THE PRICE OF INTEGRITY

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 227, 29 October 1914, Page 3

THE PRICE OF INTEGRITY

f .1111 II ' ' ■ ' il_ i|& V BVTHE EXPkDTv. ;J| A! :

HE world is still ruled and peace is r a l * fl|H sought to/be pre1 PUB} : served by'organized jgjH force, and the euor- ' wscs%&[{ I Y\SicX bilized at the rao--^'A meat for war "in-; • - dieate the price de- .' S^ '' lfian ded for-the de- '" fence of-national inff tegrity. More than - u v .' '. ; twenty'-''■millions of w. " the # AVorUVs : young manhood a re trained "ami -held ready for war. the war that always threatens, and the world's fleets • include thirty-five hundred vessels of -varying size, energy and potentialities of -destruction. . Despite the variant views of experts, the battle shq> is still the arbiter of the ?sea. More dreadnoughts than submarines are being built, and yet from twenty to thirty submarines can be obtained for | • the price of one dreadnought. These •;■ i great units of naval warfare cost" froih j $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 each, battle I -. Bbips and battle cruisers alike, and i < cruisers from $1,500,000 to ;. : 'S-;-'(STea''t i : -.>Britain's present is—the- ., greatest aggregationof sea strength the, EWorld has ever known, though relatively ■it/is not so Targe aswheu its standard •of sea power was at least ;. .superiority to.the navies of any two other nations combined. When the present war >T>roke out Germany's navy was assumed -to have sixty per cent of the strength j.possessed. * by that of Great Britain — though inthis some factors, notably that -of relative gun power, were overestimat-' ~ed. As proof of this here is an official -enumeration of the .latest main batteries:— '"The heaviest guns mounted in the British navy are 13.5 inch, firing a projectile -of 1,250 pounds. There are 124 of .them •«in the fleets in home waters —100 iu battle ships and 24 in battle cruisers. The iheaviest guns modnted in the Germa% navy are 12-ineh, firing a projectile of ■ Sot) pounds. There are 9S of them in"com- ( ip.letcd ships, all battle ships, the battle -cruisers having only 11-inch guns." The main .dependence of the British * is its sea power, and this exists J fotf one inain mirpose--: , 'cbmmand oi the ' . ssea"in war." This once secured^—that is, -its particular enemy or enemies being '•sealed in home ports or shorn of sea the navy can easily protect Brit?ish commerce, keep open the lines of -communication between the different of th«t. empire and prevent invasion of British territory. Great Britain's Sea Power. What, then, popularly described, is the •sea power that Great Britain had at its disposition when war was declared? And what generally are the character •and number of the units - assembled in . the main fleets, the detached squadrons j

Increasing in size and power until wm come to the battfe fleet, the-concen-irated nucleus, the niovicg base of Hi« -whole organisation Some authorities do not favor the battle cruiser, but it has groat fighting qualities, ean push -home a- reeonnoisaaace, can hold up the laggards iu a chase and thus bring on a desired general action, and, owing to its superior speed, it can be ready as a fast wing of the main fleet qud .furnish n ready weapon for concentration on an enemy's line where such additional weight might determine victory. The functions of other auxiliary ships are explained Uy their names, but it must be kept in mind that, other things being equal, the biggei the ship the belter it -is, as an instrumentality of war; Moreover, for tactical reasons it is not expedient to, lengthen unduly, the line of battle, and here again exists the innnifest advantage of concentrating offensive power, as far as may be, in single units. - After all predictions to the contrary, war did not"come as a bolt out of the blue either to Great Britain or to Germany. With Great Britain this preparedness is attributable to the fact that the inspection at Portsmouth by the King had left the fleet in .-a state of satisfactory mobilization, both as to the active forces and to the reserves that had responded to the call. Ships were in fighting condition and crews were available to man them all. Germany was also fortunate in that fully one 7 third of her active personnel—and these next to petty officers generally included the best trained and most skilled men of her crew—were still on shipboard, as their discharge into the reserve was not due until October next. Supplementing this practically all the German navy except one battle cruiser, two armored cruisers and a few cruisers, gunboats and destroyers, was concentrated in northern waters. Location of Fleets. After the inspection at Spithead, the Roads of Portsmouth, the first fleet was concentrated at Portland, the ;second fleet was in; its various home ports, and, thanks to the experimental mobilization of inspection, the ships of the third fleet were manned with surprising smoothness and speed when the second call was made. The first fleet, after completing the consumable stores; slipped out of Portland* Harbor and. except for busy rumor and the fact "thai a German mine layer has been destroyed, that the cruiser Amphion has been sunk by an anchored mine and that a reeou naisance in force to the Bight of Heligoland has been successful, the veil of

