THE RAID ON UntHAVEN.
THE artists who used prophetically to represent a sea battle of to-day as bringing together every kind of arm in one confused conflict—dirigibles and aeroplanes attacking one another and dropping bombs on the ships below them ; ships firing not only on one another but into the skies, and at the same time dodging torpedoes ; sub- marines stalking the ships while avoiding gun-fire and bombs ; death from above and below and around—these artists, we think, must have felt that the war had at last justified them when they read the accounts of the British visit to Cuxhaven on Christmas morning. The only item missing from the conventional picture was gun-fire between ship and ship, as no German surface ship— what on earth, or rather on sea, would Nelson have made of this new-(angled phrase ?—engaged our vessels. We shall try to describe what happened in this remarkable adventure, and draw some conclusions as to the value of such a raid.
Christmas Day dawned calmly. The sea was almost glassy, and a heavy fog-bank which bad accumulated during the night lay over the German coast. Into the Bight of Heligoland while it was still dark came the British light cruisers ' Arethusa ' and ' Undaunted,' some destroyers, submarines, and a depot ship for seaplanes. How they found their way through the German minefield no one unlearned in their secrets can say. All we know is that the Intelligence Department must be very wide awake and extremely well informed. As the ships approached Cuxhaven, which lies at the mouth of the Elbe, seventy' miles north-west of Hamburg, light airs began to dis- sipate the fog ; it still lay thick in the river, but at Cuxhaven it drifted in patches. Seven British sea- planes rose from the sea, flew to Cuxhaven, and were already delivering their attack on the ships of war and the works of that strongly fortified place, which is also a torpedo depot and aircraft station, before the British vessels were " spotted " from Heligoland. The Germans in Heligoland at once sent out two Zeppelins, four seaplanes, and several submarines. That busy hive had been disturbed. The most extraordinary combat of the war followed. The British vessels were bound to receive the attack, because it was to them that the seven airmen were to return. And each British vessel required the presence of the others—none could go. The seaplane depot ship needed protection, and the light fast cruisers with a certain gun power were there for the purpose. If the Germans Lad sent out surface ships, the • Arethusa and the 'Undaunted were ready for them. The Areibusa ' had been prominent in the affair of Heligoland Bight on August 28th, and She carries proudly on her quarterdeck the brass plate which commemorates her memorable ser- vices on that occasion. The ' Undaunted' is her sister- ship which sank four destroyers on October 17th. But these cruisers in their turn needed support, and the British destroyers were there to manoeuvre about them at full speed and distract the German submarines. The fight was full of new experiences. Ships had never before engaged Zeppelins. As it turned out, the Zeppelins were much less dangerous than the submarines, and even less dangerous than the aeroplanes. The impression our officers and men brought away of the Zeppelins seems to have been something like amusement. Nor is that to be wondered at in the circumstances. A Zeppelin can carry an enormous number of bombs, and might deal great destruc- tion when hovering and firing at fixed objects, but in this fight the Zeppelins were moving fast to avoid high-angle gun- fire, and the vessels at which they directed their bombs were also steaming fast to avoid the bombs and torpedoes. It must have been rather like firing at a driven partridge out of an express train. Indeed, it was worse than that, as one would at least fire at the partridge with a scatter-gun, A hit with a bomb under the conditions of Christmas Day would have been a mere fluke. The Zeppelins soon hauled off, perhaps because they were bit. It must not be supposed that a Zeppelin will crumple up like a wisp of paper and come down even when struck squarely by a shell. The gas-bag is divided into a number of compart- ments, and unless several of these are opened up the Zeppelin will remain in the air, just as a ship with water-tight compartments will remain afloat while a majority of the compartments hold. For the purpose for which they were used on Christmas Day, we may fairly say that Zeppelins need not give us a qualm. But that is not to say that they might not be very useful under other conditions. It would be as silly to jump to the conclusion that the Zeppelin may be ignored as to jump to the other extreme conclusion that submarines have rendered large surface ships obsolete. After the departure of the Zeppelins the German sea- planes and submarines continued to attack our vessels. The German seaplanes dropped several bombs near the mark. But neither by bomb nor by torpedo was one of our vessels struck. This is a great fact to remember. Speed and sudden alterations of course are the salvation of every vessel which has to defend herself against sub- marines. The days when we presented standing targets to submarines are past. The submarine is an unhandy thing. She rises and looks at her enemy through her periscope, and when she sinks to fire her torpedo she can no longer see him. He, if he is wise, is no longer on the course he was steering when the submarine prepared to dive. His chance of escaping in this way is extremely good. For three hours on Christmas Day the British ships darted about among the submarines, and were as much masters of the situation as fish in a pool of crabs. At the end of the three hours three airmen had returned, and were re-embarked with their machines. British sub- marines stood by longer and picked up three more of the airmen. Their seaplanes, however, sank. All of these airmen had been attacked on their return journey by German aeroplanes. One airman, Flight-Commander F. E. T. Hewlett, failed to return, and his machine was seen in a wrecked condition on the sea, but the good news was received six days later that he had been rescued.
As for what the airmen accomplished, the material damage probably cannot be estimated. The bombs at least were dropped on points of military significance. It would have been easy for the seven pilots to circle over the town of Cuxhaven and kill people indiscriminately ; but if such a plan had over entered the head of a naval officer, stirred to fury by the murder of civilians at Scarborough, he would not have dared to avow it. The Navy knows as well as any one else, and far better than most people, that reprisals are bad tactics, bad policy, and bad morals. The air raid, of course, had a purely military object, and was designed and carried out to that end alone. But it may be asked whether in this sense the raid justified itself. We lost four seaplanes—which coat some thousands of pounds. The answer, we think, must be that for several reasons the raid was extremely well worth while.
Of course no reasonable person pretends that it advanced the actual strategy of the war. Let us leave it to the Germans to talk big about conquering a country by aircraft. But the value of such an experiment in conditions of which there was no previous experience is very great. Those who took part in the raid know now that Zeppelins need not be feared by ships under way ; they know, more fully than they knew before, that submarines may be successfully avoided hour after hour in a comparatively limited space if the ships zigzag about at full speed ; they have some evi- dence that the Germans, who have already lost five cruisers in the North Sea and Baltic, do not care to risk their remaining vessels of this class on stray occasions, but are probably saving them up for the great day when they can fulfil their proper function towards their sister- battleships ; they know more than had been ascertained before as to what ships are in the roads off Cuiltaven ; they have enormously increased the confidence with which joint air and sea raids will be undertaken in future. All these things make up an array of informa- tion, or justifiable surmise, which will be of the greatest use to the superior officers of the Navy when they are framing plans of attack against the German Navy or the German coast. And there still remains the possibility that serious damage may have been done at Cuxhaven. If it were proved, however, that little or no damage was done, we should even then have added a considerable fact to our data for estimating what we have to fear from hostile aircraft. We could fairly say that if our seven brilliantly skilful and daring pilots accomplished nothing, it would be a singular piece of luck for Germany if a similar number of her airmen accomplished more in this country. Our Navy would not be the magnificent instru- ment it is if raids of this kind did not enter into its undertakings. They are practice, reconnaissance, and offensive action all in one. Christmas Day had been looked forward to as a time when the Germans might try to bring off a coup, thinking to find us too much bent on amusing ourselves, or too sleepy, or too full of pudding to be ready for them. But when Christmas Day came the tables were turned. The Navy gave us a marvellously spirited example of a raid just at the moment when it would have its greatest moral effect. They showed us how to do it, where to do it, and when to do it.
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