U-BOAT BASE IN ARCTIC

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 249, 9 July 1918, Page 7

U-BOAT BASE IN ARCTIC

WITVI' GERMANY MAY GATS IN FIN UNI). There is probably a muck deeper sij) niiicauce ITiiui most people imagine a Ihe back of German macliiiiiitions 1 Finland. Jiecent events seem to poin to the fact that it is at any rate tli hope of the Gerinnr.s to "penetrate- an permeate this region bo effectively as t provide unrestricted passage for thei transport from Mango on the Boiitl througli to the shores of the Arctic, ill Bolsheviki have already guaranteed, t the Finns a seaboard oa tho \I hue bea which mav possibly explain the some what, cryptic announcement that In Russians are evacuating Archangel, li any case, tho extension of Finland) boundaries to the Whito Sea would ne eessarily involve the transfer of a por lion of tho Petrograd-Kola railway t< the Finnish Republic, making it pos sible for the latter, on its own behal: or that of its friends, to sever all com, munication between I'elrograd and lh< onlv ice-free Uussian port to tho north Tho Arctir- ports of Archangel ant Mcxandrovsk-Uie lalter being tho new ice-free port on Kola Bay-have beer verv extensively used during the wartheV were, indeed, tho only ports ii] Europe through which lUissia could comiminieate wilh tlu. outer world, lne British iN'avy has been represented a Archangel sinco the very early days ot U,e war, and in the middle of 1016 a new Kus-ian naval base was established at Kiiiiin, and this added to the facilities necessary for tho protection of Arctic li-ide 'j'he present position is unknown, but there aie, in any case excellent reasons why no eilort should be sinned to prevent: Ihe enemy getting cnu- || rut »!' the harbour of Kola. l -\«™<> n mines were discovered m the White hen as Ion" ago as the .summer of 191 a, and lii(.ir submarines have never ceased to worrv shipping on its way to and Irom the northern ports. The Tj-boats, with no huso nearer than Kiel, have obviously worked under considerable difnculties. F.tiually obviously llie.se difficulties would vanish altogefhcV il Kola. Bay were in German hands, not only because o the enemy's possession of it. and his direct communication with his home ports through Finland and the Baltic, as well as bv submarines, but also because tho counteracting British craft, being deprived of their own bases in the area, would have no place from which to act nearer than Scotland or tho Orkneys. Under tho circumstances detailed there wou'd, of course, be no British shipping to attack in this particular f|iiarter, and from that point of view the German gain might be regarded as. a barren one. On the other hand, Germany, for the first I line since I lie' slarl; of the war. would be possessed of a port on the open sen. The measures taken by the British Kflvv are already making it increasingly diliieull for the.'submarines to contiuuc their work. ]f Germany wero now to secure a high-sea port, even so indifferently placed a one as Aloxandrovsk, a new' and very unfavourable turn would bo given to the whole problem.