“The sea fights of the future, with improved ships, guns, and range-finders, may be fought at ranges almost beyond the ken of unaided human vision. It is to be hoped that before that time arrives the progress of civilisation, intellect, and humanity will have consigned all weapons of war to the museum of the antiquary, and that other methods than war may have been discovered for preserving the peace and virility of men and nations.”
In the early years of the nineteenth century the writer of an article in the Naval Chronicle, devoted to a consideration of Fulton’s schemes, stigmatised his torpedoes and submarine boats as “revolting to every noble principle,” their projector as a “crafty murderous ruffian,” and his patrons as “openly stooping from their lofty stations to superintend the construction of such detestable machines, that promised destruction to maritime establishments.” He went on to protest against the policy of encouraging inventions that tended to innovate on the triumphant system of naval warfare in which England excelled, and he concluded thus:
“Guy Fawkes is got afloat, battles in future may be fought under water; our invincible ships of the line may give place to horrible and unknown structures, our projects to catamarans, our pilots to divers, our hardy, dauntless tars to submarine assassins; coffers, rockets, catamarans, infernals, water-worms, and fire-devils! How honourable! how fascinating is such an enumeration! How glorious, how fortunate for Britain are discoveries like these! How worthy of being adopted by a people made wanton by naval victories, by a nation whose empire are the seas!”
It is quite evident that even in this “so-called Twentieth Century” there exist many Britons who in their heart of heart agree with this writer, and who cherish the idea, though they may not openly express it, that there is something mean and underhanded, something dishonourable and “un-English” in all methods of under-water warfare. The Englishman prides himself on being a lover of fair play, and so long as the odds are more or less equal, he is ready to enjoy any contest or sport. The average Englishman is neither a hot-headed Jingoist, nor a peace-at-any-price humanitarian; he regards wars as unfortunate necessities of modern civilisation, and he likes to see them waged fairly and squarely, each side observing the rules of the game. As regards warfare on land, it must be confessed that he has had to correct some of his ideas since the Boer war. He would have preferred the enemy to come out into the open and fight like men. Instead of this, they took every precaution to avoid being seen, and our army found that it had to face an invisible foe. From the Boers we have learnt the lesson of the value of cover and entrenchments, and now officers and men, however much they may dislike it, are forced to seek and utilise cover whenever possible, making it their aim to hit their opponents and to avoid being hit themselves.
“Let us admit it fairly as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson, it will do us no end of good.”
In naval warfare we have had no opportunity of learning our lesson in the light of actual experience, for we have had no big battle on the seas since Trafalgar, and our naval supremacy has not been seriously threatened since 1805; it is thus possible for men to hold different opinions as to the value of submarine fighting, and we consequently find that there are numerous people who, whilst they would not go so far as to declare mines, torpedoes, and submarine boats unlawful, yet consider them as methods better fitted to the requirements of other nations than to those of the Mistress of the Seas.
Modern submarine warfare was introduced by two Americans, David Bushnell and Robert Fulton, and forced itself into prominence during the American War of Independence. The spar-torpedo originated in America; the Whitehead torpedo was first adopted by the Austrian Government, and Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, and Austria all began to build torpedo boats before Great Britain condescended to add them to her Navy.
As to submarine vessels Greece and Turkey purchased Nordenfelt boats in 1887. France built her first boat in 1888, and the United States purchased her first submarine, the Holland, in 1900. Great Britain, then, has followed instead of leading other nations in the matter of mines, torpedoes, and submarine boats, and has only been induced to adopt such methods of warfare because other nations forced her to do so.
Before the advent of the torpedo boat, Great Britain was secure in her position of Mistress of the Seas, so long as she possessed more line-of-battle ships than any other nation. The arrival of the torpedo-boat, the destroyer, and the submarine, all armed with the Whitehead torpedo, has given weaker nations the chance of attacking our ironclads with new weapons, and there are even those who affirm that the battleship is doomed, and must give way to a different type of craft.