LAND AND .W. A T E R. 
April 17, 1915. 
always worked on the presumption of superiority. 
He has masked that presumption under a number 
of foolish titles, indicating a moral rather than a 
numerical ascendancy. But a numerical ascend- 
ancy it was in his mind, and a numerical ascend- 
ancy it remains. All his plans of war prove it. 
His whole scheme of fortification proves it. How 
will he behave when he in his turn has to fight 
under the conditions which the French, the British, 
and the Russians suffered throughout the autumn 
and winter 1 What plans will he make correspond- 
ing to the plans of the French for saving all that 
could be saved during the extreme peril of the first 
days of the war? With what coolness will he 
deliberately sacrifice his Lilies and his Lodzs 
when the ti me comes for such sacrifices ? How will 
he conduct a retreat in the face of superior 
numbers ? How will he act when here and there he 
has to fight his Le Cateaus with one gun to his 
opponent's four? What effect upon his Govern- 
ment will it have when superior forces with heavier 
arms are as near to any one of his half-dozen vital 
centres as Von Kluck was to Paris on Sedan day ? 
Nothing but the future can tell us how he wHl 
behave under circumstances of this kind, which he 
never believed possible, and to which for nearly 
fifty years he has deliberately shut his eyes. 
He may show an imexpected tenacity, quite 
unlike anything he has shown in the historical past. 
He may even display that supreme quality in 
generalship which exactly weighs the political 
against the military objective, and at once, without 
so much as a day's hesitation, sacrifices the first to 
the second. He may '- resurrect Buonaparte to 
save Napoleon." 
On the other hand, he may suffer from the 
bewilderment which so commonly overtakes those 
who deliberately cherish illusion and who imagine 
that by some witchcraft a blind confidence in 
success produces it. 
But whichever of these two spirits he shows — 
the fiLTst, which will prolong the war, and perhaps 
secure bis more lasting defeat, but save him in his 
own eyes before history; or the second, which 
would bring the war to a very rapid conclusion 
and leave the Allies immediate and very difficult 
tasks of settlement — one thing is certain : before 
he is under the necessity of attempting the better 
attitude at all, before his peril threatens him with 
bewilderment or braces him to resistance, he will 
get some powerful influence to bid for peace. 
There is a formula going round, more com- 
monly accepted among the Northern than among 
the Southern of our enemies, but diffused through- 
out their whole body, that may be translated as 
follows : 
" We have not been victorious, but we cannof 
be defeated." 
Treated as a military formula, such a sentence 
is simply meaningless. It is as meaningless as that 
other phrase dear to many a politician, " Defence, 
not defiance." There is no such thing in military^ 
history or in military fact as the mere defensive, 
save as a prelude to disaster. If you are convinced 
that you can never pass from the defensive to the 
offensive, then you are convinced that you are 
beaten. 
But though the phrase and the idea are mean- 
ingless in a military sense, it is not for nothing 
that they have been sown broadcast throughout the 
Germanic body. The harvest to be reaped from 
that seed is, the enemy hopes, a " draw." 
It is desired that opinion among the Allies, 
civilian opinion, should come to regard the whole 
thing as a deadlock, and to believe that they have 
in front of them an enemy who, while he has failed 
in his attempt at conquest, will never himself be 
conquered. It is designed to produce an opinion 
which will regard the prolongation of the struggle 
as useless for either side and as imperilling the 
whole of our civilisation without achieving any 
further definite result. If this opinion prevails, 
and if, just as our superiority in number begins to 
tell, the enemy obtains his inconclusive peace, it 
will mean for the future, and perhaps for the im- 
mediate future, no further conflict upon the Con- 
tinent, but action specially directed against this 
country. That is quite sure. 
THE WAR BY WATER. 
SUBMARINE BLOCKADE AND LEGAL ISSUES. 
By FRED T. JANE. 
HOTE — ThU Article bai beta snbmltted to the Press Bnreaa, which does not object to the publication as cemored, and takes b« 
retpoailbility for the correctnen ol the statements. 
HE submarina " blockade " still continues to be the 
Tmain topic of interest in the naval war. If half 
the rumours one hears be correct, the blockade (off 
sorne of our ports, at any rate) is sufficiently " in 
being " to have acquired the appearance of a legal 
•tatus, or something approaching thereunto. 
! If we are going clearly to understand this naval war, 
its real meaning, and know liow we actually stand, it is of the 
; first importance to discard undue froth and verbiage about 
"pirates," "paper blockades," and so on, and eo forth. 
These things merely come in the zone of thought and senti- 
ment : they do not enter practically the realms of solid fact. 
For the last week or two I have endeavoured to impress 
open my readers that the submarine is a new arm, and to 
fndicato how and why on that account it must necessarily 
continually rise and fall in importance until it arrives at its 
proper level. 
In conaidcring the blockade, therefore, the first thing to 
take into account is not bo much what the submarine is ffoinj 
to he at some future date, which wo cannot definitely deter- 
mine, but rather what it ii at thi» actual moment' in this 
month of April, 1915. 
Now, here at the outset it is necessary to say somethin<» 
to counteract the prevailing impression that the Germans ar« 
employing some kind of " wondercraft " with which they 
stole a march on us. Ideas of this kind are all right fcr th« 
sensational Press, or for wind-bag German naval experts, 
like Count von Eeventlow. The German submarine U36 and 
others of her kind have been described as remarkably large, 
mysterious craft; but, as a matter of fact, U36 chances to 
have been photographed by the captr.in of one of her victims, 
and (unless false numbers v/ere employed) she is to all intents 
and purposes a replica of all her predec3S5oi-3, from U17 
0ir/.'ard3, and an exact sister to U25 and later beats. 
Quits apart from measurements which can be worked 
out from the photograph that v.-as taken, we have to remem- 
ber that ever since Germany made a bid for Sea Power her 
policy has been consistently conservative, consistently a cass 
of going slow. Startling or even considerable in^iovatioiig 
have invariably been left to other navies — Germany watch- 
ing and following cautiously and methodically, chantri-ia her 
designs very slightly and very gradually. 
This policy left her behind in the adoption of the turbine, 
the adoption of the largest possible guns, the best types ot 
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