October 10, 1918 
LAND fir" WATER 
Durazzo and After: By Arthur Pollen 
THE Allied attack on the harbour at Durazzo, 
which took place on October 2nd, has — as is, 
indeed, not unusual with naval operations — 
been reported to us in such exceedingly vague 
terms that it is not very easy to say either what 
was attempted or what was done. 
What appears to have happened is sometliing as follows. 
A small force, according to the Austrian account, thirty 
vessels in all, after sweeping a passage through the mine- 
fields, got within gun-range of the port, its works and defences, 
and brought the whole under such gun-fire as the squadron 
possessed. Under cover of this, destroyers were sent into ■ 
the harbour itself, and torpedoed a destroyer and steamer, 
but spared a hospital ship. By these means the "complete 
destruction," both of the base itself and of all the Austrian 
ships moored there — except the Red Cross vessel — is said 
to have been effected. The naval bombardment was supple- 
mented by extensive bomb-dropping by toth Italian and 
British aircraft. The operation was covered b}' a second 
force stationed "in battle order" against any ships which 
might "emerge" to aid'Durazzo. This force presumably 
was placed somewhere near Cattaro, which is the main base 
for the enemy's submarines operating in the Mediterranean, 
and is probably a destroyer and cruiser base also. The 
Austrian account says that ene of the "gliding boats" — no 
doubt a submarine-chaser is meant — was sunk in the attempt 
to penetrate the harbour. The Italian Premier says no loss 
or damage was suffered by the "fighting units," except that 
a British cruiser was hit in the stem by a torpedo from a 
submarine — a blow which could not have been serious, for 
she continued in action and returned under her own steam. 
As neither the Italian nor the Austrian account suggests 
that capital ships were employed, the bombardment was 
probably carried through by cruisers, and possibly monitors. 
As it is verj' improbable that either of the surviving Austrian 
Dreadnoughts was in Cattaro, it is not to be supposed that 
battleships were sent out with the covering force either. 
It should be noted that no attempt was made to block the 
harbour by the methods employed at Zeebriigge and Ostend. 
At a first reading, one gets the impression that the attack 
on Durazzo was the main operation, and the covering force 
posted outside Cattaro was simply placed there to prevent 
its being seriously interfered with. But the reverse of this 
may really be the case. The real object of the attack on 
Durazzo may have been to draw the enemy forces from 
Cattaro into a general action'. If the enemy's main force 
had been in the port actually bombarded, we probably 
should have been told that important war vessels had been 
sunk. We are told that the harbour works and all the 
enemy vessels were "completely destroyed" ; but onh' one 
warship — a destroyer — is actually mentioned. Had any 
cruisers or more important forces been lying there, much 
surely would have been made of these trophies. 
If this interpretation of the story is correct, a new and 
interesting light is thrown on the moral of the Austrian 
Navy. For now that the surrender of Bulgaria has uncovered 
the Austrian left flank in Albania, so that the Austrians 
may have to contemplate falling back to Cattaro itself, 
and then perhaps further still, the importance of coast-wise 
communications is of the utmost moment tp them. When 
the capture of Mount Lovtchen in the autumn of 1915 gave 
Cattaro as an advance post to the Austrian Navy, military 
progress by land was enormously facilitated from the fact 
that supplies could he sent down the Dalmatian coast by 
sea, and so Cattaro convertgd not only into an invaluable 
submarine base, but into an advance base for the land forces 
as well. The subsequent estabhshment of Durazzo as a 
still more advanced base was no doubt the determining 
factor in enabling the enemy to push his attack home as 
far as Avlona. And unless he is willing to protect his sea 
communication now, there can be little doubt that the 
position of his troops all the way from Berat northward 
will seriously Ix' imjierilled. 
Combined Operations 
But' they will only be imperilled if the active offensive 
which the Allied navies have Ix'gun in these waters is resolutely 
continued. If it is continued, we shall at last see in the 
Mediterranean a thing which many observers o*^ the naval ■ 
war have demanded — almost since the beginning of the 
campaign. This, I need hardly say, is some kind of co 
ordination between the naval and military effort. There 
are no doubt many reasons why such a co-ordination has not 
previously existed. Its absence may have been inevitable. 
