Nowmhor i- , 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
NAVAL SENSATIONS. 
By A. H. POLLEN. 
In ac;i.-jaTice ivith t'.ie rcqui.-rmenls of the Press Bureau, which does not object to the puhlicstion as censored, and takes no 
responsibility for the correctness of the statements. 
THE week has been marked by two na\-al 
sensations. From Sweden comes the 
unofficial and unconfirmed tale, that a 
fleet of Dreadnoughts convoyed a very 
numerous ffotilla of submarines round th^ Skaw 
to the Sound. And so greatly does any news of 
forward action by the fleet move us, that many 
felt as if we must be upon the eve of great events. 
The storj- is, as I have said, not endorsed officially 
and for reasons which I will give later, does not 
appear to be exceedingly important news even if 
true. But the Greek blockade, on the other 
hand, is of enormous importance. Those of us who 
urged six weeks ago that pressure should be brought 
to bear upon King Constantine, may see in it a 
hope that the weapon of sea power may after all 
now be used, if not to its full effect, still to far 
greater effect than hitherto. The present circum- 
stances of the war invest the advantages to be 
got out of our command of the sea with an im- 
portance that becomes greater day by day. The 
general diminishing of Germany's supplies is a 
fruit of sea power that is already doing its work, 
though it is very doubtful if all that could be done 
in this direction is actually being done. But for 
the moment I am thinking less of the effect on 
Germany of a modified form of siege and more 
of the increasing importance to us of amphibious 
warfare. 
RELATIVE POSITIONS ON LAND. 
The first phase of this war saw the Germanic 
Allies enormously superior in numbers, and with 
a ratio of field guns, of siege guns and, above all, 
of machine guns far higher than that possessed by 
their opponents. They had the advantage of a 
long considered plan and they chose their own 
moment for striking. From the first their very 
great superioritv' on land was, at every point, 
manifest. Their object was to use this superiority 
to get an immediate decision against France, be- 
cause, as soon as Great Britain was in the war, 
France was the only one of the two Allies with 
which Great Britain could co-operate effectively. 
If France were crushed Germany would be dealing 
with two isolated enemies. Great Britain would 
have nothing but her sea force with which to carr\' 
on the attack ; Russia would have been cut off 
except for such supplies as could reach her through 
Archangel and Vladivostok. These avenues could 
not materially have lengthened the period of 
Russia's successful resistance once the united 
force of both Empires, undisturbed by a war in. 
the West, could be concentrated against her. 
If there were no possibility of bringing any military' 
pressure to bear upon the GciTnanies, then the 
pressure of German Armies upon Russia must 
have been overwhelming. Not that the whole 
of Russia could be conquered and occupied, but 
that the difficulty of maintaining an army in being 
and building up a new army with which to con- 
quer two such armies would practically become 
insuperable. In such a war then the indirect effect 
of Great Britain's sea power would have been too 
slow in working to make it possible for. Russia to 
wait for it. Thus Russia would have had to follow 
France either into surrender or at best, com- 
promise, and Great Britain would have been left 
face to face with Germany alone. Had things 
gone like this, sea power would not have influenced 
the Continental war at all. And the ultimate issue 
would have been between a ^•ictorious army and 
an invincible fleet 
Fortunately, the plan broke dow-n by the 
failure of the German thrust at Paris. And the 
cost of failure in men to the Germans was very 
much greater than the cost of saving France to 
the French and their Allies. After several pre- 
liminary failures, the final stroke at Russia came 
a great deal nearer to success than the stroke 
at France, and though it too failed, it was probably 
a failure that cost the German Allies fewer men 
than it cost the Russians. Still, after both German 
efforts, the net land forces of the Entente Powers — 
omitting Italy, because for various reasons the 
Italian army can hardly be counted as part of the 
available man power of the Allies — is to-day con- 
siderably in excess of the remaining man power 
of the enemy, the situation having reversed itself 
in sixteen months. And, although the pressure of 
sea power has not brought about such real famine 
as should lead to any speedy break up of the 
German combination, it has, nevertheless, brought 
about serious shortage both of food and other 
necessaries of life, such as wool and cotton, and of 
many necessaries for war such as copper and the 
rarer metals. 
By man power, up to now, I have meant 
equipped man power. Of trained men unequipped, 
of men both untrained and unequipped, and indeed 
of men even unenlisted, the Allies have \-ery 
large resources, and the Germans possess prac- 
tically no reserve at all. For. the Allies ultimately 
to bring very greatly superior man power into 
the field, is simply a question of the time necessary 
for the production of the weapons, munitions and 
equipments. If, then, no disturbing element inter- 
vened, it would be inevitable that in course of 
three, six, nine, or twelve months, the military 
forces of the Allies would become so overwhelmingly 
the greater as to ensure a favourable military 
decision. 
GERMANY'S ONLY CHANCE. 
It is, therefore, the main business of the two 
Germanies to introduce an element into the war 
which will either bring about a military decision, or 
what will be almost as effective — such a 
political disturbance as to frighten or fatigue the 
Allies into a pace that gives Germany another 
chance. The Eastern adventure is an effort to 
obtain both, if possible, but certainly one of these 
two results. If it could result in Roumania and 
Greece joining the Germanic Powers with their 
armies, in such a manner as to carry with it a 
(ierman freedom to employ the whole forces of 
the three Balkan Powers and Turkey against us 
in the near East or against Russia, or even on the 
Western front, then there would seem to be some 
ground for expecting such a change in the military 
17 
