Sea-power worked miracles in other directions. “The blockade,” says Sir Eric Geddes,[35] “is what crushed the life out of the Central Empires.” That was the work of the 10th Cruiser Squadron. From 1914 to 1917 the ships of that squadron “held the 800 miles stretch of grey sea from the Orkneys to Iceland. In those waters they intercepted 15,000 ships taking succour to our enemies, and they did that under almost Arctic conditions, and mainly in the teeth of storm and blizzard; out of that 15,000 they missed just 4 per cent., a most remarkable achievement under impossible conditions. Behind the blockade was the Grand Fleet, the fulcrum of the whole of the sea-power of the Allies. If ever testimony were needed of the value of sea-power, I can give it. In every individual case when an armistice was signed by our enemies, and in one, if not two, cases before, the one cry that went up was, ‘Release the blockade.’” Admiral Sir Percy Scott holds that four years of U-boat warfare have “tragically demonstrated the truth” of his neglected warning, but he also acknowledges that the Navy did not fail us. “From the first,” to quote the apostle of the submarines, “Great Britain kept command of the seas.” His prophecy of 1914 that the day of the big surface ship was over has not been fulfilled, though the submarine may become the capital ship of the future. He contends that if Germany could have placed 200 U-boats on the ocean trade routes at the outbreak of war she would have defeated the Allies. She might have done so, but the important fact is that she did not possess the requisite number. At that time we were lamentably short of light craft, German cruisers and raiders were running amok in various parts of the world, and the Grand Fleet was fully occupied ‘containing’ the main German squadrons. Given the hypothetical conditions mentioned by the Admiral, it is not improbable that the enemy would “have defeated the Allies and practically conquered the world,” but it is not “certain,” as Sir Percy asserts. Germany regarded the intensified U-boat campaign as a sure thing; we know the result. In his now famous letter to the _Times_, one of the eminent correspondent’s contentions was that “the introduction of vessels that swim under water has already done away with the utility of ships that swim on the top of the water,” that “as the motor vehicle has driven the horse from the road, so has the submarine driven the battleship from the sea.” The Great War of 1914–18 disproved this very definite statement, and witnessed the introduction of mighty ‘hush’ ships which lived and moved and had their being on the surface of great waters.