NAVAL WAR NOTES
Prepared by Lieutenant W. B. Jupp, U. S. Navy
STRATEGY
Can Our Heavy Ships Go to Europe?—The sending of more American warships to the other side, particularly if they have to he capital ships and if their station is to be the Mediterranean, brings us face to face with a serious problem.
Fighting ships, operating in distant waters, require the support of auxiliary vessels, a train of supply ships, ammunition carriers and colliers. The necessity for these auxiliaries and the situation of the United States Navy with regard to them was stated by Admiral William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, to the Committee on Merchant Marine on March 9, 1916, as follows:
"In time of war, or preparation for war, it would be necessary for us to very largely increase the number of our auxiliaries in order to carry fuel, supplies, and, under certain conditions, a certain number of men Should it be necessary for us to conduct a campaign across either one of the oceans…it would be necessary to have a considerable number of fuel ships, not only to accompany the fleet, but many to be going back and forth from the source of supply.
Half a Million Tons Short.—"At present we have 24 fuel ships, and we are asking for a few more…We have 12 of the larger ones carrying from 7500 to 12,500 tons, and then we have a number (six or eight) of the smaller type of colliers that were bought at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, but which are very small and rapidly reaching the stage where it does not pay to repair them. It is hardly economical to run them, because they carry so little coal. And then, of course, we hope in case of war to be able to draw on the Panama Canal colliers and fuel ships. But even with all of those we find that at present we are short a certain amount, some four or five hundred thousand tons, of what we would need in time of war or proper preparation for it."
Our Navy's Needs.—In a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury dated July 27, 1915, Admiral Benson gave the requirements of the navy as to colliers as follows:
"Fleet colliers.—Number required, 4. Characteristics: Speed, at least 12 knots; steaming radius, 6000 to 8000 miles; gross tonnage, not less than 5000 tons (equivalent to about 7500 dead-weight tons).
"Service colliers.—Number required, at least 200. Characteristics: Speed, at least 8 knots; gross tonnage, not less than 3000 tons (equivalent to about 4500 dead-weight tons)."
The fleet colliers accompany the fleet and are built to coal battleships at sea. The service colliers would carry coal from the United States to the American naval base in Europe. Without this service an American battleship fleet in European waters would have to depend upon British coal—and the present shortage of coal in England and all the entente countries of Europe is a serious war problem.
Such was the situation in July, 1915. In March, 1916, Admiral Benson stated that "the conditions are just the same, practically."
The navy sought an appropriation for the construction of the four fleet colliers, Admiral Benson says, in 1916, but the naval appropriation bill of that year, making appropriations for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1917, did not carry such an item. The colliers were not provided for until Congress began the enactment of war emergency legislation. In his testimony before the House committee, Admiral Benson said, in response to inquiries as to the length of time it would take to build such vessels:
"Approximately six months would be required to prepare plans and place the orders for the material required for vessels of a new design. It would, therefore, require about two years to produce the first ships, and six such vessels could be constructed simultaneously during that time After two years ships could continue to be produced at the rate of about seven a year, provided they were reproductions of those already built."
We Face a Serious Situation.—Undoubtedly, the situation with regard to colliers and auxiliaries in our navy is more serious than any other phase of our naval problem. The above review of the Russian situation shows clearly enough the likelihood that exists of an urgent necessity developing for the sending of more American warships to the other side. Altogether apart from that situation, however, there are many naval experts who believe that the whole American naval strength should be concentrated in the war zone. In any event the need for colliers and auxiliaries is obvious.
Naval preparedness, no matter how excellent it may seem on the surface, can be rendered useless by weakness in one element, and it is idle to attempt, in this war, to make things look better than they are. There is no desire to be unduly pessimistic, but it is high time that attention was given this situation and especially that steps be taken to supply and maintain the whole American naval force "over there."—Sea Power, May.
The Channel Straits.—By A. H. Pollen.—The following question has been put to me: "I observe that, in the current number of Land and Water, your colleague, Mr. Belloc, in explaining the enemy's selection of the Messines-Givenchy sector for his recent attack, points out that, among the arguments in its favor, 'for what it is worth there was the moral effect of an attack developing- close to, and threatening that highly sensitive point, the straits of the Channel.' Is it not possible that he had something more than 'moral effect' in view?
"I am driven to ask this question: Is it possible the enemy has some objective, altogether independent of the direct military advantages of his procedure? Is he, in other words, trying to maneuver us into giving up Dunkirk, and then, possibly, Calais? If there were some overwhelming naval advantage to be gained by the possession of Dunkirk, his policy might seem to be justified. Is it possible to state, with some precision, the change that would be brought about in the naval position if the enemy were either at Dunkirk, or at Dunkirk and at Calais?"
In essaying to answer this question, I shall not attempt to assess either the probability of or the military effect of our withdrawal from Dunkirk, or of our being compelled to give Calais to the enemy. Though the first seems to me highly improbable, and the second altogether out of the question, all I am concerned with here is to deal with the effect their tenure by the enemy would have in assisting his naval operations in impeding ours, and in giving him means, other than naval, for interfering with our sea traffic. Before attempting a reasoned answer, it might be as well to glance at what may be called our traditional policy with regard to the Dutch, Flemish and French Channel ports; for it is really to this tradition, and not to the facts of the situation of to-day, that we must look for the moral effect of which my colleague wrote last week. From very early times it has been taken for granted that the possession of these ports by an enemy must constitute a serious sea menace. It is largely for this reason that, ever since the fall of Napoleon, the maintenance of the independence and neutrality both of Holland and of Belgium has been a corner stone of our foreign policy. When, therefore, in September and October, 1914, the enemy, having seized Ostend and Zeebrugge, was engaged in a determined effort to get Dunkirk and Calais as well, the utmost uneasiness was created. in this country. But I do not think many people could have stated explicitly their exact ground for uneasiness in the sense of being able to say precisely what particular naval and military operations the possession of these ports would have made possible for the enemy. People forgot that our historic attitude in this matter dated from the period when there were not only no submarines, but no 30-knot destroyers, nor guns with the modern command of range, nor air power. Consequently, if it was traditional policy with us that the Dutch ports, the Flemish ports and the French ports should be in separate possession, and two of the groups neutral, it seemed necessarily to follow that, if an enemy could get two groups into his own possession, not must an immediate blow have been struck at our prestige, but some kind of naval loss of a serious kind would follow. Calais and Dunkirk, then, grew into symbols just as Verdun did later on. To possess them became an end in itself, and hence their denial to the enemy became of crucial importance.
As a simple matter of fact, the actual possession of Dunkirk, or even of Calais—viewing the thing altogether apart from the military consequences involved—would affect the naval position adversely at a single point only. And the explanation of this is not very recondite. The two governing factors at sea are, first, that the enemy's only free naval force is his submarine fleet, which is almost independent of port facilities, and, secondly, that outside the immediate vicinity of his larger ports, the enemy possesses no freedom of surface movement at sea at all. If you examine these propositions separately, their truth becomes obvious. The two main and most profitable fields of the enemy's submarines have been from the Chops of the Channel westward, and in the Mediterranean passim. To be a thousand miles from its base makes, therefore, very little difference to the submarine. To give a submarine-using enemy a base a few miles nearer his main field would consequently confer no advantage on him of any kind whatever.
Curiously enough, if we suppose the Channel to be the field of their operations, the same thing is true about the enemy's surface craft, though for a very different reason. For, as things stand to-day—and as they would stand if he got Dunkirk, Calais, and even Boulogne—his freedom to get his destroyers or other ships out of harbor can be exactly measured by the distance he is from the nearest British base. The truth of this was instructively shown last week. Twice in the course of a few days we heard that our ships had swept into the Kattegat and the North Sea, each time destroying German trawlers on outpost duty, and capturing their crews. On two other occasions unsuccessful efforts were made to cut off destroyers that had been bombarding parts of the Belgian coast, west of Nieuport. On each of these the enemy escaped in the darkness. The point of the contrast lies in this. When he is four or five hundred miles away from a British base, the enemy can venture out by daylight, so long as he does not go so far afield that he may be cut off and brought to action before dark. If no British force appears in such distant waters for some days together, he may even venture to send out light craft, such as trawlers, either to lay mines or to sweep for them, or to engage on some other operation. But even here he risks their destruction if he does so. But from Zeebrugge, which is less than 80 miles from Dover, he dare not venture out at all except by night. You never hear of German trawlers being raided off Ostend by Admiral Keyes' command. And, whenever there is news of an engagement, it is either a midnight or a mid-fog affair.
Zeebrugge and Ostend.—Zeebrugge and Ostend, then, are, on the experience of the last three years, perfectly useless to him for any daylight work. They are just jumping-off places for night raids, and refuges into which the marauders must rush for safety at the first threat of attack. Observe that never yet has the enemy in such encounters even pretended to fight the engagement to a finish. He runs—as he did the other day—though he had a force of eighteen boats against a bare half-dozen. He cannot, from the nature of the situation, even risk delay. He must always fear a still stronger force coming on the scene. Hence, they are not bases from which systematic naval operations could be carried out, nor any orderly form of sea-pressure be put upon us by regular and methodical operations. The fact, then, that we control the surface of the sea robs Dunkirk. Calais and Boulogne of any surface-craft value to the enemy, just because they are so much nearer to our main base at Dover than are Zeebrugge and Ostend. Indeed, we can go further. If he hardly now dares come out of Zeebrugge, it is doubtful if he would run and go into Dunkirk or Calais. Neither can help him then with his destroyers. And because submarines do not require bases into which to run for refuge, these ports are unnecessary to him for his submarine campaign.
I said just now that there was one respect in which the possession of this strip of French coast would be an advantage to the enemy. It is that the blocking of the Channel at its narrowest parts by mine barrages would be either impossible or exceedingly difficult. But the possession of Dunkirk only would hardly affect this, for from Dunkirk to Cape Gris Nez is nearly 40 miles; and our establishment and maintenance of a barrage would not be affected unless the enemy occupied not only Dunkirk, but the whole coast right round to Boulogne.
We may then, it seems to me, make our minds comparatively easy as to the effect on the naval situation of any further advances of the enemy along the French seaboard, so far, at least, as the naval situation can be affected by purely naval means. But are there not other than purely naval means that would affect, if not our naval forces, at any rate the sea traffic which it is one of the main objects of naval force to protect and guarantee? The enemy, we are told, has been bombarding Paris with unpleasant regularity from a range of 75 miles. From Dunkirk to the Downs is not more than half this distance. Every mile he can push on of the 25 that intervene between Dunkirk and Calais will very nearly reduce the range of the English coast by an equal amount. Would it still be safe for ships to come up Channel and enter the mouth of the Thames? Or would London cease to exist as a port, except for such traffic as could come to it north about? Far be it from me to suggest the limits of the enemy's ingenuity in designing, or of his industry in producing, cannon of fabulous reach. But the merest tyro in the art of gunnery would be able to reassure us on the value of this artillery as a menace to trading shipping going up and down the Channel. If the enemy held the coast of France from Dunkirk to Cape Gris Nez, his guns could reach Shoreham on the Sussex coast and Orfordness in Suffolk; so that the whole of Kent, all of Surrey and Sussex that lie east of the main Brighton line would be under his fire. His limit of range would be just short of Croydon, from a point just opposite Erith to the south of a line through Chelmsford and Colchester. The lower corner of Suffolk, including Ipswich, would complete the danger area. The Thames, of course, would be under fire almost right up to the docks in London.
This may all sound very terrifying, but it would be entirely without naval significance, for the simple reason that at these extreme ranges no aiming with a gun is possible at all; and the value of guns of this kind, trained even on a great city like London or Paris, is not distinguishable from that of regularly conducted air raids. Indeed, as far as destruction of life is concerned, it is probable that the same number of air bombs—from the fact that their explosive charge is so much greater—would be far more deadly than the 9-inch shell, which the German long-range gun is supposed to carry. As to such guns, or even the much more accurate naval gun, being mounted on the coast to prevent the passage of merchant shipping, this menace is entirely chimerical. If the best naval ordnance in the world were perfectly mounted and controlled from Dover or Calais, shipping could, in broad daylight on a clear day, pass up mid-Channel with complete safety, if they adopted the simple precaution with which every merchant skipper is familiar, from his experience with submarines. He has only got to zigzag his course to make hitting impossible at 10 miles, and at 20 no accurate fire of any sort would be conceivable. We must, therefore, look for a purely military explanation of the enemy's present military policy.
The Submarine.—Most people, when they think about the submarine, imagine its unique merit to be its power of unseen attack. This, however, is not really the case. For nine out of ten submarine attacks have to be made with the submarine either altogether or at least partially visible. The unique character of the submarine is its power of invisible passage. It can, that is to say, set before itself a destination, and by coming to the surface only during darkness, travel in almost continuous invisibility until it has reached the desired point.
The development of under-water hearing makes it possible in some conditions to discover that a submarine is in the neighborhood. But underwater hearing cuts both ways, and for the moment it is doubtful if, in the open sea at least, the submarine has not gained most by its development. For, being able to He motionless—and therefore soundless—on the bottom, it can, by periodically stopping to listen, decide whether at any moment it is safe to come to the surface or not. For practical purposes, therefore, the submarine, if it can avoid mines, can navigate the seas with comparative freedom from risk. Hence, though I have no definite information to guide me, I will hazard the guess that 95 per cent of the submarines that are destroyed are caught either when they are on or near the surface for purposes of attack, or just after diving from the surface, when the area within which depth charges will reach them can be judged with sufficient accuracy to make the counter-attack almost sure. It follows, then, that only such submarines are destroyed as are either surprised when their commanders think they are in safety, or intercepted when their commanders think they are taking a legitimate risk in coming up. Thus anti-submarine offensive depends for its efficacy almost entirely upon the greed of the submarine for its prey, just as the—very uncertain—success of the angler depends, as Sir William Simpson says, on the appetite "of a scaly but fastidious animal."
When men fish for a living, they do not rely on anything so uncertain as the combination of skill and judgment of the angler with the appetite or voracity in the fish. They deal with the quarry not as a creature that can be tempted to the surface, but as a resolute denizen of the depths, and proceed to intercept him between his starting-point and his designation by means from which, being invisible and submerged, he cannot escape. The professional fishermen, in other words, recognize that the under-water quarry, if it is to be attacked wholesale, must be attacked by under-water means. The application of this counsel to the case of the submarine has, from the first, been obvious enough. The arming of merchantmen and their convoy by gun- and depth-charge-carrying destroyers, the regular patrolling of infested areas to search for submarines while recharging their batteries on the surface at night, the employment of aeroplanes to discover them near the surface—all these things may be likened to the angling side of the fisherman's craft. It is no doubt the more attractive form of fishing. It appeals more to the artist and to the sportsman. But it is too accidental to be the method that gets satisfactory results in fish brought to market. For this, wider and, if you like, brutal ways are better. For obvious reasons, you cannot trawl for submarines, nor does it seem likely that stationary obstacles, whether nets or otherwise, would be effective—if merely designed to impose a passive barrier between the submarine and his destination. Through any such obstacles as these some means could certainly be found of using a torpedo to clear a passage. But it is not at all certain that the submarine could ever find a way of evading continuous mine-fields, spread from shore to shore over the Channel and North Sea, and repeated at different depths, so that at no level or even on the surface could a safe passage be found. It looks, then, as if the only wholesale method of dealing with the submarine is to make its passage through any tract of sea that it is bound to pass, if a destination is to be reached, wholly impossible.—Land and Water, 11/4.
Time Lost On Convoy.—Grouping of Vessels by Speed Suggested.—It is well known that the introduction of the convoy system has proved a success in the safeguarding of merchant vessels, and it is equally well known that there is a serious loss of carrying capacity owing to the greater length of voyages at present, as compared with the time occupied before the war. Part of this loss is clearly inevitable in view of the precautions which are taken; but Liverpool owners are of the opinion that some of the loss is avoidable.
Liverpool owners are interesting themselves especially in the matter, because it is they chiefly who are concerned with the North Atlantic trade, and in a comparatively short-distance trade, such as this, the loss soon becomes apparent. Now one great drawback to the convoy system is that the speed of the fastest ship in a convoy has to be reduced to the speed of the slowest ship. Obviously, therefore, in order to obtain the advantage of the speed of the fastest ships the most economical system would be to group the vessels of about the same speed together.
It is claimed that by putting this system into practice the dead-weight carrying capacity of the existing ships in the North Atlantic trade could be increased by between 450,000 and 500,000 tons per annum. In arranging the grouping of the faster vessels, the British and United States Admiralties could rely on the thorough support and assistance of the great liner companies. Similar help would no doubt be forthcoming from the cargo companies. The criticism is made that there is at present not sufficiently close working respecting the formation of convoys between the Admiralty and the Ministry of Shipping. As an instance, the cases are cited of two vessels which were recently kept waiting 11 days in the Mersey for escorts, and of two which were kept waiting there for seven days.
The present need of cargo space is so urgent and the carrying capacity of the liners in the North Atlantic trade is so great, that it is particularly important that no time shall be unnecessarily wasted. Certain delays are, as already pointed out, inevitable, but owners believe that the loss due to the grouping of vessels of varying speeds is unnecessary. The first step in the direction of avoiding this loss would seem to be for the Admiralty to consult with the managers of the liner companies. The owners realize that the last word on the subject of the management of convoys must be spoken by the naval authorities, but they believe that they can be of very great assistance, and they are anxious to do everything within their power to bring about a saving of carrying capacity.—London Times, 3/4.
Last Word With Sea Power.—A Vienna Comment.—The Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung publishes the noteworthy admission that, whatever victories Germany may win ashore, the last trick is always in the hands of the masters of the seas. It says:
"Let no one deceive himself. Germany's victories may make the Entente more inclined to a peace by agreement, but by no victory can they be compelled to submit to a peace by compulsion. For even if the German sword should be able to achieve much more than it has yet done—if the Germans should storm Calais and march into Paris, and if the continuation of land warfare should become senseless and impossible, the English would still remain protected on their island and America by the Atlantic: they could still continue warfare by sea, and still cut off our supplies of raw materials and foodstuffs. The greatest victory on land cannot force upon England and America a peace by compulsion.
"Thus a peace is only possible if the German people refuses to allow itself to be intoxicated with victory."—London Times, 1/4.
A New German Port.—By Arthur Pollen.—When Kerensky fell and the fortunes of Russia were confided to a government of fanatics and traitors, it became obvious that the military situation on the western front would suffer a change very damaging to us, as soon as the enemy troops, hitherto contained by our late ally in the East, could be transferred to the sole remaining field of war. What in the late autumn it was obvious must happen, has in the last three weeks actually happened. To what extent, if at all, is the naval position adversely changed by the elimination of Russia from the war?
Some weeks ago it was pointed out here that the most obvious of the naval advantages that Germany could gain by her advance on Petrograd would be the possession of so much of the Russian Baltic Fleet as was either in fighting condition or could be completed or refitted. If the battleships and battle-cruisers of the old program had been ready by their due dates, were in fighting trim, and were so surrendered, the enemy's reinforcements might be so formidable as to make it necessary for the Grand Fleet to be enlarged by all of the American 14 dreadnoughts. Nothing appeared in our press on this subject since that article was written until last week, when Renter's correspondents at Stockholm and Petrograd informed us that the Germans had landed 40,000 men, 3000 guns, 2000 machine-guns and armored cars at Hango, and had already advanced to Ekenaes, 20 miles along the railway which, 70 miles further on, forms a junction with the line that leads down to Helsingfors. We learned also that at Helsingfors are moored two Russian battleships, a division of destroyers, five submarines, and numerous transports, and that these are icebound and cannot move, because the only ice-breaker had left Helsingfors and surrendered to the Germans at Revel, just before the landing at Hango took place. At Hango itself there were four submarines and several other Russian warships, and the commanders of these vessels, being unable to resist the landing, blew them up rather than that they should fall into the hands of the enemy.
The only satisfactory feature of this news is that some Russian warships are still under the command of men loyal enough to their country to prefer seeing their ships destroyed to seeing them tamely handed over to the enemy, not only of Russia, but of mankind. Whether the battleships at Helsingfors are in such loyal hands we do not know. It would clearly be possible, by exploding small charges in the engine-rooms, the gun-mountings, in the guns themselves and in the ships' bottoms, to put the vessels beyond the possibility of repair, and to do so without risk of any kind to the surrounding population, supposing the ships to be moored where their complete destruction, by blowing up the magazines, would be a public danger. If they are not in such hands, the first accession of naval strength to the enemy will become an accomplished fact, and allied plans will have to be altered to meet them.
But, as has been foreseen from the first moment when the German expedition into Finland was announced, the enemy has a second naval objective in view which, if it succeeds, may prove far more embarrassing to us than any increase of his battleship, cruiser or destroyer strength. On Wednesday last week The Times' correspondent at Petrograd announced that Germany's Finnish allies were already advancing on Kem, a port on the North Sea, the most important town on the Murman Railway that connects Kola with Petrograd. This correspondent also hints that some allied effort is being made to prevent this railway falling into traitorous hands. If the possession of Kem were followed up by the effective occupation of Finland, not only would Petrograd be hemmed in from the North, but German access to an ice-free Arctic port would seemingly be secured, except for such opposition as a navy working with or without military assistance could oppose. The possession of this port would be of incalculable value to the enemy for various reasons.
The latest maps seem to give the name of Romanov na Murmanye to this latest Russian effort to get access to the sea, and it is situated halfway up an inlet known as Kola Bay, which is, in fact, the estuary of the River Tulom. It is situated about 75 miles from the Finnish and Norwegian boundary in the Varanger Fjord. Though nearly 10 degrees north of Archangel, it is not ice-bound in winter. It is not the lowness of temperature that makes Archangel useless in the winter months, but the fact that the southerly currents from the Arctic Ocean, combined with the prevailing winds, carry the ice floes southward into Dwina Bay, and there pack them in such masses that it is neither possible to prevent the channel being altogether blocked, nor to blast nor break a channel when the block has taken place. Kola Bay is free from both these phenomena, and though the surface may freeze, it seldom, if ever, attains the thickness that cannot easily be dealt with.
The advantages that a properly equipped port at this point would give to Russia had long been realized, and ever since the beginning of hostilities great and sustained efforts have been made, not only to complete the port itself in every respect for the reception and unloading of ships, but to complete the Murman Railway to connect the port with Petrograd. There is reason to believe that both port and railway are now ready for use.
Kola Bay.—If the Germans could seize the sea-board railhead, and establish railway communications either with Helsingfors or Petrograd—which they can occupy when they will—they could establish there a new submarine base free from the very patent disadvantages of those from which her under-water craft have now to operate. If we suppose, as seems likely, that the English channel will before long be made impassable for the submarine, and further suppose that the enemy's main field of operations must always be the western end of the Atlantic lanes. Kola Bay will only be some 600 miles further from the submarine destination: a very inconsiderable handicap when it is remembered that, in exchange for 600 miles of well-patrolled and, therefore, highly dangerous passage, the U-boats will have but double this distance to go—and a journey in which almost complete immunity from attack may be expected.
