LAND AND .WATER 
May 22, 1915. 
Salem, Birmingham, and Chester. It is more to 
the point that of destroyers of a modern type- 
that is, of seven hundred tons and over, and cap- 
able of 29 or 30 knots— she has thirty-four com- 
pleted and a further six that were very near com- 
pletion on March 1. 
This is clearly a very formidable force. It 
is manifestly impossible for America to employ it 
in a campaign of her own. If she declares vvar 
against Germany, this force must co-operate with 
the naval forces of the Allies. How should it be 
used ? The prospect opens up a great number of 
strategical possibilities. For one thing, the 
junction between the British Grand Fleet and the 
American battle fleet would put an end once and 
for all to any likelihood of the German fleet 
attempting to come out. Slender as the prospect 
is to-day of the High Seas fleet being able to mam- 
tain itself Guccessfully against the King's ships 
under Sir John Jellicoe, all hopes of doing so 
would have to be abandoned if it was known 
that we had been strengthened by a new 
squadron of such strength as the latest eight 
American Dreadnoughts would prove to be. If 
only eight came into the North Sea there would be 
two more available for the Dardanelles. The pre- 
Dreadnoughts would be retained as a reserve 
within home waters, or to reinforce the Allies when 
wanted. What is perhaps more to the point is the 
gain to the Allies in the reduced necessity for 
supervising the merchant ships crossing the 
Atlantic, and the larger number of ships that 
would be available for protecting them from sub- 
marines. In this matter the American destroyers 
and three fast cruisers would be of the utmost 
value. Indeed, there is no reason why the sixteen 
older boats should not join in protecting the 
Atlantic traffic. In many respects these fifty-six 
destroyers would, indeed, be the most valuable re- 
inforcement we could have. 
THE WAR IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
Two pieces of information, to which I have 
already alluded, from the Mediterranean, have 
reached us in the course of the past week, which 
have added considerably to the anxiety with 
which the public has awaited the sequence of 
events in the Dardanelles. Wlien H.M.S. Goliath 
(Captain Shelford) was sunk by a torpedo fired 
from a destroyer on the night of the 12th-13th inst., 
Captain Shelford, nineteen officers and about 500 
men lost their lives — a very grievous blow. The 
officers and men are irreplaceaole. The ship repre- 
sented perhaps one-twentieth of our naval force 
in the Straits. The loss gains in significance by 
the news from Athens. In discussing the perils to 
which the allied bombarding fleet was exposed, 
we have generally counted gun-fire, mines — obser- 
vation, contact, and drifting — and torpedoes fired 
from tubes submerged by the shore, as the only 
dangers to be expected. We must now expect 
active sea attack as well. 
Evidently we must not measure the efficiency 
of the Turkish destroyers by the inefficiency of 
her bigger ships. The attack of the Mauvenet- 
i-Millet could only have been made at night. It 
is rather surprising to find that the Goliath was 
covering the French advance in darkness. The 
difficulty that would be experienced by a ship 
under way doing anything useful in the way of 
gunnery, against targets which cannot be seen, 
must have been very great. 
THE SUBMARINE AT THE STRAITS. 
The sinking of Goliath makes the fact of 
German submarines having reached the Mediter- 
ranean of acute interest. Seven weeks ago, when 
the sinking of U39 was announced by the 
Admiralty, I pointed out that these boats had a 
sufficient fuel capacity to carry them to the Dar- 
danelles and leave them a considerable radius of 
action when they arrived. It has, indeed, been a 
mystery to many observers why Germany 
should'be squandering on a perfectly futile form 
of sea brigandage forces that must be of vital 
necessity to her elsewhere. 
There can be little doubt now that the first 
of the large submarines was completed for the 
German fleet in the month of February, and that 
they have been coming into commission at the rate 
of two — if not three — every month. With a 
straight run at fifteen knots — a moderate surface 
speed — these boats could get from Zeebrugge to 
the Dardanelles in about ten days' time. If allow- 
ance is made for periodical submersions to avoid 
attack, the journey might occupy three weeks. By 
this time, had all the new submarines been sent to 
the Mediterranean, half a dozen might be there. 
There would, of course, be serious difficulties 
in getting very valuable results out of them. Tha 
only well-equipped naval base available would be 
Pola, and from Fola to the Straits is nearly 
twelve hundred miles. The alternative to such a 
base would be an arrangement by which 
apparently neutral supply ships were provided 
somewhere in the Greek Archipelago. But it does 
not seem safe to assume that neither Smyrna nor 
any other seaboard Turkish town in Asia Minor 
could be used. No doubt Sir Richard Pierce's 
squadron will keep the sharpest possible kind of 
look-out. But German submarines have been able 
to evade the British patrols and destroyers that 
infest the Channel, so that however close the in- 
vestment of Smyrna may be from the sea, the diffi- 
culties in the way of submarines using this, or 
some other Turkish town, should not be insuper- 
able. 
At any rate, the threat is a formidable one. 
One has only to read Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett's last 
despatch to realise what a target our transports 
must afford. The threat emphasises what perhaps 
hardly needs emphasis — the truth that every delay, 
in bringing these operations to a successful issue 
makes success more difficult and more hazardous 
to the forces engaged. 
THE PROTECTION OF THE SHIPS. 
It brings home to us also the crucial necessity] 
for the protection of the bombarding fleet. When, 
on March 18, Irresistible, Ocean, and Bouvet were 
sunk by drifting mines, the Admiralty made the 
somewhat naif statement that immediate steps 
would be taken to protect the ships in future ; so 
that we were driven to ask whether this particular 
danger was unforeseen. As a fact, there are few 
subjects about which naval opinion has chopped 
and changed so curiously as on the question of net 
defence. When the first official trials of the 
Lupp is- Whitehead torpedo in British waters were 
made, experiments with nets to protect ships from 
them formed an integral part of the practical in- 
vestigations carried out. As a consequence, 
from the earliest date of the adoption of the 
torpedo, stout nets were carried on all armoured 
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