The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1914. THE NAVY AND THE WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15449, 11 September 1914, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1914. THE NAVY AND THE WAR.

The record of tlie Britisli Davy's accomplishments since the beginning of the war, as set forth ill a statement which His Excellency the Governor has received from the Colonial Secretary, must be gratifying- to all British landsmen. Though. Germany has made stupendous efforts during the last twenty years to construct a fleet which was to sweep the British Navy from the seas, the Allies' command - of the ocean highways has never been challenged in this war. Mr Harcourt's despatch states that the main German and Austrian fleets remain in harbour, under the shelter of mines and batteries. Five cruisers and some lesser vessels, which could not escape in time from the British guns, liave been sunk, and a German Dreadnought and a cruiser fled without fighting to the Dardanelles. The loss of British ships has been insignificant. In consequence of Great Britain's naval supremacy over 300,000 troops have, crossed the sea in different parts of the world without losing a man. A British Expeditionary Force has been landed in France, and the Emnire can continue landing further forces as long as it has men to fill the ships. The German mercantile marine. , dear to the Kaiser's heart and growing constantly in strength and enterprise Until this war began, has disappeared in a few weeks from the seas, which are . open freely to British commerce everywhere. In other words, though the British Fleet has fired no more shots in this war than it would fire in an ordinary day's peaceful practice, its supremacy has had effects, jirecious to the Allies, evil to Germany, in all parts of the world. Every German general, fighting a hard fight in France, knows that though he might cut off, by prodigious exertions, a division of the enemy's troops on land, by no exertions can he prevent the arrival of hundreds of' thousands of new enemies, who will come fresh and vigorous to the conflict when his own forces are reduced in numbers and sinking with exhaustion. And though Ihe British cruisers are long miles from Kiel or Hamburg, the blockade of German ports which they are keeping up is causing it's pressure to be felt, in dearness aud scarcity of provisions, in Berlin. Dresden, Munich, and every inmost town and village of Germany. Great is the influence of sea power, even when ho battle is fought. Only the British Navy. we imagine, will be dissatisfied with these immense accomplishments. The first longing of a navy is to seek out the enemy's warships aud destroy them, and the German ships have so far baulked that object, for the most part, 1 hough the method by which they have baulked it has made them as useless to Germany as if they did not exist. For twenty years German naval officers have drunk to "The Day" when their ships should meet the British Dreadnoughts ill the stern arbitrament of battle, and now, when the opportunity has come, they prefer to lie in gloriously behind forts. Disappointing as this choice must be, we have no doubt that the German Admiralty is wiser in its second thoughts than it was -n iU thoughts of twenty years. No one believes for one moment that tho Germans have built a fleet in twenty years able to cope with the British Navy, with its centuries of sea traditions. Tlie German Navy is more artificial than the German Army, and if it has really been decided by the lleiehstag, as a Berlin message stated yesterday, to make frantic efforts for. the building of an unprecedented number of new warships in the next 'twelve months, the financial and industrial energies which Germany can exercise in Avar time will be absurdly misdirected. Great Britain, who has only a fraction of her workmen at the front and whose ports are not blockaded, can build three times as many Dreadnoughts in the coming year as her rival's utmost efforts cau avail to launch, and will do so, as the Colonial Secretary lias made clear. Not even Mr Lloyd George will oppose a single penny of the expenditure. Germany may build her ships—for nothing: where she will get trained men for manning them is another question. It has always been a desperate problem with her to find men for her present Navv, and to provide officers has been still more difficult. For tow weeks or months there will lie 0 (ternian Fleet. No one believes in a German naval menace any

longer. Tlie German Dreadnoughts, hiding in inland channels guarded by land forts and mines, the cruisers which steal out occasionally on dark nights to make exciting war 011 fishermen, know what tlie Kaiser's Fleet Is worth against the [British ISTavy.

