SEA POWER.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 May 1924, Page 4

SEA POWER.

” 11K NAVY IX TflE GREAT WAIL (By F. J. Ball. TLA., 13.5 c.) Marly in tlio present generation tlio stratonic centre of naval operation gravitated to the North Sea, the ini. jnemori:*! Inittlcirrouiicl of the Uritisli fleets sinen tlio days til' the Vikings, hut the menace now came from an entirely new quarter. Year after year under the driving spur of von Tirpitz, vast additions had lieen made to the Cierman Navy, and there could he only one possible and patent objective. Britain, with an uncanny precision, not without other parallels in her naval story, quietly prepared to meet the new challenge. The Atlantic flank was made safe by a wise arbitration treaty

with the United States. Japan’s competition was turned into a valuable asset by a treaty which she later most loyally carried out. France and Italy were placated in the Mediterranean and great ships turned silently homewards. and made ready to cover up the Empire’s heart. Under the strong hand of a great naval genius. Lord Fisher, the navy was ruthlessly revolutionised. His volcanic methods and drastic reforms made him enemies, and it was charged that tile British Navy in liis clay had cost more than all the campaigns of the army in the 10th. century, and yet had never fought a battle, hut the war fully vindicated his courageous and wise policy. He kept on his own way stolidly. designing and building determinedly in the face of opposition, which on one occasion waxed so furious that, j unknown to the world, the* Admiralty resigned in a body sooner than accepta Parliamentary policy that would have ,dven Germanv a preponderance in Dreadnoughts in 1914. What might have happened then if Fisher had not won may well he imagined. When at last his* Dreadnought had successfully met the severest tests he put every other navy back into the Victorian Age. Quietly his capital ships were armed with the most powerful naval mm in the world, and when at last the word wps war and Her Tag had arrived it found the Navy ready almost to the last pound of gun cotton, not only the most formidable naval machine in his.

tory, but tuned also to the highest pitch of efficiency, and prepared at instant command to deliver its last ounce of power. .The last stroke for Germany must have been that strange concatenation of circumstance by which August 1 found the Grand Fleet concentrated on a war footing, and so completely mobilised that a telegram was siii.iciont to unleash it, and without the firing of a shot in anger or the loss of a man, German shipping was swept off the home sens, and, under guarantee of safe conduct from the Admiralty, which was never revoked later, British armies began to flow safely and uninterruptedly into France. Thus happened “Der Tag,” which had lieon toasted for a decade in German mossroams, with such enthusiasm. From that day to the close of the war it may be truly said that not only was the navy tlie left flank of the French and British armies, hut it carried them both on its hack as well. BRITISH SEA POWER.

Of the five thousand German vessels

alloat a few were unable to make port, including Von Spec’s Pacific squadron of powerful cruisers, with the champion gunners of her navy abroad. In a battle off South America, it accounted for Admiral Craddock's weaker squadron, sinking the Good Hope and the Monmouth. It was a forlorn hope from the start, and chiefly memorable for tlie inevitable display of indomitable courage which is one of the oldest traditions of the Navy. Tt then swept confidently down upon the Fnlklnnds, but discovered when too late the fighting tons of two “Tnvineibics” over the ridge of land that sheltered Port Stanley. We may dimly surmise Admiral von Spec’s judgment on British seapower as he turned his.ships about and saw the two Invineibles steam leisurely out of a little harbour in the loneliest liters of the'world, but wo shall never knew, for his squadron was sunk. It was this squadron the Australia trailed in the Pacific, sailing into Papeete not many hours after its dosttltorv bombardment by the Schanihorst and Gneiseuati, and saw what would have been tlie fate of Sydney had not the moral effect of the presence .somewhere off our coasts of a single vessel

that could out-rangc and out-manoeuvre them been our salvation. We can siieil.v never think unmoved of those steel walls and rusty guns sunk under those waters that lint for her would have been dominated by the keels (if the German Pacific squadron, and il is eternally fitting that site should lie in death in those seas and olf that harbour she had saved in life. It is sincerely to he hoped that our own cruiser Sydney. that so distinguished herself in thitl great little liegagemeiit with the Kmden, will he preserved its the Inundation of these naval traditions so essential to a great Commonwealth, which inu-t live or (lie on the sea. BRITISH PRESTIGE TO-DAV.