It may have been due to lack of unity of command, or to the 
lack of command rightly equipped with the staff necessary 
for so intricate and difficult a business. 
In one of the accounts of -General Allenby's recent victory 
in Palestine, when a destroyer or two seems to have sup- 
ported his left flank by the fire of 4-inch guns on the 
Turkish coastal positions, I notice that the writer spoke 
about this participation of naval artillery as investing the 
whole evolution with the character of a "combined opera- 
tion." The expression does not seem to me to be well chosen. 
Literally, no doubt, if naval artillery takes part in a military 
action, sea and land forces are certainly acting in combina- 
tion. It was in this sense that the Japanese Navy assisted 
the army at Nanshan, and more recently that Admiral de 
Robeck's battle-fleet supported General Hamilton's operation 
on the Gallipoli peninsula. But when the expression "com- 
bined operation " is used, it suggests something much more 
ambitious than the mere establishment of new gun positions 
on a sea flank. It seems to imply the strategical use of 
sea-power to introduce an entirely new elem^it into the 
campaign, and it nearly always implies a sea force accom- 
panied by infantry for which a landing can be forced, and 
so some extension of the militarj? plan made possible which, 
but for the sea force, would have been out of the question. 
History abounds in instances of naval contributions to 
military campaigns of this kind. They may range from 
undertakings so srriall and so fugitive as the destruction of 
semaphore positions — such as was systematically carried out 
by Cochrane in 1808 on the French Mediterranean coast, 
and have been repeated in this war in the form of raids on 
wireless stations in the Red Sea and elsewhere — to such 
operations as Cochraije carried out when he held the forts 
of Rosas against General Duhesme with marines and seamen 
landed from the Inip6riense and other ships at his disposal. 
Had the two men of greatest genius in the respective spheres, 
which the British Navy has ever produced, had their way, 
such operations between 1795 and 1810 would have been 
far more extensive. Those who are interested in this subject 
might do well to read Chapter VII. of Mahan's Life of Nelson 
and Chapters XIV. to XVIII. of Lord Dundonald's 
Autobiography of a Seaman. Mahan's account of Nelson's 
effort, with Agamemnon, another 64 and two frigates, to 
co-operate with General Beaulieu is exceedingly instructive ; 
and there can be httle doubt that, had either of these great 
men been entrusted with an adequate military force, Bona- 
parte's invasion of Italy might have been greatly hampered 
and Spain's value to us as an ally enormously increased. 
But even the kind of operation which Nelson and Cochrane 
had in view would not, it seems to me, come strictly within 
the term "combined," for there was not, either in 1796 in 
Italy, nor on the Mediterranean coast of Spain in 1808, any 
British military force at work which these highly mobile 
naval raiding parties could have assisted. But this war 
has afforded ideal opportunities, and they have always been 
very obvious. When, in December, 1914, it first became 
known that the Turks were organising a great army for the 
invasion of Egypt, I said in an article published in the 
W eslminster Gazette: "Turkey is not likely to forget, if she 
undertakes the hazardous adventure of sending any very 
large forces through Palestine and across the desert to Egypt, 
that the British and F'rench fleets command the Mediter- 
ranean, and that there is many a point between the Bay of 
Aboukir and Ale'xandretta, at which a fonnidable force 
might be landed in their rear. History repeats itself in war, 
ancl, just as we stopped Napoleon's progress from Egypt to 
the East, so we may, if it suits us, cut off the Young Turks 
in their eager run from Syria to Egypt. W'c shall be quite 
at home in our old battlefields." 
Surely there never was a greater opportunity for a naval 
expedition, accompanied by adequate infantry, tank and 
armoured motor forces, , than that which the Palestine 
campaign oif^cred on the eve of Allenby's master stroke. 
For could such a force have landed and seized Haifa, 
it could seemingly have done everything that Allenby's 
cavalry did. Perhaps the Durazzo bombardment por- 
tends a change of policy in the Middle Sea. If sea and 
land force could combine, the enemy might have some dis- 
agreeable surprises. There must surely be many vulnerable 
points between the mouth of the Piave and the port that 
has just been bombarded, and between Haifa and 
Alexandretta. 
