A NAVAL HERESY.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 October 1917, Page 7

A NAVAL HERESY.

"DIGGING OUT" THE GERMAN FLEET

WHY THE IDEA IS IMPRACTICABLE. A REPLY TO ARMCHAIR STRATEGISTS. The following article, by Mr. P. A. Hislam, written for a series of American newspapers, argues the pros and cons of the so-called "digging-out" tactics sometimes advocated as suitable for dealing With the German fleet:—

It used to be a favorite saying among naval writers before the war that "the frontiers of the British Fleet are the coasts of the enemy." It is one of those vague and rather high-sounding sentiments that do not mean very much, or show much foundation in the facts of history when you come to examine them closely, but it is just the sort of phrase that is popular among those who are for ever complaining of what they call the misuse of our naval power. To most people it is quite a natural and simple thing to talk about "the command of the sea," for they mean by that that one side is able to do more or lest as it likes on the high seas, while the other is only able to get its ships there surreptitiously, occasionally, and with the imminent and constant danger of destruction. It will, therefore, have come as a surprise to many that a number of retired admirals who aTe dissatisfied with the policy of the British Navy, should, after flinging mud at the Admiralty for a few weeks, have suddenly fallen out among themselves as to what they really mean by "command of tho sea."

One is content to state that we have the command if we can send our ships anywhere we like in reasonable confidence of their safe arrival. Another replies that we do not command the seas if there is one chance in a thousand of a ship being sunk ; while a third—not a retired admiral this time, but a professor of military history at Oxford University —bluntly tells us that we cannot claim the command of the sea so long as the enemy has an armed ship left. If that were true it would also toe true that we had never commanded the sea in the whole course of our history—and we 'certainly should not have any chance of j commanding it in the course of the present war. It is about as reasonable an argument as it would be to say that England is not a law-abiding country so long eb a single pUrse-snatcher exists in it.

The idea at the back of these statements is that the Navy is not doing the right thing so long as it permits the enemy to exist, no matter what the enemy may do for his own preservation. The real purpose of the fleet, they say, is not to "command the sea" and forbid the use of the sea to the enemy, but to destroy the enemy. It is, of course, a perfectly sound argument, and for this reason: If the enemy is destroyed he can have nothing to send to sea, and is therefore incapable either of using it himself or of preventing von from using it. In other words, the part is included in the whole, the whole in this case being the annihilation 'of the enemy's navy. BISKS VERSUS BESULTS.

Now, there is no doubt about two things. The first is that the British Navy is burning to get at close quarters with the enemy, and the second is that with the end of this war the German Fleet must be either obliterated or else so jcstricted that it can never again hecome a menace to civilisation and the peace of the world. But there is another point which we, in our island security, are apt at times to overlook. On one famous occasion, two years before the war, Mr. Churchill vastly offended the German jingoes, by calling their navy a "luxury fleet." What he meant was that the fleet was not essential to the defence of Germany or of German interests; and from that point of view—and that point alone—the mighty British Army of to-day might be called a 'luxury army." That is to say, the British Empire would still be safe from attack and violation if the seemingly impossible should happen and We were to suffer defeat 011 the Continent; but if the navywere to be worsted the Allied cause and [the British Empire would topple like a nack of cards. What is the moral of this? It is that, in spite of its own traditions and instincts, we cannot, for the sake of our cause and of civilisation in general, allow the navy to run any unnecessary risks—and by the navy I mean, of course, the battle squadrons which form the backbone of our sea-power, and without which everything else would soon be swept away. And now we have to consider what is an 'unnecessary" risk? We can start out frojh the position that we want to destroy, 1 the German Fleet; but it docs not follow that it is a necessary condition Without which we cannot win the war. A little over a hundred years ago the navy was anxious to destroy the fleets of Napoleon, but the fact that we were never able to account for more than about 30 p,er cent, of them did not prevent us from winning the war, and the German 'Fleet cannot prevent us from winning this one unless it succeed* m demolishing the British Navy. If the Germans like to keep their mam fleet in cotton-wool, that is their look-out. lor all immediate and practical purposes we can command tho sea just as well with the German battle-ships moored a ongside their quays and dockyard walls as we could if they were lying at the bottom of the sea. It is still possible that the enemy wil come out and make a straight fight of it Indeed, now that the U-boat is apparently being got under, we may regard such a contingency as distinctly probable, since it leaves the Germans with no alternative -even as a forlorn hope. \ fight in the open would settle many ve"ed questions once and for all; but, if the Germans refuse to give us that opportunity, ought we to make their coasts the frontiers of our fleet and proceed to dig tli'em out? It is a ouestion of balancing tne risks against the results to be achieved. The risks are universally admitted to be colossal—so colossal, indeed, that, some of those most anxious for this ''grand offensive" want us to build an altosether new navy, designed on new principles (which thev describe only in vaguest terms), specially to carry out this operation. Others would be content for the Grand Fleet to take on the job.

