October 24, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
I may be wrong, but I am of opinion that we should take 
vsry careful note of this ailair o£F the Dutch coast. It indicates 
that the Germans have a tenacity fully equal to our own. 
They are playing for the Empire of the Seas, and they are 
playing to win. The odds against them are stupendous, but 
they do not recognise these odda. 
The guns available on either side were as follows : — 
BoITISH. 
Two 6-in. (lOO-pdrs.) 
Fif;cca 4-ia. (31-pdrj.) 
Germ ASS. 
Twelve l-odra. 
Little wonder that our losses only amounted to five 
wounded ! 
A curious feature of the action is that it is stated to have 
occupied over an hour altogether. This probably included 
from the first shot fired in the chase to the sinking of the last 
enemy destroyer. Shooting from a destroyer at high speed is, 
however, always very difficult. 
Sufficient data are not available to form a connected story 
of what happened. We cannot rely much on the Dutch eye- 
witness who " knew the ships wei-e destroyers because they had 
four funnels." None of the British boats engaged have mora 
than three funnels, while all the Germans had but two. Hia 
other observations were probably equally at fault. 
The precise tactics, however, matter little. Of far more 
moment is the circumstance that the enemy was annihilated 
without appreciable loss. He had not a dog's chance — and 
that is the correct strategy of war. On each occasion that wo 
have met the enemy this has happened. 
THE BALTIC. 
News from the Baltic is still somewhat vague — for some 
reason or other no coherent official German report is available. 
The Kiel Canal has been closed to merchant shipping ; this 
probably to curtail information as to where the High Sea 
Fleet is. 
There are rumours of a German Fleet cruising near the 
Aland Islands, but it may possibly turn out that they are 
Russians. 
The ".ncident of most moment is the official Russian state- 
ment that on October 10th the Admiral Makaroff, while 
searching a suspicious fishing vessel flying the Dutch flag, was 
unsuccessfully attacked by submarines. On the following day 
her sistor cruisers, the Bay an and Pallada, were again attacked, 
the latter being hit and sunk with all her crew. The Pcdlada 
was a modem armoured cruiser of 7,775 tons, armed with 
two 8-inch, eight 6-inch, and a 7-inch belt. Hex speed was 
about 21 knots. She is the first modem ship (save the little 
Amphion) to be lost in the present war. A feature of tha 
design of this type ia a very complete series of unpierced 
bulkheads of great solidity. Theoretically, she was unsinkablo 
by one torpedo. Either, therefore, she was hit by two or 
more, or she happened to be struck in a magazine. 
In this connection German torpedoes appear to be mora 
violent in their action than do ours. A special new secret 
explosive has consequently been suspected, but evidence as to 
this is yet inconclusive — there is a great element of luck iu 
where a toi'pedo happens to hit. 
THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
There is no change to record. The bombardment of 
Cattaro continues. Photographs which have been published 
suggest that only old ships are actively engaged — which is also 
both reasonable and probable. It seems impi-obable that any- 
thing on a par with the German " 17-inch howitzers " on land 
is being attempted by thj ships; there is no reason why it 
should be. 
The usual Austrian destroyer is reported unofficially as 
" sunk," also an Austrian submarine. Stories of this kind 
are best accepted with caution. Indications generally are thab 
the Austrians are remaining in harbour. 
THE HIGH SEAS GENERALLY. 
At the moment of writing all German corsairs have dis- 
appeared. One or two vessels supposed to be their auxiliary 
colliers have been captured or detained, and this may partly 
account for the recent lack of activity. More probably, how- 
ever, it is part of the general plan of campaign designed to 
lull us into a temporary security. Possibly, however, our 
cruisers are too active to make commerce warfare alluring. 
In any case, nothing has so far happemed to render neces- 
saiy any consideration of the adoption of convoy, with its 
attendant inconvenience and expense. 
THE FAR EAST. 
The old Japanese cruiser TaJcachUio has been sunk by a 
mine. As a fighting unit she was quite obsolete. Operations 
otherwise continue much as usuaL 
FIELD ENTRENCHMENTS AND THEIR 
DEFENCE. 
By COL. F. N. MAUDE, C.B., late R.E. 
IN my previous article I gave rough illustrations of very 
simple sections of trenches, leaving out all dimensions, 
and I did this for a reason I shall now explain. 
Nothing in my experience disheartens the would-be 
student of these matters more than the diagrams in 
text books, marked minutely 4 feet 3 inches, 5 feofc 
6 inches, and so forth, many dozens of them, all of which 
he is told he must commit to memory for examination 
purposes. 
The whole thing seems so unpractical to him. If a man 
■wants breast-high cover when bullets are flying, or are likely 
to fly, he will dig till he gets it, without bothering at all about 
inches. But even in war bullets are not always flying; in 
peace, naturally, they never are, and it is essentially in peace 
that all instructional work has to be done. There will be 
lots of it in the new armies for the next six months. Hence 
these dimensions have to be fixed, because in peace what the 
whole squad wants is to get back early to their dinners, and 
unless you lay down distinct and definito dimensions of depth, 
width and task required from each man (which must be 
adhered to) the instructor has no irrefutable argument at 
hand with which to check shirkers. As many of my readers 
will probably be instructors in a very short time, I recom- 
mend these hints particularly to their attention. 
Moreover, where places have to be entrenched against time 
it is absolutely necessary to have some clear idea as to the 
amount of earth a man can throw out in a given time, before 
any reliable scheme for a whole position can be evolved. If 
the general gives his subordinates oight, twelve, or forty-eight 
hours to prepare a position, he must at least bo able to judge 
how much work ho can reasonably expect to find done upon it 
in the time, since his whole plan and distribution of troops 
must depend the duration of the defence which an allotted 
number of men can make in it. 
Generally, after a long peace, the tendency is to underrate 
very materially the amount of work that can bo done, with 
the result that works are not attempted at all for fear they 
should not be finished in time, or far more men than would 
suffice are allotted to their defence whose services, as a mobile 
reserve, may be badly needed elsewhere. 
I remember an old Ci'imean instructor telling us that the 
best guide as to what a man could dig out under fire was to 
back the champion man of one company against the champion 
of another to get out 100 cubic feet for drinks, and then note 
the result. I remember also one such competition in which 
the two men almost tied in one quarter of the time which tha 
book allowed for the job. These are hints not to be found 
in official textbooks, but they will be ecsceedingly useful none 
the less. 
The next point is of importance to all ranlcs alike, whether 
they have to dig trenches, or defend them, or both. It has 
been brought our very clearly in " Ej'e-witness's " last letter 
from Hcadquai-ters in France. The writer is himself an 
engineer officer, and the point raised is one around which a 
great conflict has raged for many years. 
Generally, everybody at first thinks that the greater the 
range at which he can see his enemy the better the chance 
of shooting him down before he is reached by the enemy. It 
seems such plain commonsense that if a man must spend thirty 
minutes under fire in trying to get at you, you will have thirty 
t.imcs more chances of hitting him than if the distance is so 
short that ho can cover it in only one. 
I5« 
