Submarine and Anti-submarine

emonstrably false, than their account of the origin of the submarine. According to the story which they have endeavoured to spread among the unthinking publ

a pacifist race of dollar-hunters, they had lost interest in war, and their boats would be found useless in practice. As for the British, the day of their naval power was past; they had spent their time and money upon the

that the Germans were able to make out a plausible title to the ‘command of the sea beneath the surface’; and they even gained a hearing for the other half of their claim, which was unsupported by any evidence whatever. The submarine is not, in its origin, of German invention; the idea of submarine war was not a German idea, nor have Germans contributed anything of value to the long process of experiment and development by which the idea has been made to issue in practical under-water navigation. From beginning to end, the German

n Elizabeth’s admirals, in his famous ‘Naval Tracts,’ suggests that a powerful ship may be sunk much more easily by an under-water shot than by ordinary gunfire. His plan is ‘to place a cannon in the hold of a bark, with her mouth to the sid

posed method of solving the problem of submersion. This is to be achieved by means of two side-tanks, into which water can be admitted through perforations, and from which it can be blown out again by forcing the inner side of each tank outwards. These false sides are made tight with leather suckers, and moved by winding hand-screws—a crude and inefficient mechanism, but a proof tha

ve. The Americans have made the greatest number of inventions, and of daring experiments in earlier wars. The French have shown, as a nation, the strongest interest in the idea, and their navy was effectively armed with submarines ten years before that of any other Power. To them, to the Dutch, and to the Italians, the credit belongs of that indispensable invention, the optic tube or periscope. The Swedes and Russians have the great names of Nordenfelt and Drzewiecki to their credit. The Germans alone, among the eight or nine nations interested in the science of naval war, have from first to last contributed almost nothing to the evolution of the submarine. The roll of submarine inventors includes about 175 names, of which no less than 6014 belong to the English-speaking peoples, but only six to Germany. Among these six, the name of Bauer is remembered as that of a co

the discovery and solution of a number of problems, th

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al solution was approached, we shall be able to confirm what ha

l, and for more than a century tanks and pumps remained the sole means of submersion. In 1893 Haydon, an American, invented a submarine for the peaceful purpose of exploring the ocean bed. Its most important feature was the method of submersion. This was accomplished by means of an interior cylindrical tank, with direct access to the sea, and fitted with two powerfully geared pistons. By simply drawing the pistons in, or pushing them out, the amount of water ballast could be nicely regulated, and the necessity for compressed air or other expellants was avoided. This device would have given great sa

ne construction, and many of his inventive ideas, to the brilliant French writer, Jules Verne, whose book ‘Twenty Thousand L

y weight, to be dropped at a moment of extreme urgency. In the Nautilus, built in 1800 by the famous engineer, Robert Fulton, an American of English birth and education, the leaden weight reappeared as a keel, and was entirely effective. The inventor, in a trial at Brest in 1801, dived to a depth of 25 feet, and performed successful evolutions in different directions for over an hour. Bauer, fifty years later, returned to the ballast principle, and used both a water-tank and a safety

sel would be absolutely secured; but nothing is recorded of the trials of these boats. The celebrated French inventors, Bourgois and Brun, reintroduced the principle of water-tanks combined with a heavy iron ballast keel. But in 1881, the Rev. W. Garrett, the English designer of the Nordenfelt boats, invented a new automatic mechanism for ensuring stability. This consisted of two vertical rudders with a heavy pendulum weight s

cluded on one occasion, and was successfully navigated for several hours at a depth of ten to fifteen feet. ‘Drebbel conceived,’ says Robert Boyle, in 1662, ‘that ’tis not the whole body of the air, but a certain Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part of it that makes it fit for respiration, which being spent, the grosser body or carcase (if I may so call it) of the Air, is unable to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart: so that (for aught I could gather) besides

