December 5, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY WATER. 
By FRED T. JANE. 
NOTE.— Thti ArtleU hai beeo (abmittei! to the Preii Bure&o, which doei not object to the pablicttion t( eeniored, tad takei n» 
reipoDiibility for the correctneti of the ttatementi. 
THE NORTH SEA, ETC. 
THE most important naval event to date took place 
oa November 23, when British warships bom- 
barded and destroyed the dockyard which the 
Germans were creating at Zeebrugge. Unofficial 
details, which read true, report the destruction 
of six submarines which had been sent there iu 
sections for assembling and the general annihilation of large 
quantities of stores intended both for submau-ines and aircraft. 
The otory that some of the submarines were hastily launched 
and escaped sounds very improbable. 
The importance of the event liea in the fact that sub- 
marines operating from Zeebrugge might well have neutralised 
or destroyed our inshore squadron, attacks from near at hand 
being far more serious to meet successfully than any from 
further away. The gunboats could, perhaps, have continued 
to operate, but any battleship work against the German posi- 
tion would have been out of the question, or only to have 
boen performed in the face of certain risk of considerable loss. 
That section of the public which still labours under the 
misconception that "our Navy is doing nothing," may now 
reflect that in addition to that "silent pressure of sea power " 
which is making itself seriously felt in Germany by economio 
pressure, a visible example of the command of the sea has 
been given. Had it not been possible easily to destroy the 
new German base at Zeebrugge, the Germans would not only 
have been far more favourably situated for the capture of 
Calais, but also an early invasion of England in some force 
would have been very much in the range of possibilities — or 
for that matter probabilities. 
Germany lacks neither the men nor the transports. Her 
problem is mainly one of numerous suitable bases, because — ■ 
as pointed out a fortnight ago in these notes — it is clear that 
Germany has no faith whatever in Mahan theories. (I refer 
to an incident in the Black Sea, in which by pure luck the 
Ilussian fleet intercepted and defeated a non-convoyed Turco- 
Gcrman oversea operation.) 
The risk of failure of any such bold attempt with unpro- 
tected soldiers in transports is governed by distance. The 
greater the distance the greater the risk. We may take it 
that if once a base had been established at Zeebrugge, well 
protected by submarines, a sufficient number of the liners 
now laid up at Hamburg would have reached the neighbour- 
hood of that place. 
This question of a short passage has always been the 
integral point of all schemes for the invasion of England. 
Napoleon schemed it (or professed to do so) with a "slipping 
over" while the fleet was otherwise engaged, and as Nelson 
himself was employed in an abortive attempt to destroy the 
French transports, it is clear that our Admiralty in the days 
of the great war regarded the danger as being very serious. 
There is, however, a closer analogy — the Spanish Armada. 
Though our popular histories put it otherwise, the Spanish 
fleet was not, and was probably never, regarded in Spain as 
being a match for the English fleet. The integral idea was, 
perhaps, that it would "occupy" the English fleet, but the 
invasion itself was to come from Flanders, and the Armada 
had general orders to ignore the English fleet. Its main 
duty was to see to the safe convoy from the Flemish coast of 
the Duke of Parma and his army, and the real failure of the 
operation was that the Dutch, having sufficient sea power, 
.blockaded Parma's transports. In a word, the underlying 
idea was a ruUitanj movement rather than a naval one. 
With Zeebrugge as a base, with submarines operating 
therefrom, the German.s would have been in somewhat the 
position which the Spaniards had planned to be in in Eliza- 
bethan days. At any rate, the basic idea seems to be some- 
what the same — the sea being primarily regarded as so much 
apace over which troops are to be moved and the war.sliips 
thereon analogous to a cavalry screen or troops guarding the 
lines of communication. 
All things considered, this is probably, to the German 
mind, the best use to which an inferior fleet can be put. But 
— soa warfare and land warfare do not run on parallel lines, 
hence the supreme importance of tlie Zeebrugge incident. 
Owing to our command of the sea, the integral factor of ths 
German scheme, to wit Zeebrugge, has ceased to exist. 
Similarly the frantic eflorls of the Germans to reach 
Calais represent a gigantic blunder, a prodigious waste of life 
for an object which, if attained, would be entirely negatived 
by the fact that our Navy controls the seas. 
The Germans to-day appear to have made exactly the sama 
mistake which Philip of Spain and Napoleon made in the 
past — that is to say, placing a military mind to control and 
scheme for what is essentially a naval operation, though the 
German error is far worse than Napoleon's. The flat-bottomed 
hoaXs of his invasion force were at least safe while they waited. 
MAP TO ILLU.STRATE GERMAN INVASION .SCHEMES AND THE APPBO.KI. 
MATE UWTANCKS TO BE TRAVKB-SEL) OVERSEA llOTU PHILIP (Uf .SPAIN 
AND NAPOLEON MAINLY TRUSTED TO THE SHORT ULSTANI^B ALONO 
TUB UNK BOULOGNE— OSTBN 0. THE GERMAN MILri'AUV OBJECTIVE 
UAA BERN ABOUT THE SAME LIME Oil' COAST. 
Being of light draught these troop-carriers could only ba 
attacked by employing naval men in boats in a quasi-military 
insliore operation, and they were easily defended by ordinary 
military fire ; whereas to-day with air scouts to locate the 
foe destruction by long-range firing from ships is (as Zee- 
brugge indicates) a matter of absolute certainty, and also 
what anyone not obsessed with the idea that naval and 
military operations can be thought of in convertible terms 
would have known beforehand. 
Many "lessons" of Iiistory are of the obscure order; 
indeed Napoleon's schemes were sounder than is generally 
admitted. At least he had an intelligent idea about efficient 
bases, which is more than can be said for the German General 
Staff, which seems to have read history with a single eye to 
modern developments in its own favour, and a blind eye t» 
similar developments favouring the threatened enemy. 
So long as our Fleet is intact Germany might acquire 
Calais without the remotest extra risk of invasion of England 
re.sulting therefrom. Only from well-defonded German har- 
bours can any rsiid be carried out. These harbours are few 
and the distance to bo traversed not inconsiderable. 
The suspension of efforts to reach Calais may, however, 
mean the tardy recognition of the uselessness of it all eo far 
as military operations against these islands are concerned — ■ 
that is to say, an entry of German naval opinion into military 
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