LAND AND WATER 
January 16, 1915. 
touch with tho German Admiralty — they have none of that 
independence which obtains with naval writers in this country. 
Outside this, hew«ver, tftey are German* and patriots. la 
neither case ean we possibly Imagine th«m laying tliein.selvM 
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 it doing ia eflective and 
inconvenient to German hopes. 
THE HIGH SEAS GENERALLY. 
Lord Selborne and others have recently been criticisiag 
the Admiralty for sending the late Admiral Cradock to meet 
the enemy wi'th insuffici«nt for«e. 
These criticisms strike- me as singularly unfortunate, 
because they display a marked failure to appreciate the actual 
circumstances. 
Von Spec, with the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, belonged 
to the China Station. Here we maintained (and any old Nary 
List will indicate) a f«rce sufBeient to deal with von Spee. 
The normal station of Admiral Cradock was in the Atlantic, 
vhere again th« 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 difierent quarter of the 
world. It waa a 6mart move; but we should not blame Scot- 
land Yard if all the crooks of the West End suddenly trans- 
ferred themselves to Whitechapel, and the local police were 
unabl'e 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, I maintain that to attack the Admiralty for in- 
adequacy in the matter of tho supply of force to Admiral 
Cradock is as absurd as it is ill-timed — the more m as the 
Ganopui was sent t-o reinforce Cradeck as a species of ultra- 
precaution. 
THE BLACK SEA. 
A large Turkish transport is reported to have been sunk 
on January 2 by striking a mine at the entrance to the 
Bosphorus, and on the 5th another Turkish transport was 
suuk 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 the Pamiat Merkojeina 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 Goehen 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 
reseuve. 
On the 6th the light cruisers Breslaiu an J Hamidieh are 
reported to have been engaged with Russian warships, and 
to have sustained «onsiderabfe 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 characterises them. The rival 
fleets 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, thsr form, 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. 
Wheu, 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 minox value. 
There is presumably some underlying objective in these 
«ppi»rently aimless movements of the Turco-German force: 
but it is curious that the ohvious eircumstanoe that all these 
operations could be more easily and safely performed were 
the H-ussian Fleet defeated first should be so completely 
ignoced. 
In the Mediterranean, as in the North Sea, the inaction 
of the battle fleets of the Germanic powers is perfectly intelli- 
giblie — 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 accepCed by 
the enemy. 
NAVAL LOSSES. 
The war afloat has now continued long enough for U6 to 
endeavour to arrive at some kind of profit and loss account. 
It 13 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 miaimise leases. 
Generally speaking, we may aay th«t oa both sides, if 
there has been a heavy loss of personnel, a loss- of materiel has 
been promptly owned up to — a piece of frankness due mainly 
to the impossibility of concealment. But whenever the crew 
«r the bulk of the ercw have been savedj nothing about 
material loss has been allowed to transpire. 
This,, of course, is i» »ceA<danc« w.ilb stB the. psecedents 
of waorfare — it is folly to disclose what can be concealed. It 
is a consideration of this circumstajice which prevents me 
from giving any exact detailed statement as to, relative posi- 
tions now and when the war started. 
There has, further, to be taken into e«nsi^rati«B t6o 
circumstance that on each side new ships Irave been added. 
The profit and loss account, therefore, cannot possiWy be 
accurately represented merely by those tabular lists of losses 
with which the dally Pi-ess 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 liave endeavoured by tho 
us© of plus and minus signs of various sizes to represent mero 
or less graphically the approximate effect of the war upon oar 
Navy and the German fleet, taking into equal consideration 
all the various factors of loss, new coastructioa, purchases, 
and so on, and so forth. A * indicates ne appreciable ehang«. 
Dreadnoughts . 
Battle Cruisers . 
Pre-Dreadnoughts . 
Cruisers 
Light Cruisers . 
Torpedo Craft . 
Submarines 
British. 
+ 
German. 
+ 
-ir 
+ 
As already stated, this is pureljy appiiaximate ; there is 
no attempt at exactitude. I am merely endeavouring tio 
convey a general id<ia. To assist this general idea I ha«e 
put the " things that matter '' in heavier type in the first 
column. 
No one, not even Lord' Fisher or von Tirpitz, is ia a 
position to assess relative fighting values one type agaiast 
another to the types in the first column. We merely know 
that a Dreadnought in rhe ordinary way will certainly sink 
a pre-Dreadnought. Wle know, also, that a " cruiser " wail 
sink a " light cruiser " in similar oireumstances. But no aae 
can possibly assess submarines and Dreadnoughts and aay 
tliat a Dreaidnought is equivalent to ea many suhmarines ox, 
vice versa, that a submarine is worth so many Dreadnough'te. 
All w« do know is that ail these variaus arms; ara complemen- 
tary to each other, and that the comparative unimportanee 
ef pre- Dreadnoughts and "cruisers" ia due to the fact that 
tliey represent types of warships which are no longer- can- 
structed. 
For the rest, we only know for certain that a dozen 
Dreadnoughts, plus the complementary lesser craft, axe 
superior to a dozen plus x Dreadnoughts minus the comple- 
mentary lesser craft. And herefrom we may deduce soake 
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 Mg 
ships or transports attempting to slip out run something lik-o 
douBle the risk of detection that they rail on the outbreak of 
war. This is perhaps the real measure of our gain. 
THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
According to German wireless, the officer commanding tko 
Austiian submarine U12 has been decorated for having ps*t 
two torpedoes into the French battleship Courbet. The state- 
ment is complicated by the fact that there is no U12 in the 
Austrian Navy, which has only eleven boats altogether. It ia, 
of course, possible that a boat built speculatively by the Whit«- 
head Works at Fiume has been acquired and became Ul^;, but 
failing corroborative evidence, the story is singularly sugges- 
tive of a Teutonic version, of the submarining of the Vinbim 
Unitis. 
It is expected that the subscription list for Mr. Belloc's fortHcoming 
series of S lectures at the Queen's Hall will be closed by Monday, 
the 18th inst. 
Mr. Belloc has arranged lo lecture at the Town Hall, Cheltenhanii 
on the 28th January, and at Uristol, on the 30th January. 
