once engaged the British Grand Fleet off Jutland was an element in the submarine situation, for this constantly suggested the likelihood that the attempt might be repeated, and was thus an influence which tended to keep these destroyers at Scapa Flow. Many times during that critical period the Admiralty discussed the question of releasing those destroyers, or a part of them, for the anti-submarine campaign; yet they always decided, and they decided wisely, against any such hazardous division. At that time the German dreadnought fleet was not immeasurably inferior in numbers to the British; it had a protecting screen of about 100 destroyers; and it would have been madness for the British to have gone into battle with its own destroyer screen placed several hundred miles away, off the coast of Ireland. I lay stress upon this circumstance because I find that in America the British Admiralty has been criticized for keeping a large destroyer force with the Grand Fleet, instead of detaching them for battle with the submarine. I think that I have made clear that this criticism is based upon a misconception of the whole naval campaign. Without this destroyer screen the British Grand Fleet might have been destroyed by the Germans; if the Grand Fleet had been destroyed, the war would have ended in the defeat of the Allies; not to have maintained these destroyers in northern waters would thus have amounted simply to betraying the cause of civilization and to making Germany a free gift of victory.