GERMAN SUBMARINES.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13592, 6 October 1914, Page 2

GERMAN SUBMARINES.

The strength of Germany's submarine flotilla is fixed by the Naval Law at seventy-two boats, but it was not expected to. reach this figure until about 1920. The number of German submarines in commission when the war began probably- did not exceed thirtyfive at the outside, though some authorities believe that forty vessels may have been ready for sea. An extraordinary degree of secrecy has always been maintained with regard to this branch of German naval construction. Several years ago Vice-Admiral Galster,.one of the most prominent of the Kaiser's naval officers, stated that with sixty submarines it would be easy to keep any hostile fleet at a respectful distance from the, German coasts^ With thirty such boats he undertook to control completely the western area of the Baltic from Jutland to Bornholm. Tiie other thirty would be enough to frustrate any attempt to blockade the> North Sea harbours. Although the Admiral -was believed by most authorities to have overstated his case, his views foufid many adherents, who contrived to start a systematic propaganda for the development of the submarine. But official circles, busy with schemes for the construction of Dreadnoughts and still more Dreadnoughts, denounced the Galster school as the source of heretical doctrines which, if accepted generally, might subvert the most cherished principles of maritime strategy, and professed to regard the submarine as an expensive and dangerous toy of which Germany had no need. The Gei'mans^ have taken the submarines seriously only within quite recent years.—"Lyttelton Times."