course much closer
at the Admiralty, and during my service there his assistance was of
immense help to me and of incalculable value to the nation.

It was fortunate indeed for the Allied cause that he held such important
Staff appointments during the most critical periods of the war.

CHAPTER IX

THE SEQUEL

The foregoing chapters have been devoted to describing the measures that
were devised or put into force or that were in course of preparation
during the year 1917 to deal with the unrestricted submarine warfare
against merchant shipping adopted by Germany and Austria in February of
that year. It now remains to state, so far as my information admits, the
effect of those measures.

British anti-submarine measures were almost non-existent at the
commencement of the war. Sir Arthur Wilson, when in command of the
Channel Fleet in the early days of the submarine, had experimented with
nets as an anti-submarine measure, and shortly before the war submarines
were exercised at stalking one another in a submerged condition; also
the question of employing a light gun for use against the same type of
enemy craft when on the surface had been considered, and some of our
submarines had actually been provided with such a gun of small calibre.
Two patterns of towed explosive sweeps had also been tried and adopted,
but it cannot be said that we had succeeded in finding any satisfactory
anti-submarine device, although many brains were at work on the subject,
and therefore the earliest successes against enemy submarines were
principally achieved by ramming tactics. Gradually other devices were
thought out and adopted; these comprised drift and stationary nets
fitted with mines, the depth charge, decoy ships of various natures,
gunfire from patrol craft and gunfire from armed merchant ships, as well
as the numerous devices mentioned in Chapter III.

Except at the very commencement of the war, when production of craft in
Germany was slow, presumably as a result of the comparatively small
number under construction when war broke out, the British measures
failed until towards the end of 1917 in sinking submarines at a rate
approaching in any degree that at which the Germans were producing them.

Thus Germany started the war with 28 submarines; five were added and
five were lost during 1914, leaving the number still 28 at the
commencement of 1915.

During 1915, so far as our knowledge went, 54 were added and only 19
were l