A great fuss is being made of a recent achievement of the submarine Gustave Zed During the naval manwuvres the Mediterranean, this vessel was dispatched from Toulon, escorted by a tug, with instructions to attack the enemy's fleet at Ajaccio. The submarine reached the Corsican coast without difficulty, sent away her consort, lay in wait for some time without -attracting attention, and finally succeeded" in torpedoing a battleship, the Charles Martel, in Ajaccio harbour. The feat, however, is not conclusive, inasmuch as the crew of the Charles Martel. were not on the lookout, and the battleship was lying in waters which were considered as theoretically proof against offensive operations. The umpires accordingly decided that the torpedoing did not count. There is no proof that a similar attack would have a reasonable chance of success under war conditions. It is also noteworthy that when the Gustave Zédé showed her conning-tower about two hundred yards away from the battleship, after discharging her torpedo, she was at once sighted and a heavy fire was brought to bear on her. She sank at once, and on coming up again, was very nearly cut in two by the Jauréguiberry. Thus, all the conditions of the experiment were so arranged as to favour the submarine, and yet, in theory, she was destroyed. It would seem that if her torpedo should happen to miss the mark, the submarine would have very little chance of escape, especially if the large vessels were properly protected by destroyers. All that the Gustave Zédé has shown is that, under favourable conditions, a submarine can strike at a distance from its base. If it bad been intended to make the experiment conclusive, thie commander of the squadron representing the enemy would have been warned, and it would then have remained for the captain of the Gustave Zédé to show that he could get within striking distance and discharge his torpedo in spite of all efforts to prevent him. The Gustave Zédé operations were evidently the outcome of political considerations. Every patriotic Frenchman would be only too glad to believe that his country possessed a we: pon of warfare which would counterbalance England's superior strength at soa and render France practically safe from invasion from that quarter, and itis not surprising that any French Government should seck to foster such a belief, and, at the same time, react on public opinion in England.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.