BLOCKADE BY TERROR.
THE logic of desperation has caught Germany in its coils, and it may be taken for granted that her submarines, so far as they can, will henceforth commit murder and piracy in the so-called war zone against the commerce of the world. Germany has, in fact, gone to war with the whole world. We have mentioned elsewhere the mad arguments with which she claims justification. We hays long since come to the conclusion that it is waste of time to try to understand how the mind of Germany works. It is enough to record its singular processes. Like Mr. Micawber, the German rulers seem to think that when they have said a thing they have also done it. Mr. Micawber believed that he had discharged his debt to Traddles when, with magnificent formality, he had given him a new I.0.17.; and Germany thinks that she has blockaded Britain because she has said that it is so. There is no blockade by ships ; it is a blockade by terror. Without the material means to carry out her threat, Germany has the will to sink every ship, of what- ever nationality it may be, which appears in the British seas pointing towards a British port. The one and only reason for this crime is, of course, that Germany has lost the game at sea. All international laws and customs relating to naval war have embodied the inevitable supposi- tion that one side would be winning the war and the other side losing it. The right to capture enemy ships is freely conceded to belligerents who have the power to take them into port A belligerent which cannot capture and take into port the merchantmen of her enemy cannot do so simply because her naval power is inferior to her enemy's. The laws of civilized men presume that a nation which cannot win fairly will admit itself to be beaten. But Germans talk as though any such presumption must necessarily be absurd. " England is beating us," they seem to exclaim. "That is against all nature! God can never have intended it! All devices must be fair in preventing such a disastrous thing." This sounds quite insane and hysterical, we know, but we cannot for the life of us trace anything more nearly approaching a rational view of the situation than the thoughts we have attributed to Germany. Of course the moral effects of the blockade of terror will be exactly nil. We can quite believe that a few more ships than before will be torpedoed and lost with all hands, but the percentage of losses, at the worst, will be very much lower than the estimate made before the war. " Carry on" is the motto for the merchant service. And we are glad to know that it is carrying on just as though nothing in particular were happening. We think, indeed, that we can trace among hundreds of officers of the mercantile marine something like enjoyment of the novel condi- tions. They are suddenly promoted by circumstances to combatant rank. They are anxious to display their skill in dodging and fooling submarines. They remember that if they ram a submarine they may win one of the substantial money prizes offered by private persona. The Admiralty will be wise if they trust to this spirit. There is no used for precise instructions to merchant skippers. If there is a way out of a difficulty, they will find it. As
for neutral ships, it would probably be a mistake to think that the sinking of a neutral ship is sure very soon to cause hostilities between some fresh Power and Germany. Cargo vessels flying the American flag, for example, are not numerous. And even if an American ship wore sunk, there might be no traces left by which anything could be proved. Again, the known fact that a ship has been blown up frequently leaves the most careful observer doubtful whether the instrument of destruction wag a torpedo or a mine. As many neutral ships have already been sunk by German mines, the situation would hardly be changed. In short, the Germans are not behaving very differently from the way in which they behaved before the mystical date of February 18th. They have invented a new phrase and invited us to shiver—that is all. The Chinese warriors who try to terrify their enemy by making faces might now point to the august support of their methods which is provided by a great European nation.
In the long survey of the naval situation which he made in the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Churchill announced that the Allied Governments would answer the German " blockade" by applying for the first time the full force of naval pressure, and, for the rest, though he admitted the probability of some losses through naval assassination, he said that no vital injury would be done. The game is in the hands of our shipowners and their skippers. The Navy has done, and will do, all it can, but we must be pulled through this particular difficulty by the spirit of our merchant seamen. Mr. Churchill pointed out that so far we had not attempted to stop imports of food into Germany ; neutral ships had been allowed to trade direct with German ports. But a State which had placed itself, as a matter of deliberate policy, outside all inter- national obligations could not expect to be allowed the continued enjoyment of immunities. However great our difficulties might be on land, the Navy could ultimately, if necessary, decide the issue of the war by itself. The con- fidence with which Mr. Churchill made this statement was the outcome of his review of what the Navy had already accomplished. It is the facts of this accomplishment that we wish now to summarize. Whereas, said Mr. Churchill, an Army had to be improvised at the beginning of the war, the Navy was as ready for defence as the German Army was for offence. He gave three illustrations of naval readi-
ness :— "First of all ammunition. If hon. Members will run their eye along the series of figures for Vote 9, in the last five or six years, and particularly during the latter years, they will see an enor- mous increase in the Vote. In time of peso. one gets little credit for such expenditure ; but in time of war we thank God that it has been made. Then, Sir, oiL Most pessimistic, prophecies were 'node as to the supply of oil; but no difficulty has been found in practice in that regard. The estimate. which we had formed of the quantity of oil consumed by the Fleet in war proved to be muck larger than our actual consumption. . . . Then as to manning. No more widespread delusion existed abroad than that, although we might build ships, we could never find the men to man them. In some quarters of this country the idea had been fostered that when mobilization took place ships could not be sent fully manned to sea. But when mobilization did take play we were able to man —as I told the House we should be able to do—every ship in the Navy fit to send to nes. We were able to man a number of old ships which we did not intend to send to sea, but which, after being repaired and refitted, were found to have the possibility of usefulness in them. We were able to man, in addition, the powerful new vessels building for foreign nations for which no provisions had been made. We were able to man an enormous number—several score—of armed merchantmen which have been taken up and have played an important part in our arrangement. for the control of trace and trade."
