The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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internal cohesion, the sense of unity and identity; efficiency of administration;
the quality of
political and military leadership; luck.”4

Due
to the geographical nature of the United Kingdom it could be said that
the British Empire was above all
the product of her naval supremacy. Its main
function was to maintain the flow of exports and imports
uninterrupted. In the
early 1900s every day 50,000 tons of food and 110,000 tons of merchandise
had
to enter the United Kingdom. This was so if the daily bread of its population was
to remain
without any interruption and the daily work to continue to be
undertaken. Even as regards, later, the air
force, “machines themselves could of
course fly to their area of operations, but the men and the
elaborate equipment on
the ground, without which an air squadron could not operate, could move
no
faster than they could be transported by sea.”5 Thus, again
it was the navy which
played a significant role. As well as protecting British sea communications, it
was
the navy’s task to deny the use of sea communications to an enemy. A navy
adequate to the
first of those roles will be fully competent to fulfil the other.

There
were two factors which determined naval strength. One was the
volume and distibution of British trade
which was to be protected. Sea-borne
supplies were liable to interruption at any point of the voyage from
their origin to
their destination. For example, “supplies of grain to the United Kingdom
could
be interrupted off the mouth of the River St. Lawrence, off Sandy Hook, or the
River Plate, as
well as in the English Channel. Merchant vessels bringing supplies
were liable capture or destruction by
any armed ship of an enemy, whether a ship
of war or a merchant ship converted for that purpose, at any
point in their
voyage.”6 Therefore it was the duty of the
British navy to supply protection for
the merchant ships bringing supplies in all seas traversed by the
latter, to the
degree required in different areas according to the particular enemy of
the
moment.

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