May 4, igi6 
LAND & WATER 
have any internal or external protection, the risks they 
run are not proportionate to the number of points of 
danger that they encounter. A man' who is efficiently 
protected against wayside assassination by a body guard, 
can pass a hidden threat of this sort with impunity, and 
he can pass it ten times a day or a hundred times a day 
in exactly the same safety as once. If thr, assassins 
could all combine and overpower the bodyguard, it would 
be a different matter. A ship is no doubt in a slightly 
different case from a man so guarded. But where ships 
arc armed, a submarine cannot come to the surface to 
pursue and bring it within range without serious risk, 
and where a ship is in patrolled waters, the submarine 
cannot come to the surface without risking instantaneous 
annihilation. There are, moreover, traps and dangers that 
beset its path in waters where the intended victims are 
numerous, and of these traps and dangers the submarine 
commander can have practicall}^ no knowledge whatever. 
No doubt the multiplication of submarines, by multiply- 
ing the points of danger, would add something to the risk 
of ships. The addition, however is not serious. But the 
risk to the submarines of multiplying their numbers 
in patrolled waters would be strictly in proportion to 
their increase in numbers. And all this the Germans 
must know as well as we do. 
The German Dilemma 
There seems, then, no ground for doubting that the 
noisy professions of confidence in the submarine cam- 
paign as the means by which Great Britain was to be 
brought to her knees, were put out in Germany, not as a 
sober profeision of military expectations, but solely to 
hearten a people stupefied by the spectacle of a country 
apparently" universally victorious on land, and possessing 
the second most powerful fleet in the world reduced to 
a condition of pitiful sea impotence. For never in history 
has an impotence more complete been seen. When 
historians discuss the value of the destruction of com- 
merce in war, they tell us how, for example, in the 
Revolutionary War, the French took so many British 
ships, and how we took so many French. The matter is 
always discussed in the terms of relative loss. But in this 
war the loss of the (icrman marine has been complete. 
Those that love statistics may argue as to the exact 
percentage losses by enemy action bear to our total 
shipping. But there is no dispute that the loss of German 
shipping is exactly lOO per cent. For such supplies as 
reach Germany from overseas she is dependent entirely 
upon neutrals, and after many months of irresolute 
vacillation, we have evolved a form of virtual blockade 
that reduces these supplies to a minimum, Opinions may 
differ and do, as to military hopes that can be expected 
from blockade — just as they differ as to the military effect 
to be got by commerce destruction — but it appears to 
be beyond dispute that all (iermany is on the shortest 
of short rations, and the only thing which has reconciled 
the people to its privations has been the government's 
promise that their submarines would bring Great Britain 
to the same pass. How in circumstances such as these can 
the German Government unsay what it has said and yield 
to the American protest ? It is perhaps the most acute 
and difficult problem that the much harassed Bethmann 
Holwegg has yet had to face. 
The True Use of Sea Force 
If the events of the last fortnight have shown the 
futility of the German sea action, they have included at 
least one example of British sea action of which there is a 
pardonable curiosity to know more. I allude, of course, 
to the engagement of the German raiding ships by our 
light cruisers and destroyers. We know no more of 
what, in fact, happened than that two of our ships were 
hit without being sunk. It is not profitable to make 
guesses as to the character of the engagement. I con- 
fine myself to the point that there was an engagement. 
The portentous thing is that there was an engagement 
between some of the most powerful battle cruisers afloat, 
armed certainly with 12 and 11 inch guns — with, possibly, 
one unit carrying still heavier ordnance — and light 
fragile craft carrying nothing heavier than the latest 
type of 6 inch. It is significant as showing the different 
<>iat actuates t4ie two navies. One makes sure by 
the employment of his Zeppelins that the coast is clear, 
and sends its strongest ships on a mission of fugitive 
murder. The otheT, without a moment's hesitation, 
tackles these guilty monsters, though defenceless against 
their weapons and powerless to hurt them. What a 
humiliation that such noble vesssls, such noble guns, 
built one cannot help hoping in the expectation of being 
put to a noble and chivalrous use, should be degraded to 
the purpose of mere ravaging and slaughter. Was it 
shame that compelled them to run from the scene of their 
crimes, pursued by craft of relatively contemptible power ? 
Never surely did material force stand out in such cruel 
contrast with moral greatness. Who can help asking the 
question, since a handful of mosquito craft can attack 
and pursue a battle cruiser squadron, why cannot the 
whole German navy, using all its resources, attack 
and bring to action the British navy ? What lies 
behind the splendid courage of the one force, the 
strange supineness and irresolution of the other ? We 
shall not be far wrong, I think, if we see in this, first and 
foremost, some signs of demoralisation must follow when 
a great navy is never throughout a great war employed 
on anything more glorious than the slaughter of those 
who are powerless to resist. The bloodguiltiness that 
stains the German naval flag must make it a hideous 
emblem to those that serve under it. But there is a 
something else behind Germany's sea impotence. Get- 
may has no naval traditions and is not the heir to any 
doctrines of sea fighting. Her ship building policy, such 
of her naval literature as I have read, the writings of her 
general strategists like Bernhardi and the like, indicate 
that the German navy has always been regarded as a part 
of the German army, and it is inspired by similar doctrines 
as to the employment of force. 
It seems broadly to be ti"ue that all German military 
policy is governed by one fundamental doctrine. This 
may be called the doctrine of the mass attack. It relies 
upon artillery of overwhelming size, and in overwhelming 
numbers : on machine guns in vast quantities, on the 
employment of men at the critical point in solid forma- 
tions and in overpowering numbers. The thing was 
seen to perfection in the famous phalanx that forced 
the Russians back from Galicia. But, if it is not rash 'for 
one who is no military student to hazard a judgment in a 
purely military affair, it would seem as if all the German 
campaigns, from the advance on Paris to the attack on 
Verdun, simply exhibit variations of the same method. 
Germany's naval position gives her no opportunity fbr 
acting on this doctrine at sea. In the numbers of her 
ships, in the numbers and calibres of her guns, she is 
inferior to the force opposed to her. The essentials then 
of the employment of mass are lacking. 
What is interesting is, that she seems entirely without 
capacity to use those elements in which she is superior 
to redress the balance. She has a monopoly of the means 
of aerial scouting, she has pushed the use of mines to a 
point undreamed of by any other navy, she must have 
incredible resources in submarines. Surely, if her 
sailors were resourceful, resolute, inspired by any 
genius for naval war, some combination of all these 
elements of scouting, attack and defence could be 
worked out that would give the German fleet some 
more noble aim than the crimes which have brought the 
condemnation of the neutral world upon her. But 
then it is perhaps the nemesis of these crimes that makes 
the German navy so sterile of war thought. For sea war 
demands something more than brute courage if it is to 
become an irt. It needs chivalry, and clean thought, 
and a fine insight into the higher spiritual side in man. 
And for such qualities of the mind and heart piracy is 
a poor school. Arthur Pollen. 
The concert in aid of St. Dunstan's Hostel for Blinded 
Soldiers and Sailors last Saturday, at the Queen's HaU, proved 
a great success. The Executive Committee was almost 
entirely composed of members of the printing profession : 
well-known artists, whose names alone guaranteed a success, 
offered their services : the Lord Mayor gave permission for 
the Band of the City of London National Guard to play 
selections ; the paper for, and the printing of the programmes : 
the clever sketch on the cover : the posters : the chocolates 
sold in the hall : all, from first to last, were provided free by 
generous and kind sympathisers in the splend'd work which is 
being carried on by Mr. Arthur Pearson. 
