January ii, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
which all kinds of craft can work, the astounding develop- 
ments of marine mining, and finally .the extraordinary 
advance made in the use of the torpedo by increases of; 
its range and size — the size resulting in a vast enhance-' 
ment of its destructi\-e power when it hits — and finally 
its use from submarines. But as long range blockade 
was found impossible in the Japanese war, when torpedoes 
were still short-ranged weapons and submarines did not 
exist, it should be realized that the difficulties of close 
blockade were held to be insuperable even before all these 
modern de\elopments of undcr-water attack. 
Blockade of Naval Forces 
A certain kind of comparatively close blockade would be 
quite feasible if the force to be shut in consisted of weak 
<■ units only. And especially would thi^ be the case where 
the enemy's coast was so formed as to leave but \ery 
few channels for exit and entry. The kind of blockade 
to which I allude is primarily, of course, a blockade by 
mines. Given a country of (ireat Britain's engineering 
and explosive-producing capacity, there is no theoretical 
reason why every exit by which German submarines 
could reach the North Sea should not be made absolutely 
impassable by mines.. In the deeper channels, of course, 
the mines would have to be laid at several depths. Part 
of the barrier then would be doubled, part trebled, part 
even quadrupled. The barrier itself might have to be 
of great length. It might invohe the employment of 
£10,000,000 or £20,000,000 worth of mines. The point 
is that theoretically such a barrier could be made. 
To be effective for its purpose it would kave to be laid 
as near to the German coast as possible. For every 
mile that you come away, the longer the barrier would 
be, and consequently, the greater the strain on the 
country's resources in supplying the material, and the 
more protracted the operation of establishing it. In 
theory then the distance at which it should be laid should 
be outside, but only just outside the range of the coast 
defence guns. So ,vast an operation as the creation of a 
barrier exceeding a hundred miles in length could not be 
carried out, save by the employment of a very numerous 
force of especial craft for a "very considerable period. 
Such a force could not perform its functions under 
attack. And the minefield once laid, it can, of course, 
only be a barrier so long as it exists, and it will exist only so 
long as it is protected. Now if the enemy's force were 
intact, he would naturally send out fighting ships — 
destroyers, light cruisers and larger cruisers — to attack 
and drive off the mine-laying craft and the ships that 
protected them. In the last resort, if the mine-layers 
were protected by vessels more powerful than these 
cruisers, he would have to bring out his battleships 
to effect this purpose. And unless the mine-layers were 
in turn protected by battleships the enemy's battle 
force would necessarily achieve its object. Now the 
objection to the use of our own battle fleet in the support 
of mine-laying operations on this scale is, that . it would 
involve using them in waters better knowTi to the enemy 
than to oursehes, in which navigation would be difficult, 
and the consequences of errors in navigation possibly 
disastrous, and where, abo\-e everything else, the enemy's 
under- water craft could so harass battleships as to make 
their employment unthinkably hazardous, and their 
effective employment likely enough impossible. If we 
suppose the barrier laid, the same considerations hold good' 
for its defence. There is then no way out of the argument 
that, so long as the enemy's battle fleet is intact, or 
virtually intAct, so long is the most obviously effective 
counter-measure to his submarine activities made im- 
possible to us. 
The enemy obtains then in modern conditions an un- 
anticipated benefit from his possession of a fleet in 
being. In the old wars a battle fleet, tied to its harbours 
by fear of action with a superior enemy, was, in the 
literal sense of the word neuimlised. It coiild not and did 
not affect the course of^ the sea war. Trans-ocean 
traftic, overseas miUtary operations, all were carried on 
exactly as if that battle fleet did not exist. The inferior 
force might all take the quota' of merchant prizes which 
would fall to liis cruising craft and privateers, but these 
owed nothing or almost nothing, to the protection which 
the bii.ttle fleet aflforded them. Tlieir operations were 
prin'ip;illv m.ul- possible by the enemy's possession of 
so many ports on the direct trade routes that the closed 
blockade of all of them was impossible. But Germany 
■ 'has no ports except on the little piece of coast line on 
the {North Sea coast and those on to the Baltic. And 
for various reasons it is from the North Sea ports that 
all the submarines issue. The nature of this class of ship 
■ — once grant that it can clear its own harbours and get to 
sea — enables it to get upon the trade routes with even 
greater ease, and operate there with even grc^ater security 
than could French and American vessels engage in the 
guerre de course of the last of the great wars! An intact 
battle fleet to-day, is, therefore, worth as much to Ger- 
many as the possession of the Atlantic ports of France 
and Spain. It relieves her of one of the maip handicaps 
of the geographical position. 
