S.S. _New York_ to remind us that during the last nineteen of these fifty-one months the three greatest self-governing peoples of the world had made common cause against the barbarous Hun. Finally, and clinchingly, the main body of the whole Grand Fleet was there, drawn up in two enormous lines-ahead, six miles apart, and sixteen miles from front to rear, with eighteen flagships leading its different squadrons, and scores of destroyers ahead, astern, and on the flanks, not one of which was counted in the thirty-two long miles of lines-ahead.

Before it had gone eight bells at four o'clock that morning, the _Revenge_, flagship of Sir Charles Madden, Second-in-Command of the Grand Fleet, led the way out to the appointed rendezvous: "X position, latitude 56, 11 North, longitude 1, 20 West." The present _Revenge_, a magnificent super-dreadnought, is the ninth of her name in the Navy; and, besides her name, has three curious links to recall the gallant days of Drake. In her cabin is a copy of the griffin which, being Grenville's crest, the first _Revenge_ so proudly bore in the immortal fight of "The One and the Fifty-Three." Then, had the German Fleet come out again, Madden and this ninth _Revenge_ would have taken exactly the same place in action as Drake and the First _Revenge_ took just three hundred and thirty years before against the Great Armada. Thirdly (but this, alas, was too good to come true!) Sir Charles told his Canadian guest one day in Scapa Flow that he and Sir David Beatty had agreed to be caught playing a little game of bowls on the Grand Fleet clubhouse green the next time the German Fleet appeared. "And," he added, "we'll finish the game first, and the Germans after"--just what Drake had said about the Spaniards.

Nearing the rendezvous at nine the bugles sounded _Action Stations!_ for though the German ships were to come unarmed and only manned by navigating crews it was rightly thought wiser not to trust them. You never catch the Navy napping. So, when the two fleets met, every British gun was manned, all ready to blow the Germans out of the water at the very first sign of treachery. Led captive by British cruisers, and watched by a hundred and fifty fast destroyers, as well as by a huge airship overhead, the vanquished Germans steamed in between the two victorious lines, which then reversed by squadrons, perfect as a piece of clockwork, and headed for the Firth of Forth. Thus the vast procession moved on, now in three lines-ahead, but filling the same area as before: a hundred square miles of sea. In all, there were over three hundred men-of-war belonging to the four greatest navies the world has ever known.

At eight bells that afternoon all hands were piped aft by the boatswains' whistles, the bugles rang out the _Sunset_ call, and down came every German flag, never again to be flown aboard those vessels of the High Sea Fleet. For Germany _Der Tag_ had gone. For the British _The Day_ had come; and they hailed it with a roar of British-Lion cheers.

Most regrettably, the Allies, headed by President Wilson, decided that the German men-of-war should be interned, not surrendered, when sent to Scapa Flow. If these ships, after being surrendered to the Allies, had been put in charge of the British, or any other navy, as "surrenders," guards would have been put on board of them and all would have been well. But interned ships are left to their own crews, no foreign guards whatever being allowed to live on board. The result of this mistake, deliberately made against the advice of the British, was that, on the 21st of June, the Germans, with their usual treachery, opened the sea-cocks and sank the ships they had surrendered and the Allies had interned.

A week later, on the 28th of June, 1919, in the renowned historic palace of Versailles, the Allies and Germany signed the Treaty of Peace by which they ended the Great War exactly five years after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand had given the Austro-German empires the excuse they wanted to begin it.

RULE, BRITANNIA!

Thomson's famous verses and Arne's famous air (in which Wagner said he could see the whole character of the English people) were sung for the first time during the Royal fête held at Clieveden, a celebrated country residence beside "the silver Thames." This was on the 1st of August, 1740. The 1st of August was the day on which Nelson won his first great victory just fifty-eight years later; and Clieveden is where the Duchess of Connaught's Canadian Hospital was established during the Great War.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! Britons never will be slaves."

The nations not so bless'd as thee Must in their turn to tyrants fall; While thou shall flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all. "Rule, Britannia, &c."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak. "Rule, Britannia, &c."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame, And work their woe and thy renown. "Rule, Britannia, &c."

To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine. "Rule, Britannia, &c."

The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair; Bless'd isle! with matchless beauty crown'd, And manly hearts to guard the fair. "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! Britons never shall be slaves!" --_James Thomson._

GOD SAVE THE KING!

The words we now sing with such hearty British loyalty all round the Seven Seas originated in the parole and countersign on board the famous Portsmouth Fleet of 1545, when the parole was _God save the King!_ and the answering countersign was _Long to reign over us!_ The National Anthems of all the other Empires, Kingdoms, and Republics in the world come from their armies and the land. Our own comes from the Royal Navy and the Sea.

God save our gracious King, Long live our noble King, God save the King. Send him victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the King.

O Lord our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, And make them fall. Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all.

Thy choicest gifts in store, On him be pleased to pour; Long may he reign. May he defend our laws, And ever give us cause To sing with heart and voice, God save the King.