J^anuary 2, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY WATER. 
By FRED T. JANE. 
HOTE.-Thl. ArtlcU h.. b«.a .obmltted to th. Pre,. Bar.»n, which doe. not object to th. publication t. e.B.or.d, tad t.ke. no 
re.pon.ibility for the correctnei. of the ttatemeat.. 
THE NORTH SEA. 
AN aftermath of the East Coast raid is a good deal 
of questioning as to why the East Coast is not' 
defended by heavy guns. The answer is that a 
consistent feature of British policy has been to 
limit shore defences to the absolute minimum, on 
the grounds that every fartliing spent on forts is 
necessarily that number of farthings less on mobile defence, 
Since there is necessarily a limit to expenditure. 
_ That this policy is a right one can liardly be denied, and 
the arguments in support of this view are many and various. 
First and foremost, we have to remember the circumstance 
that if a place be unfortified and undefended it is (or, rather 
was) recognised as immune from attack. To put a few guns 
to defend it, therefore, merely lays it open to be damaged, 
as It then ceases to have a non-oombatant status. 
Furthermore, supposing a place to be defended with— say 
— 81X guns. It is obvious to anyone that if the enemy means 
to attack he will come with enough ships and guns to over- 
whelm those six. He has practically unlimited guns avail- 
able. Along these lines secondary fortifications are necessarily 
a sheer waste of money. 
First-class fortifications could in no case be erected every- 
where, except at an enormous expense for construction and up- 
keep, which could never be justified. 
Such fortification of a coast line has been done — it has 
been done by Germans on the North Sea front. But, compared 
to ours, her sea front is almost infinitesimal. There remains 
also the fact that, though by this expenditure she has made ill 
practically impossible for our fleets to approach her coasts, it 
is only at first sight that this looks like'a gain. The seeming 
gain is purely imaginary, since, had the money expended in 
fixed defences been spent in ships, the German Fleet would 
have been quite equal to ours, and she would not have been in 
her present position of having her trade swept from the seas. 
Conversely, had we fortified our East Coast in any really 
eflTicient style, we should not have had a Fleet capable of 
sweeping the seas, and food by now would probably be at 
famine prices. 
Finally, of course, there is the fact that the bombardment 
of coast towns is such an utterly senseless operation from the 
point of view of military advantages that no one could have 
reasonably aniioipated the occurrence of such an incident. 
Also the risks undertaken were obviously out of proportion to 
any possible advantage even from the warped German concep- 
tion of naval warfare. 
This, I hope, will serve to explain clearly why our coast 
towns are generally unfortified, and why any fortresses to pro- 
tect them could not have been " value for money," even against 
the German Navy. 
In further connection with the East Coast Raid, one or 
two correspondents have called attention to the fact that 
photographs of German uneiploded projectiles fired by the 
battle-oruisers into Seaton-Carew appear to be capped armour- 
piercing projectiles, such as would be used for firing at a 
warship, and useless for a shore bombardment. It has been 
asked whether this indicated a lack of organisation in the 
German Navy. 
The answer, I am afraid, is in the negative. So far as 
I know, modern German big guns are supplied with one typo 
of projectile only. This is, of course, an *■' all-purposes " 
shell, fitted with a cap for armour piercing, if necessary, and 
carrying a considerable high-explosive charge, the nature of 
which is a carefully guarded secret. It is claimed to be con- 
siderably superior to lyddite, and to be identical as to compo- 
sition with the charge now used for German torpedoes. These 
have certainly proved themselves capable of violent damage. 
The number of German shells that failed to burst was^very 
small, and some failures were inevitable. But there is nothing 
in any of the evidence to suggest that A. P. shells were fired " by 
mistake." Wo must content ourselves witli the Whitby evi- 
dence, alluded to last week, as conclusive proof tliat, towards 
the latter end of the Raid, the Germans, knowing that British 
defending forces were coming up, got " nervy." 
Perhaps the most curious point raised by correspondents is 
in conneciion with my statement that the Germans regard the 
Derffinger and Scharnhorst as one and the same thing in the 
matter of rating. People write and challenge me to produce 
a single British publication which admits any such thing. 
