Everyone wonders what is happening about the
war. For several months past the Nazis have been uttering ferocious
threats of what they are going to do to the Western Democracies-to
the British and French Empires-when once they set about them.
But so far it is the small neutral States that are bearing the
brunt of German malice and cruelty. Neutral ships are Sunk without
law or mercy-not only by the blind and wanton mine, but by the
coldly considered, deliberately aimed, torpedo. The Dutch, the
Belgians, the Danes, the Swedes, and, above all, the Norwegians,
have their ships destroyed whenever they can be caught upon the
high seas. It is only in the British and French convoys that safety
is to be found. There, in those convoys, it is five-hundred-to-one
against being Sunk. There, controlling forces are at work which
are steadily keeping the seas open, steadily keeping the traffic
going, and establishing order and freedom of movement amid the
waves of anarchy and sea-murder.
We, the aggrieved and belligerent Powers who
are waging war against Germany, have no need to ask for respite.
Every week our commerce grows; every month our organization is
improved and reinforced. We feel ourselves more confident day
by day of our ability to police the seas and oceans and to keep
open and active the saltwater highways by which we have; and along
which we shall draw the means of victory. It seems pretty certain
that half the U-boats with which Germany began the war have been
sunk, and that their new building has fallen far behind what we
expected. Our faithful Asdic detector smells them out in the depths
of the sea and, with the potent aid of the Royal Air Force, I
do not doubt that we shall break their strength and break their
purpose.
The magnetic mine, and all the other mines with
which the narrow waters, the approaches to this Island, are strewn,
do not present us with any problem which we deem insoluble. It
must be remembered that in the last war we suffered very grievous
losses from mines, and that at the climax more than six hundred
British vessels were engaged solely upon the task of minesweeping.
We must remember that. We must always be expecting some bad thing
from Germany, but I will venture to say that it is with growing
confidence that we await the further developments or variants
of their attack.
Here we are, after nearly
five months of all they can do against us on the sea, with the
first U-boat campaign for the first time being utterly broken,
with the mining menace in good control, with our shipping virtually
undiminished, and with all the oceans of the world free from surface
raiders. It is true that the Deutschland escaped the clutches
of our cruisers by the skin of her teeth, but the Spee
still sticks up in the harbour of Montevideo as a grisly monument
and as a measure of the fate in store for any Nazi warship which
dabbles in piracy on the broad waters. As you know, I have always-after
some long and hard experience-spoken with the utmost restraint
and caution about the war at sea, and I am quite sure that there
are many losses and misfortunes which lie ahead of us there; but
in all humility and self-questioning I feel able to declare that
at the Admiralty, as, I have no doubt, at the French Ministry
of Marine, things are not going so badly after all. Indeed, they
have never gone so well in any naval war. We look forward as the
months go by to establishing such a degree of safe sailing's as
will enable the commerce of all the nations whose ships accept
our guidance, not only to live but to thrive. This part-this sea
affair-at least, of the Nazi attack upon freedom is not going
to bar the path of justice or of retribution.
Very different is the lot of the unfortunate
neutrals. Whether on sea or on land, they are the victims upon
whom Hitler's hate and spite descend. Look at the group of small
but ancient and historic States which lie in the North; or look
again at that other group of anxious peoples in the Balkans or
in the Danube basin behind whom stands the resolute Turk. Every
one of them is wondering which will be the next victim on whom
the criminal adventurers of Berlin will cast their rending stroke.
A German major makes a forced landing in Belgium with plans for
the invasion of that country whose neutrality Germany has so recently
promised to respect. In Romania there is deep fear lest by some
deal between Moscow and Berlin they may become the next object
of aggression. German intrigues are seeking to undermine the newly
strengthened solidarity of the southern Slavs. The hardy Swiss
arm and man their mountain passes. The Dutch-whose services to
European freedom will be remembered long after the smear of Hitler
has been wiped from the human path-stand along their dykes, as
they did against the tyrants of bygone days. All Scandinavia dwells
brooding under Nazi and Bolshevik threats.
