LAND AND WATER 
January 16, 1915. 
toucTi wUb th© German Admiralty— they bave none of that 
iii.kpendencc wliieh obtains with naval writers in this country. 
Outside this, however, they are Germans and patriot*. In 
neitlier case can we possibly Imagine tlicm laying thein-selves 
out to explain what we ought to do to hurt them were what we 
happen to be doing not inconvenient to German naval aspira- 
tions. Q.E.D., what our Admiralty is doing is eflective and 
inconvenient to German hopes. 
THE HIGH SEAS GENERALLY. 
Lord Selborne and others have recently been criticising 
the Admiralty for sending the late Admiral Cradock to meet 
tlie enemy with insufficient force. 
These criticisms strike me as singularly unfortunate, 
because they display a marked failure to appreciate the actual 
circumstances. ^ . ^ , , 
Von Spee, with the Scharnhorst and Gneuenau, belonged 
to the China Station. Here we maintained (and any old Navy 
List will indicate) a force suflkient to deal with von Spee. 
The normal station of Admiral Cradock was in the Atlantic, 
where again the disposition of forces was equally adequate. 
Von Spee elected, or was ordered, to leave Kiao-Chau to 
its fate and to operate in a totally different quarter of the 
world. It was a smart move; but we should not blame Scot- 
land Yard if all the crooks of the West End suddenly trans- 
ferred themselves to AVhitechapel, and the local police were 
unable to cope immediately with the situation 1 
This, however, is a fairly exact analogy as to what actu- 
ally occurred. With all due deference to Lord Selborne and 
his friends, 1 maintain that to attack the Admiralty for in- 
adequacy in the matter of the supply of force to Admiral 
Cradock is as abeurd aa it is ill-timed— the more fco as the 
Canopus was sent to reinforce Cradock as a species of ultra- 
preoautiou. 
THE BLACK SEA. 
A large Turkish transport is reported to have been sunk 
on January 2 by strikiAg a mine at the entrance to the 
Dosphorus, and on the 5th another Turkish transport was 
sunk between Sinope and Trebizond. This vessel was being 
convoyed by the light cruiser Medjidieh, which was attacked 
by the Russian cruiser Pamiat Merkooria and a destroyer. 
As th© Pamiat Merkooria is considerably more powerful than 
the Turk, and the latter escaped, the action cannot have 
amounted to more than the exchange of a shot or two at long 
range. 
Stories of the Gocben continue to float round, and she is 
now reported to have struck a mine and been considerably 
damaged. She has, however, so often been reported badly 
injured that all stories about her are best accepted with 
reserve. 
On the 6th the light cruisers Bretlau and" Uamidieh are 
reported to have been engaged with Russian warships, and 
to have sustained considerable damage, but no further details 
are available at the time of writing. 
The principal feature of all naval operations in the Black 
Sea is the curious futility that characterisses them. The rival 
tIeetB are fairly equally matched in fighting value, with a 
balance in favour of the Turco-German combination. The 
operations should, therefore, by all the rules of naval strategy, 
have taken the fonn of a strong attack on the Russian Fleet. 
Instead of that we have had nothing but a series of trivial 
minor operations' and bombardments, which cannot possibly 
produce any main result. 
When, some little while ago, the Goehen encountered the 
Russian Fleet, or a portion of it, she was not engaged in seek- 
ing it; and, having met it, she was mainly engaged in avoid- 
ing action. Her real objective was apparently some triviality 
of minor value. 
There is presumably some underlying objective in these 
•ppareiitly aimless movements of the Turco-German force: 
but it is curious that the obvious circumstance tliat all these 
operations could lie more ea.sily and safely performed were 
the Russian Fleet defeated first should be so completely 
ignored. 
In the Mediterranean, as in the Nortli Sea, tlie inaction 
of the battle fleets of the Germanic powers is perfectly intelli- 
gible — their inferiority being such that anything of the nature 
of a fleet action would merely be courting disaster without 
object. We cannot attack them because there is nothing to 
attack. In the Black Sea, however, more even conditions pre- 
vail, and the Russians have certainly been out ready to give 
battle. The chance to attack was given ; but not accepted by 
the enemy. 
NAVAL LOSSES. 
