WAR AND THE WEATHER 613 



proach of a submarine difficult or impossible to see, and therefore help 

 the attacking vessel. We note that the weather was "bitterly cold" 

 at the time when the British cruiser Hawhe was torpedoed, so that the 

 chances of saving the men who were struggling in the water were greatly 

 lessened. Special precautions should be taken to guard against collision, 

 shipwreck and submarine attack, as the winter comes on. The German 

 fleet is doubtless waiting for a winter gale to scatter the British ships. 

 At the end of October a severe storm was raging in the North Sea — a 

 sure sign of the approach of winter — and was making life on board of the 

 smaller vessels, the torpedo boats and submarines, most uncomfortable. 

 Archangel, which evidently served as a very important port for the 

 Allies during the summer, is now frozen, and will remain so until next 

 summer. 



Thus, throughout the area of the Great "War, the weather from day 

 to day is playing its part in the campaign. Modern military tactics; 

 modern armament ; modern methods of all kinds, have not in any way 

 eliminated the weather element as a factor of the greatest importance. 

 The story of the present war does not, thus far, read so very differently 

 from that of the stories of previous wars in the same countries. In 

 1586, the Spanish, as related by Motley, encountered such terrible rains 

 on the Meuse that they retreated. A previous fall of ISTamur, in 1692, 

 was largely due to heavy rains which prevented the English from cross- 

 ing the river and meeting the besieging French army. The English in 

 Flanders in 1708-09 endured great hardships on account of deep snows, 

 which blocked the roads. The cold was intense and the troops, who were 

 short of firewood, suffered severely. The Duke of Marlborough wrote 

 (1708) : "Till this frost yields we can neither break ground for our 

 batteries nor open our trenches." The French, in Poland, in 1806-07, 

 found mud 3 feet deep; drenching rains; driving sleet; melting snow 

 and icy streams. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, over the 

 same historic ground in France, we read of torrential rains; floods; 

 icy roads ; muddy fields, and of sufferings on account of cold. 



So the story goes on, from age to age, from one war to the next. 

 War and the weather: they are related to-day, as they were in the past, 

 physically, physiologically, psychologically, and as they will be until 

 wars shall cease. 



