1917-12-24 — Page 7

THE HONGKONG DAILY

PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 9418.

BRITISH NAVY AND ITS WORK

WHAT IS WRONG!

BY ARCHIBALD HURD,

ENEMY WILES ON THE

ITALIAN FRONT. ANTI-BRITISH PROPAGANDA. Writing on October 21st (some days before the Austro German offensive) from the Italian Front to the Corriere della Sera of Milan, Signor Luigi Barzini, the well-known war correspondent, cited amples of the propaganda carried on by the Italian troope most refer to a chart, or even an atlas, when serar incident occurs at sea. in the effort hands is its anti-British character. As to understand its significato The sein Russia and France, so in Italy, Eng. 5 regarded as a flat expanse without land has been held up by German god features, and thus great injustice is done Austrian agents na the Power who alone, to the British Fleet. In point of fact, prevents peace and compels her Allies (o the strategic features of the oceans and sacrifice themselves to her perfidious Beas are more vital than those of any designs. land front; while in the latter case an army can, and does, maintain an un broken line of trenches, at sea a navy manot do eo. Our seamen about one twentieth the number of car soldiers- have to patrol on a front of about 900 miles in the North Sea, always conscious by the enemy

at an unknown point two days with machine guns upon old Darkness and surprise are the allies of Italian soldiers who, when called up, -re flect acting on interior lines and placed fused to go to the front, as well as upon on the defensive. He can always make a the people who took their

killed and wounded thrust, like an adept sworderoan, and heThere are now in Italy 14,000 can do so with every possibility of success on a moonless night, choosing as his objective a point off the Shetland Islands, or bombarding a spot on the cast between Yorkshire and Esox, or perhaps endeavouring to cut our satial com munications across the Chunnel; in any event he has & 900-mile front open to him, and he has the enormous advantage which surprise, darkness, and spood give

We all have car war mapa, which are studied from time to time in order to the various fronts. How many persons over the Austriane or Man of this pro judge the importance of movements

him.

FIVE UREAT TASKB

Some of the leaflets disseminated among the Italian troops by means of special propagande bombe, or dropped from aeroplanes, rus as follows:

"Italian soldiers;—

"of 4 At the

the Italian Govern request English and French soldiers a Milan

Count

Eng

lish troops, and their number grows daily, because they are used as policemen Ther occupy your ports and realways, they have seized your trade and swagger as monsters in your citie

killing pitilessly those who and peace." ask for

A Milna, Turin, San Remo, Civita Vecchia, Florence, and Genoa, there have been great demonstrations by the people who are tired of war and demand immig diate

were in readiness, French troops,quently English and

The Navy is fighting five enemies at were called out and with cannond

sea, which may be set cut thus:

Natural Forces, Biorms and fogs and currente are conspicuous among them. This country loss many hundred lives a

year at sea-what are described as marine

and machine-guns, they perpetrated a horrible massacre among the demonstra 500 killed, thousands tors and among the Italian troops them- Italian selves. There were ong them. Also

also

of wom

officers, women, and among Italian officera,

casualties. We are at war, but Nature women, and it but, but

has been

indulges in just as fierce cutbreaks, and Your Gover Therefore it is just as balling moods of fog and trist

English gold.

of the people cries

deaf to stead of and instead as at other times, Nature has to be defeated. A pay giving you peace, your Ministers place the The High Seas Fleet. We cannot so independence of your fatherland little by the German ships, but they exist. We little in the power of the English monste are apt to forget that the High Seas Fleet Agree with us quickly, and know that, offers a continual menace to us. No though we will not yield an inch of shore of the forec has ever been contained as the or sea, we are always ready honestly to ekemy of to-day is being "contained" divido with you the dominion

Adriatic Thus you will be the mastera month after month passes, and, rather than fight, he remains behind his mine of a free sen. Otherwise, good-bye to the Adriatic, good-bye to your navigation and You will inevitably disappear fields, shore gung, and submarines, with Heligoland as his impregnable advanced commerce.

If you do not base, provided with destroyers, sub down the throat of the insatiable English

But the Grandion, like the Russians.

scandalous British marines, and air-craft.

decide to stop Russian allies, whom the unbreakable jary, you will share the sad ond of your British yoke still provente from conclud.

so honourable peace

Flest, with its attendant cruisers, destroyere, and auxiliaries, must be kept concentrated and at the fullest pus-

the literature distributed was a

sible strength, so that if the German describing Italy as "the latest

suddenly break out their defent is cer tain. The Grand Fleet must always he ready for battle.

