LAND & WATER 
January ji, 191^ 
now, and it U one of the plainest that has ever been s?t to com- 
batants in a war. . , , , ^ j i „ 
Those who stiU tliink and speak m the old terms and xvlio 
conceive of a Prussianised Germany modestly retu-ing within 
the boundaries of its own culture and language because Us 
original Western aggression has failed, are living m a completely 
unreal world. They are like men vv;lio discuss modern 
.-conomic problems in terms of the old fasliioivid individual 
manufacturer and his hands. They are hke men who talk 
of a modern railway system as though it were still a private 
venture. They are living in the past. They' have an ex- 
cellent excuse, for that past is a past exceedingly recent ; but 
])ast it is, and to neglect the modern and existing thing before 
us while the enemy knows it to its veiry heart is to accept 
our final and decisive defeat. 
It remains to examine the economic position of such a 
central state and the menace that position involves. I will 
attempt it in another article. H. Biiixoc 
{To be continued) 
German Sea Enterprise 
Bv Arthur Pollen 
4 T the time of writhig last week, the story of the 
/% Gocben and Breslau sortie from the Dardanelles 
/ % was so incomplete that any discussion of so mter- 
jL A-esling an adventure would have been premature. 
The communique, of the 23rd, however, gives a far more 
detailed picture of what happened, and corrects several state- 
ments in the previous accounts. But, even now, particulars 
of many major points are stiU to seek. Briefly, the story we 
are told is this. 
Lizard, a 750-ton destrover, armed with two 4-mch and two 
li-pounder guns, discovered Breslau, with the Goeben a mile 
astern, at 5.30 on the morning of January 24th, when 
she was about two miles from the north-east point of Imbros. 
The German ships were on a northerly course and steering 
towards the south east of Cape Kephalos. Lizard at once 
gave the alarm and engaged the two (ierman ships, at a range 
of about 11,000 yards, she being under heavy fire the whole 
time, straddled often, but never hit. She was, naturally 
enough, not able to turn either ship from her course, and was 
pre\-ented from closing to torpedo range by the accuracy of 
Breslau s fire as the distance shortened. There was, then, 
nothing to prevent Goehen from getting opposite the mouth 
of the harbour where the monitors were lying. Lizard had 
kept between Goeben and the harbour and, no doubt in 
response to her original alarm, Tigress came out and joined 
her, when both destroyers did what they could to shield 
the two monitors by smoke screens. The protection, how- 
ever, was insufficient' and within forty minutes of the German 
ships being sighted, first Raglan aiid then M28 had been 
" heavily hit " and sunk. The enemy, having accomplished 
their mission, turned south, not apparently with the idea of 
returning up the Dardanelles, but on some other mission. 
They were followed by Lizard, now accompanied by Tigress, 
who, at seven o^clock. saw Breslau run into a minefield, in 
which she seems to have struck, not one but several mines, 
so that she sank within ten minutes of the first explosion. 
Goeben was apparently leading, for, on seeing Breslau sink, 
she circled round her once and then continued her southerly 
course. There then came on the scene four Turkisii 
destroyers accompanied by an old cruiser. Lizard and Tigress 
engaged the destroyers at once, hit one of ihem " repeatedly " 
and drove them pell mell up the Straits. But Goeben con- 
tinued past the Straits, still going in a southerly direction, 
when an attack by our aircraft " forced " her to turn. 
The account does not say whether Goeben was hit by this 
first attack. But the presumption is that the bombs must 
have fallen close enough to make her realise that the risk of 
trying to add to her successes by continuing her range further 
afield was prohibitive. But the decision was taken at an 
unfortunate moment for, in the actual act of turning, she 
struck a mine herself, the injury from which must have been 
serious, for not only did she settle down aft, but developed 
a list of from ten to fifteen degrees. Damage of this kind 
was bound to affect her speed, and it is possible that one of 
the propeller shafts may have been injured as well. At any 
rate, her procedure up the Dardanelles was slow. All the 
four Turkish destroyers that had been driven in by Lizard 
and Tigress now turned to escort Goeben — from which one 
concludes that the boat that was hit could not have been very 
seriously damaged. The Turks also sent out aircraft to put a 
stop to further attacks from the sky and, in the encounters 
that ensued, one of our seaplanes seems to have been destroyed. 
