[The Labour government] flung away the opportunity. They flung away a Heaven-given opening. What for? Not in order to emancipate the land, not in ord… - David Lloyd George

It was Britain's grandest struggle on the seas—in its magnitude—in its intensity—in the issues that depended upon it. There were thousands of ships engaged in it, from the great battleships down to the smallest patrol boats—from the stately liners to the dogged tramps and the plucky little trawlers. Even the pleasure boats joined in. The battle was fought in every ocean, and on every trade route. Never were the skill, the daring and the endurance of British sailors put to so stern a test; never was the superiority of their seamanship so triumphantly established. The deadly net that sought to envelop the Allied arms and leave them at the mercy of the Prussian sword was torn to shreds by the mariners of Britain. The great Allied triumph of 1917 was the gradual beating off of the submarine attack. This was the real decision of the War, for the sea front turned out to be the decisive flank in the gigantic battlefield. Here victory rested with the Allies, or rather with Britain. The moment the War became a struggle, not to beat the foe in a fight, but first to exhaust his strength and then to beat his defences down, the sea became inevitably the determining factor.

The cant of it was nauseating. Even the petrol fumes of the quenched revolutionary torch will serve our nostrils well by cleansing the air of the sickening incense burnt by those departed worshippers of their own image.

The question is whether the people of this country are prepared to go on for twelve months... I see no alternative but to fight it out... A republic at our doors is unthinkable.