FRUITS OF THE NEW WARFARE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 44, 22 February 1915, Page 6

FRUITS OF THE NEW WARFARE

First fruits of the "new warfare" by Germany appear in Saturday's and today's cablegrams, and involve a neutral as well as the belligerents. Three vessels were struck by torpedoes fired by German submarines— -a British steamer, which sank with loss of life ; a French steamer, which managed to reach Dieppe ; and a Norwegian tank steamer, which also regained port. In addition, two Norwegian steamers have been mined and sunk. The sinking of neutral ships by mines is of course not new. Since the beginning of the war a number of vessels flying the flags of the Scandinavian countries have been sent to the bottom in ihat way, and apparently Germany can do this thing with impunity. In the Adriatic, however, Austria, the junior enemy, has learned otherwise. In that sea Austria is in touch with a powerful neutral, Italy, whose protest against damage to her vessels by drifting Austrian mines was backed with such force, naval and military, that the Vienna diplomats were only too glad to return the soft answer. There is no difference between neutral rights in the Adriatic and in the North Sea except that Italy is strong and the North Sea neutrals are weak. Consequently Norway. Sweden, Denmark, and Holland have had to submit to the mining of their chips because they are not Italy and because Germany is not Austria. This distinction expresses neatly the weakness of the principle of international law. No law is absolute unless there i« force behind it. While small States cannot in practice take advantage of their righte under existing law, powerful countries like Germany presume to create new laws to nobody's advantage but their own. When Germany mined the seas Britain was, of course, led into measures of reprisal, and the same process now threatens to repeat it-self in other directions. While the sinking of neutral ships by mines is no departure from the law which Germany made for herself at the beginning of the war, the torpedoing of the Norwegian tank steamer is a fresh development, arising directly out of the new policy of sinking-on-sight, formulated by Germany in order to suit the physical limitations of submarines as commerce-destroyers. For the Germans, it is unfortunate that the first underwater blow which they have got home on a neutral ship, by means of the new tactics, should have merely damaged her; for in her hull have been found parts of the German torpedo, incriminating evidence that would have been lost had the vessel sunk. For reasons stated above, it is doubtful whether a small State like Norway can effectively resist this additional invasion of its neutral rights, but the recent creation of a Scandinavian League gives some ground to hope that Norway, Sweden, and Denmark may, in combination, secure more consideration at Berlin than would be awarded to their separate representations. In December, the three Scandinavian Kings met at Malmo, and the decision then arrived at to co-oper-ate in their neutral interests may possibiy have some effect on the present situation. It is, at present, too much to hope that the Scandinavian countries can be brought into line to act under arms against Germany. At a later stage such a stroke may exercise a decisive effect upon the war. for Danish tfi'iitory would provide h lodgment tor a British invasion aimed at the heart of Germany ; but the time for that achievement io hardly vet. At the

least, however, the small neutral States in the North and Baltic Seas may be expected to banish sympathy for Germany, and to cease to make their territories depots for the receiving and transhipping of German supplies. The torpedoing of the Norwegian tank steamer confumß in unmistakable manner the decision of 'he Germans to sink on sight any merchant ship, neutral or otherwise ; and that neutral countries should continue to supply a belligerent with the means to carry oh warfare of that sort would seem to be both suicidal and amazing.