The MineAll the time the Germans

British

colony "On

On its cover the Italian

are laying mines off our shores, in the Non is represented in perspective. highways of commerce. They have many of the British Command; &

is marked as the headquarters of entrances to our harbours, and in the the British Censorship: Rome as the head-

mine-laying submarines always at work, creeping along unseen and placing their where they are likely to do the

***.cgsa

most harm

The Raider-Since the war began, the peril of the sider has existed, and it still exists. The Germans have not got many through the net, even in the dark- ness and by using neutral flage and dis guises, but they are continually trying to do so. Their ill-uccess is a tribute to the efficiency of our patrols, and to the vigilance of the Grand Fleet. In the last Great War the only trouble aftor Trafal gar was due to raiders, which were always at ata, getting in and out of their ports in spite of the watchfulness of our blockading forces, and capturing thousands of our merchantmen. We thus leet half our mercantile marine, and the captures were more numerous after Tra- falgar than beforç,

The Submarine The Germans have pressed into their service the submarine, armed with powerful quick-firing guns

18

British officer, pistol in hand. portrayed as covering hall of Italy, while over Lombardy towers an English soldier ongaged in bayoneting a poor, ragged woman surrounded by children who are imploring pity.

the Sound; for the Germans, with their mines and patrols, can use the Baltic entrance for cruisers as we cannot. Two hundred miles only! The Naze is aboub 350 miles from the Firth of Forth, and even farther from any naval base on the English coast, Study a chart of the North Sea, draw a line from the scene of the engagement to the Naze, and the character of the incident is revealed

and the torpedo, carrying an explosive in the Northern misteen, whether

charge which can sink almost any ship, The submarine has a great radius of action, and is no longer confined to the waters in proximity to its base; it can travel on the surface twice as fast as an ordinary tramp steamer and under the water about as fast; it can operate by night as by day, it can fire its torpedo when submerged, with only a periscope showing above the surface, and the peris cope, a very small object, is often un distinguishable even at fairly close quar ters. The effect of arming merchantmen has been to drive the U-boats under water when attacking, and that, while decreasing our shipping losses, increases our Fleet's difficulties.A

TWO WAR DISEASES BY SEA. Those five paragraphs perhaps convey some idea of the tasks which the British Fleet is doing at a time when, ignoring the charts, some persons are suggesting that the work is being badly done. have always held that this country will never appreciate the debt which is owes to its seamen until it

invaded or reduced to a condition of starvation brought face to face with some such situa tion as that of Italy to-day. All the fighting in taking place cutside this coun try. Why Our armies would stand de feated if the Britiab Fleet failed to achieve complete success at sen

But recently the Germans sont out two swift raiders. The non-charters at once declared in indignation that someone ought to be punished. If you have an ordinary map by you, turn to the North Sea? You will notice that the incident, a very unfortunate but unavoidable in cident, as the First Lord like Mr. Bal four on a former cocasion, has said, occurred somewhere between Bergen and the Shetland Islands. The enemy war ships with a speed of over thirty knota and heavy guns, rushed northward in the darkness with all lights screened, keeping close in to Danish and Norwegian terri torial waters; in balf an hour they bad completed the outrage and murder, and then they had to cover a course of 200 miles notice the distance until they reached the Naze and could decide whether to return to Germany by way of the North Sea to strike home through (Continued at 100g of ridat Galumn.)}||

One more point. The Fleet is grappl- ing with two insidious war diseases the reader and the submarine; the cure for the former is the cruiser, which must be more powerful than the raidor, or it will he defeated; and the cure for the submarine is the destroyer. British

or at the Ad- miralty, never know which form the trouble will take. They may provide a cruiser escort, which means that the cruiser, whose defence against the U-boat is her speed, has to keep pace with the merchantmen, going at six or eight knots an hour; and thus a big target may be presented for a U-boat, na instance the fate of a score of cruisers. Or they may decide that the submarine is the imme diate danger, and, nee destroyers for escort, and then an enemy cruiser of great gun power and high speed may ap pear out of the darkness. Sometimes the enemy is bound to score. But how often does he do so! If we look at our meal tables, we get an answer; if we turn to

paper and see that shout 5,000 " tar- gets for submarines and raiders enter or leave our puris every work, we get further evidence of the way the Fleet is doing its work; if we study the output of our munition works, largely depend out on overaca supplies of raw material, further light is thrown on the matter; if we glance at the morning communiqués describing what our set-supported Bol diers are doing, we must be reminded that folly, and muddle reign neither at the Admiralty, nor in the Grand Fleet, nor in the patrols.

With limited resources the Navy is per- forming miracles every day, and yet we are told that there is widespread public dissatisfaction. Perhaps an invasion would care that trouble, if it exists, of which I am not convinced, or at least such a threat as cur forefathers lived under for years, when Napoleon trained the Grand Army at Boulogne and for month after month continued his pre- parations for over-running this country. The great British sailors, knowing that he had no long-range guna, mines, sub- marines, or destroyers to support his scheme, nevertheless admitted that they could not interfere with him, and could only hope to defeat him when he put to en ficience has come to the aid of the second greatest wes Power of the world, and some of us, after a hearty sea-borns meal, sit in our easy chairs in comfort, perhaps, smoking tobacco from Cuba, or India, or the United States, and wonder what our sailors are doing —Datly

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