May 29, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
are three very fast cruisers, and, besides, twenty 
submarines, forty destroyers, and sixty sea-going 
torpedo-boats. 
One may assume that, in the first instance, the 
Italian Na\-)- will take over from the French the 
task which the French Dreadnought squadron 
have so far discharged, that of holding the Adria- 
tic against Austria. It may seem at first sight as 
if, now that the Italian arsenals and ports from 
Venice to Taranto have become available, that 
holding in the Austrian fleet should become 
greatly simplified. But it must be remembered 
that the whole Italian coast now becomes subject 
to Austrian attack. Indeed, it was attacked at 
certain places within an hour or two of the 
declaration of war. It follows, then, that Italy 
does not simply take over from France the task of 
holding the Adriatic, because it is no longer the 
same task. It will probably be highly desirable 
that some of the French units should join up with 
the Italian fleet to ensure that the display of 
strength shall be overwhelming. It is true that 
the Austrians, held so far by the French alone, 
have shown no greater anxiety to break out of the 
Adriatic than the Germ.ans have shown to break 
out of the North Sea. And so long as the contain- 
ing squadrons — whether purely Italian or purely 
French, as they are now, or Italian with Frencla 
reinforcements, as one supposes it is likely to be — 
remain at their present strength, it might be sup- 
posed that the main units of the Austrian Navy 
would not disturb the naval situation. But Venice 
is very close to Pola, and the situation at Trieste 
is exceedingly critical. Circumstances may force 
one side or the other to force an action. And until 
this action is fought, it is unlikely that many of 
the capital ships, French or Italian, will be avail- 
able in any other field. 
But "if any fleet action is brought on, two 
highly important results should follow. The 
events should be certain. The Allies ought to 
win. The Austrians should be no match for the 
Italians backed by a French squadron. But, as 
in Nelson's time, so now, nothing is sure in a 
fleet action. Torpedoes, mines, submarines — a 
lucky chance may make such changes in relative 
strength where the total numbers are so small. 
Still, the Allies have the reserves and the 
Austrians have none. They cannot be reinforced 
from Kiel or Cuxhaven. And if the Austrian 
Fleet is crippled or sunk, we should get a new 
force available for the North Sea. We can 
hardly be too strong there. It is not only a ques- 
tion of a general action. There is the risk of 
invasion against which our shores must still be 
guarded. 
But, whatever the course of events in the 
Adriatic, it seems at any rate reasonable to sup- 
pose that Italy's destroyers and torpedo-boats 
should suffice for purely Adriatic needs, and con- 
sequentlv, that a considerable number of French 
destroyers should be freed for other fields. As I 
pointed out in these pages last week, by far the 
greatest naval anxiety that faces us at the moment 
IS the threat which the German submarines hold 
over the allied fleet and transports at the Dar- 
danelles. These are, after all, our army's only 
base, and there seems no other way of defending 
this base against submarines except to patrol it 
with the utmost vigour with flotillas of destroyers, 
as numerous, as fast, and as well handled as they 
can possibly be. If, then, Italy's destroyers and 
sea-going torpedo-boats can relieve the French 
destroyers now in the Adriatic, these will form a 
reinforcement of the most vital possible kind. 
Highly important as the intervention of Italy 
must be in a military sense, if it results in securing 
the continued safety of our ships at the Straits 
and so ensures the success of the operations at 
the Dardanelles, this intervention may be decisive. 
Although the Italian Navy had no ship-to- 
ship fighting in its war with Turkey over Tripoli, 
it is nevertheless to be remembered that the Italian 
Navy has had a very considerable and quite recent 
war experience. Numerous and prolonged bom- 
bardments were made of different towns on the 
coast, and, as at the Dardanelles, all the opera- 
tions connected with the transport and disem- 
barkation of the forces sent to Tripoli were 
directed by naval officers. And all these opera- 
tions were carried through with the utmost pro- 
fessional skill and dash. 
THE DARDANELLES. 
It is rather a singular thing that, while we 
have had two official communiques concerning the 
course of operations at the Dardanelles, neither 
of these make any mention whatever of the Navy's 
contribution to the operations. Of unofficial news 
there is enough and to spare, and most of it appa- 
rently utterly unreliable. There is something pic- 
turesque in the story of the Allies and the Turks 
fighting on the Isthmus of Bulair : the Turks sup- 
ported by the Goehen in the Sea of Marmara, the 
Allies supported by the Queen Elizabeth in the 
Gulf of Saros. An aeroplane, it is said, was em- 
ployed to mark the Queen Elizabeth's shots while 
she felt for the Goeben over the hill-tops. If a ship 
cruising about were hit by indirect fire it could 
only be the result of an absolute fluke. 
The special correspondents who have watched 
the different attacks on Krithia speak of the ter- 
rific ap-parent effect of the shrapnel and lyd- 
dite from the ships' guns. But it is noticeable 
that the only direct hit made on the enemy's bat- 
teries that Sir Ian Hamilton alludes to was made 
by one of the howitzer batteries. One suspects 
that the truth of the matter is that the Turks 
and Germans have taken very good care to make 
their chief gun emplacements where none of the 
ships can get a direct aim at them, and a well- 
placed land battery would be far too small a mark 
to be hit by indirect fire. In these infantry en- 
gagements, therefore, the support of the ships' 
guns is of greater moral than military value. 
SUBMARINES AND SPEED. 
CERTAIN correspondents have written to ask 
me if I can explain in simple language 
exactly why it is that the speed of a ship is a pro- 
tection against submarine attack. One correspon- 
dent points out to me that, if a submarine fires at a 
ship of the length of the Lusitania — the length 
being about 230 yards — it would be aln »%t impos- 
sible to miss her, whatever her speed. No miscalcu- 
lation either of the speed of the ship or of the 
speed of the torpedo would make mucli difference 
when the target was so large. 
This would be perfectly true if the torpedo 
were being fired either from a destroyer or from 
a submarine lying on the surface, so that the 
officer in charge had an uninterrupted view of the 
target and could make a roughly correct estimate 
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