LAND AND \\' A T E R 
December 23, 1915. 
indeed these w'oids still have any meanmg. But of 
their essentinl 'Strategic character and generally, of 
their essential sii ategic worthlessness there can be no 
question. It is not once in hve hundred times 
that an effort essentially based on the evasion of 
your opponent's force can do him any vital 
damage. It i; seldom indeed that an\- damage 
at all of a serious kind is done by such eftbrts. 
The British Fleet's only effort at raiding — 
in the affair of the Heligoland Bight was carried 
through on \ery different principles. That, it 
will be remembered, was an e.xpedition of all 
arms— submarines, destroyers, light cruisers, singly 
and in squadrons, with hnally a majestic sweep of 
Sir David Beatty's battle cruisers over the field. 
The submarines were placed so as to observe 
and if possible cut off any help the enemy might 
send into the iields of operations. Fearless, 
Arelhusa and the riotillas were sent in to engage 
and to hold a (ierman force of not dissimilar in 
strength, and no doubt, principally in the hope 
that they would entice the larger German units 
on to the scene. When Arelhusa had sustained 
action after action with individual opponents, 
lirst Commodore Goodenough was sent in to her 
relief, then the battle cruisers swept the ground 
— the Commodore and the Vice- Admiral accounting 
for three enemy vessels before the close of the 
day. 
The value of the cmip did not lie in the smking 
of three cruisers, the crippling of three others, 
the destruction of one destroyer and the wounding 
of man}'. Its value lay in the fact that it was a 
challenge by a very small portion of the British 
Grand Fleet to the whole of the German High Seas 
F'leet. It established a thing not then known — 
namely,, that the Germans had no intention of 
accepting any challenge whatever. Incontinent 
flights from Yarmouth, from Scarborough, and 
across the Dogger Bank, coniirmed the Heligoland 
experience .and seemed to establish once and for 
all the course of the war in the North Sea. No 
assertion that this sea has been " searched " by 
German vessels, without a single British ship being 
seen, no boast of Persius that we have failed 
in our Fleets' main function, namely to destroj- the 
German Main Fleet, will or can alter the bare fact 
that the German Fleet can, and will not put the 
command of the sea to the test. 
SUBMARINES OR DESTROYERS? 
. The events I have alluded to and the con- 
siderations to which they give rise, seem to justify 
a rather broader statement of principle with 
regard to the function of the submarine in war. 
Essentially I can see no difference between the 
raid of the Novara on the Giovanni di Medua 
ships, and, say, the attack of the Austrian sub- 
marine on the Ancona in mid-Mediterranean. In 
each case a vessel of war, very greatly superior m 
speed and armament to the vessel which it attacked, 
was able to surprise its \ictim, destroy it and seek 
safety before any counter-attack upon it could be 
made. The difference between the two cases is 
that the Novara was able to arrive on the scene 
at San Giovanni and to retreat from the scene 
unobserved and unpursued, because of its speed. 
The submarine was able to arrive on the scene of 
its attack and retreat from that scene unobserved 
and unattacked, because of its capacity to make 
itself invisible at will. Had Germany had no 
submarines at the beginning of the war, it is 
cxccedinglv probable that incidents such as the 
sinking of the three Crcssvs would have occurred, 
the attack being delivered b}- high-speed destroyers. 
In bad light and against an armed ship, a destroyer 
is at least as efficient as a submarine can be when it 
is within striking distance. In any light, against 
an unarmed ship, the destroyer is obviously a 
vastl\- more efficient enemy than the submarine. 
Where the submarine gains against the armed 
ship is that its power of concealment, even when 
in a condition to strike, is so nearly absolute as 
to postulate, if the victim is to make herself secure, 
a standard of vigilance combined with a precision 
in counter-attack that is virtually unattainable. 
But the armed ship has this advantage over the 
unarmed, that the submarine cannot carry through 
its work as if it were a surface ship. For, stories 
from the Baltic and the Sea of Marmora notwith- 
standing, it is impossible to admit that the sub- 
marine has yet reached the stage in w'hich it can, 
when afloat!^ engage even a modem destroyer on 
equal terms. Hence if its victim is armed, the 
submarine is limited not only to under-water 
attack — which is only efficient when the range is 
comparatively short and the speed of the victim 
low — but what is far more important, it is limited 
to under-water approach and under-water 
manoeuvring for a position from which to attack.- 
The cruising speed of even the slow'est and most 
obsolete of fleet vessels is far greater than that of 
the fastest submarine under surface. 
Where the submarine differs from the destroyer 
is in its capacity to reach a distant point in safety 
by submerged travelling. Once in the field it is 
quite natural that the men in the submarine would 
prefer the gun to the torpedo as a weapon. There 
is first the obvious argument that very few tor- 
pedoes can be carried. The argument becomes 
stronger when the want of precision of that small 
number is remembered. But, without this, it is 
doubtful if human nature, even German sailors' 
human nature, could be kept from preferring the 
gun to any other weapon if the choice existed. 
And, of course, the moment submarines could be 
made of sufficient size their armament by guns was 
inevitable. There is nothing in the nature of 
things why the existing submarine should not 
carry much larger guns, and why larger sub- 
marines should not be built carrying much larger 
guns still. When this happens, as it must, the 
submarine will first approach and then perhaps 
surpass the destroyer's present efficiency as a 
surface ship. 
INHERENT LIMITATIONS. 
But it is an interesting reflection on this that 
nothing that can apparently happen will increase 
its efficiency as a ship fighting submerged. Indeed, 
any increase in size must tend to limit the area 
in which it can be used, must make the disturbance 
of the water above it more marked, and its de- 
tection in all circumstances more easy. And all 
this without conferring on it any new advantage 
in the weapons at its disposal, either by inci-easing 
their power, their range, or the means of using 
them with accuracy. From all this it seems, to 
follow, while the submersible ship will always 
have the advantage over any other kind of ship oi 
being able to pass unseen through waters con- 
trolled by surface ships, and, as it grows in size, 
will naturally grow in gun power and hence become 
more and more formidable as a unit of force on the 
surface, that nevertlieless it can only make this 
ad\^ance at some cost of invisibility, and will always 
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