NAVAL POLICY.

Western Star, 29 November 1935, Page 2

NAVAL POLICY.

IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. CHANGED PLANS OF BRITAIN DUE TO AIR POWER. For many years it has been the custom for the British to consider the naval problem in European waters as falling under two principal divisions : the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Recent events indicate that this separation cannot be maintained much longer (writes “Augur,” from London to the ‘New York Times’). The Committee of Imperial Defence knows that the naval power of Great Britain depends not only on the quality and the quantity of th e . ships, but even more on the distribution of the principal naval bases. The building programme is a matter for the Admiralty, but the question of placing the Navy in key positions is a political one and a s such it is for the Government to decide. The principle of British naval policy in protecting Imperial interests always has been to keep the main forces concentrated in vital points. The far flung possessions of the Empire make it practically impossible for the Navy -to be present in all place s at ■ once. Thus it is felt that the important thing is to keep power concentrated and available to be projected at short notice towards a menaced point. Joseph Chamberlain declared that it did not matter how weak Great Britain was on the periphery of its dominion so long as it remains strong in the central position. Befor e the war the British Navy observed the ride rigidly, and it remains bound by it with equal force now. But, if the principle re- | mains unchanged, the technical situation has undergone a radical change indeed. THE EAR EAST. In the Ear East the situation is entirely different from that which prevailed before the last war. The Pan. Asiatic aspirations of Japan, with which Great Britain has no intention of quarrelling at present, have obliged the Navy to withdraw in a large measure from the China Sea. Singapore to-day, and not Hongkong, represents th© limit of British Naval action in that part of l the world. This has been' understood for some time and calls for no further comment. It is the British position in the seas surrounding Europe that must be considered at present. The guiding principle s of British Naval strategy is that the main forces must not be scattered but kept together within striking distance of possible points of danger. i This presupposes that the centres of assembly must be set well back so that main forces do not risk being pinned down by an enemy i n an isolated advance position. Thug at the outset of the last war the fleet steamed away from the narrows of the British Channel to the comparative freedom of Seapa. Flow in the north of Scotland. Freedom to manoeuvre is the essential consideration. To this must be added the need of preserving the body of the fleet from submarine and aerial attack the opening stages of warfare. For these reasons even Scapa Flow, under present conditions, does not offer the required freedom and security. The shipyards and docks, controlled by the Admiralty on the East Coast of Eng- j land, are extremely vulnerable to an air , attack. The result of experimental at-_] tacks on Portsmouth, for example, was a sad but not unexpected proof of this fact. STILL FURTHER AWAY. Strategy demands that ill case of war the fleet should be concentrated much .further away from the Continental seaboard than was the case in 1914, when the strength of the submarine was unsuspected and the aeroplane was still in its infamy.

Turning to the Mediterranean, where pass the principal lines of Imperial communieatioiis, the naval position of Great Britain was suprcin,. beyond all possibility of being challe'vred. This was due to thc strength of the fleet concentrated in these waters on ni» hand, and to lack of possible competitors on the other. The Italian navy was nonexistent for practical purposes, and, therefore, th e two contries enjoyed a traditional friendship based upon the fact that it was in the power of the British Navy to blockade the entire Italian coast

Malta and Gibraltar were strongholds unassailable so long as the ,fleet commanded the sea, as it did. Egypt with the Suez Canal was in the sphere of absolute British influence. Indeed the Mediterranean, from the British point of view, represented a safe internal position. Its comparative proximity to India and to the Far East gave it value

The -first shock came when, in 1914, the German cruisers affronted the British white ensign by slipping past Malta to Constantinople, Then came the disastrous attempt to force th e Straits. Even more symptomatic was the fact that German submarines were able to hold up and destroy mercantile shipping on the Mediterranean route. They proved that in the narrow waters of the Mediterranean it is difficult to afford protection to lilies of communication by guarding them with battleships and large cruisers. THE AEROPLANE. But th c final change in the situation was brought about by the development of aerial warfare. For to-day it is possible for aeroplanes to hunt down a fleet far out in the open sea and to attack it with an overwhelming force of bombers. The Straits of Gibraltar, for example, can be made impassable for shipping by aeroplanes flying over them from coastal aerodrome s on the European and African shores. Even worse is the position 0 f Malta, situated within reach of a score of Italian flying fields. The immense growth of the Italian air force is too well known to need to be described here,

The decline of Malta’s importance as the stronghold of British naval power in the Mediterranean became evident in 1930, when Italy, for the first time, worked out a comprehensive plan for the mastery of th e sea. The characteristic detail of this plan was the cutting of the Mediterranean in two by making , a |i movement of ships Impossible in the narrow passage between Sicily and the coast of Tunis on the Alricun side. If a line is drawn through the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia downward to the shore of Africa, and another parallel to it from Sicily through the Island of Pimtcdlaria, th 0 zone enclosed represented an area in which submarines, minelayers, aeroplanes, and swift surface vessels can prevent the passage of all foreign shipping On the other side of the peninsula the Adriatic Sea can he cut off jn a similar manner, thus creating around Italy an ample zone of protection against se a raids, Malta is under the immediate menace of at least 17 aerodromes in Sicily and in th<> pen-, insula- iLelf, and no commanding office^

in hjg right senses would consent to re-< main in such a trap. This means that the principal link in the chain of base s in the Mediterranean is no longer of value. The main body) of the Mediterranean Fleet must be/ taken back to regain its freedom of l manoeuvring. This can be achieved) only by removing it into i|hc Atlantic, with Gibraltar as an advanced post at the entrance to the inland sea. This) seems indicated all the more because the protection of British interests ini the eastern basin of the Mediterranean call be left to ;an air force with itsft principal bases in Palestine and Cyprus. THE BASIC LINE. In these two localities the ground, units of the air force can be efficiently, protected, an advantage not obtainable elsewhere. A line drawn from Pales-, tine to Cyprus represents the basic line of British air (Je f€uce in that part of th© Mediterranean Under its protection the fleet play gather for the pro-j tection of th© entrance of the Suez) Canal'. The situation means that both the North Sea and Mediterranean divisions of the British Navy have to be brought! back into the open spaces of the At-j lantic. If one imagines several ship-i yards and docks created on the west) coast of Africa (somewhere about Taka, radi, for example, and tho battle fleet/ stationed in the triangle formed by lines drawn from the island of St. Helena to the Azores on one side and to Trinidad on the other, one obtains the ideal solution of the problem, of distribution of naval strength which tho Admiralty and the Committee of . Imperial Defence are now called upon to solve.

The idea that the Mediterranean is the principal route between Great Britain and the Far East cannot be allowed to remain. That sea in modern circumstances is too narrow. The Empire need s alternative routes across t^ le open spaces of the great oceans. The old; Cape-India line of navigation must come into its own again. But the Atlantic, possesses yet other gateways to the Bast —around Cape Horn and through the Panama Canal

For this reason good relations between th© United State s and Great Britain, more than ever before, appear to be necessary for the security of the Empire,