LAND AND KATER, 
August 14, 1915. 
problem before the Russian Admiralty is an 
anxious and difficult one. It will be solved by 
cool heads and fearless hearts. 
But the German dilemma is anything but 
simple. The Russian battleship fleet is not only 
exceedingly strong materially; it is commanded 
and manned by officers and crews of very excep- 
tional ability and skill. Germany can, if she 
chooses, bring an overwhelming force against it. 
But if the Russians felt compelled to engage, they 
would be certain to employ daring and surprising 
tactics, and certainly could not be defeated, except 
at a cost that Germany would, one is inclined to 
think, be very loth to pay. And even if the price 
were paid, it is not at all a sure thing that the 
transports could ply safely between the German 
ports and Riga. The British and Russian sub- 
marines in the Baltic have shown continuous 
resource and enterprise. Their activities would 
not be in the least damped, even if misfortune did 
overtake the Battle Squadron. The attacks on the 
transports would be continued as vigorously as 
ever. To protect them Germany would have to 
move the greater part of her destroyer force from 
the North Sea. 
What would this depletion from the North 
Sea and the prospect of a very heavy blow to the 
principal units of the High Sea Fleet — it would 
be no use sending inferior units — mean to Ger- 
many ? The winning of the command of the 
Baltic on these terms might be a Pyrrhic victory. 
.While the submarines lasted, it would not be a 
complete command, and however little Germany 
may contemplate seeking a fleet action with Sir 
John Jellicoe, she cannot, in the present stage of 
the war, regard any wholesale weakening of her 
sea power with indifference. If she committed 
herself to the enterprise of defeating Russia at 
sea, she might have to balance the Baltic being 
free to her transports against the constant appre- 
hension of an attempt by the Allies on her North. 
Such an attempt is far from being an impossible 
contingency. 
The establishment of a service of transport 
and supply ships from Konigsberg to Riga in face 
of active submarines involves a totally different set 
of problems from those that arise in similar cir- 
cumstances in the Channel. From Konigsberg to 
Riga is about 300 sea miles, and Konigsberg is the 
nearest German port. From Southampton to 
Havre is hardly more than a third of this distance, 
and from Dover to Calais, only a fifteenth. Ex- 
perience has shown that the activities of sub- 
marines can be made altogether impossible in very 
narrow watei's, bat they could not be made im- 
possible in the Baltic, where, in addition to the 
fact that the area is enormously greater than that 
between England and France, the western coast 
line is not in the possession of an ally, but of a 
neutral. 
WHAT IS COMMAND OF THE SEA? 
In a recent lecture I stated that Germany had 
conceded the command of the sea to us. This 
statement has got me into trouble. The Broad 
'Arrow will have it that there is a material dis- 
tinction between " control " and " command." 
The vv'riter says : " We control the trade routes 
essential to our commerce and military opera- 
tions. But until the enemy's fleet are destroyed 
we cannot be said to have the ' command of the 
sea.' Mr. Pollen practically admits this himself 
when he descril^es the Dardanelles as unsafe for 
ships, and the Baltic is equally so." The Dar- 
danelles and Baltic are not to the point ; the main 
trade and military routes are controlled. In the 
palmiest days of actual victory we never com- 
manded waters under the fire of forts. 
I do not know if there is any agreed defini- 
'tion of " command of the sea." But if it does 
not mean control of the routes essential to our 
commerce and military operations, it surely means 
nothing. Suppose, for instance, this war were to 
last for another two years. Suppose for the 
whole of that period our shipping continued to 
carrj' on as it has in the last twelve months. Sup- 
pose that our communications with our armies in 
France, the Dardanelles, the Persian Gulf, East 
AJrica, and any other point at which we choose 
to begin military operations, were never inter- 
rupted. Suppose peace, then, to be made without 
a fleet action having taken place. Would it be 
incorrect to say that throughout these three years 
of war Greafc- Britain had possessed and exercised 
command of the sea ? Surely it is sheer pedantry 
to doubt it. To me this phrase means only this : 
having the effective power to use the sea un- 
deterred by the fear that its use will be interfered 
with by the enemy. Surely you command a sea 
route when you can send transports across it 
without the necessity of such a convoy as is neces- 
sary to protect them against capital ships? 
DOCTRINE OF THE "FLEET IN 
BEING." 
There is a danger of such an inference in con- 
ditions usually described by naval writers by the 
phrase used by Torrington, when, after driven 
by Nottingham to eagage the French off Beachy 
Head, he wrote his defence. Being in greatly- 
inferior force, his object was to avoid a fleet action 
and to carry his ships to the mouth of the Thames, 
where the Gunfleet shoal would protect him, there 
to await the reinforcements which Killigrew and 
Cloudesley Shovel would bring him. It was his 
confident belief that so long as his fleet was ready 
to strike, and growing in num.bers, the French 
would not hazard acting as if he would not strike. 
" Most men," he wrote, " were in fear that the 
French would invade, but I was always of another 
opinion. For I always said that whilst we had a 
fleet in being they would never dare to make the 
attem.pt." What have naval writers meant in 
adopting this saying of Torrington 's ? Surely not 
the bare fact that a fleet was in existence. They 
could only have meant what Torrington meant — 
viz., a fleet preparing for a specific purpose, and 
ready to execute that purpose if the enemy gave 
the opportunity. That the longer his fleet waited 
before it engaged the stronger it would become, 
was not Torrington's main point. The main point 
is that he Avas a real menace if the French put 
themselves to such a disadvantage as to lose the 
benefit of superior numbers. Had they attempted 
to protect a landing force, the situation that Tor- 
rington was waiting for would have arisen. 
The real meaning, therefore, of the " fleet 
in being " is that it is a fleet that can, and in- 
tends, in certain contingencies, to attack. Is 
there any evidence whatever that the German 
Fleet is, vis-k-vis to ours, such " a fleet in being " ? 
