12 
LAND cS: WATER 
April 6, 1916 
was coinmandid by an otVuir who had more courage 
than good fortune. It speaks well for the seamanship of 
Commodore Tyrwhitt's officers that tlie whole of tlu- 
peoplp in the .^hdiisa should be sa\ed, and a large number 
of prisoners picked »ip out of the armed trawlers that 
were sunk. That such a venture should have been made 
in such conditions is eloquent of the enterprise and pro- 
fcisional mastery of those that undertook it. It resulteci 
in the enemy being driven -off, and the iield being Jeft 
clear for the flyers. Thc\- apparently went up on the 
following day— and in better weather. 
Submarine Losses 
1 gi\e to-day graphs representing the submarine Iossl'S 
reported at J-loyd's for the months of February. March 
and the lirst throe days in April. As usual, Mediterranean 
losses are distinguished in circles, Allied and Neutral 
losses by the initials " .\ " and " X." In l-'ebniary it 
will be noted that there were jj losses altogether, of 
which 6 — 2 Neutral, 2 Allied ancl > British — took place 
in the Mediterranean Tiiere were therefore 27 ships 
attacked in home waters in _'() days. Of these 10 were 
Neutrals and 3 Allied, leaving a total of British losses in 
home waters of 12. The total losses in March are 41), 
of which .)— -2 British and Neutral — were in tlie Mediter- 
ranean, lca\'ing 46 in home waters. Of these 14 were 
Neutral, 8 Allied and 24 were British. The losses in the 
first thi-ec days of April are 11, of which 6 are Neutral 
and the rest British. 
If we regard the new campaign as having been in- 
augurated on the 20th, the losses in the preceding 48 
days, that is from the ist February to the 20th of March, 
were 43 ships. In the 15 days the 20th of March to the 
3rd of April inclusive, we have 41 ships gone. The new 
campaign then has raised the rate of destruction by joo 
per cent. The actual loss is at the rate of 2.74 ships per 
day. The highest rate ever reached since February of 
last year, except by the 15 days, between August 8th 
and 22nd inclusive, when 47 ships were attacked. This 
is the only period during which the rate of loss exceeded 
3 a day. It is perhaps worth remembering that before 
mid- September the rate had fallen again to what it was 
up to tne 20th March. It will, of course, fall again now. 
But it would be rash to say how soon. Such losses arc, 
or course, enormously more serious now than they were 
last August, simply because these losse.-; are cumulative, 
and the demands on our shipping for the oversea forces 
become greater as time goes on and our numbers at the 
\-arious fronts increase. Anything the Government can 
do in the way of restricting imports, other than of things 
necessary to productive trade, to feeding the population, 
an(} to_the supply of the armies, should be done at once. 
In this matter no precaution can be taken too soon. 
The Zeppelin Raids 
The recent Zeppelin raids have been marked by two 
interesting features. F'or the first time an enemy airshiji 
has been brought down by gunfire, and, also for the first 
time, the Zeppelins have reached Scotland. Hitting an 
airship travelling at a high speed and at a great altitude 
has been shown by the experience of the war to be a matter 
of so great difficulty, that while giving every credit to 
those who have performed the task successfully, it is 
idle to shut our eyes to the fact that success is quite im- 
possible without exceptional luck. This detracts nothing 
from the merits of those who ha\c achieved the task. 
Theoretically no doubt, stationary guns could be equipped 
with fire control instruments that would make success 
almost a certainty. Those who have studied this ques- 
tion longest arc, it seems to me, most confident that the 
difficulties can all be overcome. But for fear that people 
should run away with the idea that there has been any 
gross neglect in this matter — at any rate since the war 
began — it should be made clear that the number and 
elaboration of the control installations required, would 
make such demands on the instrument makers that, had 
they been put in hand, it would have been quite im- 
ywssible to su])])ly the far more urgent needs both 
of the fleet and of the armies at the front. To construct 
a scientific gun barrier would need a group of 2 or 4 guns 
on, say, ever}' 2 miles of front, and those whose curiosity 
is equal. to the task of picking out all the vulnerable spots 
in England, can figure it out for themselves, the length of 
the lines required for any reasonably adequate pro- 
tection. The\' can then estimate the demands that the 
fitting out of these lines would make on the gun-making 
and instrument making capacity of the coimtry. 
