LAND Al^D WATER. 
January 23, 1915. 
The aerial part of it certainly is bluff pure and simple. The 
submarine part may possibly be attempted as a final effort; 
but if BO it is certainly doomed to failure, not only for the 
reasons stated above, but also because it fails to take into 
account the circumstance that the British Navy would un- 
doubtedly be doing something in the meantime. 
• ♦ • 
The Loss of the "Formidable." 
I have received an unprecedented number of letters on 
this subject dealing directly with tlie cause of the disaster — 
more than one of them anonymous, and therefore impossible 
to reply to privately. Of these the most important is a corre- 
spondent -who elects to sign himself "Yours disgustedly. 
One -who knows." I designate his letter as important in 
spite of the fact that on one page he attributes the disaster 
to " disobedience to Admiralty orders," and on the next lays 
all the blame on the Admiralty I This because he mentions 
some other incident known to me as having occurred, but to 
which I cannot refer because it woul'd certainly be deleted 
(rightly I think) by the Censor. 
Other correspondents favour me with stories of signalling 
to German submarines which they have either heard of or seen. 
On this subject of signalling 1 may mention that in the 
capacity of scoutmaster at a certain place I have spent many 
a weary night in damp ditches in company with a police 
inspector watching suspected houses and places, but (much to 
my disgust) never yet struck a case which had anything in it. 
I have also done duty with the military on similar fruitless 
nocturnal expeditions. 
That information gets out is true enough; but over six 
months of some personal experience I am reluctantly com- 
.pelled to confess to complete (or almost complete) scepticism 
to nearly all the signalling stories. If there be any spy 
signalling it is very rare, and it is' of the utmost importance 
that we should keep our heads in the matter, because every 
false alarm makes things easier for genuine spies. This is 
the psychology of the official apathy of which we occasionally 
hear so much. In so far as the enemy may be connected 
with any signalling or supposed signalling, I should say that 
in the majority of cases it is done with the direct object of 
creating the " nothing in it" idea. 
Returning to the general mass of correspondence I find 
that a large number of readers refuse to accept my theory that 
if a German submarine accounted for the Formidable it was 
a matter of " blind chance." A foolish captain stalked by a 
clo-ver German submarine is the favourite theory. I am unable 
to find any evidence whatever to support that theory. 
Even in daylight there is a tremendous amount of luck 
In submarine operations', and at night, especially in a gale, 
a submarine must necessarily be blind, and no amount of 
skill can afTect results. Given a single mine adrift and a 
submarine, a ship would in such circumstances run almost 
exactly equal risks from either. 
As for the second explosion there is little or no evidence 
on which to base even a hypothesis as to whether it came 
from the engine-room or was caused by a second torpedo. 
The sinking ship having been located it would, even in a gale 
at night, be quite possible for a submarine to work round 
and fire at her; but it would be a case of wasting a torpedo 
to have done so. 
Non-Sinkable Ships. 
Amongst the mass of correspondence which have reached 
me in connection with the loss of the Formidable comes a 
letter from France recalling an old plan of Captain Bazin, 
the integral idea of which was a flat-bottomed ship supported 
by huge cylinders. This particular idea is unfamiliar to 
me; but I take it that in substance it is more or less on the 
lines of a vessel subsequently projected by the great Italian 
naval architect, Cuniberti. Any such ship would be proof 
against either torpedoes or mines. But it is by no means 
clear how she would manage to attain any speed, or where 
•he would stow her machinery. 
In any case, however, the duration of modern wars is not 
long enough to permit of the introduction of new types; even 
in the old wars, which were infinitely more lengthy, it was 
rarely found possible to embody new ideas. In 1795 the two- 
decker Glatlon was experimentally armed with twenty-eight 
68 pounder cannonades, and twenty-eight 42 pounders. She 
fell in with six French frigates — one of them a 50-gun ship, 
two others of 36 guns. With her what were in those days 
abnormally heavy guns she beat off the attack without the 
least difficulty, though by all the general ideas of the time 
she should have been an easy prey to her antagonists. Yet 
it was never found possible to adopt a corresponding arma- 
ment for other British sliips — some kind of technical diffi- 
culty presumably intervened. 
To construct a ship on Bazin lines would certainly tak& 
at least two and a half years, probably longer, and it would 
then be only a purely experimental unit. 
The sensational stories about the rapid building of the 
Dreadnought some years ago are mainly responsible for the 
prevalence of incorrect ideas on the subject of the rate of 
construction. The rapid building of the Dreadnought was 
somewhat on a par with the " express locomotive built in a 
day," of which we occasionally hear. There is really little 
or no abnormally rapid building — what does take place is a 
rapid putting together. 
In the case of the Dreadnought the maximum of material 
was all collected together before the ship was commenced ; but 
for that she would have taken the normal time to build. It 
is impossible in actual practice to accelerate construction to 
any very great extent — there is a limit to the number of 
hands which can be usefully employed without getting in each 
other's way — and in addition thereunto guns, armour plates, 
and various other things are made by processes of which the 
integral factor is a very slow cooling which cannot possibl7 
be expedited. 
« * • 
Dummy Warships. 
One of the German newspapers published in New York 
has come out with a tale about old ships being bought by the 
British Admiralty and converted into dummy warships. 
Whether true or not there is nothing novel in the idea. Apart 
from the familiar dummy guns which figure so largely on 
modern battlefields, the dummy warship is quite a classical 
idea. 
It has not proved particularly useful in the past — unless 
the story be true that Russian cruisers took a group of dum- 
mies at the Pescadores to be Togo's main fleet. 
In these days of submarines, however, there may be more 
possibilities in dummies than in the past, as though surface 
detection of the deception is probable in most atmospheric 
conditions, a good deal of uncertainty would prevail through 
a periscope. On the whole we may not feel ungrateful to the 
Germans for suggesting the idea. 
General Matters. 
To "Constant Reader," " T. K.," " L. M. B.," "A. 
L.," and others. I regret inability to refer to the question 
raised. The Admiralty prefers reticence, and in matters of 
this sort the Admiralty is necessarily the best (and the only) 
judge. I am quite unable to agree with tlie criticisms of 
Admiralty policy. Critics of it, I think, totally fail to 
realise the magnitude of the task with w-hich the Admiralty is 
faced. 
With reference to the series of short histories published by th» 
lincyclopcedia Briltmuica, reviewed in these columns recently, we 
regret that by an error the publishers were wrongly named. The 
volumes are published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., by per- 
mission of the Cambridge University Press, and not as stated last 
week. It may be stated in passing that they embody the history of 
the countries concerned in the war in a form and compass that is un- 
obtainable from any other source, and will be found particularly useful 
by students of the war. 
The political causes which have led up to the present war are 
briefly summari.sed in The Origins of the War, a two-shilling volume 
by J. Holland Rose, published by the Cambridge University Press, 
Beginning with the Anglo-German rivalry of 1875-88, the author traces 
the development of the present situation from the world-policy of 
Germany, the Morocco trouble, and the Baghdad railway, the unhealed 
sore of Alsace-Lorraine, and the Far Eastern question. It is an able 
study of the principal problems of modern international transacliona 
and German aims. 
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