November 2, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
II 
opportunity to save themselves. Perhaps it was thought 
that she was a cross-Channel boat and might haye American 
travellers on board. The Queen then would seem to have 
been completely surprised. If this surmise is correct, the 
lighting between destroyers on the two sides would be 
entirely unconnected with any attempts to defend her. 
It was a night affair in which a certain amount of con- 
fusion is not only pardonable, but to be expected. How 
soon before or after the destruction of the Queen our 
destroyers got into action we are not informed, but that 
there must ha\e been some pretty brisk action is borne 
out by the fact that two of the enemy destroyers were 
sunk and that one of ours. Flirt, is lost, and that the second 
had to be towed uom the scene of action after being hit 
by a torpedo. The British communique is quite silent 
as to any details of time and place, except that the raid 
took place during the night, and that it was attempted 
against our cross-Channel transport service. 
The Germans, as usual, throw in a great deal of pic- 
turesque information. Portions, they say, of their 
torpedo-boat forces moved through the Straits of Dover 
and Calais as far west as the line between Folkestone and 
Boulogne. The Commanding Officer reports that at 
least eleven patrol steamers, and either two or three de- 
stroyers were sunk quite near our ports. But he does not 
say whether they were English or French. The " two 
or three " destroyers is probably a euphemism for Flirt 
and Nubian. If there is any foundation for the eleven 
patrol steamers story, it will probably be found that 
they are the drifters, trawlers, etc., normally engaged 
to watch minefields, for scouting purposes, etc. Such 
craft must always be exposed — and are quite deliberately 
exposed — to risks of this character. The F"rench Ad- 
miralty admits the loss of some small craft, and possibly 
before these lines 'are in print our own Admiralty will 
have obtained, and will give us, the details of our own 
losses. 
From one point of view this little affair is insignificant. 
So far as it brings discredit on the Admiralty, it is a dis- 
credit that is the natural consequence of previous im- 
munity. We feel inclined to criticise now because we 
have never^ had occasion to criticise before. It is the 
kind of stroke that, from the first day of the war, has 
been well within the power of Germany to .deliver. It 
was no doubt a pretty little enterprise, but with the 
scouting facilities that aircraft and submarines afford, 
it should hardly have needed, one would have thought, 
two years and some months of war, to have found out 
the exact location of our Channel minefields, or to pluck 
up courage for a night destroyer raid on the incalculably 
important target— the transports—that these minefields 
amongst other devices, are employed to protect. Just 
as one's first feeling on learning of the Moewe's sortie 
was surprise at its singularity, so of this raid, really its 
most remarkable feature is that it is the first of its kind. 
But we must not disguise from ourselves that the 
reason why it is the first is not really that the Germans 
have only just developed the energy required for such 
adventures, but that it has now become a rigorous require- 
ment of the general military position that risks have to 
be taken at sea that seemed prohibitive 12 and 24 months 
ago. If we view the thing as an isolated German action, 
and measure it by the military loss to ourselves, its 
importance is trivial. If, on the other hand, we look at 
It m Its larger implications, we shall probably agree that 
It must be grouped with all the other naval activities to 
which I have already alluded, and that so grouped it 
confirms our previous deductions from the enemy's 
belated embarkation on a forward naval policy. 
And here we come back to its influence on the public 
judgment of the Admiralty. It is quite evident from 
the tone of press allusions to this event that there is a 
tendency to find in it some proof, either that the Admiralty 
IS not awake to its responsibilities, or has not the will 
power, decision and initiative to fulfil them. From the 
day It was decided to forbid a full statement and an ad- 
equate discussion of the submarine campaign, the risk of 
a strain on public confidence in the Admiralty became 
inevitable. Undoubtedly what finally shook any belief 
in the 1914 Board towards the end o"f October, was the 
conviction that the public was not being told of our 
casualties with that precise candour that had been pro- 
mised. For some months now the truth about the sub- 
marine campaign has been withheld, no doubt for reasons 
that seemed convincing. Last week 1 drew attention to 
the curious blunder into which the Observer fell in its 
issue of October 21st. The worst of blunders of this kind 
is that public opinion ]ea})s from one extreme to the other. 