All these considerations have long been before the allied governments, and it cannot be doubted that some and, let us hope, adequate measures have been taken to prevent, not only the Murman Railway with its port, but, if possible, Archangel, too, from falling into enemy hands. Should certain measures, however, not prove adequate, new duties will be thrown on our naval forces, and it is perhaps worth considering what they must involve.
The advantage of a Kola Bay port to the Germans would be the possession of a port free from what might be called the geographical shortcomings of her present naval bases. It is, of course, not a base that would be of value for anything except for submarine work, for it is inconceivable that any useful number of surface ships—even of the fastest destroyers—could pass through our guard and reach so distant a point in safety. And from this it follows that it is in theory a port, the use of which by submarines could be denied to the enemy by close investment. As has so often been pointed out, the present German bases cannot be blocked by a mine-barrage because mine-fields must be protected by surface ships, because the integrity of the German Fleet would make the defence of a mine-field near to the German harbors possible only by employing our own battleships there, and because to employ our battleships in narrow, shallow, and uncharted waters, would expose us to such disadvantages as to make the risk almost impossible. But if no powerful surface ships could be brought into Kola Bay, then a close investment of this inlet by a mine-field, watched by surface vessels more powerful than anything the enemy could have there, should, as I have said, be possible. But I use the phrase "in theory" because the actual operation would present extraordinary difficulties. For we should be, presumably, without a base on the Murman coast ourselves, and to maintain an inshore watch in the Arctic regions, 1200 miles or more from the nearest port in which it would be possible to refit ships and refresh crews, would be an undertaking entirely without precedent in warfare. Emphatically, therefore, the problems that must arise from the German possession of a port in Kola Bay are far better dealt with by prevention than by cure.—Land and Water, 11/4.
America's First Million Tons of Ships Now at Sea.—The first million tons of ships completed and delivered to the United States Government under the direction of the Shipping Board have been put on the high seas to help defeat Germany.
A total of 159 vessels of 1,108,621 tons was completed up to May 11, according to statistics compiled by experts of the Shipping Board. Since January 1 more than half of the total tonnage, 667,896, has been delivered, and the monthly totals have shown a steady increase.
Most of the ships delivered were requisitioned on the ways or in contract form when the United States entered the war. Virtually all are of steel construction. None of the ships of the great wood program has been delivered, although 46 have been launched, due to delay in obtaining boilers and other machinery. The first completed wood ship built on contract for the government now is undergoing speed trials off the Pacific coast. Deliveries of ships last week were made at Seattle, Sparrows Point, Md.; Chicago, Ecorse, Mich.; Gloucester, N. J.; Wilmington, Del., and New York.
It was said to-night at the Shipping Board that boilers for about half the wooden hulls have been delivered and are awaiting installation.—N. Y. Herald, 15/5.
New U-boat Raiders to Combat Destroyers.—Frenchman Reports Latest Under-Sea Flans of Germany as Formidable.—Realizing that the United States and allies have gained the mastery over the present type of submarine, Germany now is said to be planning a new series of big U-boat cruisers with which she hopes to again assume the offensive in her unrestricted under-water warfare.
Announcement of the new German scheme was made by Georges Leygues, the French Minister of Marine, in a recent interview, copies of which have been received here from France. No details regarding the new U-boats were given by M. Leygues. From information from other sources, it appears that the cruiser submarines will be heavily armed and armored, and will be designed especially to meet the menace of the torpedo-boat destroyers which have proved so effective in hunting down the smaller submarines now in operation.
M. Leygues declared that the Allies are ready to meet Germany's new efforts and that they will not rest upon the "fine results obtained" in the past.
"We shall not stop," he said, "until we have cleaned up the sea as one cleans up a trench."—Evening Star, 14/5.
Naval Affairs in the North and Elsewhere.—Recent British naval successes in the Cattegat, minor though they were in extent, differ greatly in character from the raids occasionally ventured upon by the Germans against the small auxiliary vessels guarding the Straits of Dover. The former were sustained efforts at a distance of 500 miles from home bases, and the latter are merely "tip and run" dashes to points well within an hour's easy steaming from either Ostend or Zeebrugge. Quite apart from material gains the Cattegat affair demonstrated that the command of the sea in the north, and, for that matter, the world around, is held in the clenched fists of the Allies; so far, indeed, from the British High Sea Fleet being "in hiding," it is eager and ready at a drop of the hat to engage the High Sea Fleet sulking behind its mine-fields and unwilling even to support the trawlers virtually destroyed in its own protected waters.
Now that the uncompensated hazards of attacking Wilhelmshaven or the mouth of the Elbe are recognized, some attention has been directed to the possibility of laying sea barriers across the lanes through which German submarines gain access to the ocean. But apart from the discontent this has excited as fresh evidence of a policy of attack, but not of defence, the possibility of associating nets and mines over the wide areas to be covered is not generally advocated, particularly as similar experiments have been discouraging.
Whether justified or not, it has to be accepted that considerable disquiet exists at the alleged lack of "initiative" on the part of the allied fleets, and that insistence is laid on the fact that a systematic defensive policy has always proved to be the most costly and disappointing form of warfare. This is finding especial expression since the collapse of Russia and the possibility that the Germans may take over its disintegrated fleet, or, in any event, find in the undisputed Baltic a safe region for that training of their ships and personnel so long denied. Little alarm is felt over any probable issue from the Dardanelles of the Black Sea Fleet, led by the Goeben. The combined French and Italian squadrons muster at least 17 dreadnoughts, and these, with their auxiliaries, should be able to take care of the heterogeneous vessels fresh from the Black Sea and of any reinforcements the Austrians may be able to send out from Pola.—N. Y. Herald, 19/4.
Germany Dreads Sea Fight, Logic of British Shows.—The British naval success against German mine-sweepers in the Cattegat recently, says the Daily Telegraph, is sufficient answer to the Germans, who say that the British Grand Fleet is hiding.
Contrasting the British fleet in the Cattegat with the German raids in the Straits of Dover, the Daily Telegraph states that while the Germans in their bases on the Belgian coast are only 20 miles from the Straits, the exploit in the Cattegat was a carefully planned operation conducted more than 500 miles from the nearest point on the British coast.
"Such a sweep," the newspaper adds, "can be made only by a power in real control of the sea confronted by an enemy who will not risk protecting his small craft and suspecting that such intervention might be the prelude to a general action, which he desires to avoid. The Germans had large naval forces near the scene on this particular Monday. They did not send them out, but, on the contrary, permitted 10 trawlers to be destroyed virtually under their own eyes."
The newspaper then discusses the theory that the Germans might be inviting naval action near their mine-fields and coast defences, and says that all such suggestions have no foundation among those who have knowledge of naval conditions.
The enemy, it says, has gained little new strength for use in the North Sea by the Baltic situation, while British superiority has been increased since the battle of Jutland by the co-operation of the American forces, and the entire naval strength of the United States would be available if necessary. Moreover, if the German naval forces were to be employed advantageously as the right wing of the German Army, they should have been thrown in before and not during or after the opening of the battle in France.
"If a naval battle," it continues, "could by any possibility have been decided in Germany's favor, she would have been saved the necessity of pressing forward her army and would have spared hundreds and thousands of casualties, which, on her own confession, she could not afford.
"A battle on the sea is fought simply to gain the right to use the seas for military or economic purposes. The Germans have wanted to attain that end for three years and eight months, and if they have not done so while the odds against them were less heavy than they are to-day, the reason is on the surface.
"Still we can dismiss from our minds all unsupported rumors. The watch by sea was never maintained more efficiently or more effectively than the Grand Fleet is maintaining it at this moment."—N. Y. Herald, 19/4.
The Destroyer in the War.—By M. B. Dill.—Naval authorities have frequently remarked during the course of the war, that as far as the navies of the nations are concerned, modern warfare has been much different than was ever expected.
This fact is due almost entirely to the submarine menace which has changed the plans and problems of the navies of the world in a most unexpected fashion. One of the surprising developments which has come about has been the sudden prominence of the destroyer in naval engagements and for general utility service. This new importance of the destroyer is one of the changes in naval warfare brought about largely by the activities of the German submarine against neutral and enemy commerce.
A few months before the war many of the allied naval authorities were inclined to look upon the destroyer as a type destined possibly to an early disappearance. The destroyer it was believed would be superseded by the swift submarine, just as it had taken the place of the torpedo-gunboat of two decades before. But the submarine while constantly growing larger and more effective has yet to develop the under-water speed and the surface offensive power which would make her supersede the destroyer.
One of the early proposals of the Navy Department when war was declared was for an immense emergency fund for building destroyers to cope with the submarine peril. This fund has been utilized effectively and already many new destroyers have come into the American Navy and each day there is unofficial recognition of the launching of more fresh ships of this type. The allied and enemy powers have also devoted considerable of their naval building efforts to the construction of destroyers. It is estimated that Germany has probably added from 80 to 100 destroyers to her battle fleet, for these little vessels have appeared bearing numbers that under peace time conditions would have been given to ships which would, be built in the 1919-20 building programs. England has devoted more attention to destroyers and as early as the battle of Jutland, many of these craft were on hand, which were not listed in pre-war naval directories.
Having to combat the submarine menace the Allies naturally give more attention to destroyer construction than the enemy has, for the destroyer has proved to be the most feared enemy of the submarine. The destroyer bridges the gap in modern naval construction that lies yawning between the light cruiser and the seagoing submarine. It fills in between these two types and performs duties for which neither are completely fitted.
The destroyer has the advantage of superior mobility and greater offensive power in general engagements. That this latter strength is superior to that of the submarine is evidenced in direct contest, by the fact that more submarines have been sunk by destroyers than destroyers by submarines. The submarine is a formidable menace to heavy surface vessels more than it is to destroyers, because of their deeper draft which makes them more susceptible to torpedo attack. As a result of this the heavy ships now depend on destroyers to ward off torpedo attacks.
The destroyer is also more formidable against heavy ships in a pitched naval battle than the submarine. For example, in the battle of Jutland which is our one outstanding example of a purely modern naval battle, it was demonstrated that as a weapon against capital ships the destroyer was superior to the submarine. No capital ship fell a victim to a submarine, but several were sunk by the active destroyer.
The destroyer is invaluable in rendering assistance to a battle squadron. It can blind and confuse the enemy gunners by the use of the smoke screen which is also an effective weapon of the destroyer when doing convoy duty. It can beat off torpedo attacks on the surface or from submarines, or it can dash in against the enemy line, attack him with torpedoes, and speed out before being struck. The submarine has not been developed to do any of these things effectively, because of its more limited maneuvering power, lower speed and greater vulnerability.
The destroyer is a type that has had a tendency toward uniformity in all navies. There has been less variation in the general lines than in any other kind of vessels. The displacement of the destroyers built by naval powers just previous to the war ranged about 1000 tons, the speed was from 29 ½ to 35 knots and the armament generally included several guns of about 4-inch caliber and torpedo tubes. In minor details there was naturally some divergence. The British tended to make the destroyer a gun-boat and carried only about six torpedo tubes. The Germans laid stress on the torpedo with only a couple of guns of low velocity. In the United States both defensive elements were worked for, and the 1914 type had 12 torpedo tubes and four 4-inch guns.
The Boucher type of the French compromised on these features and this class varied between 690 and 900 tons displacement, and were equipped with four tubes and two 4-inch and four 9-pounder guns. The same ship made 35.4 knots, a speed that was regarded as extremely high at that time.
Italian naval constructors followed lines of their own as Italy has in most of her war vessels and military weapons. The Indomito type was one of the early destroyers, in 1911, with 700 tons and 35 knots. The Carlo Mirabello type raised its displacement to 1500 tons, but reduced the speed to 32 knots. The Italian late destroyers carried 4.7-inch guns, but usually had only three torpedo tubes.
Russia developed one of the most powerful types of destroyers known, following the lines of their model ship the Novik. The Novik was 338 feet in length, displaced 1260 tons and had the speed of 37.3 knots developed from engines of 40,200 horse-power. She carried four 4.1 quick firers, several lighter guns and had six torpedo tubes mounted in pairs. She had a wide range of action because of her capacity for fuel oil. Thirty-six of this type were under construction in Russia when war was declared.
Chile, among the smaller naval powers, always interested in things maritime, developed the destroyer considerably. Most of the Chilean boats were built in Great Britain and they approached the light cruiser type. Vessels which she ordered in 1910 displaced 1430 tons and made 32 knots. They had six 4-inch guns and three torpedo tubes. High freeboard and plenty of room for the crew with a fuel capacity of 500 tons, made these ships very habitable and seaworthy, features which most destroyers often sacrifice to speed and mobility.
These illustrations show that while displacement has been gradually increased until many destroyers merge into the third-class cruiser type, the general tendency has been to keep the size within the 1000-ton limit. Enlargements have been mainly with the desire to give the craft heavier armament and greater seaworthiness.
The destroyers of the United States have in their latest manifestations been somewhat larger than the European type, since America in building her naval ships has always figured on the fact that any potential foe would most likely be a considerable distance from her shores. The destroyer from America must therefore be a vessel that could go to a foreign battleground, be provisioned with fuel and supplies to do duty there and possibly be able to return to her home port for further supplies. The latest pre-war vessels in the United States were the Conyngham, Wilkes, Jacob Jones, and Wainwright. These ships were between 1125 tons displacement and 1224 tons. Their speed averaged about 29 knots or slightly over and their offensive armament consists of four triple torpedo tubes, for 21-inch torpedoes and four 4-inch rapid guns, which throw a 33-pound shell.
Later destroyers authorized before war was declared were of 1125 tons displacement and made a speed of 30 knots, with comparatively the same armament as the somewhat earlier types. An improvement in seaworthiness has been made by the Navy Department recently, by the introduction of the flush-deck destroyer. Formerly the destroyer was featured in almost every country by the raised forecastle. The new ship has the advantage of permitting the heavy seas to sweep freely over the deck, thus causing less friction and rolling and less shipping of water in rough weather.
The destroyer has developed as the result of the invention of the torpedo, coming into being first in the Civil War, when Lieut. W. B. Gushing used a spar torpedo and a launch to sink the Confederate ship Albemarle. The Confederates had used a sort of torpedo mine early in the war and though disapproving of these naval tactics the Federal government adopted the spar torpedo as an adjunct to the navy.
The first torpedo-boats from which come the modern destroyer were very small, the theory being that they would come up on the enemy under cover of darkness. The Whitehead torpedo brought about the enlargement of the vessels carrying them. Then a weapon to attack the torpedo-boats was developed and the modern destroyer was under way.
Late naval strategy calls for four destroyers to one capital ship for safety and correct naval warfare. The United States did not develop destroyers in this proportion though the general board frequently recommended that such be done. To-day we are making up for these cuts in the naval program by rushing destroyers for service abroad.
Starting out with a spar torpedo as her only weapon, the destroyer of to-day has almost every known variety of offensive weapon designed mainly for attack against submarines. The triple torpedo tubes totaling usually 12 tubes in number on American ships, the light guns which can outrange the submarines' batteries, the depth bomb, and the non-ricochet shell make the ship formidable. In fact probably only an improvement of the destroyer's microphone for detecting a submarine under water stands in the way of permitting this craft to clean out the U-boat with ease.
A gratifying feature of the new destroyer program with which America is making up for lack of preparedness in this line, is the increased speed with which the new vessels are being turned out. Whereas the pre-war speed for making destroyers was about two years or 18 months, to-day the record made recently for the new type destroyer was 51 weeks from the laying of the keel. With records of this kind in construction, it will not be long before a most formidable fleet will be on hand to guard the new merchant marine and to assist the battle fleet when the time for a naval engagement comes.—The Naval Monthly, May.
LESSONS OF THE WAR
Losses in Naval War.—By Percival A. Hislam (British).—The character of naval losses has undergone a considerable change since the last great wars in which we were engaged, and to this a variety of causes have contributed. The substitution of steam for sails has rendered ships less liable to the ordinary perils of the sea; while it is not necessary for us to-day, as it was in Nelson's time, to keep in commission a large number of small ships for the special purpose of dealing with the enemy's privateers. To a very large degree the U-boat stands to-day as the modern, degenerate representative of the old-time privateer, and the destroyer counterparts the light craft that used to be employed for hunting down the hostile corsairs; but while the destroyer is a great advance in seaworthiness over the 8- to 16-gun vessel of the beginning of last century, the losses among this type have been, as one would expect, relatively heavy. The greatest revolution of all in the cause of naval losses is due to the change in the material used in ship construction and to the development of methods of attack. Speaking comparatively, the wooden warship was unsinkable in action. There was no means of attacking her beneath the water-line, and the damage caused by chance shots striking between wind and water could usually be made good from within with very little trouble; while in the case of shot striking above the water-line, their only chance of doing considerable material damage lay in the possibility of causing a fire. Ships that were badly knocked about and had lost their masts were frequent victims to bad weather before their injuries could ht made good; but the general chance of a vessel being actually sunk in action is indicated by the fact that out of 162 units of the Royal Navy lost in the five years 1804-1808, inclusive, only two were lost in this way. One was the 10-gun hired cutter Constitution, Lieut. J. S. A. Dennis, sunk in August, 1804, by a 13-inch shell which crashed through her deck while she was engaging the enemy batteries and flotilla at Boulogne; and the other was the Rapid, 12, Lieut. Henry Baugh, sunk by batteries in the Tagus in May, 1808. Within the same period two of our vessels were sunk to avoid capture. In the present war this has been done by the Russian Prut, and by the German disguised minelayer Meteor, which after sinking the British auxiliary Ratnsey in the North Sea on the 8th of August, 1915, destroyed herself the following day to avoid capture by a squadron of our cruisers. The British steamer Turritella, made prize by the raider Wolf and converted into a minelayer, was similarly destroyed. It is understood that this variation of hari-kari is observed with unusual determination by the crews of enemy submarines.
The capture of a commissioned ship has been a very unusual feature of the present conflict, and this for several reasons. In the old days—the Nelsonian period—the main object in battle was to disable the enemy's armament, and his destruction was probably never aimed at deliberately. This, it will be remembered, is the theme of Sir Reginald Custance's "Ship of the Line in Battle," in which it is argued that the "defeat" of the enemy and the disablement of his guns are the objects to be sought. It is much to be doubted, however, if in any naval action of the present war a single shot has been fired with the object of disabling the armament or "defeating" the crew of an enemy warship. The objective is always the ship—and her destruction. It could hardly be otherwise, seeing the ranges at which modern engagements may be fought, the urgent need for the most rapid fire possible consistent with accuracy, and, more important than anything else, the fact that the destruction of the ship involves both the defeat of its crew and the disablement of its guns, and is a much more practicable proposition from the gunnery point of view than an attempt to demoralize a ship's company with a hail of small projectiles or to knock a turret over the side. The material, structure and contents of a modern ship of war all tend to make her destruction a relatively simple matter compared with the task that faced the gunners of a hundred years ago, while torpedoes and high explosive projectiles have helped considerably to banish the word "surrender" from the vocabulary of modern navies. A ship's armament may be annihilated and her crew demoralized; but there is rarely or never an appreciable interval between the one or the other and the plunge to the bottom. The best remembered case of surrender in the present war is that of the Emden, which gave in to the Sydney after suffering heavy losses and being driven aground. In at least one official document the incident is referred to as the "capture" of the Emden, but "destruction" is the word commonly used. A more remarkable capture, accomplished without the firing of a shot, was that of the German gunboat Komet, taken by surprise in New Guinea by the late Lieut. Commander J. M. Jackson and a boat's crew from the Australian auxiliary vessel Nusa. The Komet is now in service. The capture and recapture of the gunboat Firefly on the Tigris will also be recalled.
Nothing came as a greater surprise in the early days of the war than the number of officers and men involved in the unfortunate incidents that occurred. Not a soul was saved from the Good Hope or the Monmouth, while over 1400 lives were lost when the Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy were torpedoed. It has been stated that in the naval campaigns of the Russo- Japanese war the combined losses on both sides were only 1883 killed and drowned, and 1809 wounded; but the figures do not seem to carry conviction. Here, however, are the losses sustained by the British Fleet in five of its most renowned fights of the sailing days:
? | Killed | Wounded |
1st of June 1794 | 290 | 858 |
St. Vincent | 73 | 227 |
Camperdown | 203 | 662 |
Nile | 218 | 678 |
Trafalgar | 449 | 1242 |
The total of killed in these five victories did not exceed by more than a hundred the loss of life involved in the destruction of a single British battle cruiser, the Queen Mary, in the battle of Jutland Bank. According to a table published in "Naval Power in the War," by Lieut. Commander C. C. Gill, U. S. N., the German Admiralty claim that the British loss in this action amounted to 117,150 tons and the German to 60,720 tons, while the personal losses are given as 6105 and 2414, respectively. There is no means of testing the latter; but it may be pointed out that in the list of officers and men killed in action, printed with the quarterly "Navy List," our total losses for the month of May, 1916, were 324 officers and 5348 men. The aggregate for the month, therefore, does not equal the German claim for the Jutland battle; which, of course, undoubtedly accounts for practically this entire list. It will be observed from the above table that in the old sea fights the wounded outnumbered the killed in the proportion of just about three to one. Under present conditions the tables are most emphatically turned, the principal reason being the poor chance a wounded man has of being saved from a doomed ship.
The latest edition of Fighting Ships contains a pretty complete list of the known naval losses of the various powers during the war. In preparing the following analysis I have included in addition the armored cruiser Drake, torpedoed by a submarine on the 2d of October, 1917, and the monitor Raglan, destroyed by the gun-fire of the Goeben on the 20th of January, 1918. These vessels are not included in the list referred to. The table which follows represents armored ship and cruiser (not light cruiser) losses only:
British Armored Ship Losses Reported in the War Down to the 23d of February, 1918
Cause of loss | No. of ships | Tonnage | Percentage of tonnage to total of loss |
Torpedoed by submarine | 14 | 143,525 | 33.52 |
Sunk by gun-fire | 10 | 136,885 | 31.98 |
Sunk by mines | 7 | 76,110 | 17.78 |
Destroyed by internal explosion | 3 | 47,800 | 11.17 |
Torpedoed by a surface ship | 1 | 12,950 | 3.02 |
Wrecked | 1 | 10,850 | 2.53 |
?
It will be seen that the two forms of under-water attack—the sinking of the Goliath by a Turkish destroyer being omitted from this category—accounted for 21 ships out of 36, and for 51.3 per cent of the destroyed tonnage. It should be pointed out that in spite of very definite official statements, a good deal of doubt is still entertained in many quarters regarding the actual cause of the loss of the Hampshire, which is stated to have been mined; and there is some difference of opinion, also, as to whether the Irresistible and Ocean were sunk by mines (as officially recorded), or by torpedoes, possibly dirigible, on the Brennan principle, discharged from concealed shore stations in the Dardanelles.
