April II, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
A New German Port: By Arthur Pollen 
WHEN Kerensky fell and the fortunes of Russia 
were confided to a Government of fanatics and 
traitors, it became obvious that the military 
situation on the Western front would suiter a 
change very damaging to us, as soon as the 
enemy troops, hitherto contained by our late ally in the 
East, could be transferred to the sole remaining field of war. 
What in the late autumn it was obvious must happen, has 
in the last three weeks actually happened. To what extent, 
if at all, is the naval position adversely changed by the 
elimination of Russia from the war ? 
Some weeks ago it was pointed out here that the most 
obvious of the naval advantages that Germany could gain 
by her advance Qn Petrograd would be the possession of so 
much of the Russian Baltic Fleet as was either in fighting 
condition or could be completed or refitted. If the battle- 
ships and battle-cruisers of the old programme had been 
ready by their due dates, were in fighting trim, and were so 
surrendered, the enemy's reinforcements might be so for- 
midable as to make it necessarj' for the Grand Fleet to be 
enlarged by all of the American fourteen dreadnoughts. 
Nothing appeared in our Press on this subject since that 
article was written until last week, when Reuier's corre- 
spondents at Stockholm and Petrograd informed us that 
the Germans had landed 40,000 men, 3,000 guns, 2,000 
machine-guns and armoured cars at Hango, and had already 
advanced to Ekenaes, twenty miles along the railway which, 
seventy miles further on, forms a junction with the line 
that leads down to Helsingfors. We learned also that at 
Helsingfors are moored two Russian battleships, a division 
of destroyers, five submarines, and numerous transports, and 
that these are ice-bound and cannot move, because the only 
ice-breaker had left Helsingfors and surrendered to the 
Germans at Reval, just before the landing at Hango took 
place. At Hango itself there were four submarines and 
several other Russian warships, and the commanders of these 
vessels, being unable to resist the landing, blew them up 
rather than that they should fall into the hands of the 
enemy. 
The only satisfactory feature of this news is that some 
Russian warships are still under the command of men loyal 
enough to their country, to prefer seeing their ships destroyed 
to seeing them tamely handed over to the enemy, not only 
of Russia, but of mankind. Whether the battleships at 
Helsingfors are in such loyal hands we do not know. It 
would clearly be possible, by exploding small charges in the 
engine-rooms, the gun-mountings, in the guns themselves 
and in the ships' bottoms, to put the vessels beyond the 
possibiUty of repair, and to do so without risk of any kind to 
the surrounding population, supposing the ships to be moored 
, where their complete destruction, by blowing up the maga- 
zines, would be a public danger. If they are not in such 
hands, the first accession of naval strength to the enemy will 
become an accompUshed fact, and Allied plans will have to 
be altered to meet them. 
But, as has been foreseen from the first moment when the 
German expedition into Finland was announced, the enemy 
has a second naval objective in view which, if it succeeds, 
may prove far more embarrassing to us than any increase of 
his battleship, cruiser, or destroyer strength. On Wednesday 
■ last week The Times correspwudent at Petrograd announced 
that Germany's Finnish allies were already advancing on 
Kem, a port on the North Sea, the most important town on 
the Munnan Railway that connects Kola with Petrograd. 
This correspondent also hints that some Allied effort is being 
made to prevent this railway falling into traitorous hands. 
If the possession of Kem were followed up by the effective 
occupation of Finland, not only would Petrograd be hemmed 
in from the North, but German access to an ice-free Arctic 
port would seemingly be secured, except for such opposition 
as a navy working with or without military assistance could, 
oppose. The possession of this port would be of incalculable 
value to the enemy for various reasons. 
The latest maps seem to give the name of Romanov na 
Murmanye to this latest Russian effort to get access to the 
sea, and it is situated half-way up an inlet known as Kola 
Bay, which is, in fact, the estuary of the River Tulom. It is 
situated about seventy-five miles from the Finnish and 
Norwegian boundary in the Varanger Fjord. Though nearly 
ten degrees north of Archangel, it is not ice-bound in winter. 
