12 
Land & Water 
March 28, 191 8 
The Submarine Campaign: By Arthur Pollen 
THE coincidi'iice last week of tlic revelation by 
the Government of the true position with regard 
to tonnage incidentally, a bird's-eye ivview of 
the course of the war at sea during the last yt^ar — 
with the great attack on our front in France, 
intended by the Germans to be decisive, has proved, as 
nothing else could have proved, that the strategy of our 
enemv is entirely dominated by the course of the war at sea. 
Two other events -the destnn'ei" engagement that took 
place last Thursday between Dunkirk and Zeel^rugge, and 
the seizure of Dut'-ii shipping — interpreted, as they should 
be, in the light thrown upon the sea war by the Admiralty 
revelations, emphasise this broad truth still further. The 
Dunkirk engagement serves further to indicate to us 
certain essential truths governing the present sea war, which 
seem to have been little appreciated during the last three 
"A-ears. Let us deal with these points in order. 
Tonnage of the World 
Sir Eric Gcddes gave us the broad facts of the tonnage 
position in his statement read to the House of Commons on 
Wednesday. On Thursday e\-ening a White Paper was 
issued setting out, graph-wise, the loss of tonnage and its 
replacement by new construction since the outbreak of war. 
Two diagrams were published, one showing Josses and recon- 
struction as they affected l?ritish shipping onh', the other 
illustrating the same for all neutral and all belligerents 
other than the enemy. If we regard, as scientifically, 1 
suppose, we should, the world's tonnage, so defined, as under 
Allied control and equally available for Allied purposes, then 
the situation revealed by the second diagram, while anything 
but satisfactory to those who hope for a speedy victory by 
America's military help, is very much less alarming than those 
anticipated who have interpreted the food rationing to 
foreshadow an impending surrender bj- famine, although, of 
course, we have paid and must continue to pay until the end 
of the war the penalty for this serious loss of tonnage. 
The situation is, roughly, this. Over 11,800,000 tons 
have been lost, T^ie British share is just ov^r 7,000,000 ; 
the non-British share just under 5,000,000. Of this loss, 
just over six and a half million tons have been repl^iced by 
new construction, and just over two and a half milhons by 
the seizure of en&my vessels. British new construction 
amounts to just over three million tons, and the tonnage we 
have captured to just under eight hundred thousand, so 
that our total loss of seven million tons is diminished by the 
total gain of 3,800,000, leaving us with a net loss of just 
oven three and a quarter million. The non-British Powers 
have constructed half a million more tons than we have, 
and have captured a million tons more. Their gross gain is, 
therefore, nearly 5,400,000 tons, and as their loss was only 
4.750,000, they have a net gain of over 600,000 'tons. Setting 
this off against the net British loss, the AlUed Powers and 
neutrals together are just over two and a half million tons 
to the bad. 
This was the position at the end of last year, and in the 
last quarter of last year the rate of loss was diminishing 
\'ery rapidly indeed. It had fallen — since the third quarter — 
from about a million and a half tons to about a million and a 
quarter, while new construction had gone up from 600,000 
to nearly 950,000 tons. The two curves as published, look 
as if they were going to meet before the first quarter of this 
year was completed — as if, in other words, they should have 
met already. The curves, as published for Great Britain, 
showed a similar tendency. At the end of the third quarter 
of 1917, our loss of tonnage was at the rate of 950,000, and 
our construction 250,000 tons. There was a gap, therefore, 
of 700,000 tons. But by the end of the year, the rate of loss 
had fallen below 800, oot) tons, and the rate of construction 
had risen to over 400,000. So, where the graphs end, the 
gap was below, being but little more than 350,000 tons. 
Could the curves have continued, these two also would have 
met by about the end of this month. As I shall point out 
later, through the accidental selection of quai'terly periods, 
both of these curves arc misleading. 
