All language subtitles for 1964-The Great War(BBC)-EP06-So Sleep Easy In Your Beds-E

Oh, do but think, you stand upon the
rivage, and behold, a city on the

inconstant billows dancing, for so appears
this fleet majestical.

In August 1914, Britain
went to war with a very small

army, and the greatest
navy the world had ever seen.

The first duty of the Royal Navy was to
defend the British Isles against dangers

defined three and a half centuries earlier
by Sir Walter Raleigh.

There are two ways in which
England may be afflicted,

one by invasion, the other
by impeachment of our trades.

A hundred years after Raleigh,
the Marquis of Halifax wrote, To the

question, what shall
we do to be saved in

this world, there is no
other answer but this.

Look to your moat.

The first article of an
Englishman's political

creed must be that
he believeth in the sea.

Ever since Trafalgar in
1805, Britain's fleet majestical

had been the envy and
despair of other powers.

Wherever there's water
to float a ship, said

Napoleon, we're sure
to find you in the way.

In 1900, Germany began to build a fleet,
a battle fleet.

Admiral von der Goetz told the Reichstag,
The maritime superiority of Great Britain,

overwhelming now, will certainly remain
considerable in the future.

But she is compelled to scatter her forces
all over the world.

With the increases about to be made in the
German fleet, we will be in a position to

measure our strength with ordinary British
naval forces in home waters.

The very foundations of Britain's security
were placed in hazard.

The threat was unmistakable.

Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary,
expressed its full extent.

If the German fleet
ever becomes superior to

ours, the German army
can conquer this country.

There is no corresponding risk of this
kind to Germany.

For however superior
our fleet was, no naval

victory would bring
us any nearer to Berlin.

There were two courses
open to Britain, to negotiate

to limit the German fleet
or to increase her own.

In 1908, the Kaiser ruled out negotiation.

A good understanding with
the English is not desirable,

at the cost of the completion
of the German fleet.

Whether the British like it or not is
immaterial.

If they want war, they can have it.

We are not afraid of it.

Britain met the challenge by
stripping her overseas stations

and concentrating her
scattered navy in home waters.

Sir John Fisher, First Sea Lord,
wrote reassuringly, We will soon have,

in home waters, two fleets,
each of which is incomparably

superior to the entire German
fleet fully mobilised for war.

So, sleep easy in your beds.

Battleships and cruisers returned home
from distant oceans.

A holiday for the Arab smuggler or the
Malay buccaneer.

Yet this was not enough.

In 1906, Britain had launched HMS
Dreadnought.

Faster, bigger, more heavily armed.

All existing battleships were rendered
obsolete.

And in theory, all the shipbuilding
nations were now on equal terms.

The naval race began.

Bigger ships, heavier armaments,
12-inch guns, 13.5-inch guns, 15-inch guns.

When war began, it was Britain who had won
the race.

She had 24 dreadnoughts and battlecruisers
ready to fight, to Germany's 16.

She also had the moral advantage of a
century of unchallenged supremacy.

One of the officers on board ship where I
served said, one of the first days of the

outbreak of war, I'm quite
sure all of us will find our bones

lying at the bottom of the
sea within the next ten days.

And I have decided to eat nothing until my
death but caviar.

Well, he kept that up,
as far as I know, for three

days, and then he gave it
up just to avoid bankruptcy.

To Britain's naval strength was added that
of France.

German policy had made allies of the old
enemies of Trafalgar.

Together, the allied fleets ringed the
German and Austrian fortress of Europe.

Colonial possessions throughout the world
provided the fleets of Britain and France

and Germany with bases for supplies and
repairs.

They also formed a
network of radio stations,

connecting distant squadrons
with their home command.

Above all, they served as coaling
stations.

To steam ships, coal was life.

A heavier ship ate a tonne of coal for
every mile steamed at high speed.

When she refuelled,
up to 2,000 tonnes of

coal would have to be
loaded into her bunkers.

So, across the world, the naval powers had
built up chains of coaling stations.

And the filthy colliers that replenished
them were the sinews of naval glory.

Coaling ship was a hated task which might
take from dawn to dusk, or longer.

It was all right while we were breaking
the surface of the coal.

But as you got lower and lower into the
hole, it got terrible.

In fact, it was eating coal dust all the
time we were down there.

Your nose got blocked up,
your eyes got blocked up,

and we were jolly thankful
when it was finished.

