New Weapons and Old Ones
By Captain Gabriel Voitoux, French Navy
As a consequence of all that has been written, up to the present, about the danger henceforth menacing from below and above the sea level, most people put their faith on the pretended unlimited power and possibilities of aircrafts, submarines and mines. Too many enthusiastic dreamers, involuntarily misrepresenting some facts to suit their hazardous theories, have imagined a standard navy of their own fancy and Jed astray a large part of the public opinion.
So, it appears, not only advisable, but indispensable simply to recall facts, whether for or against the so-called "New Weapons." The man in the street must be given the means to get an understanding of what is in the power of those new weapon , and what remains out of their reach, before "scrapping the old ones," as Lord Fisher, the father of the battle cruiser, wanted to do in advising to "Scrap the lot."
I. Before Admiral Keyes accomplished his glorious deed, the Allies [more particularly French-Belgians-British] were anxious to destroy the Zeebrugge floodgate, so as to hamper that submarine base. Our flying machines endeavored, for nearly four years to accomplish this task without much, if any, success. Now, Zeebrugge is but a few miles distant from our shores, as well as from the old "front" whilst Panama lies thousands of miles from European or Asiatic shores.
II. The Germans were not less anxious to wreck the sole floodgate that closes the "de Frecynet" dock at Dunkirk the destruction of which would have rendered useless that port. But, although their airplanes made innumerable efforts, that floodgate was never hit.
III. The Goëben, in a sinking state, had to be stranded at Nagara [Dardanelles] and was stuck there a whole week for repairs. The Allies anticipated its destruction, the ship appearing to be at their mercy. Everyone expected to hear, at any moment, that the famous ship had been rendered useless. It was many times flown over, some say 275 times with nearly a thousand missiles dropped and sixteen hits recorded. Anyhow, the Goëben sailed for Constantinople the seventh clay. Less than a month later, this lucky battle cruiser was, in a fighting condition, cruising in the Black Sea. Here, we mu t recollect that, at Nagara, the Goëben was in a fixed position with likely no other means of defense than its own anti-aircraft guns.
IV. Briey, the minefield whence the Germans got their iron ore, was never seriously hampered by our flying machines.
V. Paris was submitted to numerous aerial visits, but not a single hit ever struck a vital place. So the attacks were made with little military effect, although, one must acknowledge that some women, and a very few men, were nervous and left. No doubt the German attempts over London did not have any better effect than against Paris.
VI. The havoc prophesied done by torpedo planes wants yet to be qualified by war practice. In the course of the late hostilities this weapon was not in. great favor. The only recorded success is a merchant vessel sink some place in the North Sea. In fact torpedo planes were few, and seldom used, in the last war although, thanks to Admiral Bradley Fiske, this weapon was amply known in 1914.
VII. Have we so soon forgotten that, despite submarines, two millions of Americans crossed the Atlantic with the loss of less than 300 souls?
VIII. Can we ignore that from the beginning of the war to the last period the booty of submarines decreased in proportion from ten to one, thanks to the defensive and offensive means created during the four years' struggle? Means among which, alas adopted in 1917 only, was the convoy system with its perfect London organization. Admiral Sims, who greatly favored the system, has described it since in the World's Work.
IX. We read that "One hundred thousand tons of battleships were sent by submarines to the bottom of the Ocean."
True, big ships were sunk by submarines at the beginning of the war; but their loss was mostly due to a blameworthy and imprudent policy. For instance, the promenading of three aboukirs across the Bight of Helgoland without any protection, was a silly adventure. The Captains' trying, successively, to save each other's crews was a great fault. Humanity, as well as the military point of view, commanded to get out of the way. The commander of the victorious U-boat would have been quite contented with his first success; he was most astonished to get a second, then a third, opportunity. But he did not live long to enjoy his fame: In command of another U-boat, endeavoring to sink one of the battleships which periodically cruised in the North Sea, this commander was sent to the bottom with his craft.