From the happy belief that the enemy's submarines are 
innocuous, it swings to the desperate opinion that nothing 
is safe against them. Where the policy of caution de- 
feats itself is this, that the enemy in the meantime is able 
to circulate as a- boast what we seem afraid to publish as a 
record. Monday's Times for instance, informs us 
that a Berlin paper, the Lokal Anzeiger asserts that in 
the first nine months of the year over 1,400,000 tons of' 
Allied and neutral shipping have been sunk, and that 
more than 2,000,000 tons would be accounted for be- 
fore the year ends. According to this paper, in January 
and February, 238,000 tons were sunk ; in March and 
April, 432,000 ; in May and June, 2i<),ooo ; in July and 
August, 274,000 ; and in September alone 254,000 tons. 
Judging from what we see of what has been done in the past 
month against neutral ships, particularly Norwegian, 
it would look as if the 2,000,000 ton total woidd be reached 
long before the year was over. It is just in the last fort- 
night that the scale of the submarine successes has been 
brought home to the British Public. And the suddeness 
of the thing reacts unpleasantly. 
A Policy of Desperation 
But the public will fall into a very grave error if it is 
rushed into criticism and distrust without knowing the 
facts and the measures in hand for dealing with tliem. The 
Admiralty undoubtedly has to deal with a new phase 
of war. It is not for nothing that the report is circu- 
lated in Germany that the navy as well as the army has 
been placed under Hindcnberg's sole control. It is not 
for nothing that U^^ made its sudden appearance off 
Nantucket or thkt Norwegian craft in the Baltic and the 
North Sea haye suddenly been subjected to a campaign 
of extermination. We are dealing now with an enemy 
who is hterally desperate, fighting that is to say with- 
out the hope of victory, and who sees the only chance of 
ending the war, without final disaster to the caste and 
dynasty that created it, in sickening the world of 
Armageddon by multiplying its horrors. Then naval 
sorties and raids combine with this new vigour of the 
submarine campaign to convince the Germans of the 
reality of their sea power and its potency as a factor in 
securing the final victory, and it is an absolute necessity 
of the German Higher Command to instil and feed this 
belief, for without it the pursuance of the war until a 
peace that saves the Imperial House is won would be 
impossible. The promise to Washington of May 4th, 
has alrea.dy and will henceforward be ignored when 
inconvenient. The German Government seems con- 
vinced either that in 00 circumstances will America 
fight, or that in any circumstances her doing so will 
make no difference. The German people at least are 
persuaded that it is American munitions that are turning 
the scale on the French front, so that American neutrality 
already seems to them a name only. 
Mr. Balfour then is faced with a new naval position 
that can be met only by new measures and greater energy. 
It is forttmate that his administration during the last 
eighteen months has been such as to secure him public 
confidence while he shapes his policy to these end's. 
Meantime there is one technical point worth brief ex- 
amination, to which the recent raid attracts our attention. 
In my article last week I drew attention to the fact that 
in the German account of the August sortie, in which Fal- 
mouth and NoUingham were torpedoed, it' was asserted 
by the enemy that it took three torpedoes fired at an 
interval of two hours between the first and the last, bclore 
Falmouth was sunk. It has been rumoured that Notting- 
ham had to be hit more often even than this before she was 
disposed of. Last week we learned that the Muenchen 
had been torpedoed by a submarine and had yet made her 
way home. These incidents are in lino with a great 
many more narrated in the Jutland despatch. In that 
docunient, my readers will lemember. Sir John Jellicoe 
and Sir David Beatty gave the details of eleven separ- 
ate instances in which our destroyers fired torpedoes 
successfully against the German ships, and in only one 
in.stance, namely the attack led by Captain Ansalan 
Stirling, was it stated as certain that the torpedoed ship 