The war afloat h.-vs now continued long enough for us to 
endeavour to arrive at some kind of profit and loss account. 
It is not to be arrived at exactly, because, apart from the 
fact that tonnage is little or no guide, there is the added com-* 
plication that on both sides there is a tendency to conceal or 
to minimise losses. 
Generally speaking, w© may say that on both sides, if 
there has been a heavy loss of personnel, a loss of /natcnel has 
been promptly owned up to — a piece of frankness due mainly 
to the impossibility of concealment. But whenever the crew 
or the bulk of tho crew have been saved, nothing about 
material loss has been allowed to transpire. 
This, of course, is in accordance with all the precedents 
of wai'fare— it is folly to discloso what can be concealed. It 
is a consideration of this circumstance which prevents mo 
from giving any exact detailed statement as to relative posi- 
tions now and when the war started. 
There has, further, to be taken into consideration tho 
circumstance that on eacli side new ships have been added. 
The profit and loss account, therefore, cannot possibly bo 
accurately re};resented merely by those tabular lists of losses 
with which the d.-vlly Press has familiarised us. 
As statements (saving for the factor of concealed losses) 
they are valuable : but they are practically no index whatever 
to the real relative position of affairs, while they are further 
liable to produce an absolutely uncalled-for pessimism. 
In the following statement I have endeavoured by the 
use of plus and minus signs of various sizes to represent more 
or less graphically the approximntc effect of the war upon our 
Navy and the German fleet, taking into equal consideration, 
all the various factors of loss, new construction, purchases, 
and so on and so fortli. A * indicates no appreciable change. 
Dreadnoughts ... 
Battle Cruisers... 
Pre-Dreadnoughts .. 
Cruisers 
Light Cruisers ... 
Torpedo Craft ... 
Submarines 
British. 
... -f 
* 
German. 
+ 
• 
1 
+ 
* 
... 4- 
* 
* 
As already stated, this is purely approximate; there is 
no attempt at exactitude. I am merely endeavouring to 
convey a general idea. To assist this general idea I have 
put the " things that matter '' in heavier type in the first 
column. 
No one, not even Lord Fisher or von Tirpitz, is in a 
position to assess relative fighting values one type against 
another to the types in the first column. We merely know 
that a Dreadnought in ihe ordinary way will certainly sink 
a pre-Dreadnought. We know, als#, that a " cruiser " will 
sink a " light cruiser " in similar circumstances. But no one 
can possibly assess submarines and Dreadnoughts and say 
that a Dreadnought is equivalent to so many submarines or, 
vice versa, that a submarine is worth so many Dreadnoughts. 
All we do know is that all these various arms are complemen- 
tary to each other, and that the comparative unimportance 
of pre Dreadnoughts and "cruisers" is due to the fact that 
they represent types of warships which are no longer con- 
structed. 
For the rest, we only know for certain that a dozen 
Dreadnoughts, plus the complementary lesser craft, are 
superior to a dozen plus x Dreadnoughts minus the comple- 
mentary lesser craft. And herefrom we may deduce some 
idea of Germany's loss and our gain. Germany has sustained 
heavy losses in light cruisers, which are invaluable for scout- 
ing purposes. We, on the other hand, have increased and 
multiplied in this direction, with the result that German big 
ships or transports attempting to slip out run something like 
double the risk of detection that they ran on the outbreak of 
war. This is perhaps the real measure of our gain. 
THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
According to German wireless, the officer commanding tho 
Austrian submarine U12 has been decorated for having put 
two torpedoes into the French battleship Courhet. The state- 
ment is complicated by the fact that there is no V12 in the 
Austrian Navy, which has only eleven boats altogether. It is, 
of course, possible that a boat built speculatively by the White- 
head Works at Fiume has Ijeen acquired and become U12; but 
failing corrolxtrative evidence, the story is singularly sugges- 
tive of a Teutonic version of the submarining of the Viribus 
Unitit. 
It is expected that the sul)?cription list for Mr. lielloc's fortliccming 
series of 3 lectures at tlic Queen's Hall will be closefl by Momlay, 
the 18tb inst. 
Mr. Belloc lias arranp^ed to lecture at tlie Town Hall, Cheltenharoj 
on the 28th January, and at Ikistol, on the 30th January, 
20« 