It must be remembered that if new weapons, under and above the sea level, compelled the adoption of special means to protect the surface fleets from being ambushed, it nevertheless was the latter that gave the Allies the command of the seas, and compelled the Germans, after the surprise opportunity of a battle at Jutland, to keep their forces hidden until the day came when they had to surrender them. Submarines and aircrafts were of no practical value at Jutland. Guns alone settled the doom of ships like the Lutzow, the Queen-Mary and the Invincible. If torpedoes did some havoc among lesser ships, they were fired by destroyers.
The autumn 1918 issues of the London Magazine contain several articles in which the Naval Secretary, basing his opinion on the results of the naval war, says that the gun, in naval warfare, keeps unquestionably the lead. And we know that the big gun means the capital ship. He says besides that the strongest navy has the whole command of the seas, nothing being left to a lesser fleet: Everything to the strongest, nothing to the next one.
X. We read another critic in the papers. "Battleships employed in bombarding the Dardanelles all [except those that were sent to the bottom] ran away into Mudros harbor on sight of a submarine." Capital ships were never meant to conquer, by themselves, the armed shores of any country, except in rare circumstances which did not occur, at any time, throughout the late war, unless, perhaps, at the very beginning of hostilities, against the shores of Helgoland Bight. If so, the chance was missed.
The attempt at forcing the Dardanelles was no business of the fleet unaided by land forces. This operation, it is said, was decided on without the Admiralty's agreement, more exactly without the advice of members of the Admiralty having been required. The shore can bear any number of guns, no matter what their size. It can withstand any number of hits, the armaments being considerably better protected than on board ship. The command, and the fire control, being more safely situated, consequently the fire is more accurate. The stability is absolute, with no risk of sinking.
Ships, on the contrary, carry a limited number of guns and amount of ammunition, and they are liable to be sunk. While a shore battery, often out of sight, runs the sole risk of gun shots, a ship is menaced by bombs, mines and submarine torpedoes, as well as by the gun fire of the shore battery.
Obviously the task pertaining to capital ships is on the open seas where their duty is to take the command over the enemy, indispensable to the keeping open of their lines of supply. This object was fully attained in the war: apart from the Dogger Bank and the Jutland affairs, the German fleet was closely confined and could be of no help to her submarine guerre de course. But, for some time, isolated cruisers at large, and chiefly the squadron of Admiral Von Spee, were a very serious· menace to our re-victualling, which was already hampered. in Europe by submarines. Against the latter, at the beginning of the war, and for nearly three years thereafter, the Allies were almost unarmed.
It was vital to get rid of all the German cruisers at large. This task was not that of submarines nor of aircraft. Only surface ships, cruisers and battleships, could perform it. The two battle cruisers that, mainly, settled the question of Admiral Von Spee's squadron, accomplished a task that no other weapon, at such a distance, and in such a place, could have performed.
This was a task for capital ships. But not the attack of the Dardanelles as it was undertaken. Nor would have been justified the attack of any shore strongly protected and armed like that of the Bight of Helgoland after the first months of war or, now, the Zeebrugge coastline. Nor, had it been attempted as it was once projected, the passing through the straits which give access into the Baltic. This scheme was to be accomplished with the purposely built, fast and strongly armed, big light cruiser of small draught of the Furious type now an aircraft carrier. Happily for the Allies this dangerous operation was never attempted.
Some general observations find their place here:
It is most astonishing how people who so earnestly endeavor to convince their countrymen of their personal faith about some newly appeared weapons, most always forget to take account that any would-be enemy could provide himself with the same, and that he would besides, inevitably, search for, find and create the counterpoise. Sometimes those dreamers make a total abstraction of the enemy; they carry out their policy just as if the opponent were in a state of lethargy.
Another puzzle is how so many people, even some sailors, are ignorant of the sea's immensity and consider the naval war problems just as if they had to deal with the Lake of Geneva. For them there is no relation between the distance of the enemy and the radius of their pet weapon; and as they do not consider the enemy's counteraction, their missiles are bound to hit the mark just as easily as they would in an experiment to prove their efficiency. Firing tests, circumstances of war, is all one to them. To them the probability of hitting the mark is the same in both cases. For the dreamer the complacent enemy always places himself within his reach and then goes asleep.
