Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/52

34 forces can be thrown into the balance at the present critical time and place there is little doubt that early success will be assured."

"Briefly stated, I consider that at the present moment we are losing the war."

And now came another important question: What should the American naval policy be in this crisis? There were almost as many conflicting opinions as there were minds. Certain authorities believed that our whole North Atlantic Fleet should be moved immediately into European waters. Such a manoeuvre was not only impossible but it would have been strategically very unwise; indeed such a disposition would have been playing directly into Germany's hands. What naval experts call the "logistics" of the situation immediately ruled this idea out of consideration. The one fact which made it impossible to base the fleet in European waters at that time was that we could not have kept it supplied, particularly with oil. The German U-boats were making a particularly successful drive at tankers with the result that England had the utmost difficulty in supplying her fleet with this kind of fuel. It is indeed impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of this oil situation. "Orders have just been given to use three-fifths speed, except in case of emergency," I reported to Washington on June 29th, referring to scarcity of oil. "This simply means that the enemy is winning the war." It was lucky for us that the Germans knew nothing about this particular disability. Had they been aware of it, they would have resorted to all kinds of manoeuvres in the attempt to keep the Grand Fleet constantly steaming at sea, and in this way they might so have exhausted our oil supply as possibly to threaten the actual command of the surface. Fortunately for the cause of civilization, there were certain important facts which the German Secret Service did not learn.

But this oil scarcity made it impossible to move the Atlantic Fleet into European waters, at least at that time. Since most oil supplies were brought from America, we simply could not have fuelled our super-dreadnoughts in Europe in the spring and summer of 1917. Moreover, if