Rut before going on to this demonstration, let us deal 
with the actual situation at the close of last year. The 
tonnage available to the .\llies, as we have seen, was then, 
roughly, two and a half million tons down. This in itself 
does not reveal a position that is dangerous. If new con- 
struction were never to rise beyond the level at which it 
stood at the close 'of 1917 — just under a million tons a 
quarter — and if there was no improvement in the rate of 
loss — just under 1,300,000 tons a quarter — it is certain that 
the enemy would not be able, by such an attrition of our sea 
transport as this, to bring the Allied combtnation to the 
negotiation point — which is the , same thing as surrender 
point— before exhaustion had overwhelmed the Centra! 
Powers themselves. The curves, in other words, show at 
the final point to which they have been carried, that if they 
continued parallel to each other from now onwards, the 
sea strategy embarked upon by Germany fourteen months 
ago at the cost of bringing the United States into the war 
has already been proved to be a failure. 
J* 
Failure of German Sea Strategy 
The best proof that this is the moral of these curves is 
that the Germans are concentrating the whole of their forces 
in an attack upon the British lines to-day. They would not 
do this if victory were attainable by other means. We have 
only to look at the situation fifteen months ago to reahse 
this. Germany had then just called upon the Allies to 
make peace or take the consequences. The consequences to 
England, if she declined to treat on the basis of the war map, 
were to be, as was pointed out in these columns at the time, 
the ruthless destruction of her shipping. This menacing 
eirenicon was followed by a step not less significant by 
President Wilson. This while seemingly an effort at peace 
was really, as again was pointed out in these columns, only 
the final preliminary to preparing .America for war. He 
asked, it will be remembered, that both belligerents should 
state their war aims, under the plea that they might not be 
found too divergent for accommodation. The pretext was, 
of course, the merest camouflage. All the^ world knew that 
the German war- aims could not be stated — and no one knew 
it better than the Germans. From the moment President 
Wilson's note was published, the decision of Germany became 
inevitable. There was literally no alternative to the ruth- 
less submarine war — though such a war would throw America 
on to the side of the Allies. The elements in Germany that, 
quite rightly, judged that if the submarine failed American 
intervention would be Germany's final ruin, implored 
Bethmann-Hollweg, who was still Chancellor, to reconsider 
this policy. He refused on the ground that the submarines 
must succeed in a reasonable number of weeks. We had 
then in the Chancellor's statement a measure of the German 
hope, even if we had not the further measure that it was 
worth American- belligerency. Had it succeeded, of course 
— and we have only to look at the curve from February to 
April to see how near it came to success — there would have 
been no need for further fighting on the Western front. The 
Allies simply could not have continued the war. But in 
April the Navy began ^o get the better of the submarine, 
and has continued not only successfully, but with increasing 
effect, to defeat it. 
If the net rate of loss to-day was likely to remain per- 
manent it still would not be achieving for Germany what 
Germany hoped to achieve when the campaign began. It is 
this failure that has made the vast effort on land imperative, 
and the effort has to be on this colossal scale because to 
Germany there is no alternative between complete victory 
and abject defeat. The collapse of Russia, it is true, puts 
Germany in a very different position to-day in making a bid 
for complete victory on land than was hers a year ago. But 
the broad fact remains that a land victory, while to the 
last degree improbable, is only possible at enormous cost, 
whereas a sea victory by submarine, which seemed far from 
improbable, would have been both cheap and rapid. 
Will the Situation Improve ? 
It is important to seize this fact, of the December position 
being a proof of German failure, as the starting-point of a 
further consideration of the problem, because it is even 
more certain that the curve showing the rate of loss must 
continue its downward slope. It is, as plainly, a mere matter 
of statesmanship evoking the right moral, and of sound 
business maiiagement producing the right organisation, for 
the replacement curve to rise far more steeply in 1918 than" 
in fact it rose in the last quarter of the preceding year. Whj-, 
it may be asked, is it possible to speak so confidently on 
these' two points ? 
The answers to these questions are not very recondite, 
and to make them -more intelligible, _I have ventured^to 
