BRITAIN'S SEA POWER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16123, 11 January 1916, Page 8

BRITAIN'S SEA POWER.

GERMAN TRADE STRANGLED. Addressing the Austrian Geographical Society at Vienna on the subject of "German Navigation from the Military Standpoint," Dr. Gerhard Schott, director of the Hamburg Naval Observatory was farced to make some humiliating confessions of German impotence in face of th« British Navy. The whole of Germany'? sea trafSc, he said, had to coma out of the small triangle, Ems-Heligoland-Sold, and 95 per cent, went through the Straits of Dover, which were completely impassable when both shores were hog. tile. Even the 220 mile broad northern passage from the North Sea had been successfully closed by the "police bureau" at Kirkwall, which brought in all neutral ships. ■ And in the Mediterranean everything ' was subject to the rulers of Gibraltar who controlled the whole international traffic to India, Eastern Asia. East, Africa and Australia. Only at the Dardanelles' and the Bosphorus did the English power cease. The geographical importance of • these straits lav not only in their quality jas a fortified highway. They were also a joint or bridge-head" in the great trans- | Continental world traffic route of the future, Berlin-Vienna-Con3tantinople-Ba". , dad Railway-Persian Gulf-Indian Ocean, ] a route independent of Great Britain) | and controlled by the Central Powers! "This," Dr. Schott continued, "is our future. Here, even in times of war, we j shall have a way open to the important j oceans of the v>rld. Its maintenance 13 : a question of life for the Central Powers. j To gain this is the more important, since in the Indian Ocean England has only I two obstacles in the way—the Persian Gulf and German East Africa. Otherwise the Indian Ocean may be regarded as purely British." Referring to the tremendous interests Germany had in keeping open her communication with the United States. Dr. j Schott said that it was not possible at j this time to discuss the question as to how German shipping was to get out of the narrow triangle of watfrs, bnt certain recent proceedings of America were particularly important from this standpoint.