Marcn zy, lyijj. 
JL A i\ JJ A i\ U .W A i ii. it. 
every victim that they have secured would be hyperbolic; but 
there is every reason to believe that wlien the balance-sheet 
of the operations is available for study it will be found that, 
taking loss of merchant shipping on our side and loss of 
submarines and loss of their services for war work on the 
German side, it will be found that Germany figures as the 
loser. The effort was, of course, mainly psychological; that is 
to say, it mainly depended on creating a panic which was not 
created. Thus at one fell swoop it dropped from the stars to 
solid earth, and all the illusion with which the Germans hoped 
to surround it melted into thin air. 
THE WAR IN THE AIR. 
Four Zeppelins have attacked Paris, four hostile aero- 
plan-^s have made ?.n attempt on Deal. In both cases the 
attack was beaten off, a further illustration — if one were 
needed — of the fact that in aerial warfare as it is at present 
the attack is handicapped by its dual objective of destroying 
end also having to ward off and look out for counter-attack, 
whereas the defenders have only the single objective of 
destroying the attackers. Over Paris anti-aerial guns appear 
to have taken as prominent a part in the defence as defending 
aeroplanes; off Deal the defence was al:ncst entirely aerial. 
That this aerial defence is the best defence can now hardly 
be questioned any longer. The net result may be put down 
83 further proof that aerial warfare reproduces ships v. forts 
on an enlarged scale. Successful attack must be in over- 
whelming force. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
IT. D. P. (Letchworth). — It is necessary to take into 
account the enotr;ous number of inventions and ideas which 
»re submitted to the Admiralty. This is bound to create 
delays such as that to which you refer. There is also the 
point that altho-igh the thing may be perfectly workable, it 
may not be applicable to the conditions of modern naval war- 
fare. This is the crux of the question. To take an extreme 
case, consider the inventor who designs a series of armour 
plates ten or twenty feet av.ay from the ship's hull as a 
defence against torpedoes. As a defence, this, of course, 
would be absolutely ideal, but it is totally inapplicable 
because it would render the ship unable to move ! This, of 
course, is an extreme case, but it illustrates my point in hyper- 
bole. I quite see your point about the successful inventions 
of non-experts, but I cannot call to mind a single case of any 
8uch invention applied to naval matters. The Whitehead 
torpedo might at first sight appear to contradict this, but 
Whitehead was a competent engineer working on certain 
definite lines connected with his own profession. The vast 
majority of people who submit things to the authorities 
simply send in the " idea " which they are convinced " would 
work were proper experiments carried out with it." It is 
these absolutely non-technical people who choke the way for 
those who, though non-naval, are at least engineers. 
W. M. H. (Eastbourne).— (1) The Inflexible normally 
belongs to the Mediterranean squadron. That reason alona 
would account for her employment in the Dardanelles. 
(2) The Quern Elizabeths are, in a sense, improved battle- 
cruisers. Lacking a little, perhaps, in speed, they have an 
improved protection as a compensation. The reason no more 
battle-cruisers are being built was explained by Mr. Churchill 
some time ago, when he stated that it was considered better 
to build a batch of these fast ships in one year than to build 
them at the previous rate of one a year. (3) The Germans 
have a successor to the Lutzow, but it is doubtful whether 
she will be completed in time to take part in the present v.-ar. 
W. N. (Chester). — Very considerable crews are required 
for the armed merchantmen, and you may rest assured that 
the Admiralty have not inflated the complements beyond 
what is required. 
P. P. (Glasgow). — A good many aeroplanes are fitted 
with wireless, and so, also, are many submarines. The dis- 
tance ever which messages can be transmitted from either 
are, however, small. You may be quite sure that the matter 
to which you refer has not escaped the attention of the 
authorities. 
H. W. H. (London, N.W.). — Chain shot, if fired from a 
sufficiently large gun, would certainly be effective •against 
jjeriscopes. The difficulty, however, is to see the periscope in 
time. 
