industry and vast quantities of supplies might have been transferred to the support of the army. The threat of invasion would have been removed, and the large army that was kept in England right up to the crisis of March, 1918,[1] would have been free to reenforce the army at the front. Finally, without the personnel of the German fleet there could have been no ruthless submarine campaign the year after, such as actually came so near to winning the war. Thus, while the German claim to a triumph that drove the British from the seas is ridiculous, it is equally so to argue, as the First Lord of the Admiralty did, that there was no need of a British victory at Jutland, that all the fruits of victory were gained as it was. The subsequent history of the war tells a different tale. [Footnote 1: A quarter of a million men were sent from England at this time.] REFERENCES THE GRAND FLEET, 1914-1916, Admiral Viscount Lord Jellicoe of Scapa, 1919. THE GERMAN HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WORLD WAR, Vice Admiral von Scheer, 1920. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND, Commander Carlyon Bellairs, M. P., 1920. THE NAVAL ANNUAL, 1919, Earl Brassey. A DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND, Lieut. Commander H. H. Frost, U. S. N., in U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS, vol. 45, pp. 1829 ff, 2019 ff; vol. 46, pp. 61 ff. THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE, A. H. Pollen, 1919. CHAPTER XVIII THE WORLD WAR [_Continued_]: COMMERCE WARFARE Interdiction of enemy trade has always been the great weapon of sea power; and hence, though mines, submarines, and the menace of the High Seas Fleet itself made a close blockade of the German coast impossible, Great Britain in the World War steadily extended her efforts to cut off Germany's intercourse with the overseas world. Germany, on the other hand, while unwilling or unable to take the risks of a contest for surface control of the sea, waged cruiser warfare on British and Allied commerce, first by surface vessels, and, when these were destroyed, by submarines. In the policies adopted by each belligerent there is an evident analogy to the British blockade and the French commerce destroying campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. And just as in the earlier conflict British sea power impelled Napoleon to a ruinous struggle for the domination of Europe, so in the World War, though in a somewhat different fashion, the blockade worked disaster for Germany. "The consequences of the blockade," writes the German General von Freytag-Loringhoven, "showed themselves at once. Although we succeeded in establishing our war economics by our internal strength, yet the unfavorable state of the world economic situation was felt by us throughout the war. That alone explains why our enemies found ever fresh possibilities of resistance, because the sea stood open to them, and why victories which would otherwise have been absolutely decisive, and the conquest of whole kingdoms, did not bring us nearer peace."