service personnel, trained from boyhood to middle-age on the sea, is sufficient to man the whole of her war-Navy,[1] whereas the German High Sea Fleet is under the necessity of changing one-third of its personnel every year, with the result that the sea-going fleet is always more or less of a training squadron; and when it goes to sea for its first cruise in May, it is hardly in condition to fight without returning to exchange its contingent of recruits for trained reservists.[2]
- ↑ "The active-service personnel is, however, sufficient to man the whole of our war-Navy, and that is not the case with any foreign Power." —The Ocean Empire, p. 98.
- ↑ Ibid. pp. 100, 101.
"It is declared [so writes Captain von Pustau in the Tägliche Rundschau] that our men are better trained, or even more courageous, than the British. This assumption is entirely without foundation; on the contrary, every one who has seen British seamen at work knows that they represent the very best stock and type of their race, and will have remarked that, under the influence of glorious traditions handed down from a period of continued brilliant triumphs, these men have acquired a boundless selfconfidence, an independent bearing, and a recklessness
