THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 111, 11 May 1916, Page 6

THE WAR

The American Secretary of Stale, Mr. Lansing, is reported to have- said, in an interview, that "'mistakes in submarine warfare are inadmissible." This apparently, means that if another merchant ship bearing American subjects is sunk without warning, the United States will not accept as an excuse any. "plea, thai < the submarine commander disobeyed orders; or that he mistook a merchantman for a Dreadnought; or that he did not see neutral colours painted like a. poster1 on the ship's side; or that he lost his head- for fear of being rammed himself, etc., etc. Under the heading of mistakes, these and a, dozen ot-liev pleas could be included. But if they were accepted as excuses, the responsibility of submarine commanders would disappear, and all attempts to regulate submarine warfare would be mill and void.

The inadmissibility of mistakes is-the more necessary because submarine warfare is very liable to foster them. This fact, in its moral phase, has been very well pointed out by Mr. Arthur Pollen. He accepts the hypothesis that Gorman submarine commanders are ofteii\too nervous and excited to make their acts squaro'with the orders of their superiors. Tho commanders are not the commanders with whom Germany began the submarine war. The Weddigens and a host of lesser lights have disappeared. Of the original .strength of the German submarine service little remains; and that remark applies not only to boats, but to officers and trained crews. Knowing the fate of their predecessors, and scenting' in advance their own fate, are the newj« commanders of German submarines more likely to be calm and judicial tlian reckless? In great moral cause.?, men can look upon death undisturbed. But what moral backing can tho trade of under-water murder give to any man ? . In the circumstances, the morale of the German submarine service is hot likely to be faultless. Mr. Pollen quotes, without guaranteeing it, a report that "for some time the German Admiralty has abandoned the system of recruiting the submarine service by volunteers from the fleet. It had to be abandoned because the volunteers were not forthcoming."

Mr. Pollen therefore conceives the German submarine commander as being something of a law unto himself. "The commander, knowing that the chances of bringing himself, his boat, and his crew safely home are slender, is not likely to feel himself very strongly bound by any orders whatever. To him every surface ship .must be a natural enemy. In the early days of the campaign the British press rang with tales of the prowess of merchant captains who had run down submarines. He would know that scores of his brother officers were at the sea"s bottom with their boats, and he might easily suppose that the bulk of them had fallen to 'the ram. His own bigger vessel (one of the later specimens of German submarine- construction) could not, it is probable, be submerged or manoeuvred as rapidly as the smaller boats. Haunted by fears, encompassed, by dangers, his prospects, in any event, of survival being of the gloomiest, what more natural than that, orders or no; orders, he should.-sink everything afloat in whose immediate neighbourhood he finds himself? . » And at the back of his mind he would have this recollection to encourage him—that submarine war is after all an anonymous, secret kind of business, and even if a troublesome diplomatic situation did arise, it would always be open to his employer to suggest that the thing had been done" by a British mine or by a British submarine. In any case, there should be no proof that he. had done it."

The above, of course, is theory. But the theory is supported by certain proved facts. These facts fit the theory, and thsy appear to fit no other theory*. The facts referred to are certain senseless attacks on neutral vessels; for,instance, the sinking of the Dutch' liners Tnbantia and Palembang. The attack on the Tubantia was directly foreign to German policy; no German' interest was served by such an insult and injury to Holland. The ship was outward bound, and could not have . been carrying any Entente munitions. Nor could a calm, intelligent submarine commander have easily mado a mistake about her. She was attacked at night, but on her side was her name, in letters twenty feet high illuminated with' electric lights. She was in waters where no ship of her sike, except a Dutch ship, was likely to be found. Yet she was torpedoed, and German diplomacy was further embarrassed. What better indication could be found of the panicky state of German submarine commanders?- No doubt this commander mado a mistake, a mistake not of ignorance but of judgment. But such a mistake cannot be deemed to excuse the Gorman Government. The inadmissibility of that doctrine needs no further demonstration.

Since the above was written news has just come, from two sources, that, Germany "owns vp :I to sinking the Sussex, which was torpedoed off the- French northern coast in March, when 50 lives were lost owing to panic, although the steamer did not, sink. At first the German Government professed to attribute the explosion to a mine. Now, however, it pleads guilty and blamps the submarine commander, who will receive "due punishment"; also, it offers reparation to the United States, a number of whose subjects were on the Sussex. Now, this .appears to be an instance of what Mr. .Lansirig has called a "mistake in submarine warfare." Mr. Lansing has just said that such mistakes arc "inadmissible." No doubt he docs not intern! that statement to be retrospective ; it is directed not to past "crimes like that of the Sussex! but to future crimes. But, suppose another such crime, with loss of American lives, occurs in the future. Will it be sufficient if the German Government blames-the submarine com-

•.r.ander, |)i'o:tn*scs to gprc him. "due punishment;" »ud promises to make re-

stored, and American feelings soothed, by apologies and cash solatium? If so, the,mistakes will be liable to continue.

