Permission of Scientific American.
Sectional View of a British Submarine.
It does not appear, however, that, except as an engine of war the submarine offers much prospect of future development or future usefulness. And as we of the United States entered this war, which now engages our energies and our thoughts, for the purpose of making it the last war the world shall ever know, speculation on the future of the submarine seems rather barren. That does not mean however that there will be a complete stoppage of submarine construction or submarine development. War is not going to be ended by complete international disarmament, any more than complete unpreparedness kept the United States out of the struggle. A reasonable armament for every nation, and the union of all nations against any one or two that threaten wantonly to break the peace is the most promising plan intelligent pacifism has yet suggested. In such an international system there will be room and plenty for submarines.
Indeed it is into just such a plan that they intelligently fit. Though not wholly successful in their operations against capital ships, they have demonstrated enough power to make nations hesitate henceforth before putting a score of millions into ponderous dreadnoughts which have to retire from submarine-infested waters as the British did in their very hour of triumph at Jutland. They have not nullified, but greatly reduced the value of overwhelming sea power such as the British have possessed. A navy greater than those of any two other nations has indeed kept the German ships, naval and commercial, locked in port. But less than two hundred inexpensive submarines bid fair to sweep the seas of all merchant ships—neutral as well as British unless by feverish building the nations can build ships faster than submarines can sink them. Huge navies may henceforth be unknown.
The submarine has been the David of the war. It is a pity that its courage and efficiency have been exerted mainly in the wrong cause and that the missiles from its sling have felled the wrong Goliath.
Aircraft and submarine! It is still on the cards that when the definitive history of the war shall be written, its outcome may be ascribed to one or the other of these novel weapons—the creation of American inventive genius.
INDEX
A