DEFENCES OF GERMAN COAST.

Leaving the Baltic out of consideration for the time being, the German coast congists of two sides of a triangle lying behind the island <>: Hi-llynhnd and bounded on the. southwest by the island o;' Borkuin and on the north-east by (ap-

proximately) the island of Sylt. Prom Borkum to Heligoland is sixty miles, and from Heligoland to Sylt. anotlier fifty; and behind this short and easil v-defendcd line are the war porta of Ernden, YVilhelmshaven, Bremen, Cnxhuven, and Brunsbuttel, which is the North Sea outlet of tho Kiel Canal.

The whole Bight of Heligoland is thickly mined, and the chances are that the passages through the minefields are known only to the Germans. The first movement in any "digging-out" attempt on our part would be to remove the isines, for which purpose we should presumably send in the usual mine-sweepers, The Germans would promptly send out their destroyers to get rid of them, and, as sweepers are not built to fight, we should send in our destroyers to protect them. The Germans would then send light cruisers to deal with our destroyers, whereupon., of course, in go our light cruisers. This game of beggar-my-neigh-)>cr would go on until the Germans sent out their battleships—not, be it remembered, out into the open, but only far enough through the mine-fields for their guns to be able to drive off the force detailed to protect our mine-sweepers.

What do we do to counter the German battleships? Do we send in our own to steam to and fro along the edge of the enemy's mine-field, and within fifty miles of his submarine bases?

It does not sound very feasible, and I do not imagine there lives a naval officer sufficiently hare-brained to play such a game with the force upon which civilisation is depending for the defeat of .Germany. It is true that 011 more than one occasion a powerful German cruiser force has raced across the North Sea, fired a few shells into Scarborough, Lowestoft, or Yarmouth, and Returned without suffering any loss from our submarines or mines; but this "tip-and-run" sort of excursion is a vastly different business from settling down to remove from the enemy's coast a mine-field some hundreds of square miles iji extent, subject to tho constant attack of ships of all descriptions, and, in all probability, with the enemy's submarines laying fresh mines as fast as the old ones are trawled up. Suppose the seemingly impossible happened and that in due course—and after paying the due price—the mine-fields were removed. The next thing is to get at the German fleet and destroy it, and the German fleet, naturally enough, does not want to be destroyed. It therefore remains within the shelter of the coastal fortifications.

When you speak of a German naval base I hope you never get into your mind's eye a picture of a place like iScarborough or Blackpool or Yarmouth, dumped down or the edge of the sea. Those who know the position of our own dockyard at Chatham will be able to form a pretty accurate picture of such German bases as Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Brunsbuttel and Kiel. To reach Chatham from the s ea you have first to steam up the Thames estuary as far as the Noro and from there you have to make your way up the tortuous Medway for some miles before sighting the dockyard. That is the German principle, with the addeil fact that the whole coast is defended by concealed guns of the most powerful type and with subterranean and submarine torpedo stations from which dirigible torpedoes can be launched against any ship in the fairway.

THE LESSON OF THE DARDA. NELLES.

Brunsbuttel and the Kiel canal exit, for instance, lie about 30,00 yards (17 miles) beyond Cuxliaven up the Elbe. The guns of Cnxhaven have a reaeh of 25.000 yards seaward, and the navigable channel from that place up the river is rowhere more than 1000 yards in width, with every inch of it dominated by heavy guns.

