Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-12-29

SQUADRON, GRAND FLEET. IN
THE FIRTH OF FORTH.
YEA power is the slow growth of
generations Naves are not
~ made by riveting steel plates
into battleships, dumping
aboard lot of square headed long
shoremen to man them and using the
result to make a grab at the moon.
Once in history that wild venture was
tried. The fleet which tried it lies
tonight in the gigantic British harbor
Of Scapa Flow, a fleet without a flag,
an eXiled file interned in the long
night Of these northern ATTITUDES AS
long as navies endure. that fleet will
be stencil in the nostrils of decent
sailormen.
From the time in 1898 when it tried
to bluff Dewey and seize Manila. the
German navy has been libel on ma
vies. 1t was never more so than in
the greed for humiliation it displayed
In its sheeplike surrender to the
grand fleet on November 81.
X X
Rather than surrender, the French
navy CdHlo OUT VI lOulOI Ill low "
certain defeat at Trafalgar. Rather
than surrender. the Spanish fleet
came out Of Santiago in 1898 to cer-
tain defeat. Rather than surrender,
the Russian Baltic fleet went down to
certain defeat in 1905. BY their de-
feats these fleets have enriched the
hard-won traditions which make the
navies rich. In their defeats they did
the splendid estate to which their ma
tions had called them. But the ira
ditions of the worlds navies meant
nothing to the German navy Like
the German empire. the German navy
was a mushroom growth without ira
dittonS.
Navies are not built for the purpose
of waging wars They are built for
the purpose of preserving peace, for
the furtherance of understanding be-
tween nations, for the carrying of
light into dark places Of the earth.
The navy is the finest diplomat in the
nations service. But this. too. meant
nothing to the German navy. The
high seas fleet existed of, by and
for the purpose Of waging war on
. the grand fleet.
The conduct Of navies in time of
peace and war alike is defined by
certain codes. They are not written
down because they do not need to
be written down. They are the very
breath Of the navy. Knightliness is
have been occasions when the Ger
man navy has shown those quail
tiles of knightliness which govern
contending nations in the making Of
was there have been many more occa-
sions when it's conduct has been any
thing but decent From the time in
1914 when, after the battle of Hell
igoland blight, German officers spat in
the faces of their British rescuers.
the German navy's conduct has been
q libel on navies. When it fled from
the battle of Jutland on May 81, 1916,
victory throughout the world and
secretly, at the same time, it once for
all abandoned warfare with surface
craft, began dismantling it's older
battleships to make submarines and
became an outlaw among the navies
of the world. Just as it's surface
craft had violated the decencies of
sea warfare, it's submarines began
violating the most elementary tradi-
tions of seafaring.
1t is better that a nation should
die than that this brotherhood of men
in the presence of the sea--one of the
oldest and most sacred traditions the
world possesses-should be violated.
Only the German military mind. which
operated the German navy. could have
Helu lne SeHSeleSS QOCtrln6 that
frightfulhess pays. the doctrine by
which the more brutal aspects of
submarine warfare were justified
Logically, the doctrine that fright
fulness pays might have been beauti-
fully sound, but the German mind
has never learned that it is not logic
which determines the motives of men
and of nations. Brains do not run
the world. 1t is temper which runs
the world.
When the naval clauses of the
armistice ordered Germany to fetch
out certain specified units of her
navy and hand them over to the
grand fleet for internment, good
many British and American officers
believed that the personnel of the
high sea fleet would have enough
decency left to scuttle their ships
before they would Undergo the
humiliation of handing them over.
suppose" said one of them on the