Only Finland-superb, nay, sublime-in the jaws
of peril-Finland shows what free men can do. The service rendered
by Finland to mankind is magnificent. They have exposed, for all
the world to see, the military incapacity of the Red Army and
of the Red Air Force. Many illusions about Soviet Russia have
been dispelled in these few fierce weeks of fighting in the Arctic
Circle. Everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation;
how it makes it abject and hungry in peace, and proves it base
and abominable in war. We cannot tell what the fate of Finland
may be, but no more mournful spectacle could be presented to what
is left to civilized mankind than that this splendid Northern
race should be at last worn down and reduced to servitude worse
than death by the dull brutish force of overwhelming numbers.
If the light of freedom which still burns so brightly in the frozen
North should be finally quenched, it might well herald a return
to the Dark Ages, when every vestige 6f human progress during
two thousand years would be engulfed.
But what would happen if all these neutral nations
I have mentioned-and some others I have not mentioned-were with
one spontaneous impulse to do their duty in accordance with the
Covenant of the League, and were to stand together with the British
and French Empires against aggression and wrong? At present their
plight is lamentable; and it will become much worse. They bow
humbly and in fear to German threats of violence, comforting themselves
meanwhile with the thought that the Allies will win, that Britain
and France will strictly observe all the laws and conventions,
and that breaches of these laws are only to be expected from the
German side. Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough,
the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm
will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear-I
fear greatly-the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will
roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the
South; it will spread to the North. There is no chance of a speedy
end except through united action; and if at any time Britain and
France, wearying of the struggle, were to make a shameful peace,
nothing would remain for the smaller States of Europe, with their
shipping and their possessions, but to be divided between the
opposite, though similar, barbarisms of Nazidom and Bolshevism.
The one thing that will be most helpful in determining
the action of neutrals is their increasing sense of the power
and resolution of the Western Allies. These small States are alarmed
by the fact that the German armies are more numerous, and that
their Air Force is still more numerous, and also that both are
nearer to them than the forces of Great Britain and France. Certainly
it is true that we are facing numerical odds; but that is no new
thing in our history. Very few wars have been won by mere numbers
alone. Quality, will power, geographical advantages, natural and
financial resources, the command of the sea, and, above all, a
cause which rouses the spontaneous surgings of the human spirit
in millions of hearts-these have proved to be the decisive factors
in the human story. If it were otherwise, how would the race of
men have risen above the apes; how otherwise would they have conquered
and extirpated dragons and monsters; how would they have ever
evolved the moral theme; how would they have marched forward across
the centuries to broad conceptions of compassion, of freedom,
and of right? How would they ever have discerned those beacon
lights which summon and guide us across the rough dark waters,
and presently will guide us across the flaming lines of battle
towards better days which lie beyond?
Numbers do not daunt us. But judged even by the
test of numbers we have no reason to doubt that once the latent,
and now rapidly growing, power of the British nation and Empire
are brought, as they must be, and as they will be, fully into
line with the magnificent efforts of the French Republic, then,
even in mass and in weight, we shall not be found wanting. When
we look behind the brazen fronts of Nazidom-as we have various
means of doing-we see many remarkable signs of psychological and
physical disintegration. We see the shortages of raw materials
which already begin to hamper both the quality and the volume
of their war industry. We feel the hesitancy of divided counsels,
and the pursuing doubts which assail and undermine those who count
on force and force alone.
In the bitter and increasingly exacting conflict
which lies before us we are resolved to keep nothing back, and
not to be outstripped by any in service to the common cause. Let
the great cities of Warsaw, of Prague, of Vienna banish despair
even in the midst of their agony. Their liberation is sure. The
day will come when the joybells will ring again throughout Europe,
and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes but
of themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition, and
in freedom a house of many mansions where there will be room for
all.