anil divisions? First of all in importance is the battie ship, and this is the outgrowth of proved need. In old days sea fighting was more or less of a haphazard effort, when the individual essay was often the determining factor. But as order was evolved out of chaos in naval tactics, notably in the Dutch wars with England, the practice slowly gathered strength of fighting in a compact or close hauled array, the ships being ranged in Hue ahead—that is, each succeeding ship following in the wake of the next ahead, so as to give free play to guns carried mainly on the broadside. For -purposes of mutual support the ships were disposed as closely to one another, ahead and .astern, as was compatible with individual freedom of evolution and manoeuvre. This disposition necessarily involved the exclusion from the line of battle of all vessels below a certain average or standard of fighting ship. Hence the main fighting forces came in time to be composed entirely of "ships fit to lie in a line," or "capital ships," as they were frequently called. Finally these superior craft were known as "line of battle ships," "ships of the line," and at ; last as "battle •hips," as they' are known in this era. But need for other and lighter ships was no less; apparent, notably J or the collection and transmission of intelligence. Such cruising vessels grew in size and character from fast frigates to cruisers, destroyers and scouts, and finally included modern battle cruisers so heavily arined and armored as to be capable of taking t> place on occasion in liu? of battle. The immediate supports of the torpedo craf'r that have enough enduring mobility to keep the sea are cruisers disposed :it suitable distances in the real", they in tni-n bein.n supported by successive cordons or uatrols of cruisers

secrecy shrouding its movements has not been lifted from that day to this. It is known that "the command of the sea" has been established in and around the North Sea, that a number of army corps have been speedily and safely transported to the Continent, that coastwise traffic is proceeding in apparent seeurity and that the highways and byways in sen and oversea are being policed in the interests of commerce. The German forces have on the other hand taken up the role of "a fleet in being" and are probably lying between Wilhelmshaven and Borkum, the mouth of the Elbe and Heligoland, the battle ships, large cruisers and submarines at anchor inshore and the light cruisers and destroyers, aided by air machines, forming an extended screen of watchfulness, scouting and lookout Now that the war is well on it may be asked, What has the navy done? This may perhaps be best answered in an extract from an English editorial on the !.subject:— -"'So one in England now.asks i 'What is the navy doing?' Its greatest j triumph, worth more to us than many I naval battles, is that it has sent the German fleet into port, and, having either captured or driven off the sea all German merchant ships, has given us a feeling of security so deep that some of us can hardly yet realize that we are almost within earshot of the cannon. But for our silent but all-powerful navy we should not to-day have an abundance of food at prices little higher than in peace time, and in many cases actually lower than prices of roughly a decade or two ago. Financial and economic conditions were pretty bad a few days ago. Had our navy not been ready and steady and strong we could not have kept business going. The government, financiers, business men and the public

have worked wonders in a crisis which when it was sprung upon us terrified responsible men, who could see how the whole commercial machinery might collapse, but could not perceive how disaster could be 'averted." Well, the navy seems to have averted it. Apparently there has never been any secret about Germany's proposed naval strategy and campaign, in the event of war with Great Britain. The Reiehs Marine Amt, or War Staff of the German Admiralty, long ago, when its navy was in the earliest stages of its creation, declared that its plans were based on two assumptions; first, that Great Britain—its probable adversary'—could be defeated in detail, because its naval forces would be dispersed, or if concentrated the result would be Great Britain's loss of supremacy at sea. German Admiral's Opinion. The naval correspondent of a British journal comments on these assumptions as follows: "The first hypothesis, then, is dispersion. Events have occurred otherwise. Instead of dispersion there is concentration. The second hypothesis is radically unsound. The defeat of the Russian navy by the Japanese nuvy did not leave Japan in a weakened 'position in the world.' "Upon the publication of the Navy act of 1900 Admiral von der Goltz, a former Chief of the German Admiral (War) ■Staff, wrote an explanatory essay on the subject. He observed that war with England was far from improbable, and that it was the business of Germany to prepare for it. In the event of the British forces being concentrated in home waters Admiral von dor Goltz considered that 'numerical inferiority can be compensated by efficiency, by excellence of

