but it takes six years to make a junior naval officer, it takes two years to build a cruiser, and three years to replace a battleship. The German hope was by attrition or some happy accident to wear down the superior British strength to an equality with their own. A rash act on the part of a British Admiral might fulfil that hope; but on the other hand, without boldness, even rashness, Britain could not get to grips with her evasive foe.
So far Sir David Beatty and the battle cruisers had not been fortunate. We must not regard the North Sea at the time as an area where only British and neutral flags were flown. From the shelter of the mine-strewn waters around Heligoland the German warships made occasional excursions, for they could not rot for ever in harbour. Germany's battle cruisers had more than once raided the English coasts. Her battleships had made stately progresses in short circles in the vicinity of the Jutland and Schleswig shores. But so far Sir David Beatty had been unlucky. At the battle of the Bight of Heligoland on August 28th, 1914, his great ships had encountered nothing