The principal fault with the above table is that it includes only three groups—or, perhaps, one should say but two—of the many that go to make up a navy. It is, however, impossible to extend it with any real satisfaction owing to the insufficiency of the published facts regarding the minor types, particularly in regard to tonnage; but the inclusion of these types would make a considerable difference both to the aggregate and the distribution of the causes of loss. The following, for instance, is a statement of the losses of armed merchantmen announced by the Admiralty during 1917:
Laurentic, believed mined; Hilary, torpedoed by submarine; Otway, torpedoed by submarine; Champagne, torpedoed by submarine; Orama, torpedoed by submarine; Stephen Furness, torpedoed by submarine; Arbutus and Grive, foundered after being torpedoed by submarine; Osmanieh, mined. Under-water attack accounted for the whole of these ships, and as, apart from drifters and trawlers, we lost from gun-fire in the same year only the seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree and the destroyers Strongbow, Mary Rose, and Partridge, it is obvious that the inclusion of all classes of vessels would effect an appreciable change in the complexion of the table. It should also be pointed out that of the loss by gun-fire shown above, no less than 76.5 per cent of the total tonnage was lost in the Jutland fight (six ships of 104,700 tons), so that another action of this sort—the probability of which appears to grow less with the prolongation of the war—might be reasonably expected to send up the gun-fire total considerably; unless, of course, we should have the good fortune to discover, what so many navy critics appear to demand, an admiral who can win battles without sustaining losses.
The estimate of losses is, of course, one of the most essential duties of a staff, for the decision as to whether a certain operation shall be undertaken must inevitably rest in the end upon the comparison between the results to be achieved and the price to be paid in attaining them. The first report of the Dardanelles Commission is the only document so far published which gives us an actual insight into the working of the staff system in the navy—or of what passed for a staff system in the early months of the war—and it contains two interesting references to this very subject. Lord Fisher had stated that in his opinion he attended meetings of the War Council simply that he might answer questions if he was asked. The question was put: "And were they ever asked?" To which he replied: "They were sometimes, because I was asked how many battleships would be lost (in the attack on the Straits), and I said 12." The War Council thus knew, from the highest professional advice they could obtain—that of the First Sea Lord—that the forcing of the Dardanelles would cost 12 battleships. In full possession of that knowledge, they decided upon that operation; but they quickly dropped the whole business—that is, the purely naval attack—as soon as we had lost three. This is one of the difficulties inseparable from the constitutional policy of leaving high decisions in the hands of civilians. They neither understand the advice they receive from the experts nor appreciate the fact that success in war cannot be achieved without paying the due price for it. They are willing to try things as a speculation so long as they can back out when their nerve begins to give; and when the Ocean, Irresistible and Bouvet—25 per cent of our expected losses—went down in the Dardanelles, they probably recollected suddenly Lord Fisher's warning that "even the older ships should not be risked, for they cannot be lost without losing men, and they form the only reserve behind the Grand Fleet." Of course, Mr. Churchill produced "an elaborate analysis" of comparative naval strength, conclusively showing that Lord Fisher was a querulous old gentleman whose fears were groundless and that we could quite afford the probable losses; but in spite of this the whole business was dropped like a hot poker after the first day's losses. Mr. Churchill has since put the blame for this upon the public, who are said to have been staggered by what was happening; but if politicians have any value at all in this sort of work it should surely be as a guide to how the electorate, which they know so well, is likely to behave in a particular set of circumstances.
One of the notable features of the war from the standpoint of the present article is the steady increase in the loss of destroyers. This is strongly shown in the following half-yearly analysis, which is not based exclusively upon official announcements. The information embodied in it has been accumulated from a variety of sources.
The "steady increase" referred to above will be the more marked if one rules out the eight vessels sunk in the Jutland battle; but even with those included the losses for the last two periods covered were greater than those of the first five. In the case of such vessels as these, which are constantly at work discharging all sorts of functions under all sorts of conditions in all sorts of places, a great deal will naturally depend upon the number in commission, and although nothing official has transpired on this particular subject, there is very good reason to believe that we have at least twice as many destroyers in service to-day as we had in the first month of the war. Such an increase legitimately permits of greater risks being taken; and it also means that when there are mines about there is a greater chance of one of them being hit, and that there is an increase in the number of targets available for enemy submarines. It is, in short, impossible to judge of the real significance of these destroyer losses without knowing the number over which they are spread and the work they have been doing. The improvingly satisfactory position in which, according to Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Eric Geddes and Lord Jellicoe, we find ourselves with regard to the submarine menace is very largely due to the work of our destroyers, and only those who can see both sides of the ledger can balance up the profit and the loss and see where the real truth lies. It would be worth a very great sacrifice to overcome the submarine menace, and certainly the advance in our destroyer losses is far from disproportionate in comparison with the fact, of which we have been officially assured, that towards the end of 1917 the destruction of U-boats was proceeding at four times the pace we reached in the previous year.
In the last period covered in the above table the number of war vessels of all classes announced by the Admiralty as having been sunk by submarines was 18, if we include the three destroyers lost in the North Sea on the 22d of December, while in the previous six months corresponding (August, 1916, to January, 1917) the number was only six, and this included the Nottingham and Falmouth, which were operating with the Grand Fleet to meet the German sortie of the 19th of August, 1916, and also the battleship Cornwallis, sunk in the Mediterranean. It seems highly probable that there is a distinct and direct connection between, on the one hand, the growing success of the campaign against the U-boat and the reduction in the rate of loss of British merchantmen, and, on the other, the increase in the loss of warships through under-water attack. We know, for instance, that the convoy system was brought into general use during the early half of last year, and there is no doubt that this tends very appreciably to increase the risks run by warships. Indeed, it may be said that it is the purpose of the convoy system to shift the burden of risk from the merchantmen to the warships escorting them. In convoying through areas infested by submarines, it is the object of the escort to keep the U-boats at such a distance from the convoy that the latter cannot be attacked. In other words, the escort becomes a screen between the enemy and the merchant ships; and although the war vessels and their personnel are much better adapted for dealing with submarine attack, it follows that their chances of being torpedoed are increased in much the same ratio as those of the merchantmen are reduced. The attacks on the North Sea convoys in October and December last, resulting together in the loss of three destroyers and a number of merchantmen and armed trawlers, did not arise from any failure of the convoy system. The merchantmen were provided with an escort which, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may presume was adequate for its particular purpose, namely, their protection against submarine attack. For the checkmating of other forms of attack, other arrangements were made, and it was these which broke down, leaving the destroyers and trawlers exposed to an onslaught the like of which it was never expected they would encounter. At the moment of writing only one official announcement has been made regarding the torpedoing of an escort vessel, this being the Mechanician, which stranded and became a total loss in the channel after being "submarined" on the 20th of January last. It was not stated that she was accompanying a convoy at the time.
Reference may fittingly be made in this article to the loss of merchant shipping—a subject which even yet is not generally associated in the public mind with the shortage of food and the varied activities of Lord Rhondda. The first declared enemy campaign against merchant shipping opened on the 18th of February. 1915, and in the 35 succeeding weeks over which regular returns were issued by the Admiralty, we lost a total of 175 ships—an average of exactly five a week. The so-called "unrestricted" campaign began on the 1st of February, 1917, but the weekly official returns began, as before, on the 18th of February. The following table summarizes our losses quarter by quarter for the first 52 weeks of this phase:
Sunk | 1600 tons and over | Under 1600 tons | Fishing vessels | Total |
1st 13 weeks | 269 | 121 | 103 | 493 |
2d 13 weeks | 237 | 52 | 45 | 334 |
3d 13 weeks | 159 | 74 | 12 | 245 |
4th 13 weeks | 157 | 48 | 21 | 226 |
Total | 822 | 295 | 181 | 1298 |
U-boat's Best Harvest Field.—In an article in the Stockholm Aftonbladet of March 24, Dr. K. A. Melin states that no less than 1650 vessels were sunk in the barred zone around England and France during the first year of Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare. Along the west coast of England 580 ships were sent to the bottom, while 430 were sunk in the English Channel itself. One hundred and seventy vessels were lost in the approaches to the English Channel and 270 along the east coast of England. Along the French coast only 200 vessels have been lost, which shows that the main effort of the German submarines has been directed against British shipping. Dr. Melin has not attempted to estimate the number of vessels lost in the Mediterranean area.—Nautical Gazette, 11/5.
ATLANTIC
U-boat is Lifted Out of Water by Warship's Shell.—The sinking of a German submarine by an American warship with a shot which lifted the U-boat completely out of the water and broke her in two, was reported by officers of the warships on their arrival here to-day. Because of the fine work of the gunners, the crew of the vessel received an additional furlough of 10 days.
On the voyage over, the warship, which previously was reported from German sources as having been wrecked, sighted three submarines and the gunners sprang to their guns. The first two shots from the warship, fired in quick succession at the nearest enemy, missed the mark, but the third went home. It caught the U-boat just below the water-line and so great was its force that the submarine was lifted out of the water. In another moment her back broke, she doubled up and sank to the accompaniment of a chorus of yells from the warship's crew.
No survivors were seen in the water and the other submarines dived, as the destroyed submersible disappeared, and they did not reappear.—N. Y. Herald, 11/5.
Tackled Deadly Bomb.—Boatswain's Mate Probably Saved Converted Yacht From Destruction.—How John Mackenzie, a chief boatswain's mate in the Naval Reserve, by extraordinary heroism saved the converted yacht Revilik, on patrol service in European waters, was told to-day in an announcement by Secretary Daniels that the Navy Department had awarded Mackenzie the medal of honor and gratuity of $100.
During a heavy gale December 17, a depth charge weighing several hundred pounds broke from its fastenings at the stern and went sweeping about the deck. As officers and crew watched the bomb, some one saw the safety pin fall out of the charge, making it a source of serious danger to the vessel and crew. Mackenzie, realizing the danger, shouted: "Watch me; I'll get it" and dashed down the deck flinging himself upon the charging cylinder.
Three times he almost had his arms about the bomb, but each time the seas tore it from him and once almost crushed him. He stuck to his task, however, and on the fourth attempt, got a firm grip on the cylinder, heaved it upright on one of the flat ends and held it down until lines could be run to him and he and the bomb safely lashed.—Baltimore Sun, 29/4.
Seaplane Crew Battles Sharks 18 Hours.—Lieutenant Arthur Laverents, a naval aviator, and C. C. Cotton, his observer, arrived at an Atlantic port yesterday following a narrow escape from drowning and man-eating sharks last Sunday when their seaplane broke and they were forced to alight on the ocean sixty miles out from Miami, Fla.
For 18 hours the men drifted on their seaplane, acting as acrobats to prevent it from overturning when seas were rough and fighting all the time to keep sharks away. Luck was with them Monday morning, for they were sighted by an American steamship. The crew of the vessel also rescued the seaplane, which was hoisted to the deck and turned over to the naval authorities at the Atlantic port.
The story told by Lieutenant Laverents was that he and Cotton began their flight at noon last Sunday. They arose to 2000 feet. Suddenly, when 60 miles out to sea, it was discovered the engine was missing fire.
The seaplane was brought down and they tried to repair the cylinder. The gasoline tank also was leaking. Then they found they could not arise.
Sunday night was the longest either spent in their lives. Frequently huge sharks brushed against the frail craft and they had to fight them off. Finally, at six o'clock Monday morning, when they saw that the lookout in the crow's nest of the American steamship had sighted them, they were a happy pair.
Lieutenant Laverents is from Cheyenne, Wyo. He reported by wire yesterday to his commanding officer of his safe arrival and of the saving of the seaplane.—N. Y. Herald.
Navy Patrol Vessel Lost.—The Admiral Goes on Rocks off Massachusetts Coast.—The Navy Department is advised that the Admiral, scout patrol vessel No. 967, ran on the rocks off Scituate, Mass., last night, and is a total loss. All the officers and crew were saved, and considerable small material was taken off the vessel.
The Admiral was a converted yacht, which, before being taken over by the navy, belonged to Gordon Dexter, of Boston.—Official Bulletin, 27/3.
U. S. S. "Zaanland" Sunk in a Collision at Sea.—The Committee on Public Information issues the following:
The Navy Department is informed that the U. S. S. Zaanland was sunk in collision at sea on May 13. All aboard were rescued, and will be returned to the United States.
The Zaanland was a cargo carrier, one of the Dutch ships taken over by the United States Government, and was 8700 tons dead-weight. It was commissioned and manned by the navy for army account.—Official Bulletin, 17/5.
U.S.S. "Parker" Men Praised for "Glenart Castle" Rescues.—Secretary Daniels has commended the following men of the U.S.S. Parker for heroism in their effort to rescue the survivors from the steamship Glenart Castle, which sank on February 26, 1918:
John C. Cole, quartermaster, second class, United States Naval Reserve Force, and Jonathan T. Newman, seaman, United States Navy, seeing the condition of one of the survivors, requested permission to go to his aid. Permission was granted Cole, who succeeded in swimming to the man and holding him up. The strain of holding up the man in the cold water and choppy sea nearly exhausted Cole. Newman, seeing his condition, jumped overboard, but was ordered back by the executive officer, who felt that Cole would probably be lost and that further sacrifice would be useless.
Cole held on to the survivor, and both were finally rescued.
Roy E. Hoffses, chief boatswain's mate; Francis W. Beeghley, yeoman, third class; and James H. Quinn, coxswain, United States Navy, boarded a fragile raft that was smashing into the ship's side, secured the survivors and pushed them aboard, at considerable personal risk.
David L. Morgan, electrician, third class (radio), and Thomas F. Troue, United States Navy, were constantly in the water, pulling out survivors, all of whom were totally helpless. These men have also been commended for using good judgment when necessary to take risks, and for not hesitating on any occasion.
The fourth officer of the Glenart Castle having fallen overboard, Wilbur W. Matthews, ship's cook, second class, and David Goldman, machinist's mate, second class, United States Navy, jumped overboard, put a line around him, and aided him to the ship's side, where he was hauled aboard.—Official Bulletin, 16/5.
Abroad.—In the face of bitter winter gales, American submarines, primarily designed for operation off the home coasts, have crossed the Atlantic to engage in the common fight against German U-boats. They are now aiding allied naval forces, as are American destroyers and American naval airmen, and they have been in the war zone for some months.
Secretary Daniels revealed the fact that the submarines had gone "over there" in his address at Cleveland at a Liberty Loan celebration, but gave no details. It is now possible, however, to tell for the first time of the mid-winter passage of the boats across the seas in the face of the most severe weather known in years. In the perilous passages, the best traditions of the service have been maintained.
The first submarine left in early winter. No hint appeared in the papers, and, in fact, until Secretary Daniels spoke, no word of the participation of the under-water boats in the war against Germany had been published.
The navy had some experience with long-distance work with submarines on which to draw. Boats have been sent to the Philippines, to Hawaii and to Panama, but always in mild seasons and with plenty of time for precautionary steps.
This time, however, they were to go in a terrible winter, with the Atlantic in its ugliest mood. The steps taken to get them across cannot be disclosed, but the fact that the department has no disaster to record is pointed to as proof of their sufficiency.
In mid-December others got started. While it was fair on sailing day, ahead of the submarines a 100-mile gale was brewing. Into it they plowed, rolling and tumbling.
Even when tow lines parted in some cases, unknown to the tugs and accompanying craft, the submarines battled forward alone. A majority of them reached their destination under their own power, ready for duty.
Some of the boats were driven far from their course. They showed up at different ports, but promptly put to sea again and reached their station.
One boat was the hard luck vessel of the lot. Separated from the flotilla in the first storm and its compasses out of order, it turned homeward, only to strike two more gales in quick succession. However, it made port successfully and undamaged.
With new fuel and supplies aboard and with a man or two, worn out by the long struggle with the elements, replaced, in a few days the boat put to sea again. It went through that time, despite a fourth gale it encountered.—Naval Monthly, May.
U. S. Transports Crash.—Secretary Daniels authorized the following statement:
"Two transports, which were damaged in a collision at sea several days ago, have arrived safely at an Atlantic port. The two vessels were in a convoy and were running without lights when the accident occurred. Neither was seriously damaged, but both were ordered to return to port for repairs. No lives are reported lost.
"A board of inquiry will be appointed to make a thorough investigation of the accident."—Washington Evening Star, 27/4.
Liner Escapes U-boat.—A large French transatlantic liner which arrived here to-day was unsuccessfully attacked by a submarine when two days out from a French port. The torpedo passed astern and the merchantman gave battle. Cruisers convoying the liner joined in the fight and the U-boat fled with several of the warships in pursuit.
Whether the submarine was sunk was not known by any of the 285 passengers aboard the merchantman. The attack took place while the passengers were dining at 7 o'clock at night.—Evening Star, 29/4.
Big British Vessel Routs a U-boat in Mid-ocean Fight.—A British steamship which prior to the war was considered one of the best aboard which to cross the ocean, arrived yesterday at an Atlantic port with a story of a daring attempt by a German submarine to slide under the flock of destroyers convoying her and launch a torpedo. Luckily, the periscope of the Hun craft was discovered in time and a shower of shells from the guns of the steamship caused her to hurry away.
Passengers on board the steamship said, however, that before the final plunge of the submarine she let go one torpedo when a mile away, but it went wild, showing the Huns were in great fear of death and were excited. Destroyers closed about the spot beneath which the periscope was seen, but it was unknown whether the depth bombs thrown overboard destroyed her.
The steamship was one of the several under convoy from a French port when attacked and quickly changed her course. After discharging several Canadian troops on furlough the steamship headed for an American port, where the rest of the passengers were landed. Some of these were Australians.—N.Y. Herald, 5/3.
Ship's Armed Guard Reports Encounter with Submarine.—The Navy Department authorizes the following:
The commander of the armed guard on the steamship Tidewater reports to the Navy Department that on March 17, about 11.30 p. m., a submarine was sighted off the starboard bow, heading toward the vessel about 150 yards off. As the ship turned it missed the submarine by not more than 20 feet. The U-boat was then submerging. The ship's guns were brought to bear and the first shot hit some distance ahead of her wake.
"The pointer fired the second shot," says the report, "and had what the captain, the chief engineer and myself, and other members of the crew called a clean hit and was satisfied that it was effective. The third shot was fired by the boatswain's mate in charge of the after gun's crew, having her spotted and firing in the position she last submerged in. We resumed our course and commenced zigzagging, standing by for an attack, but the submarine did not appear again. We made all preparations for an attack at daybreak, but there were no signs of a submarine."—Official Bulletin, 8/5.
A German submarine bombarded Monrovia, Liberia.—Army and Navy Gazette, 20/4.
Twenty-Nine Lost on "Florence H."—Capt. F. J. Butterfield and all the deck officers of the American steamship Florence H. are now believed to have lost their lives when that ship was destroyed by an explosion April 17, while off the French coast. A list of survivors received here to-day by cable from the American consul at Brest does not contain their names. It is also shown that only two of the engine-room officers escaped uninjured, the others being reported as badly burned.
A checking up of the cabled list with the record of the crew filed with the United States Shipping Commissioner here when the Florence H. sailed shows that out of 56 men in the civilian crew 29 are dead or missing, 12 are in hospitals badly burned, 2 are slightly burned and only 13 escaped uninjured.
There is a possibility, however, officials of the United States Shipping Board here said, that some of the missing may yet be accounted for, but as the Florence H. was near a port when the explosion occurred, this hope is remote. Chief Engineer James B. Watson and First Assistant Engineer Strickland are among those who escaped injury, the second and third assistants being badly burned.
In addition to the civilian crew, there were on board 23 men of a naval guard, six of whom have been reported as survivors, through the Navy Department at Washington.
The Florence H. sailed from Philadelphia March 30, with cargo, part of which was explosives. A recent cable advice from Paris said that the explosion was believed to have been caused by a bomb planted on the ship before she sailed.—Baltimore Sun, 27/4.
The American steamship Lake Moor, sailing on her maiden voyage with a naval gun crew aboard, was sunk by an enemy submarine in European waters about midnight April 11 and 5 officers and 39 men are missing, the Navy Department announced to-night.
Five officers, including Lieut. Commander Kinchen J. Powers, U. S. N. R. F., and 12 enlisted men have been landed at an English port.—Baltimore Sun, 21/4.
Collides at Sea, Sinks.—The American steamship Westerly, one of the new ships built by the Emergency Fleet Corporation, was sunk in a collision Sunday off the French coast, according to information received in shipping circles. All aboard were saved.
The Westerly, a vessel of about. 5000 tons, launched on the Pacific coast in February, was returning to the United States after having completed the first half of her maiden trip to Europe.—Evening Star, 30/4.
American Steamer "Tyler" Torpedoed and Sunk May 2.—The Navy Department has received from Vice Admiral Sims a dispatch stating that the American steamer Tyler was torpedoed and sunk May 2, 1918, in European waters. Survivors of the vessel were landed at a French port. Six of the merchant crew, including the third assistant engineer, and five members of the naval armed guard were lost.—Official Bulletin. 8/5.
Note.—The names of the members of the armed guard on the Tyler are being checked up by the Bureau of Navigation, and will be made public as soon as this is completed.
Steamer "Neches" Sunk by Torpedo, Returning Without Cargo, but All on Board Reported Safe.—The following statement is authorized by the Secretary of the Navy:
The War Department has received information that the Neches, a cargo carrier of 7175 tons, was torpedoed and sunk on the night of May 14 or early morning of May 15.
All on board are reported saved.
The vessel was returning without cargo.
It is believed that the vessel carried a crew of about 125 men.
No troops were on board.
The Neches was under charter by the United States Shipping Board. It was a steel ship, built in 1914, and had a speed of about 14 knots per hour.—Official Bulletin, 11/5.
Mysterious Advertisement in a South American Newspaper Hints the "Cyclops" Was Sunk.—A story has been brought to the United States to the effect that, two weeks after the United States collier Cyclops, which has been given up as lost, left Barbados, on March 4, an advertisement was published in a Portuguese newspaper at Rio Janeiro announcing a requiem mass would be celebrated for the repose of the soul of Alfred L. Moreau Gottschalk, "lost when the Cyclops was sunk at sea." The story was brought by a British steamship arriving yesterday at an Atlantic port from Brazil.
Especial interest attaches to the advertisement, as it was published long before the United States Navy Department at Washington, on April 15, announced that the collier, with an immensely valuable cargo of manganese and 333 persons on board, was missing.
Efforts have continued since the appearance of the advertisement by the United States and Brazilian secret agents to discover the identity of the persons responsible for the advertisement, as it is believed they possessed information that the Cyclops never would reach the American port for which she was bound when she left Rio de Janeiro.—N. Y. Herald, 6/5.
Secretary Daniels Still Hopes to Find the "Cyclops."—Although two months have passed since the naval collier Cyclops disappeared, Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, said to-day the department still holds hopes of solving the mystery, and has not yet officially recorded the vessel as "lost."
Systematic questioning of fishermen and residents of islands along the route the collier would have followed from the West Indies to an Atlantic port is continuing.—N. Y. Herald, 15/5.