material, .by the capacity and discipline of the men. Careful preparation permitting rapid mobilization, can insure a momentary superiority.' "If the last sentence means anything, it means a surprise attack. When those wordH were written there was nothing either in international law or"in the practice of nations to forbid an attack before declaration of war. (In 1907 the Hague conference decreed that a declaration of war must be made before hosilities; but the signature of Germany to that article did not prevent her from sowing mines before declaration, the other day.) British Navy Ready First. "The plan of a surprise attack has also failed. We do not yet know thttt it was even attempted; probably it was not. What little is known goes, to show that the British navy was ready before the German navy. "Attack in detail or dispersal of forces has failed; surprise has failed. Contrary to German expectation, the British navy is not only concentrated in home -waters, but has cruisers to spare for the trade < routes. The 'momentary superiority' has not been gained by Germany. What i<he has achieved is a permanent inferiority. Fcr in the event of ,f genera! fleet action in which the British fleet was victorious, though*weakened, this country would still have a sufficient navy to hold her own, whereas Germany would have nothing left. "Her initial assumptions having broken down, Germany has had recourse to the strategy of attempting to reduce the British fleet by destroyer and submarine attacks. Her object is, of course, to sink by these means as many ships of the line as possible. But as that intention is known, it is not likely that the endeavor will succeed. Again, presum-

ably it is her intention gradually-to clear j the North Sea by destroyer and submarine and mining operations. But. in all these branches of warfare this country is numerically superior. Until Germany sucpeeds in clearing the North Sea her main fleet is inoperative. If she succeeded, her main fleet would be forced to tffke action against a greatly superior force, to whose interest it is that such action should take place as %oon as possible." - '. ■ 4 ■ German Navy Efficient. In concluding this summary of British naval strength it will be well to keep in mind that both .lie British and German navies are in highly efficient condition and that the officers of each are men of great intelligence, fine skill and most useful experience. The growth of the German navy, its rise from nothing to second place among the sea Powers, is phenomenal, and should it go into action with any of its sea enemies* it is certain to give a good account of itself. The insistencies of fair play demand that this should be said. STRENGTH OP THE KRITISH AND THE GERMAN t .. .ITCTS. BRITISH FLKiul', Effective strength of navy at the moment when war was declared: — Super-dreadnought battle ships.. 10 Super-dreadnought battle cruisers 3 - 13 Dreadnought battle ships ~ 10 Dreadnought battle cruisers. .... 5 Total dreadnoughts 2S (Three more super-dreadnoughts are near, completion, and are due to commission this year.) « Pre-dreadnoughts— Powerful ships all completed between 3905 aud 100S 10

Older and less powerful ships completed between 1595 and 1904 ;.. .:......... 30 Total pre-dreadnoughts Total battle ships 6S Armored cruisersBig, heavily armed ships, completed between 1905 and i9OS.. 9 "County class," slower and less powerful, completed between 1903 and 1905 15 Drake and Cressy class, bigger aud better, but slightly older ships completed between 1901 and 1903 .10 Total armored cruisers....... 34 Cruisers — Big protected cruisers, Diadem class, 21 knots, 6-inch guns ÜBS9-1902) 6 Older and smaller (IS9O-1892).. 9 Fast light cruisers— Arethusa class, 3,500 tons 30 . knots, burning oil. completed this year S -Town class,'' 5,400 to 4,500 tons, 25 knots (1910-1914) .15 25-knot ships, about 300 tons (1903-1907) 15 ■ * t- 3S Other classes — 20-knot ships, 2,100 to 5,400 tons (1896-1900) 16 19-knot ships, 5,600 tons (15951890) 9 Older ships, 2,500 to 4,300 tons, 16.5 to 19.5 knots (IS9O-1893).. 9 '.— 34 Total protected cruisers...... 87

Destroyers, 36 to 25*£ knots (1893-1914) 225 Torpedo boats, 26 to 20 knots" i (18S5-1908) ... :........ 109 ■ Submarines, from 1,000 to 200 I tona, speed from 20 to 11.5 knots surface, 12 to 7 kno.ts submerged . (1904-1913) 75 Mine layers 7 Repair ships 3 Not all of these ships are available for service in home waters, but, whether in •Europe or at the other side of the world, all are taking part £n r -the struggle for the command of the isea. GERMAN FLEET. Super-dreadnoughts (3 building) None Dreadnought battle-ships.... 13 Dreadnought tattle cruisers.. 5 . - ' 18 (Two qther battle ships due to commission this year ara probably ready.) Pre-dreadnought battle ships (IS9I-190S) ....... ... Old coast defence battle ship (ISS9-1893) ..... 8 Armored cruisers (1597-1909), ; 8,900 to 15,500 tons, 24.5 to 19 knots.... ; Big protected cruisers (18921910) 6,000 tons, 19 knots .. 6 - 24 knot cruisers (1904-1913), 3,000 to 5,000 tons .... 25 - 31 Small cruisers, 21 knots (19031910) ■ Destroyers (18S9-1913), 34 to 26 knots Torpedo boats (ISS7-189S), 26 to 22 knots Submarines about equal to British in size and speed.... 30 to 40 Mine layers