October 17, 1918 
LAND ^ WATER 
doubled. In September the numbers at sea rose higher 
still. And, notwithstanding this, the attacks were limited. 
The explanation is obvious. The plan must be not only 
to train the greatest possible number of commanders and 
crews for their work, but to restore the highest possible 
confidence. 
The importance of this last objective is no doubt paramount. 
The casualties suffered by the enemy's pirate fleet during 
h.st winter and the spring caused much talk, and had pro- 
voked many and specific denials. But there was no getting 
over the list of 150 commanders, dead, imprisoned, or 
interned. There was nothing for it but to restore the moral 
of a much shaken service. It is this which explains why, 
with so many mere boats out, so far fewer risks had been 
taken. Had U-boat moral been what it should have been, 
the great campaign, for which Scheer has evidently made 
himself responsible, would have begun earlier. We do not 
know for certain that the Leinster and Hirano Maru murders 
and the-attack on the Ticonderoga even now mark its actual 
beginning. But that, assuming the German plans to con- 
tinue as they have been laid down, a new edition of ruthless- 
ness — or, rather, an extension of it on a scale hitherto not 
conceived — is about to be made, cannot be doubted. The 
submarine is, at last, to come into its own. It really does 
look as if the new men at the German Admiralty supposed 
that von Holtzendorff had failed, not because he had claimed 
moro for the submarine than it could do, but because he 
had not seen to it that all the submarine could do was done. 
If this interpretation of German intimations is correct, it 
would seem as if, failing success in keepi-ng the American 
armies out of France, the U-boat was now to be used to 
secure their starvation, once thev are in. 
Nor can anyone of sense doubt the gravity of the situation 
that must result should the submarine once more reach the 
level of success that it attained in April last year, and be 
able to maintain its success at that level for even a very few 
months. For, we must not deceive ourselves into supposing, 
wonderful as the American shipbuilding effort has been, 
that the means of communication at sea, now available to 
the Allies, can lon^ survive the strain to which they were 
exposed. last year. We must bear in mind that we start 
in October, 1918, with a far smaller fund of tonnage than 
we possessed when ruthlessness began in February, 1917. 
We have got accustomed to complacent views on this matter, 
partly because the rate of loss has steadily declined, partly 
because the rate of shipbuilding has sensibly increased. But 
it is surely obvious, if the enemy's means of destruction can 
suddenly be multiplied, not by two or three, but by six or 
seven, and if, as suddenly, those who operate these means 
can be induced to act in a more courageous, if not in an 
actuallv reckless way, that the entire situ"ation may be 
changed even more rapidly and more dramatically than it 
was changed in the spring eighteen months ago. How should 
this affect our attitude towards the proposed armistice? 
I have dwelt, with some insistence, on the military aspect 
of this matter because it is only when we have fully realised 
what the enemy believes is within his power that we shall 
be armed to meet him at the council table. What the enemy 
desires is exactly what he has asked for. He assures us 
that he agrees to the principles which we desire to see applied 
in the re-settlement of Europe. He protests that his govern- 
ment is no longer military, but civilian. He implores us to 
believe that, in these circumstances, we can safely stay our 
arms and begin with him those discussions that are to result 
in the peace that all desire. To this seeming innocent invita- 
tion Mr. Wilson has responded not, as the American Press 
observes, with a reply, but with inquiry. Are the fourteen 
points accepted as terms of peace, and not as principles 
open to discussion ? Will the enemy undertake to evacuate 
the, invaded territories as a condition of the a,rmistice ? 
Has the Government of Germany reconstituted itself in 
accord with the fifteenth point ? Is it, that is to say, no 
longer the Government of the Kaiser, but tjie Government 
of the German people ? To some of us it i#as a matter of 
extreme astonishment that President Wilson should have 
insisted on the eyacuation point without mentioning the 
renunciation*of the submarine campaign. For it was the 
submarine, and not either the rape of Belgium or the devasta- 
tion of France, that brought America into the war. It was 
difficult, at first sight, to say why that which had made 
.America a belligerent should not be the first matter on which 
she should seek satisfaction. 
A New Constitution Needed 
The explanation of the President's silence on this point 
may perhaps be found in the following considerations. Of 
the three points Mr. Wilson raises one is fundamental. 