n with a sufficient supply of air for half an hour’s submersion. This was a bare minimum of habitability, and Fulton, twenty-five years later, found it necessary to equip his Nautilus with a compressed air apparatus. Even with this, the crew of two could only be supplied for one hour. In 1827, the very able French designer, Castera, took out a patent for a submarine life-boat, to which air was to be supplied by a tube from the surface, protected by a float, from which the whole vessel was suspended. The danger here was from the possible entry of water through the funnel, and the boat, though planned with great ingenuity, was never actually tried. Bauer, in 1855, fitted his Diable Marin with large water-tubes, running for thirty feet along the top of the boat and pierced wi

lent steam-engine. He died during the trials of this boat, and further experiment with it seems to have been abandoned, possibly owing to the great interest excited by his first war steamer, which was building at the same time. A regrettable set-back was thus caused. For forty years no one experimented with any kind of propulsory engine. Bauer, in 1855, could devise no better method of working his propeller than a system of 7-foot wheels, turned by a pair of men running on a treadmill. At the same moment, however, a more fruitful genius was at work. A French professor, Marié-Davy, designed a submarine in which21 the propeller was driven by an electro-magnetic engine placed in the stern of the ship, with batteries forward. The idea was a valuable one, with a great future before it, though for the moment it achieved no visible success. A year later, in 1855, the famous B

ubmarines, but submersibles. Their propulsion was by steam, and their dimensions small. A more ambitious invention was put forward in 1869 by a German, Otto Vogel, whose design was accepted by the Prussian

included a propeller, rotated by compressed air. But the English boat of the same date, Garrett’s Resurgam, was much the most noteworthy of the three, and introduced a method which may in the future be brought to perfection with great results. In this boat, the motive force was steam, and propulsion under water, as well as on the surface, was aimed at and actually attained. In her trials, the vessel showed herself capable of navigating under water for a distance of 12 miles, by getting up a full head of steam in a very powerful boiler, with the aid of a blower, before diving; then by sh

this time not by pedals but by an electric motor. His example was followed by Tuck of San Francisco shortly afterwards, and by Campbell and Ash in their Nautilus, which in 1886 underwent very successful trials in the West Indian Docks at Tilbury, near London. In 1886 D’Allest, the celebrated French engineer, designed a submarine fitted with a petrol combustion engine. But the question

olution of the submarine weapon has been much simpler, and more24 regular, than that of the vessel which was to use it; but it has been equally wonderful, and the history of it is equally instructive. Briefly, the French, in this department as in the other, have shown the most imaginative enthusiasm, the Americans

90 water-petards, and 2 boates to conduct them under water.’ Pepys in his ‘Diary’ for March 14, 1662, mentions a proposal by Kuffler of an ‘engine to blow up ships.’ He adds, ‘We doubted not the matter of fact, it being tried in Cromwell’s time, but the safety of carrying them in ships;’ and probably this distrust of Drebbel’s German subordinate proved to be justified, for nothing more is heard of the design. The attempt referred to as made ‘in Cromwell’s time’ may have been Prince Rupert’s attack on Blake’s flagship, the Leopard, in 1650. The engine

til it bit firmly on the ship’s side. The mine was then to be attached to it, and the clockwork set going. The wood-screw, however, bit upon some iron fittings instead of wood, and failed to hold; the tide also was too strong for Lee, who had to work the wood-screw and the propeller at the same time. He came to the surface, was chased by a guard-boat, and dived again, abandoning his torpedo, which drifted and blew up harmlessly whe

sition in which the gloves would be available, and they could not be made thick enough to withstand the pressure of any depth of water. Practical military instinct demanded a method of launching the mine or torpedo against the target, and the first attempts were made by placing a trigger-mine at the end of a spar carried by the nose of the attacking boat. In October, 1863, during the American Civil War, the forts of Charleston were in danger from the accurate fire of the Federal battleship Ironsides, and Lieut. Glassell was ordered to attack her in the submarine David. He had no difficulty in getting near his enemy and exploding his torpedo, but he had misjudged his distance, and only succeeded in deluging the Ironsides with a column of water. The submarine was herself severely27 injured by the explosion and had to be abandoned. A second David, co

