BALTIC STATES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4816, 28 July 1939, Page 6

BALTIC STATES

RELATION TO GERMAN POLICY.

QUESTIONS OF NAVAL STRATEGY

BRITISH AND RUSSIAN FLEETS.

Much has been heard of late of the position of the so-called Baltic States —Lithuania, Latvia, and relation to Germany's "forward" policy, but the discussion has tended to centre on political moves and counter moves, and there have been few references to the strategical significance of these States in the event of a general European war (writes Mr. Hector C. Bywater, naval correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). Yet it can easily be demonstrated that these former Russian lands constitute as a territorial block a key factor the existence of which might prove decisive in the case of war between what may be called, for the sake of convenience, the aggressive and non-aggressive Powers. In the Daily Telegraph of May 2, Mr. Wolfram Gottlieb, in an able survey of the current political status of the three small Baltic Powers, declared it to be "obvious that Russia, if Germany pushes further into the Baltic, cannot maintain the role of a complacent observer, but will have to defend the States which are her natural bulwark." So much is plain to the beginner in the study of co-ordinated strategy.

In the event of war with the aggressive Powers, the Russian Fleet is

likely to play a part much more important than it did in 1914-18.

Russian Strength.

No one, except possibly the Intelligence officers of the British and foreign Admiralties, has an exact knowledge of the present strength and efficiency of the Soviet Navy, but all the available evidence suggests that it is relatively more formidable than in 1918. Excluding the Black Sea and the Far East contingents, Russia now maintains in the Gulf of Finland a force comprising two 23,000-ton battleships armed with 12in guns, which are said to have been extensively modernised; five or six modern cruisers of great speed and heavy armament, 12 big flotilla-leaders, some 15 destroyers, and at least 60 submarines. Under a clever and resolute commander, this force should be able to give a good account of itself, even against the German Fleet, especially as Germany would be compelled to retain a substantial portion of her strength in the North Sea.

It is claimed in Berlin that the North Sea coast is now impregnable, thanks to the fortifications erected in the last two years from Sylt in the north to Borkum in the south.

This might be true were British rival strategy still governed by the virtually passive principles of the "fleet in being"' which prevailed before and during the greater part of the last war. There is, however, reason to believe that those principles have been discarded in favour of the doctrine of offensive action which permeated the navy in the days of Blake, Hawke and Nelson, and which found its modern expression in the tactics of Beatty and Keyes. Although in itself a comparatively minor operation, the assault on Zeebrugge in April, 1918, proved that no shore defences, however formidable, are invulnerable to surprise attack well prepared and conducted with iron determination.

German Security. Germany, therefore, would not entrust the security of her western, litoral solely to fixed defences, and so it follows that part of -her fleet, ii the event of war, would have to be kept in the Bight of Heligoland to repel raids and possibly more serious and sustained offensive operations. Nevertheless, it remains the fact that her Achilles heel is in the Baltic, for her ability to carry on a war would largly depend upon the maintenance of her trade communications with the Scandinavian Powers, and above all with Sweden. During the last war her resistance was prolonged by two factors: first, the regular arrival from Sweden of cargoes of magnetic iron ore, which was essential to her output of artillery and other munitions; and, secondly, to the genius of the Jewish professor, Haber, who invented the now well known proces of extracting ammonia from the air.

Had it been possible for the Allies to have cut off Germany's imports of Swedish ore, the war would almost certainly have ended much earlier than it did. As it was, the gallant work of the few British submarines which penetrated the Baltic sei'iously hankered this traffic for a time and compelled the Germans to organise a convoy system. Unfortunately, the comparative inaction of the Russian Fleet at that date left the British submarines unsupported, and so reduced what might have been a mortal stab to little more than a pin prick.

A Fundamental Change.

To-day, however, the position is fundamentally different. Russia, with her fast, light, surface squadrons and impressive flotilla of submarines, should be capable of seriously interrupting, perhaps even of bringing to a standstill, any munitions traffic between Sweden and Germany. That this contingency is apparent to the German naval staff is made evident by recent articles in the more important German service journals,

We may assume that one of the primary aims of German strategy would be to bottle up the Russian naval forces in the Gulf of Finland so tightly that it would be difficult even for a submarine to escape into the open sea. This aim, however, could not be achieved unless Germany enjoyed the use of bases commanding the Gulf of Finland, bases which she does not at present possess. Both Danzig and Memel are too remote from the gulf to serve the purpose indicated. On the other hand, Riga, in Latvia and Tallinn and the Dagoe Islands, both at present under Estonian sovereignty, would be ideal for the purpose, and knowing what we do of Germany's "objective" methods (Not kennt kein Gebot—Necessity knows no law) it is difficult to believe that, in the event of war, she would respect the neutrality of the Baltic States mentioned.