It was a boat of this class, E9, by which the German cruiser Hela and a destroyer were sunk by Lieutenant Max Horton; and another, E11, specially distinguished herself at the Dardanelles.
"The modern submarine has every comfort commensurate with the size and service of the vessel. The principal item making for comfort is, of course, properly-prepared food. . . . As time passed, electric cooking-apparatus was installed. This was always subject to the many troubles inherent in early electrical heating-apparatus. However, the idea was a step in advance. To-day there is installed a well-arranged oven, four or five independent plates for cooking meats and vegetables, and an urn for keeping coffee constantly hot and on tap when cruising. All of these things, though small in themselves, make for contentment in the crew."[72] Whether or not such cooking appliances are installed in our own submarines I am unable to say, but there is no doubt that everything necessary for the comfort of their crews has been provided by the Admiralty, and the boats themselves are very like the American submarines which are referred to above.
"Monitors" are novel vessels in our navy, and at present we have only three of them—the Humber, Mersey, and Severn—which were originally built for Brazil, but were acquired from their builders, Vickers, Maxim, & Co., immediately on the outbreak of war. They proved their usefulness by standing close inshore and attacking the flank of the German advance on Nieuport in the fighting between that place and Ostend which took place in the autumn of 1914. Their light draught of water—under 9 feet—enabled them to do this, and rendered them very difficult targets for the German submarines, which, moreover, could not operate in such shoal water.
The appearance of the original Monitor in the Civil War in America has already been referred to. The United States Navy had a considerable number of such vessels during and after that campaign. Russia also purchased several of a similar type. But for many years, if we except a few of an improved type which were built for the United States Navy between 1885 and 1895, they fell quite into disuse, except for river work. The Austrians have a small flotilla of such vessels on the Danube, and Brazil has had others for use on the Amazon before the ones we took over were ordered. It is, however, one would imagine, not without the bounds of probability that there may be some return to the shallow-draught "Monitor" type among the battleships of the future, as being less vulnerable to torpedo attack. A battleship design put forward some years ago by a Russian inventor, which he claimed to be nearly torpedo-proof, certainly approximated somewhat to a "Monitor".
The three "Monitors" which were added to our own navy as described, are of only 1200 tons displacement apiece. They are 265 feet long, with a beam of 49 feet, and have a speed of 11½ knots only. But it is obvious that speed was of very secondary consideration for the purposes for which they were designed. They have thin armour-plating on their sides, and carry two 6-inch guns in a turret at the bows. Aft are a couple of 4·7-inch howitzers under revolving shields, while half a dozen machine-guns are mounted on their upper works. They are smart-looking little craft, with one funnel and a single military mast with a search-light platform.
Having described the various classes of our fighting-ships, we may for a moment or two consider the subject of fighting tactics afloat. In the old sailing-ship days it was the object of the commander of a fighting-ship to get what was known as the "weather-gage" of his opponent. Put into shore-going English, this meant that, as far as possible, he kept his own ship between the direction of the wind and his enemy, which enabled him to manœuvre more easily, close in upon him or not as he considered more advantageous to himself. The French were not so keen in seeking for the weather-gage, since in that position it was not so easy to break off the engagement and get away. This remark must not be necessarily taken as imputing any want of courage to our then gallant enemy, for whereas the Admiralty orders to our captains were to find the enemy and "sink, burn, or destroy" him, those given to the French naval officers impressed upon them that it was their first duty to save their ships. The result was that though as a general rule our sea-captains took the weather-gage whenever they could get it, there were some of them who, according to a pamphlet published in 1766, were fond of "engaging to leeward", to prevent an enemy from running away!
In fleet actions in Nelsonian times our object was to break the enemy's line in one or more places, and, having effected this, to set upon the broken portions with all the strength available and defeat them in detail. This was the principle followed so successfully at Trafalgar. Of course the leading ships of our two lines suffered severely from the broadsides of the enemy as they approached him at right angles, but it must be remembered that the range and efficiency of the guns of those days was so limited that the leading and rear ships of the combined French and Spanish fleets could not damage any of our rear ships very much, nor even our leading ones. As for our own ships, we were prepared to take this preliminary pounding and not really to begin our offensive till we had broken their line and got within close range of that portion of their fleet we intended to destroy first. If, as at the Nile, the enemy foolishly chose to await our attack at anchor, it simplified matters for us pretty considerably. We could, as we did, move towards one end of their line at an angle on which we could exchange broadsides as we advanced on equal terms, and as soon as one-half of our ships had passed the flank selected for attack, both halves altered course so as to move parallel to the line of anchored Frenchmen and engage half their line with a superiority of two to one. Each French ship had to fight two British ones, one on either side. The ships farther down the line could do nothing to assist them unless they weighed anchor, made sail, and broke their formation, and so simply lay there waiting their turn to be dealt with.
Steam has, of course, put all this class of manœuvring long out of date, though as long as naval warfare endures on this earth the main principle of attempting to take the enemy at a disadvantage must always remain. In the early days of ironclads there were various theories as to the best fighting-formations. There were advocates of "line ahead", that is to say, each ship following the other in "Indian file"; of "line abreast", in which ships advanced like a line of soldiers in "extended order", and which necessitated that each ship should have a very powerful "right ahead" fire; and various group formations. At the battle of Lissa, in 1866, practically the only fleet engagement during the ironclad period prior to the Chino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, the victorious Austrians attacked the Italian fleet in a wedge-shaped formation; but they intended to use their rams and to fight at absolutely close quarters, a procedure which in the present days of long-range guns of tremendous power and extraordinary accuracy would be almost, if not quite, impossible. The ram, moreover, is now practically obsolete. In the naval actions in the Far East, to which reference has been made, the generally adopted battle-formation was that of "line ahead", the first of those explained above, and the ideal manœuvre was considered to be what was known as "crossing the T"—that is to say, to get one's line of ships into such a position with regard to the enemy's line that, while his represented the perpendicular part of the "T", one's own would be in the place of the horizontal line forming the top of the letter: in fact, to be in the same relative position as were the enemy's fleet at Trafalgar to our advancing lines. With modern guns and gunnery the whole fleet could concentrate on and smash up the leading ships one after the other, those following in rear not being able to do very much to assist them. Obviously it is the object of every fleet commander to avoid being caught in this way. If he sees the enemy's line are steering so as to cross his course at right angles, he will alter course to one parallel to theirs. If within range, broadsides will doubtless be exchanged while passing, but each opposing line will then try to turn and cross the enemy's "T" for him by passing in rear of his line. Both will be awake to this manœuvre, so that if the manœuvre continues on normal lines the battle will resolve itself into two curved lines of ships chasing each other round the circumference of a circle.
But varieties of speed, the disabling of some ships, and the menace of destroyers or submarines will probably throw any such regular sequence entirely out of gear, and, other things being equal, victory will incline to the fleet whose commander is quickest to adapt its formation to meet the sudden emergencies of the fighting and to turn them to his own advantage. But he will not be able to do this unless his fleet is well drilled in manœuvre, and at least as capable of carrying out his orders and signals with smartness and efficiency as that of the enemy.