January i8, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Sir John Jellicoe's Statement 
By Arthur Pollen 
LAST week the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty 
was admitted to the Fishmongers' Compan\' 
and nsed this occasion for making a long and 
exceedingly important statement about the naval 
position. Three aspects of it occupied him principally. 
First, he dealt with the extraordinary contrast between 
the conditions of war to-day and those that prevailed 
when the greatest of his predecessors in office com- 
manded at the battle of St. Vincent. These changes, he 
pointed out, arose from the greater speed of ships, the 
longer range of guns, the menace of the torpedo when 
used from ships, destroyers or submarines, the menace 
of mines, air scouting and wireless telegi-aphy. In 
St. Vincent's time 800 yards was an e.xtrcme range for 
guns. To-day we open at 22,000 and at 18,000 gun- 
fire becomes " very effective." The range of the torpedo, 
however, is 10,006 yards and " this requires that a ship 
shall keep beyond this distance to fight her guns." But 
in the North Sea the conditions of light frequently make 
fighting at-this range or beyond it exceedingly difficult — 
a fact wliich explains why gun fire, which in some con- 
ditions can be very effective at 18,000 yards, may in 
others, at half that range, be altogether without result. 
A Commander-in-Chief therefore is in action subject 
to the greatest possible of anxieties because " as soon as 
destroyers tumble upon a fleet within torpedo range 
tlie situation becomes critical for the heavy ships." For 
" it is the main duty " of destroyers " to attack the 
heavy ships of the enemy with torpedoes." Further, 
mines and submarines make all cruising by fleets very 
anxious work, and in addition, these elements of under- 
water attack make close blockade impossible. So that, 
in spite of air scouting and wireless telegraphy, we are 
actually worse off, in procuring strategic information about 
the movements of the enemy's fleet, than were our 
ancestors; For they could keep their ships so close in 
to the enemy's ports, when the weather permitted, as 
actually to observe the movements of the ships within 
them. This should ha\e gi\en the (ier man fleet the great 
advantage in strategic initiative, but they have failed to 
use it. Apart from three raids on our sea coast towns 
and Von Hipper 's abortive excursion into the North 
Sea in January 1915, the German fleet has only once 
ventured far enough from its harbours to enable our 
forces to get contact with it. When the last sortie 
was made in August last, though the fleet got fairly 
near to the British coast, it retreated, probably because 
warned by its Zeppelins that the Clrand Fleet was on its 
way to meet it. As to the bombarding raids, these 
were probably undertaken with a view to " enticing 
us into the adoption of a false strategy by breaking 
up our forces to guard all vulnerable points." 
Sir John next passed on to remind his readers of the 
Collossal extension of duties the war had thrown upon the 
fleet. The mere number of vessels now included in the 
British Navy amounts to nearly 4,000. From the Arctic 
to the Pacific, and from the farthest East to the farthest 
West, the navy has had its share in every campaign in 
which we or our Allies have been engaged. The super- 
vision of the inter-neutral trade, and the blockade of our 
enemy, call for the visit and search of a minimum of eighty 
ships a week ! The administration of the supply of this 
' vast force is beyond the conception of anyone not actually 
familiar with it. But its most important aspect is the 
strain that it imposes upon the sea service previously 
devoted entirely to peace occupations. " Without the 
mercantile marine," said the First Sea Lord, " the navy 
and indeed the nation could not exist." It is not merely 
that the war has absorbed half of our merchant tonnage. 
■The drafts made on the ci\il personnel for war are extra- 
ordinary. Two thousand fi\c hundred skippers have been 
drafted into the R.N.R. for patrol and mine sweeping 
purposes alone. The executive officers in more im- 
portant ships drawn from this source have increased four- 
fold since the beginning of the war. In an eloquent 
passage the professional chief of the Royal Nav^' paid a 
due and proper tribute, not only to the efficiency, but 
to the entire devotion and unmatched herosim of the 
merchant seamen of all ranks. And this is a heroism 
not limited to those whose ships now fly the white ensign, 
it has been exhibited in every form of craft employed 
in the normal processes of trade. The submarine attack 
has made every man at sea a fighting man and most nobly 
has each emerged from the ordeal. 
The passage in Sir John's speech which has rightly 
attracted the greatest attention then followed. " The 
submarine menace," he said, " to the merchant service 
is far greater now than at any period of the war, and 
it required all our energy to combat it." He then added 
words which, coming from him, should be regarded as 
exceedingly significant. " It must and will be dealt with, 
of that I" am confident." He then went on to urge 
everyone engaged in the ship -building industry to regard 
the completion of merchant shipping as the first of all 
duties to the State, and closed with a characteristically 
generous tribute to the spirit of the officers and men 
of the fleet of which he has so recently given up command. 
However much the material of the navy had changed, 
the spirit of the personnel was as fine as it had been in 
our most heroic days, while in character and intelligence 
our men and officers surpassed their ancestors. No one 
could ask for a finer personnel than we now have in the 
navy. E\ery man was eager and prepared to do his 
duty, and a service so nobly and purely pledged to this 
great task has a right to ask the nation to work with an 
equally self-denying diligence for the provision of that 
great \-ariety and enormous \'olume of material that is 
required for the fighting forces. It has the right, too, to 
ask that the as^cetic self-denial of the men at sea should 
be copied by their brothers and sisters on shore, so that 
every possible financial aid shall be available for victory. 
" The nation can depend upon the navy being ready, 
resourceful and reliable." 
It was altogether a very striking address, and coming 
from so high an authority it will bring before a great 
many of Sir John Jellicoe's countrymen a realization 
of the nature of the navy's work, far keener and more 
^•ivid than they before possessed. It is natural enough 
that Sir John Jellicoe should have confined himself to 
generalities. It is not his business, having stated the 
clifficulties and problems of war, to publish how they 
are to be dealt with and surmounted. But it is to be 
noted that, in the matter of the most urgent problem of 
the day, to wit the submarine menace, he stated speci- 
fically that it -would be dealt with, and with regard to 
all the other problems, that we could count on the readi- 
ness and resourcefulness of the na\'y to deal with them. 
The Master Problem of Mine War 
Perhaps to readers of these weekly notes, the two topics 
of Sir John Jellicoe's speech which will pro\e most 
stimulating are his reference to the revolution which the 
long range torpedo has effected in battle tactics, and his 
definite promise that the submarine menace would be 
ended. As to the first of these, nothing could be clearer 
than the First Lord's statement. In favourable con- 
ditions modern naval guns can open fire mth the ex- 
pectation of hitting at eleven sea miles, at nine they 
become xcxy efficient, but at five they may lose all their 
value should the light be such that the rangefinders, 
spotting glasses, sights and telescopes, now in use, are 
inadequate. It is not that the enemy cannot be seen wth 
the naked eye. It is that he cannot be seen by the 
ranging eye, the aiming eye, or the fire control eye. A 
century ago, a fleet anxious to bring about a decisive 
issue and finding the game of long bowls fruitless, would 
have closed until the range was so short that missing 
became impossible. No captain " can go far wrong 
who lays his ship alongside that of an enemy." But 
this cannot be done within torpedo range, for at io,ooc 
yards " the situation becomes critical for the capital 
