The Times correspondent at Petrograd gives some instructive details about
the German expedition which landed in Finland last week. The German force of twelve thousand men had to cross the Gulf of Finland from Revel to Hango, a distance of about fifty miles. It had no opposition to fear by sea or land, and it had a Finnish vessel to guide it through the mine-fields. Nevertheless, the expedition required the services of thirty-six warships and transports. If the Germans were ever mad enough to attempt an invasion of this country, they would have to send at least ten times as many men, and would presumably use at least ten times as many ships. But an Armada of three hundred and sixty ships could not even be assembled in the Heligoland Bight without attracting the instant attention of our patrols. The Finnish expedi- tion thus illustrates the technical difficulties of invasion, familiar enough to sailors but persistently underrated by some landsmen.
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