LAND 6? WATER 
September 12, 1918 
The Defeat of the Submarine: By A. Pollen 
WHEN, in 1915, all the nation was wondering 
what the truth was about the state of our 
munition supply, and assertions and counter- 
assertions as to everytliing being as right or as 
wrong as possible were being made, the present 
Prime Minister, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, told us that a 
nation not fit to hear tlie truth was not fit to conduct the 
war. At last, after nearly four years, his government is 
beginning to act on the principle of candour. At any rate, 
so far as naval affairs are concerned, we actually learned 
more during the week end just passed than we ha\e been 
told at any time in the last four years. It is worth tabulating 
the more important of matters tluis directly, or indirectly, 
communicated to us. 
1. The most sensaticlnal statement, namely, the list of 
tlie U-boat commanders dead, imprisoned, or interned, was 
really by far the least important, because no one doubted the 
Premier's statement that 150 submarines had been sunk, nor 
supposed that lie could have been authorised to make it if the 
Admiralty had not conclusive evidence of its truth. The 
production of the evidence was then, so far as people in this 
country were concerned, a work of supererogation. 
But that the thing was worth doing is proved to admiration 
by the puerile futility of the German Admiralty's retort. 
First, it tries to make out that the revelation is no revelation, 
because the relatives of the lamented and detained buccaneers 
have already been confidentially informed of their fate. 
Next, the list is quite unreliable, because in many instances 
the ranks are mis-stated. Lastly, the fate of the commander 
does not involve the fate of the boat, so tliat the numbers of 
submarines lost cannot be inferred from the list. This is 
truly amazing. The converse we know is true. A boat can 
be lost and the commander saved, but it would be startlingly 
interesting if the German Admiralty would explain to us the 
process by which a commander can be extracted from his 
submarine and either slaughtered or interned, while his boat 
goes merrily on its way. 
I shall indeed be surprised if the fact that in no less than 
twenty-seven cases boats were destroyed without the com- 
mander being killed does not stimulate the German conscience 
in one not unimportant respect. All the non-German world, 
neutral as well as belligerent, has notoriously and from the 
first, looked upon the attempt to exercise the right of search 
and capture at sea by submarines as a wholly illegitimate 
use of sea-power. And it has looked upon ruthlessness, not 
as little better, but as far worse than organised murder. 
Is it not, then, rather a striking testimony to our humanity 
that we have not treated the U-boat captains either as com- 
mon criminals or as sea pirates, but have rescued them, 
and presumably their crews, again and again, and often with 
considerable risk to those engaged in this work of mercy ? 
Indeed, it is difficult to suppose that there can be a single 
irtstance where rescue was possible, in which, in fact, the men 
were not rescued, for it must be at least in four cases out of 
five that the destruction of a submarine is a submerged 
destniction. The boat either runs upon a mine ; is burst in 
deep water by a depth-charge ; is riddled by shell fire on 
the surface and sunk instantly ; or is rammed when its hatches 
are closed, and no escape for one of the inmates is conceivable. 
That in all of the exceptional cases the British Navy should, 
often at great risk, have saved the verv- men who advocate 
the doctrine of spurlos versenkt, and have forfeited all right, 
to benefit by the traditions of chivalry at sea, is surely a 
thing too remarkable even for the German mind to miss. 
It is evident that as an attack on the enemy's moral the 
publication (jf this list is an admirable move, and it is sincerely 
to be hoped that as we have reached a stage in the war in 
which his moral is becoming an increasingly important 
factor, the Admiralty will be encouraged to further departures 
of the same kind. But, as I have said, the list told us nothing 
of the state of the war at sea to-day that we did not know 
already. 
2. For news we have to look to other sources. These are 
the excellent summaries of the position published at great 
length by the Daily Chronicle and some other morning papers, 
and Lord Pirrie's notes to the shipbuilding return. Dealing 
first with the second of these, let us observe that we are 
informed that the Admiralty expect a decreased demand 
for purely naval shipping, and therefore a marked and invalu- 
able addition to be possible to the skilled labour force available 
for the construction of carrying ships. 
