Paris

by Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

THE NAVAL WEAPON

A fleet suffers one fundamental limitation on its freedom of action—it is tied to the sea. Hence it cannot strike directly at the hostile nation. Its action is either directed against the enemy’s stomach, and through that to his moral, or in conveying and serving as a floating base for troops or aircraft.

As with land warfare, the destruction of the enemy’s main fleet is often spoken of as the objective, whereas in reality this act is but a means towards it—by the destruction of the enemy’s shield the way is opened for a more effective blockade or for the landing of an army. Like land warfare, also, the knowledge that its coasts are thus rendered defenceless, may cause a nation to sue for peace rather than await inevitable starvation or invasion.

But just as the value of armies has been radically affected by the conquest of the air, so has that of surface fleets by the coming of that other new and three-dimensional weapon, the submarine. Instead of hopping over the enemy’s shield as does the aeroplane, the submarine dives under it. In the Great War a submarine blockade almost brought the supreme naval power to its knees by starvation—yet Germany never had more than 175 submarines.

The fundamental purpose of a navy is to protect a nation’s sea communications and sever those of the enemy, and as, therefore, blockade is the main offensive rôle of the naval weapon, it behooves us to examine the future of this means to the moral objective.

Since the war controversy has raged round the respective merits of the battleship, submarine, and naval aeroplane, as destructive weapons. Into this I have no intention of entering—not only because the problem demands a technical knowledge of sea warfare to which I have no pretensions, but also because the rival arguments, in their absorption with a means, overlook the end. Steering clear of the Sargasso Sea of technical values, let us rather direct our course, by the compass of grand strategy, on the true objective of the naval weapon. Nations cannot afford to stake their existence on a gamble in “futures,” and therefore until a new weapon has attained an all-round superiority to the existing ones, it would be rash to adopt it exclusively. The battleship retains the sovereignty of the oceans for some time to come at least, but in the narrow seas has yielded pride of place to the submarine—if the lessons of the Great War be assessed. Here is the crux of the matter.

Thus France is wise in concentrating mainly on the new weapon, whereas Great Britain and the United States, being concerned equally with ocean communications, cannot yet afford to abandon the surface-going capital ship.

The vital question of the future is how this transfer of power over the narrow seas affects the international situation—particularly that of Great Britain, which is concerned with both spheres of sea-power.

Glance for a moment at a map of Europe—it will be seen that Great Britain lies like a huge breakwater across the sea approaches to Northern Europe, with Ireland as a smaller breakwater across the approaches to Great Britain. We realize that in the Great War, Germany was in the most unfavourable position possible for blockading England’s sea communications, her submarines having first to get outside this breakwater through a narrow outlet sown with mines and closely watched, and on completion of this mission make the same hazardous return to their bases. No stronger proof of the potential menace of the submarine in future war can be found than that Germany, with so few submarines and despite such an immense handicap, sank 8,500,000 tons of shipping, and all but stopped the beat of Britain’s heart.

Contrast with this the geographical position of France, the chief submarine power of the immediate future. Her Atlantic bases lie directly opposite the sea approaches to the British Isles—in an ideal position for submarine action to block the sea arteries on which England’s life depends. Of potential significance also is the position of Ireland, an outer breakwater lying across the gateways to Great Britain, for should Ireland ever lend its harbours to an enemy as submarine bases, the odds would be hopeless.

Turn again to the Mediterranean, another long and narrow sea channel through which runs our artery with the East, and where our main naval force is now concentrated. Note that our ships, naval or mercantile, must traverse the length of this channel, and worse still, have to filter through a tiny hole at each end—the straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal—while midway there is a narrow “waist” between Sicily and Tunis, barely ninety miles across.

Then look at the geographical position of Toulon and of the French naval ports on the North African coast, and note how the radii of submarine attack intersect the long single line of British sea communication. Is it not obvious that if in a future war any Mediterranean power was numbered among Britain’s enemies, her fleet would find it difficult enough to protect itself against submarines, let alone protect merchant convoys and troop transports? When to the proved menace of submarine power is added the potential effect of aircraft attack against shipping in the narrow seas, it is time the British people awoke to the fact that, in case of such a war, the Mediterranean would be impassable, and that this important artery would have to be abandoned. Thus, as a strategical asset, the Suez Canal has lost a large part of its value in face of modern naval and air development—for in such a war we should be driven to close the Mediterranean route, and divert our imperial communications round the Cape of Good Hope.

Nor can it do any harm for our politicians and people to realize the unquestionable if unpalatable fact that the existence of this country is dependent on the good-will of France, the supreme air and submarine power commanding both the vital centres of England and our oversea communications at their most vulnerable points—that “Paris” is able to shoot at our Achilles’ heel, and has “two strings to its bow” for the purpose.