The Central Powers have shown their Government to be bereft 
of all sense of honour. With such a Government neither America 
nor the Allies can have any dealing. Such was Mr. Wilson's 
fifteenth point. Erzberger replies — and Erzberger is a 
Secretary of State ! — that General Stein has been dismissed, 
and that militarism is therefore dead. We do not need to 
be reminded that Erzberger is appointed by Prince Max, 
and Prince Max appointed by the Kaiser, and that the whole 
non-military Government of tq-day could be replaced by 
one seven times worse than the first. There can be no 
fundamental change in the German Government without funda- 
mental change in the German constitution. 
Further, it . is possible that he omitted to mention the 
evacuation of the sea by submarines simply because so much is 
involved in the acceptance of the land evacuation as to make 
an additional condition unnecessary. For, observe, the other 
two points were conditions of peace. The evacuation is a 
condition of the armistice. Before an armistice can come 
into existence, the conditions on which it is granted must 
be settled, not by Governments and statesmen, but by the 
commanders of the forces engaged. Assuming, then, that 
Germany acknowledged her willingness to accept the prin- 
ciple of evacuation as the condition of an armistice, it would 
be for Marshal Foch and those associated with him in the 
land war, and for the Allied Naval Command, who have 
control of the sea position, to define the technical condi- 
tions which Germany would have to observe, while the 
evacuation was in process of accomplishment. 
It is inconceivable that the German Army will be allowed 
to retire from France and Belgium with guns and munitions 
and their whole military apparatus ; it is equally incon- 
ceivable that a cessation of arms at s<;a can be held to have 
commenced until every submarine had been retired. Evacua- 
tion on land, then, could have only one meaning, to wit 
the virtual disarmament of the German Army. Now, the 
sea equivalent of this would be not only the retirement of 
the submarine from the present hunting grounds. • For 
they would be available to strike at any chosen moment. 
They must, therefore, be incontinently surrendered into 
Allied hands. If the case for limiting evacuation to the 
personnel of the German Army is unanswerable, the case 
for the elimination of the submarine, as a possible ftiture 
German weapon, is irresistible. 
But here a further point must be made. The purpose 
of the evacuation is not merely to assuage the wounded 
pride of outraged Belgium and France, but to bring instant 
relief to the tortured and enslaved inhabitants of the unhappy 
districts over which the enemy has tyrannised so long. 
Similarly, the evacuation of the sea is necessary, not only 
so that the conscience of mankind shall no longer be outraged 
by such horrors as the Leinster and Hirano Maru murders, 
but. that the straitened populations of Italy and France 
shall forthwith enjoy the benefits of sea communications, 
now cruelly reduced by submarine action. These reductions 
must, so far as possible, be made good. Not only must the 
submarines be surrendered ; all German shipping must- be 
instantly put into Allied service. 
The German submarine has destroyed over ten million 
tons of non-belligerent merchant shipping in the last four 
vears. It is this shipping which, to use a hackneyed phrase, 
has made the modern comity of nations what it is. It is 
shipping which has created the wealth, the tastes, the 
standard of life of every civilised country. Whether any 
particular ship belonged to England, Germany, France, or 
Norway, -was really immaterial. WTiatever the ownership 
might be, the ship was in the world's service. To destroy 
shipping indiscriminately, then, without just excuse, regard- 
less of the laws of ^ar — to the making of which Germany 
was just as sacredly a partner as in the creation of the instru- 
ments that guaranteed the integrity of Belgium — action of 
this kind was public treason, not only to the moral standards 
of the world, but to its prosperity, its comfort, even to its 
power to meet the bare necessities of life. 
Full reparation is, unfortunately, not within her power. 
In August, 1914, Germany and Austria possessed between 
them something over six million tons of merchant shipping, 
a considerable portion of which was only coast-wise or river 
shipping. Of this, the Alhes have captured two and a half 
million tons, and have in the operations of war destroyed 
perhaps one or two hundred thousand tons besides. There 
are in neutral ports — Spain, Holland, and elsewhere — a few 
more hundred thousand tons, leaving perhaps two and a 
half million tons in German and Austrian harbours. Neither 
: country can have addtrtl greatly to this during the war. 
If the enemy were to surrender the whole of his existing tonnage 
to the Allies he itould not be making gdod more than one-quarter 
of the wanton damage he had done. 
Arthur Pollen. 
