ATTEMPTS AT INVASION. the chances of successful invasion of these
islands, or even of the landing of large raiding parties, were very small indeed. That, however, they would go on to say, must not in the least prevent them from trying the impossible, provided that activity were barred to them in other directions, and an attempt at invasion of these islands remained the only thing they had not tried— the only door at which they had not knocked. Translated into terms of immediate action, this means that if the Germans, as seems possible, are held on the Vistula, and also in the western theatre of the war, and if, for the time at any rate, there is a condition approaching stalemate, they will be certain to attempt an invasion. They must do something, they must keep the ball rolling and the pot boiling, and the only thing that remains for them to do is to try to get at us at home. If they succeed they will deal the Alliance the blow at the heart which will be fatal. In that case the subjection of the whole civilized world will be only a question of time.
Time being against her, a condition of stalemate on her frontiers is a hopeless business for Germany. Invasion, then, is a logical necessity. It is true that the chances are small, and that failure might mean the loss of a quarter of a million Germans or more, but to the German military philosopher that matters nothing. He would ask you : "What object is there in possessing a quarter of a million armed men unless you use them ? And the only way to use them is to fling them on the enemy. To keep them unused is, from the strategist's point of view, just the same as letting them be killed in sunk transports or mowed down on English battlefields. To decide the problem of invasion or not invasion by any thought of the losses involved is ridiculous. The only question is how and where the quarter of a million men can be best made use of. If the answer is, In trying a scheme of invasion, then the scheme must be tried." Therefore, as we have said, if it should turn out in the course of the next week or so that the armies have fought themselves to a standstill, the Germans are certain to take up the question of the invasion of Britain and push it through with all the rush of which they are capable. No doubt they would prefer to postpone the attempt till the policy of naval attri- tion had met with greater success than it has already. It must be admitted that, though there has been a good deal of attrition in both navies, on the balance the Germans have lost considerably more by it than we have. In other words, the conditions for a rush on England cannot be considered more favourable, but less favourable, than they were at the beginning of the war, or, shall we say ? at the end of the first three weeks of war, which on the whole was the most favourable moment. The Expedi- tionary Force had then left, and our auxiliary troops here had not pulled themselves together as they have done now.
What we have been saying does not mean, of course, that the Germans will not still try to improve their position by attrition before they begin their raid. One would imagine rather that the first stage of the invasion policy, presuming that there is a real condition of "chock-a- block "on land, and that the Germans are not being pushed there too busily by our troops, would be reckless and daring attempts to reduce the number of our capital ships by submarine action and by destroyer raids. That submarines will ever really be able to get rid of our naval supremacy no sane person believes, but no doubt, if the German submarines had luck and did injure one or two of our big ships, it would put the Germans greatly in heart. We say "injure" advisedly, for though a torpedo can burst in pieces an obsolete cruiser twenty-five years old with very weak bulkheads, it by no means follows that anything like the same effect would be produced upon a modern ship of large size. In all probability one of our modern battle- ships or modern battle cruisers, unless a shot were extra- ordinarily lucky, would be able to keep afloat after being torpedoed. When the fervent attempt to expedite attrition has either succeeded or failed, the Germans would have to make up their minds to the final dash. Their transports are ready and lie floating on many a mile of the waters of the Ems River. First, we presume, would come the sub- marines, then the destroyers, then the light cruisers, then the battle cruisers, and last of all the great battleships. Behind them would march—we use a landsman's word advisedly—the transports. The notion is that this vast and mixed Armada could make its dash at our shores, coining on very much like the German columns which have attacked our positions in mass with their machine- guns in front. If they were undetected by our Fleet till they reached our shores, they would, it is suggested, beach the transports while the fighting craft formed a protecting iron ring around them, a ring outside which minelayers would have laid a plentiful store of mines. In this protected area the transports would disembark their men and stores with feverish haste. The horses would be thrown into the sea and left to swim ashore. The men would tumble into flat-bottomed boats specially provided for the purpose and towed by launches. Cranes on board the ships would lift the heavy guns into huge lighters brought from Germany, and then by inclined planes and so forth the guns would somehow or other be dragged up the beach : for it is quite clear that an army of non-marksmen —if we may, without offence, so describe the German infantry—could not afford to come without a very plentiful supply of powerful artillery. This does not, we confess, sound a very hopeful plan, but the German answer to such criticism would no doubt be : "It is a great deal better than doing nothing, and it may succeed. If it does, you are ruined. If it does not succeed, we are no worse off than we were before. We can easily spare two hundred and fifty thousand out of seven millions ! "
