Identifier: cu31924028018574 (find matches)
Title: The Royal Navy
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Swinburne, Henry Lawrence Wilkinson, Norman, 1878-1934 illus Jellicoe, John Rushworth Jellicoe, Earl, 1859-1935, illus
Subjects: Great Britain. Royal Navy Great Britain. Royal Navy
Publisher: London, A. and C. Black
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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asses of stores, munitions of war, andtransport that were necessary for their upkeep asan army; and to maintain the reinforcements thatthe drainage of war rendered necessary. No othernation in the world could, for this lengthy period,have carried on a war of such magnitude at a distance,and that over seas, of 7000 miles from its base.Never in all our history have we had such an im-portant object lesson of the vital importance of theNavy to the British Empire. From the start tonearly the finish of the long drawn-out war, blue-jackets and marines fought side by side with theircomrades of the land forces in the field. It is noexaggeration to say that it was the Navy that at theoutset of the campaign saved us from such crushingdisaster as might have altered the whole course ofthe war. At the commencement of the fighting theBritish artillery was hopelessly out-ranged and out-classed by that of the Boers, who were able tobring^iat once into the field large-calibre Krupp CRUISERS MANCEUVRING
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i / ;« NAVY OF STEAM AND STEEL 277 and Creusot guns, against which our light field andhorse artillery stood no chance. If it had not beenfor the fact that the Navy were able to take theirheavy guns, even to a calibre of 4*7 and 6 inches,ashore, and bring them into use in the field oncleverly improvised carriages, our troops couldnever have coped with the Boer artillery. Lady-smith would have fallen, and the Boers would havebeen able to have swept unchecked to the sea.To tell the story of the actual work of the NavalBrigades would be to tell the story of the war for,at any rate, the first two years of its continuance,and is not within the scope of these pages, for itbelongs to the military and not the naval historyof the Empire. It will, therefore, be sufficient tobriefly outhne the phases of the campaign in whichthe Navy shared materially. It was on 7th October 1899 that the ArmyReserves were caUed out, and, two days later, theinsulting Boer ultimatum forced war upon us. Onthe 12th t

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