It is not the lowness of temperature that makes Archangel 
useless in the winter months, but the fact that the southerly 
currents from the Arctic Ocean, combined with the pre- 
vailing winds, carry the ice floes southward into Dwina Bay, 
and there pack them in such masses that it is neither possible 
to prevent the channel being altogether blocked, nor to 
blast nor break a channel when the block has taken place. 
Kola Bay is free from both these phenomena, and though 
the surface may freeze, it seldom, if ever, attains the thickness 
that cannot easily be dealt with. 
The advantages that a properly equipped port at this 
point would give to Russia had long been realised, and ever 
since the beginning of hostilities, great and sustained efforts 
have been made, not only to complete the port itself in every 
respect for the reception and unloading of ships, but to 
complete the Murman Railway to connect the port with 
Petrograd. There is reason to believe that both port and 
railway are now ready for use. 
Kola Bay 
If the Germans could seize the sea-board railhead, and 
establish railway communications either with Helsingfors or 
Petrograd — which they can occupy when they will — they 
could establish there a new submarine base free from the 
very patent disadvantages of those from which her under- 
water craft have now to operate. If we suppose, as seems 
likely, that the English Channel will before long be made 
impassable for thfe submarine, and further suppose that the 
enemy's main field of operations must always be the western 
end of the Atlantic lanes. Kola Bay will only be some six 
hundred mUes further from the submarine destination : a 
.very inconsiderable handicap when it is remembered that, 
in exchange for six hundred miles of well-patrolled, and 
therefore highly dangerous passage, the U-boats will have 
but double this distance to go — and a journey in which 
almost complete immunity from attack may be expected. 
All these considerations have long been before the Allied 
Governments, and it cannot be doubted that some and, let us 
hope, adequate measures have been taken to prevent, not only 
the Murman Railway with its port, but, if possible. Archangel, 
too, from falling into enemy hands. Should certain measures, 
however, not prove adequate, new duties will be thrown on 
our naval forces, and it is perhaps worth considering what 
they must involve. .It will make what has to be considered 
more intelligible to rehearse once more the essential character- 
istics that distinguish submarine from other attacks on trade. 
Most people, when they think about the submarine, imagine 
its unique merit to be its power of unseen attack. This, 
however, is not really the case. For nine out of ten sub- 
marine attacks have to be made with the submarine either 
altogether or at least partially visible. The unique charac- 
ter of the submarine is its power of invisible passage. It 
can, that is to say, set before itself a destination, arid by 
coming to the surface only during darkness, travel in almost 
continuous invisibility until it has reached the desired 
point. 
The development of under-water hearing makes it possible 
in some conditions to discover that a submarine is in the 
neighbourhood. But under-water hearing cuts both ways, 
and for the moment it is doubtful if, in the open sea at least, 
the submarine has not gained most by its development. 
For, being able to lie motionless — and therefore soundless — 
on the bottom, it can, by periodically stopping to listen, 
decide whether at any moment it is safe to come to the 
surface or not. For practical purposes, therefore, the sub- 
marine, if it can avoid mines, can navigate the seas with 
comparative freedom from risk. Hence, though I have no 
definite information to guide me, I will hazard the guess that 
95 per cent, of the submarines that are destroyed are caught 
either when they are on or near the surface for" purposes of 
attack, or just after diving from the surface, when the area 
within which depth charges will reach them can We judged 
with sufficient accuracy to make the counter-attack almost 
sure. It follows, then, that only such submarines are 
destroyed as are either surprised when their commanders 
think they are in safety, or intercepted when their com- 
manders think they are taking a legitimate risk in coming up. 
Thus the anti-submarine offensive depends for its efficacy 
almost entirely upon the greed of the submarine for its prey, 
just as the — very uncertain — success of an angler depends, 
as Sir Wilham Simpson says, on the appetite "of a scaly but 
fastidious animal." 
When men fish for a living, they do not rely on anything 
so uncertain as the combination of skill and judgment of the 
ifiontinued on page 12.) 