One French Gunner Defeats Hun U-boat.—Heroism of French sailors, of which so little has been learned during the war, is told with the official story of the French sailing patrol boat Goeland H.
During one of the blackest nights of January the Goeland H suddenly found herself under the point-blank fire of the two guns of a German submarine. Despite the fact that the ship was torn open beyond repair, the crew rushed to their single gun and went into action. Two gunners were killed before a shot was fired from the ship; a third calmly worked the gun alone and his second shell put the submarine's rear gun out of action. The U-boat then submerged and gave up the fight.
The Goeland H sank and with her the captain. The second mate, gravely wounded, directed the remaining men of the crew into the boats which were floating where the ship disappeared.
The Minister of Marine has endowed the brave second mate and the third gunner with the Military Medal and cited the deed to the Order of the Army.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 27/4.
Big Liner "St. Paul" Overturns at Pier.—The American line steamship St. Paul overturned while being warped around her pier here to-day, after coming from a nearby dry dock. It is believed that all persons on board, between 500 and 600 workmen, escaped, but as the vessel lies two-thirds submerged, with her bow on the bottom and her stern high in the air, the military authorities were unwilling to announce that no one perished. It was considered possible that some of the men might have been caught in the interior of the ship and drowned.
Whether the St. Paul's sea-cocks were left open or the ballast shifted, remains to be determined.
The St. Paul, one of the crack steamships of the American line, registers 11,629 tons gross. For many years she has been in transatlantic service, and during the war has taken to Europe and brought back as passengers many noted persons.—Evening Star, 25/4.
Raising the "St. Paul."—An ash port carelessly left open was believed to have flooded the American liner St. Paul, sinking her at her pier. However, so far no official announcement as to the cause of the accident, which probably caused the loss of lives, has been made.
Work of raising the vessel is progressing rapidly to-day. Meanwhile investigation to definitely place the responsibility for the sinking was conducted by army men.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 26/4.
NORTH SEA AND CHANNEL
German Ships Shell Coast of Flanders.—German torpedo craft bombarded the coast between Dunkirk and Nieuport, behind the allied lines in Flanders, yesterday morning, says an official statement from Berlin to-day. The text reads:
"Our torpedo-boats on Thursday morning fired 6co shells on enemy camps and storage places between Dunkirk and Nieuport."—N. Y. Herald, 20/4.
Kattegat Swept by British Ships.—Ten German Trawlers Sunk.—The Secretary of the Admiralty made the following announcement last evening: Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, reports having undertaken a sweep of the Kattegat on April 15.
Ten German trawlers were sunk by gun-fire, their crews being saved by the British ships.
There were no British casualties.
Reported Fight Near the Sound.—Copenhagen, April 15.—During the last few days numerous torpedo-boats and destroyers of foreign nationality have been observed at different places off the Swedish west coast near Halmstad (in the Kattegat). This morning six destroyers were seen firing at a sailing vessel, which at last took fire. Farther out at sea smoke and flames were seen, and about 100 shots were heard.
A special telegram from Helsingborg to National Tidende states that a fight has taken place between English and German vessels in the Kattegat northwest of Kullen (at the northern entrance of the Sound). A number of German trawlers are said to have been sunk. German battleships then came up, and the fight continued.
Enemy Vessels in Flames.—Christiania, April 15.—A correspondent of Aftenposten reports from Gothenburg that destroyers of foreign nationality were observed at 5.30 this morning eight miles off the Swedish coast shelling five ships which looked like German trawlers, and which all seemed to be ablaze, while some were about to sink. At 10.50 Marstrand fishermen saw the warships speeding rapidly northwest.—London Times, 18/4.
British and German Light Naval Forces in a Short Battle Near Heligoland.—British and German light forces clashed on Saturday in the waters east of the great German fortress Heligoland, the British Admiralty announced to-day. After the exchange of a few shots at long range, the German warships took refuge behind their mine-fields. The Admiralty announcement says:
"British light forces operating in Heligoland Bight Saturday obtained touch with enemy light forces, who retired behind the mine-fields. A few shots were exchanged at an extreme range. One enemy destroyer was observed to be hit. All our ships returned without casualties."—N. Y. Herald, 22/4.
The Attack on Zeebrugge and Ostend.—Those critics who have been calling for a strong offensive against the German submarine bases must have received their fill of satisfaction when they read of the dashing exploit of the British Navy against the German bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. Germany could not have been struck in a more tender spot; for her writers, both military and naval, have always tried to impress it upon the Germans that the possession of the Belgian coast is of prime importance in Germany's plans for the crushing of British sea power. German hunger for the possession of the Channel ports is largely responsible for the present fierce drive against the northern sectors of the British Army in France, and should she succeed in adding Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne to Zeebrugge and Ostend, she will fight to retain them more fiercely perhaps than for any other object in the war.
The value of the two Belgian harbors lies in their strategic relation to the English Channel and the southerly half of the North Sea. Zeebrugge is the port of the considerable city of Bruges, with which it is connected by a canal which also extends between Bruges and Ostend. These conditions render both of these ports admirable bases for submarine operations; for the craft can lie in the canal beyond range of hostile gun-fire from the sea. The approaches to both ports are characteristic of the waters of the Belgian coast, which are shoal and underlaid by shifting masses of sand through which channels lead from deep water to the harbor entrances. Zeebrugge is protected from southwest gales by a curved breakwater or mole of masonry, which is connected, at its in-shore end, with the mainland by a bridge. The entrance to the docks of the canal is formed by two smaller breakwaters with a lighthouse at the end of each. About three-quarters of a mile in-shore are the lock gates which form the entrance to the docks and to the canal.
Ostend has no large breakwater, the entrance to the docks and to the canal from the sea being formed by two piers, about one-quarter and one-half mile in length, and the harbor being a tidal one, there are the customary lock gates leading to the various docks and basins.
Both Zeebrugge and Ostend have been subjected to attack from the air by the British Naval Airplane Service, and considerable damage has been done from time to time. Latterly, as protection, the Germans have built heavy reinforced concrete shelters, under which the submarines lie during their overhauling and refitting.
The expedition, which was under the command of Admiral Keyes, was most carefully organized; and the various vessels that went into the harbor were manned entirely by volunteer crews. There is some doubt as to the exact composition and size of the attacking fleet, but judging from the rather fragmentary reports which have come to hand, it looks as though the fleet of raiding ships was accompanied by a considerable force of monitors armed with 12- and 14-inch guns which subjected both bases to heavy long-range gun-fire before the raiding vessels were sent in.
The fleet detailed for the raid consisted of five obsolete cruisers from 20 to 30 years old; the Vindictive under command of Commander Carpenter; two large ferryboats which formerly did service between Birkenhead and Liverpool; two old submarines filled with explosives; and several destroyers and high-speed motor-boats.
The Vindictive is a protected cruiser of 5750 tons and 20 knots speed, built in 1897, mounting a battery of ten 6-inch guns, and nine 12-pounders. Her complement is 450 men.
The five obsolete cruisers, loaded down with masses of concrete, were designed to be sunk across the channel entrances so as completely to block them.
The two old submarines, which were crammed with explosives, were destined, one for blowing up the bridge connecting the in-shore end of the mole with the mainland, and the other for blowing up the lock gates, and so draining the docks and basins and the canal itself.
The plan of attack was for the Vindictive and the two large ferryboats to lie alongside the outer wall of the mole and throw landing parties ashore, mainly for the purpose of diverting attention from what was being done inside the harbor, and partly for the purpose of destroying the batteries and the considerable amount of military stores located on the mole. Under the cover of this destruction, three of the concreted cruisers were to make their way through the harbor and sink themselves squarely across the channel.
After the preliminary bombardment by the monitors, which was so heavy that windows were shaken in the town of Dover, some 75 miles distant, the fleet advanced behind a screen of smoke. A change in the wind lifted the smoke screen just before the fleet reached its objective, and German star shells revealed to the enemy the daring nature of the attack. The Vindictive reached her objective, and with lines of grappling irons managed to get ashore two out of 14 special gangways—the other dozen having been shot away—which were stretched from the ship to the elevated parapet of the mole. Over these the crew from the Vindictive swarmed ashore where they were joined by other landing parties from the ferryboats. They captured the guns on the mole, and turned them on the Germans, driving them back, and covering the line of warehouses, which were set on fire by flame throwers that had been provided for the purpose. The Vindictive was brought under extremely heavy gun-fire, but thanks to the protection of the mole, only her upper works were shot away, and the ship remained so far intact that she was able to withdraw with the wounded and survivors.
The attack on the mole seems to have been a complete success. One of the submarines made its way to the in-shore end, and after being placed below the bridge, the explosives were touched off and the bridge with the German troops gathered upon it was blown up. Meanwhile, the other submarine seems to have blown in the seaward gate leading to the docks of the Bruges canal—one eye-witness stating that, as he left, the water was pouring out through the gates and the vessels inside were straining heavily at their moorings. This, however, has not been verified in the brief Admiralty report. The three cruisers seem to have been sunk in position, blocking the channel.
As to Ostend, the results do not seem to have been so satisfactory although both of the concreted ships were sunk, and it is believed that the entrance channel is partly blocked. The crews from the concreted ships and the submarines were picked up by fast motor-boats and carried safely back to the main fleet.
Taken as a whole, this exploit is worthy to rank with the best cutting out expeditions recorded in naval history. It was well conceived, and seems to have been carried out with great dash and coolness. Of course ,the element of surprise was there—at least to a partial extent—and it is questionable whether other expeditions of this character will give equally favorable results; since the Germans, from, now on, will presumably be at watch for further attacks. If the channels are blocked, and particularly if, as one account states, one or two dredges were sunk, it will be many days and possibly weeks before the submarines and destroyers which were sheltering in the basins and within the canal, will be available for service.—Scientific American, 11/5.
Full Story of the Raid.—Twisting the Dragon's Tail.—April 25 there was issued an official account of the great naval attack on Zeebrugge and Ostend on the morning of St. George's Day. It gives for the first time the names of the principal officers who took part in the enterprise, and announces that Vice Admiral Keyes directed the operation from the destroyer Warwick.
The story of the landing at the mole is told in the following words:
Vindictive was fitted along the port side with a high false deck, whence ran the 18 brows or gangways, by which the storming and demolition parties were to land. The men were gathered in readiness on the main and lower decks, while Colonel Elliot, who was to lead the marines, waited on the false deck just abaft the bridge, and Captain H. C. Halahan, who commanded the bluejackets, was amidships. The gangways were lowered, and scraped and rebounded upon the high parapet of the mole as Vindictive rolled; and the word for the assault had not yet been given when both leaders were killed. Colonel Elliot by a shell and Captain Halahan by the machine-gun fire which swept the decks. The same shell that killed Colonel Elliot also did fearful execution in the forward stokes mortar battery.
"The men were magnificent." Every officer bears the same testimony. The mere landing on the mole was a perilous business; it involved a passage across the crashing, splintering gangways, a drop over the parapet into the field of fire of the German machine-guns which swept its length, and a further drop of some 16 feet to the surface of the mole itself. Many were killed and more were wounded as they crowded up to the gangways; but nothing hindered the orderly and speedy landing by every gangway. Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker had his arm carried away by a shell on the upper deck, and lay in the darkness while the storming parties trod him under. He was recognized and dragged aside by the commander. He raised his remaining arm in greeting. "Good luck to you," he called, as the rest of the stormers hastened by; "good luck!"
The lower deck was a shambles as the commander made the rounds of his ship; yet those wounded and dying raised themselves to cheer as he made his tour. The crew of the howitzer which was mounted forward had all been killed; a second crew was destroyed likewise; and even then a third crew was taking over the gun. In the stern cabin a firework expert who had never been to sea before—one of Captain Brock's employees—was steadily firing great illuminating rockets out of a scuttle to show up the lighthouse on the end of the mole to the block ships and their escort.
The Daffodil, after aiding to berth Vindictive should have proceeded to land her own men, but now Commander Carpenter ordered her to remain as she was, with her bows against Vindictive's quarter, pressing the latter ship into the mole. Normally, Daffodil's boilers develop 80 pounds pressure of steam per inch; but now, for this particular task. Artificer Engineer Sutton, in charge of them, maintained 160 pounds for the whole period that she was holding Vindictive to the mole. Her casualties, owing to her position during the fight, were small—one man killed and eight wounded, among them her commander, Lieutenant H. Campbell, who was struck in the right eye by a shell splinter.
Iris had troubles of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the mole ahead of Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not large enough to span the parapet. Two officers, Lieut. Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs had both legs shot away, and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer, R. N. R., though wounded, took command, and refused to be relieved. Iris was obliged at last to change her position, and fall in astern of Vindictive, and suffered very heavily from the fire. A single big shell plunged through the upper deck and burst below at a point where 56 marines were awaiting the order to go to the gangways. Forty-nine were killed, and the remaining seven wounded. Another shell in the ward-room, which was serving as sick-bay, killed four officers and 26 men. Her total casualties were eight officers and 69 men killed and three officers and 102 men wounded.
The storming and demolition parties upon the mole met with no resistance from the Germans other than the intense and unremitting fire. The geography of the great mole, with its railway line and its many buildings, hangars and store sheds, was already well known, and the demolition parties moved to their appointed work in perfect order. One after another the buildings burst into flame or split and crumbled as the dynamite went off. A bombing party working up towards the mole extension in search of the enemy destroyed several machine-gun emplacements, but not a single prisoner rewarded them. It appears that upon the approach of the ships, and with the opening of the fire, the enemy simply retired and contented themselves with bringing machine-guns to the shore end of the mole. And while they worked and destroyed, the covering party below the parapet could see in the harbor, by the light of the German star shells, the shapes of the block ships stealing in and out of their own smoke and making for the mouth of the canal.
Thetis came first, steaming into a tornado of shell from the great batteries ashore. All her crew, save a remnant who remained to steam her in and sink her, had already been taken off, but the remnant spared hands enough to keep her four guns going. It was hers to show the road to Intrepid and Iphigenia, who followed. She cleared the string of armed barges which defends the channel from the tip of the mole, but had the ill-fortune to foul one of her propellers upon the net defence which flanks it on the shore side. The propeller gathered in the net and rendered her practically unmanageable; the shore batteries found her and pounded her unremittingly; she bumped into a bank, edged off and found herself in the channel again, still some hundreds of yards from the mouth of the canal, in a practically sinking condition. As she lay she signaled invaluable directions to the others, and here Commander R. S. Sneyd, D. S. O., accordingly blew the charges and sank her. A motor launch under Lieutenant H. Littleton, R. N. V. R., raced alongside and took off her crew. Her losses were five killed and five wounded.
Intrepid, smoking like a volcano and with all her guns blazing, followed; her motor launch had failed to get alongside outside the harbor, and she had men enough for anything. Straight into the canal she steered, her smoke blowing back from her into Iphigenia's eyes, so that the latter, blinded and going a little wild, rammed a dredger with a barge moored beside it which lay at the western arm of the canal. She got clear, though, and entered the canal pushing the barge before her. It was then that a shell hit the steam connections of her whistle, and the escape of steam which followed drove off some of the smoke and let her see what she was doing.
Lieutenant Stuart Bonham-Carter, commanding the Intrepid, placed the nose of his ship neatly on the mud of the western bank, ordered his crew away and blew up his ship by the switches in the chart-room. Four dull bumps was all that could be heard, and immediately afterwards there arrived on deck the engineer, who had been in the engine-room during the explosion, and reported that all was as it should be.
Lieutenant E. W. Billyard-Leake, commanding Iphigenia, beached her according to arrangement on the eastern side, blew her up, saw her drop nicely across the canal, and left her with her engines still going to hold her in position till she should have bedded well down on the bottom. According to the latest reports from air observation, the two old ships, with their holds full of concrete, are lying across the canal in a V position; and it is probable that the work they set out to do has been accomplished and that the canal is effectively blocked.
A motor-launch under Lieutenant P. T. Deane, R. N. V. R., had followed them in to bring away the crews, and waited farther up the canal towards the mouth against the western bank. Lieutenant Bonham-Carter, having sent away his boats, was reduced to a Carley float, an apparatus like an exaggerated lifebuoy with a floor or grating. Upon contact with the water it ignited a calcium flare, and he was adrift in the uncanny illumination with a German machine-gun a few hundred yards away giving him its undivided attention. What saved him was possibly the fact that the defunct Intrepid was still emitting huge clouds of smoke which it had been worth nobody's while to turn off. He managed to catch a rope as the motor-launch started, and was towed for a while till he was observed and taken on board.
Another officer jumped ashore and ran along the bank to the launch. A bullet from the machine-gun stung him as he ran, and when he arrived, charging down the bank out of the dark, he was received by a member of the launch's crew, who attacked him with a hammer.
The whole harbor was alive with small craft. As the motor-launch cleared the canal and came forth to the incessant geysers thrown up by shells, rescuers and rescued had a view of yet another phase of the attack. The shore end of the mole consists of a jetty, and here an old submarine, commanded by Lieutenant R. D. Sandford. R. N., loaded with explosives, was run in to the piles and touched off, her crew getting away in a boat to where the usual launch awaited them. Officers describe the explosion as the greatest they ever witnessed—a huge roaring spout of flame that tore the jetty in half and left a gap of over 100 feet. The claim of another launch to have sunk a torpedo-boat alongside the jetty is supported by many observers, including officers of the Vindictive, who had seen her mast and
funnel across the Mole and noticed them disappear.
Meantime the destroyers North Star, Phoebe, and Warwick, which guarded the Vindictive from action by enemy destroyers while she lay beside the mole, had their share in the battle. North Star—Lieut. Commander K. C. Helyar, R. N.—losing her way in the smoke, emerged to the light of the star shells, and was sunk. The German communiqué which states that only a few members of the crew could be saved by them is in this detail of an unusual accuracy; for the Phoebe—Lieut. Commander H. E. Gore-Langton, R. N.—came up under a heavy fire in time to rescue nearly all. Throughout the operation monitors and the siege guns in Flanders manned by the Royal Marine Artillery heavily bombarded the enemy's batteries.
The wind that blew back the smoke-screen at Zeebrugge served us even worse off Ostend, where that and nothing else prevented the success of an operation ably directed by Commodore Hubert Lynes, C. M. G. The coastal motor-boats had lit the approaches and the ends of the piers with calcium flares and made a smoke cloud which effectually hid the fact from the enemy Sirius and Brilliant were already past the stream bank buoy when the wind changed, revealing the arrangements to the enemy, who extinguished the flares with gun-fire.
The Sirius was already in a sinking condition, when at length the two ships, having failed to find the entrance, grounded and were forced, therefore, to sink themselves at a point about 400 yards east of the piers, and their crews were taken off by motor-launches under Lieutenant K. R. Hoare, R. N. V. R., and Lieutenant R. Bourke, R. N. V. R.
The motor-launches here were under the command of Commander Hamilton Benn, R. N. V. R., D. S. O., M. P., while those at Zeebrugge were commanded by Captain R. Collins, R. N. (the vice admiral's flag captain). All the coastal motor-boats were commanded by Lieutenant A. P. Wellman, D. S. O., R. N. The torpedo-boat destroyer flotilla was commanded by Captain Wilfred Tomkinson, R. N.
The difficulty of the operations is to be gauged from the fact that from Zeebrugge to Ostend the enemy batteries number not less than 120 heavy guns, which can concentrate on retiring ships, during daylight, up to a distance of about 16 miles.—London Times.
Attack on Zeebrugge Base Declared Complete Success.—The Associated Press learns from a high naval source that the operations at Zeebrugge were a complete success, with the result that the Flanders flotilla now will be obliged to resort to the Ostend route in putting to sea, from which the British forces can more easily handle the German ships.
In addition to the damage done, the mole and the German guns, material and shipping, the channel has been blocked by the cement ships and a German dredger was destroyed.
The loss of the dredger, together with the blocking up of the channel, must result in the speedy silting up of the waterway, and it will take at least several weeks to clear the passage.
Renter's Amsterdam correspondent sends the following telegram, received from Berlin:
"The Kaiser on Tuesday visited Zeebrugge, the scene of the frustrated English raid. He boarded the mole, where he convinced himself that the damage caused by the blowing up of the railway bridge had already been temporarily repaired and that a final bridging of the gap can be done in a few days. He also satisfied himself of the perfectly good condition of all the structures and installations on the outer part of the mole, which was the objective of the attack."
To Discipline German Admiral.—Vice Admiral Schroeder, the commander at Zeebrugge, according to reports reaching here, will be deprived of his command for being taken by surprise by the British Tuesday. German newspapers, in commenting on raid at Zeebrugge, generally, take the hint given in the official reports at Berlin and represent the enterprise as having been a failure. Some, however, admit that the attack was made with great boldness.
The Lokal Anzeiger says that the raiders succeeded in blocking the waterway to a great extent, but that the U-boats still are able to leave their harbor, as a narrow passage remains.—Evening Star, 26/4.
Says Americans Participated in Zeebrugge Raid.—Scouting by American aviators of both the army and navy played an important part in the British raid on the German submarine base at Zeebrugge, according to an American naval officer who arrived at an Atlantic port aboard a French steamship yesterday.—N. Y. Herald, 8/5.
British Lost 588 in Raid.—The total British casualties in the operations on Tuesday against Zeebrugge and Ostend were 588, according to an official announcement to-night. These were divided as follows:
Officers.—Killed, 16; died of wounds, 3; missing, 2; wounded, 29.
Men.—Killed, 144; died of wounds, 25; missing, 14; wounded, 355.—N.Y. Herald, 28/4.
Story of Sinking Old "Vindictive" at Ostend.—London, May 14. The Admiralty has issued the following graphic story of the Ostend operation:
"Dunkirk, May 11.—The Sirius lies in the surf some 2000 yards east of the entrance to Ostend harbor, which she failed so gallantly to block, and when in the early hours of yesterday morning the Vindictive groped her way through the smoke screen and headed for the entrance it was as though the old fighting ship awoke and looked on.
"A coastal motor-boat had visited her and hung a flare in her slack and rusty rigging, and that eye of unsteady fire, paling in the blaze of star shells, or reddening through the drift of smoke, watched the whole great enterprise from the moment when it hung in doubt to its ultimate triumphant success.
"The planning and execution of that success had been entrusted by Vice Admiral Sir Robert Keyes to Commodore Hubert Lynes, who directed the previous attempt to block the harbor with the Sirius and Brilliant. Upon that occasion a combination of unforeseen and unforeseeable conditions had fought against him.
"Upon this the main problem was to secure the effect of a surprise attack upon an enemy who was clearly, from his ascertained dispositions, expecting him. The Sirius and Brilliant had been baffled by the displacement of the Stroom bank buoy, which marks the channel to the harbor entrance. But since then aerial reconnaissance had established that the Germans had removed the buoy altogether and that there now were no guiding marks of any kind. They also had cut gaps in the piers as a precaution against a landing, and, further, when toward midnight Thursday the ships moved from their anchorage, it was known that some nine German destroyers were out and were at large upon the coast.
