But it would be contrary to the principles of war and the genius of our Navy, to rely upon purely defensive measures to defeat the submarine enemy. It is sometimes said that the U-boat campaign took us by surprise. So far as this applies to the legitimate use of the submarine against war-ships, the statement is quite untrue. The campaign against merchant shipping and non-combatant passengers, waged in defiance of all international law and common humanity, did certainly take us by surprise; and it is only to our credit, and the discredit of our enemies, that their barbarity was beyond our imagination. But the efforts of the U-boats against our fleet were, as we have shown in a previous chapter, actually less successful than our own attacks upon theirs, and our tacticians were never for a moment at a loss to deal with them. The principles had been thought out long ago. As early as 1907, the distinguished admiral who writes over the name ‘Barfleur’ clearly stated his belief that ‘the untried submarine’ was not likely to prove more effective than the torpedo-boat and destroyer in depriving our Battle Fleet of the control of the sea. ‘Nothing is more to be deprecated,’ he added, ‘than the attempt which has been made to enhance unduly its importance, by playing on the credulity of the public. The new instrument of war has no doubt a value, but that it is anything more than an auxiliary, with limited and special uses, is difficult to believe.’ And he turned back to old and tried principles: ‘The traditional role of the British Navy is not to act on the defensive, but to prepare to attack the force which threatens.’ In September, 1914, when Weddigen’s _coup_ showed that the moment had come, ‘Barfleur’ was among the first to attack the new problem tactically--he saw at once that the war-ship’s best defence lies in the offensive power given by her immense superiority in speed and weight. And if the single ship is formidable to the submarine, a squadron is still more so. By its formation, its manœuvres, its pace and its ramming power, it reverses the whole situation--the hunter becomes the hunted, and must fly like a wolf from a pack of wolf-hounds, every one more powerful than itself.