The great war machine is being hammered and battered, pushed aiul driven, in the battle of enormous front which lias been raging for four days, and still continues. Such a battle, with three million men engaged, has not been known in the world before. All tlie statements of its progress are satisfactory. A French message states that on the Allies' left wing the Germans are retreating across the River Morin, which flows in a line due east and west with Paris. The Allies are advancing near the Marne, another river about twenty-five miles further north, and a general advance has been made by their centre. There has been no advance, but apparently 110 retreat either, in the Yosges or Alsace. On the west side, where the British have been operating, there is evidence that the Germans are running short of ammunition and supplies, and are feeling the effects of the, excessive strain imposed on them by continuous' hard fighting and hard marching. Reinforcements to this German wing which have arrived through Belgium by forced marches have not, so far, made any difference to its retreat. A report that the Germans have evacuated the hills around Luneville, just opposite Lorraine, speaks well for the progress of the French centre.

The latest messages to hand are yet more pleasing than the otliers. British troops on the left wing of tlic Allies liave crossed the Marne, and driven the Germans back for twentyfive miles. Tlie German right seemsto have been driven in tlie direction of Dunkirk. It has been receiving reinforcements, but 70,000 Indian troops are also now in France, and the French should have their own reserves to meet new enemies. A London message states that the south division of the German army has now been placed between two fires. The French drive it on the British and the British back upon the French. The Germans, have been fighting desperately, the French "like a wall of steel," the British, we have no doubt, like themselves. Altogether a large part of the German army, caught in just such a vyce as it designed for the Allies a few days ago. is having an experience which' must make many German soldiers sorry that they ever left the fields of Germany. " A single German defeat in battle on a grand scale," says "The Times," "must mean final failure for the Germans." The "grand scale" plainly is not wanting', and something unexpected will be needed to avert defeat. Meanwhile the Russians advance on Prussia very cheerfully.

Tlie 70,000 Indian troops who are reported by a London message to Lave arrived-" tliis week," and therefore are -nrobably at tlie front by now, are only a first contingent of ilie forces which will aid tlie Allies from tliis source. Year after year we liave been reading of "unrest in India"—protests, bombs, conspiracies against British rule. Now seven hundred Hindu rulers have offered their services and resources to the Empire. IS T o class of the native inhabitants can do enough to show its loyalty at this juncture; even the Hindus of South Africa, who were waging a small war ,of their own some months ago, have come xmder the contagion. Historians of the future will, regard this loyalty as the greatest tribute to the benevolence of British rule. One Ihousand Thibetan troops offered by the Dalai Lama we can do without while thanking him for the goodwill that has inspired the offer. It is strange that, after bursting into the Forbidden City ten years ago, killing many Thibetans in the' course of an expedition. planned to establish o commercial treaty which the Thibetans did not want, we should have earned any affection from Hhe Dalai Lama.

The Gorman soldiers who raise white flags for the purpose of taking the enemy at a disadvantage, counterfeit their opponents bug'le calls, and disguise machine guns as ambulance vans, transgress the definite rules of war as well as the natural principles of fair fighting. "Even in the midst of hostilities,"' says an authority on international law, '"there is a general -understanding* that, belligerents shall refrain from attenipts to hoodwink one another with regard to certain matters, and it is as immoral to violate these conventions as it would be to lie and cheat in ordinary society. A national or regimental flag, for instance, means that those wlio use it are members of tlio forces of the State to which it belongs, and any attempt on the part of foes to hoist it in battJe for the purpose of luring troops to their destruction is .justly characterised by the Americau Instructions as 'an act of perfidy by which they lose all. claim to the protection of the laws of war.' Similarly-it is a breach of a universally accepted understanding, and therefore infamous, to use the Geneva Cross as a protection for magazines, to attract an adversary by signals of distress and then attack him, or to -withdraw an army under cover of negotiations for its surrender.'' The German Army has

not cared how it .smirched its honotir so long as it could win. And it will not win.