8 
LAND ^ WATER 
August 29, 1918 
would be towards driving the submarines to another field ; 
and this would, in all probability, mean to their other main 
field, namely, the area off our north-eastern ports. Wliethcr 
this has been so or not, only accurate information could 
confirm, but the tendency must be that way, and a change 
in the venue of the attack would necessitate a change in the 
organisation of the defence. This would involve not merely 
a new bringing together of material, but the alteration and 
extension of the commands, now more deeply involved than 
they formerly were. Experience shows that it is exactly 
changes such as- these that are the slowest to materialise. 
It would seem probable, then, that the enormous American 
military development has tended very largely to change 
the character of the submarine war, that this in turn has 
called for a regrouping of our commands with all the changes 
and developments and extensions and st&fi and personnel 
necessitated by it, and that these things in turn take time 
before they can be brought into efficient working order. 
These six considerations tend, it seems to me, to put a 
very different complexion to the July returns than the bare 
figures themselves convey. To dwell only on the increase 
in losses without giving due weight to these matters, is to 
misrepresent the situation altogether. 
Finally, the following figures might profitably be borne in 
mind. The average monthly British loss in the first quarter 
of the year was 232,500 tons. In tl)e second quarter it was 
208,000 tons. In July the actual loss was 176,000 tons. 
But for the Juslicia, it would have been, let us say, 160,000 
tons — practically only 60 per cent, of the average of four 
months ago. This is not a showing for which those who 
are responsible need apologise. 
I make no apology for returning to the subject of the 
enemy's sea dilemma, which I discussed last week. The 
discussion arose out of the supercession of von Holtzendorff 
by Admiral Scheer, and the inference drawn by. British naval 
writers that the latter's policy would be one of fleet initiative. 
We saw that the factor favourable to such a policy was the 
double failure of the submarine. First, it has not come up 
to the expectations which Grand Admiral von Tirpitz and 
von Holtzendorff himself had so confidently predicted both 
in 1916 — when the wise caution of Bethmann-Hollweg led 
to the American ultimatum being respected — and in 1917, 
when the German Government decided to adopt ruthlessness, 
even at the cost of America coming in — the old policy of 
damning the consequences. Secondly, it had been unable, 
by sinking the transports, to stand the Americans off, once 
they had been provoked to fight. The factors against the 
fleet coming out to fight w^ere, first, the faint probability of 
surviving a sea battle ; next, the collapse of the submarine 
war, which its total destruction would involve. 
Since last week I have had an opportunity of more fully 
perusing the German Press controversies occasioned by the 
Admiralty changes. One gets the impression that the position 
is extraordinarily involved. At first sight it looks as if the 
same forces that had hunted Kiihlmann out of public life, 
because he was for moderation, had now chased off von 
Holtzendorff, not for his want of moderation, but for the 
very moderate success of his excesses. Reventlow and 
company dance remorselessly on his prostrate body, because 
in igi6 he, who had taken Tirpitz's place and actually began 
the execution of the Tirpitz policy, surrendered to Bethmann 
HoUweg, who has never succeeded in living down his unfor- 
tunate speech about Belgium, and is now beyond the pale 
of forgiveness for warning • his Emperor and countrymen 
against bringing the American peril upon the Fatherland. 
But if we look at the thing closer, we find that there is a con- 
siderable background of alarm behind all this unseemly 
triumph over 'the fallen admiral. Unfortunately for himself, 
Holtzendorff had not only promised that England would be 
starved in six months : he had also sworn that the U-boat, 
which would put England out of the business of war, would 
keep America out of the same business. It is attributed to 
his inspiration that Stresemann, a leading intellectual of the 
Reichstag, misled that eminent body by his boast that every 
ship at sea "was actually under German control," and that 
the self-confident Hegt announced, amidst general approval, 
that "the great army over the water cannot swim across the 
water, neither can it fly ; it will not be able to get to Europe." 
From all of which it appears that, just at the time that 
British _ critics are announcing the July losses somewhat 
reproachfully as being unexpectedly high, German spirits 
are falling exceedingly low over the submarine two-fold 
failure. Persius, the most level-headed writer of the lot, 
sticks to his old task and tries to discount the extravagant 
hopes of those who thought the submarine could do every- 
thing, and to reassure those who, now that it has neither 
starved England nor kept America out, think that it has 
done nothing. He is, poor man, sick to death of the official 
exaggerations and the wild hopes these exaggerations have 
caused. A sailor himself, he is hot for the honour of his 
brothers of the craft. What does it matter, he cries, whether 
they have sunk 600,000 tons a month (which is what the 
Germans claim) or 300,000 only (which is more than the 
English Admiralty allow) ; theirs are deeds achieved in face 
of superhuman difficulties and dangers, and are all of them 
heroic. Germany ought to be grateful, not critical. Persius 
is under no illusion in the matter of the High Seas Fleet 
taking the place of the under-sea boat. The latter, he main- 
tains, is\ still Germany's "most potent" sea weapon. 