The majority of thinking Australians are convinced that our Prime .Minister sneaks nothing less titan the truth when he contends that any policy Unit would reduce the strength and mobility or lower the prestige of the ttavv would in the cud he disas trolls to the cause ol peace and the great purpose ol the League ul Nations. Only those who have lived among native peoples and have a knowledge of their psychology know what i.s behind this, for many a lonely Briton has found, as ! have loiiud. that in the hour of signal danger the only hitman protection that stands between him unci a violent death ithat nameless impalpable fear in the native mind of a navy whose ships tlicv have probably never seen, but which are iust as real in their world to-day as the invisible legions ol Imperial Rome were to barbaric tribes in ancient days. But., to return to the main topic. Germany’s humiliating iinpnionce by sea following on the total disappearance of her naval ensign, pul her Admiralty in a particularly savage mood In an evil hour for tls hut e'.oii more so in the end for hot-eh. she embarked on an under-sea campaign unparalleled in its ferocity and inhumanity. While this was nothing Inti a full confession of Iter naval Ittlilil,' and a gesture of despair, il brought incalculable damage to our cause.

Jutland just served to emphasise her hepek".; nurilime position, and was the signal for an intensification id those stiletto submarine methods that are an imperishable blot on Germany's naval record. This new cut - break was so unbelievably savage that the navy was naturally unprepared to cnunler it. and before the situation was really in hand, they had sunk over 2009 Allied vessels, and at one dark ' stage wen* within an ace of winning. The full story lias yet lo he wri.cn, hut on every sea the awful massacre was met both b.v navy and merehanlmont alike with a courage and resonrep beyond all praise, and tlie exploits of such patrols; a- Ihe Dover and North Channel arowurthv to stand beside the record of the old British hoarding-parties.

JFTLAND AND SEQUEL. The galley was the decisive factor in naval warfare for t!0f)0 years; the sailing shin of the line for fifl't years, capital ships of steel —say some experts—fur only 00 years. Is Jutland, like Trafalgar, the end of an epoch, and will the great naval battles of the next war l>o om. uiuler son and in the clouds? If there should ever he another Jutland and two great modern hnlile fleets meet in a dentil struggle, the experience of .lufland would indicate that there would only lie one fleet in being at its close, for it is generally accepted that the battle positions of (he fleets was such that only mist and flight saved the German navy from a crowning disaster without parallel in naval records. Yet this indecisive battle was proha lily the most decisive in history, units results were more clearly realised, and its end oulv really came when the most powerful navy that ever capitulated sailed between two great British lines of war vessels on November -1. THIS, into the Firth of Forth and. under orders from Admiral Beatty, hauled down the Cierman ensign. The anti-climax was a characteristic act of treachery for which our navy

was- in no way responsible. On the 21st. of June, 1919, the seacocks .of tjic 7-1 German warships were opened by order of the German Admiral, and they sank at their moorings. It was a shameful episode, but it left the shield of the British navy quite untarnished, for our naval men, more experienced in the ways of German sen men, pressed for the surrender of the ships; but the politicians decided for internment only, so the responsibility lies at their door. This deed of huniiliaioit was strangely hailed by the Germans as an act of great courage, and the German Lord High Admiral by proclamation announced: “Il was true to the traidtioiis of the Gorman navy.” As they rarely fought a clean and open light on tlie sea il it could he avoided, we may well agree that it was. By comparison with this ignoble end the King’s words to the fleet on the capitulation of the German navy are memorable: “Never in its history has tlie Royal Navy, with God’s help, done greater things for us, nor better sustained its old glories and the ehivitlry of flic sens.”