These are instances of foresight for which the Admiralty deserve all credit. But we cannot help wondering why, when it seemed so simple to the Admiralty to provide these margins of safety, it seemed to the War Office so utterly unreasonable that they should be asked to supply similar margins in rifles and ammunition. The only civilian and the few young soldiers who made the demand some years ago were treated with the contempt meet for fools. Yet it was surely obvious all the time that if we became engaged in a struggle to time death in Europe there would have to be a great act of military improvisation. It was a fearful risk to take to have no rifles ready for a sudden emergency ; for rifles cannot be manufactured in a moment, or even in many weeks. Happily the dancer is now past, but we trust that what seems indispensable to the Admiralty may never again seem mere nonsense to the War Office.
Mr. Churchill went on to Bay that after the Falklands action only two small German cruisers and two armed merchantmen remained on the trade routes, and even these ships are now in hiding. During the past three months, although 8,000 British merchant ships have been continually at sea, only nineteen have been sunk by the enemy. The contrast between this wonderful achievement and the figures of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars is remarkable:—
" During those two great 'wars, which began in 1793 and ended after is brief interval in 1814, 10,871 British merchant ships were captured or sunk by the enemy. Even after the decisive battle of Trafalgar, when we had the undisputed command of the sea, so far as it can be tactically and strategically attained, the lose of British ships went on at a rate of over 500 ships a year. In 1806, 519 ships were sunk or captured—that is the year after Trafalgar —in 1807, 559 ships ; in 1808, 469; in 1809, 571; and in 1810, 619. Our total losses on the high seas in the first six months of the present war, including all ships other than trawlers engaged in mine-sweeping, including all losses by mines and vessels scuttled by submarines—cur losses in the whole of that period are only C3."
We quote these figures of losses both in the present and the past as Mr. Churchill gave them, but we may note that Mr. T. G. Bowles, in a letter to the Morning Post of Wednesday, disputes them on the authority of Lloyd's list. As regards transport work, Mr. Churchill said that since the beginning of the war one million men had been shipped between various points in the Empire under the care of the Navy, and not a single life had been lost. The large proportion of merchant ships which the Admiralty had taken over for their own use was explained by the fact that the Fleet has no dockyard or naval port at its back, for Rosyth is not yet finished. Supplies. stores, and fuel have therefore to be carried to the Fleet. by sea, and have, moreover, to be kept afloat in readiness.
Discussing the Dogger Bank action, Mr. Churchill said that it was even more important for what it proved than for what it had accomplished. It had vindicated, so far as it went, the theories of Lord Fisher both in ship design and in big-gun armament. Then followed a passage which is worth quoting in full :—
" The range of the British guns was found to exceed that of the German. Although the German shell is a most formidable Metre; meat of destruction, the bursting smashing power of the hoarier British projectile is decidedly greater, and—this is the great thing —our shooting is at least as good as theirs. The Navy, while, always working very bard—no one except themselves knows how hard they have worked in these years—have credited the Germans with a sort of super-efficiency in gunnery, and we have always been prepared for some surprise. in their system of control and accuracy of fire. Bat there is a feeling after the combat of January 24th that perhaps our naval officers were too diffident in regard to their own professional skill in gunnery. Then the guns. While the Germans were building 11 in. guns we built 12 in. and 131, in. guns. Before they advanced to the 12 in. gun we bad largo numbers of ships armed with the 12'5. It was said by the opposite school of naval force that a smaller gan fires Later' and has a higher velocity, and therefore the greater destructive power. Krupp is the master gunmaker in the world, and it was very right and proper to take rush a possibility into oonsideration. Everything that we have learnt, however, so far shows that we need not at all doubt the wisdom of our policy or the excellence of our material. The 18.5 in. gun is unequalled by any weapon yet brought on the scene. Now we have the 16 in. gun with which the five Queen Elkaheths and the five Royal Sovereigns are all armed coming into line, and this gun in quality equals the
gun and is vastly more powerful and destructive.
Thoroughly well deserved was the tribute which Mr. Churchill paid to the steaming of our ships. The results obtained have surprised everybody, and are duo partly to the high skill and the vigilance of the engineers, and partly to the excellence of the material. The episode of the 'Kent,' thirteen years old, designed to steam 231 knots, but steaming 25 knots in the Falklands action, and catching and sinking the 241-knot Niirnherg,' is a theme for an epic poet. Mr. Churchill easily made out his case that the Navy is as Bound as a bell, and "good, fit, keen, and honest."
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