A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 119, 13 February 1941, Page 6

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Hitler’s Weakness

LACK OF SEA-POWER

The admission of Germany’s weak naval position recently made in a German newspaper by Admiral Lutzow is of special interest at the present time when Hitler and his High Command reveal their sore need of the means to combat. Britain’s great and increasing power at sea. They and Mussolini now fully realize what command of the sea means. They can appreciate Die vital truth in Mr. Churchill’s

statement that the British campaign in northern Africa would not have been possible “if the Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral Cunningham had not chased the Italian Navy into its harbours and sustained every forward surge of the Army with all the flexible resources of sea-power.” Germany At Sea

Reasons why Hitler, who prepared Germany for war with intense foresight and energy did not build an adequate navy and thus failed to profit by the major lesson afforded by the Great War were recently advanced by Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, who commanded the Dover Patrol in 191517. He holds that the Germans, broadly speaking, are not a seafaring race. German ideals and war policy are founded on the worst of the characteristics of Frederick the Great, all of whose campaigns were entirely land campaigns. Command of the sea and sea-fighting never affected him or his armies in the slightest degree. His military efforts were largely concentrated on robbing and bumbling Austria. His seizure of Silesia led to the Seven Years War, iu which be fought no fewer than 23 considerable land battles, while the only sea lighting that took place was between England and France, of which even a faint echo hardly reached the armies fighting in mid-Europe. This absence of naval activity applies also to the wars engineered by Bismarck. The Austrian War of 1866, commonly called the Seven Weeks War, was decided on land; the only sea fighting that took place was between the Italians and the Austrians, and in no way affected the Prussian Army. The Franco-Prussian War, similarly, was entirely a land campaign, in which the French fleet had no major role to play. The resultant accumulation of this one-sided experience led Germany, not unnaturally, to look on a navy as an expensive luxury and not a vital necessity. Hitler himself once called battleships “luxury toys of the Democracies.” No Naval Tradition

In the early nineties of last century a perception of the value of sea.power was awakened in many countries. This coincided with the overseas expansion of Germany and her sea-borne trade. The need of a powerful navy was brought home to the German people and by 1914 the German Fleet was second only to that of Great Britain. But what Germany did not appreciate, and has yet to learn, is that the strength of a navy should be assessed not only in terms of ships, but that the psychology of the officers aud crews has to be reckoned with. Sea instinct Is hereditary; it is also impossible to create traditions suddenly. Even in these days when ships may be looked on as mere machines floating on the water, differing from land machines mainly in shape and size, a seaman is a seaman still. His upbringing, his outlook on strategy and tactics differ radically from that of those who fight ashore. The instincts of a German naval officer, both in the Great War and in that of today, are by no means the same as those of an officer in a navy as old-established as the British. Briefly, it may be said that Germany’s purely military (army) traditions colour the outlook of the German Navy. In the army the loss of guns and material is a thing to be avoided. At sea it is a cardinal axiom that, in fighting, ships must be risked, and even lost, if victory is to be attained. Had the German Fleet fought our Grand Fleet in January, 1915, they would have found it only two Dreadnought battleships superior in number to their own. Want of sea-instinct caused the German High Command to refuse to take the risk of losing shipsand so lost the best and only chance they ever had of winning the Great War. Undoubtedly, this want of sea-iu-stinct also blurred the outlook of Hitler. He saw, or thought he saw, bow the submarine campaign nearly won the Great War for Germany. It seemed that if numbers of boats could be progressively increased in the next war. the chance of mastery at sea would increase until it became a certainty. Moreover small vessels, even in large numbers, were cheaper and more easy to provide. The Treaty of Versailles set very rigid limits -on the size and types of ships in Germany’s post-war navy. She built cruisers, destroyers and submarines to the permissible limits aud also the three so-called “pocket batilebattleships,” but the latter could have only a very limited and special use aud', as events have shown, were a poor naval investment. Belief In Aircraft

There was at. this time a worldwide but totally unjustifiable belief that aircraft were infallibly able to sink battleships, and in German naval circles that the magnetic mine and submarine were capable of supplanting the battleship. It seemed, therefore, to Hitler and his advisers that if the new mines and submarine could take the place of the battle fleet there was no reason to attempt to rival Britain in battleship construction, especially when cheaper weapons could destroy those mammoths. Further, the aeroplane was useful in land fighting as well as at sea, so it was better to bank on machines which could play the double role. Needless to say, this was not. the opinion of British naval officers. They have a firm belief that command of the sea must be gained and held by surface vessels, that the commerce of a country must be carried in ships above water, and that these ships are best attacked by surface vessels. They look on submerged craft and aircraft as useful auxiliaries to surface command, but as a doubtful substitute for surface vessels. The German leaders, Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and others, had neither sea knowledge nor sea experience. Their eyes were focused on war as carried out on land and they hoped that their sea improvisations would fill the bill; moreover they were impatient to obtain results. iu the view of British strategists this German contempt of sea-power is one of the fallacies which will lead io Germany’s defeat iu this war as ’in the last.