THE SUBMARINE IN WAR AND PEACE

INTRODUCTION

Jules Verne, in 1898, cabled to a New York publication: "While my book, 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,' is entirely a work of the imagination, my conviction is that all I said in it will come to pass. A thousand-mile voyage in the Baltimore submarine boat (the Argonaut) is evidence of this. This conspicuous success of submarine navigation in the United States will push on under-water navigation all over the world. If such a successful test had come a few months earlier it might have played a great part in the war just closed (Spanish-American war). The next war may be largely a contest between submarine boats. Before the United States gains her full development she is likely to have mighty navies, not only on the bosom of the Atlantic and Pacific, but in the upper air and beneath the waters of the surface."

The fantasy of Verne is the fact of to-day.

Admiral Farragut, in 1864, entered Mobile Bay while saying: "Damn the torpedoes—four bells; Captain Drayton, go ahead; Jouett, full speed!"

An admiral, in 1917, damns the torpedoes and orders full speed ahead, but not toward those points guarded by submarine torpedo boats.

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.

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."

He stated further: "If we go to war with a country that is within striking distance of submarines, I am of the opinion that the country will at once lock up their dreadnoughts in some safe harbor and we shall do the same. I do not think the importance of submarines has been fully recognized, neither do I think that it has been realized how completely their advent has revolutionized naval warfare. In my opinion, as the motor has driven the horse from the road, so the submarine has driven the battleship from the sea."

Sir Percy Scott, however, is an inventor, being the man who devised the "spot" method of gun firing, and has, therefore, the type of mind which is able to foresee and to grasp the value of new devices.

Sir A. Conan Doyle, another man of great vision and imagination, was so impressed with the potentialities of the submarine that he wrote a story which prophesied, with such accuracy as to make his tale almost uncanny, the events which are actually taking place to-day around the coast of England in the prosecution of Germany's submarine blockade.

In these pages, therefore, I may make claims for submarines which have not yet been publicly proved by actual performance, and such claims may impress many as being as visionary as the destructive capabilities of submarines appeared to be until Lieutenant Weddingen, of the German Navy, shocked the conservatives and put the submarine on the map as a naval weapon by sinking, single-handed, three cruisers within one hour of each other.

I shall be careful, however, not to make any claim for submarines which is not warranted by experiments actually made during my twenty-two years' continual study and experience in designing and building submarine boats and submarine appliances in the United States and abroad.

To men of imagination and of inventive faculties these claims will not appear preposterous. The achievements of the submarine, in the face of all the ridicule, scepticism, and opposition which surrounded its development, will, I hope, commend these advanced ideas of mine to the attention, if not the respect, of the more conservative.