THE GERMAN FLEET'S PLANS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 23 October 1914, Page 7

THE GERMAN FLEET'S PLANS.

_If the. German fleet is waiting in the .Kiel Canal, for the "chosen moment," -it is simply fulfilling predictions made by many British observers. The German :pkn has never bean to give battle at «ea immediately on the outbreak of war,, •unless the enemy could be taken by :surprise. Admiral yon Tirpitz's scheme :iias been to provide for the German i-ships secure bases from which they could assail a sea-worn opponent at a favoiv -able /instant. , "The German naval authorities have in view a kind of war -different from any which has hitherto been known;" said the Naval and Military Record a few weeks ago .v "No one doubt that the German Admiralty l)as9S its calculations not on a long-'drawn-out contest in which patient sturdy tenacity of purpose and "incapacity to recognise, defeat will tri.'«mph after months or years of hostili•■tiea, but on the ability to.use the German fleet—if it be used at all—-like a. thunderbolt. The whole5 history of the •evolution of the German fle'et and the character of the training to which officers and" men have to submit confirm "ihis impression."