LAND AND WATER 
December 26, 1914. 
MAP TO ILLUSTRATB EAST COAST EAJD. 
The first of these is material. From this standpoint the 
German effort may one© more be described as absolutely 
futile. The military advantage is entirely nil. A fleet 
faced with the dread necessities of war is not to be deflected 
from its course by any ruthless massacre of civilians. The 
cbjective is too transparent altogether. It has been left to 
the twentieth century and to Germeiny to eee advantage 
sought out of objectless terrorism. For any parallel we must 
go back to the days of Assyrian warfare, where it was cus- 
tomary to impale prisoners outside the walls of a besieged 
town in order to frighten the enemy. 
Tliat was well over two thousand years ago. Even in 
those days it merely resulted in convincing the unsophisti- 
cated enemy that Assyrian intelligence was at a low ebb. 
It certfcinly never had any material effect on results : it 
certainly never persuaded the besieged that surrender was a 
desirable thing. Along these lines the German East Coast 
slaughter of non-combatants was insanity pure and simple. 
The second point is psychological, and the result is quite 
the same. The British Navy is not to be terrorised by the 
destruction of a few churches, hotels, boarding houses, and 
gasholder.?. The strength of the Navy is unaffected thereby. 
There are, however, some serious psychological results. 
The British Navy is by way of being rather sentimental. 
The ruthless and wanton murder of women and children will 
stir it to its utmost depths. Up till now it has regarded the 
enemy with a mild disfavour, but nothing more. It realised 
fully that its duty was to destroy the enemy along the linea 
of " England expects," etc., but it fought without hate. 
" England expects " is, however, now a back number. 
" Remember the women and kiddies " will be the watchword 
of the next British warship that goes into action, and it will 
be the watchword of the entire Navy for the rest of the war. 
It supplies an antidote to " Der Tag," and a very useful 
antidote, since it is based on current conditions. 
Here surely the Germans have damaged themselves 
badly psychologically : but off Whitby, which they reached 
last, they damaged themselves in another way. Off 
"Whitby they hastily fired twice as many shells as they fired 
anywhere else, and they fired them in about a quarter of 
the time and_ with about a tenth of the net result elsewhere. 
The logical assumption of this— the last of the bombard- 
ments—is that they knew that British warships wer© nearly 
on them. At once they began to shoot wildly— the inevi- 
table evidence of fear. 
They may have frightened some of our harmless civilian 
people a good deal, but all the indications are that they have 
frightened themselves a good deal more. And the more of 
this sort of warfare that they attempt the more they will 
damage themselves, for they know what the feelings of our 
fighting men will be on the matter. 
Working out profit and losSj( we arrive at the following : — 
Dr. 
British hate created. 
Vengeance created. 
Neutral sympathy strained. 
Cr. 
Many civilians killed or 
wounded. 
Some property damaged. 
It is not a very satisfactory balance-sheet from the 
Geripan point of view. Also we may further add that so 
fatuous an undertaking could only have been dictated by the 
■pressure of our Navy on German public opinion. One way 
and another, it seems abundantly evident that our Sea Power 
has driven the Germans to make fools of themselves. 
We now come to the third point. So far it does not seem 
to have attracted the attention that it deserves. The Ger- 
mans describe themselves as having bombarded " fortified 
places," and here they appear to be technically correct and 
" justified at law " for all that they have done 1 
Article' I. of the Hague Convention runs as follows : — 
The bombardment by naval forces of ports, towns, vil- 
lages, dwellings or buildings which are not defended is for- 
bidden. 
A place cannot be hombarded solely because automatic submarine 
contact mines are ancliorcd off the harbour. 
Here comes the crux of the question. Great Britain and 
Germany both refused to agree to the italicised portion of 
the above: contending that minejs constituted a greater 
danger than guns to an approaching naval force. 
Technically, therefore, on the assumption that there are mine 
fields, Whitby, the Hartlepools, and Scarborough were all* 
" fortified places." 
Article II. of The Hague Convention has a preamble about 
delay being granted before . . . . " workshops and plant which 
could be utilised for the needs of the hostile fleet or army " 
.... can be destroyed. This definition is vague. The word 
"could" is comprehensive enough to include technically all 
shops and hotels, gasholders, and garages, and pretty well 
anything else that an enemy might like to include — even 
churches t And the final paragraph of Article II. runs: — 
If military necessities demand immediate action and do not 
permit of the delay being granted, it is understood that the pro- 
hibition to bombard the undefended towns holds good as in the 
case given in paragraph I. and that the commander shall take 
all the measures required in ordei- that the town may suffer as 
little harm as possible. 
So far so good. But an intermediate paragraph acquits 
the commander from all responsibility for "unavoidable 
damage." 
* My authority in this matter is The Laio of Naval Warfare, by 
J. A. Hall, Barrister-at-Law, aud Lieuteuant of the R.N.V.R. (Chap- 
sian & Hall, publishers.) 
la* 
