November 30, 1916 
LAINU & WATER 
under the expert impersonal and impartial care of a staff 
of specialists. In tms matter the gun only shared the 
neglect Qi which the mine and the torpedo were already 
\ictims. The use and the parrjing ot weapons is, when, 
all is said, the root matter of na\al force. For navies, 
contrary to the general impression, exist primarily to 
tight, and combat is purely an alfair of using weapons with 
ehect against the enemy, while neutralising tne enemy's 
own ohensive. Already, at the end ol 1915, as it seemed 
to me, we had paid dearly for our neglect in all these 
matters. And m the meantime new causes for alarm 
and uneasiness had arisen. 
Attacks on Trade 
On more than one occasion before August 1914, the 
Admiralty had been warned that the sea-carrying trade 
of tnis country was at the mercy of hostile submarines, if 
ever they were used ruthlessly against it. It is needless 
to say tiiat these vi^arnings were ignored. In December 
Von firpitz made the tnreat specific. At the end of 
February 1915, the attack began. Up to the end of May 
ships were sunk at about the rate of one every two days. 
Then, for two months, the rate was multiplied by four. 
The loss was two ships a day, instead ol one every two 
days. In August ana early beptember it rose still higher. 
Tlien it fell to nothing. Tins particular phase ot the 
attack had failed before our counter-stroke. It was a 
phase in wliich the attack was virtually hmited to ships 
witnin very few miles of the British coast. 
But already the loss of Triumph and Majestic off 
Gallipoli Had demonstrated to the pubhc virhat every 
expert had known for years — namely, that there was no 
diihculty in submarines going far afield. It was a mere 
question of building them large enough to carry the 
necessary fuel and supplies. Germany had opened the 
war witli comparatively few submaj-ines, and those fit 
only for a small radius of action. She at once built large 
ones. By November 1915, it was obvious that the new 
boats were increasing in number and were being employed 
on long range campaigns. For the first time the syste- 
matic destruction of trading ships in the Mediterranean 
began. This was the new fact wliich — when added to the 
other, proved lessons of war experience — called for fresh 
energies and new departures, it seemed that the right 
response would be more likely if those with war experience 
were brought to Whitehall. But for twelve months Mr. 
Balfour made no change either in his colleagues or advisers. 
The past year brcagiit us more and more fateful lessons. 
It confirmed, in a striking and alarming way, those 
which war had taught a year ago. The gunnery skill of 
the Fleet had been brought to absolute perfection by May 
last — but at Jutland our gunnery methods were still 
inadequate to the conditions. Undoubtedly, the thing 
which has brought matters to a crisis is the latest phase 
of the submarine campaign. After Germany's reply to 
the American Note which was delivered in the first week 
of May, there was for three months comparative immunity 
to shipping outsidq of the Mediterranean. In the 
Mediterranean itself destruction, murder and piracy went 
on exactly as before. But in August the whole thing 
broke out again everywhere, and on a scale hitherto un- 
known. And it has met with a success that is entirely 
without parallel. In the belated Tirpitz campaign, at 
the end of March and during April of this year, a rate of 
destruction was maintained for about five weeks, more 
or less at the level reached by the first campaign. But 
never had this level been maintained for more than a very 
few weeks at a time. For the last fifteen weeks it has 
been kept very consistently at a level higher than was 
ever averaged over even a single week before. Clearly, 
it can no longer be said that the submarine menace is well 
in hand, when it is the exception for so few as one or two 
ships to be sunk m a day, It is no wonder that the 
Admiralty has come in for criticism. Whatever counter- 
campaign it has prepared has manifestly been unequal 
to the attack. We are face to face with an entirely 
new condition of things which must presumably be met 
by a reorganisation of our methods of defence. 
Arming of Merchantmen 
Experts keep reminding us that when merchant ships 
are attacked, eight out of ten that are unarmed are 
sunk, while ten out of eleven that are armed escape. 
