THE H.B. TRIBUNE. TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1916. THE MERCHANTMEN IN WAR.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 166, 27 June 1916, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1916. THE MERCHANTMEN IN WAR.

Few of us have given much thought to, let alone realised, the great part which our merchantmen have played in this the greatest of all great wars, and indeed little official information has been vouchsafed upon which anything like an adequate conception of it could be based. Mr. Frederick A. Talbot, one of the best informed and most instructive and entertaining writers upon naval subjects, has in a recent article endeavoured to supply this want. He confesses at once that, owing to official reticence on the subject and to censorial restraints, he cannot disclose anything like all that the nation and the Allies owe to the British mercantile marine and the gallant officers and men who guide and work it. The duties undertaken, he tells us, arc as varied as the tvpes of vessels themselves. “This liner, Pt’ide of an ocean, is ploughing the waves, laden to the water’sedge with a cargo manifested as 'munitions of war,’ or is crowded from stem to stern with troops. That tramp, which has battled with Neptune among all the seven seas, is swinging continually ’twixt port and ; Somewhere in the North Sea’ bearing provisions for the sailors of the Grand Fleet, fuel for the furnaces of the. battleships, and' men to and from relief.” Then there are the floating palaces, gutted of their trimmings and decorations, packed with beds to carry " the broken and battered of the battlefield ” to hospitals and convalescent homes the powerful barge carrying ammunition and renewal parts to this or that gleat engine of destruction; the graceful yacht converted into an armed look-out for all and sundry, and “perkily holding up mammoth liners of neutral Powers to see they have no contraband aboard.” As a result of the pressure of the mercantile marine into belligerent service as “auxiliaries,” Mr. Talbot says, our “first line of defence” has been increased to something that cannot be less than five or six thousand strong. In truth, he adds, it might almost be said that nearly every vessel worthy to be called modern, under present-day standards, has been taken over for national needs, while ordinary British oversea commerce is being maintained for the most part by craft which were at the opening of the war considered as out of the running for passenger traffic. The main duties assigned to the larger ships are classified as being those of light-armed cruisers, patrol boats, transports, and hospital ships. The use of merchantmen as cruisers, and more especially as commerceraiders, was the subject of fierce debate for years prior to the war. some contending for them that the great speed which had been developed would fit them excellently for such purpose, while others argued that their limitation as to gun-power, their large surface-exposure, and their liability to conflagration on account of much wood-work wholly disqualified them. • The Germans, however, soon demonstrated what a liner converted to purposes destruction could do, when the “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” lurked about the trade lines between Great Britain and South Africa, and for a time “made merry work,” her speed rendering the traffic on that route an easy prey to her. The further objection that had been raised with regard to the immense fuel supplies essential to the maintenance of the speed which was the chief element of success was disproved by the German 'commerce-raider showing that, in this respect, she could live on her victims. Although the career of this the first of the German converted merchantmen was comparatively short, others such as the “Prinz Eitel Friedrich” and the “Kronprinz Wilhelm,” by frequent change of their hunting-grounds, managed to hold the seas for a long time to create, much loss and greater anxiety, in shipping circles. Although Britain had little enemy material upon which converted cruisers could work, still she fitted out a number, and Mr. Talbot has much that is interesting to say with regard to the different methods adopted by the British and the German commanders when rare opportunity was afforded for their testing against one another the relative fighting qualities of their ships. Of the great services rendered by the armed merchantmen in the way of patrolling, and partichlarly xn the enforcement of the blockade, he has also a good deal to tell us ; while of the success with which the transport of troops from and to so many, and often so far separated, ports of departure and destination, he cannot- speak with too much admiration. “The safe conduct of these oversea troops,” he writes, “is generally conceded to represent the greatest feat in transportation which has ever been recorded. It brought home the mercantile might of Britain in a veiy'vivid manner, especially as the normal oversea commercial traffic of the Empire had to He maintained simultaneously.” To hospital duties the very- largest of the British lines have been consecrated, including such favourites of the travelling world of wealth arid fashion as the “Mauritania” and the “Olympic,” while the latest additions to their class, the “Britannic” and the “Aquitania,” in course of completion when the war opened, were also added to those engaged in the work of mercy.