Only one more day, a-coaling.

One more day, oh, rock and roll me over.

Only one more day.

Only one more day, a-working.

In August 1914, Britain
placed entire trust in the Royal

Navy, supreme, invincible
repository of imperial might.

Sleep quiet in your beds, Admiral Fisher
had said.

We will be incomparably superior to the
entire German fleet.

Yet there were those who were uneasily
conscious of new factors.

A naval revolution had been silently in
progress.

Underwater.

The mine and the
submarine created dangers to

which the largest
dreadnoughts were vulnerable.

No one knew how these underwater weapons
would affect the great fleets.

An American admiral had once said,
damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

And close observers knew
that Britain had lagged

behind in developing
the underwater armaments.

We had no efficient mine, no properly
fitted minesweepers, no arrangements for

guarding our ships against mines,
no anti-submarine precautions,

no safe harbour for our fleet.

The lack of submarine defences for the
British fleet, even in its home base,

haunted the Commander-in-Chief,
Admiral Jellicoe.

I was always far more concerned for the
safety of the fleet when it was at anchor

in Scarpa Flow in the early days of the
war, than I was when the fleet was at sea.

Unsuspected uncertainties hovered around
the Royal Navy as it went to war.

Germany had acquired a
colonial empire in Africa and the

Pacific, more than four
times the area of her homeland.

And she had developed a huge export trade.

In the Far East was the only naval force
outside the North Sea that carried the

flag of Imperial Germany, the German-Asiatic
squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee.

This alone defended Germany's Pacific
colonies.

The Allies planned von Spee's immediate
destruction.

Take away his bases,
his radio and coaling

stations, and his squadron
would be helpless.

The first to be seized was Samoa.

Palms and sands and lazy islanders ringed
by the glamorous South Seas.

This was where Robert Louis Stevenson of
Treasure Island had died and been buried.

That ridiculous island, the Kaiser called
it.

There was no fighting in Samoa.

A party of New
Zealanders came ashore to

accept the German
surrender with due ceremony.

The black, red and white
flag of Germany came slowly

down the mast, and the
Union flag flew in its place.

On the same day, the BEF was marching back
from Mons and Le Cato in due exhaustion.

On September the 10th, the remote tropical
war moved to another German island,

New Pomerania, off the coast of New
Guinea.

There was a brisk action, ending in an
Australian victory.

On September the 15th, the whole of German
New Guinea surrendered.

Australia, in her first campaign of
conquest, had added 90,000 square miles to

the British Empire, at a cost of six dead
and four wounded.

But Germany's strongest Pacific colony,
and von Spee's main base, was Tsing Tau,

on the Kiao-Ciao peninsula of China.

Its governor telegraphed to Berlin,
Tsing Tau is impregnable.

It cannot be taken from the sea,
and no one would try from the land.

But it could be besieged.

Japanese, British and Indian troops landed
on September the 2nd.

The Japanese had a problem.

They couldn't tell a German-European from
an English one.

We sent out a mixed patrol, ourselves and
the Japanese.

And they shot one of our men.

They were never really forgiven for that.

Asked why they did it, they said,
oh, we look the same as the Germans.

So they gave us Japanese kimonos,
coming down to our thighs, which had capes.

And then when we all wore kimonos,
we were all sort of chaps together,

no more extents.

The siege of Tsing Tau went on for nine
weeks.

The Japanese brought up
heavy howitzers to smash the

forts, as the Germans had
smashed Liège and Namur.

We were out resting now on the 6th and
7th.

We were behind the ridge, nice cover.

And all of a sudden, the Japanese officer
coming on the horseback, full gallop.

He said, Germans, finish, Germans,
finish.

White flag is up.

And they surrendered on the 7th,
on a Sunday morning, the 7th of November.

Now the last islands to fly the German
flag in the Pacific fell one by one.

The Marianas and the Carolines,
the Marshalls and Bougainville.

And one by one, Admiral von Spee lost his
hopes of coal and sucker.

His sleek ships steamed on in isolation.

Winston Churchill described his dilemma.

With the blockade of
Tsing Tau, he was cut off

from his only base on
that side of the world.

To steam at full speed, or at high speed,
for any length of time, on any quest,

was to use up his life rapidly.

He was a cut flower in a vase.

Fair to see, yet bound to die.

Germany's African empire was crumbling
too.

In August, Togoland fell.

In September, the Cameroons.