controllable vessel, he conceived the idea of an automobile torpedo, and, after two years’ work, constructed it in a practical form. It has been spoken of as ‘the only invention that was perfect when devised,’ and it certainly28 came very near perfection at the first attempt, but it was erratic and could not be made to keep its depth. In 1868, however, Whitehead invented the ‘balance-chamber,’ which remedied these defects, and brought two finished torpedoes to England for trial. They were fired by compressed air from a submerged tube, and at once proved capable of ave

mple was followed by Berkeley and Hotchkiss in 1880, by Garrett in his first Nordenfelt boat of 1881, and by Woodhouse and by Lagane in the same year. Even after this Drzewiecki, Tuck, and D’Allest designed thei

ween 1904 and 1914. The eight British A-boats of 1904 had a displacement of 180 tons on surface/207 tons submerged; the German U1 of 1904–6 was slightly larger (197/236) but in every other respect inferior—its horse-power was only 250 on surface/100 submerged, as against 550/150, its surface speed only 10 knots against 11·5, and it was fitted with only a single torpedo-tube instead of the A-boat’s two. This last deficiency was remedied in 1906–8, but the German displacement did not rise above 210/250 nor the horse-power above 400/150, while the British advanced to 550/660 and 1200/550. By 1913 the Germans were building boats of 650/750 displacement and 1400/500 horse-power, but the British were sti

two of these departments, those of efficiency and seamanship, the Germans have achieved a considerable show of success, though it could be, and in time will be, easily shown that the British naval service has been more successful still. But in the domain of policy and of international morality, the comparison becomes no longer a comparison but a contrast; the new problems have been dealt with by the British in accordan

the British submarine service has to its credit a record of work which, so far as can be judged from the evidence available, is not only better but has been performed under more difficult and dangerous circumstances. In the North Sea patrolling has been carried out regularly, in spite of minefields and of possible danger from the British squadrons, which must, of course, be avoided as carefully as if they were enemies. The German High Seas Fleet has been, for the most part, in hiding, but on the rare and brief occasions when their ships have

ithout a base, returning with an astonishing record of losses inflicted on the enemy. These records will be given more fully in a later chapter; but that of E. 14, Lieut.-Commander Courtney Boyle, may be quoted here as an example, because it is no exceptional instance but merely the earliest of a number, and set a standard which was well maintained by those who followed. The passage of the narrows was made through the Turkish mine-field, and its difficulty may be judged by the fact that E. 14, during the first 64 hours of the voyage, was diving for 44 hours and 50 minutes. After she began her patrol work, there

The total number of steamers, grain dhows33 and provision ships, sunk on this patrol, amounted to no less than ten, a

rds that her guard wire was nearly cut through. On this trip the wireless apparatus was for a time out of order, but was successfully repaired; eight good ships were burnt or sunk, one of them being a supply ship of 5,000 tons. The return voyage was the most e

n very rare cases, hope to take her in himself; and, again, if he is to sink her, he cannot find room in his narrow boat for more than one or two prisoners. What he can do is to see that non-combatants and neutrals, at least, shall be exposed as little as possible to danger or suffering; he can give them boats and supplies and every opportunity of reaching land in safety. No one needs to be told how the Germans, either of their own native cruelty or by the orders of a brutal and immoral Higher Command, have in such circumstances chosen to deal with their helpless fellow-men, and even with women and children, and with the wounded and those attending them. But it may be well to put in evidence some of the brief notes in which a typical British submarine commander has recorded as a matter of course his own method on similar occasions. ‘May 8. Allowed two steamers full of refugees to procee

. Victory it will desire, but not by villainy; defeat it will avoid strenuously, but not by the destruction of the first law of human life. The result is none the less c