January 23, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY WATER. 
By FRED T. JANE. 
HOTE.— Thii Artlelt hei beta (obmitted to the Presi Bnrtas, which doei Dot object to the pablieatton ai eeniored, tad take* at 
responiibility for the cor''ectnei( of the itatemeati. 
HIGH SEAS GENERALLY. 
The " Konigsberg." 
THE Konigsherrj, which was bottled up in the Kufugi 
Kiver, East Africa, is now reported to Lave been 
destroyed. According to a story published by tho 
Southend Telegraph, the captain of one of the 
merchant ships which was sunk in the blocking 
operations, who had just got back, states that the 
Germans completely hid the ship with foliage, entrenching 
some of the crew to prevent any cutting-out expedition. 
The ship waa, however, located by aeroplane, and with 
fire directed from aloft, her destruction by gun-fire quickly 
followed. 
Von Spec's Squadron and the Admiralty, 
In reply to correspondence received on this subject, if 
readers who write asking for details or an explanation as to 
the meaning of my statement last week that we had a ' ' sufR- 
cient force " on the China Station will refer to the issue of 
October 10th they will find " deleted by Censor." I can only 
repeat that the force was sufficient to deal with him. Ap- 
parently he outmanoeuvred us by slipping out secretly before 
war was declared. 
The "Kronprinz Wilhelm." 
The German armed liner Kronprinz Wilhelm has been 
heard of again, having recently sent into Laa Palmas the 
crews of one British and three French ships sunk by her. As 
the first was captured so long ago as October 28, and the 
other dates are November 21, December 4, and December 20, 
it will be clear that the career of this 23j-knot corsair is not 
of a particularly mischievous nature. From the British ship 
she took 3,000 tons of coal ; but of the others, one French 
steamer was in ballast and the other two Frenchmen were sail- 
ing vessels. 
The inferenoe from the above intervals is that the Kron- 
prinz Wilhelm must have been considerably harried by British 
cruisers, wliich, though unable to get into action with her, 
have sufficed to negative her activities to a very large extent. 
Theoretically, a ship like the Kronprinz Wilhelm would be 
able — if unimpeded — to capture a ship or two a day. 
The "Dacia" Case. 
A case which may have far-reaching consequences is that 
-of the German merchant ship Dacia, which has been purchased 
by the son (American) of a German, and has loaded a cargo 
of cotton for Bremen. It involves a delicate problem of 
ownership and a variety of other issues on which quebtions of 
precedent are likely to be founded later on. 
BRITISH 
m.^,1 
East African Operations. 
A somewhat belated report of an East African affair has 
just been issued in Berlin. It is to the effect that on Novem- 
ber 2 two British cruisers and twelve transports appeared 
off Tanga and subsequently effected a landing of 8,000 troops 
at Ras Kasone, where, after a three days' fight, they were re- 
pulsed by 2,000 Germans, although supported by a heavy fire 
froju the cruisers. 
Thi.-i report can, I think, be taken with a considerable 
grain of salt; two gunboats and a small landing party of 
marinea is more probably the correct presentment of affairs. 
The British force isf stated by the Germans to have consisted 
of one European and four Indian regiments. 
THE BALTIC. 
With the advance of winter there appears to be a complete 
lull in the Baltic. The German ships are reported to have 
withdrawn entirely, but whether they have done this because 
they believe the Russians to be ice-bound, or as part of soma 
scheme of strategy, is not evident. 
As I pointed out some time ago, there is no absolute neces- 
sity for the Russian Fleet to be frozen in, since Libau is an 
ice-free port. Abo there is a good supply of powerful ice- 
breakers, in addition to which the new Dreadnoughts of tlie 
Gangoot class have ice-breaker bows instead of the usual war- 
ship prow. 
Consequently, although nothing has happened of late, it 
by no means follows that the next few months will be un- 
eventful. 
THE NORTH SEA AND CHANNEL. 
Up to the moment of writing there has been a singu- 
larly quiet time in naval operations, or, rather, perhaps, one 
should say, in operations that are heard of, for only those 
actually engaged can say what is going on behind the scenes. 
Perhaps the chief actual incident is the way in which 
Germany ha.s seized the Von Tirpitz idea of commerce de- 
struction by means of submarines and aircraft. 
Either operation would, of course, be "piracy" pure 
and simple, devoid of even the technical justification which 
was put forward in the matter of the East Coast Raid. Con- 
siderations of this sort, however, are not at all likely to inter- 
fere with any German schemes; and so it is mere waste of 
paper to discuss questions of legitimacy. Far more germane 
is the question : " Can anything really be done? " In Con an 
Doyle's story, " Danger," everything was done, and done by 
eight submarines only 1 
Conan Doyle, however, was engaged in writing fiction — 
a readable story dealing with fictitious submarines far 
superior to any existing craft. His boats were somewl^t of 
the genus of Jules Verne's Nautilus, in "Twenty Thousand 
Leagues Under the Sea." We have not got to deal with Cap-" 
tain Siriua or Captain Nemo, but with the technical possi- 
bilities of the present year of grace. 
Now, supposing we credit Glermany with twenty suitable 
submarines — certainly the utmost effective force that she has 
available for the purpose. 
The first thing that occurs to one is that this would leave 
her with few or no boats to continue ordinary naval opera- 
tions with, and a state of affairs of that sort would materially 
assist the British inshore squadron in rendering itself particu- 
larly unpleasant, plus a free hand in arranging for an un- 
comfortable reception for returning German submarines. 
We may perhaps allow an average of four torpedoes per 
boat — call it a total of eighty torpedoes. Now the history of 
the war is that it usually takes two torpedoes to sink a war- 
ship, and that a mine, which is infinitely more powerful, 
has nothing like the effect on a merchant ship that it has on 
a warship. Wherefrom we may assume that a liner (having 
no magazines to be exploded) would certainly require two toc- 
pedoes and possibly three. 
Data as to the number of misses made by German sub- 
marines are not available, but one way and another we oaa 
safely put them at fifty per cent. 
Along these lines we get a hypothetical total of twenty 
merchant ships destroyed out of a gross total of four thousand 
or so. And those twenty, it has to be remembered, must either! 
be sought for out at sea or else waylaid more or less inshore, 
where motor-boats may be expected to be " hunting peri- 
scopes." 
One way and another, therefore, especially since we are 
by now fully alive to the trick of the " mother ship " under 
a neutral flag, I do not think that the German threat can be 
regarded as anything but a stupendous piece of cheap bluff. 
11* 
