Principally to facilitate the creation and maintenance of the barrages, a second new departure in policy was the organization of attacks on the German bases in Flanders. Of these Zeebrügge was infinitely the more important, because it is from here that the deep water canal runs to the docks and wharves of Bruges some miles inland. The value of Zeebrügge, robbed of the facilities for equipment and reparation which the Bruges docks afford, is little indeed. It is little more than an anchorage and a refuge. To close Zeebrügge to the enemy called for an operation as daring and as intricate as was ever attempted. Success depended upon so many factors, of which the right weather was the least certain, that it was no wonder that the expedition started again and again without attempting the blow it set out to strike. Its final complete success at Zeebrügge was a veritable triumph of perfect planning and organization and command. It came at a critical moment in the campaign. A month before the enemy, by his great attack at St. Quentin, had achieved by far the greatest land victory of the war. He had followed this up by further attacks, and seemed to add to endless resources in men a ruthless determination to employ them for victory. The British and French were driven to the defensive. Not to be beaten, not to yield too much ground, to exact the highest price for what was yielded, this was not a very glorious rôle when the triumphs on the Somme and in Flanders of 1916 and 1917 were remembered. It cannot be questioned that the originality, the audacity, and the success of Vice-Admiral Keyes’ attacks on Zeebrügge and Ostend, gave to all the Allies just that encouragement which a dashing initiative alone can give. It broke the monotony of being always passive. But the new minefields, the barrages, the sealing of Zeebrügge, these were far from being the only fruits of the changes at Whitehall. A sortie by _Breslau_ and _Goeben_ from the Dardanelles, which ended in the sinking of a couple of German monitors and the loss of a light German cruiser on a minefield, directed attention sharply to the situation in the Middle Sea. There was a manifest peril that the Russian Fleet might fall into German hands and make a junction with the Austrian Fleet at Pola. Further, the losses of the Allies by submarines in this sea had for long been unduly heavy. A visit of the First Lord to the Mediterranean did much to put these things right. First steps were taken in reorganizing the command and, before the changes had advanced very far, an astounding exploit by two officers of the Italian Navy resulted in the destruction of two Austrian Dreadnoughts, and relieved the Allies of any grave danger in this quarter.