WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

576 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
where the military staffs had their way, the whole situation
had been redeemed by our victories at sea, where the experts
were overruled by the Government. In addition to this, our
reorganisation of the home front by the business men called
in by the Government had an enormous effect in strengthening
our prospects of endurance in the war of attrition to
which we had been committed. Had it not been for these
activities, it is doubtful whether the Alliance could have
stayed the course.
The part played by our sailors in gaining ultimate victory
for the Alliance has not been sufficiently acknowledged.
Even British histories accord infinitely more space to battles
that did not get us any nearer a decision and ended in nothing
but heavy losses. The conflict at sea was not one of a
kind which lent itself to diurnal publicity. For that reason,
not even a paragraph could be accorded to the achievements
of our sailors in the daily Press. There were no special correspondents
in the vicinity to describe the unceasing conflict
waged daily and nightly on the trenchless sea — a conflict
on which the fate of great nations hung. Even the British
public with its traditional understanding of the importance
of sea power had no clear conception of the predominant influence
which these individual manoeuvres and fights, enacted
where the visibility was not clear to the eyes of the
most discerning journalist, were having in determining the
question of final victory or defeat. Some of the British histories
and memoirs of the War show no clear apprehension
of the importance of the struggle for mastery on the High
Seas. The Dogger Bank, the Dardanelles bombardment, the
Falkland fight and Jutland are given a prominent place. They
were spectacular, but these battles constituted a small part
in the prolonged struggle which determined the issue. French
and Italian histories ignore almost altogether the maritime
contests that pulled them through in the end. The details
of the struggle were rightly kept secret at the time, and yet