There is no such publication. The trouble is entirely duo 
to careless phraseology on my part; though even so it should 
have been clear that in a matter of this sort what we think 
counts for nothing. The point I sought to make in the issue 
of December 19 was that the Germans malie no "official" 
difference between the Derffinger and the Seharnhorst. 
Officially they refuse to recognise the existence of a " battle 
cruiser" in the way that wo do. While the sentence com- 
plained of was being printed the Germans, using their battl«- 
cruisers as " cruisers," were slaughtering ihe non-combatants 
on our East Coast— a clear indication that they consider their 
battle-cruisers as vessels attached to the battle fleet but not 
units of it. 
This is a point which later on may possibly assume very 
considerable importance. So long as the Germans employed 
small cruisers or auxiliary cruisers for commerce destruction, 
it enabled us to use all our old protected cruisers, if not to 
chase them, at any rate to cut them off or surprise them, as tlio 
slow old Highflyer surprised the fast liner Raiser Willielm der. 
Grosse. 
Once, however, the battle-cruiser is imported on the scene 
as a corsair, iK)nditions will materially change ; and instead of 
twelve to one against the corsairs, the superiority will sink to 
something like two to one. 
Of course, there is one particular factor — the German 
battle-cruiser has to get out, and also get clear of pursuit by 
our battle-cruisers. This is a problem of some considerable 
magnitude. Still, since it offers Germany her best chance of 
"doing something," it is probably a feature of the German 
programme. 
Regarding matters in tliis liglit, we may probably take it 
that the East Coast Raid was tentative in object. We may 
look for repetitions, perhaps. Should these take place, they 
will be designed to familiarise us with the idea that "baby 
killing " (to quote Mr. Churchill's immortal phrase) is the be- 
all and end-all of German naval strategy. 
In connection with the next raid, or the next again, or 
the next after that, we may expect to see the German High 
Fleet come out. Not very far perhaps, and certainly not witli 
any idea of a decisive action. But with a very decisive inten- 
tion of covering a rush of the German battle cruiyers on to 
the High Seas. 
The late Commander Rice, R.N. (who met' an untimely 
death in an aeroplane disaster off Calshot), was universally 
recognised as " the coming man" of the British Navy. It 
was an axiom of his that it was absolutely futile to specu- 
late what the enemy would do : that the correct procedure was 
to put yourself in the enemy's place and then ask yourself : 
" What is t7ie best possible thing to do in the circumstances ? " 
Then, supposing you were equal to the enemy in brain power, 
you were in a position to meet and defeat his best effort. If, 
however, you regarded the probable movements of the enemy 
merely from your own point of view, you were liable to be 
taken at a disadvantage from the ocourrenoe of the unexpected 
instead of the anticipated. 
A sounder philosophy than this was probably never pro- 
pounded. From our point of view any East Coast raid de- 
signed to intimidate our trade can only end in disaster to 
the corsairs. But if we dispassionately put ourselves in the 
enemy's place the point of view is materially altered. It is 
no longer a question of the best way of winning on the water, 
where victory is humanly speaking impossible: it becomes a 
question of how to achieve the maximum of mischief. 
"Attrition " was merely a Bernhardi theory which cir- 
cumstances have already shown to be faulty, owing to his in- 
ability to realise the cardinal point that where it is a matter 
of a hundred against fifty an attrition of two to one merely 
leaves matters as before, and that consequently something like 
the abnormal figure of tliree to one has to bo achieved, and 
even this — at present rates — would take years to accomplish. 
Obviously, therefore, some other plan is required, and the 
utilisation of big battle cruisers in the role for which they 
were originally designed seems the most feasible of any. 
The wise prophet always " hedges." I also will hedge by 
pointing out that German plans are always liable to be in- 
fluenced by " Mahan theories." Mahan, in the plenitude of 
his rooipo for the command of tho sea, never properly realised 
that the Power to which that is unattainable is driven to 
seek "other ways." He was content to point out the futility 
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