RT. HON. WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
[Speech delivered by the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the House of Commons, on February 15, 1915.]
After the outbreak of war my noble friend Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, had to create an Army eight or ten times as large as any previously maintained, or even contemplated, in this country, and the War Office has been engaged in vast processes of expansion, improvisation, and development entirely without parallel in military experience. Thanks, however, to the generous provision made so readily for the last five years by the House of Commons for the Royal Navy, no such difficulties or labours have confronted the Admiralty.
On the Declaration of War we were able to count upon a Fleet of sufficient superiority for all our needs, with a good margin for safety in vital matters, fully mobilized, placed in its war stations, supplied and equipped with every requirement, down to the smallest detail that could be foreseen, with reserves of ammunition and torpedoes up to and above the regular standard, with ample supplies of fuel and oil, with adequate reserves of stores of all kinds, with complete systems of transport and supply, with full numbers of trained officers and men of all ratings, with a large surplus of reserved and trained men, with adequate establishments for training new men, with an immense programme of new construction rapidly maturing to reinforce the Fleet and replace casualties, and with a pre-arranged system for accelerating that new construction, which has been found to yield satisfactory and even surprising results.
I would draw the attention of the House in illustration to only three particular points. First of all, ammunition. If hon. Members will run their eye along the series of figures for Vote 9, in the last five or six years, and particularly during the latter years, they will see an enormous increase in the Vote. In time of peace one gets little credit for such expenditure, but in time of war we thank God it has been made.
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