June 12, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
Meanwhile another fleet has been operating 
in the Dalmatian Archipelago, destroying light- 
houses, wireless stations, and observation points, 
on Lissa, Curzola, and other islands, and cutting 
the telegraph cables between all the islands and 
the mainland. More than this, the coast railway 
between Ragusa and Cattaro has been shelled and 
is reported to haA-e been destroyed. As this railway 
is apparently the only military line of communi- 
cation by which troops and supplies can be sent 
to Cattaro other than by sea, the importance of 
destroying the railway, if it is really destroyed, 
would be considerable. But railways are proverbi- 
ally almost as easy to repair as they are to destroy. 
The significance of these operations is not to be 
measured by the actual damage they have done, as 
if such damage were a kind of final asset, but 
rather by the fact that they illustrate Italy's asser- 
tion of the comm.and of the Adriatic. And what 
she can do once she can do again. For here, as at 
Monfalcone, the Austrian fleet has not ventured 
on any counter-attack. 
The Austrian fleet has to solve much the 
same problem as faces the Germans in the North 
Sea and the Russians in the Baltic. What is the 
function of an inferior fleet ? An army in inferior 
numbers can fight successfully on the defensive 
for a very considerable time, but the role of an 
inferior fleet is still to seek. In this war, at any 
rate, it is seemingly without a mission. The 
Adriatic situation, however, is not quite so simple 
as it seems. The Austrians, we must suppose, 
will not of sot purpose seek a general action. The 
odds are too much against them for that. But, 
unlike the Germans in the North Sea, they may be 
compelled to action. 
The probability of a fleet action, then, turns 
primarily upon the land campaign, and the 
character of this, in turn, may to a great extent 
be determined by the action of the Italian 
fleet. Always assuming that Russia and the 
Western Allies can keep the Austro-German 
forces sufficiently occupied, so that the Italians 
will be able to invade Istria, it is well within the 
region of possibilities that the first fleet action of 
the war would take place in the Adriatic. 
All we can say for the moment, however, is 
that, far from following up their raid on Ancona, 
the Austrians have now retreated to their ports, 
and the Italian fleet holds undisputed command 
of these waters. It is a command that Austria 
may dispute at any moment. But I submit that 
she is unlikely to do so until compelled. 
THE COURAGE OF MR. CHURCHILL. 
Mr. Churchill's speech at Dundee is really 
almost a naval event of importance. Its value lies 
in this : To the great scandal of the Empire, to the 
confusion of ourselves and the amazement of our 
AUies, we have had to reconstruct our Government 
in the middle of a war, and primarily owing to 
disagreements on the chief command of the NaAy. 
Upon Mr. Churchill has fallen the humiliation of 
relinquishing the post of First Lord just when 
the British Fleet was discharging the main pur- 
pose of its being — namely, the complete command 
of the sea, wdth a thoroughness unparalleled in 
history. The assertion of supremacy was made 
on the first day of the war, and all our subsequent 
military operations have been made possible by it. 
Mr. Churchill has been the leader through all this 
time, and is surely entitled to some of the credit 
of so overwhelming a success. The minor set-backs 
in the first five months of war hardly affected 
that success at all. It is the unsuccess of the expe- 
dition in the Dardanelles and the disagreement 
with Lord Fisher that have brought him down. 
In speaking at Dundee, therefore, he came 
before his constituents in the character of a 
beaten man, and he spoke at a crisis when the 
country has been more depressed in spirit than 
perhaps at any time since last August. A man 
who at such a moment as that can deliver the best 
of his fighting speeches, indeed the best fighting 
speech that we have had in ten m.onths, is some- 
thing more than able, clever, or brilliant. 
Throughout this crisis INIr. Churchill has show^n 
the loftiest sort of moral bravery. 
The time has not yet come to estimate the 
value of Mr. CTiurchill's work as First Lord, but 
in justice to him two things should be borne in 
mind. Not for one moment since war became 
either imminent, or an accomplished fact, has he 
been otherwise than a fearless and intrepid 
leader. The qualities he stipulates in our chiefs, 
" courage, energy, audacity, the readiness to take 
all risks and shoulder all responsibilities," he 
exemplifies splendidly in his own person. He 
may not always have been wise, but he never was 
afraid. And the Navy loves him because its heart 
goes out more to courage than to any other quality. 
Mr. Churchill became First Lord at a 
moment of transition. The British Navy had just 
been reconstructed by Lord Fisher. The monster 
ship, long-range gun-fire, the long-range torpedo, 
the high speed capital ship, the submarine, the 
aeroplane, all were novelties of the last ten years. 
Each novelty had its enthusiasts, each trying to 
push the qualities of size and power and speed to 
their utmost limits. And the enthusiasts defeated 
the experts. They had a simpler game to play. 
All they had to do was to ask for more^ 
speed, size, range, &c. Thus, betw-een 1907 and 
1914 we pass from the last mark of the 12-inch' 
gun, through two stages of the 13.5, and reach 
the 15-inch. Between 1908 and 1914 the speed, 
range, and power of torpedoes, and the size and 
radius of submarines was doubled and almost 
trebled. But no recognition was given to the 
fact that, as guns increase in power and range, 
and as ships grow in speed and mobility, there 
must be developed a technique of gunnery so that 
the new w'eapons can be adapted to the new con- 
ditions. And no systematic ofiicial effort was 
made to work out how the existence of these fast 
long-radiused submarines would affect the grave 
problem of the defence of fleets, or how the long- 
range torpedo would mould the tactics of fleeti 
action. As for the problems involved in bombard- 
ing shore positions, they were ignored altogether. 
Method was forgotten in the general devotion to 
mass. Those limits could only be ascertained by, 
patient investigation and experiment. In the 
rush for size — that could be advertised — there 
was no time for the dull and disillusioning pro- 
cesses of thought. Thus it was Mr. Churchill's 
misfortune never to have the eternal truth brought 
home to him that the Navy is an instrument that 
can only he used rightly if used within the limits 
of its mastery over the weapons that it employs. 
The expert who asked how all these fine big things 
were to be used struck a note of doubt; the enthu- 
siast struck the note of sanguine confidence. 
A. H. POLLEN. 
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