THE GERMAN FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1916, Page 12

THE GERMAN FLEET.

LOCKED UP IN THE BALTIC. PREDICAMENT OF THE HUNS. "Where is that great German fleet on which so much thought and science and money have beep expended—which was to be a. perpetual menace to the United Kingdom? Locked up in the Baltic! It dare not show its face upon any sea where it could be dealt with." This extract from the speech of the British Prime Minister in the House of Commons on November 2, when he dealt with the British situation in the various theatres of the war, is equivalent to an ajyiouncement that there will be no great naval battle in the North Sea Germany's challenge to Britisli naval supremacy has been limited to the construction of ships. Germany did not accept the British challenge in the first months of the war, and she is less likely to do so now, as the odds against her have increased with the progress of the war. Not only lias the German Navy lost relatively more war ships than the British Navy, but the strength of the British Navy has been increased by more new warships since the outbreak of the war than Germany lias been able to place in commission." From incidental admissions made in the Admiralty statements issued from time to time, it is known that at least six new battleships and -battle cruisers which were under construction when the war broke out have been added to the British Fleet. According ,to calculations made by naval critics, this number will have been doubled by the end of January. In British naval circles there is now a general conviction that there will be no great naval battle in tlfe North Sea. It is admitted that the German naval f staff are wise in deciding not to take the risk of a big engagement with the numerical odds against the German fleet. But recently, writes .the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Age," a British naval secret has been disclosed, which indicates that if the German flee! did come into the North Sea from the protection of defended harbors it would be placed at such a tactical disadvantage, as the result of the measures carried out by the British Admiralty within the past few months, that there would be absolutely no chance of a victory for the German fleet. It is asserted'that owing to the effective measures which the British Fleet lias taken to provide that any engagement which takes place in the North Sea between British and German squadrons, shall be in a locality previously selected by the British; that no German warships will come out, even for a dash across to the east coast of England and a briqf bombardment of undefended seaside resorts. The last raid of the kind took place on January 24, and on that occasion the German squadron, cn sighting a British squadron approaching, turned tail and ran for home. There was a long-range fight between the fleeing German ships and the pursuing British ships, which resulted in the German armoured cruiser Blueher being sunk. The first public hint of the measures taken by the British fleet to ensure that German ships coming out of German waters into the North Sea. will be placed at a tactical disadvantage, is given in an article published in the Daily Express. "There is a great and deep secret well kept and well guarded —which need not be withheld from an Empire that is thirsting, parched for even a sprinkling of fighting news about the men and ships wherein our ..very birthwright is entwined," states a special correspondent of this paper. "It need no longer be kept from a neutral world that is waiting for the arm of immeasurable British might to strike; it need not be kept back from Germany, for the. naked truth penetrated the minds of the pirate gang some months

"The Blohm niul Voss yards at Hamburg, tho naval yards on the Weser, The Vulkan Works at Stettin, the Krnpp and the Imperial yards at Kiel were not, after the Dogger Bank engagement on January 24, turned on the vain effort to catch up on British sea power. The Germans saw enough oft the Dogger to know the hopelessness of, their quest to meet the British Navy on equal terms. They gave up fair fighting for piracy, and rapidly tlicy dropped further and further back in the comparative strength of every unit of their line.?. "The story, while it settles for -»ver the chances of a sea fight on the grand scale, reveals the inner reason why the German fleet which attacked the northeast coast of England on December 10, and was again sallying out on a similar mission about a month later, retired to the shelter of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, and why, unless the ships are scrapped to make fodder for cannon, they are likely to remain there until our victorious Army marches through Berlin. "We have not bottled them up—not by any means." That is the dictmn of one who has been there. The Germans know what we have done. They know that our mine fields have embraced their own mine fields, set to defend their channels and harbors. We have left a space for them to come out and fight in. If they wish to come out and light they have plenty of open water—do not be afraid but that we will give them ample sea room to sink in —but the pitch is of our choosing. They will not surprise us now. A network of fast patrol boats, a myriad armada of patrollers of the deep, and wireless telegraphy made light of space from the fringe of tilt German mine field to the necessary bases,'and it will even occur to the lay mind that if the German fleet is anchored along a .narrow canal it cannot come out in battle order as quickly and as readily as the British Fleet, which lies at moorings in wide and deep, if sheltered, waters.

It is obvious that while the British Fleet can clear for action at the first flicker of the signal from the Admiral's ship, it is not so with the Germans. That is one of our enormous natural advantages in sea fighting. Our squadrons can be at the anchorages when the people in the little villages on shore turn in to sleep, and in the morning, when they look where tiie great ships lay, (here is nothing but the buoys. In the dead of night' the men-o.'-war can silently and swiftly pass to the realm of nowhere. But a' fleet out a canal! Tteckon how. the ships are shifted. What a peerless advantage we fight under! We have not bottled them up, but Mr. Asquith's declamation that they are "locked up" is even more eloquent than "bottled." They drink no longer to "Der Tag.' The day the German navy had prepared for and had so often boisterously toasted eame and went in the shameful scatter of January 24.