14 
LAND & WATER 
December 19, 191 8 
comfort, the warlike stores which the enemy merchantman which von Spee — rashly and without jproper scouting — 
or the neutral may have on board. He has begun the process approaclies. Then his career like von Miifler's is terminated 
of siege. Now suppose him to be convoying a British ship by fighting. The story of one is the story of all. Cap 
with a regiment of Field-Marshal French's army on board. Trafalgar, a merchantman converted to a cruiser, is, before 
If his presence has frightened the enemy off the seas, so her commerce-destroying mission is more than begun, encoun- 
that he crosses to an Allied port without interference, he is tered and sunk by another convert, Carmania. Koenig&berg, 
bringing a further form of pressure to bear. Thus, by the for fear of being outfought, abandons commerce destruction, 
single operation of being at sea in a state of war, he may and retreats up the Rufigi. Z)res<ieM and two armed merchant- 
in succession or simultaneously exercise all the functions of men hide in the Patagonian fiords ; one on emerging is 
sea power. The point to observe is that, before he could caught and destroyed, the other two escape destruction by 
exercise pressure by capturing enemy ships or stopping voluntary internment in American harbours. In any case, 
supplies in neutral bottoms, or landing troops for the enemy's the sea pressure which tlie enemy strove to infhct on us, was 
ultimate invasion, he must be ready to fight^ — or the pressure conditioned by fighting, and was terminated either by figliting 
cannot become operative. Whether he actually fights or or by the overwhelming necessity of avoiding it. 
not depends not upon himself, but upon the willingness of Take again the submarine campaign against commerce, 
the enemy to oppose him. Thus in one day's operations, The issue is a little complicated here because, until quite 
fighting has dictated the whole proceedings. recently, the submarine was in no sense of the word a fighting 
Now if we assume — what, of course, actually happened in ship, it was only an assassinating ship. But long before war 
August, 1914 — that the enemy allows these processes of pres- broke out it was realised that her invisibility was not quite 
sure to go forwarcLundisputed, what is in effect the cliallenge complete or constant ; that any ship that commanded high 
of the British cruiser captain ? He is saying to the enemy : speed could, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, make under- 
" If you will not come out and fight our fleets at sea, we cannot water attack impossible, by swift movement and manoeuvring ; 
compel you to, because you can get into your defended and that a slow ship escorted by fast destroyers would be 
harbours. But we can compel you to fight our armies in reasonably safe, because the submarine, before it could attack. 
France, and unfess you stop those 
armies at sea, you will have to 
fight them on land. We cannot 
compel you to defend your mer- 
chantmen or to stop our searching 
and capturing the neutrals, but 
if you do not, we will ensure that 
you are deprived of everything 
that can reach you from the sea, 
and do our best to bring you to 
such straits, that you will have to 
come out to fight, to get relief 
from the siege that we inflict." 
The operations of our cruiser 
are not only conditioned by her 
willingness to fight to make them 
effective, they are such as to 
goad and provoke the enemy to 
fight, to avoid their oppressive 
continuance. Fighting then en- 
ters into pressure, not only as its 
immediate operative cause, but 
as its alternate aim. The enemy 
may — as in fa:ct he has in this 
case — surrender rather than fight 
the thing to a finish. But this 
is a result disappointing to us, 
a result that shows that pressure 
has failed in its true war aim, 
not because surrender is not a 
thing we want, but because we 
want it as the result of defeat, 
and not simply as tl^e result of 
exhaustion, because defeat oper- 
ADMIRAL SIR ROSSLYN WEHYSS 
would have to verify its aim by 
the sacrifice of its invisibility, 
even if only for a brief time. 
Thus the formula for protecting 
merchantmen against the kind of 
attack that was thought legiti- 
mate when made by submarines 
on a warship, was well known 
long before the necessity for 
protecting merchantmen from 
this kind of attack became im- 
perative. Against anything short 
of ruthlessness the arming of 
merchantmen was sufficient, be- 
cause a submarine on the surface 
was not often an equal match for 
a merchantman, even indiffer- 
ently gunned. 
