THE GERMAN FLEET.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 43, 7 October 1914, Page 4

THE GERMAN FLEET.

If the German fleet is waiting in the Kiel Canal for the “chosen moment,” it is simply fulfilling predictions made by many British observers, says a writer in the “Lyttelton Times.” The German plan has never been to give battle at sea immediately on the outbreak of war, unless the enemy could be taken by surprise. Admiral von Tirpitz’s scheme has been to provide for the Gerjnan ships secure bases from which they could assail a seaworn opponent at a favorable instant. “The German naval authorities have in view a kind of war different from any which has hitherto hern known, said the “Naval and Military Record” a few weeks ago. “No one can doubt that the German Admiralty bases its calculations not on a long-j drawn-out contest in which patient' courage, sturdy tenacity of purpose and incapacity to recognise defeat will triumph after months or years of hostilities, but on the ability to use the German fleet—if it he used at all like a thunderbolt. The whole history of the evolution of the German fleet .and the character of the training to which officers and men have to submit confirms this impression.”