WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, 6 November 1917, Page 2

WAR NOTES

FIGHTING SUBMARINES. CO-OPERATION OF FRENCH. Although the French Cabinet has been reconstructed twice within two months, the Admiralty portfolio remains in the hands of M. Chaumet who was appointed Minister for Marine upon the resignation of Admiral Lacaue. The reasons which forced the latter’s resignation and the policy of the new Administration were recently discussed by Mr J B’. Gautreau, Paris correspondent of the Naval and Military Record. The new Minister is well known as a strong and active partisan . of France’s expansion at sea, the position he has long held at die head of the Marine Committee having afforded him unique opportunities to become acquainted both with, the revolution accomplished in sea warfare and with the new requirements of the Republican Navy; and he is trusted" to give an energetic impulse to the cumbrous Admiralty machine and to rid it of obsolete administrative methods. Unanimous approval has greeted his first official move, the appointment as Director of the Anti-Submarine Department of Rear-Admiral Salaun, the foremost French torpedo specialist and service representative of the jeune ecole-doctrine, well known as a strong-willed man of action and progress, who gave a full measure of his ability as commander for several years of the Brest torpedo division, and lately as chief of the French antisubmarine divisions in Greek waters. Admiral Salaun is a believer In submarine and aerial weapons. Under his firm guidance new life will be imparted to reorganised and at last naval aviation will be en-

ablecl quickly to .overcome the difficulties which prejudice and incompetence have accumulated across its path. Admiral Salaun has, both in London and in the Levant, 'co-oper-ated for many months with the British naval authorities. Another move of the new Minister is the nomination Chief at Rochefort of Vice-Admiral Charlier, late director* of the Paris Ecole de Guerre. Previous to the war the Rochefort Prefecture of Maritime was considered as something of a sinecure, but times have Completely changed, the Rochefort authorities having the upper hand in the defence against the pirates of * the very important Gironde estuary and Aix roadstead. Moreover, the Mediterranean is no longer to be allowed to monopolise the patrolling activity of the French fleet Despite the Salonika expedition, it is the Atlantic which is at present the sea most vital to France and has the first claims on the- protection of the navy. Until quite recently it is no secret that the anti-submarine defence of the Atlantic coast existed mostly on paper. It was the indignation of the deputies of the Atlantic departments that drove Admiral Lacaze out of the Ministry and, a fact worth noting, the new Minister is representative for Bordeaux. There is thus every chance that no time will be lost in repairing past blunders and deficiencies, and in co-operating more fully with the American and British flotillas with a view to ensuring the safety of the Atlantic sea routes.