Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/91

Rh the withdrawal of the British battle squadrons from the Far East and from the Mediterranean, and co-operation in those seas with the Japanese and French sea-powers.

The Great War itself began in the old style, and it was not until 1917 that the new aspects of Reality became evident. In the very first days of the struggle the British fleet had already taken command of the ocean, enveloping, with the assistance of the French fleet, the whole peninsular theatre of the war on land. The German troops in the German Colonies were isolated, German merchant shipping was driven off the seas, the British expeditionary force was transported across the Channel without the loss of a man or a horse, and British and French supplies from over the ocean were safely brought in. In a word, the territories of Britain and France were made one for the purpose of the war, and their joint boundary was advanced to within gunshot range of the German coast—no small offset for the temporary, though deeply regretted, loss of certain French departments. After the battle of the Marne the true war-map of Europe would have shown a Franco-British frontier following the Norwegian, Danish, German, Dutch, and Belgian coasts—at a distance of three miles in the