"The solution of the problem is best indicated by the chronicle of events. It was a night that promised well for the enterprise—nearly windless and what little breeze stirred came a point or so west of north. The sky was lead blue, faintly star-dotted, with no moon, and a still sea for small craft, motor-launches and coastal motor-boats, whose work was done close inshore.
"From the destroyer which served the commodore for a flagship, the remainder of the force were visible only as silhouettes of blackness—the destroyers looming like cruisers in the darkness, the motor-boats like destroyers and the coastal motor-boats showing themselves as racing hillocks of foam.
"From Dunkirk a sudden, brief flurry of gun-fire announced that German airplanes were about. They were actually on the way to visit Calais, and over the invisible coast of Flanders the summer lightning of restless artillery rose and fell monotonously.
'"There's the Vindictive!' The muffled seamen and marines standing by the torpedo tubes and guns turned at that name to gaze at the great black ship, seen mistily through the screening smoke from the destroyers' funnels, plodding silently to her goal and end. Photographs had made familiar that high-sided profile, her tall funnels with Zeebrugge scars, always with the background of the pier at Dover, against which she lay to be fitted for her last task. Now was added to her the environment of night and sea and the greatness of the tragedy of her mission.
"She receded into the night astern, as a destroyer raced on to lay a light buoy that was to be her guide, and those on board saw her no more. She passed thence into the hands of the small craft whose mission was to guide her, light her and hide her in the clouds of a smoke screen.
"There was no preliminary bombardment of the harbor and batteries, as before the previous attempt. That was to be the first element in the surprise. A time table had been laid down for every stage of the operation, and the staff work beforehand even included precise orders for laying the smoke barrage, with plans calculated for every direction of the wind.
"Monitors anchored in firing positions far seaward awaited the signal. The great sea batteries of the Royal Marine Artillery in Flanders, among the largest guns that were ever placed on land mountings, stood by likewise to neutralize the big German artillery along the coast, and the airmen who were to collaborate with an aerial bombardment of the town, waited somewhere in the darkness overhead. Destroyers patrolled to seaward of the small craft.
"The Vindictive, always at that solemn gait of hers, found the flagship's light buoy and bore up for where a coastal motor-boat commanded by Lieutenant William R. Slayter was waiting by a calcium flare upon the old position of the Stroom bank buoy.
"Four minutes before she arrived there, and 15 minutes only before she was due at the harbor mouth, the signal for the guns to open was given. Two motor-boats under command of Lieutenant Albert L. Poland dashed in toward the ends of the high wooden piers and torpedoed them. There was a machine gun on the end of the western pier, and that vanished in a roar and leap of flames—which called to the guns.
"Over the town a flame suddenly appeared high in the air and sank slowly earthwards, the signal that the air-planes had seen and understood. Almost coincidentally with their first bombs came the first shells, whooping up from the monitors at sea. The surprise part of the attack was sprung. The surprise, despite the German's watchfulness, seems to have been complete. Up until the moment when the torpedoes of the motorboats exploded there had not been a shot from the land—only occasional routine star shells.
"The motor-launches were doing their work magnificently. These pocket warships manned by officers and men of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve are specialists at smoke production. They built to either hand of the Vindictive's course the likeness of a dense sea mist, driving landward with the wind. Star shells paled and were lost as they sank in it; the beams of searchlights seemed to break off short upon its front. It blinded the observers in the great batteries, which suddenly, upon the warning of the explosions of guns, roared into action.
"There was a while of tremendous uproar. The coast about Ostend is ponderously equipped with batteries, each with a name known and identified as Von Tirpitz, Von Hindenberg, Deutschland, Cecilia and the rest. They register from six inches to monsters of 15-inch naval pieces in land turrets, and the Royal Marine Artillery fights a war-long duel with them. These now opened fire into the smoke and over it at the monitors and marines, and the monitors replied.
"Meanwhile the airplanes were bombing methodically and anti-aircraft guns were searching the skies for them. Star shells spouted up and floated down, lighting the smoke banks with spreading green fires, and those strings of luminous green balls which the airmen called 'flaming onions' soared up, to lose themselves in the clouds.
"Through all this stridency and blaze of conflict the old Vindictive, still unhurrying, was walking the lighted waters toward the entrance. It was then that those on the destroyers became aware that what seemed to be merely smoke was wet and cold; that the rigging was beginning to drip, and that there were no longer any stars. A sea fog had come on.
"The destroyers had to turn on their lights and use their sirens to keep in touch with each other. The air attack was suspended and the Vindictive, with some distance yet to go, found herself in gross darkness. There were motor-boats on either side of her, escorting her to the entrance. These were supplied with what are called Dover flares, enormous lights capable of illuminating square miles of sea. At once every pistol was fired as a signal to light these, but the fog and smoke together were too dense for even the flares.
"The Vindictive then put her helm over and started to cruise to find the entrance. Twice she must have washed across, and at the third turn, upon reaching the position at which she first lost her way, there came a rift in the mist and she saw the entrance and the piers on either side and an opening dead ahead.
"The inevitable motor-boat, U P 22, commanded by Acting Lieutenant Guy L. Cockburn, raced on into the opening under heavy and momentarily growing fire and planted a flare on the water between the piers. The Vindictive steamed over it and on. She was in.
"The guns found her at once. She was hit every few seconds after she entered, her scarred hull broken afresh in a score of places, her decks and upper works swept by machine guns. The machine gun at the end of the western pier had been put out of action by a motor-boat's torpedo, but from other machine guns at the inshore end of the pier from a position on the front and from machine guns apparently firing over the eastern pier there converged upon her a hail of lead.
"After her control was demolished by a shell which killed all the occupants, including Sub-lieutenant Angus H. MacLachan, who was in command of it, the upper and lower bridges and the chart-room, swept by bullets. Commander Godsal ordered the officers to go with him in the conning-tower. They observed through the observation slit in the steel wall of the conning-tower that the eastern pier was breached some 200 yards from the seaward end as though at some time a ship had been in collision with it. They saw the front of the town silhouetted again and again in the light of the guns that blazed at them. The night was a patchwork of fire and darkness.
"Immediately after passing the breach in the pier Commander Godsal left the conning-tower and went on deck the better to watch the ship's movements. He chose a position and called in through the slit of the conning-tower his order to starboard the helm. The Vindictive responded and laid her battered nose to the eastern pier and prepared to swing her length across the channel.
"It was at that moment that a shell from the shore batteries struck the conning-tower. Lieutenant Sir John Alleyne and Lieutenant V. A. C. Crutchley were still within. Commander Godsal was close to the tower outside. Lieutenant Alleyne was stunned by the shock. Lieutenant Crutchley shouted through the slit to the commander, and, receiving no answer, rang for the port engine full speed astern to help the swinging ship. By this time she was lying at an angle of about 40 degrees to the pier and seemed to be hard fast, so it was impossible to bring her farther around.
"After working the engines some minutes to no effect, Lieutenant Crutchley gave the order to clear the engine room and abandon ship, according to the program previously laid down. Engineer Lieut. Commander William A. Bury, who was the last to leave the engine room, blew the main charges by a switch installed aft. Lieutenant Crutchley blew the auxiliary charges in the forward 6-inch magazine from the conning-tower.
"Those on board felt the old ship spring as the explosive tore the bottom plates and bulkheads from her. She sank about six feet and lay upon the bottom of the channel. Her work was done.
"It is to be presumed that Commander Godsal was killed by the shell which struck the conning-tower. Lieutenant Crutchley, searching the ship before he left her, failed to find his body or that of Sub-lieutenant Mac-Lachlan in that wilderness of splintered wood and shattered steel. In the previous attempt to block the port Commander Godsal commanded the Brilliant, and together with all the officers of that ship and of the Sirius had volunteered at once for the further operation.
"Engineer Lieut. Commander Bury, who was severely wounded, and had been in the Vindictive in the attack on Zeebrugge mole. He had urged upon the vice admiral his claim to remain with her and with four engine-room artificers, in view of his and their special knowledge of her engines.
"The names of these four are A. Cavanagh, H. M. S. Vindictive, wounded; M. Caroll, royal naval barracks, Chatham, wounded; A. Thomas, H. M. S. Lion, missing; H. Harris, H. M. S. Royal Sovereign.
"The coxswain was a first-class petty officer, J. J. Reed, royal naval barracks, Chatham, who had been with Commander Godsal in the Brilliant, and whose urgent request that he be allowed to remain with him had been granted. The remainder of the crew were selected from a large number of volunteers from the ships of the Dover patrol.
Most of the casualties were incurred while the ship was being abandoned. The men behaved with just that cheery discipline and courage which distinguished them in the Zeebrugge raid. Petty Officer Reed found Lieutenant Alleyne in the conning-tower still unconscious, and carried him aft under a storm of fire from machine guns. Lieutenant Alleyne was badly hit before he could be got over the side and fell into the water. Here he managed to catch hold of a boat, and a motor-launch under Lieutenant Bourke succeeded in rescuing him and two other wounded men.
"The remainder of the crew were taken off by a motor-launch under Lieutenant Geoffrey H. Drummond under a fierce fire. When finally he reached the Warwick the launch was practically in a sinking condition; her bows were shot to pieces. Lieutenant Drummond himself was severely wounded. His second in command, Lieutenant Gordon Ross, and one hand were killed. A number of others were wounded. The launch was found too damaged to tow. Day was breaking and she and the Warwick were in easy range of the forts. As soon as her crew and the Vindictive survivors were transferred a demolition charge was placed in her engine room and she was sunk.
"All was according to program. Recall rockets for the small craft were fired from the flagship at 2.30 a. m. Great red rockets whizzed up, to lose themselves in the fog. They could not have been visible half a mile away, but the work was done and one by one the launches and motorboats commenced to appear from the fog and stopped their engines alongside. The destroyers exchanged news with them. There were wounded men to be transferred and dead men to be reported. But no one had seen a single enemy craft. Nine German destroyers which were out, free to fight, had chosen the discreeter part.
"Vice Admiral Sir Roger Keyes was present at the operation on the destroyer Warwick. Commander Hamilton Benn, N. V P., D. S. O., M. P., was in command of the motor-launches, and Lieutenant Francis C. Harrison, R. N., D. S. O., was in charge of the coastal motor-boats. The central smoke screen was entrusted to Sub-lieutenant Humphrey V. Low and Sub-lieutenant Leslie R. Blake. The casualties, as at present reported, stand at two officers and six men killed; two officers and ten men, all of the Vindictive, missing and believed killed and four officers and eight men wounded.
"It is not claimed by the officers who carried out the operations that Ostend harbor is completely blocked. But its purpose to embarrass the enemy and make the harbor impracticable to any but small craft and for dredging operations difficult has been fully accomplished. The position of the Vindictive is with stem on to the eastern pier, and not her stern, as shown in certain published illustrations."—Washington Evening Star, 14/5.
British Submarines Have Torpedoed 40 Hun Warships.—Two German Dreadnoughts Included in Official Review Received Here—More than 40 German warships have been attacked successfully by British submarines.
This was disclosed by an official British statement received her and made public to-day by the Committee on Public Information. The review was the most extensive ever received in this country of the work of the British under-water craft, concerning the activities of which little news has reached America since their famous raids in the Dardanelles and the Baltic Sea.
Most of the battles narrated in the review were with German destroyers which had sallied forth, presumably on raiding expeditions, but in one instance a submarine commander told of sighting four dreadnoughts of the Kaiser class off the Dutch coast and of discharging torpedoes at two of them. The submarine submerged as the torpedoes were fired, but from the sounds of explosions which the commander heard he concluded that two of the battleships were hit. The submarine was prevented by German destroyers from rising to the surface to observe the effects of its attack.—N. Y. Herald, 9/5.
Great Mine-Field in North Sea.—According to Archibald Hurd, in the London Daily Telegraph, the area in the North Sea, recently announced by the British Government as prohibited, as dangerous to shipping after May 15, will be the greatest mine-field ever laid for the special purpose of foiling submarines. It will embrace 121,782 square miles, the base forming a line between Norway and Scotland and the peak extending northward into the Arctic Circle.
Archibald Hurd, who is an authority on naval subjects, says that there has been a vast improvement in British mines since Admiral Jellicoe became First Sea Lord. Hurd points out that the creating of this barrier across the northern exit of the North Sea was an enormous task, involving 12 or more months, and estimates that tens of thousands of mines were required to cover the area. He suggests that when Admiral Jellicoe made his famous prophecy that the submarine menace would be met by August, that he had this mine-field in mind.—Nautical Gazette, 11/5.
German Naval Activities.—No German war vessel larger than a destroyer has shown itself 150 miles west of Heligoland from August, 1916, to October, 1917, when two light cruisers attacked the Scandinavian convoy." That statement continues to present a picture of the state of affairs in the North Sea, although how soon it may be varied no one can attempt to predict. In spite of the strength of the High Seas Fleet, it is seldom indeed that any attempt is made to show the German flag in what was once called the "German Ocean," whereas at all times the British Fleet not only controls the communications in those waters, but sweeps them from end to end and right up to the enemy's mine-fields and the approaches to his fort-defended waters.—Army and Navy Gazette, 20/4.
U-Boat and Mine Sink Sloop and Trawler.—Fifteen British Crew Men Missing. Eight Swedes Are Killed.—London, May 12.—The Admiralty announces that a British mine-sweeping sloop was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine, May 6. Two officers and 13 men are missing and are presumed to have been drowned.
A dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph from Copenhagen says the German mine-field north of Gothenburg has brought disaster to the large Swedish trawler Agnes, which struck a mine between Vingaa and Scalv. The trawler sank immediately. Eight Swedes on board were killed. Only two of the ship's company were saved.—Evening Star, 13/5.
Submarines Sunk.—Work of the R. N. A. S.—Attacks By Seaplanes.—Instances of the successful work of the Royal Naval Air Service wherever our naval and military forces are operating were given in The Times of Saturday, and it is now possible to record some of the splendid services which this branch of our navy has rendered to the Empire by destroying enemy submarines.
While on patrol in the Channel, seaplane X sighted a submarine eight miles away, in the line of convoy which was about 10 miles off. When the seaplane reached bombing position, the top of the conning-tower was just awash, and both periscopes were out of the water. Two large bombs were released, the first of which exploded on the conning-tower, and the periscopes were seen to collapse. The second bomb hit the water 30 feet ahead of the conning-tower, in a direct line with the bow of the submarine. The seaplane then turned, and a considerable disturbance was seen on the surface—an upheaval of water, with quantities of air rushing up. Two other bombs were dropped from a height of 1000 feet, one of which exploded in the midst of the disturbance.
A Shoal of U-boats
One of our large seaplanes the other morning sighted an enemy submarine, painted light grey, with a mast and a gun on what appeared to be a raised deck. By the gun was one of the crew. Flying over the submarine, a bomb was dropped by the seaplane, and a hit was made on the tail of the vessel. Turning to repeat the attack, our airmen saw that the explosion had made a large rent in the deck, and this was photographed. At this moment gun flashes were seen some distance in front of the submarine, and through the mist came three more enemy submarines heading for the attacked vessel, escorted by three destroyers. All six vessels opened fire on our machine, but none of their shells was effective. Our seaplane again passed over the U-boat which was sinking by the stern, with the bow fully out of the water. A second bomb was released and exploded about 15 feet ahead of the bow of the submarine, causing her to sink immediately, leaving a quantity of blackish oil, air bubbles, and foreign matter on the surface. Our seaplane, having no further bombs, sent a wireless message explaining the position of the destroyers, and returned home in safety.
Two large seaplanes sighted an enemy submarine travelling about 14 knots. The first machine to reach her dropped a bomb, which exploded, and the submarine began to sink stern first, the bow rising high in the water. The second machine dropped a bomb which exploded immediately in front of the conning-tower. Another explosion occurred under water, followed by several smaller explosions. Two men were on the conning-tower as the vessel sank, but nothing more was seen of them.
Turned Turtle
Again, a seaplane and two aeroplanes on patrol saw a U-boat of very large type, with two periscopes. The submarine dived on hearing the aircraft's engines, but not before the seaplane had dropped two bombs, which fell just abaft the conning-tower, one seeming to be a direct hit. The submarine turned upside down, and a large bubble, with wreckage, and large quantities of oil, subsequently appeared.
A patrolling airship noticed an attack by a submarine on a steamer, and flew down to the spot. By this time the submarine had submerged. Two bombs were dropped from the airship on the submerged vessel, and several bubbles, one of huge size, came to the surface. Two trawlers dropped depth charges, three of which exploded right over the target, and much oil came up.
A seaplane met a merchant ship and saw a large disturbance on the water 200 yards from the vessel. Then the wake of the torpedo was seen, but the torpedo missed the ship by a few yards. The seaplane, in less than a minute after sighting the U-boat's movements, dropped two bombs, which exploded within eight yards of each other. Large quantities of oil and bubbles rose to the surface: the merchantman proceeded on her course in safety.
An enemy submarine was sighted by two large seaplanes while on patrol. A bomb dropped by one of the seaplanes exploded just abaft the center of the submarine, which listed heavily to port, and went down by the stern within a minute.—London Times, 8/4.
BALTIC
German Warships Assemble at Kiel.—The entire German Baltic fleet, except a few light cruisers, was recalled last week to Kiel, where important naval forces now are being concentrated, says a dispatch from Hamburg received in Geneva and transmitted by the correspondent of the Daily Express.—N. Y. Herald, 17/5.
Baltic Fleet Sails.—Petrograd, April 6.—The Russian warships have left Helsingfors for Kronstadt.
The Soviet Government has decided that the German landing concerns Finland only, and that the Soviet cannot interfere.
The newspapers state that the British Consul at Helsingfors has left for Petrograd.—Renter.
Vasa, April 6.—It is announced that the "Red Guards" at Tammerfors have capitulated.—Renter.
British Submarines Blown up by Crews at Helsingfors.—All British submarines in the harbor of Helsingfors were destroyed when the German naval forces approached the city because it was impossible to get them away, owing to the fact that they were frozen fast, according to an Admiralty statement this evening. The submarines, which have been operating in the Baltic since the early part of the war, were blown up, together with their stocks of torpedoes, ammunition and other materials. Their crews have arrived in England, having traveled by way of Mourmansk.
The seven British submarines were destroyed during the five days from April 3 to April 8. The Admiralty says the project of blocking the harbor by sinking ships in it had been rejected by the Russian admiral commanding in chief.
The effect of the destruction of the British submarines upon the crews of merchant vessels was, however, the statement says, excellent and induced the destruction of many ships which would have fallen into the hands of the enemy.
"The guns at and near Hango," the Admiralty announcement says, "had already been dismantled, and upon the appearance of the German forces the Russians retreated from the vicinity after blowing up their four American submarines.
"Four British submarines of class E were taken outside the harbor of Helsingfors on April 3 and blown up and sunk. Three C-boats were demolished between that day and April 8. Their crews were removed to Petrograd.—Evening Star, 17/5.
Russia's Fleet in the Baltic.—Within easy reach of the Hun lies the naval strength of Russia, a considerable force in ships of excellent design and modern construction which have been rendered completely defenseless by the demoralization of the personnel of the Russian Navy. The Germans have but to advance with land and naval forces from Reval and Helsingfors to Kronstadt and Petrograd to add to their navy four modern dreadnoughts, completed by the Russians since the outbreak of war, 30 modern destroyers of 34 knots speed and 10 modern submarines which were built in the United States and delivered to Russia since the outbreak of war. This is only the cream of the Russian naval strength, however, for Russia has in the Baltic something more than 100 destroyers of which, besides the 30 mentioned above, 20 are but about six years old; probably 15 submarines of 600 tons each in addition to her American built boats, and a number of cruisers, transports and smaller vessels of substantial value as a raiding force to an enemy who can gamble with them recklessly as can Germany.
Only the Ice Has Kept the Hun Away.—As late as the middle of April—the time of writing this article—press despatches told of the continued advance of German land forces on Russian soil. The Germans have not, however, advanced upon Petrograd nor have they attempted to steal the Russian warships and naval supplies at Kronstadt and Pootilof. Little has been said of the likelihood of their doing so. Yet it appears that the only thing that has held off the Hun from this theft is the ice that prevents the advance of his naval forces to Kronstadt. Certainly the Bolsheviki are powerless to prevent the theft. The one hope that remains to save these ships from the Hun is their destruction by Russians who are still determined not to give in to the enemy. The strong land fortifications that formerly barred the way to Kronstadt are now all in German hands and when the ice breaks the Germans have but to push forward to Kronstadt to take their spoil.
Will Their Crews Surrender Them?—It is possible that there are still Russians in the crews on board those warships who will blow up their ships rather than see them fall into the hands of the enemy. But this is only a possibility. H German propaganda has been as effective in Kronstadt as it has elsewhere in Russia it is probable, to say the least, that Germany will obtain possession of the Russian Baltic naval forces without difficulty.
Naval officers who were with the Baltic fleet as late as last November state that the four new Russian dreadnoughts are in good shape. They are new vessels and, although they have not been kept in repair, they have had practically no work and the Germans could easily and quickly put them in shape for action. The dreadnoughts are of 23,500 tons, mounting twelve 12-inch guns. They were laid down in 1909 as the first step toward the rehabilitation of the Russian Navy after the Russo-Japanese War and their guns were placed on board late in 1914.
While a gain of four dreadnoughts by Germany would not shift the preponderance of naval power in capital ships in favor of Germany against Great Britain, it must be borne in mind that the Germans are now staking everything on offensive operations and may reasonably be expected to risk a major naval engagement with the British fleet in a far more determined and genuine attack than they made at Jutland. Thus every capital ship added to the German forces must be considered as reducing the chances—for victory is never a certainty—of the British fleet to win. None of the belligerents have made public any information with regard to increases in naval strength since the outbreak of war. It is impossible, therefore, to state positively what is the German or British strength in capital ships. There have been many tales circulated of fabulous increases in German naval strength but, obviously, Germany has been devoting her resources largely to the construction of submarines. Likewise, Great Britain has been burdened with the construction of merchant tonnage and with smaller types of warships to be used against German raiders. It is generally considered safe to presume that both Great Britain and Germany have completed, by now, all the dreadnoughts that were building at the outbreak of the war.
Making allowance for the British losses of two dreadnoughts, three battle cruisers and ten pre-dreadnoughts, and for the German losses of one battle cruiser and one pre-dreadnought, the British superiority in capital ship strength, on that basis, would now be about 16 dreadnoughts, three pre-dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser.
Thus the Russian Baltic strength, in dreadnoughts, represents about 25 per cent of the British superiority in that type of ship, and to have even a very safe margin reduced 25 per cent is a development of which serious notice must be taken.
