NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ON Tuesday the French Government announced their deci- sion to concentrate almost the whole of the French Navy in the Mediterranean. This decision was taken in June. Admiral Bone de Lapeyrere's fleet will include eighteen battle- ships and six large armoured cruisers. This concentration, it is explained, is merely a return to the situation of 1909, when all the French battleships were in the Mediterranean. The pres- sure of work in the dockyards of Toulon and Bizerte, rather than strategical considerations, caused the transference of the so-called Third Squadron to Brest. Now the docks at Toulon and Bizerta are sufficiently improved to do all the work required of them. Finally, it is pointed out that in the event of a European war the obvious theatre of operations for the Powers of the Triple Entente would be the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean.
