Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1917. THE NAVY AT WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume L, Issue 175, 24 October 1917, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1917. THE NAVY AT WAR.

FROM time to time the work of the navy during the war has been the subject of adverse, criticism, not than any doubt has been felt about the thorough efficiency of the service or the manner in which it has performed the duties allotted to it. The criticism has been levelled rather at the policy which forbore from attacking the German fleet in its lurking places, allowed it to "take an occasional , promenade" in the North Sea, and prevented the coijimercial blockade from being enforced with the utmost stringency during the earlier stages of the conflict. In a,h article contributed to the August Fortnightly, Mr Archibald Hurd, . an expert writer on navai affairs, defends British, naval strategy and British naval diplomacy, citing in support of his conclusions the .views and practices of . Nelson. He holds that Nelson would undoubtedly have approved the strategic conception expressed in the idea of the Grand Fleet. At the time of the Napoleonic war the strategic conditions did hot favour concentration. The enemy possessed many bases, and each had to be watched or blockaded, but from study of a chart of the North Sea, in the .years just before the present war, Nelson ; would surely have noticed/ as apparently .Lord Fisher did, that Germany possessed only a short coast-line, pierced ■■ by a relatively small number of harbours,, suitable, for naval purposes. He would have seen, too; that the British Isles lie across 'Germany's path - to the outer seas like a • great mole with a very narrowpassage to the south, and a broader passage to the north.- If • the enemy wanted to break out he would steer for. the northern exit rather than for the twenty-mile passage between Dover and Calais, which -could easily be dominated by destroyers and: [submarines. Hence Nelson would have advocated a , great concentration in the north so as to- force the enemy either to abandon the use of the world's eeas or to fight against odds. One can imagine the enthusiasm with .which he would have spoken of thus "containing" the enemy fleet. That was the strategic situation produced by Lord Fisher's naval reorganisation and redistribution previous to the war. Mr Hurd passes on to consider how British naval policy during the war has used the situation so produced. He divides his subject under three heads —(1) the military blockade, (2) the supplementary commercial blockade, and (3) operations for the protec tion of British communications by sea. With, the first two of these heads _ he deals at length in the present article, but reserves the third with the. various issues raised by Germany's ruthless submarine attacks on commerce for a second article. In regard to the military blockade, some,- including Admiral Sir Reginald Custance, have contended that it was a mistake to concentrate so far north, and that there would have been more chance of. bringing the enemy to battle if the Fleet had been placed farther south, so as to cover the whole east coast. The Admiralty strategy, it was alleged, accorded with the mistaken doctrine that the military aim should be to control communications rather -than to destroy the enemy's armed force.. Mr Hurd on the contrary contends that the strategy adopted was in. accord with the highest naval traditions of Nelson and his brother officers trained in the school of war. There was no idea of preventing the enemy coming out. The disposition of the Grand Fleet was made so as to ensure two objectives, first, that the enemv fleet should not escape into the Atlantic or Channel and cut lines of communication; not only to France and the United States but to other parts of the world, and secondly, that if it put to sea it should be brought to action before it could do serious injury even in the North Sea. The twentieth century "blockade" of the Grand Fleet resembles the blockades of the Napoleonic war Exit from German ports has not been closed. When cruising before Toulon for many weary months, Nelson gave the enemv every opportunity of coming out, and the enemy took frequent advantage of this freedom. My friend. La Touche." wrote Nelson, "sometimes plays bo-peep out of lpulon like a mouse at the end of a hole, and again "Yesterday a rear-admiral and seven' sail rmt their noses outside the harbour. If they go on playing this same, some day we shall lay salt on their tails and so end the campaign. Nelson was all the 'time on his guard against trapped He would not expose his fleet to the short range coastal guns of those day*. To-day the fe up* mounted on the Frisian coast and .n the Island of Heligoland have a range of ten miles or more, and they are supported bv elaborate minefields and f.ntillas of destrovers and submarines, while r.irships and aeroplane* can *urplv the enemy with prompt news of British movements Nelson nwuntamed the "blockade" of Toulon for two ve^

and a half without attempting to attack the enemy in his security, and in his instructions to his subordinate commanders insisted again and again upon caution against being drawn into an unequal fight. On three occasions the French fleet escaped from Toulon without Nelson's unrrnid;ate knowledge. One escape took him on a long cruise to Egyptian waters; on the second occasion he had a fruitless c"hase; and on the third after I eing ir. doubt for weeks he dashed off to the West Indies after Villeneuve. "What would have been said in our day," asks Mr Hurd, "If on three successive occasions the German High Sea Fleet had got to sea, cruised at in ihe Atlantic, and then managed to return to port without being engaged by a single unit of the British Fleet, perhaps, havin? destroyed a dozen or more transports crowded with troops? In the course of three years not a single German battleship, battle-cruiser, or i'-ght cruiser, has won through the meshe* of the Grand Fleet. Only a few disguised merchant ships have got through, rnri their careers were short. Now :*nJ then the enemy has ventured to "cut capers," as Nelson called it, in the North Sea, but he has been badly panished fo: such exploits. The policy of fending detached "forces of fast ships to raid undefended ports on the north and northeast coast of England was aba;ul vie:l, not because the Germans found they could not put to sea, but because the punishment inflicted on successive oc>.i sions suggested to them that the risk was too' great. . . In resoect to the commercial blockade, Mr "Hurd contends, and he quotes in support the opinion of a leading naval officer, that the caution observed in enforcing commerce restrictions was necessarv in order to avoid alienating neutral 'opinion. The stringency of the blockade was increased stage by stage, with the result tlip.t when Germany at last determined on intensified U-boat warfare, the United States threw in her lot with the Allies,, and her example was' followed by all the neutral nations of the world, except those of northern Europe, too close to Germany to take action. "Those who are familiar with Nelson's despatches, letters, and recorded conversations, will," says Mr Hurd, "be in no doubt asto. the opinion he would have formed of the course adopted, for he was a diplomatist as well as admiral."