But a possibly more serious development than that is the German gain in raiding strength—in destroyers and submarines. The Russian destroyer strength was always over-developed. It was far greater than our own destroyer strength at the outbreak of the war. The Germans are both under the necessity of employing raiding tactics and are in an excellent strategic position to do so, as we might as well frankly admit. To add a force of 30 modern 34-knot destroyers to the German Navy, plus the secondary Russian force of 20 six-year-old destroyers and 50 vessels of that type of older construction, gives the Germans an increased raiding strength which is indeed a serious matter for our allies and for ourselves. It is a force which the Germans can spend in any reckless venture to wear down the British naval strength and they may be counted upon to gamble with it if they are determined to seek a final issue on the seas.
Not only does Germany gain the Baltic submarine fleet, if she takes Kronstadt, but she obtains as well shipyards in which are facilities for the construction of 12 submarines. The Russians laid down 12 submarines every two years in the Baltic, but that was only the Russian peace time rate of construction and the Germans, with men and materials available, could of course turn them out with much greater speed. Fortunately, Russian raw materials would not be available for the Germans. Most of the raw materials for ship construction in Russia would have to be obtained from the territory that is controlled by General Kaledines and the Cossacks. The Germans could, however, ship raw materials by water from German Baltic ports to Petrograd. It is difficult to determine just what Germany would gain in the way of shipyard and ordnance construction facilities. It is said by Russian officers that there are large supplies of ammunition in stock which the Germans could take over. Shells for the dreadnoughts were provided, they say, which were never used. At Pootilof there is a naval gun factory which would fall into German hands at once.
Clearly this is a chance for gain in naval strength which it would be worth while for Germany to play for and to fight for. But she will not have to fight to get it. It is like a ripe fruit ready to drop into her lap. We have made much of the contribution our navy has made to the allied naval strength in the war zone. Unquestionably the work of the American ships has been excellent. Especially in destroyers—in the character of our ships and in the efficiency of their crews—the contribution of the American Navy to the allied forces is something of which every American can be proud. But we are concerned here only with the matter of the total strength in ships, and the fact is that the Russian naval strength which lies within such easy reach of the Hun is greater than the total strength of the 150 American warships of all types which the Secretary of the Navy has recently informed us are now with the allied forces on the other side.
Clearly the one inference allowed us is that the United States must increase its naval strength in the war zone to overcome any increase in strength which Germany may score by taking over the Russian fleet. If there was a necessity, in the first instance, for sending these American warships into the war zone in order to increase allied strength, there is now an equal necessity to send enough more American vessels to keep the margin of superiority in naval strength where it is after the Germans take over the Russian ships.—Sea Power, May.
MEDITERRANEAN
A German submarine bombarded Kastelorizo, Island of Rhodes, off the coast of Asia Minor.—Army and Navy Gazette, 20/4.
Drove off Enemy U-boat.—Secretary Daniels has commended Elmer Dinnes Arnold, seaman, second class. United States Navy, armed guard detail, navy yard. New York, for the efficiency of the gun crew under his command on board the steamship Chincha when that vessel was attacked by a German submarine. This was the second time the Chincha had been attacked by a German submarine. After Arnold's gun crew had fired eight shots the submarine submerged.
Arnold enlisted at Indianapolis, Ind., September 8, 1915. Next of kin, Lillian Evans, sister, Carmel, Ind.—Official Bulletin, 13/5.
Ten Die When Torpedo Hits French Steamer.—Paris, May 17.—Ten passengers, one European and nine Arabs, were killed when the French steamer Atlantique was torpedoed in the Mediterranean early this month. The steamship managed to reach a port by her own means, it is announced. She measures 6447 tons.—Evening Star, 17 /5.
Bridge Over Suez Is Now Completed.—Cairo, Egypt, Thursday.—The swinging bridge over the Suez Canal at El Kantara, about 35 miles south of Port Said, has been completed. The bridge affords direct railway communication between Cairo and cities in Palestine.—N. Y. Herald, 17/5.
ADRIATIC
Allied Power in the Adriatic.—"In the face of the preponderance in heavy ships which the Allies have at their disposal in or near the Adriatic," says the London Engineer in an article in its issue of March 22 on the Italian battle fleet, "it was scarcely to be expected that the Austro-Hungarian fleet would choose to accept a pitched battle. Instead, their tactics have been confined almost entirely to raids by light forces against the unprotected Italian coast and the Allies' lines of communication in the Lower Adriatic. Against such tactics heavy armored ships are of no avail. The vessels of the greatest value in these circumstances are light cruisers and destroyers, and unfortunately the Italian Navy was inadequately supplied with vessels of both types. A number of modern destroyers and old torpedo gunboats have been fitted up as mine-layers, a branch of naval work in which the Italians have proved themselves remarkably efficient. The submarine flotilla includes about 30 boats, coastal and sea-going, the majority of which are of the well-known Fiat-Laurenti type, which has been adopted in many foreign navies. British and French officers who have served in the Adriatic theater have returned with the most favorable impressions of the quality of Italian naval material. The design of every ship is obviously the result of a careful study of contemporary principles in strategy and tactics, and betrays a certain independence of view not commonly met with in foreign naval circles."—Army and Navy Journal, 30/4.
British Won Sea Fight in Adriatic with Slight Loss.—In the engagement of allied and Austrian light sea forces in the Adriatic on April 2.2 the British lost seven men killed and 19 wounded, the Admiralty reports. Two British destroyers, which for a time fought five Austrian destroyers, were damaged only slightly. (The official Austrian account of the engagement issued yesterday, said one British destroyer was damaged seriously.) The announcement follows:
"On April 22 five Austrian destroyers were encountered and engaged by two of our destroyers in the Adriatic. The enemy fled for shelter to the fortified port of Durazzo, pursued by our destroyers, which had been reinforced by five more British and one French destroyer. The chase continued until after midnight when touch with the enemy was lost.
"Our two destroyers, which engaged this very superior enemy force, received only minor damages. Our total casualties were seven killed and 19 wounded. It is not known what damage was sustained by the enemy.
"On the following day Durazzo was attacked by British air forces. The only man-of-war in the harbor was one gunboat. Our machines attacked the seaplane base, dropping nearly a ton of bombs, with apparently successful results. All our machines returned safely to their base."—N. Y. Herald, 28/4.
Italians Torpedo Austrian Warship in Raid on Pola.—An Austrian battleship was torpedoed by Italian naval forces in Pola Harbor early Tuesday morning, it was officially announced to-day. The battleship was of the Viribus Unitis type.
The Italian force worked its way into the Austrian naval base by dodging the patrol boats and searchlights of the defenders.
While the naval operation was progressing an Italian seaplane force engaged Austrian battleplanes above Pola. Two of the Austrians were brought down and several others were compelled to descend out of control. The Italian machines all returned safely.
The text of the official announcement reads:
"Italian naval units, avoiding patrol boats and searchlights, succeeded in entering Pola Harbor early on Tuesday and in torpedoing an Austrian battleship of the Viribus Unitis type.
"Simultaneously Italian seaplane squadrons attacked Austrian battleplanes over Pola, brought down two and forced several others down out of control. The Italian machines all returned safely to their bases."
[There are four Austrian battleships of the Viribus Unitis class, which comprised the largest and most modern fighting vessels completed for the Austrian Navy up to the time the European war began. The other ships of the class are the Tegetthof, the Prinz Eugen and the Szent Istvan. The nameship was completed in October, 1912, and the others at intervals between then and the beginning of the war, with the exception of the Szent Istvan, which was not finished until 1915. Each battleship of the class displaces 20,000 tons, is 525 feet long over all, 89 feet beam and 28 feet draught. Their armament comprises twelve 12-inch and twelve 5.9-inch guns in the main battery, with eighteen 11 -pounders and various smaller guns, and from two to six torpedo tubes. The complement of the battleships ranges from 962 to 988 men. All are heavily armored and are classed as dreadnoughts. The Viribus Unitis developed a speed of 20.9 knots on her trial trip.]—N. Y. Herald, 17/5.
Italian Warships in Raid at Durazzo Sink Two Vessels.—Enemy Torpedo-Boat and Steamer Sent Down.—Airplanes Bomb Military Works. —Rome, May 17.—Italian naval forces torpedoed and sank an enemy torpedo-boat and steamer at Durazzo, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sunday night, it was officially announced to-day.
Italian airplanes bombed and set fire to military works in Lisza and Durazzo Tuesday.
Lisza is on the island of that name north of Durazzo.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 17/5.
BLACK SEA
Russia's Black Sea Fleet.—The latest direct information available comes from naval officers who were with the Russian fleet in the Black Sea in October, 1917. At that time there were two dreadnoughts in the Black Sea fleet. These ships were completed since the outbreak of war and are in every way first-class ships and of excellent design. Three of them were built but one, the Imperatriza Maria, was sunk. The Alexandra III and the Ekaterina II which remain are ships of 22,500 tons, each mounting ten 12-inch guns. More attention should be paid to the older battleships and cruisers in the Black Sea fleet than we gave that type of vessel in the Baltic fleet because the ships of enemy navies against which the Black Sea fleet, in German hands, and the Turkish fleet would be matched would have more vessels of older types. The Black Sea fleet includes the Ievstafi, Pantelinion and loam Zlatoust, ships completed in 1906, of 12,800 tons and each with armament of four 12-inch guns and four 8-inch. There is also an old type battleship of 9000 tons, built in 1896, carrying four lo-inch guns and the Tri Sviatitelia, built in 1893, and carrying four 12-inch guns. Two protected cruisers, the Kagoul and the Pamiat Mcrkooria, are of 1903 vintage and carry twelve 6-inch guns. They are both 6700-ton vessels. Although the lists of 1914 give only nine new destroyers to the Black Sea fleet, I am informed that there are 14 such vessels at Sebastopol, all 33-knot ships. There are also four 600-ton, nine 350-ton and four 250-ton destroyers, all of about 25 knots speed. Nine new submarines were built for the Black Sea fleet since the outbreak of war and there are 13 old submarines, about 10 years old.
Turkey's Contribution.—If the Germans obtain possession of the Black Sea fleet they would, of course, combine it with the Turkish fleet and with the Goeben and the Breslau, the German cruisers now in Turkish waters. The Goeben was beached and injured. She was reported destroyed by the British but the Germans claimed to have floated her again and to have made her ready for action. She is a battle cruiser of 23,000 tons carrying 10 modern 50-caliber 11-inch guns, and of high speed.
To this fleet Turkey could contribute two dreadnoughts built in 1913, the Sultan Osnian I and the Sultan Mehmet Rechad V, the former a 23,000-ton vessel with ten 13.5-inch guns and the latter a 27,500-ton ship carrying fourteen 12-inch guns. The Turks have two old battleships built in 1891 and a protected cruiser built in 1903 as well as a miscellaneous assortment of old cruisers and gunboats, not worth much. They have very little to offer in the way of destroyers.
But the total would make a considerable naval strength with five excellent capital ships as the backbone of the fleet. The Italian and French naval forces in the Mediterranean must keep the Austrians bottled up. The existence of such a German naval force in the Levant would threaten Greece, if it did no more, and would cost the Allies a considerable naval strength to guard against this danger. It is the necessity that the Allies face to protect so many miles of coast in such widely separated zone that makes their naval problem difficult. The Germans can concentrate and select the moment when they wish to strike, remaining safely protected by land fortifications meanwhile. But the Allies must be ever on the alert, watching two exits in the North Sea to guard against the approach of the German High Seas fleet; keeping the Austrian naval forces bottled within the Adriatic, the Turko-German forces within the Dardanelles and battling with the submarine all the time. Thus the creation of any hostile naval force that constitutes a continuing menace makes their problem more difficult and requires them to employ sufficient strength in ships and men to negative that force. If the enemy's strength in the Levant is increased, a further strain is placed upon allied forces in the Mediterranean and in turn upon their forces in the North Sea. The American Navy is the only untouched reserve from which they can draw new strength to meet such a menace.
It would be more difficult—much more difficult—for the Germans to gain possession of the Russian Black Sea fleet. That fleet is now at Sevastopol and the Germans have no naval force with which to take it. Moreover, the morale of the Russians in the Black Sea fleet is somewhat better than in the Baltic and it is believed there would be a defence of that fleet. But it is a possibility—and I do not say that it is not a probability—that the Germans will capture the Black Sea fleet likewise. And so long as it is a probability or a possibility, we should now—not when it happens—take any necessary steps to guard against danger.—Sea Power, May.
Black Sea Fleet In Peril, Russians Hear.—Mr. Tchitcherin, Bolshevik Foreign Minister, has asked Germany, according to the official news agency, to give a guarantee that the Russian Black Sea fleet, while remaining at Sebastopol, will not be seized or damaged by forces of the Central Powers and their allies now advancing into the Crimea, nor by any other naval or military forces of that alliance.
The Foreign Minister has taken this action, it is added, as he has heard that the Germans intend to blockade Sebastopol with submarines.—N. Y. Herald, 26/4.
PACIFIC
Fifty-Eight in "Seeadler" Crew Interned in Chile.—Fifty-eight of the crew of the German raider Seeadler, which operated in the South Pacific Ocean until it was wrecked, have been interned in Chile, according to an announcement to-day by naval authorities here.
The Seeadler sank a number of American vessels and was wrecked on an island in the Pacific. The crew was transferred to a captured vessel and continued their raids on commerce until they were captured.—N. Y. Herald, 20/4.
Interned Ship Burned.—Prinz Eitel Friedrich Sinks at Anchor in Colombian Harbor.—The German steamer Prinz Eitel Friedrich, which has been interned at Puerto Colombia, was burned and sunk at her anchorage there to-day.
The steamer was owned by the Hamburg-American Line and displaced 4650 tons.—Baltimore Sun, 28/4.
U-BOATS
Ten Submarines Sunk by Aviators.—Details concerning the destruction recently of ten German submarines by naval aircraft, eight by seaplanes and the others by dirigibles, have been obtained by the Associated Press from British Admiralty reports. The first case is described as follows:
"While on patrol in the English Channel a seaplane sighted a submarine eight miles away, directly in the path of an oncoming convoy of merchant ships. The seaplane dived at 90 miles an hour. The submarine attempted to escape by submerging, but was just awash as the seaplane reached a bombing position and released two bombs, one of which exploded on the conning-tower. The seaplane dropped two more bombs into the midst of the air bubbles from the collapsed submarine, which was of the largest type, carrying two guns."
The second case: "At dawn a seaplane sighted a large submarine on the surface, with a member of the crew standing by the gun. The seaplane dropped a bomb on the tail of the U-boat and afterward photographed the sinking submarine, with a big hole in its deck. A second bomb was dropped close to the submarine's bow and the U-boat collapsed."
The third case: "Two seaplanes attacked a large submarine traveling on the surface at 14 knots, with two men in the conning-tower. A bomb was exploded close to the conning-tower, and the submarine began to sink stern first. A bomb from a second seaplane completed the work."
The fourth case: "Three patrol planes sighted a large submarine as it was submerging and dropped two bombs close to the conning-tower, causing the submarine to turn turtle and disappear in a mass of oil and wreckage."
The fifth case: "A seaplane sighted two submarines close to the surface and dropped two bombs. One bomb was ineffective, but the other hit the deck fairly amidships. The submarine was hidden by the smoke of the explosion, and when the smoke cleared the U-boat was sinking, with both ends in the air."
The sixth case: "A seaplane saw the track of a torpedo fired at a merchantman. It dived toward the shadow of the submarine, well below the surface. It dropped two bombs, which both exploded close to the submarine, resulting in a large quantity of oil, bubbles and wreckage."
The seventh case: "Two seaplanes sighted a U-boat on the surface and dropped a bomb each. The first bomb caused a heavy list to the U-boat, which began to sink by the stern. The second bomb exploded in the center of the swirl, demolishing the U-boat."
The eighth case: "A seaplane dropped a bomb on a submarine just emerging, and the U-boat disappeared with a heavy list to port. The pilot dropped a second bomb into the swirl, and a few minutes later a patch of oil 150 feet long and 12 feet wide appeared on the surface."
The ninth case: "A naval airship at midday sighted a suspicious patch of oil and circled it in an effort to ascertain the cause. Suddenly a periscope broke the surface in the midst of the oil. The airship dropped a bomb close to the periscope, and a series of bubbles began appearing, indicating that the damaged submarine was moving slowly away under the water. Several more bombs were dropped in the path indicated, until satisfactory evidence was obtained of the enemy's destruction."
The tenth case: "An airship dropped two bombs over a submarine which was engaged in attacking merchantmen. Great patches of oil and bubbles indicated severe damage, and trawlers made this complete by depth discharges."—Flying, May.
Torpedoed U-boats.—Permission has been given by the British Admiralty to publish from its records the following details of further typical encounters with U-boats:
Motor launches were out on patrol when one of them detected a submarine under water. This was confirmed shortly afterwards by the two other boats, and appearances indicated that the submarine was zig-zagging. The hunters took up the chase, and it became obvious that the submarine realized she was being pursued and was stopping every time the launches stopped. So the game of blind man's buff went on till at last the launches had maneuvered into the desired position. Then they "laid their eggs." There were some under-water explosions, and a quantity of oil spread itself over the surface of the sea.
A submarine has been reported in a particular area, and it was pretty certain that she was lying on the bottom. The German would have to come to the surface to charge batteries, but as this proceeding would be highly dangerous for him in daylight, it was much more likely that he would attempt the operation by night. Accordingly a number of vessels were detailed to watch for him during the night in question. Luck was with the flotilla; the sea was very smooth, the night dark but clear, and the vessels engaged took up their appointed stations for the hunt. Between 1 and 2 a. m., one of the vessels "got a clue," and at once proceeded to the spot so as to be ready to welcome the U-boat directly he came to the surface. Presently the German was sighted and fire was opened on him. He hastened to submerge, helped by a depth charge, after which nothing was heard of him.
A destroyer was escorting a convoy of merchantmen when she sighted the periscope of a submarine before the beam of the convoy and about half a mile away. The destroyer made haste to close, while the enemy quickly dived. A depth charge was dropped into the swirl caused by the German's disappearance, and the under-water explosion drove wreckage and portions of the submarine up to the surface. Just then another periscope was sighted, and a round was fired in its direction. This submarine fired a torpedo at the destroyer, but missed her and then submerged. Another destroyer engaged in escort duty sighted a periscope about two miles distant, and headed for the position. A depth charge was dropped in what was guessed to be the enemy's course, the German having dived, but with no apparent result. The destroyer continued her work, and at the end of an hour there came a dull and heavy under-water explosion. Then quantities of oil rose to the surface; but nothing more of the submarine was seen.
In the following terms the captain of one of our submarines described in his report how he sank an enemy vessel:
10 a. m.—Sighted hostile submarine; attacked same.
10.03 a. m.—Torpedoed submarine, hit with one torpedo amidships. Submarine seen to blow up and disappear. Surface to look for survivors. Put down immediately by destroyers, who fired at me.
By way of a note he adds: "During my attack there was just enough sea to make depth-keeping difficult. I fired two torpedoes, and one hit at forward end of conning-tower. A large column of yellow smoke, about one and a half times as high as the mast, was observed, and the submarine disappeared. The explosion was heard and felt in our own submarine. I proceeded four miles northward, and lay on the bottom. Many vessels throughout the day were heard in proximity. Several explosions were heard, especially one very heavy one. It must have been close, as the noise was considerably louder than that of the torpedo. On one occasion a wire-sweep scraped the whole length of the boat along my port side, and a vessel was heard to pass directly overhead."
After a chase lasting nearly two hours one of our submarines succeeded in sinking her quarry, an enemy submarine. The hostile vessel had evidently just come to the surface, as men were noticed on her bridge spreading the bridge screen. While maneuvering to attack, our submarine had to pass through shallow water, and as the sea was rough at the time, she frequently bumped the bottom heavily, but, fortunately, avoided breaking surface.
At a range of 550 yards both bow tubes were fired. On firing the periscope was dipped in case the boat rose, and the tube was brought to bear so as to be ready in the event of a miss with both tubes. Fifteen or twenty seconds after firing a dull report was heard.
On the periscope being raised, after a short interval, nothing was seen of the enemy submarine, but there was a great disturbance in the water where she had been. On proceeding to the spot where she was last seen, it was observed that the water was covered with an oily substance, which stuck to the glass of the periscope, obscuring vision. Although the vessel was not actually seen to sink there is little doubt that she was torpedoed, as it is improbable that she could have dived while steaming on the surface in the brief space during which the British submarine's periscope was lowered.—Army and Navy Register, 27/4.
Just What the U-boats Are Doing.—The failure of the German submarine to prevent the landing of American forces in France and food for the Allies is given by some observers as the real cause of the Hindenburg drive on the western front. It is generally conceded, remarks a writer in the New York Sun, that the German Government timed the drive in the hope of getting a decision before the United States was able to throw its weight into the military scales on the side of the Entente. This is an admission that the U-boat campaign can no longer be relied upon to stop the flow of troops, provisions, and supplies from this country to Europe. As a further indication of the diminishing efficacy of the submarine, we have the low record of sinkings in the week ending April 7, when the U-boats' toll was four large and two small vessels. To say that the submarine menace has been brought fully under control would be foolish, remarks the Atlanta Journal, which thinks it will probably remain more or less of a menace to the end of the war. However, there is assurance in the fact that the stroke on which the Huns counted a year ago to win has been "broken to such an extent that they themselves now recognize how indecisive it is." A corroborating German opinion is found in the Berlin Lokal Anzeiger, whose navy expert, Captain Kuhlwetter puts this question: "How is it that despite our submarines' work we hardly ever sink an American troop-transport, or when we do sink one we always find that only the ship is lost, whereas the troops whom we really want to destroy are always saved?" To his own question, Captain Kuhlwetter gives this reply:
"American transports travel in convoys, well protected against attack, and are very fast. Thus the submarines have a most difficult and dangerous task. This is particularly true in the Channel, where the enemy can choose the most favorable hours of the day and can protect himself by all sorts of devices, mines, nets, etc.
"To try to seize the bull by the horns here would mean attacking a powerful enemy front, which can be broken more cheaply in other ways.
"In other waters the enemy defence is not quite so easy, but there he takes advantage of the great number of available harbors of disembarkation.
"It is not possible for us to have U-boats waiting off every enemy harbor until the transport can conveniently be destroyed. We have not got so many submarines. It would be wasting them and their precious crews, especially as if the ships were torpedoed the troops themselves would not be destroyed
"It is not important for us to destroy the American troops. Hindenburg will take care of that. What we must destroy are tonnage and cargoes. Besides, we do not always hear of every transport we destroy. To make it our only aim to sink American transports would be sacrificing too many U-boats without perceptible results."