The German ■ peace note, coming through such channels as the London Daily News, is being sounded louder and louder, and there is no doubt that there is fire behind the smoke. This, as already pointed out, should be a signal to the Entente to hit harder and beware of compromises. Sir William Irvine, who, if not a popular figure, has one of the most penetrating minds in Australian politics, rises to remark that

"the danger of a premature peace grows, greater daily." And it- was surely with an appreciation of the latest moves in the German game that Mr. Asquith, speaking to a- delegation of the Russian Duma, used the following words: "We should stand together, however long and severe the test, until we have beaten to the ground the forces withstanding us; and then begin in peace to rebuild, in concert, tbs shaken fabric of European civilisation." The war now has taken, for Germany, the character of a war of salvage. The German Generals can- do little more, and the Kaiser now strives, through his Bethmann-Hollweg and t)u>ough his Bulow, to save what lie can from the wreck. If ho saves Prussian militarism with its spirit and claws intact, the war, from the point of view of the British Empire and of European peace, will not have been won.

With the peace feelers must be grouped the renewed reports-- of 1 German exhaustion. The Danish and Swiss reports o^ food shortage and war-weariness in Germany may or may not be true. It is to be hoped that they are true, but it would be folly to rely on this factor to win the war. Whether they are true or not, their reappearance in print at this moment probably has a purpose. That purpose can be read in several ways; it may be to hasten, or to arrest, the movement for a compromise peace. If Germany is economically and financially in a bad way, the best deduction would be that the Entente must stick to its task and drive the blow home. But there is a. danger that such reports may lead to the false deduction that Britain can slacken her effort. At any rate, such reports will hardly help the advocates of compulsion either in Australia or here. It would be far better to leave them right out of the reckoning than to consider them an excuse for slacking off.

'A somewhat vague Copenhagen message talks abouj^ inspecting Zeppelins in the North Sea, llso shipwrecks. Is the Hun desirous of continuing his sinking-at-sight policy from the air above instead of from the water underneath? The cut-ahd-run tactics which the Germans adopted in their cruiser raids in 'the. North Sea (initiated by the Breslau in the Black Sea) have been answered by a new naval development, mentioned by Mr. Balfour in Parliament. His remarks seem to infer a division of the battle fleet on such lines.that some of the big-gun ships will come south to watch the German battle-cruisers, while in northern waters will bo left a sufficient fleet of Dreadnoughts to deal •with'- any rush of the German battle fleet. This development does not suggest much fear of the alleged new big calibre guns of the enemy. The lower .North Sea will now have'a big gun fleet with its complement of smaller craft, also submarines and monitors. The progress of British naval policy with regard to ' big-gun ships is very interesting. In the first stages of the war, relative strengths demanded concentration. To that has succeeded a policy of detachment. In time, a detachment for North Sea patrol may even develop into a- detachment for Baltic operations. But there is this difference : As between the lower and the upper North Sea. .in these wireless days it does not take long to reunite. But if a separate fleet was sent to the Baltic, reunion would take some time ; and, unless Britain held The Sound, might be impossible.

While the Germans make certain claims concerning Verdun and Hill 304, the French semi-official message received to-day is more confident in tone and. more definite in statement than ever. We prefer to believe the .French. The Anzacs find less sniping trouble than in Gallipoli (where the Turkish sniper had often the advantage of higher ground), but, of course, they have to sustain far heavier bombardment. They seem to bein tho Flanders low country, near Ypres. At any rate, they are near the Canadians, and the latter were in the vicinity of Ypres at the beginning of April. '

At last some official information is forthcoming about the aeroplanes' efforts to provision the ill-fated Knt-el-Amara garrison. The British Government states that during the siege over eight tons of food and other stores were ccnveyed by aeroplane to Kut-el-Amara. Whether the aeroplanes were able to land-is not stated. So far their operations have beeji almost a closed book. Perhaps by degrees its contents will leak out, providing a- novel and interesting phase of modern warfare. . /