"Less than twelve months have passed since General Pershing
arrived in France with 50 men. The developments that have taken place
since seem little short of miraculous."
Georges Leygues, Minister of Marine of France, in testifying before the
Chamber of Deputies in May said that in November of 1917 losses through
the submarine fell below 400,000 tons, and since has diminished
continuously. He said that the number of submarines destroyed had
increased progressively since January of the present year in such
proportion that the effectiveness of enemy squadrons cannot be
maintained at the minimum required by the German Government. The number
of U-boats destroyed in January, February, and March was far greater in
each month than the number constructed in those months. In February and
April the number of submarines destroyed was three less than the total
destroyed in the previous three months. These results, the minister
declared, were due to the methodical character of the war against
submarines, to the close co-ordination of the Allied navies; to the
intrepidity and spirit animating the officers and crews of the naval and
aerial squadrons, to the intensification of the use of old methods and
to the employment of new ones.
We may lay to ourselves the unction that the reduced effectiveness of
the submarine coincided with the entrance of our naval forces into the
war. This is taking nothing from the French, British, and Italian
navies; as a matter of truth, it would be gross injustice to ignore the
fact that the large share of the great task has been handled through the
immense resources of the British.
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