ons. The first of these during my tenure
of office at the Admiralty was on January 23 and 24, 1917, and another
was held during the visit of Admiral Mayo and at the instigation of the
Government of the United States on September 4 and 5, 1917. On this
latter occasion important discussions had taken place, principally on
the subject of submarine warfare, the methods of dealing with it in home
waters and in the Mediterranean, and such matters as the provision of
mercantile shipping for the use of our Allies.

There was, however, no regular council sitting at specified intervals,
and it was this council which came into being in the early part of
December. Its functions were to watch over the general conduct of the
naval war and to insure co-ordination of the effort at sea as well as
the development of all scientific operations connected with the conduct
of the war.

Special emphasis was laid upon the fact that the individual
responsibility of the respective Chiefs of the Naval Staff and of the
Commanders-in-Chief at sea towards their Governments as regards
operations in hand as well as the strategical and technical disposition
of the forces placed under their command remained unchanged; this
proviso was a necessity in naval warfare, and was very strongly insisted
upon by the Admiralty.

The attention of the Council was directed at the earliest meetings to
the situation in the Mediterranean, where naval forces from the British
Empire, France, Greece, Italy, Japan and the United States were working,
and where the need for close co-operation was most urgent. The real need
in the Mediterranean, as was frequently pointed out, was the inclusion
of the naval forces of all the Allied nations under one single command.
In 1918 strong efforts were made to carry out this policy, and indeed
the actual Admiralissimo was selected, but the attempt failed in the
end.

Both these distinguished American officers were reminded, as indeed they
must have seen for themselves, that the successful combating of the
submarine danger depended largely on the manufacture of material, and
that the resources of this country, with its great fleet and its large
and increasing armies, were so seriously taxed that the execution of the
plans of the Admiralty were being constantly and gravely delayed. The
Admiralty was, indeed, seriously embarrassed by difficulties in the
adequate supply of mines and other means of destroying submarines as
well as of fast