Aircraft and the Grand Fleet 
The fact that the Zeppelins liave reached Scotland 
raises the question whether the enemy is forming designs 
on our naval bases in the North. As we have seen, in 
previous papers, the probability of airships being able to 
injure war \essels under way is exceedingly slender, 
("ommodore Tyrwhitt's most recent and most brilliant 
pcrfornianccs oft the Island of Sylt, where he had 3 
battle bi))lanes and a Zeppelin opposed to his cruisers 
and destroyers, confirmed the experiences of the Cux- 
ha\en raid, and srems to be conclusive as to the capacity 
of well-handled ships to out-manteu,vre aircraft of all 
kinds without dilliculty. The situation, liowe\er, would 
be very different if any considerable number of airships 
could be brought over a harbour in which a battle fleet 
was anchored. Hei-e again the experienccb of the Cu\- 
haven raid are instruc.ive. The Von der Tann. which 
was conspicuous in the raid on Scarborough and Whitby, 
was absent from \-on Hipper's stiuadron in the affair of 
the Dogger Bank. That she was desperately injured in 
the air attack on Cuxhavcn has been widely stated in the 
American press. It is not supposed that she was actually 
damaged by bombs dropped on that occasion, but it 
seems certain that the raid threw all the- shipping into 
confusion, and that hectic efforts were made to get out 
of the harbour^as was recently the case at Zeebriigg^.'. 
It was in the consequent confusion that ^'on der Tann 
is supposed to have run foul of some other ship or stone 
work, and so to have put herself out of action. No doubt 
the probabilities of Zeppelins catching any of the Grand 
l""leet in similar conditions are small. But that an 
attempt to get at the Fleet from the air seems more 
probable now than it ever has seemed, is indisputable 
Control of the Air Service 
The feat of Lieutenant Brandon seems to have ri\alled 
that of the late Lieutenant \\'arneford, V.C, and it will 
gi\e a new lease of life to the theory that the right 
place to fight Zeppelins is the air. The evolution of 
right doctrines in this very vital matter must be left to 
the experts — for it would be 'as grave a misfortune for 
too many aeroplanes to be kept for home defence as for 
the ordaiance and instrument makers to be monopolised 
by providing anti-aircraft guns and sights. 
I confess 1 noted with the deepest regret Pro- 
fessor Wilkinson's endorsement of Mr. Pemberton- 
Billing's complaints in Parliament on this subject. 
Professor Wilkinson justly holds the very highest place 
as a lay critic of military strategy. Yet in his letter to 
The Times he seems to me to have fallen into a most 
dangerous error. This letter seemed to amount to the 
adx'ocacy of land war, sea war, and air war being treated 
as three quite separate and distinct activities. But our 
experience of the last twenty months should have opened 
our eyes in this matter. It is true that except in purely 
coastal operations, naval fighting and land fighting are 
so entirely dissociated, and the character of sea fighting 
and land fighting are so entirely different as to make 
their separation, both for strategical disposition and 
ministrati\-e supply, a logical necessity of war. But 
the amphibious undertakings, on an unprecedented scale 
which the last thirteen months have witnessed, should 
have taught us that there are terrific dangers in the 
principle oi separation, even in the case of two services 
where joint work is the exception rather tlian the rule. 
Aktuik Pollen 
Professor Bald^vin. who was on board the Channel steamer 
Sussex when she was torpedoed and at one time was thought 
to have perished, has brought out, tiirough Messrs.' Putnam's 
Sons, a \-olunie on Amtrican Xcidralily : its Cause and Cure. 
The Professor's \-ievv cannot be better explained than in this 
sentence, almost the last in the l)ook : " This is not a Furo- 
pean conflict : it is not an un-.Xmerican war ; it is a human 
conllict, a world-war for the preservation and extension of 
what is of eternal \alue. the right to self-governnieiit and the 
maintenance of public morality." This may be said to be the 
thesis of the volume and most ably is it argued out. The 
Professor's final hope is that the war will draw together " tlie 
three Great Powers of the .Atlantic that love justice and the 
life of' peace— France, England and tli'.; I'nitcd States. " 