It becomes an urgent matter therefore to enquire 
whether it is possible at sea to produce any such form 
of attack as will either parallel that \vhichthe Allies have 
made on the Western Front, or alternatively block the 
enemy's battle fleet solidly into its inner harbours, and 
so rob it of this function of protecting the egress 
of submarines. The thing boils itself down to a 
simple proposition. Can sufficient artillery', of sufficient 
range and power, and suiSreptible of suflicieutly accurate 
aim be brought to bear upon the approaches to the 
German coast, for such a barrier to be set up and main- 
tained in being, that not only no surface craft, but no 
submarine can come in or out of the German ports? 
Unquestionably the gun power of the Grand Fleet is 
amply sufficient. Practically then, the question forms 
itself in this way. '' Can an existing fleet be made unsink- 
able, or an unsinkable fleet of the necessary gun-power 
be built ? " There is nothing novel about the problem. 
Cuniberti and others have often discussed the possibility 
of a shell, mine, and torpedo-proof ship, and during the 
last fourteen years I can remember not one, but fifty dis- 
cussions bearing on this point with men in the service. 
No doubt many of the things we proposed in conversation 
seemed as visionarj^ and fantastic as they could be, but 
if the problems involved were tackled seriously, I dqubt 
very muoh whether reasonable men would say that 
success was impossible, or even unlikely. 
Monitors 
When, some two j-ears ago. Mr. Churchill made Ijis 
famous speech about '' driving the rats out of their 
holes," and rumours were rife that the British Admiralty 
were building a vast fleet of monitors, I had hopes 
that some of the dreams of ten years ago were 
to come true. Some of my readers have taken me to 
task for a statement, in a recent article, in which I 
deplored the long inaction of the Admiralty in the matter 
of replacing the merchant shipping which the British 
Army and Navy, and not the German Navy, had withdrawn 
from our trading fleet, and I contrasted this inaction 
with the time and energy expended on the production of 
" useless monitors." But my point was not that all 
monitors were useless, but that, in the bulk, the par- 
ticular monitors built were useless. The value, or other- 
wise, of any particular craft depends upon its suitability 
for the purpose for which it is intended. If you build 
a, monitor to bombard German forts on shore, in which 
guns of equal power and range are mounted, you must 
take one of two courses, either of which will enable the 
monitor to achieve its purpose. If the monitor can only 
fire straight while stationary, it must be absolutely shell- 
proof, for, in a contest between guns mounted ashore 
and afloat, the advantages in attaining accuracy are so 
o\-erwhelmingly on the side of those used from a stable 
platform, and served by a system of fire-control that can 
use the long base which the coast affords, that they 
must be expected to make, at any range, at least six 
hits to the sea guns' one. Supposing, then, your 
monitor can only shoot when stationary, it must be 
designed to survive this fire to be useful. If you 
qannot make it shell proof, but can equip it with fire 
c(;>ntrol , which enables it to shoot just as accurately 
ijnder wf^y as when anchored, then you are obviously gi\'ing 
to the monitor as great an advantage over the shore 
guns a<s in the first case the shore guns possessed 
o\-er the n^onitor. For the only movement in- 
troduced into the problem is under the control of 
those at sea, and it would be easy therefore to adopt 
