WHY THE GERMAN FLEET MUST FIGHT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 158, 24 March 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHY THE GERMAN FLEET MUST FIGHT.

AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO IT WHEN IT MEETS THE GRAND FLEET. (By Fred T. .lane, the famous Naval Writer, in •'Pearson's Weekly.") Will there be a big naval battle before the end of the war? 1 am asked to write an answer to this question. Put in these words, one is driven to reply that it depends on what is understood by the word "battie." On land there has been incessant fighting for nearly eighteen months, yet there has not been a single "battle" in the old sense of the word. Similar.y on the sea things have hitherto tended to be of the nature of skirmishes rather than set lights. No battleship has once engaged another battleship, and even when—as on the Dogger Bank—battle-cru.sere fought each other, there was no stand-up fight on the old lines. Things have altered much during the last few years, and sea-fights now arc apt to be lost and won before a shot is tired. If, however, the question is put in another form, such as "Will the German Fleet come otitr" then I answer that I believe it will, and that once having come out it will never return! But that doer, not necessarily mean a spectacular fight on Trafalgar or Tsushima lines, Dreadnought hammering Dreadnought, till one side 's annihilated in the cra,-h of a Manic struggle. WHAT OFH SFBMAK'NES WILL DO. More probable it is t! at our submarines (in wh'ch we have now an overwhelming superiority) will slaughter the German Dreadnoughts what time our battle fleet hangs around waiting to mop up the pieces. There i:i no poetry in modern naval warfaro; scientific slaughter is now the order of the day. And as to how and why the Germans will come out. th's will probably he due to the pressure of public opinion in the Vaterland rather than to any strategical objective. Here enters another factor. When Yillonouvo wan sent out to meet Nelson at Trafalgar by orders of Napoleon, he knew pght well that h> was going to destruction. But he went. Ten years or so ago. when Uodjest-verskv'-.vas sent with the Baltic Fleet a , a last effort against Togo and Japan. he knew that he, too, was going to destruction. But he went. So. also, I take it, will the German* go. They will know well enough of the useless sacrifice to which they are going—but they will go And as like as not they will go cheerfully, in order to win our esteem! Which sounds strange, but so things are! There is a thing known as "The Brotherhood of the Seas." And that Brotherhood is this, that you love the man you have killed or manned, and, equally so. he loves the man who has hammered him. In neither Fleet probably is there a single officer or man animated by anything of the nature of personal hate. The will kill each other merely for the Mike of personal esteem. Consequently, even though the pressure of German public opinion failed, even though all diplomacy demanded that the German Navy should remain safely in harbour to the bitter end, 1 believe that the German Navy will come out and d : e at our hands, and all over this "Brotherhood of the Seas." Oi the German Army, the least said the soonest mended. We know its vile atrocities. In the ma'iter of Belgium it has —to its own thinking—excused itself on the grounds of "necessity.'' Whether or no we believe this, it docs. GERMAN SAILORS NOT BLACKGUARDS. For tho rest, however, it has against it innumerable crimes which admit of no palliation. But ii; the German Navy as a whole none speaks ill. It has Cor had) its blackguards, like those who massacred the Lus'.tania and other lesser ships. On the other side of the scale were men like Captain von Muller, of the Fmden, who conducted war as officers and gentlemen. In doing so they were certainly not "Prussians"—it in doubtful of they were "good Germans" in the Kaiser's ideal. Still, when all is said and done, the German Navy has for years modelled itself on the Brirsh Navy and sought to follow British ideals. On that account I am of opinion that it will follow the Hritish model, and believe that it is better to die lighting than to face an inglorious surrender. Our Admiral Cradock. who peri-hed off Chile lighting against Von Spec, set the example. He might have run away; but he preferred to die for llie honour of the ting, much as Sir Richard Grenvillc did in Elizabethan days. Germany has spent enormous sums in (renting that Navy, which at present lies idle in the Kiel Canal. From the Kai.er's point of view an unbeaten fleet is some kinl of aeset to bargain with in case of land failure, or to do something with in case of victory. As a business proposition this i--sound enough .or would be but for the fact that the Gorman people have for uais been taught that both their slrps and men are better than ours. It i- quite untrue, of course, but they have been told the lie so often that the majority of them honestly believe it. And so—when the land pressure grow-, too severe, there will probably be a frantic demand for a last sport'ng hazard on the sea - a demand so insistent that the Kaiser will be unable to ni-st it. DESTRUCTION". SURE AND CERTAIN: Indeed, when it is realised that the game is up, the Kaiser himself may be driven to lead his fleet to destruction, tile lhvt being his special toy and he the men v.ho first told his people. "Our future lies on the water." It will be but poetic justice if this be hi.s doom — to go to perdition with the fioet which he created of set purpose to destroy us. That it will be destruction for the German-, is sure and certain. We are about three to one agam.-t them in Dreadnoughts, every British Dread, nought's new inured with eighteen months ot hardship what tine the Germans have mown fat and lazv ill harbour. hi submarines our superiority must be quite tell to one- -p:»-.ihly more. I l is iuadvi-alile to attempt to give exact figure-;. In all -aib-idary craft, from bulile-.TiiiM rs to destroyi i--. the superi.ir'ty re-i., with ns—thanks to :be Navy Ls ague. The Ih-itish Navv League never t.-dked about "The Day," as did its German i ival. for one member that our Navy League had, the German cone, i-n number, d ten. ISut. like Gideon's little army, "iir N'ai y League saw to if that the Urit'idi Navy v.as kept up. If few they \\e>v. they fought the Ii bt and foiled ilie naval dreams of lire Kaiser. HUNS' NAVV LEAGUE WILL FORCE MATTERS. The numerical strength of the German Navy League, wlreh will probably o-,entual!y force the Kaiser's fleet to < i me net, k v.oll over a million. Our Navy League in its palmiest days proh. .Vily never had more than lid.tHll) niem, b 'rs, men and women or rather, perliap-, I should say, women and men,

for it was the fair sex which did most of tho work. It sounds far-foU-hod, of course, but, ail the same, it is no exaggeration t° .say that » handful of Englishwomen are mainly resiwnsiblo for the coming fate of the Kaiser's navy. All honour to them ! And I think I may say that this is how tho British Navy hopes that the Gorman High Sea Fleet will end. It will prefer to kill the enemy as sailormen. It hopes that they will die like men. GERMAN FLEET MAY MUTINY. It does not believe in abusing tho enemy. It desires to destroy tTiem, leaving the abuse to others. And from what 1 know of the Gorman Navy, I think that rather than fair tame surrender, it will, if need be, mutiny and come out to "die like men and fall like one of the princes." There is some Psalm in the Bible which putts it that way. The German Army. a s indicated, w beyond tho pale. Jiut the German Navy is a copy of the British Navy and so has imbibed certain ideals which the Prussianised German Army lacks. Our Navy will kill them without mercy till they throw up the sponge; thereafter save them from death as much as may be. It may be a hard thing for the general public to understand, hut it is a matter of sportsmen v. sportsmen. The Germans, when thev come out. will got their gruel, bill our men as they kill them will love them for coming out to death.