The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1914. A NAVAL STORY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 50, 15 October 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1914. A NAVAL STORY.

A well-known naval writer, Captain L. Persius, published a book in Berlin at the beginning of this year under the title of "The Debacle," the subject of which is an imaginary war between England and Germany. Some of his conclusions as to what would happen are of exceptional interest at this time. Early in the story a British force is supposed to capture Kiao-Chau, and to succeed in sinking the armored cruiser Schanihorst (an incident which we devoutly hope may really happen at no early date, if it, has not already happened). The story goes on to suppose that the German fleet in Home waters has retreated to Kiel, exactly as has hapi pened in the present war, and the writer suggests that it remains there during the early stages of the conflict in spite of attempts of the British ships to draw it out to the open seas. He also supposes that the German torpedoe flotillas in the North Sea make many attacks upon the British Fleet, but the attackers achieve few successes worth mentioning and after a long period of delay, with great stagnation of trade, public opinion, and the fact that famine faces the country, forces the Kaiser's high-sea fleet to leave its shelter. Much against the wishes of German naval strategists the warships in their might leave the Elbe to meet "the British Fleet. An engagement is supposed to take place in the neighborhood of Heligoland, in which Germany's Navy is practically wiped out, though Captain Persius makes the British Fleet to be so severe!* handled that they are in no condition after the great engagement to retain Britain's supremacy of the seas as against other Naval Powers. The latter prediction is one which has not yet eventuated, but the Empire is waiting with almost anxious impatience to see whether or not the German Dreadnoughts will face the ships of Britain in a pitched battle. Captain Persius, in his book, describes a supposed raid upon London by German Zeppelins (quite in the manner one would suppose the Germans to be anticipating at this present time), and he gives a vivid description of havoc •supposedly wrought by bombs dropped from the clouds. Apparently this able and imaginative writer had in view the object of impressing on his country how exceedingly unprofitable to "'the German people a war with Britain would turn out, and to show ,fchat the Prussian Junkers were merely war-mad militarists, and large capitalists greatly interested in the production of the munitions of wa'\ There arc many other points in Captain Persius' book which have turned out to be wonderfully accurate, though of course he had not anticipated the great array of combined forces which now press on Germany from nil sides. Neither had he apparently anticipated how the outbreak of war would awaken the spirit of itithless ' barbarity which has mndp Germany i to-day the most hated and contemptible nation on earth. Those who should know at least something about

the matter tell us that during the next few months, and possibly weeks, the world will learn how far Captain Persius was right in his predictions regarding the forcing to sea of the German Fleet, and what will happen when the great clash comes.