CONTROL OF BALTIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 23

CONTROL OF BALTIC

RUSSO-GERMAN RACE

AGREEMENT UNLIKELY

The strains of "Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles" were drowned in a tumultuous cheer recently, as aislim, grey hull slid into the water at Wilhelmshaven, said the Berlin correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor" recently.

The occasion was the launching of the first full-sized battleship of the Germany navy since the World War. The Scharnhorst, as it was named, has a displacement of '■ 26,000 tons, and will be mounted with nine 11-inch and twelve 6-inch guns. The keel of a sister-ship has already been laid.

. Provision is made for these ships in the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of June 18, 1935, which, according to opinion here, "restored freedom to our navy and flxed'a ratio with the British Fleet, that docs justice to the'1 vital needs of both nations."

This treaty, in fact, marked the official rebuilding of Germany's post-war fleet. Some war craft had' undoubtedly been prepared secretly, but it was the signing of this treaty which officially sealed England's abandonment of the naval section of the Treaty of Versailles and permitted Germany almost to triple its fleet.

That agreement also did much to remove the suspicion' regarding the secret naval building of the Third Reich, which had created an atmosphere much like that of the period of Anglo-German naval rivalry before 1914, and which still exists abroad as to Germany's re-arming on land and in the. air. , , .' ', ; ; SEVEN BATTLEt-CRUISERS. Germany, according to the latest information, has seven battle-cruisers, including three "pocket battleships," and four pre-war "ships of the line" of about 13,000 tons.

In addition, it has seven cruisers (5000 to 6000 tons), six of'them built since 1918, 13 pre-war, and 12 postwar destroyers, 29 pre-war minesweepers', and 106 miscellaneous craft, half of which date from 1914 or earlier. As to submarines, the, number given is 12, but many experts estimate that today there are more than 20.

Germany, according to the 1935 Naval Treaty, bound itself to a fleet of 35 per cent, the' size of the British. Though this may appear as an infringement, of that "equal' status" for which the Reich's present. leaders maintain they are fighting, it is not anticipated that they will raise objections on that score for some time to come.

There is, however, another development which may cause them to desire a change; that, is, the possibility _of an Anglo-Soviet agreement granting Russia a free hand as to the armament of its cruisers .in the Baltic^ Sea and as to its naval policy in far-' eastern waters. Britain, it will be remembered, as a development of the bilateral agreements, initiated by the London Naval Conference, had hoped for the simultaneous signing -of two such pacts, the one with Germany and the other with Russia. . This was last spring—about, the time of the remilitarisation of the Rhineland—but the idea was never evolved. Russia then demanded that. Germany and Japan should make parallel commitments, the one'in the. Baltic and the other in the Far East. OPPOSED TO CONCESSIONS. The Third Reich looks askance at any concessions to Soviet Russia in naval matters. This is understandable in view of the tension between these two States—a tension which on the sea means a naval race lor the control of the Baltic. It could hardly have been mere coincidence that at the time when the Scharnhorst was launched, it was declared in Moscow that Russia intended to have as strong a position on the sea as the Red Army gave it on land.

If Germany still has a long way to go to have a fleet as powerful as that in pre-war days, Russia has to go still further to create a new navy. It is difficult, if not impossible, to get reliable statistics about the Soviet fleet.

According to reliable information, Kussia has only three or four reconditioned pre-war battleships of 23.000 tons each, with 12-inch guns; a 7600----ton cruiser laid down in 1929, which is said to be an aeroplane carrier; two 8000-ton cruisers and two smaller cruisers laid down in 1915, and a number of destroyers. It is also estimated that it has about 60 submarines, and building is momentarily concentrated upon more submarines and gunboats.. Such a navy could do something to1 harass enemy warships, , troop transports, and supplies, but it would be powerless against a modern fleet of capital ships.