The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1923. NEW LIGHT ON THE CRUISER WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17177, 22 October 1923, Page 6

The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1923. NEW LIGHT ON THE CRUISER WAR.

There was recently published in Berlin a new volume of the German official naval history, covering the operations of the cruisers Emden, Konigsberg and Karlsruhe in great detail. The history is of considerable interest to students of the Yar at sea, because it is ably written by experts and deals with certain phases of the struggle which are not so clearly indicated in the British history. Tn the case of the Emden and the Karlsruhe there was in 1914 a feeling that the measures taken against them by the British staff were unsatisfactory, and this volume proves that there was cause for that feeling. The exploits of the Emden were freely discussed and acknowledged, but the Karlsruhe, about which little was heard, inflicted almost as much damage on British trade. In the case of the Karlsruhe the British problem was to catch one of the fastest and best of German light cruisers, which had a maximum speed of twenty-nine knots. It was an. extraordinary fact that, though the Karlsruhe had been completed a year before the war, there was no British light cruiser in service approaching her in speed when the war opened. The Karlsruhe was engaged at the very outset of her war career by the British light cruiser Bristol, which got within 5500 yards of her. The German, however, could steam twenty-five knots under service conditions, whereas the Bristol, though nominally good for 26.8 knots, fell to eighteen knots when the trial of pace between the two ships began. If the Bristol had been able to get within two or three knots of her nominalspeed the Karlsruhe must have been sunk or driven into a neutral port and interned. Even after this most instructive episode the British Staff continued the plan of hunting a hare with a number of tortoises. There is a melancholy map in the German volume showing in blue the course of the Karlsruhe making prizes and sinking British ships, while around it in red are the tracks of quite a number of British ships steaming to and fro. Not only were the British cruisers detailed for the hunt too slow, but, according to the German authority, they wandered about proclaiming their presence hv wireless. The Karlsruhe fell a victim lo an internal explosion, and not to enemy action. In the case of the Emden the Germans did not derive so much advantage from the British wireless, but it is possible that she might have been caught early in her cruise if the Hampshire’s wireless had not betrayed the proximity of this British cruiser.