On the other hand we should be crass fools if we neglected the lessons of the war as regards the latest naval arm. The records of British submarines are eloquent of their effectiveness. Summed up they amount to this: Two battleships sunk and three badly damaged; two armoured cruisers destroyed; two light cruisers sunk and one badly damaged. The long obituary list also included seven torpedo-boats, five gunboats, twenty submarines, five armed auxiliaries, fourteen transports, two store ships, half a dozen ammunition and supply ships, fifty-three steamships, 197 sailing vessels, and one Zeppelin, making a grand total of 315 vessels dead and buried. As to the sea-going qualities of the craft, one British commander made twenty-four cruises, covering 22,000 miles, in a year, while in a single month British submarines navigated 105,768 sea miles, one mile in every ten being in the submerged position. We have seen in previous chapters that the Allied naval losses, while they made no appreciable difference to the situation, were not negligible. Approximately 230 fighting ships were lost from all causes by Great Britain during the war. Without going so far as Mr Arthur Pollen, whose opinion regarding the submarine is that, “viewed strictly as a form of sea force, it is the feeblest and least effective that has ever been seen,” all available facts show that warships travelling at a good speed are comparatively immune from attack. There is also little danger when they are going slowly, provided they have a covering screen of destroyers. The majority of battleships and cruisers that fell victims to U-boats were taking life easy, as for instance the _Aboukir_, the _Cressy_, and the _Hogue_ in the North Sea, and the _Formidable_ in the Channel.