J. M. (Cork). — A torpedo with a war head— i.e., an 
explosive charge, which misses its mark — is adjusted to sink 
automatically. Otherwise, it would be as dangerous to friend 
as to foe. In peace time it would, of course, be adjusted to 
come to the surface at the end of its run. 
G. W. T. F. (London, S.W.) and others.- The photo- 
graph of the British and French ships off the Dardanelles is 
authentic enough, but it is by no means clear that all the 
Dantons were tdere. It is very difficult to recognise some of 
the more distant ships. In any case, you may be quite certain 
that the Allied fleet elsewhere is quite capable of dealing with 
the Austrian? p.hould they come out. 
G. L. S. (Cheltenham). — B 4 was a misprint for B 2. 
The other boat to which you refer was sunk some time ago. 
S. B. C. (Barnes). — The story to which you refer is not 
only quite probable, but also very probably true. For very 
obvious reasons the Press Censor has seen to it that it has not 
appeared in print. 
N .B. — Many Answers art unavoidably held over this u-eek. 
EVOLUTION OF SIEGECRAFT 
By 
ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER. 
COLONEL F. N. MAUDE, G.B. 
THE engagement at Neuve Chapelle is a striking 
example of the degree to wliich the attack in war 
has now dominated the defence. 
In the old days 10,000 defenders of such 
staunchness as the Germans certainly have dis- 
played would probably have held their own against all the 
actual rifles and bayonets our trcops brought into the field, but 
to-day the defence, qua defence, practically broke at the 
first ru.sh, having inflicted insignificant losses on their 
assailants. 
What followed — viz., the fighting in which our serious 
Icsses occurred, was essentially of the nature of a field battle 
in wliich neither side had time to entrojich, but went at each 
other in the open, or seized on villages and houses as points 
of support — where the lines were s-o intermingled that 
artillery power could not be called in to prepare the way of 
the attackers. 
As the v.hole future course of the war now turns on this 
established fact, it will bo of interest to recapitulate the 
successive steps by which this present relation of attack and 
defence lias been attained. 
As I have jjointed out in previous articles the Germans, 
when com.pelled to abandon their attack on Paris, fell back 
along the roads by which their heavy artillery was advancing 
for the bombardment of the defences of that city. 
Thanks to the presence of this overwhelming artillery 
fire our offensive came to a standstill, for our field guns and 
infantry were clearly overmatched by the heavy German guns, 
together with both field artillery and infantry, in numbers 
still superior to our own, which awaited us in positions their 
reserve troops had had ample time to prepare; also at this 
period the German aircraft showed a distinct preponderanco 
in numbers and activity as compared to ours. 
We met the situation, as I have before explained, by 
getting in under the German guard, i.e., by entrenching on 
the sides of the hills sloping towards us, so that the enemy's 
gunners could no longer lay their guns on us by direct vision, 
but had to rely on the observation of their airmen, which 
procedure certainly helped, but was by no means equal to 
laying by direct sighting. 
But we could not stop the German infantry from massing 
behind the brow of the hills and attacking us downhill, and 
ultimately, under cover of darkness, digging themselves in 
within fifty to one hundred paces of our firing line. 
This, however, obliged the German hea\-y guns to cease 
firing for fear of hitting too many of their own side, ard 
our guns, as they came up, found themselves ir like case, so 
that, as the front extended, and reached the great plains of 
the north, the two infantries, acting under the instinct of 
self-preservation, got as close to one another as they possibly 
could — fifty to one hundred and fifty yards — in order to secure 
protection from the incessant shell fire, which is the most 
unendurable of all the strains of war. 
The artillery arm, being thus for the time eliminated, 
there was no longer any dominant reason for keeping the 
trenches flat with the soil, since concealment at fifty yards 
was quite out of the question, and, as the higher you made 
the parapet, the more you escaped from the mud, the height 
13» 
