February 22, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
II 
Submarines, A Test of National Temper 
By Arthur Pollen 
jk T the time of writing the progress sf the sub- 
/% marine campaign has been maintained at the 
/ % same level as, but no higher than that at which 
^ jL.it began. It therefore confirms the forecast 
made in these columns. Neither the number of ships nor 
the tonnage destroyed shows any signs of reaching 
the point which would be dangerous either to us or to 
our Allies. It is a campaign then in which the enemy 
has so far shown no capacity to attain the military 
object he professed to have in view. At the present 
rate, he will never com^ within measurable distance 
of starving these islands, of inflicting any crippling loss 
upon our Allies, of compelling us either to restrict the 
theatres of our military operations, or to diminish the 
intensity of our effort in any one theatre. But to say that 
we need have no ultimate anxiety is not the same thing 
as saying that we are relieved from making every effort 
to thwart the enemy's plans and to reduce the consequence 
of such success as he attains. Far from this being 
so, it is only if we push self denial and economy to the 
utmost, only if we double our attack and quadruple 
our shipbuilding efforts, that the enemy's attack will be 
defeated with the desired completeness. We must not, 
while recognising that the enemy's campaign is far less 
effective than he hoped it would be, shut our eyes to 
the fact that its complete inefficacy depends largely 
upon national self discipline. 
I dealt last week with the machinery that the Ad- 
miralty has called into existence for dealing directly 
with the submarines. I propose this ^week to deal 
with the nation's share in this grim and unpleasant 
business. To make the character and importance of 
the citizen's task intelligible we nuist keep steadily 
in mind precisely what the German objects are. 
There is first the " professed " object to starve us into 
surrender and to cripple our Allies' capacity to produce 
munitions and so forth. But for many reasons one cannot 
help thinking that this is a professed object only. There 
has always been a marked contrast between the tone of 
the makers of German pubhc opinion and of the re- 
presentatives of the German seamen. This contrast 
was very marked after Jutland. The Emperor, the 
poUticians and the leader-writers talked flamboyantly 
of the trident being snatched from Britain's paralysed 
liand. but Admiral Scheer did not talk like this, nor did 
the Secretary of the Admiralty, nor did any of the re- 
presentative naval writers. When allowances are made 
for patriotic and professional bias, it is still difficult 
to say that the claims set out by the German seamen 
and their spokesmen were altogether unreasonable. 
In this case, too, there are many evidences that the 
Germannavy is embarrassed by the promises of the German 
politicians. It is significant that Captain Persius keeps 
insisting on the very formidable character of the U boats' 
task. It is particularly significant that those with 
the least claim to naval knowledge have been the 
loudest in their propliecies. We shall probably not be 
far wrong then, if we suppose, while the Higher Command 
may have hoped for the best, they have never had any 
real expectation of winning the war by the submarine 
campaign, and simply because their experts could never 
have given any such expectation. 
Why, then, it may be asked, have they incurred the 
risk of American enmity and all the other disadvantages 
attaching to open war with neutrals— for this is what 
~ it has come to— if there were no sober expectation that 
these very grave disadvantages would be counterbalanced 
by victory ! The answer is simple.- The German 
Higher Command was faced by the far greater dis- 
advantage of utter hopelessness and despair in the (ierman 
people. There has never been any danger of a German 
revolution. The people a\\i far too servile in disposition, 
far too well disciplined, far too effectively controlled 
for overt revolution to be possible. But despair, public, 
"niversal and admitted, is practically as great a danger 
and, at this stage o^ the war, _it has become the first of 
Germany's objects not only to restore the confidence of 
their own people but to weaken, if they possibly can, the 
courage and resolution of their opponents. It seems 
obvious truth, and one the importance of which cannot 
be insisted on too greatly, that Germany's main purpose 
in the submarine' campaign is to inspire fresh confidence 
in her own people, to depress and frighten civilian opinion 
amongst the Allies, and so create amongst neutrals 
the feeling that Germany and not her enemies is the 
winning side. , 
If this anaylsis of the position and of Germany's object 
is correct, it at once becomes our most important object 
to defeat it. This, no doubt, can best be done by bringing 
the submarine menace to nothing by naval means. A 
good many cheering things on this subject were said 
last week in the House of Lords, although it is not easy 
to agree with all of them. But it is now common pro- 
perty that the menace is in the hands of able, competent, 
impartial, independent men, that the measures we are 
taking are based upon a patient, laborious, exact 
analysis of experience, and that every measure which 
ingenuity or knowledge can propose is either being 
adopted or being tried with a view to adoption at 
the first opportunity. This part then of the subject 
we can leave to those who alone are competent to deal 
with it. And we can leave it with confidence assured 
that those who have it in hand are proceeding on lines 
which, in every other department of human activity, 
have hitherto given the best results — lines of stali study 
and staff organisation. 
Germany's Real Objects 
vVhat we have to ask ourselves is this. Witli whom does 
the defeat ofGermany's real objects rest ? These objects 
are, as we have seen, to create panic amongst ourselves, 
to put that panic and the story of our losses to profit, 
in enheartening the people of Germany, and so to instil 
in neutrals the belief that Germany not only cannot be 
defeated, but must certainly ultimately win ? It cannot 
be too clearly reahsed'that the creation and prevention 
of panic are entirely in the hands of the press of this' 
country. Public uneasiness, nervousness, alarm, can 
only be created by announcing our losses as terrible 
and sensational things, and by setting them out in such a 
manner as to disguise their real importance by concealing 
the relation of each loss to the total force from which it 
is to be deducted. It is deplorable that any newspaper 
should convert the day's loss of tonnage into a mere 
excuse for sensational posters; as was done a fortnight ago. 
It seems utterly unreasonable to suppose that those who 
are working under Sir John Jellicoe at Whitehall, or the 
officers in control of the different coast stations or the 
flotillas, could be inspired to greater or more successfxil 
efforts in sinking submarines or defending the ships, by 
attempts to play on a nerve in the body politic that is 
already acutely sensitive. It is difficult to filnd any 
explanation, except^ the desire to create and profit by 
sensationalism for its own sake. And it is still more 
difficult to distinguish the attainment of this object, if 
it is attained, from the attainment of the object which the 
Germans have in view, viz., the creation of panic and 
unrest in the public mind of the Allies. 
Unfortunately, the effort to create panic has not been 
limited to newspaper exploitations of this sort. The 
effort, begun a month ago, to force Lord Fisher back to 
the'conduct of our naval affairs, has been redoubled during 
the last ten days. We are told that just as Lord 
F'isher was able to suppress the first submarine campaign, 
so he and no other could suppress this. The time has 
really come for those who use such language as this to be 
brought to book. Either Lord Fisher has a plan for 
suppressing the submarine campaign or he has not. He 
has, for eighteen oionths or so, been the Chief of the Board 
