ITALY AND U-BOAT WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1918, Page 7

ITALY AND U-BOAT WAR.

. NEW PROBLEMS OF THE - MEDITERRANEAN, There is a naval aspect of the Italian crisis which is itself of the utmost gravity, but has not yet received due recognition (wrote the naval expert of the London Daily News recently). Next to the sea, the principal line of Germany's ambition i s in the Near and Middle East, but hitherto the Turks have completely faiied her, mainly because- of the relative security of * our traffic through the Mediterranean, and all its consequences, Sir Eric Ocddes made it fairly apparent that the Mediterranean is the least satisfactory of all the soas from the point of view of our work against the (J boat, and before Mackensen's offensive began the Berlin authorities were issuing boastful communiques relative to the "heavy blows" that were being struck "with conspicuous success" against Italy's maritime communications. Our own authorities are- silent on the point, but it would seem that Hindenburg—an undoubted adept in the art of amphibious strategy—tried to put up a sort of U boat barrage witb the object of preventing the arrival of those supplies and munitions from overseas udod which Italy is so notably dependent." Our most effective hold on the U boat in the Mediterranean is provided by the barrier we are able to maintain across the Straits of Otranto, and the one thing which enables us to maintain this barrier is the possession of secure and well-equipped bases on the Italian coast. Were these no longer at our disposal—as in the case of a~ German overrunning of Italy—we sbould have no nearer base than Malta, and that is 350 miles away. Had the Germans "been permitted to succeed in their designs against Italy, nothing could have prevented them from overrunning the Mediterranean with submarines, and a most dcadlv blow would have been struck at one'of the most vital of the Allies' lines of sea com(munication. One has only to consider the position, and the system of Biipnly, of our armies in Salonika, Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia to realise the position.