East Prussia

German advance

Great battles pending

Mr Churchill’s warning

There was a quietly triumphant note in the speeches delivered in the House of Commons, a sort of 'we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money' but there was no boasting.

Both Mr George and Mr Churchill had good reason for the faith that was placed in them and which was so well expressed.

Our financial standing has never been so great and our Navy is sound, if Germany chooses to put herself outside every consideration usually extended to fair fighting nations, we have the power and if need we can summon up the inclination to pay back to the utmost, as far as legitimate war currency will permit, and to return to her also some of the debased coin she is employing to save her from the ruin that she has invited.

The difference between starving out a nation and the wholesale murder in cold blood of non combatants is immense, a starving nation has an opportunity to save itself, peaceful villagers facing a firing party of drunken ruffians, have not.

So far as we can gather at present Germany intends to do her level best to destroy our merchant shipping and their thinly disguised threat to neutrals can mean nothing less than an attempt to cut off our supplies.

Their submarines are to run amok in the waters surrounding these islands and as a telegram to hand this morning informs me the announcement has been made that Germany intends to sow mines all around the British Isles.

The apparent facility with which a plan of this kind can be carried out must not be overlooked even though we do not take all Germany’s threats at face value.

German trade

Enemy critics’ candour

Despite the blockade, German newspapers are talking much less confidently of their supposed naval position.

They no longer write of the British fleet being driven off the seas, on the contrary they are taking pains to instruct their readers as to the difficulty of the naval task.

The following quote is from the Berlin Tageblatt: “It would not be right to give way to unfounded optimism, that may be all very well for children but not for grown up people which should remain conscious that our fleet has a gigantic task to fulfil, a task which is almost impossible.

It is harmful to underrate your enemy. We leave speaking of the cowardice of the British fleet to irresponsibles.The tactics of the English to remain as much as possible in harbours are on the whole quite right, and should we, with our numerically smaller fleet, ask for a decisive blow in these first months, it would be a great mistake.”