Holtzendorff himself seems, on the eve of his fall, to have 
seen the danger of too sharp a reaction of sentiment from 
one form of sea initiative to another. It was a last despairing 
appeal to the figures which he has repeated so often that now 
one supposes he must believe them. P"or the first six months 
of this year, he says, the enemy world has been losing 630,000 
tons of shipping a month, and not replacing half of it. At 
the worst, the Allies, thanks to the submarine, are e\-ery 
month poorer in shipping to the tune of 330,000 tons. We 
may look forward, he says, to the future with confidence. 
"The sacrifice and devotion of out U-boat crews is to con- 
tinue and" — note the context — "so also will the untiring 
successful work of our High Seas Fleet, as only it can guarantee 
the carrying out of the U-boat war in the necessary manner, 
IT ONLY can safeguard our points of support and keep the 
free routes to the sea open to the submarines." Read this in 
conjunction with what Persius says about "the most potent 
weapon," and we have at least two voices in Germany warning 
the Government against jmy gamble which might lose the 
Fatherland not only the fleet, but the submarine war as well. 
The dilemma is indeed a serious one. We know, of course, 
that von Holtzendorff's figures are preposterous. Allied 
shipping has been on the upward grade for nearly two months, 
and before the year is out our combined resources should be 
equal to replacing the total existing net loss in a very few 
months' time. But while this is so, it does not at all follow 
that the U-boat campaign has lost all value. If it does 
nothing else,- it postpones the date at which our shipping 
resources will be so great as to relieve us, not from anxiety, 
which is gone already, but from inconvenience and serious 
loss and embarrassment, which may continue for many 
months to come. Sober reflection will probably convince 
Scheer, just as it did Holtzendorff, that to throvv the High 
Seas Fleet into action now would be to precipitate Germany's 
complete helplessness on the -water. It is a condition which 
is doubtless bound to arise. And the great sea battle is a 
development which is also probably bound to come when 
Germany's land position is desperate. 
Meantime, the question before Scheer is this. Is it possible 
for him to deal with the menace of the continual inflow of 
Americans into France without necessarily risking the entire 
destruction of the German Fleet in a great sea battle ? The 
Americans are reported to be coming in at a rate exceeding 
a quarter of a million a month. As a means of preventing 
an ultimate American invasion of Germany, the U-boat has 
failed altogether. Can anything else be tried? It will be 
remembered that when von Hipper and Scheer came out 
on May 31st and got involved in the battle of Jutland, one 
of the favourite subjects of naval speculation was whether 
they had not some ultimate object other than an engagement 
with Sir David Beatty. Were they trying to cover the exit 
of fast and stoutly armed raiders which, under the protection 
of the fleets, could pass up the Norwegian coast and gain the 
Atlantic without interference ? Were they trying to get 
their fast units into the neighbourhood of the Murman coast, 
there perhaps to seize a Russian port, and, at any rate, to 
cut off all communication between Great Britain and Arch- 
angel, thus completing the isolation of Russia, then a for- 
midable unit in the war ? 
Well, it is obvious that to-day Germany has a far stronger 
motive for trying to get fast, well-armed units into the open 
sea than she has ever had since she committed the extra- 
ordinary blunder of declining to risk any of her ships to 
prevent Lord French's forces landing in prance in the early 
days of the war. That want of courage perhaps cost Germany 
her first defeat on the River Marne. The uninterrupted free 
passage of the sea, which the American Army has enjoyed 
up to now, has contributed directly to her second defeat" on 
the same historic river. It is already common knowledge 
that an army of very formidable dimensions, hitherto entirely 
unemployed, is now available to Marshal Foch for a blow, 
the direction of which the enemy cannot guess. So mucli 
the Americans have done already. By this time next year 
their force in France will be at least five times as large. If 
for a comparatively small stake the Germans were willing 
to take chances with their fleet in 1916— well, it is obvious 
that the stake is of- infinitely higher value to-day. 