But the others in the meantime continued to attack not only 
with energy but with effect, for no less than four direct hits 
were recorded — two before and two after Goeben was run 
ashore, 100 yards from the lighthouse at Nagara Point. 
Lizard and Tigress continued to follow up Goeben, until Uv 
fire from the batteries became prohibitive. The gallant 
captains of these enterprising craft felt the better justified in 
desisting when they realised how effective our attack from 
the air liad become. Having left the Dardanelles, tiiey pro- 
ceeded to the rescue of the Breslau siir\i\ors, a woik, how- 
ever, in which they were disturbed by an enemy submarine. 
The story docs not tullushownidny German li\es were lost by 
this veryill-timed intervention. Later accounts record further 
direct hits on the Gocben, and there is one story to the effect 
that her decks are now awash. But she has survived so many 
misfortunes that it needs some hardihood to assert, as so 
many have done, that she is now finally destroyed. 
One can look at this story from two points of view. 
What do these events tell us about the art of fighting at 
sea, \-iewing them as a na\al operation only ? 
Secondly : What is the political significance, if any, in tlic 
sortie ? Let us deal with the technical question first. 
Imbros lies about fourteen or fifteen miles from the nearest 
])oint of the Gallipoli Peninsula. On a clear day with a good 
telescope, magnifying, say forty-five diameters — not a high 
power for use in Mediterranean sunlight — objects at Imbros 
would appear to an observer on any high point like Achi 
Baba, to be about 600 yards off. But as we know from 
the despatch describing the first fortnight's work of our sub- 
marines in the North Sea, the under-water boat is, in many 
respects the most efficient scout there is, and all information 
got by direct telescopic view and by submarine, could easily 
enough be confirmed and multiplied by aircraft. In deciding 
to make this raid, therefore, we must' realise that the enemy 
knew exactly' what he was doing, exactly what force there 
was opposed to him ; knew, in fact, that he was running no 
risk of encountering any craft of a fighting power superior 
to, or even equal to, that of the ex-German battle cruiser. 
It is important that we should realise this because, when we 
come to the poHtical considerations lying behind the raid, 
the degree of risk run by these ships is highly material to their 
comprehension. Next we must also assume that, at the 
time when Imbros was made a base for the operations against 
tlie Gallipoli Peninsula, it was not thought necessary to 
j)rotect it by heavy guns. In those days the idea that 
Goeben would come out and either raid the harbour or attack 
a squadron of our older battleships, would have seemed, as 
indeed it was, chimerical. Goeben, therefore, had nothing to 
fear from any armament except those of the monitors. The 
smaller monitor, il/28, can be ruled out. She was probabl\- 
armed only with one 6-inch and one 9.2 guns ; there would 
have been, therefore, no guns to take into consideration 
except Raglan's two American 14-inch rifles. We are not, it 
■ will be observed, told anything of Raglan engaging 
Goeben. And, if she had engaged her, we surely should have 
been told. Such an action would have been the first between 
a monitor and a modern sea-going ship, and very few shells 
from the monitor might have done decisive damage to the 
German battle cruiser. We know that Raglan was warned 
at 5.20 and, though we do not know exactly when the Goeben 
opened fire, yet the inter\-al before she cleared the point that 
opened up the harbour must have been considerable — for 
she was soon steaming seven miles out at sea and was still 
some distance to the south when she was first observed. A 
ver\' brief interval would have been sufficient for Raglan to 
have got ready for action, if we assume, first, that the only 
preparations were to man the turret and the fire control 
station, and that all was well with the ship at the time. 
We must, then, I think, conclude that Raglan was unable to 
engage, and that the explanation of this is tha't, not anticipa- 
ting the possibility of a raid, she was lying with her bows 
facing inland, and was unable to turn to bring her only guns 
into action in the inten'al between receiving Lizard's ^^•ircless 
and Goeben's opening fire. And it is the more probable that 
tliis is the explanation from the fact that Goeben took the 
risk. It is just the kind of detail that might have been ascer- 
tahied on Saturday evening by aircraft, and may have been the 
deciding factor in the determination to make the raid. 
So far, then, it is quite probable that things went, not only 
as the enemy hoped, but as he had every right to expect from 
the information he had been so diligent as to procure. His 
success indeed had been complete. The intervention of 
Lizard and Tigress, though as daring and skilful as it could 
l)0ssibl3' ha\e been, \\as nevertheless entirely without results 
