LAND AND WATER 
July 24, 1915. 
This was cxeiiiplifiod wJieii Von Spee, with 
his two armoured and three light ci'uisers, encoun- 
tered Admiral Cradock w-ith the Good Hope, Mon- 
mouth, and Glasgow. Tliat the enemy should have 
such local superiority is pritiia facie evidence that 
the stronger Power has erred in the strategic dis- 
tribution of his forces. But such instances are 
anything but uncommon in war. There were 
many single-ship actions with the French, just as 
there were many single-ship actions in the 
American War of"l812. And it happened not in- 
frequently a British captain foiuid himself either 
forced or morally bound to engage an enemy ship, 
larger, more stoutly built, better armed, and more 
numerously manned than his own. In the case of 
the war with America this happened with painful 
frequency, and defeat was more tragically certain, 
because to heavier metal and longer ranging guns 
the Americans added an almost overwhelming 
supei'iority in gunnery skill. Indeed, it is one of 
the mysteries of naval history that the Royal 
Nav}% which owed its long series of victories oyer 
the French soleli/ to the superior gunnery which 
made the brilliant and surprising tactics of 
Nelson possible, should, in the seven short years 
that followed on Trafalgar, ha\e allowed its 
skill to fall away. The glory of the victories that 
it had won so dazzled the winners that they 
forgot the art to which victory was due. 
These single-ship actions had, of course, 
nothing beyond local importance. They could not 
influence the general course of the war, because 
even when the majority of actions was lost, as was 
the case in the war of 1812, the preponderance of 
sea power was not affected to the extent of depriv- 
ing Great Britain of the general use of the sea. 
The Americans could only have deprived us 
of this by the possession of a superior fleet of 
capital ships, and no such American fleet ever 
existed. 
Where, as Avas the case between 1805 and 
1815, in our engagements with tlie Fi'ench, w'e 
were, in the majority of instances, successful, 
these victories, unless locally, added nothing to 
our general preponderance. But when it is re- 
membered that, in the ten years between the Battle 
of Trafalgar and the end of the war, a score or so 
of such engagements took place every year, it will 
be realised that in the old days naval war, even 
with command of the sea assured, was very far 
from being free from exciting incidents. 
And to this must be added the fact that 
throughout these years the French took a very 
heavy toll indeed from our merchant shipping. 
Between five and six thousand ships fell to the 
French cruisers and French privateers. In spite 
of our military command, we could not protect 
our merchant ships effectively nor altogether stop 
either the trans-oceanic trading or the coastino- 
activities of the enemy. 
SPEED AND RANGE. 
Modern developments have very greatly 
changed the aspect of naval war by the' introduc- 
tion of two entirely new factors. The first is the 
enormous extension of the cruiser in speed and 
striking range. Against the ten knots of the 
frigate the modern light cruiser can travel at 
twenty-five. The frigate was limited, in any 
wind, to 19 points of the compass in its choice of 
courses. The modern cruiser can go in any direc- 
tion at will ; it is helm free. The frigate had a far 
■14 
narrower choice of courses at its top speed, was 
entirely dependent upon there being a wind for 
having any speed at all, and in a gale was both 
beyond control and in grave danger. The modern 
cruiser is independent of weather, is practically 
never in danger from gales, and its motive poweV 
is self-contained. The effective range of the 
frigate's guns was at its maximum 1,000 yards. 
Sydney opened fire on the Emden at between 
10,000 and 11,000. The time that the frigate could 
stay vX sea was limited by the water it could carry. 
The cruiser's radius is limited by its coal, but in 
our case coaling stations are so numerous and, .so 
far as our {)resent enemies are concerned, so safe, 
the facilities for rendezvous with colliers so re- 
markable, and the time occupied in replenishing 
bunkers so short, that the necessity of recoaling 
is, generally speaking, hardly more than a 
nominal check to continuous cruising. 
It is a mere commonplace to say that speed 
annihilates distance, but this commonplace truth 
has revolutionised navp.l Avar more thoroughly 
than any but a few anticipated. It has coni-erted 
all the seas into narrow seas. The German com- 
merce-destroying cruisers were, for the most part, 
considerably faster than the majority of those en- 
gaged in trying to terminate their careers. But, 
being Avithout coaling-stations, they Avere depen- 
dent for fuel partly on their captures, partly upon 
an extraordinarily Avell organised service of col- 
liers from North and South American ports. But 
the career of the longest lived of these raiders Avas 
relatively short. It seems almost incredible that 
Germany should not haA^e one single cruiser on our 
trade routes at the end of the first six montiis of 
the present Avar, since, in the last ten of a Avar that 
lasted over tAventy years, the French could take 
betAveen 500 and 600 prizes a year from us. 
The principle iuA-olved is, it seems to me, 
simple. All raiding by a force generally inferior 
at sea is based on its ability to evade the stronger 
forces, and the possibilities seem to \'ary as the 
square, if not the cube, of the speed of the units 
engaged. Hoav long, for instance, Avould Botha, 
De Wet, and Delarey have kept up a fight after 
the fall of Pretoria if Lord Kitchener's armies 
had had services of endless high-poAvered auto- 
mobiles, of flying machines, and Avireless tele- 
graphy? Speed of movement, means of getting 
accurate information from Avide areas, and the 
power of transmitting it to great distances in- 
stantly, are fatal obstacles to operations that for 
success must relv on flight. 
Note, then, that the first remarkable develop- 
ment of modern sea Avar is the complete relief of 
the superior poAA^er from the attacks bv hostile 
ships or squadrons, both on its isolated"^ fighting 
vessels or its mercantile marine, and that this 
development had been effected by the obstacles 
Avhich speed and long-distance communications 
put in the Avay of evasion. 
LIMITATIONS OF THE SUBMARINES. 
It is the submarine Avhich supplies to-day the 
place Avhich the enemy cruiser and the enemy 
privateer filled one hundred years ago. And it's 
success is based solely upon its being able to fulfil 
the condition which speed, wireless telegraphy, 
and the long-range guns haA'e denied to the enemy 
ship — viz., the principle of successful evasion. 
Except in cases which are necessarily rare, the 
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