Of the many heartening things contained in the speech which Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, broadcast on Sunday night, not the least encouraging was his reference to the manner in which the German U-boat menace was being dealt with. For the first three weeks of the war there was a' rapid diminution in the number of vessels sunk each week, until on Sunday the First Lord was able to announce that a whole week had passed since a British vessel had been destroyed. There has, it is true, been some submarine activity in the North Sea where neutral shipping has been torpedoed by German submarines, but they do not appear at present to be receiving the protection of the convoy system, though within a short while it is believed this will be extended to them as a means of thwarting this particular activity of the German navy in its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. It will be remembered that when, in 1917, Germany decided upon this form of warfare on January 9, to come into force on February 1, of that year the German Government announced a barred zone within which all shipping was liable to be sunk, extending roughly from Terschelling in Holland to Udsire in Norway thence to the Faroe Islands and passing down the meridian of longitude 20 degrees West, 350 miles from the west coast of Ireland went on to Finis-terra. It also included the Mediterranean with the exception of a small area around Majorca and a narrow lane the length of the Mediterranean as far as Greece. Subsequent areas were added by Germany before the last war ended, but this was the main area in which the unrestricted submarine campaign wes fought out. January, 1917, saw 145 Allied and neutral vessels disposed of. "With the opening of unrestricted warfare, in February, 209 were destroyed, in March the figure had: reached 246 vessels, while the peak was attained in April when no fewer than 254 ships were sunk, after which month the Allies gained control of the situation and in the last month of the war the figure had been reduced to no more than 50. Altogether by action of submarines, mines, and surface craft, Germany had succeeded in destroying over 5,500 vessels.
To bring this about she had made use of
surrendered and the balance variously accounted for. The commencement of the campaign found Great Britain singularly unprepared with counter devices but history shows that, once the full dimensions of the peril were realized, dispositions were made, and improvements effected which brought this particular menace well under control.
It was an enormous task, but the fact was that the Allies were able to prevent their tonnage being lowered to that irreducible margin which alone would have fulfilled their needs. That margin was accepted as 12,500,000 tons, with a further 600,000 under repair, whereas when the war ended Britain still had at her disposal no less than 14,049,- 000 tens. Viewed against these enormous figures the present submarine campaign is indeed puny. Germany went into the present war with officially 67 submarines. It is quite obvious that well before war broke out she had disposed of some of her submarines in a manner best calculated to deal British shipping a lightening blow a few hours after hostilities had commenced. Initial successes were disquieting enough, but it was not then fully realized that until the convoy system could be put into operation the risks which mercantile vessels ran on the high seas would be considerable. It speaks well for the organization of the Admiralty that within a comparatively short period of time adequate protection was being given to the Allies sea-borne commerce, casualties were reduced with astonishing rapidity until now a week has passed without the loss of a single Allied merchantman. Full details of the amount of damage inflicted upon enemy under-water craft are not available, but there is every reason to believe that in proportion to the number of such vessels with which Germany commenced the war considerable losses have been inflicted upon them.
That in all probability accounts for the message received last week that German submarines were operating further afield in an endeavour to damage Allied shipping before the convoy system comes into operation. That will undoubtedly necessitate the establishment of clandestine fuel dumps in various parts of the world to which these submarines can resort for supplies, and will make the work of the Allied navies in suppressing them all the more difficult. On the other hand the fact that they have been oblived to operate in waters far removed from those areas in which the trade routes converge upon Britain and France means that their targets are more scattered, and that the effort required to sink a ship is all the greater. In the restricted. waters around the British Isles and the: French coast there is little possibility of defeating the submarine by rerouting vessels such as can be done in more distant parts of the world. Here the convoy system can operate to the best possible advantage. It may be that eventually along the principal trade routes the convoy system will have to be considerably extended, but the fact that the submarine has been chased out of its happy hunting ground for other areas where the bag is much note difficult to find, is the best possible proof of the efficient manner in which the Allied navies have dealt with this menace. It would be unwise to suggest that these activities of the German navy have finally been stopped. Rather is it to be expected that every now and again it will demonstrate sporadic actions in various parts of the world, but it seems quite clear that in those areas where Allied shipping would be most vulnerable to submarine attack efficient safeguards have been established, and that in the not too distant future it will be possible to extend protection to that neutral shipping which Germany has commenced wantonly to attack, Latvia Next With Esthonia definitely dealt with the turn of Latvia has apparently arrived. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the fact that M. M. Munters, Foreign Minister, has left Riga for Moscow following decisions by the Latvian Cabinet to clarify its relations with the Soviet. Under a reported menace of twenty divisions of Red troops, which, formerly stationed on the Esthonian frontier, have not been moved to the Latvian border, Russia is alleged to have demanded that a non-aggression pact should be reached between the two countries, and, what is more important, that she should have the right for her war vessels to call at Libau where a*Soviet garrison would be stationed. With the right to station troops, and naval vessels at the Esthonian Islands Moscow secured a commanding position over the entrances to the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia, and if she obtains similar rights in Libau she will also have secured an important point from which to dominate the Gulf of Danzig. In view of the difference of strength between the Russian and the German fleets this might not at the moment seem of any great importance, but with submarines stationed at these three points rather more control of the Baltic will have been secured than would otherwise appear to be the case. Thè general effect of these developments is to obtain a return to Russia, not so much of the territory which she has lost, as the strategical advantages of which she could not take advantage so long as her naval strength was confined to the Gulf of Finland. In effect Russia is bent upon obtaining naval bases in the Baltic which up to the present have been denied her, and to place herself in a position from which she would be more able to deal with Germany should the present very unstable arrangements ever come to an end. Russia is in a fair way to establish her contemplated hegemony over the Baltic States, and it may not now be long before she concentrates her attention on the Balkans.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.