Still another puzzle. How long it takes certain people to realize that an airplane cannot, in any respect, be compared to a battleship, and, although henceforth an indispensable adjunct to the latter, cannot supersede it. Their foolish state of mind carries them to estimate, with obviously fallacious factors, how many airplanes could be purchased with the cost of a battleship. They would readily put all the money in airplanes without thinking [neglecting here all other considerations] of the factor of longevity which is ephemeral for the airplane as compared to the methuselah-like life of a ship.
Would Foch-Pershing-Douglas Haig-have won the War with airplanes? Would airplanes have safely protected against submarines Pershing's armies across the Atlantic? Would the Germans have signed the Armistice under the mere threat of airplanes? In fact the last word belonged to surface ships on sea and to men on land. So thought the German Admiralty and Marshal Hindenburg. It was ever thus and, probably ever will be.
One more extract from the press, which brings up the following discussion: The Australians appear to be in doubt as to whether they can defend their shores with the new weapons against attack by Japanese battleships.
If the Australians are quite content with their enormous island of some six thousand miles circuit, and can live on its own resources, they have apparently no need of battleships to secure the inviolability of their shores. New weapons, as the dreamers call them, although most antedate to 1914, will do. They can assure their independence with a proper light surface fleet, submarines and aircraft. But, admitting for instance, the hypothesis of a war breaking out between Australia and Japan. The former's communications across the sea would be cut short, even those with Great Britain, because at the present moment, the well-balanced Japanese fleet [comprising the different crafts that constitute nowadays an efficient fleet] command beyond doubt the oriental seas. British and American fleets are, each, stronger than Japan's; but one must never forget that a ship worth one in its own waters, may value one-tenth, or come to nought, at thousands of miles from a proper base.
From such a point of view Great Britain is right in her endeavor to complete a very strong naval base at Singapore. At least if she intends to restrain ambitions that her rich dominions may provoke some day in the Far East.
Had the United States a desire of getting the mastery of the Oriental Seas, they would be compelled to curb it on account of the immense stretch of water across the Pacific which separates that country from the Philippines; Honolulu and Guam, in their present state, being quite insufficient bases for a force such as the American Navy.
Aircraft from Europe and Asia, as a menace against the U. S. A., are mere scarecrows. Aircraft, those wandering Jews, compelled to travel fast and make non-stop circuits, carrying tremendous missiles but in limited quantity, having to face adverse machines, obliged to act relatively close to a shore or floating base, have indeed a very small chance to hit the mark on the American continent. One may easily imagine to what an infinitesimal figure that chance amounts to when told that this wandering Jew has to come from Europe or Asia, of course shipped on aircraft carriers; to assail any part of the United States coasts, and meet there the formidable means, both defensive and offensive, that that country is able to put in action: airplanes, seaplanes, submarines and the whole surface fleet. Thus the chance of the carriers to reach safely the appointed spot chosen as a base, multiplied by the chance that the carrier's weapons have to travel from there to the mark and hit it, come very nearly to nought. The game would not be worth the candle.
As for an eventual attack from a foreign base purposely chosen as close as possible to the Panama Canal, its realization seems little probable now, or at any time in the near future. Morally as well as materially, the Monroe Doctrine is stronger than ever and the U. S. A. amply able to enforce it. The surest means to check a covetous ambition is strength; and strength, in every respect, is the happy lot of Americans.
Now, this brings a Frenchman to consider the tremendous task that France's immense colonial empire, scattered all over the world, puts on the French scarce and threadbare navy left to us after the war. This situation, which was ignored voluntarily or otherwise by most experts, is the puzzle of the man in the street who cannot imagine that a country smaller than some single American states, should be in need of a strong navy. He, therefore, calls us imperialists.
What can destroy this injustice?
Obviously we will have to wait until time brings the truth to light and justifies our claims and our policy of self-conservation, which we have based on right and equity. But meanwhile, daily menaced by the Germans, we must not relax an instant our watch on our Eastern frontier.