The arming of merchant ships seems, thereiore, a very 
obvious kind of panacea. But the equipment of four 
thousand merchant ships with guns adequat<3 to the work, 
and manned by men capable of using them, is not a 
simple business. It is no use having guns that have 
neither the range nor the power to deal with the sub- 
mersible cruiser that our enemies employ. Certainly, no 
gun smaller than a twelve pounder. and, in the majority 
of cases, notliing less thanafour or six inch, will be equal 
tc engaging a submarine whose artillery can kr.ock a mer- 
chant ship to smithereens at 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 yards. 
Three and six pounders are useless beyond a few hundred 
yards, and twelve pounders beyond a ran,ge of 2,500. 
If ships are to be adequately dciended, thej' must have 
guns fore and aft and be available for boGi broadsides. 
A gun on either side of the fo'castle and one astern — with 
an all-round fire except for'ard— is the minimum armament 
that can meet the rase. Four thousand ships, that is, 
would require twelve thousand guns, and crews of at 
least seventy-two thousand to man them. Supposing 
every gun of 6 in. or under were taken out of tne pre- 
Dreadnoughl fleet— leaving only such as would give snips 
the same protection that is asked for merchantmen — 
suppose every superfluous four and six inch gun were 
borrowed from the Grand Fleet itself— it would still not 
be possible to get even one-sixth of the number of guns 
required. The army makes sucir demands on the ord- 
nance makers, that 'it is purely visionary to speak as if 
new guns could be made and supplied. However 
plausible, then, the arming of merchantmen may be in 
theory, as a working measure its complete reahsation is 
manifestly impossible. 
The truth is that there is not now and never has been 
any but one main solution of this problem. Something, 
and indeed much can be effected by nets,- by the mining 
of likely channels, and by various other stratagems and 
ingenious devices, by arming such ships as can be armed. 
But if submarines are to be thwarted and destroyed 
en^ masse, they must either be found and pursued by 
sea going craft, so armed as to engage them accurately 
at the longest range. Such ships could keep them under 
fire and either destroy them before they can submerge, 
or so delay their submergence that the point of dis- 
appearance could be reached in time to effect their des- 
truction below water. These vessels could be either used 
for independent attack, or for convoy. The sea-going 
destroyer, the light cruiser or other craft of the same 
speed, radius and armament, are thus just as much the 
only solution of our present difticulties as they were 
ahvays seen to be the solution of almost aU the other 
problems that arise in the exercise of the sea command 
which a naval victory would secure. The unhappy fact 
of the situation is that, just as we failed to see the 
necessity for fast cruising craft before the war, so we 
have failed to meet the demand for it during the war. 
The millions of money — and what is far more important 
than rnoney — the building capacity squandered in the 
first year, on craft of no value either for the main or any 
of the subsidiary purposes of war, are wasted and gone 
and these blunders cannot be remedied. 
Mr. Balfour's Task 
It is no use lamenting the past ; the question of the 
moment is, what form will Mr. Balfour's new pohcy take ? 
I have suggested above that its past procedure along the 
lines of non-interference with naval colleagues owes its 
origin, not to a distaste for action but to something else. 
I beUeve it to arise from the conviction that, if the ten 
months war career of his predecessor taught nothing else, 
it made it lamentably clear that in lay interference with the 
navy would the road to ruin be found. The failure of 
Lord Fisher to save the navy from Mr. Churchill, and 
his own failure to conform his shipbuilding policy to the 
requirements of the fleet as experts would have defined 
them, made it necessary to choose a new First Sea Lord. 
But except for Sir Henry Jackson, Mr. Balfour has carried 
on practically with the advisers, colleagues, etc., that he 
found in office in May, 1915. To these men, selected by 
the Government that preceded the coalition, Mr. Balfour 
has given a free hand. He has hitherto thought it pre- 
mature to change them, probably for the reason that the 
course of the war had not indicated with sufficient 