If, however, the German Armada did not succeed in getting out of Emden and the Bight of Heligoland with- out being sighted, and if the might of England, once more flushing " to anticipate the scene," found and engaged the enemy's battle fleet, the idea seems to be that, while the German submarines were endeavouring to sink our vessels and a great fleet action was going on, the transports, unnoticed in the turmoil, would rush to the selected place of disembarkation—here, too, protecting themselves by a ring of mines in case the great naval action should not go in favour of the Germans. Of course the trouble here would be that there might be enough of our submarines over and above those required for the battle work to follow the transports and get in amongst them. But once more comes the German answer : "It is better to try a desperate thing than to try nothing." It is conceivable, however, that we are wrong in suggesting that one place of disembarkation would be chosen. It is quite possible that another plan might be adopted, and that the invading host, instead of coming like a common shell, might burst in shrapnel on our shores—that is, that each transport over a wide area might have its own little bit of beach allotted to it, say on a fifty-mile front. Thus the army would be landed deployed and ready to advance on a broad front. The objection to this again is, of course, that the small detach- ments might be taken in detail and shot down actually on the shore by contingents of our men. Also our coasts are not exclusively composed of sandy beaches. But here, like a refrain, comes the German answer : " There are always risks, but armies are meant to run them."
We do not want to be foolishly optimistic, and we fully recognize that there is something, even if not as much as they suppose, in the German principle of running risks.
At the same time, and on a careful survey of the German metaphysic of invasion, we are still confident that the British or seaman's view is the true view of what will happen at an attempt at invasion before the command of the sea is secured, and that the German or lands- man's view is a thoroughly incorrect view. Here, no doubt, the Germans would tell us that, though it was once an incorrect view, it is now correct, because the sub- marine has altered everything. That, we venture to say, is a mistake. The submarine has turned out a much more powerful weapon than was supposed, but those who are frightened by it forget that, whatever the Germans can do with submarines to our battleships, we can do with submarines to their battleships, and still more to their transports. By its special occupation the transport must put itself into the position of inertia which is the submarine's opportunity. Then, again, we must not forget that, even if we indulge in the very hazardous theory that the submarine is now the only thing that counts, we have got double the number of submarines possessed by the Germans. Of course we fully admit that these paper calculations and paper considera- tions are always rather risky things, and have always been urged unsuccessfully against adventurous heroes. David, after all, beat Goliath by the vigour of his attack.
Still, is it not rather a, large order to compare the Germans with the unarmed shepherd-poet of the Judean bills ? Somehow the Pickelhaube looks wrong when posed on that fair head.
Trying to look at the matter as impartially, or, rather, as scientifically, as we can, we conclude that, though the Germans will probably be driven by their worship of logical necessity to attempt invasion, the wisest minds among them will consent to it very regretfully. After all, we are bound to admit that the old theory of the Fleet in being has proved much more of a reality than any one suspected. The German Fleet has been a thorn in our side. The existence of an unbeaten Navy lying in the Kiel Canal or the Baltic has very largely taken away from us that freedom of action which the command of the sea ought to confer on the nation which possesses it. Indeed, it may be said to have deprived us of the full command of the sea, even though it has not given it to any one else. If the German Fleet had come out at the beginning of the war and got the battle over, just con- sider the things which we could now do without difficulty. To begin with, we could get into the Baltic, and we could also collect an army and land it at some selected point on Germany's right flank which might greatly surprise her. Neither of these things can we attempt while the German Navy is in being. Therefore the whole British nation must fervently pray that the German Fleet, with its transports behind it, will come out and give us battle. We shall have an anxious time waiting for the result, but when the battle is over, unless we meet with some unfore- seen disaster, the ball will be at our feet. Happily, we believe that logic is once more to be on our side, and that, in spite of what the policy of the Fleet in being has done for Germany, her ships and transports will advance upon our shores as the great German columns advanced upon France. If our forecast is sound, we venture to say that we ought to erect a statue to the genius of German military metaphysics when applied to naval affairs. To get the naval battle over will be like having an aching tooth out. There is always a certain very minute amount of risk of an extraction ending fatally, but every wise man will run the risk to ease himself of his pain.
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