Do you realise the economy of the British Empire? One Navy defends one-fifth of all the lands on the globe. Were India and Canada and Australia and South Africa separate states, each must maintain a navy, and the navy of each would be useless unless it were strong enough to contend with the other great navies of the world. Even the resources of India would not suffice to maintain a great fleet without very heavy taxation. Indian security and prosperity are at present wholly in the keeping of the British Navy.
3.
First-Class Battleship, H.M.S. “Dreadnought.”
Let us consider that Navy for a few moments as it exists at the present time. It consists in the first place of battleships, each bearing a few powerful guns. The ship is partly clad in steel armour to resist hostile shot. The guns can fire with accuracy to a distance of several miles. The crew numbers some 800 skilled men. The engines have the strength of 20,000 horses. The whole vast fortress, with her regiment of men, can be propelled over the ocean at the rate of 20 miles an hour. It is clear, however, that the strongest battleship afloat would run the risk of defeat if she were attacked simultaneously by several hostile battleships. Therefore, the British battleships move in squadrons of six or eight, and to ensure victory these squadrons are grouped in fleets, and all the battle-fleets of the British Navy are now gathered in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, because it happens that just now all other battle-fleets but that of our ally are collected in those waters. This is the reason why the British battleships are not distributed—here a ship and there a ship—over all the world, but are gathered together in one part. Should occasion require it, they can go together to any other part. Those, therefore, who ask that battleships should be sent, a few here and a few there, to defend every threatened port, do not know the first principle of success in war. If you divide your force, even a small fleet—if very efficient—might defeat you by fighting each of your divisions in turn. In war you must concentrate to win.
4.
First-Class Cruiser. H.M.S. “Carnarvon.”
So much for the battleship. But here is a ship appearing as large and important as any battleship. It is a first-class armoured cruiser. Her engines are, it anything, even more powerful than those of a battleship. She carries more coal and can keep the sea for a longer time without returning to port, but her guns are not quite so powerful as those of a battleship, nor is her armour quite so thick. There are other cruisers, somewhat less powerful than armoured cruisers, which are said to be protected, because they carry less defence against shot, and there are still others known as scouts, whose name reveals their special purpose. Now what is the object of these cruisers? This is an important question, because the British Navy contains more cruisers of one kind and another than battleships, and yet victory in battle is determined by strength of battleships more than of cruisers. The first object of a cruiser is to obtain intelligence for the battleships. Although a battleship can move fast, yet she cannot move so fast as ships that have not to bear such vast weights. The cruisers find out for the battleships what is going on in seas around, and whether the enemy is near. Of course they must be prepared to fight the enemy’s cruisers, and to prevent them from approaching to gain information for their own admiral. In these days cruisers communicate with the battle-fleets by wireless telegraphy, and by acting together, so that a message is taken up and passed on by successive ships, an immense area of sea may be covered, and even the distant position of the enemy’s fleet may be ascertained.
But the cruisers have also another function, which is to defend commerce. Here again you must not measure the protection given to our commerce by the frequency with which you see our cruisers. In time of war it would not as a rule be the duty of cruisers to accompany or, as a phrase is, to convoy our merchant ships from port to port. You will remember that we have 9,000 ocean-going steamers, and we should have to build an immense and costly fleet of cruisers, if we were going to protect them all by the method of convoy. Let us try to understand the action of cruisers by comparing them to policemen upon the land. In almost every community there are a certain number of thieves, who from time to time break into houses and steal, but we do not protect our houses by having a policeman always on guard in each. Our method is to detect the thieves and to arrest them. In other words, our aim is not so much to defend our houses from robbery, as to remove the thieves from society. Precisely in the same way our cruisers would not so much defend our merchantmen, as hunt down and destroy the cruisers of the enemy who broke the peace of the ocean. Our aim would be so to clear the water of hostile cruisers that our liners might steam with the same regularity and certainty in time of war as in time of peace.
5.
First-class Destroyer. H.M.S. “Derwent.”
6.
Submarine Boat passing the “Victory.”
Battles at sea are won by the use of battleships to fight and of cruisers to give information and to prevent the enemy from gaining information. But near the coast, and even on the high seas when the larger ships have been injured, there is scope for smaller vessels, which launch torpedoes against the enemy. Some of these vessels float on the surface and are known as destroyers. They move with great speed so as to avoid the enemy’s shot, and their best opportunity is by night or in thick weather. Others dive below the surface and are known as submarines. They seek to avoid the enemy by passing out of his sight, and might thus deliver an attack by day.
Now these are the parts of a fleet. The battleships which do the serious fighting, the cruisers which cover the battleships, and the torpedo craft which are used to complete the destruction of an enemy’s fleet or to defend narrow and difficult waters, where ships cannot move with speed and freedom.