Vice Admiral von Capelle, too, seemed to think it was necessary to make an explanation of the submarine status to the Reichstag, and the Brooklyn Citizen sagely observes that if the great drive had turned out well, there would, of course, have been no need of making such an explanation. But it has not turned out well, and, in fact, is so much the reverse that "if the mind of the German people is allowed to dwell upon it, the very worst consequences may be anticipated." Amsterdam dispatches inform us that Vice Admiral von Capelle, German Minister of the Navy, declared before the main committee of the Reichstag that the new U-boat construction exceeded the losses and that the effectiveness of the submarines had increased. He quoted figures to prove his contention that the U-boat sinkings were "thrice or sixfold" the tonnage of the new British construction. As to the American destroyers, "which had been so much talked about," the minister claimed that they had failed in their object, and he is quoted by the semiofficial Wolff Bureau of Berlin with reference to our ship-building as follows:
"For the carrying out of America's giant paper program America must first lay down the shipyards. After prodigious promises America in 1917 built 750,000 gross register tons of sea-going ships. The large mercantile fleet placed on order America does not want for the war, but the post-bellum period, when, the shipping program having been in the meantime carried out, America will become England's world freight-carrier."
Vice Admiral von Capelle admitted that Germany's opponents had some success with their antisubmarine measures, but averred that this success at no time had any decisive influence on the U-boat war, and according to human reckoning, would not in the future. As to our convoy system, he recognizes that it offers ships a certain protection, but it has the great disadvantage in his view of reducing the transport capabilities of the Allies. In replying to the utterances of von Capelle, the British Admiralty issued an official statement in which it is stated that "exaggerated figures of losses are still relied on by the enemy. The average of monthly losses of British ships in 1917 was 333,000 gross tons, whereas Admiral von Capelle bases his argument on over 600,000 tons." The figures quoted below show some trifling discrepancies from those in the diagram with this article; which are from another summary of the report of the British Admiralty. Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty, spoke on the submarine situation in March in the House of Commons, and his speech, as summarized by the Parliamentary correspondent of the London Times, reads in part as follows:
"The world's tonnage from the beginning of the war until December 31, 1917, exclusive of enemy-owned tonnage, has fallen by a net figure of, roughly, 2,500,000 gross tons, that is, out of 33,000,000 estimated Allied and neutral ocean-going tonnage.
"The allied and neutral world has suffered about 8 per cent reduction in ocean-going tonnage.
"The percentage of net loss of British tonnage alone reaches 20 per cent. That represented 3,500,000 tons on a total of 18,000,000.
"At the present day, 47 large shipyards, containing 209 berths, are actually engaged on ocean-going merchant vessels.
"In the fourth quarter of 1914 the merchant tonnage produced in the United Kingdom was 420,000. In the fourth quarter of 1915 it had fallen to 92,000 tons.
"It then began to rise, as will be seen from the following table:
? | 1916 | 1917 |
First quarter | 95,000 tons | 246,000 tons |
Second quarter | 108,000 tons | 249,000 tons |
Third quarter | 125,000 tons | 248,000 tons |
Fourth quarter | 213,000 tons | 420,000 tons |
?
"In the fourth quarter of 1917 foreign construction was 512,000 tons, giving a total output for the world, excluding enemy countries, for that quarter of 932,000 tons.
"The loss due to enemy action and maritime risk for the last quarter of last year was 1,200,000 tons world's shipping. That was by far the lowest quarter of sinkings since the intensive submarine war began, and it looks as if this quarter is going to be lower still.
"By an increase in output and a decrease in sinking we reached in the last quarter of last year the position that the Allies were within 100,000 tons a month of making good the world's loss.
"Taking British loss and output alone, the proportionate deficiency is somewhat higher. We lost on an average 260,000 tons a month during the last quarter of 1917, and we built 140,000 tons a month—a deficiency of 120,000 tons.
"The increase in the average weekly output of repaired merchant tonnage in February, 1918, as compared with August, 1917, is 80 per cent, or 69 ships, representing 237,000 tons a week.
"In February we completed repairs to merchant craft at an average of 166 ships a week, representing more than 500,000 tons.
"We docked last year ten times the naval craft for repairs and refits which we dock in peace time. Over 3000 of these vessels were docked and refitted in the last quarter of last year.
"The additional men who have been put on to both merchant and warship repairs could have produced 500,000 tons of new merchant tonnage a year.
"During the last seven months the net addition to labor in private yards has been round about 18,000, mainly unskilled.
"Compared with January, there was in February a net increase on new construction, hulls, and machinery of over 2500, which is as much as the merchant yards can digest in the time with the skilled men available."
The Philadelphia Press says flatly that von Capelle had to justify his piratical work to the Reichstag committee, and he did it as well as he was able, but " in reporting secretly to the real masters of Germany, the military clique, he probably came nearer to the truth." This journal mentions the British Admiralty report above cited, and says that, thanks to its frankness, the fictitious figures of von Capelle can create no consternation in the anti-German world, for—
"We know that he lies when he says that from three to six times as many allied ships are being sunk as are being built. We know that he lies when he says that America is deliberately withholding the completion of her building program until after the war in pursuance of a mercenary design to wrest the commerce-carrying trade from England. And we suspect that he lies when he says that U-boat building in Germany has exceeded the rate of U-boat destruction, and that there is no difficulty in obtaining willing U-boat crews.
"The worst of the shipping situation was presented to the world last month in the following terms: Somewhat less than 12,000,000 gross tons of allied and neutral ships have been destroyed since the war began. New construction replaced more than 5,000,000 tons. The seizure of German ships added two and a half millions more. Thus the net deficit for the period of the war was calculated as 2,632,297 tons.
With every allowance for the vigor of the U-boat campaign, the Press goes on to say, as well as for the constantly improving methods of fighting it, it is probable that the submarine will sink as many ships this year as the British yards can turn out. Thus the American yards are called upon not only to make up the past deficit, but to fill the increasing tonnage requirements brought about by American participation in the war on a progressively larger scale and by the reduced effectiveness of common carriers due to the necessity of maintaining a transatlantic convoy system. The Press is convinced that Britain can hold her own against the U-boats, but it remains for America to achieve mastery over them, and "this fact is thoroughly understood at Washington, and the appointment of Mr. Schwab is a significant, if belated, recognition of its importance." The Newark News says of the Schwab appointment:
"Mr. Schwab, chosen for his present important post primarily for his success in relations with war-labor, his reputedly fair treatment of workmen, the results so far accomplished by him in a private capacity, bespeaks the sort of sympathetic understanding that will count. 'My place,' he says, 'is in the yards.' He wants every one connected with each yard to feel as he does—that nothing will be any good to any of us unless we win this war.
"Mr. Schwab knows, or should know, as well as any American business man, that it is no policy to rely on overconfidence. It is not to be presumed that he will make that mistake. Stimulation, purposeful direction of ship-building activities—in a word, ships—that is his job. To translate American desires into acts is the high privilege and imperative duty devolving upon him and upon every shipyard associate."
Testimony to the efficiency of the allied effectiveness against the U-boat is found in a dispatch from a French seaport in which Mr. James Kerney, director for the Franco-American Committee of Public Information, is quoted as saying: "A French vice admiral told me that it was due to the great skill and cooperation of the American Navy that no tonnage has been lost on this coast for three months. He was most enthusiastic in his praise of Rear Admiral Wilson, who seems to have captured all this part of France. The depth bomb, listening device, and hydro-aeroplanes in the hands of the Americans have conquered the submarines." Washington dispatches to various dailies disclose confidence among officials that the submarine menace is doomed, and in reply to the boast of Vice Admiral von Capelle that U-boat construction is exceeding losses, a correspondent of the Philadelphia North American cites navy officers as predicting that the menace will be wiped out by August, and perhaps by June. The North American's correspondent informs us further:
"Despite the vaunting passage in von Capelle's address that speaks of U-boat commanders so well trained that they manage to sink 'from three to four ships in succession belonging to the same convoys,' America has lost since the war began only 14 vessels, aggregating 75,000 tons.
"The outstanding facts in refutation of von Capelle's attempt to cheer the German people are these:
"The total neutral and allied tonnage is now approximately 42,000,000 tons;
"America will add this year at least 3,000,000 tons, possibly more than 4,000,000, according to some estimates;
"Great Britain will add at least 1,800,000 tons more, according to von Capelle's own admission;
"The total of other construction on the basis of 512,000 tons the last quarter of 1917, a conservative basis in view of winter-weather conditions, will amount to at least 2,048,000 tons, most of which will add to allied operations directly or indirectly.
"Japan already has agreed to build an additional 200,000 tons of shipping this year for America, and probably will build another 200,000.—Literary Digest, 4/5.
The Periscope.—It is a well-known fact that at a height of one foot from the water an object can be seen at 1.32 miles; at six feet elevation the range of vision is increased to 3.23 miles while at ten feet the horizon is increased to 4.16 miles. This in clear weather puts great limitations upon the sight of a submarine periscope, as all allied merchant vessels are keenly on the lookout for such. From the above it is also very evident that aircraft have extraordinary value in scouting for submarines, as at 25 feet elevation an object can be seen 6.59 miles away; at 100 feet, the range of vision is increased to 13.17 miles; at 500 feet, the line where sea and sky meet is 29.45 miles away.
At a mile high an aeroplane has a range of vision of 95.7 miles. At this height, with powerful telescopes, an aircraft can sweep an area of about 300 miles. In order to distinguish the camouflaged vessels of the Allies, the Germans have fitted their latest periscopes with ray filters, which clearly bring out the outlines of such otherwise invisible vessels.—Marine Engineering and Naval Architect.
Sinking of U-boats Is Steadily Increasing.—London, May 8.—"The sinking of German submarines steadily increases," said Thomas MacNamara, parliamentary secretary to the Admiralty, in a speech at Bristol. He added that the destruction of merchant ships has fallen steadily month by month. The output of tonnage is now well ahead of that in 1917. The demand for immediate ship production on England is now large, however.
Mr. MacNamara declared that the big program made for England and America would take time to mature.—Baltimore American, 8/5.
The Plus and Minus of U-boat Warfare.—All of us who believe that the psychological war is as important if not more so than the war of arms, will rejoice that the British Admiralty has decided to give, periodically, the full facts as to tonnage sunk and tonnage built among the allied nations. Certainly the first statement of this kind, as made by Sir Eric Geddes, is reassuring. The total of allied and neutral shipping losses, due to enemy action and marine risk in gross tons since the beginning of the war, is 11,827,572 tons. During that time, the Allies and neutrals built 6,606,275 tons of new shipping. Furthermore, there is a total of 2,589,000 tons of enemy vessels, either captured or taken over and brought into service. It follows that the net losses to the Allies and the neutrals up to the 1st of January, 1918, is 2,632,297 tons.—Scientific American, 27/4.
A Bad Time Until August.—Admiral Lord Jellicoe, in an address at Hull last month on the submarine situation, said that the reason losses by submarines in the Irish Sea were so heavy was because there was shoal water on each side of the sea, at the bottom of which "the submarines could lie for 48 hours at a time." When they "got a craft on to her the submarine would sit at the bottom until the trouble was over." He said that the difficulty of chasing the submarines into their own ports was that, for a radius of 150 miles around Heligoland Bight, the water was shoal and the submarines could sit at the bottom. At night a submarine could be seen at a distance of only 200 yards and the shoal area stretched for some 300 miles from Denmark to the Dutch Islands. "I am afraid," Lord Jellicoe said, "we are in for a bad time for a few months…but I have confidence that by about August we really shall be able to say the submarine menace is killed."—Scientific American, 27/4.
U-Boat Sinkings Still Exceed Ship Output.—"During the year 1917 German submarines sank more than 10,000,000 dead-weight tons of shipping —11,000,000 would be nearer the truth"—said Bainbridge Colby, member of the United States Shipping Board, before a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association to-day.
Last month, he said, the sinkings exceeded the combined tonnage built by Great Britain and the United States during that month. More than 11,050 large British steamers have been sunk since the war began.
"The submarines to-day," Mr. Colby continued, "are sinking ships faster than are built at present, and the only way to cope with the under-water assassins is to build ships with such a frenzy that the lanes of the ocean will be choked and the submarine pirates will be beaten. We must have ships. The submarines are still sinking more ships than are being built. Without ships we cannot send men, food or munitions to the other side. It is for our workingmen, our employers to realize that we can, by their enlightened impulse, achieve that unity of purpose which will win for us."
As a result of this expansion of the havoc wrought by the German U-boats the committee unanimously adopted a resolution pledging its fullest support to the government ship-building program.
Holden Evans, President of the Baltimore Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company, announced that they had laid the keel of a vessel yesterday which he promised would be launched in 50 days.
A White Paper, published March 22, 1918, placed the gross merchant tonnage lost in enemy action in 1917 at 6,623,623 tons, distributed as follows:
Period | British | Foreign | World’s total |
First quarter | 911,840 | 707,533 | 1,619,373 |
Second quarter | 1,361,870 | 875,064 | 2,236,934 |
Third quarter | 952,938 | 541,535 | 1,494,473 |
Fourth quarter | 782,889 | 489,954 | 1,272,843 |
Total | 4,009,537 | 2,614,086 | 6,623,623 |
The same White Paper revealed the output to be as follows:
Period | British | Foreign | World’s total |
First quarter | 246,239 | 282,200 | 528,439 |
Second quarter | 249,331 | 377,109 | 626,440 |
Third quarter | 248,283 | 368,170 | 616,453 |
Fourth quarter | 419,621 | 512,402 | 932,023 |
Total | 1,163,474 | 1,539,881 | 2,703,355 |
The net loss for the year was shown to be 3,920,268 tons; the net loss since August, 1914, 2,632,297 tons.—N. Y. Times, 4/5.
Submarine Sinkings Remain Constant.—Recent Berlin advices are to the effect that 702,000 tons of shipping were destroyed by the submarines of the Central Powers in December, last. For the first 11 months of Germany's intensified submarine warfare, no less than 8,958,000 tons gross were sunk, it is claimed. Attention is called to the fact that the list of sinkings recorded in the last month of 1917 is noteworthy in several respects. The loss inflicted on the world's shipping was 100,000 tons greater than in November, and 30,000 tons more than in September and October. An attempt is also made to estimate the relative percentage of the total tonnage operating in the war zone sunk from month to month. In the following table, it is assumed that one-third of the tonnage available for the three blockaded countries. Great Britain, France, and Italy, is permanently in the war zone.
Month | Tonnage in war zone | Tonnage sunk | Percent |
February | 8,217,000 | 781,500 | 9.5 |
March | 9,125,000 | 885,000 | 10.9 |
April | 7,958,000 | 1,091,000 | 13.7 |
May | 7,817,000 | 869,000 | 11.1 |
June | 7,667,000 | 1,016,000 | 13.5 |
July | 7,508,000 | 811,000 | 10.8 |
August | 7,367,000 | 808,000 | 10.9 |
September | 7,200,000 | 672,000 | 9.2 |
October | 7,058,000 | 607,000 | 9.5 |
November | 6,900,000 | 607,000 | 8.8 |
December | 6,733,000 | 702,000 | 10.4 |
How the tonnage operating in the war zone is estimated from month to month is not explained. According to the above figures, the tonnage in the war zone dropped from 8,217,000 tons to 6,733,000 tons between February and December last. This is a loss of 1,488,000 tons, or approximately 18 per cent. It would seem from this as though the Germans were willing to concede that in 11 months of ruthless submarine warfare they had only diminished the tonnage available for the Allies by one-fifth.—Nautical Gazette, 28/2.
U-Boats Have Murdered 14,120 Non-Combatants.—There is a danger lest familiarity, even with such a monstrous crime as unrestricted U-boat warfare, should breed indifference to its enormity. Therefore, it is well to bear in mind that, except when the attack is made on fighting ships or transports carrying fighting men, the torpedoing of ships and sending men to their death far out at sea, is simply murder, unredeemed by any extenuating circumstances whatsoever. Just how great a bill of indictment is being drawn up by the German Admiralty against itself is seen in the statement given by the Government Leader in the House of Commons early last month, that up to February 5, 1918, the German U-boats had killed 14,120 non-combatant British men, women and children. This be it noted, is exclusive of the murders done upon peoples of other nationalities.—Scientific American, 9/5.
U-Boats Sunk Exceed Those Built.—Announcement from Paris that in the last three months more submarines have been sunk than have been built, bears out recent unofficial statements here on the submarine situation. It has been no secret that officials here have felt more encouraged within the last few months than at any time since the unrestricted submarine campaign began.
Merchant ship construction by the United States and the Allies already has passed the real danger point and ships are being launched faster than they are sunk. Officials pointed to this fact to-day as proof of the wisdom of the American policy of building an enormous merchant fleet.
As the supply of submersibles begins to diminish the biggest part of the shipping problem of the Allies begins to vanish. Aside from the general effect of a decrease in the number of submarines, officials look for it to have a decided effect on German morale. Every submarine sent to the bottom carries with it a trained crew, which is becoming increasingly harder to replace.
In February and April the number of submarines destroyed was three less than the total destroyed in the previous three months. These results, the minister declared, were due to the methodical character of the war against submarines; to close co-ordination of the allied navies; to the intrepidity and spirit animating the officers and crews of naval and aerial squadrons and to the intensification of the use of old methods and the employment of new ones.
"The situation is most favorable," the minister continued, "but it does not authorize the slackening of effort. It is necessary to redouble it, as the enemy has put new submersibles into service and is trying a fresh offensive, in which he plays his last stake."—Washington Evening Star, 13/5.
MILITARY
The German Purpose.—"Their purpose is undoubtedly to make all the Slavic peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic peninsula, all the lands that Turkey has dominated and misruled, subject to their will and ambition, and build upon that domination an empire of force upon which they fancy that they can erect an empire of gain and commercial supremacy—an empire as hostile to the Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe—an empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and the peoples of the Far East. In such a program our ideals, the ideals of justice and humanity and liberty, the principle of the free self-determination of nations upon which all the modern world insists, can play no part. They are rejected for the ideals of power, for the principle that the strong must rule the weak; that trade must follow the flag, whether those to whom it is taken welcome it or not; that the peoples of the world are to be made subject to the patronage and overlordship of those who have the power to enforce it."—The President's Baltimore address.—Notice to Mariners, 20/4.
Chased From East Africa.—Germans Still in Flight, Pursued by British and Portuguese.—London, April 27.—Reporting military operations in the East African battle zone, an official statement issued to-day by the War Office says that the advance of the British and Portuguese forces, which are pursuing the German troops, which crossed the German East African border into Mozambique, is proceeding under more favorable weather conditions. The text of the statement reads:
Since April 17 the convergent advance of General Northey and General Edwards' troops has proceeded under better weather conditions. The main enemy force is in the vicinity of Namungo. British and Portuguese troops are moving in the direction of Msalu River, while further south other British and Portuguese columns have been disposed north and south of the River Lurio.—N. Y. Herald, 28/4.
Interned Germans Overpower Dutch Guards; 1000 Flee.—Report of Ultimatum to Holland Causes Uprising in Which Many Escape.—Amsterdam, Sunday—The report current last week that Germany had sent an ultimatum to Holland led to a revolt among Germans interned at the Vapanveld camp, according to a dispatch from Hattem, Holland, to the Het Volk.
The guards are said to have been overpowered by 1000 Germans, who fled in all directions. Frontier points were notified immediately and mounted police searched the countryside.
Many Germans succeeded in passing through Almelo or Hengelo on the way back to Germany, but the police rounded up the majority of them in groups of 25 or 50.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 27/4.
Stricter Watch by Dutch on Foreigners.—London, Saturday.—A bill introduced in the Dutch Parliament contains provisions for stricter supervision of foreigners resident in Holland during the present extraordinary war situation, according to a Renter dispatch from The Hague. As it is considered that there are various objections to the expulsion of foreigners and as there may be undesirable elements among them, special regulations relative to them are believed to be necessary.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 27/4.
General Belin Heads Versailles Council.—The Versailles Inter-allied War Committee, according to an official despatch from France, is henceforth to be constituted as follows: President, General Belin, France; members, General Sackville-West, for Great Britain; General Dirobilant, for Italy, and General Bliss for the United States.—N. Y. Herald, 23/4.
German Prisoners to Work on Roads.—The War Department plans soon to offer to the states an opportunity to obtain as road builders German prisoners held in this country. Some of these men are already engaged in road construction in the vicinity of Forts McPherson and Oglethorpe, Ga., but the department intends to enlarge the scope of this and permit states to bid for their services.
States obtaining the prisoners must pay their maintenance, but the government will pay for guards, medical attendance and other incidentals, including a small amount of money for tobacco and the like.
Only Enlisted Men to Be Used.—Only enlisted men will come under the plan, for under The Hague conventions officers are exempt from manual labor.
At present this government is negotiating with Berlin through the Spanish representatives over questions of pay, so that there will be no inequality between the amounts Germany pays American officers and what we pay German officers.
The department has plans for supplying a distinctive uniform to the prisoners.
Some Want to Stay Here—German prisoners like the United States and don't want to go back to Germany. It was learned to-day that some of them had secretly inquired from the War Department if they could remain in this country after the war and had expressed a dread of returning to the Fatherland.
The appeals carried the strong suggestion that the men were tired of Teuton militarism and pleased with American treatment and American freedom.
The War Department replied to their inquiries that it was unable now to announce a policy on that question. It is known, however, that the present plans are to return all prisoners to Germany when the struggle ends.—Baltimore Evening Sun, 22/4.
Gives German Regulations Regarding Remittances to Civil and Military Prisoners.—The War Department authorizes the following:
The following telegram has been received from the American minister at Berne, Switzerland, regarding regulations in force in Germany with respect to remittances from their home countries to interned civilians and prisoners of war:
"The Spanish ambassador at Berlin has transmitted a note dated February 15, 1918, from the German War Department, stating that there are no restrictions in regard to the remittance of money for civilian and military prisoners. The money sent is placed to the prisoner's credit, who may spend it freely with the following limitations:
"A. Military prisoners.
"1. Sixty marks weekly may be spent by officers and others of similar rank.
"2. Fifty marks weekly by non-commissioned officers and men.
"B. Civilian prisoners.
"1. Sixty marks weekly for men of better social position.
"2. Fifty marks weekly for others.
"With a view to obtaining particular articles, the prisoners are allowed at any time to draw on their credit."
No Guarantee of Delivery.—AW moneys thus sent to interned civilians and prisoners of war should be remitted through the Bureau of Prisoners' Relief, American Red Cross, Washington, D. C. All money thus sent through the Red Cross should be remitted in the form of check or postal money order, payable to the American Red Cross. The information is imparted to all concerned that, while the American Red Cross has handled many such remittances and will be glad to handle all future remittances of a similar nature, no guarantee can be given as to the ultimate safe delivery of such remittances. It is also noted for the information of all concerned that remittances so made will probably not be delivered to addresses by the German Government in the form of cash, but rather in the form of credit on prison exchanges.—Official Bulletin, 29/4.
The British report of the action in the Struma Valley on April 16 shows that Greek troops did well, and reconquered several villages ceded to the Bulgarians' under the old regime. To the north of the Greeks, British troops gained two villages to the southwest of Demir Hissar.—London Times, 18/4.
