It would be a great mistake to regard the German cruiser campaign against commerce apart from the general distribution of German warships and the means taken to supply them with their requirements. The writer is inclined to the belief that the impotence of the Germans in distant waters shows that their Navy was not ready nor effectively prepared for the war. The great expenditure on the High Sea Fleet proved unavailing. The submarine boats did not exist in any considerable number. Only about twenty-seven or twenty-eight of them were completed in August, 1914, of which about a dozen were of early experimental type, fit only for local use, and the programme provided only for the building of half a dozen in each year. The German Navy possessed not more than a couple of big airships, and a few effective aeroplanes. The cruisers on foreign service were scattered about the world without plan. The battle-cruiser _Goeben_ and the light cruiser _Breslau_ had been detached in the Mediterranean during the Balkan War, and, according to the Greek White Book, Turkey having entered into alliance with Germany on August 4th, the two cruisers fled to the Dardanelles in conformity with orders received from Berlin. The Germans were apprehensive as to their safety, and their naval authorities never intended to leave them in their dangerous situation of isolation in an Italian port. The business of controlling and directing the operations of the commerce-destroying cruisers and armed liners, and providing their supplies, was admittedly dexterously arranged by the agency of wireless, mainly through the means placed at disposal by German sympathisers in the United States, the States of Southern America, and other neutral countries, though nothing they did could withstand the steady pressure of sea-power.