While the British Admiralty once held that the submarine "is the weapon of the weaker power and not our concern," to-day the British naval officers in the North Sea operations somewhat discredit the former official Admiralty stand that "we know all about submarines; they are weapons of the weaker power; they are very poor fighting machines and can be of no possible use to the mistress of the seas."
Even as late as 1904 the submarine was not considered by naval authorities as a weapon of much value. A British admiral expressed his views on the submarine at that time in these words: "In my opinion, the British Admiralty is doing the right thing in building submarines, as in habituating our men and officers to them we shall more clearly realize their weaknesses when used against us. Even the weapon they carry (the Whitehead torpedo) is, to all intents and purposes, of unknown value for sea fighting."
However, from the very outbreak of the war now being carried on in Europe, the submarine has made its presence felt as a most effective weapon. German submarines have translated into actuality the prophecies of Verne, and have altered the views not only of the English but of the world as to the efficacy of the submarine as a naval weapon.
THE PIGMY CONQUERER OF THE SEA.
A drawing made by the author in 1893 to illustrate the possibilities of his submarine boat, and called "The Pigmy Conquerer of the Sea."
On March 10, 1915, a former chief constructor in the French Navy, M. Lauboeuf, stated: "An English fleet blockades the German coast, but at such a distance that a German division was able to go out and bombard Scarborough. When the English tried a close blockade at the beginning of the war, the German submarines made them pay dearly by torpedoing the Pathfinder, Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir. Similarly the French fleet in the Adriatic was compelled to blockade Austrian ports from a great distance, and the battleships Jules Ferry, Waldeck Rousseau, and Jean Bart had fortunate escapes from the Austrian fleet."
As I write, the submarines of Germany are holding the navies of the Allied Powers in check. The British fleet dares not invade German waters or attempt a close blockade of German ports. In spite of the mighty English navy, the German U-boats—the invisible destroyers—are venturing forth daily into the open Atlantic and are raising such havoc with merchant shipping that the world is terrified at the prospect. It is the German U-boat which to-day encourages the Central Powers to battle almost single-handedly against the rest of the world's great nations.
So it is in this surprising manner that the submarine torpedo boat has emerged from its swaddling clothes and has begun to speak for itself. Its progress and development have been retarded for many years by the lack of appreciation of its possibilities on the part of those who have had the planning of naval programs. These have been, for the most part, men of ripe years and experience, and perhaps because of these years of experience they have become ultra-conservative and have been inclined to scoff and doubt the capabilities of any new device until it has been tried out by the fire of actual experience. Notwithstanding the fact that the problem of submarine navigation has been successfully solved for the past fifteen years, it has been only within the past four years that any great naval authority has unqualifiedly endorsed submarines as being of paramount importance in naval affairs.
Admiral Sir Percy Scott, in a strong letter to the London Times shortly previous to the beginning of the present war, stated: "The introduction of the vessels that swim under water has, in my opinion, entirely done away with the utility of the ships that swim on top of the water."