One has only to recall the Dardanelles fiasco to imagine .within a little what a naval attempt to force the lower reaches of the Elbe would be like. The Dardanelles was defended on the German system—with heavy Krupp guns in concealed positions and with invisible stations ashore from which torpedoes can be fired and guided toward their quarry, while drifting mines thrown into the current can at any moment face the attacking ships with, perhaps, the greatest peril 0 f all. The Allies lost six battleships, sunk in the Dardanelles operations; but this is what happened on one 'day (March 18, 1915) when the fleet [tried to force its way through (the details being taken from Mr. Walter Boch's (.memorandum in the first .report of the Dardanelles Commission): — Irresistible, British battleship of 15,000 tons, sunk; Ocean, British battleship of 12,950 tons, sunk; Bouvet, French battleship of .11,843 ton<}, sunk, with nearly the whole of her crew; Inflexible, British battleship of 17,250 tons, badly damaged; Gaulois, French battleship of 11,088 tons, badly damaged, and had to be run ashore; SufFren, French .battleship of 12,521! tons, badly damaged, and had to be docked. In addition to these the French battleship Charlemagne had her stokehold flooded, and three- other British ships were more or less knocked about; the Albion, for instance, having her foreturret. put out of action for some days. All this happened in a few hours in an attack in Turkish waters. What does any sane person think would happen if we sent in the Grand Fleet to try a similar manoeuvre in the Elbe, with the Kiel canal as its objective instead of Constantinople? Is there the faintest suspicion of a doubt that the expedition would end in the most ignominious failure and the direst disaster? There surely cannot be two opinions on the point—and there i: certainly nothing whatever in. the situation, cither ashore or afloat, which would justify Us in accepting the terrible sacrifice and the decimation of the fleet that would he involved.

People—even very distinguished people tike Lord Sydenham—ask us if Drako and Nelson would have been content with the policy of "watchful waiting" that is the keynote of Grand Fleet strategy to-day. Well, so far as Drake is conoerned ; it is true that he went down to Cadiz in 1587 and "singed the King of Spain's beard," but he neither broke the power of Spain nor prevented the sailing of the Armada. It is also quite certain that if Drake had kept his fleet oft Cadiz, and waited for the Spaniards there instead of letting them get into the channel before lio set about them, the Armada would not 'have met the overwhelming fate that actually befell it.

WHAT WOULD NELSON HAVE DONE?

As for Nelson, who ever heard of him trying to dig the French iieet out of Toulon? He was not such a fool as I to pit his ships against forts—and he had neither mines nor .submarines to worry about. At the battle of the Nile he did sail in and attack—and all but destroy—the French fleet as it lay at anchor, but in the first place the harbor was undefended, and, in the second, the circumstances were such as fully to justify him in taking any risk. The French army was in Egypt, and Nelson's sole object was to cut off its

communication with France. It was ian urgent and vital matter. It would 'have justified Nelson in losing the whole of his own fleet provided he could afe the same time, have destroyed that under Admiral Brueye. That ho succeeded at a very small cost ; is a tribute to his genius ajul the capacity of those under him, but the essential point is that ho balanced the risk against t'he rosult, and acted accordingly.

! If there was anything great to be achieved by digging out the German High Sea Fleet, the task might be attempted. If the U-boats were so near beating us that the destruction of their bases remained the only remedy, then it would be perfectly right and proper for the Grand Fleet to expend itself, if need bo, in an attempt to destroy those bases. Only a few weeks ago, it was urged that this was the actual position at sea, but now we know better. We know that w# can get the better of the . submarine without throwing away the Grand Fleet, whose business is not to light submarines but to hold the aea against the best t'lie Germans can send to challenge it. Do not let us worry about the strategy of tho Grand Fleet or pay too much attention to tho views of admirals, long since pensioned, who never in their lives were given the opportunity of commanding a fleet.

It is a remarkable thing, but a true one, that there are thousands of people up and down the country who would willingly confess their inability to run a butcher's shop, or drive a indtor-car, or tell you how many feet of water there, are over the Dogger Bank, who are, nevertheless, confident that thoy could handle the British Navy better than those who are doing their best with it to-day, and who have been studying the problems of naval warfare since they entered the Britannia at tihe age of thirteen. !

Officers and men in the Grand Fleet are impatient to "get at" the full naval forces of the Kaiser, but so long; as those forces cling to shelter, what could our men usefully do? Experts and retired admirals tell us that ire cannot expect to command the sea without fighting for It, but the Grand Fleet's complaint for the last three years is that there lias only once been anyone to fight, and then the enemy was only intercepted by accident off Jutland Bank, within a couple of hundred miles of his bases, to which he returned at top speed. People who think the Navy has deteriorated because it isn't always fussing around giving pyrotechnic displays, have not taken the trouble to get hold of the rudiments of their own history. Our last war with France stretched, with a brief interval, from 1793 to 1815, and tin those twenty years only three big naval engagements were fought with the French. The idea that sea-power is a battering force is false. You can choke the life out of Germany with the stran-gle-hold, but you cannot punch it out of her by foolishly trying to bombard the Kiel Canal.