Southwest Africa was attacked.

The operation was delayed
by a rebellion of Afrikaners,

who wanted to reverse
the result of the Boer War.

Rebels were killed, dispersed or captured,
but the Germans had been granted a respite.

But by the summer of 1915, the Union flag
flew over the whole of this vast territory.

The first invasion of German East Africa
ended in rout.

A British and Indian
force, poorly commanded

and poorly trained, landed
on the swampy coast.

Amid muddles and misunderstandings,
they were attacked by well-trained African

Ascaris under a great German commander,
Colonel von Letow Vorbeck.

The British, their invasion hopes
shattered by dysentery and gunfire,

withdrew after four days, leaving behind
800 dead and many prisoners, as well as

enough guns and
ammunition, coats and blankets,

to supply the German
garrison for years.

Von Letow Vorbeck and his mobile force of
never more than 15,000 harassed up to

130,000 Allied troops till the very end of
the war.

East Africa held out, but the German
Empire had disappeared from the map.

Her merchant fleet had also disappeared.

The blockade mounted by the British Navy
on the first day of war was doing its work.

German merchant ships were penned up in
neutral ports all round the world.

Ships of neutral nations were prevented
from bringing her any materials of war.

This created an instant source of friction
between Britain and America.

Lloyd George wrote... Germany's chief
power was on land, Britain's on the sea.

Germany's invasion of Belgium,
her devastation of France, might arouse

disinterested wrath in America,
but it did not touch American pockets.

On the other hand, Britain's firm measures
to prevent contraband of war from reaching

Germany, and her wide and constantly
widening interpretation of contraband,

caused serious inconvenience
to American shipping,

and direct interference
with American business.

It was a test of diplomacy, as Britain and
Germany competed for America's sympathy.

President Wilson's confidential advisor
said...

The British have gone as far as they
possibly could in violating neutral

rights, though they have done it in the
most courteous way.

President Wilson had determined to keep
America out of war.

He contented himself with protests.

And now, under the protection of the Royal
Navy, soldiers from Britain and the

British Empire poured unmolested into
France and Egypt.

In October, the first Canadian contingent
left Halifax, Nova Scotia, for France.

Over 31,000 soldiers.

The greatest concentration ever carried by
ship in a single journey.

Everywhere, the oceans were a broad and
safe high road for the Allies.

For troops from India, sailing to protect
the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.

For Australians and New Zealanders bound
for Egypt, where Indian and British

soldiers were defending the Suez Canal
against the Turk.

In all this vast traffic, not one soldier
was lost through German naval attacks.

The same sea power
protected Britain's merchant

trade, more vital
now than ever before.

Everywhere, the
Allies sailed safely over

the oceans under the
wing of the Royal Navy.

But it is the duty of a fleet to destroy
enemy warships.

On August the 28th,
the Admiralty planned a

daring assault deep into
German home waters.

Their destination was Heligoland Bight,
the stretch of sea between the small,

heavily armed island fortress of
Heligoland, and the mouths of the Elbe and

the Yada, where the main German fleet was
concentrated.

The Admiralty knew that German destroyers
patrolled this area every night.

They'd planned a trap for the Germans.

But when German light
cruisers appeared on the scene,

the British destroyers found
themselves in difficulties.

Then suddenly, an impressive new element
surged into the battle.

Admiral Beattie's battle cruisers racing
into action.

They quickly pounded the German cruisers
into wrecks with their big guns.

Admiralty's signalling models caused much
confusion among the British squadrons,

but the action was an unqualified British
success.

They lost no ships.

The Germans lost three cruisers and a
destroyer.

A defeat right on their own doorstep.

Admiral Tirpitz, creator of the High Seas
fleet, lamented...

It was a day fateful for the work of our
navy.

The Emperor did not want losses of this
sort.

Orders were issued by the Kaiser,
framed to restrict still further the

initiative of the Commander-in-Chief of
the North Sea Fleet.

The loss of ships was to be avoided.

Fleet sorties and any greater undertakings
must be approved by the Kaiser in advance.

Germany turned to her underwater weapons.

The frightening potential of mine and
torpedo was still a haunting enigma.

Soon, they gained an outstanding and
ominous success.

On September 22nd, near the Dutch coast,
one of Germany's oldest U-boats,

the U-9, sighted a
patrol of three old British

cruisers, the Hogue, the
Aboukir and the Cressy.