Mr. Wilson's Great Stroke.—By Arthur Pollen.—I doubt if the majority of English people really appreciate the full significance of what President Wilson, seemingly at the suggestion of General Pershing, has decided to do, not only with the American troops in France, but with all the troops that can be got to France in the immediate future.
The decision in itself is that the American battalions are to be brigaded as occasion requires with the French and British battalions, and to be sent into the firing line—of course, under their own colonels, majors, and company officers, but—as units controlled by French or British Brigadier-Generals of Division and so upwards. To many people, the President seems, in this, first to have done no more than meet a very clear necessity of the situation, and, secondly, only to be following a course for which he himself and the British Admiralty have already supplied precedents. As to the first point, I see it stated that there are in France a large number of American troops available for the purposes designated, a number which must very much exceed the total of the allied losses in the battle which still continues.
Of the timely value of this reinforcement there can be no two opinions. As to the second, a precedent for the principle involved has existed for several months in the case of the American destroyers operating in the Atlantic under the ultimate command of one of the most experienced and most brilliant of our senior admirals. They are, of course, only part of the forces at the disposal of this officer, and to make the analogy complete. Admiral Sims commanded the entire combined forces himself for a period.
This reciprocal action by the governments of the United States and Great Britain is, I believe, entirely without parallel in history. It has often happened that allied forces have worked together under a Generalissimo, but in each case every unit, and every individual in it, looked to the national commander-in-chief for orders. What was unique in this Anglo-American naval arrangement was that the captains and officers of English and American ships came under the direct orders of an officer not of their own nationality. Those who have been privileged to see at first hand how this arrangement has worked in practice have been deeply impressed by the skill and tact, no less than by the fine warlike and patriotic spirit which has alone made its complete success possible. And it is not a far-fetched idea to suppose that the real authors of President Wilson's epoch-making decision are Rear Admiral Sir Lewis Bayley, Vice Admiral Sims, and the officers and men of both nationalities who have served under them.
But, precedent or no precedent, the case of the army is in reality an infinitely more striking affair. For seamen are as a race apart. The long training and the sustained self-devotion necessary to gain mastery of a science and a craft incomprehensible to the lay segregate the sailor so completely from the landsman that when a common cause bids them unite forces, it is almost easier for English naval officers to feel the bond of brotherhood with American colleagues than with brother Englishmen not of their own high and select calling. The professional training of the soldier confers no parallel aloofness and, where you have the citizen soldier, there is almost no qualification of his purely national prejudices and characteristics. Without question, every American who volunteered for this war—and nine out of ten of those in France must be men who had gone into training before the draft came into force—did so to become a member of a purely American force, to fight under the Stars and Stripes for the credit and glory of his own country, to be commanded by American generals, and to be led and directed by an American staff.
To sacrifice so much of this ideal, to consent to so much of the merging of so much of the national identity—this would be extraordinary in any event. It approximates to the heroic in the case of a nation so singularly self-conscious of its nationality. The President has not, of course, by any means abandoned the building up of an American Army with its whole apparatus of generals, staff, and so forth. But the decision not to wait for the realization of this plan before enabling his ardent countrymen to strike a blow for justice and freedom, has necessarily postponed the army's creation, and to do this called for moral courage of a very high order. It is a thing that claims our sincere gratitude, and not the least of its many pleasing aspects is the very obvious satisfaction of the people of America with their President's decision.
Three months ago, in these columns, I offered my tribute to the unlimited willingness of the American people to make every effort and every sacrifice demanded of them for victory; but it did not occur to me that this particular demand would so soon be made. But circumstances have made it necessary, and great and unusual as the event is, those who realize that America's determination to fight and not stop fighting till victory is won, will not be surprised that the President has not hesitated to do what to a more narrow view of national dignity would have seemed prohibitive, or that the nation as a whole should have endorsed this finer vision with unanimous enthusiasm.—Land and Water, 11/4.
Military Critic on Next Phase of the Great Battle.—By Military Expert.—Just what Germany's plans for a renewal of the German offensive are no one can even make an intelligent guess. Her situation in the west is far from being comfortable and is one that cannot be maintained without a material change in the formation of her battle-line.
To drive a salient into an enemy's lines is often an advantage if it is followed up by a widening process which gives the troops which occupy it space in which to maneuver. But if it cannot be widened it is apt to be a source of extreme danger. This is the general situation which confronts the Germans both in the north and in the south. Whatever their plans must be, therefore, they must involve a widening of the bases of the two salients.
In the north the situation is peculiarly exacting by virtue of the depth of the wedge in relation to the short distance between the heels at the base. This is further aggravated by the topographical advantages which are against the Germans. Beginning at Messines Ridge and extending west, there is a long line of hill positions, all of which the Allies hold except the most easterly point at Kemmel Hill. Beginning at Vimy Ridge and extending northwest there is another ridge jutting out of the plains, all of which is in British hands. Between these two ridges are the Germans. They cannot advance at the point, as matters stand, since the further westward they go the sharper becomes the point of the wedge and the closer to its sides are the two ridges which eventually almost meet. The Germans cannot stand still, because they are down in the plain of French Flanders where every move they make is visible to the Allies on the northern bank of heights. It is impossible for them to make any concentrations of men or of guns, for, at the first attempts, they will come immediately under the fire of the British and French artillery on the heights.
On the southern leg of the salient the same situation exists. In fact, there is scarcely a point which from one side or the other does not come within the vision of the allied observation posts. Since, then, Germany cannot advance at the point and cannot remain where she is, there remains the problem of breaking through one of the sides and so extending the possible front of operation.
Fighting in the North.—The fighting which took place about this northern salient during the week was apparently designed to secure a local betterment of position, and, at the same time, to feel out the British strength at various points. The principal one of these attacks was on the Flanders front between La Clytte and Voormezeele. The Germans in this attack used two divisions and, while the attacks on the two flanks of the front engaged were not pushed, that in the center continued for several days.
The main point of attack was about Vierstraat. This village is located near the tip of the spur which branches off from the main ridge between Messines and Kemmel toward the eastern side of Lake Dickebusch. It is limited on the north by Ridge Wood, a small clump of trees about which there has been the heaviest kind of fighting since the German offensive in Flanders began. The object of the Germans here was to push the British off this high ground down into the plain on the north. This would have represented a gain of but a few hundred yards, but it would have put the Germans further to the rear of the Mont Scherpenberg positions, which would in itself have placed them in a much better position for a subsequent attack when the offensive on a large scale reopened.
At the central point of the attack the Germans succeeded in forcing their way forward, but somewhat later a counter attack restored the British lines and the fighting ceased without result. Later another attack was delivered a little further west, just north of Kemmel. This attack passed through the same stages as did the first. There was an initial gain followed by a counter effort which restored the old positions, after which the fighting died down. The week's result is that, on this front, there has been no change in the situation.
Allies Gain in South.—In the south the initiative has been with the Allies during the whole week. The British have maintained a more or less consistent pressure against the German lines between the Somme and the Ancre and between the Somme and the Avre. The allied lines here have been pushed eastward somewhat and the positions bettered through obtaining a firmer grip on the various plateaus across which the lines run. The general situation, however, is much the same as it was last week.
The persistent inactivity of the last two weeks has in a measure left us completely in the dark as to just what is happening or is about to happen. The Germans, it would appear, had, as their greatest chance of success, speed in the attack, following up each blow with another, leaving no appreciable intermission between them. Delay, it was argued, would be fatal, as it would give the Allies a chance to dig in and make the German task much more difficult than it was when the offensive began.
There is, of course, an element of truth in this. Obviously the Allies can no longer be taken by surprise. The German attack, when it is resumed, must follow along the line of previous efforts, and be kept within the narrow limits fixed by the Germans themselves. It would not in any way further the consummation of their plans for them to strike in a new quarter. It would, indeed, be but a confession of their own weakness and an admission that their great offensive, which had been so widely advertised, was a failure. It is known, then, that the attack must come either in Flanders or along the Somme fronts. The situation in Flanders is well understood. The Germans must break through one or the other of the line of heights by which they are penned in.
Situation Around Amiens.—On the southern front the situation is much more simple, at least up to a certain point. Between the Ancre and the Noye Rivers, which territory is the vital sector of the southern part of the line, the country is very heavily rolling and is well cut up with streams of varying size, all, however, radiating to a common center—the Somme between Moreuil and Amiens. There is a series of angles formed by the various river junctions into which the Germans must go. They are astride all of the streams except the Noye River, a fact which, of course, operates in their favor, as the rivers cannot be considered as defensive barriers behind which the Allies, if forced to retreat, can take refuge. At the same time there is the disadvantage of inability to secure close co-operation between the various army groups into which the rivers divide the German line. The banks of all the streams in question have the same characteristics.
The ground rises very sharply from the banks until it reaches a plateau of considerable size, the plateaus being crossed by the battle-lines, as these lines extend from north to south. There are, consequently, many good defensive positions to which retirement can be made if need be. The principal difficulty of the German position, however, is not the defensive position behind which the Allies can stand if driven out of their present lines, but the apparent advantage of being astride of the rivers.
In order to throw the Allies into the state of confusion necessary for a material advance in this section of the front, the Germans cannot content themselves with an advance into any single one of the angles between the rivers. To do this would merely create a number of sharp definitely limited salients, each of which would be a point of danger by reason of the fact that it could be practically ruined by artillery fire from all sides. And yet, to advance on a wide front, is an operation which requires the closest kind of co-operation between all units. It is difficult to see just how such co-operation is obtainable in a line divided into numerous parts by topographical obstacles. Nevertheless, it is consistently reported that the bulk of the German forces in France is concentrated on the Somme front between the Somme and Arras.
This is certainly a most important section of the line. Bitter fighting lasted about Bucquoy for many days. This fighting was designed to flank the defences of Arras—the heights of Notre Dame de Lorette and of Vimy. It is upon these defences that the British strength on the southern side of the Flanders front rests. This, therefore, would be a logical point of attack, as it would accomplish, if successful, the double object of widening both the Flanders salient and the front on the south. There has been no indication, however, other than the reported concentration of German divisions, that this is the section which is to receive the next German blow. It has, indeed, been the most quiet sector of all the long German front of attack.
There have been numerous bombardments along other parts of the line. In Flanders, at all points of the salient and particularly along the river Lys near where it divides the battle-line, between the Somme and the Avre and along the Avre, there have been periods of heavy cannonading. But the section north of the Somme has been almost entirely free from molestation. But this is without any special significance, since, if the Germans intended to attack on this front, there would not necessarily be much artillery firing until the attack was about to be launched.
May Foe Attack in Italy?—There is the feeling in some quarters that the Germans, realizing that they are held fast on the front in France, are preparing a diversion from the real point of attack and are concentrating for an attack against Italy through the Trentino. This does not appear likely. It is entirely possible that an offensive against Italy may break out. But it is not probable that this will mean a cessation of the fighting in France. While the Germans have met with a check, and a very decided check at that, they have not yet been defeated by any means, but, on the contrary, still possess the ability to strike again and with practically the same strength as they did six weeks ago. They surely are not ready to acknowledge the defeat of their great effort to end the war.
To attack Italy at the expense of the front in France would be equivalent to such an acknowledgment. Germany cannot do both. In spite of the fact that practically all of her available forces are concentrated in the west, she has not sufficient strength to conduct two such offensives at the same time. She never has had. In every case where an offensive was in progress it was the signal for a period of quiet on the unaffected front. If Germany did not have the numerical strength to attack both Russia and the western allies at the same time, certainly now she has not enough men to initiate an offensive on the entire western front or at two parts of it so widely separated as are France and Italy. If, therefore, an attack against Italy is staged—and there have been indications that it is preparing—it will be conducted by the Austrians without any great assistance from Germany.
Cavalry in the Great Battle.—The relative inactivity during the past week affords an opportunity to mention a most interesting fact connected with the great battle which began on March 21. It has been generally assumed that the day of cavalry lapsed with the invention of the machinegun and the airplane. We have heard little if anything of the cavalry arm since the early days of the war, when the movement of troops ceased to be rapid and degenerated, so to speak, into the dogged persistence of the trenches. General French was criticized on more than one occasion because he persisted in keeping intact a large cavalry force safely in rear of his army for which there was no apparent use.
But cavalry has been used in trench warfare, and most brilliantly used. The cavalry pursued the Germans in their retreat in the early part of 1917 and kept closely in touch with them during the whole of their retrograde movement. The cavalry operations in the back of Cambrai, both in the British attack and in the subsequent German attack, were among the most brilliant exploits of the war. And, in the present great battle, it was the cavalry of the French which maintained connection between the right flank of the British and the French left, and which in large measure prevented the Germans from accomplishing their object of dividing the two forces and rolling up the British line.
In the early days of this attack, it will be remembered, the Germans were pushing southward against the French, who were in retreat between Roye and Montdidier, while the British were retreating westward, north of this line. Here was the danger of the break in the continuity of the line. There was, indeed, a rupture, and for a time the German plan promised success. But the French cavalry stepped into the breach re-established the connection, and fought both as mounted infantry and as a cavalry until reinforcements of infantry came up and took over the line. This was really the turning point of the battle, as once a definite, positive connection between the two allied armies was made, the danger that the German attack would succeed ceased.
It was largely a question of mobility, and, in many of the battles of this war, just as in many in past wars, the great mobility of a cavalry force has been utilized in stiffening a vital section of a battle-line where disaster threatened. Though the development of trench warfare has undoubtedly restricted the usefulness of cavalry, it must still remain an important military arm.—New York Times, 12/5.
Outcome of Great Battle in France Hinging on Man Power; America Must Rush Help, Says War Department Review.—The War Department authorizes publication of the following review of military operations for the week ending April 27, 1918:
The outcome of the present operations in the west depends on man power.
The Germans are relying principally on rifles, machine-guns, man power, and carefully thought-out methods of transporting and supplying munitions to the front of attack under all conditions; which means that they have developed mobility of offensive action that can only be met by countermeasures of equal potency and flexibility.
A battle of such magnitude as the one being fought in the west cannot be decided by any single engagement, yet there arise a series of crises on which the ultimate outcome depends. These crises have up to the present in a large measure resulted favorably to the enemy.
The vigorous attacks driven against the British lines were intended to paralyze the independent will power of the British command. In this the enemy has failed. Unity of command of the Allies has extended operations to the broader field of general engagements in which all the allied forces will henceforth be used interchangeably.
This change in the combat situation has materially altered the moment of decision of the offensive. Instead of the enemy being able to defeat the British Army, and then turn its full energy against the French, the Allies are now able to oppose their full united strength to the hostile attack.
It must constantly be borne in mind that the enemy is seeking a decision that will end the war. This decision can only be arrived at by the destruction of the allied forces in the field before fresh units contributed from additional levies in France and Great Britain, as well as by our own troops, can take up their position in sufficient numbers to turn the German successes to defeat.
Ours is the imperative duty of providing replacement units for the armies in France. We must be able to put fresh men in the field thoroughly and methodically trained. In addition to those already called to the colors and now in training at our cantonments, or already selected for service, very large quotas will be required in the immediate future to fill the gaps.
Operations of the week reveal that the enemy, taking advantage of the reentering angles stretching from the Avre northward and from Wytschaete to Dranoutre, has resumed operations after a period of relative calm.
German Aims Clearly Defined.—It is not difficult to follow the strategic conception of the German higher command. An enveloping movement is outlined, which, on the one hand, is to force the retirement of the British from Arras, and, if wholly successful, result in the capture of both Arras and Amiens. On the other, by the occupation of the important heights of Kemmel to wipe out the Ypres salient and throw the British line back of Hazebrouck and Poperinghe.
In the south the thrusts toward Amiens have been well contained. The British are holding firmly in the face of furious assaults.
Hangard has been the scene of very violent engagements and the enemy is here pressing the attack with great vigor. Ailly-sur-Noye and the surrounding area have been subjected to very intense bombardments and Amiens itself is being consistently shelled.
Our own forces have taken part in the battle. American units are in action in the area east of Amiens. During the various engagements which have raged in this area they have acquitted themselves well.
In Flanders the situation is less satisfactory. Last week the Germans drove a strong thrust against the segment of the line held by the Belgians. This was well met and the enemy was unable to make any headway. After a delay, during which the Germans replaced their depleted units and brought up supplies and munitions, another principal assault was launched with Mount Kemmel as its objective. In the region from the Ypres-Comines Canal to Dranoutre violent fighting has again developed, as a result of which the enemy was able to capture Dranoutre, gain the summit of Kemmel, and reach Locre. Fighting continues in this area with unprecedented stubbornness and the advance of the enemy has not been definitely checked.
The loss of Mount Kemmel is a serious menace to the British dispositions in Flanders.
Along other sectors of the front there was relatively little activity. Rheims was again subjected to a very severe bombardment and the enemy launched several unsuccessful thrusts in this area.
Northwest of Toul enemy pressure is increasing. At dawn on the 21st, after a powerful preliminary barrage, the Germans launched a heavy raid against the sector held by our men.
On a frontage of approximately 3 kilometers, in the vicinity of Seicheprey, the enemy swept over our front lines. Our men were driven out of the village which the enemy was able to hold temporarily. During the night the Germans evacuated the positions captured and we were able to reoccupy our original front lines. Along the Meuse our troops beat off another raid.
Allied aircraft was particularly active and executed a large number of raids on depots and other points of importance in the Picardy and Flanders salients.
In the Italian theater no important change in the situation took place. Reports of the Austrian offensive, which may be undertaken in the near future, are noted. Along the Piave and Asiago Plateau artillery duels continued throughout the week and small local attacks were unsuccessfully attempted by the enemy at one of two points.
An Austrian detachment endeavoring to advance west of the Brenta was dispersed.
More important news reaches us from the eastern theater this week. British and French troops have landed at Murmansk, on the Arctic coast, and are assisting the Bolsheviki and Russian Red Guards in protecting the coast and Kola Railway from attacks by the White Guards. The White Guards, supported by the Germans, made an attempt to cut the railway near Kem. In southern Finland, the Finno-German forces are still making headway. Viborg is the only city now remaining in the hands of the Red Guards.
In Southern Russia.—In southern Russia, the enemy has occupied Perekop and has advanced southward into the Crimea, having occupied Simferopol, thereby gaining control of the railway which connects Sebastopol with the mainland of Russia.
In the Balkans considerable activity prevailed.
At Cerna Bend, enemy detachments attacked the Italian line but were forced to withdraw. General fighting has developed along the whole front. The allied forces executed a number of destructive raids, especially south of Dorian.
The most important engagement of the week took place m the region of the Mount Vetrenik. This height was stormed by Serbian units and, in spite of the formidable entrenched positions along the crest, was occupied by the Serbs.—Official Bulletin, 29/4.
Great Zeppelin Plant at Friedrichshafen Reported Destroyed From Air.—In addition to the destruction by fire of the German airplane plant at Manzell, reported several days ago, the Zeppelin factory at Friedrichshafen is said to have been burned down.
According to dispatches just received from Romanshorn, the fires were caused by aerial attacks, and 150 workmen were killed or injured.
The raiding airplanes were seen from the shore of Lake Constance as they flew northward over the lake after the attack.
The amount of damage is said to have been enormous.—Baltimore Sun, 21/4.
Powder Factories Explode in Austria.—German newspapers received at Zurich say that two large power factories at Glasenbach, near Salzburg, 156 miles southwest of Vienna, have been destroyed, according to a dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph Company from Switzerland. The explosions, which are believed to have been caused by incendiaries, are said to have resulted in heavy casualties.—N. Y. Herald, 25/4.
One Big Gun Blown Up.—A description of the destruction by French artillery of one of the long-range cannon, with which the Germans have been bombarding Paris, is published to-day by the Petit Parisien.
"All the signs that Bertha (a French nickname for the big German guns, referring to Bertha Krupp), was going to fire had been noticed. The smoke curtain had gone up. All around there was a chorus of loud reports. Undoubtedly, Bertha and two or three hundred 70-millimeter naval guns were all firing simultaneously to disguise the whereabouts of the big cannon.
"After a short pause the firing was resumed. This time 10 naval guns supplied the obbligato. French air observers were on the lookout, however, and French guns opened fire in their turn. The aviators signaled quickly that the result of the first salvo was most promising. Two heavy shells exploded 250 yards north of the big gun, tearing up the railroad tracks leading to the concrete gun platform. The firing was continued, getting closer and closer, until finally two enormous shells went through the camouflage. Two formidable explosions were heard and the discomfited Germans saw Bertha damaged beyond repair, with a rent 50 feet long in the barrel. The aviators reported that they could see plainly through the camouflage two gaping craters in the platform.
"French gunners then set about preparing to destroy the third Bertha, but thus far they have not succeeded, for shells arrived in Paris again during the small hours of the night."—Baltimore Sun, 28/4.
Italians in France, Premier Announces.—Premier Orlando announced in the Chamber of Deputies that Italian troops would be despatched to the battle front in France.
The announcement, which was received with a storm of applause, was as follows:
"Italy, which follows with admiration the heroic efforts of the Anglo-French troops on the western front, could not remain absent from the battlefields of France. She wishes to bring to her allies tangible proof of solidarity, and very soon the colors of Italian regiments will fly over the fields of Picardy beside those of the French, British, American, Belgian and Portuguese, thus sealing the union which exists between the allied peoples and governments."—N. Y. Herald, 20/4.
Munition Losses Vast.—But Churchill Says They Have All Been Made More Than Good.—Winston Spencer Churchill, introducing in the House of Commons to-day the estimates for the Ministry of Munitions, of which he is the head, said that during the five weeks since the battle in France had opened they had been passing through the greatest strain, regarding the supply of war material, that had occurred in the experience of the ministry. Not only had the consumption and destruction of munitions of all kinds been proceeding at the greatest rate, but there were also very heavy loses by capture by the enemy.
"We lost," the minister said, "nearly 1000 guns by shell fire or capture; between 4000 and 5000 machine-guns have been lost or destroyed, and the quantity of ammunition, apart from that which has been fired and that which has been lost in the dumps, amounted to something between one and three weeks' total of manufacture.
"Other war materials have been used or lost in a great variety of classes and on a similar scale, but by the end of last week all the losses had been made good, and, in many cases, more than made good.
"Vast quantities of small arms ammunition have been lost or left behind, but great as the demand has been, the expenditure in the last month did not exceed the maximum potential capacity of the British factories, without touching enormous reserves which had accumulated against such a contingency. The wastage of rifles was very great, but the losses were quite easily and promptly made good.
"Our preparations had contemplated a period of supreme battle intensity from the third week of February instead of from the third week of March, so we are at present from one to three weeks to the good.
"In fact, barring unforeseen circumstances, our supply of munitions would enable us to carry on a battle at the supreme pitch of intensity until winter without compromising our requirement for 1919. _ This is despite the fact that 100,000 men were taken from munition factories for service in the army.
"We are making in a single week more airplanes than we made in the whole of 1914; in a single month more than we made in the whole of 1915; in three months more than we made in the whole of 1916. And we are going to make this year several times what we made last year."—Baltimore Sun, 26/4.