DUTIES OF THE BRITISH FLEET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1518, 4 March 1916, Page 4

DUTIES OF THE BRITISH FLEET.

German writers have been boasting lately of what the German fleet had done and of what the British fleet had not done. They may be recommended to turn to a book by a German naval officer, which was written some years ago, it is true, but which contains conclusions which have not been vitiated by the passage of time. This writer, Captain A. Stenzel, a retired officer of the German Navy, described in some detail the duties of the British fleet as follows :—First, Duties of Defence —(1) To keep the United Kingdom safe from invasion and its coasts from insult and injury ; (2) to protect the commercial navy in all seas, likewise the fisheries ; (3) to keep the sea open for the arrival of imports into the United Kingdom; (4) to protect India and all the colonies ; (5) to keep open the communications between the mother country and her colonies aud India. Secondly : Offensive Action in Connection with above —(1) To keep the enemy’s fleet locked up in their harbours, aud so defeat, and, if possible, to destroy them, if they venture out; (2) to blockade the enemy’s ports aud do injury to his coasts ; (3) to pursue and destroy the enemy’s cruisers aud privateers ; (4) to capture or destroy the enemy’s commercial navy and fishing fleets; (5) to compel the trans-oceanic possessions of the enemy to surrender, either by cutting off their communications or by actual hostile capture by the army. As Mr Archbald Hurd has remarked, let any Englishman or German, for that matter, read Captain Stenzel’s enumeration of the duties of the fleet, and what becomes of the nonsense which has recently been written in the newspaper on the other side of the North Sea with a view, of course, to influencing opinion in neutral countries, and, particularly, in countries hesitating between adhesion to the side of the allies or to the Central Powers ? With one sweeping movement it must be admitted that all the “duties of defence” have been performed, and performed brilliantly. The same is also true with reference to offensive action. The German Navy still exists because it has not ventured out.