CHAPTER I

ADMIRALTY ORGANIZATION; THE CHANGES IN 1917


It is perhaps as well that the nation generally remained to a great
extent unconscious of the extreme gravity of the situation which
developed during the Great War, when the Germans were sinking an
increasing volume of merchant tonnage week by week. The people of this
country as a whole rose superior to many disheartening events and never
lost their sure belief in final victory, but full knowledge of the
supreme crisis in our history might have tended to undermine in some
quarters that confidence in victory which it was essential should be
maintained, and, in any event, the facts could not be disclosed without
benefiting the enemy. But the position at times was undoubtedly
extremely serious.

At the opening of the war we possessed approximately half the merchant
tonnage of the world, but experience during the early part of the
struggle revealed that we had not a single ship too many for the great
and increasing oversea military liabilities which we were steadily
incurring, over and above the responsibility of bringing to these shores
the greater part of the food for a population of forty-five million
people, as well as nearly all the raw materials which were essential for
the manufacture of munitions. The whole of our war efforts, ashore as
well as afloat, depended first and last on an adequate volume of