Within an hour, it had sunk all three,
with a loss of 1,400 lives.

More men than Nelson lost in all his
battles.

On October 27th, Audacious, a new British
dreadnought, hit a mine and blew up.

All the crew were
saved, but it was another

alarming sign of the
shifting balance of naval war.

On the surface, too, Germany still boasted
one conspicuous success.

The cruiser Emden, detached from Von
Spee's squadron, was pursuing a hectic and

brilliant career of destruction in the
busy sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.

She was a scarlet
pimpernel of the sea, gallant,

elusive, always springing
surprises on her pursuers.

Emden's exploits rang round the world.

She captured or sank merchant ship after
merchant ship.

If they were colliers, she filled her
bunkers and took a new lease of life.

Eight British men of war combed the Indian
Ocean for her in vain.

Marine insurance rates rocketed.

She delayed the sailing of a New Zealand
troop convoy.

She entered Penang Harbour and sank a
Russian and a French warship.

One night, she entered the port of Madras
and switched on her searchlights.

Her guns blazed away at the shore oil
tanks.

They were wrecked, and a million and a
half gallons went up in smoke.

In Britain, the Admiralty's prestige was
shaken, as even the First Lord,

Winston Churchill, had to admit.

The press and public
were not in a position to

understand all that the
Admiralty was doing.

They saw only a few German
cruisers doing whatever

they chose and sinking
British merchantmen.

A great deal of discontent began to make
itself heard and felt.

After two profitable months,
Emden sailed to the Cocos Islands

and sent a landing party
ashore to wreck the radio station.

But the new weapon of radio was her
undoing.

The operator had already
signalled for help, and

the Australian cruiser
Sydney was on her way.

Outgunned and outranged, ran herself onto
a reef.

The Indian Ocean was safe again.

Now the flame of German naval imperialism
was flickering out.

Only Von Spey remained.

From the outbreak of war, he had eluded
his pursuers.

Alone with his five ships,
cut off from his colonies,

he steamed on in the
empty vastness of the Pacific.

Every day, Churchill studied charts of his
possible position and stared at his

Admiralty map, pondering where the Asiatic
squadron might be.

At last, news came that it was sailing
towards the coast of Chile.

Admiral Craddock,
commanding a British squadron

in the Pacific, was
ordered to hunt him down.

Craddock wrote...

Somehow, I think we shall say,
how do you do to these Teutonic gentlemen?

I'm generally pretty lucky, and we don't
want any more disappointments.

Craddock, with the old cruisers Good Hope
and Monmouth, and the light cruiser

Glasgow and the armed
merchant cruiser Otranto, found

Von Spey near the Bay of
Coronel, off the coast of Chile.

We formed Singaline ahead, and Good Hope
fired a range in shot, which was short.

The enemy then opened up with repelling
salvos.

We did not possess that method of firing,
but it soon became apparent to us that

both the Monmouth and the Good Hope were
under severe punishment.

About one hour, there was a
terrific explosion in the Good

Hope, and she went up like a
huge bouquet, and disappeared.

After that, they concentrated on the
Monmouth, and us.

And the Monmouth were soon in trouble,
and could make very little effective reply.

The Monmouth sank, and the whole crew was
drowned.

Craddock, too, was drowned with the crew
of the Good Hope.

A fellow admiral said of him, Poor Kit
Craddock.

He'd always wanted to die on the hunting
field or in action.

News of the black defeat at
Coronel staggered a British

public reared on the legend
of an unconquerable navy.

U-boats, mines, the Emden, and now a
British squadron smashed in a fair fight.

The admiralty, already under heavy
criticism, reacted instantly and ferociously.

The battlecruisers,
invincible and inflexible,

were ordered out to find
Fonspey and destroy him.

There was to be no delay.

The admiral superintendent, Devonport,
reports that the earliest possible date

for completion of Invincible and Inflexible
is midnight the 13th of November.

Admiralty to CMC, Devonport.

Ships are to sail Wednesday the 11th of
November.

They are needed for war service and
dockyard arrangements must conform.

If necessary, dockyard
men should be sent away

in the ships to return
as opportunity may offer.

You are held responsible
for the speedy dispatch

of these ships in a
thoroughly efficient condition.

On Wednesday, November the 11th,
the two great ships under Admiral Sturdy

steamed south towards the South Atlantic
and the Falkland Islands.

Forty-five allied warships were now after
Fonspey's blood.