3. It appears now to be quite certain that our attack on 
Zeebriigge and two attacks on Ostend, coupled with the 
very altered state of things at Dover, have not only made 
the Flanders ports useless to the enemy, but have practically 
achieved what was set out in these columns as the purpose 
of Sir Roger Keyes' attacks, to wit, the setting back of the 
German .sea bases by no less than 300 miles. If this is not 
literally true, it is true at least to this extent, that more 
than half of the submarines formerly based at Zeebriigge 
and those sent there since the attacks have now been 
destroyed ; and that since the Jaauary raid on the drifters 
illuminating the Channel barrage, no enemy surface ships 
have shown themselves west of Dunkirk. 
4. The fight against the submarine campaign has gone 
through an interesting change since after the German attack 
in March, it became necessary to concentrate on the problem 
of protecting the American transports. To do this has 
meant that for the last three months there has been 
to a very great extent a suspension of organised submarine 
hunting. This means that one and, in some respects, the 
most important of the offensive measures against the under- 
water enemy has had to be put on one side, so that an adequate 
defensive should be provided to ensure the safe arrival of 
the American Army. It follows from this that the rate of 
German submarine destruction has been slowed down, and 
as the period coincides with a maximum effort of German 
production, the number of submarines in the field against us 
has been for some weeks, and is now, increasing. 
5. Several other points, such as the character of the 
Otranto Straits barrage and the continuous air and surface 
blockade maintained over the enemy's ports on the other 
side of the Bight, were brought to our notice. But of more 
immediate interest is the information that the North Sea 
mine barrage is in process of steady completion. The weak- 
ness of this barrage, of course, is that it cannot be taken 
right into territorial waters to the east, nor at present, at 
least, to the west either. Against a complete closure of the 
Norwegian Channel there is the ob\ious objection that if we set 
our mine-fields here we shall be violating Norwegian neutrahty. 
The enemy's submarines, then, still have an open passage to the 
north, if they hug the Norwegian coast, and an unmined 
passage if they come over to within a certain distance of the 
British coast. But it must be remembered that the same 
argument that prevents our mining the Norwegian passage 
should also prevent the enemy from using this narrow strip 
of water as a sally-port for his submarines. It is, of course, 
not to be doubted that the Norwegian Government will 
do its duty in protecting the neutrality of these waters. 
As to the western passage, means, it is hoped, will be 
found to narrow this very considerably, even if it is 
found impossible to close it altogether. It should not be 
beyond the resources, both of seamanship and diplomacy, 
to devise a plan which will still keep the Scandinavian trade 
alive without extending its facility to the enemy's pirate 
fleet. What is entirely to the good is the news that the 
barrages — one in the Channel and one in the Nortli, Sea, and 
the mine-fields off the Flanders and Danish coasts — are being 
completed or added to to the tune of 10,000 mines a month. 
Thus, if the active offensive by the hunting flotillas has 
seen a period of temporary ecipse, there has been no diminu- 
tion of energy in developing the static offensive, which either 
forbids the enemy's access to certain waters altogether, or 
makes his passage to his hunting ground increasingly perilous. 
Absolute Failure 
Now, if we consider these various points together, two 
conclusions are, it would seem, forced upon our attention. 
The first is a thing often insisted on in these columns before, 
viz., that the reduction of the destructive power of the sub- 
marine by (h) per cent., while the most necessary, is by no 
means the only very important result of the revolution effected 
at Whitehall in the last seven months of last year. For to 
this must be added not only a complete reversal of the state 
of things in the Narrow Seas, but an increasingly active 
domination of the North Sea, and especially of the areas 
immediately outside of the German ports. Once the rate 
of submarine destruction was brought below the rate of the 
world's ship production, ruthless piracy was not only rela- 
tively a failure, in that it could not bring our reserve of 
shipping to the danger point, it was an absolute failure, 
because the world's stock of shipping became an increasing 
quantity. German sea-power, then, was robbed of its onh' 
effective offensive, and as this enormously important change 
was accompanied by a British seizure of the sea initiative in 
