THE WORLD’S LEVIATHIANS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XI, 14 March 1896, Page 287

THE WORLD’S LEVIATHIANS.

THE great feature of the next war will undoubtedly be the contest between the navies of the different Powers, and it will be a feature of which verylittle can be predicted with certainty. We can prettywell imagine what a great land battle will be like, for though enormous improvements have been effected in the equipment of armies, still these have not been so great as to make a land fight to-day utterly different from those of the past. But on the sea the human element has given place more and more to the mechanical, and national prowess has come to count for much less than it did in the days of Drake and Nelson. Human ingenuity has devised wonderful floating fortresses, but no one knows exactly how they will behave when they encounter each other.’ The Chino-Japanese war has certainly taught European naval experts lessons which they will endeavour to profit by, but even the glimpses we had of modern battleships in action in the East will not be much to guide us in forecasting a naval engagement of a few years hence, so swift are the new inventions which are being applied to render the old vessels still less invulnerable and destructive, and to construct new ones that are far more terrible. Many forecasts have been made, and they all agree in depicting the struggle as stupendous and awful beyond imagination.

There also seems to be a general consensus of opinion that victory will be with the Power which has the strongest navy under its control. England is especially alive to this view, for in her case it is much more true than it is in that of any of the other nations. She must be invincible on sea or she is undone. The present Government have shown that they quite recognise this by the vigorous naval programme which they submitted to the House of Commons the other day ; and the nation at large shares in the belief that no effort or money must be spared which can make the Mother Country and her colonies safe from an invader. Nor do the other Powers underestimate the value of a strong sea force. Although from their position they are forced to keep up huge armies at immense expense and inconvenience to themselves, and will most certainly have to depend on their land forces chiefly when they go to war with their neighbours on the Continent, still they all have learned by this time that a strong navy is a great factor either for protection or aggression. We see them accordingly building huge men-of-war, although the taxation necessary to keep up a big navy in addition to a big army presses most severely on the people. The available records of the navies of Europe, so far as the number of men enlisted and the reserves on which, in the event of war, the various nations can draw, are very incomplete. There are, however, nearly 300,000 men in actual service in the European navies, and in all countries except Great Britain a system of conscription to obtain recruits for the navy as well as the army in war time is in vogue. The navies of the six nations most directly involved in the present complications in Europe comprise the following number of vessels : —

Russia has also a volunteer fleet of eleven vessels

Besides the foregoing, Great Britain has 271 torpedo boats; France, 242 ; Russia, 190; Italy, 184 ; Germany 156 ; and Austria-Hungary, 76. In our illustrations give pictures of some of the great leviathans of Europe.

Country. Armoured. t narmoured. Auxiliary Great Britain 92 205 26 France 64 101 — Germany 34 40 10 RiiHHia 45 38 8 Italy 23 49 Austria 15 26 —