He had no illusions.

We have at least contributed in a certain
measure to the glory of our arms,

although that cannot signify greatly against
the enormous number of British ships.

Unknown to each other,
Fonspey and Sturdy were

steaming towards the
same place at the same time.

The Falklands.

Sturdy arrived first.

He was coaling in the morning after his
arrival when he received the signal of

four-funnelled and a two-funnelled
man-of-war in sight.

The ships he was scouring the ocean for
were sailing into his arms.

The British crews worked feverishly to
prepare their ships for the chase.

The Germans at first thought they had
surprised a cruiser squadron.

Then, suddenly, the Germans saw the tripod
masts.

Battlecruisers.

They meant certain death.

The battlecruisers swept out of the
harbour.

For three hours they chased Fonspey,
eating up his 15-mile lead.

At nine miles, Sturdy opened fire.

The Scharnhorst and the Gneisnau fought
back gallantly, but they had no hope.

We could feel one or two shots coming.

And hitting us, we could hear...

We could hear the
shots piercing in the

funnels and the
superstructure and the casings.

And...

But we were assured, from time to time,
from the bridge, that all was going well.

Sturdy's advantage was overwhelming.

The British gunnery was uneven.

And many shells that did land on target
failed to pierce the German armour.

It was five hours before Scharnhorst sank.

Gneisnau soon followed her.

The Kent finished off the light cruiser
Nuenberg.

He was on fire, far and aft.

And...

Some of them were
jumping into the water on

bits of wreckage, so
as to try and get to us.

But the seas were icy cold.

We all had the impression that those
Germans were very, very plucky people.

I actually saw one man pull out the flag
that was aft.

How I got hold of it, and I
saw him as he was sinking under

the water, still waving that
flag as that ship went down.

Much to say, Deutschland, still Uber
Alice.

Only one light cruiser escaped.

Coronel was avenged, at the expense of
three quarters of the battlecruiser's

ammunition, and... some disturbing questions
about the quality of British gunnery.

A month later, on the other side of the
globe, another battle raised more

questions, this time about British
signalling.

A British battlecruiser
force in the North Sea

met a smaller German
one near the Dogger Bank.

Their heavy cruiser, Blücher, was badly
hit and burning.

She began to slow down.

The British flagship, also
damaged and her radio gone, flag

signalled the other ships to
continue chasing the fleeing Germans.

But by a combination of
mistakes, the whole force stopped

pursuing and turned on
the already doomed Blücher.

We annihilated her, brought her to rest,
and she was in a very bad position.

But the most extraordinary thing about it
was that she was heeling over,

and there must have
been over a thousand men

clambering up the deck,
onto the side of the ship.

And as she steadily rolled
over again, so they was

sliding down the side
of the ship into the water.

The German battlecruisers escaped.

Safe in harbour again
after their brief foray,

they returned to
their old, passive role.

But recreation was not victory.

The German fleet had little
to show after six months

of war, except confirmation
of the Kaiser's fears.

The British Grand Fleet was too strong for
them.

Morale was in danger.

The Kaiser had to issue a special order to
his fleet.

I urge you to maintain a spirit of
cheerful fulfilment of duty, even when

there has so far been no opportunity in
the face of the enemy, or where,

in all human probability, no such
opportunity is likely to occur at all.

The German Navy had failed.

But the British had not entirely
succeeded.

Six months of war had revealed ominous
weaknesses in British training.

It was a fine training of character and
seamanship in the long tradition of Drake

and Nelson, but less adapted to the
technology of modern naval war.

At Dogger and Heligoland, there had been
grave signalling errors.

At the Falklands, Sturdy's guns took five
hours to sink Von Spee, whereas at

Coronel, Von Spee had destroyed Craddock
in an hour.

The main base at Scarpa Flow was still
weakly defended against U-boats.

Thoughtful observers noted defects in
British equipment and in tactics.

The long lack of a naval staff was
beginning to tell.

Yet the balance sheet was decidedly in
Britain's favour.

The German Navy might still be powerful
and intact, but her fleet was penned up in

harbour, her merchant
ships had disappeared from

the seas, and all her
colonies had been seized.

In the first months of the war,
the Royal Navy had done its job.

Only a few sensed the
absence of the Nelson touch,

and of the tremendous
superior might of Nelson's day.

The sea dice into the
Against the Coincreons

Of when reformers
supposed to possessions