CORRESPONDENCE.
T-FFR BRITISH AND GERMAN FLEETS. [To THE EDITOR or TER ''srEcrAToR...] Stn,—My letter of Iast week has brought me three very interesting communications. The gist of them may be brought down to three inquiries. It is admitted that since the classic wars the vast changes in weapons and means of mobility have made corresponding changes in tactics. As far as land warfare is concerned, our own experiences in South Africa, and the teachings of the Russo-Japanese War, and of the more recent hostilities in the Balkans, have gone far to show the initiated what to expect in the war now opening on the Continent. But obviously as much cannot be said of the only two naval wars that have occurred since the introduction of breech-loading long-range cannon. The Spanish-American War and the battles of the 10th of August and Tsushima are not conclusive as to what will happen when the English and German Fleets meet. " If, then," I am asked, "you are at all confident of the result, what is the ground of your con- fidence?" A second inquirer says: "I accept in its fullest sense all you say in praise of the men at sea, but before the South African War, and indeed after it, the bungling of the War Office was proverbial. Have we any guarantee that the arrangements and preparations for which Whitehall is responsible have been any better done than was the work of the War Office before it was remodelled after the test of hostilities ? " The third question was perhaps natural after a. recent controversy. " May not the whole naval issue be decided by something which to us may look like little better than an accident—namely, some fortunate adventure with air- ships, seaplanes, mines, or submarines?"
Well, I am confident as to the result for the following
reasons. Supposing that in general efficiency, just as in general material, there is no great difference between the two fleets, there is yet a vast difference in numbers. Each fleet has, I believe, radically different tactical ideas, and this point I shall touch on later. Suffice it to say here that it is possible that our theory of the naval attack may prove to be wrong, without the Germans getting any advantage whatever from our error, although, of course, I am far from saying that our theory is wrong, because I believe it to be right. But, even with greater numbers and better tactics, the main reason for my confidence is that I know the men who have brought the English Fleet to its present stage of efficiency. At the Admiralty to-day, in Prince Louis of Battenberg, Admirals Sturdee, Leveson, Oliver, and Duff, we have men in charge of our strategical plans all of such exceptional ability and experience, all such profound students both of modern technique and of the lessons of history, that, from the facts of the case, the German Government could not possibly duplicate them. It is only within a very few years that the German Navy has possessed sufficient numbers to go in for manoeuvres on any large scale. Just as their ships do not do long-range battle practice with full charges, such as ours do, so they have not had the high-sea experience in cruising, in manoeuvres, sham fights, Itc., that ours have had, and the five officers whose names I have quoted have in the last six years had an aggregate of sea experience which should ensure their representing the best possible application of their historical and scientific knowledge to modern conditions. Admiral Sturdee's predecessor, Sir Henry Jackson—the only naval officer, by the way, who is a member of the Royal Society— has left brilliant work behind him at the Admiralty, and in all war plans that have been discussed and formed in the last few years the sailors have had the co-operation in the Imperial Council of Defence of the best intellects which soldiers and statesmen can bring to their assistance. Given, therefore, more numerous ships, of not inferior material value, manned by more experienced officers, and under the direction of the officers I have just mentioned, I can see no possible ground for doubting that victory must be certain.
During the first week of the war only three events of naval interest have been communicated to us. The Goeben' has come to an inglorious end under the Turkish flag. The Amphion ' has been lost by a mine, after the flotilla that her Captain so gallantly commands had sunk the mine-layer; and in the first encounter between ships and sub- marines, it is the submarine that has gone to the bottom. As to mines, they can to some extent be guarded against, but to a limited extent only. Floating mines in the open sea can be compared only with rocks in uncharted waters. No vigilance can avoid them altogether. It may be thought that the risks will be the same for both sides ; but this is not so. It is the more active fleet that runs the greater risks, because it faces the danger more frequently. But of one thing we may be assured. War once declared, the mine-layers will not have undisturbed opportunities for playing their devilish games. The risk, therefore, will become less, and not greater, as time goes on. The submarine danger is a different case alto- gether. The mine-layer scatters her mines broadcast, and chances an enemy, or a friend, or a neutral running into them. The submarine steals like an assassin on its prey. When it is successful the result is so terrific, and the process seems so simple and easy, that it is no wonder people of unbalanced minds are hypnotized by the event, and imagine these to be the be-all and end-all of naval fighting. But it would be just as sensible to assume that regicide was to be the be-all and end-all of differences as to forms of government. When the recent controversy was at its height, I asked a Captain what he would do if he saw a submarine in the neighbourhood of his ship. He said : "If I had any reason to expect submarines, I should, of course, have guns manned in the bows and on either broadside and the sharpest watch possible kept for periscopes. At the first sight of one, I should open fire with every gun that bore, and steer my ship straight at it. The way to treat a submarine," he said, "is to treat them as King Alfonso treated the bomb-armed Anarchist." You will remember that he rode him down without a moment's hesitation. When it is remembered that the submarine fires its torpedo from a fixed tube, that the view through a periscope is restricted and indistinct, that the submarine is sluggish to the helm and unhandy at any time, and that if shot were pitching near the periscope no view of any kind would be possible owing to the volumes of water that would rise, it becomes clear that, although by good fortune or good management a sub- marine might be got into the neighbourhood of a ship, the actual operation of attacking her by torpedo would be made so difficult as to be virtually impossible if the submarine were seen. It is, at any rate, comforting that this view, which was put forward very circumstantially in the recent Times controversy in two letters signed "R. N.," which express, I have reason to believe, the views of a very large majority of naval experts, have been confirmed by the first encounter with submarines in war. The value of sea- planes and airships will, it is almost certain, be entirely indirect. Their offensive powers against a battle-fleet can practically be ignored. This is not to say that there is no danger from them, but the danger is certainly remote. Whether this confidence as to the subordinate character of the influence of mines, submarines, and air craft in naval warfare is well founded or not, our Admiralty of recent years has not under-estimated their war value. If Mr. Churchill's administration has been conspicuous for nothing else, it has been made almost too conspicuous by his devotion to the flying branch.
