History of Shipping

The maintenance of supplies under war conditions was the first task of British shipping; but beyond this, it was called upon to make an immense and vital contribution to the war effort of the Allied and Associated Powers. It provided many thousands of men for the royal navy, through direct enlistment and the calling up of the naval reserves; it provided the ships and the bulk of the crews for the armed merchant cruisers that did so much of the work of patrol and convoy escort, and for the Auxiliary Patrol engaged in mine-laying, mine-sweeping, and submarine hunting in home waters. It provided the navy with indispensable auxil iaries, and carried nearly 43,000,000 tons of coal and a vast quan tity of oil on Admiralty account. Without merchant shipping the battle fleets could neither have moved nor fought.

British shipping was equally indispensable to the conduct of the war on land. Practically every British soldier landed in France was carried under the British flag. British ships brought Canadian, Australian, Indian and South African troops to take their place on the western front, and carried the armies of the empire to Gal lipoli, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Balkans. When the United States came into the war, about 2,000,000 troops were transported to Europe. Of every hundred men, 49 were carried in British and 45 in American vessels.

Thus, including all movements of British and Allied troops, nurses, civilian staff, prisoners and refugees, the transport depart ment provided tonnage from Aug. 1914, to Oct. 1918, for 23,700, 000 individual passages, of which nearly one-third involved voy ages of considerable length. In addition they provided tonnage for the carriage of 2,200,000 animals and nearly 5o,000,000 tons of munitions and military stores, or goods, such as military fodder, which were for direct account of the British and Allied War Offices. For the Salonika expedition 26 ships, averaging over 5,000 tons, were lent to the French War Office.

British Shipping Services to Allies.

On Oct. 31, 1918, 29.5% of the total available deadweight tonnage under the Brit ish flag was in direct naval and military service. Yet this service was only a part of the contribution of British shipping to the common cause. Neither France nor Italy nor Russia had tonnage adequate to the fulfilment of their requirements for food, fuel and munitions. Again and again, at moments when the British authorities were at their wits' end to procure tonnage for military and naval requirements, without reducing British imports (largely composed of materials for the munitions industries) below the danger point, a call would come for ships to carry cereals, coal or munitions to the Allied ports, and so far as was humanly pos sible, every call was met. Over 15,5oo,000 tons of coal were car ried to France and Italy in British requisitioned ships alone. Out of 5,250,000 tons of coal and munitions received by Russia during 1915 and 1916, two-thirds were carried in British ships. When

France and Italy began to import meat, to supplement the rations of their troops, they were almost destitute of insulated tonnage, and out of 1,375,00o tons purchased by them during the War, more than three-quarters were imported under the British flag. To make good the deficit of the French and Italian harvests, 2,000, 000 tons of cereals in British ships were diverted during the months Aug.–Oct. 1918, over and above supplies carried by Brit ish ships already on Allied service. At the end of the War, France and Italy required 6,423,000 deadweight tons of shipping for their import services, and could provide, between them, 1,710,00o tons. The United States, all other Allies and neutrals together provided 1,611,00o tons (much of it neutral tonnage under British control). Great Britain provided 3,102,000 tons.

The bare facts are more eloquent than any rhetoric. The whole naval and military effort of the British empire and a great part of the military assistance provided by the United States, depended on British shipping. Without the assistance of British shipping the European Allies could have provided neither their armies, nor their industries, nor their people, with the supplies necessary for the continuance of the struggle. The story of the inter-Allied control of shipping is told elsewhere, but those who had most to do with it would be the first to admit how completely the execution of the whole gigantic task depended on the skilled co operation of British ship-owners, and the daring and devotion of British seamen.

Losses and Dislocation.

The war services rendered by Brit ish shipping were rendered at a heavy cost. Apart from casualties among those who served under the White Ensign, no fewer than 14,661 officers and men of the merchant service and the fishing fleets lost their lives while engaged in trade or transport. The material losses inflicted by submarines, mines and raiders amounted to 7,759,000 tons gross, or 38% of the tonnage under the British flag in June 1914. The net reduction in ocean-going tonnage (ships of 1,600 tons gross and up), after allowing for every form of replacement, was 18%. Many of the remaining ships had suffered in efficiency through delayed repairs. The whole industry was disorganized. The tramp trade had been temporarily destroyed by the requisition of vessels for war pur poses and the purchase of tramp tonnage by the liner companies to make good their depleted services. The liner services them selves had been violently dislocated in order to effect the con centration of shipping on the short Atlantic routes, which alone enabled the available tonnage to carry, in 1917-18, the essential minimum supplies. Many lucrative trades had been abandoned, for the time being, to foreign competitors.