THE SUBMARINE WAR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 8280, 27 October 1915, Page 3

THE SUBMARINE WAR

GERMANY'S M JSCALCULATiOWS.

It is just six months since the German suumamie blockade or the Jiritisn Islands was inaugurated (writes i'.vv.vv. ou August ly, iroin London, to tho Sydney "Daily leiegraph.") iNo-tumg more characteristically uer-- 1 man lias happened in ( the whole course of the war tiian that inauguration, aemnuiy, tho world was given to understand, had prepared with her customary thorougnness for the- fateful event. -The experimental stage of the attack was over; certainty as to results had been reached; secrecy was no longer necessary or desirable: a dramatic display of Germany's newlyacquired sea power might be safely and gloriously indulged; Great Britain and her sister-isle could be imprisoned within their encircling seas;, they would not bo able,to import or exportinvisible enemies would surround them; the British Navy would be powerless to rescue Britain herself from the vengeful German grip; she would be simply starved into surrender; and so sure was Germany that her programme of British defeat and humiliation by means of submarine warfare could and would be-carried out that she fixed a date for the beginning of the end of Britain's immunity; on and after February 18 the German submarines would blockade the BriItish Islands. The Gorman papers rose to the triumphant occasion. They beflagged themselves in honour of Germany's approaching victory. They gloated over the frightfulness of the punishment ■ about to be administered. There would be no merciful: abatement. Poor souls! 'Malignant. fate! it had not been predetermined unalterably from eternity that..February 18 should be Britain's day of doom. ■Even trilles in vsuch a story gather importance, and one of Germany's bitter recollections to-day is of the loud laugh of the British shipowners and sailors when they heard early in February that on the iSth day of the .month the German submarines would be let loose at them and soon Britain would: be shunned by every ;ship that sails the seas. For it was intelligent j laughter. ' • \ '

Six months are months enough to show whether or not Germany, had miscalculated the effect of submarine.warfare when she issued the historic February IS notice. It is no answer to say that the prowlers can produce a list of victims. There were victims before February 18. What Germany predicted was- a blockade effective enough to reduce Britain speedily to submission, but the fact is that the attempt has been an utter failure.' Britain's imports during the . six months/ have been larger than ever before, and largest- of all. in the last month of the six. The sea-path to Boulogne has never been closed for a day or a night. Not one troop-trans-port has Been struck in the channel; not one British soldier has failed to get across to France because a German submarine interposed. And from 1000 to 1500 ships enter or leave the ports of the British islands every week. To Germany all this is unimaginably dreadful. The undoubting and gleeful anticipation is the measure of the disappointment. For. it is no answer to the charge of failure to say that some of the British and French warships at the Dardanelles and one British transport in the /Egeau Sea have been torpedoed, and that tiiis loss of ngiiting property has been accompanied by the more regrettable heavy loss of lives, because these occurrences were not in any way connected with, the threatened blockade of the British islands, and more or less of this kind of disaster is an inevitable attendant .upon naval operations.

So the tinie has come for the administration of such comfort as may be possible under the circumstances. The nation must have its heart lifted up again. Enters upon the scene, therefore, Captain Persius, whom the jLondon journals regard ,as the ablest of the German naval critics. But 1 the only comfort he can minister is of a rather low temperature. You expected too much he. in vll'ect. tells the nation. Btit the nation may reply that it was misled into excessive expectation. Tho fixing of February 18 as the day when the overthrow of Britain's sea command would begin was sufficient of itself to raise the temperature of hope •unwarrantably high. The British seaman is not the sort of person who can be easily submarined off the face of the He has been there too long not to know his way. about. He is heir to traditions that brace him to his duty. Ho has been toughened by centuries of storms. He naturally took the submarine threat as a challenge, and met it with derisive fearless""sr< And b-> is a murunff fellow on his own element. Captain Persius picks his words carefully, but he nevertheless hints plainly enough that the German submarine is having any- ! thing but 'a pleasant time. If the (British merchantman is wary, the British fighting ship is a terror. If tho submarine is hunting the unarmed vessel,. the destroyer—and the word is used in a comprehensive sense, because there is more than one land of sub-marine-destroyer—-is hunting the submarine. The life of a crew of a German submarine in these days must be one of the most miserable of lives. German sailors, like German soldiers, do not lack courage, but they cannot, when engaged in under-sea enterprises, escape an anxiety that must fret their nerves terribly. They are doing their very best, but the task is beset with dangers and difficulties, and perhaps if wo knew all that they have to contend with, all the " pitfalls." that Captain Persius refers to, we should wonder, not at -what .they fail .to .accomplish, but at the number of their victims.

" The Navy," writes the. " Nation';"'; " has' riot astonished -its organisers; it j ■has merely revealed the resources and adaptability' they knew it to possess. The devices used against the submarines are of its devising.; they have been wonderfully clever, varied, and successful almost completely so against the. smaller boats. They cannot, of course, \b*mentioned; but the effect has 1 been to make tho daring captains and crews of the submarines more afraid of our Navy and what it can do 'than is the Navy of the ssubmarine,s. When the Avar began there was one chief foe^of these vessels. Now there are many, as dark and elusive as they. A great secret sea-war ha& been carried on, much to our advantage." The necessity for silence about the devices is 'apparent to e'very-bodv.; but why be silent about, results? The German naval authorities know that if a does not, return to its' basd it is because she'has

met her fate. If giving publicity to successes against submarines wouid hearten the nation, that is a very good roason for taking that course, unless the advantage would be more than counter-balanced by disadvantage, Al-. our losses from enemy submarines are promptly admitted; witness the successful attack on the 14th inst, upon the troopship Royal Edward .in the /Egean Sea; and it seems a fair thing that the destruction of enemy submarines should be published.