THE NAVAL SITUATION.
rflIE appearance of German cruisers off Yarmouth on Tuesday, the mysterious action off the coast of Chile, and in a lesser degree the continued exploits of the 'Emden' and other German destroyers of commerce, have this week inclined some people to overestimate the progress of the German policy of "attrition." We do not wish to say a word that would diminish any one's sense of the very serious work our sailors have on their hands ; every fraction of their watchfulness, skill, and bravery will be needed ; but any one who talks of the German policy of attrition as having hitherto succeeded, or being likely to succeed, cannot have grasped the elements of the situation.
The German conception of what might be achieved by the German Navy was that it might pick off British ships one by one by mines and torpedoes till something approaching an equality of strength between the two Navies had been established. Then would be the time for the capital ships, which had meanwhile been kept safely in harbour, to sally forth and engage the British Fleet with a fair chance of success. By that time, also, according to the characteristic German calculations, the losses of British commerce would have tied the plans of the Admiralty to the cart-tail of public opinion, and Germany would engage in the North Sea the Fleet of a nation which had become nervy and demoralized, and had hopelessly confused strategy with the task ef calming universal anxiety. If all that were achieved, "attrition" could be described as a success. Otherwise it cannot. The fact is that, in spite of the losses which the British Navy has suffered, we have hitherto been more fortunate than we had any right to expect. "Attrition" has kept a rough balance between the two Navies, and that although the British Navy has continually offered itself to be shot at. The five cruisers we have lost from submarine attack were not of great military value— the real loss was in heroic human lives and all the training and skill they represented. The same may be said of the two cruisers that have been sunk by mines and of the small cruiser sunk by gun-fire in Zanzibar Harbour. Even the 'Monmouth,' reported sunk in the action off Chile, was not one of our latest or most powerful ships, and against her loss we may fairly set that of the German cruiser Yorck,' which was sunk by a German mine, or it may be by a British torpedo, near Wilhelmshaven, on Wednesday. The balance between the two Navies will be more than restored—it will swing in our favour more heavily than it was in our favour at the beginning of the war—when the ships now building in British yards are completed.
Mines and submarines, as was to be expected in the circumstances, have been the chief means of German offence, and British naval officers have had all too little experience of German gun-fire. How to deal with mines and submarines has been the preoccupying subject. This week the Admiralty have taken a step that had become absolutely necessary, not only in our own interests, but in the interests of the neutral shipping of the world. They have declared the whole North Sea a military area, and snines have been laid as an answer to the indiscriminate sowing of German mines. The announcement was made in the papers of Tuesday, and the new conditions came into force on Thursday. The latest act of the Germans had been to strew mines on the north coast of Ireland— in waters which had not been included in any strategical scheme or touched by combatant action. The object was apparently simply to destroy British merchant ships and crews, and the risk of blowing up the innocent ships of neutral Powers was accepted without a tremor. These mines cannot have been laid by German men-of- war or by any vessel flying the German flag, and there is no doubt that the strong words of the Admiralty announcement were thoroughly justified :— "The mines have been laid by some merchant vessel flying a neutral flag which has come along the trade route as if for the purposes of peaceful commerce, and, while profiting to the full by the immunity enjoyed by neutral merchant ships, has wantonly and recklessly endangered the lives of all who travel on the sea, regardless of whether they are friend or foe, civilian or military in character. Mine-laying under a neutral flag and reconnaissance conducted by trawlers, hospital ships, and neutral vessels are the ordinary features of German naval warfare. In these circum- stances, having regard to the great interests entrusted to the British Navy, to the safety of peaceful commerce on the high was, and to the maintenance within the limits of International Law of trade between neutral countries, the Admiralty feel it
necessary to adopt exceptional measures appropriate to the novel conditions under which this war is being waged."
All merchant ships are warned of the danger they will run if they enter the North Sea—now a mined area—except under Admiralty directions. This "closed area" is not, of course, closed in the literal sense. Neutral ships have a right to enter it. But they are advised not to do so without accepting the highest degree of safety that the British Navy can guarantee them. For this purpose the military area is defined as being bounded on the north by a line drawn from the northern point of the Hebrides, through the Faroe Islands, to Iceland. Ships entering the North Sea, should come by the Straits of Dover. Then they will be given sailing directions so that they can avoid the minefields. German newspapers, with incomparable effrontery, have begun to speak of the action of the Admiralty as an unwarrantable interference with neutral rights. The right Germany had conferred on neutral ships was the right to be blown up. Germany has violated all the Conventions which she signed at the Hague as to the use of mines, and the response of the Admiralty in the interests of humanity as well as in our own cause has come too late rather than too soon. The new phase is bound to have a considerable effect upon the war strategically, because even if the German Fleet wished to come out of harbour it would now hesitate to sail out into unknown minefields.
As for submarines, it is fair to say that they are not the terror some experts had pretended them to be. That British ships have been able to lie off the Belgian coast bombarding the right wing of the German Army without harm from submarines is a significant fact. We must not underrate submarines, but at the same time we believe that during the war sailors have learnt even more about frustrating submarines than the very gallant officers of submarines have learnt about torpedoing ships. A ship lying dead in the water is the only easy target for a submarine. The submarine is slow in aiming because the whole vessel has to be manceuvred into the right position—the torpedo tube cannot be " laid " like a gun. Speed and continual alterations of course are the best protection against submarines. Such an episode as the loss of the Aboukir," Hogue,' and 'Cressy' is not likely to be repeated. As for offence against submarines, ram- ming seems to be even more esteemed than gun-fire. An excellent feat in ramming a submarine was performed, for example, by the destroyer 'Badger.' But even if the deadly power of the submarine were all that some persons have imagined it to be, there would be consolation, for it would then be certain that, if the comparatively few German submarines could cripple the whole British Fleet, the much greater number of British submarines would make short work of the German Navy whenever it came out.
The demonstration by the fast German cruisers off Yarmouth was an incident by itself—an incident unlike any other in the war. There is no agreement as to what the Germans were trying to do. Perhaps they set forth on a reconnaissance, and finding nothing in front of them steamed right ahead till they Were brought up by the English coast. In that case the explanation would be simply that they thought it worth while—in accordance with what we may call the usual German strategy of psychology — to expend some ammunition in the abatement of British confidence. If that were the motive, we are not ungrateful. To prove that German ships can suddenly appear off an English watering- place, and to let the inhabitants of the East Coast listen to the sound of hostile guns—a sound not heard there, we suppose, since Paul Jones was engaged by English vessels—is to give a fillip to British recruiting, We sometimes think that the appearance of a German ship, or a Zeppelin, once a week would be a very good thing for us. As a nation we have no such sense of intimate association with the war as Frenchmen and Belgians have. But it may be that the German cruisers, all of which were fast, were consciously attempting to imitate an incident in the Russo-Japanese War, and to tempt our ships to the pursuit while they threw mines in their path. If this were so, they succeeded to the extent of sinking one British submarine. The real misfortune of the affair was that the German cruisers did not wish to give battle, and could tot be compelled to do so.
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