Submarine Warfare, Past, Present, and Future

by Herbert C. Fyfe

“If we are now asked what a fighting navy should really be we must say that it should be capable of fighting upon the high seas with the navies of rival nations, and that it is the business of the technical boards of the Navy to indicate the nature and composition of the fleet required for the purpose. It is for the Parliament to decide if we shall be content with a modest defensive navy which would be unable, we cannot repeat too often, to do more than delay defeat in case of war, or whether on the other hand France is resolved to enforce her position as a great Power and to make the heavy but remunerative sacrifices necessary to give weight to her voice in the councils of Europe, thus attracting to herself commerce and riches, and spreading throughout the world her influence and her traditional ideal of justice and generosity.”

Recent French naval activity in ship construction, deepening the anchorages in home waters and protecting them against torpedo attacks, organising torpedo stations, enlarging dry docks, creating vast depôts of coal, war stores, &c., facilitating the rapid coaling of vessels, providing bases of operation in different parts of the world, &c., is avowedly aimed at Great Britain, and the idea that was uppermost in the minds of those who counselled these preparations was that France should be able, when a favourable moment arose, to strike a swift and sudden blow at British supremacy.

Writers in France openly acknowledge that all French manœuvres embrace the idea that the “enemy” is Great Britain, and the manœuvres of 1901 took the form of an attempt to prevent a junction of the British Channel and Mediterranean squadrons.

Baron de Coubertin has lately warned England in the plainest and most emphatic way that France will support Russia in any war with England, and it is now well known that Russia was prepared to support France in the Fashoda crisis.

Opinion in France is divided on the question of the shipbuilding programme; whilst, on the one hand, there are those who regard the construction of large battleships and cruisers as absolutely necessary, on the other hand, there are others who look upon this type of warship as inferior to the smaller class of fighting ship.

Just now the former party is in the ascendant. M. de Lanessan has contrasted the short range of the torpedo with the long range of the gun, and has deduced from the conditions the necessity for two classes of vessels (a) torpedo craft, and (b) battleships and armoured cruisers. He has explained that in order that the gun should be given its full value it is essential that the platform should be stable and that a vessel of considerable dimensions was thus called for. It was impossible upon such a platform to place many powerful guns, but a necessary consequence was that these should be protected, and hence came the need of heavy armouring. In short, the two qualities of offence and defence were indissoluble, but they were not the only qualities called for; speed and range in action were also necessary, and these again led inevitably to the heavy battleship.

M. Fleury-Ravarin, commenting on the fact that many advocates of the guerre de course had asked if there did not exist a more economical means of making war than that which consisted in opposing to certain ships others of a like character, told the French Parliament that it (the guerre de course) had never brought an enemy to submission, and that in the existing conditions of naval warfare it was very costly, whilst speed, its essential element, was of all elements at sea the most elusive. Moreover, the organisation of the guerre de course required many naval bases so that not only was it more costly in the beginning, but it demanded greater charges for maintenance. For these reasons this system of warfare could not be raised to a method; it must remain an accessory.

There can be no doubt that the popularity of the submarine craft with ministers, writers, journalists, and populace is due very largely to the idea that these vessels will in warfare prove capable of meeting and defeating the battleships and cruisers which Great Britain will send against France when the “Real Thing” arrives.

A writer who adopts the nom de plume of “Armour” points out the probable course of action in a naval war between France and Great Britain. British squadrons would be deprived of value by giving them no object to attack and preventing the possibility of establishing an effective blockade. The French ships would be withdrawn to the forts, which would be strongly fortified so as to secure them against attack. The close watching of a port would be too dangerous to be undertaken, and at night the squadrons would be obliged to withdraw to great distances in order to escape the menaces of the submersible boats: and at the same time the ingress and egress of cruisers—the only large vessels that would put to sea—would be easy.

In theory the British fleet should be equal in strength to the combined fleets of any two Powers, and although there are times when our strength is below the requisite, this ideal standard should be ever before those responsible for the condition of the navy. In the opinion of a certain class of Frenchmen the submarine will at a comparatively small expense, and in a very short space of time, satisfactorily neutralise all that England can do.