i6 
LAND & WATER 
August 10, igiC 
and out of season urged that there could be no war fiLness 
till fire control was put upon a scientific basis. But it 
was unfortunately a party that never, in the six years 
preceding the war, was represented directly or indirectly 
on the Board of Admiralty. So long as fire control 
methods gave results that could be made to appear good 
at battle practice, it was confidently assumed that they 
must give good results in battle. There never was but 
one department that protested against this very danger- 
ous optimism. Successive Instructors of Target Practice 
— whose duty it was not only to report results, but to 
analyse them — had no difficulty in detecting the fallacy 
that underlay the complacency of the Whitehall Depart- 
ment. But "the I.T.P. had no executive power and no 
official status as an adviser. From 1910 to 1913 the 
Departments of I.T.P. and D.N.O. were consequently 
at continuous loggerheads. The first represented the 
gunnerj' experience and the gunnery requirements of 
the Fleet ; the second, the soporific theories of official 
infallibility. An intolerable position was ended by the 
abolition of the first department altogether. War has 
exposed the wisdom of these proceedings. 
The comfort is that the break with Germany canie 
before the German Navy had developed any more effective 
system of fire control than had we. The Germans are 
great masters of optical science, and it is possible that 
the claim made on their behalf that they have far better 
rangcfinders and sights than we, may have some founda- 
tion. But no rangefinder, however good, will solve the 
chief difficulties of fire control, and in the absence of a 
really scientific method, that side will reach the highest 
efficiency that has the most experienced personnel. In 
thjs respect the British Navy is certainly unrivalled. 
Excellent as the German gunnery has been in tho opening 
phases of every engagement, in none has its quahty 
survived. The enemy may secure the first hits. He has 
often done so. But he has never secured the last. 
Whatever regrets the Navy may feel that we should 
have gone into this war less well equipped in the fire con- 
trol than we might have been, there is solid comfort in 
knowing that the enemy's equipment is, in all vital 
matters, no better, and that his fire discipHne and the skill 
of his personnel are both markedly inferior. In this 
critical aspect of sea force the Battle of Jutland confirms 
all previous experience. 
THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN 
The end of the first year of war found the first German 
submarine campaign approaching its climax. In British 
ships only, the losses to the beginning of August had been 
120 ; there were besides, 62 neutrals and 33 Allied ships 
attacked. During June, July and August the campaign 
was growing to a maximum. The thing fell away quite 
suddenly at the end of September, and there is very 
little doubt that the cause of the falHng off is to be found 
in the effectiveness developed by the counter-campaign. 
The losses of the German submarines had, in Mr. Balfour's 
words, been " formidable." Later on in the autumn, 
in the month that is to say of November, the thing began 
again and was carried through in home waters, but par- 
ticularly in the Mediterranean, with a steady tale of loss 
until the end of March. Then ensued von Tirpitz's 
delayed campaign, and this remained at its height until 
the end of the first week in May, when once more the 
counter-measures of the Admiralty reduced it to reason- 
able proportions. In June and July, the losses, though 
less than in April and in the first week, in May, had still 
been maintained at a formidable level. If we as- 
sume about half of the British shipping to have 
been commandeered for the service of the army or the 
navy of the Allies, and that the neutral and Allied 
ships now engaged on maritime traffic — -other than that 
which is purely military or naval — are about equal in 
numbers to the British .ships, it would mean that the 
total losses of shipping between February, 1915, and the 
1st August, 1916 is something less than ten per cent. 
America and Germany 
Three times in the course of this campaign have its 
incidents brought about critical relations between the 
Government of Germany and that of the United States of 
America.' On the first occasion, President Wilson entered 
a vigorous protest and declared that should any American 
shipping or the life of any American citizen be jeopardised 
by the operations which Germany professed her inten- 
tion to undertake, that country would be held by America 
to " strict accountability." ' Amongst the first ships 
to suffer was an American craft, the Evelyn, blown up — 
apparently by a mine^ — on the Dutch coast. Then came 
the submarine and aeroplane attacks on the Giilflight, 
and other American ships, the Falaba, and finally the 
Lusitania, in all of which American citizens were murdered. 
All the world stood by to see America make good hci 
threats. But America took no action. The protest 
of the spring was instead followed up by a series of bril- 
liantly written notes, in which the principles of sea 
law no less than the shocked indignation of America, 
were given the most perfect possible expression. When 
in August and September the Arabic and Hesperian 
were sunk, it looked as if the breaking point had been 
reached. But the crisis coincided with Germany's 
inability to maintain the campaign, and the dexterity of 
Count Bernstorff did the rest. Finding the Channel and 
the North Sea getting too hot for them, the German 
submarines found the safer hunting ground of the 
Mediterranean. Their ally, Austria, had not been 
hampered by any American negotiations, and the sub- 
marine campaign in the Mediterranean, from that day to 
this, has been prosecuted without the least regard for 
the laws of visit and search, and without the least defer- 
ence to the obligation of safeguarding the lives of passen- 
gers. And in the Mediterranean, American ships and 
American citizens have perished, as they did earlier in 
home waters. 
The Tirpitz Grand Campaign which began in March 
ignored from the outset all the verbal promises that 
Bernstorff had been authorised to make in August, 
September or October. But it was not until the un- 
armed cross Channel steamer, Sussex, was attacked when 
she had nearly one hundred American citizens on board — 
many of whom were wounded, and all of whom were 
threatened with death^ — that Washington intervened. 
By the end of April the President had strengthened his 
position by forcing a vote of confidence in his policy, 
both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, 
and before the end of the month, telegraphed to the 
American Ambassador in Berlin what amounted to an 
ultimatum. But before this, the rate of losses had begun 
to run down, and by the time Germany's capacity to 
continue the campaign at its former level was exhausted, 
the German Government was prepared with a verbal 
surrender to Washington. There followed exactly the 
same situation — and precisely the same developments 
from it — as occurred in the previous September. P'or 
a few days the whole campaign was called off. It was 
then recommenced again with unobtrusive consistency 
at a low level in home waters, and in bursts of extraordin 
ary ferocity and effectiveness in the Mediterranean. 
The German Press, since the battle of Jutland, has been 
urging a revival of the campaign to the limit of Gennany's 
power. There are many signs that the German Govern- 
ment is becoming desperate, and when desperate, there 
will certainly be no limit to the barbarous ferocity 
with which the enemy will use whatever force he has. 
We may, therefore, at any moment, see an effort to put 
the campaign back to its high water mark. If we do see 
this development — inconvenient, costly and harrowing 
from the loss of life as the thing will be — there will 
be no occasion for alarm or uneasiness as to the issue. 
The utmost that Germany can ever do is for brief periods 
to double the ferocit}' of its efforts, and so double the 
loss we must endure. But such periods can never exceed 
four or five weeks, and so must always be followed by 
corresponding periods of comparative inaction. So long, 
therefore, as merchant shipowners and underwriters 
maintain their nerve, there need be no apprehension as 
to the substantial stability of the British and Allied sources 
of supply, or of our capacity to carry on the war to the full 
extent of our resources. It is not necessary for me to in- 
clude the courage of the officers and men of the merchant 
service — British, Allied and Neutral — amongst the factors 
that will have to survive Germany's assault. There is 
nothing in the war more splendid than the way the sea- 
farers of the world have maintained the high traditions 
of their calling. 
Arthur Pollen 