We speak of the arming of 
merchantmen and their convoy 
by fast destroyers as defensive 
measures. And we speak cor- 
rectly, because the ultimate 
strategic purpose of these mea- 
sures is to safeguard ships from 
the submarine's torpedo. But 
their efiiciency lies in this, that 
they compel the submarine, if 
it is t . do its job, to abandon mere 
assassination from a coign of 
ignoble and secret advantage, and 
face an offensive — compel it, that 
is to say, to what we are main- 
taining is the true and indeed the 
ates more rapidly than exhaustion in bringing surrender solepurposeof naval force— to fight. It has to face the risks of 
about. 
Tf I -ji . , . , , , battle, if it is to achieve that which can only legitimatelv 
If we glance rapidly at some chief phases of the war we shall be the fruit of battle. So long as we were bli^d to the fac^ 
see these tnaths illustrated Take, for instance, the brief that we had gained all our o^4 naval ends bffighting and 
but dramatic commerce-destroymg career of Emden. This fighting only, we remained blind to perceiving tha t th^ one 
cruiser was with von Spee m the Caroline Islands when war way of preventing the enemy from gainTnghfs illegal navaT 
was declared and, afer keeping her with him for some weeks, ends was to compel him to I more norma^l method of wir 
the German Admiral detached her to harry our merchant If we could make him /^;i< for his end the wSess of the 
ttrif^x^SLdtn'LSr whS^/r "'^ submarine as a fightlng'^'nit.wouldUt the :SSfowhch 
tions, It examined in detail— which I have not space to do— those ends were gained t- (, ^^m 
show sea force in movement with exactly the results suggested When by convoy v^ e at " last made the submarine fight 
S^^ He meets unarmed ships and captures them. He the result was decisive. The truth of this bTcoXs 4rv 
^.Snir.^ Z •" '"^'"'?' enemy forces are at anchor, and apparent if we look upon what actually fol owed aftS convoy 
destroys them; resumes his attack on commerce, and is was adopted in July, Vor 7. n six months the rate ofloTof 
foally brought to action by a ship of superior strength belong- tonnagefellby exactly a hLf. In th^rmfpSortheGermaL 
mg to the Royal Australian Navy, and then his career is ended, lost exactly twice as many submariS^L Tn thrprece^ing 
His operations have been conditioned by his fighting ability, six months. Why did the rate of loss fall Why^ was thf 
they have involved fighting, they are ended by fighting, destruction of submarines doubled ? We have no^t vet go? 
Take agam von Spec's career after emerging from the accurate figures which classify tL different Sencierbv whfch 
r'frr^^l.V^t^°fcT±l^^^^^^^^^^ the U-bo,tTone after anotlJrwe^efeTto?^^^^^^^^^^^ 
unarmed shipping, but an inferior British force commanded to return 
nor any precise measure of the success each of these 
by Admiral Cradock. This force engages him, and is defeated, achieved. But a substantial number certa[nlv were 'n;7 
and there is no other force supenor to him in the theatre of manently removed by the convoying forces Mines and 
operations He is, thereupon in a position to exercise sea the depth charges of hunting squldrons and aeroriXs that 
pressure, but only because there is nobody to fight him. search the seas would accountTrtrbulk of Merest Bu 
He does not, as a fact, capture and destroy merchant shipping, the German supply of submarines never fe 1 be ow the reauire 
for the excellent reason that the merchant shipping keeps ments of the German submarinPr.Tr.lt t^ 1^ 
m port-just as the German High Seas Fleet a^n^d ImJrs that, atanyLetretSe were n^^^th^^^ dLln'at woT 
kept m port, when they should have raided the Chanrel to and as over loo commissioned l^^L„ f at work 
stop the transport of French's army. And in port the Harwich alone H is cTeTXtf 4s not d^^^^^^^^^ 
S. America shippmg remains, until a stronger fighting force that lessened the intensity of theTtlick The decisive dement 
commanded by Admiral Sturdee comes to the Falkland Islands, was cleariy the greater ^cautfon which the presence ildes- 
