GERMANY'S FLEET.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 283, 30 November 1915, Page 6

GERMANY'S FLEET.

ITS PURPOSE DISCOVERED

AND THE FUTILE BRITISH

NAVY,

A writer in the Dresdner Anzeiger makes an heroic attempt to discover "what we have to thank our fleet for." As the result of one and a half columns of futile exploration he comes to the conclusion that gratitude is due to the High Canal Armada for "preventing the landing of a Russian army of invasion on our Baltic coast" and also /for frustrating "the scheme so often .and exhaustively advocated in the British press for landing a British army oji the coast of Belgium, recapturing* Antwerp, marching across Belgium, and menacing Cologne and the Rhine." The writer comes to the conclusion- that Germans will not be able to "appreciate the full -importance of our undecimated, battle-ready, and battleworthy fighLing fleeL_ until after the end of the- war." Yon Tirpitz used to say that/the German Navy-was -created for the purpose of "defending our colonies and oversea trade." In it?- pieean of gratitude the Dresdner Anzeiger makes no reference (.o the achievements of the fleet in these directions. Another German newspaper, tho Berlin Krenz Zeitung, is greatly concerned at the continued inactivity ot the British Fleet:—The English Fleet has hitherto contented itself with playing the none too heroic role of a so';' of watch-and-closing committee of the world's seas. In England, of .course, they are quite satisfied with the results* gained. Among the Allies, however, who have been allotted by far the most difficult part in the war performance, the relief which England's' most formidable Navy/ could bring would be thankfully hailpd. In France the misgivings as to the possible action of the British Fleet are growing so acute that hardly a day passes when the French papers do not publish an article to soothe the agitation and comfort the J feelings of the-people' in regard to the j problematic behavior of the potent, J but super-prudent- ally. "Her rest is | as effective as her action," says M. Mille, alluding to Britain's Fleet. We make bold to transpose this phrftse so that it runs: "Her action is as effectfive as her rest."

The Kreuz Zeitung is quite welcome to have it either way. The point is that the German fleet is still in the position of the henpecked husband who crawled under the bed. to escape his wife's vengeance, and, declaring his intention of being master in his own house, resolutely refused to come out and be thrashed.