And this leads one to the second inquiry addressed to me— namely, to what extent has Whitehall really prepared for war? Here undoubtedly we are on difficult ground. It opens the question whether our ships are of the best type, our guns of the right kind, and the ships' equipment as perfect as it should be, and as to all of these points there has been, and undoubtedly will be, the acutest kind of controversy. For eight years we have built no big ships of the line except those of the Dreadnought type, and there is no unanimity as to this being the ideal type. Indeed, one marked characteristic of the class when it started—namely, the exclusion of all except the biggest guns—has long since been dropped. But, broadly speaking, it seems worth saying this, that whether the Dread- nought type is the best or not, it is, at any rate, the type which the German Admiralty have imitated us in adopting. So far as this particular branch of naval policy goes, therefore, if Whitehall has blundered, Berlin has blundered likewise. As to guns, it is believed that we are no whit behind Germany either in the range or accuracy of the weapons we possess or in their capacity for rapid fire. It is said that the German guns remain in good condition after a larger number of full rounds than ours. This may be true without in any way meaning that our armament is inferior. We ought to sink the Germans before the guns are worn at all.
Much more controversy arises around the point whether our method of using guns, and the tactics we have based upon them, are sound. No one who has seen a modern battleship can fail to have been struck by the fire-control station on the tripod mast—or to have wondered whether it could possibly last through an action. Modern capital ships have not only these high control stations in which range- finders can be seen, but in almost all cases heavily armoured rangefinders are housed in every turret. The contemporary German ships have no fire-control tops, and in them only one rangefinder can be seen, and that one unarmortred. No other fire control of any sort or kind is apparent from an inspection of the ship itself from a distance. It is, of course, a common- place that the high fire-control positions in the English Navy arise from our cultivation of very long range fire with big guns, which itself was the occasion and excuse for the Dread- nought type. And these high stations have been perpetuated, because one school of gunnery authorities have held that without them accurate long-range fire cannot be attained.
We are driven, therefore, to one of two conclusions. Either the Germans have a system of fire control for long-range fire which is independent of observation from an elevated position, or they have abandoned the cult of very long range firing altogether. There is, of course, no doubt now that fire control at long. range is not dependent on masthead positions, but for all that it seems to be certain that the absence of these in German ships is due to an inveterate disbelief in the efficiency of long-range fire in any conditions. It would take me too long, and the argument would be too technical, to explain my grounds for this opinion. But there are many indica- tions that from the first the tactical ideas of the German seamen have been largely inspired by their military col- leagues, and that in consequence their battle tactics will be based upon a quick rush to close quarters, and that they will rely for victory upon the volume and rapidity of their fire in these conditions, for at short range no fire control is neces- sary. We shall, course, be ready for these tactics, and the war preparations of the Admiralty will be justified or con- demned, according as the vast amount of money and the still vaster personal effort which have been expended on fire control yield results in hits as the German approach is made. If I am right in my forecast of German tactics, it will be seen that the answer to the question—whether the fire-control station can be expected to last through action—answers itself. If these stations enable us to get hits at distances and in con- ditions of difficulty at which the Germans, who are without fire control, are unable to get hits, then the battle will be half over before our enemies have reached the range at which they hope to establish superiority of fire. If we cannot inflict crushing blows upon them during this advance, then our special efforts in gunnery will have been futile, and we must fight it out, so to speak, in point- blank conditions as the Germans themselves intend to do. But this is not to say that we shall fight at a disadvantage, for our guns for the most part are more powerful, and I cannot believe that in gunlaying and general efficiency, as measured by straight aiming and quick loading, we have anything now to learn.
Past Admiralty administration will be put to two other great tests. The first will be the putting to the proof of their war plans ; the second will be how the discipline and spirit of the Navy bear up under the hardships, the disappointments, and the inevitable losses of war. There need be no misgivings on the latter point.
I bad something to say last week on the general character- istics and inspiration of the officers. Men like these could not be what they are and where they are without having trained and inspired non-commissioned officers, petty officers, and men to a spirit very like their own. No one can associate to any extent with the Navy without recognizing that, class for class, he has run into a series of aristocracies. It was somewhat brutally said of Cromwell that he produced the best Army that Europe has ever seen because he paid his men something more than the market rate of wages, and con- sequently that man for man the Royalist forces, largely made up of free-lances and adventurers, had no chance against them. Well, British sailors, from boy to chief gunner, repre- sent the pick of the labour market to-day. They are better trained, better housed and fed, better paid, and have better prospects than any men in the class of life from which they come. And for all that, they are one and all aware that their main business in life is not self-promotion, but to fight for their country when the time comes, and now that the time has come we can count upon their proving this to us most con- clusively.
I must leave the question of the strategical and tactical preparation for which past Boards of Admiralty must he held responsible to a future letter.—I am, Sir, &c.,
OLIN CON7ECTUS.
Previous page
