ESTABLISHED 1366. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1915. THE BRITISH NAVY AND THE WAR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1915, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1366. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1915. THE BRITISH NAVY AND THE WAR.

The liiglily successful exploits of the British submarine El 9 off the coast 'of 'Denmark may be taken as a act-oS agJiin&t the reported torpedojug in.'the gea, presumably by a German "•»• Austriaai submaxinc, or the Frendh liherj 'the Yunnan, of the Messageries Maritimes Company. The Yunnan wiis at one time running in the Marseilles-Sydney-Noumea ti'ade, but, as we believe, lias latterly been trading between Hong Kong and the French; ,Chinese poi-ts and Marseilles. Iti is.possible that she may have been engaged in transport work, but there is no mention in the cablegram of there heiug troops on board. At tho same time., the fact that German or ■Ausfcriiin .submarines.a?-e operating in! the -33g'&in., Sea and, inferentia.l.ly-, the. Mediterranean geneially, oannot fail to be disquieting to Aiistra.lians a.iid New Zealanders, foi1 it implies acertain .danger to the Orient, P. and 0., and other passeviger linei's which trade between British and Australasian .ports by way of the Suez Canal. If,"however,,-from one quarter comes bad news as regsmls submarine activity, from another there is news of an exactly opposite character. It may bo that the reported destruction of no fewer than seven German transports in the Baltic by El 9is an I exaggeration; but there is now full confirmation fvom Danish sources of the sinking of at least two German destroyers. Ihe cabled report of the first encounter is, for English readers at least, agreeably dramatic. For though encircled by no fewer than five of tho enemy's vessels the British submarine succeeded not only in sinking one destroyer, but in proving so conclusivelj to the threatening Huns that they were in ;i vavy dangerous plight that they made- off at full speed. It is one r>f tho best and most cherished traditions of tho ' British Navy that, its commanders are not to be deterred by the odds being against them. The odds were aJmost always against the British .sea dogs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but that did' not prevent many splendid victories being reported at the Admiral by

During the present war the difficulty has been to get the enemy to fight at all, oven when he has n, superiority in vessels and guns alike. He is desperately valiant whe?i he can slip out from behind his defences | at Borkurn, Em den, or Kiel, a.iid, i seizing tlie fidvantago of misty ! weatber, m.-iko some sit'.lden tittar'k j upon unfortified ports; as Scar- <■ horough. But .is :i. rule he contents | hhnsoif with isubmnrine work, in • which, Ur do iiini bare justice, ho has s UcMt. al-iis. only too suf.cessfnT, not in *

injuring or capturing British war vessels, but in torpedoing paswngcr liners-and murdering, their crews and passengers. That his submarines aro. comparatively.,- harmless against the. British warships operating: in we.lloontrolled Home waters is proved by the remarkable freedom from accident —from this particular source of danger--which has been, so happily, the fortune of the scores, i>«.y hundreds, of transports which have^ been -.uigaged in taking British troops to France. The fact, too, that the British High Sea Fieet has not suffered from the enemy's submarines is highly creditable to those who are responsible for tho adoption o f precautionary measures against such attack. The British High {Spa. Fleet aiiny not be what an American coj respondent, Mr Frederick Palmer, the. other day declared it to be. namely, ".submarineproof," but there is good reason to believe'"that, so far at least she mum squadrons have been very effectually protected against submarine, attack. With regard to. the Baltic affair in which submarine El 9 figured so prominently - and .creditably, the enemy was in all probability engaged in some new attempt to land troops at | Libau or Riga, .with a view to t relieving the pressure'upon the German armies in Russian Poland anl on the GaliciaM-Itussian frontier. All hope of reaching Petrograd, through Riga, before the winter comes on must by this time kftve .been given up by the* Germans, but na doubt they still hug the project of capturing and holding Riga, ais a convenient base for future operations to the north-east-wards. Be. that as it may, _ tho destructive activity of the Britishsubmarine ,El9,"an earnest, as it was, of further and':• yet more effective, work later on, may prove a'deterrent to tho German idea of landing he;v. Tv reinforcements, oa Russia's Baltic coast. In another six weeks or so Riga and the Baltic ports will be inaccessible to German, British, arid Russian vessels alike. Meanwhile, if El 9 has, as is quit© probable, son'o sister vessels of the samo, character acting in concert with her, the enemy is not likely to move many divisions to Russia by sea. V % As to the part which is being played by the,.British, Navy in securing the safe transport <of troops to Salonika from •■ Malta,' even England,- vr6 know Ho details," nor are", we likely, to hav<: any such extended knowledge-of the transport arrangements until after the close of the war. Mr Ashinead Bartlett, it is true, has given some stirring details of the work of the destroyers and the monitors in' flttneking ;:the Turkish positions—work which ? will for ever ■ redound to the credit of those responsible. It is suife to sjjVj, however, that the British Na-vy is lit present .doing splendid service-in the Mediterranean in se<'uriilg. the mobility of British 'divisions' just as the "fiiinous strategic railways,, of eastern and western • Germany Wave secured the ra.pid transference of vast bodies'of Ifli'ii f rojn the Eastern to the j Wfestern" tHeaiosi of war or vice, versa. It may yet be that within the next week or so the British Navy may be called trpoir": to perform a yet more notable task in the Mediterranean than any 'which' has; been chroiii<*ki d sine© the first aM," as events unfortunately p'fdved, tijisifccessftil. attempt to force tho: pasjsii^e of tlie l>ardjvnelles. !• Tlie^ sit'i.itioiv at Athens is "one whiclv might ail any nionient domapd a1 display'6f n«vval force, and, if nece'ss^irvV rt'ueh more th«w. a mere displa-j'. by the Allies." If the Groek Government, at the inf-tance of the pro^German Kirig Coiistaritine, 'finally determines' w>' cottirmt Greece to the ciiu.se of the Auifro-Germans, then there are inahy^-"-tilings' iri'ore unlikely than, the bombardment of Piraeus, the capture of # Athens, and the deposition of the-monarch who, womiiigly at least,' is-'-prepared to play as unscrupulous aaid tr^affhwous a game {».s whs tho de.s.pioab!<* Ferdinnnd of Bulgaria.: The, work done by. the^ British Navy in the past few months has beeiii for the' most part silent, secret work, splendidly efficient work, but I!evertheless work the full details of which' could not. well bo made pu.blie. -There is jjust a cMnce, bowever, that the Navy m«v before very long- he ;-ca.lljJd 'upon bo undertake operations of the most .serious importjinoel and value to fhe cause of the Allies. In which c^so. w have every confidence in British admirals, captains, anrl mcii displaying once again those fine qu-v.litief» of efficienoy and personal courage the -possession of wiiir-li is the honored tradition of the. Navy . .