Submarine Warfare, Past, Present, and Future E-Book

Herbert C. Fyfe

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

“The submarine craft is a miracle of ingenuity though Nelson and his hearts of oak, fighting only on deck, in God’s free air, and with ‘the meteor flag of England’ fluttering overhead, would have loathed and scorned her burglarious, area-sneak dodges down below.”
In modern under-water warfare two weapons are employed, the Mine and the Torpedo. Both are explosive devices, but whilst mines are stationary, torpedoes are endowed with the power of locomotion in some form or another.
The modern submarine boat is in reality a diving torpedo-boat and like all other torpedo craft of the present day its function is to discharge automobile torpedoes.
The submarine boat is sometimes said to be the child of the torpedo-boat. As a matter of fact the earliest known torpedo vessel was designed to do its work under water.
In 1776 an attack was made on the English frigate H.M.S. Eagle, and in 1777 on the English man-of-war H.M.S. Cerberus by a submarine vessel invented by David Bushnell and provided with “torpedoes.” Although no injury was inflicted on these ships, three of the crew of a prize schooner astern of the Cerberus, in hauling one of Bushnell’s drifting torpedoes on board, were killed by its explosion.

Leseprobe

SUBMARINE WARFARE

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

“DAVID AND GOLIATH.”The Russian Battleship “Retvisan” (12,700 tons) and the U.S. Submarine “Holland” (75 tons).

SUBMARINE WARFAREPAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

BY

HERBERT C. FYFE

(Sometime Librarian of the Royal Institution, London)

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADMIRAL THE HON. SIR EDMUND ROBERT FREMANTLE, G.C.B., C.M.G.; AND A CHAPTER ON “THE PROBABLE FUTURE OF SUBMARINE BOAT CONSTRUCTION” BY SIR EDWARD J. REED, M.P. ✜ ✜ ✜ ✜ ✜

WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385741938

SUBMARINE WARFARE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

THE PROBABLE FUTURE OF SUBMARINE BOAT CONSTRUCTION.

PART I

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER II THE PLACE OF THE SUBMARINE IN WARFARE

CHAPTER III THE MORALITY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

CHAPTER IV THE MECHANISM OF THE SUBMARINE, AND SUBMARINES OF THE FUTURE

CHAPTER V THE ROMANCE OF UNDER-WATER WARFARE

CHAPTER VI THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF UNDER-WATER WARFARE

CHAPTER VII THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION

CHAPTER VIII THE ANTIDOTE TO SUBMARINES

PART II

CHAPTER IX THE EARLY HISTORY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

CHAPTER X EARLY EFFORTS IN SUBMARINE NAVIGATION

CHAPTER XI DAVID BUSHNELL

CHAPTER XII FULTON’S SUBMARINE BOATS

CHAPTER XIII SUBMARINES DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER XIV THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO—“THE MOST WONDERFUL MACHINE IN THE WORLD”

CHAPTER XV THE NORDENFELT SUBMARINES

PART III

APPENDIX I BRITISH SUBMARINES

APPENDIX II THE AMERICAN SUBMARINES

APPENDIX III FRANCE AND HER SUBMARINES

APPENDIX IV SUBMARINES OLD AND NEW

APPENDIX V THE “LAKE” SUBMARINES

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

PREFACE

There exists no popular work in the English language on submarine warfare, and only one which deals exclusively with submarine boats. This was written fifteen years ago by Lieutenant G. W. Hovgaard of the Danish Navy. It is a little book of ninety-eight pages, and out of these forty only are given to the “History and Development of Submarine Boats.” The rest of the volume is taken up with a description of a vessel imagined by the author but never constructed. Lieutenant Sleeman’s “Torpedoes and Torpedo Warfare” takes no account of under-water craft, whilst Lieutenant G. E. Armstrong, in his little book, “Torpedoes and Torpedo-vessels” devotes only eighteen pages out of 306 to “Submarines and Submersibles.”

Having always taken a keen interest in submarine boats, the writer some two years ago commenced the compilation of the present work. His aim has been to produce a book which should be essentially of a popular character and should appeal to those who have neither the time nor the inclination to pursue the subject very deeply. It necessarily contains a certain amount of detailed description, but the aim has been to avoid technicalities as far as possible. That the book may appeal to the general public, and that it may also be found worthy of a place on the shelves of the student of naval history and naval warfare is the author’s wish, and he trusts that a volume will not be unacceptable that traces the story of under-water warfare from the earliest times to the present day, that endeavours to explain how a submarine boat is worked, and that attempts to arrive at some conclusions respecting a mode of fighting which may possibly figure largely in future battles on the seas.

Interest in the navy and in naval matters is fortunately greater than it used to be, but there is still a vast amount of ignorance existing in the minds of the public respecting our warships and our sailors. When an explosion occurred recently on the Royal Sovereign a man in the street remarked to his friend, “How lucky it didn’t happen when we went to Margate on her last summer!” The navy is certainly not so much in the public eye as is the army, still it should be the desire of every Briton to know even a little about the service for which he pays so much. Many people seem to imagine that torpedo-boats do their work below the waves, and have but very hazy notions respecting the working of the torpedo or the functions of the destroyer.

It was recently remarked to the writer by one who has had a large experience in catering for the mental needs of the British public that we were not a mechanical nation, and that while Americans would naturally be interested in such a subject as submarine warfare, Britons would only display an apathetic attitude towards it. Perhaps the general lack of interest in scientific matters is due to the fact that little trouble is taken to place them before readers in an attractive form. There is no doubt that the Germans, the French, and the Americans are far more alive to the importance of science, and are far more ready to discuss inventions, discoveries, and scientific topics than we are ourselves.

That his work will appeal to a very large class of readers the writer has little hope. He trusts, however, that those who do read it will be encouraged to pursue the subject a little more deeply, and that inventive minds may be induced to apply their ingenuity to the designing of weapons for under-water warfare.

When we decided to add submarines to our navy, we had to adopt the design of an American, Mr. Holland, because no other was then available. Similarly the system of wireless telegraphy used on our men-of-war is the invention of an Italian.

“We have started,” says a well-known English professor, “all the branches of engineering; we have invented nearly all the important things, but the great development of these things has gone out of the hands of the amateurs of our nation. It is because our statesmen are Gallios who ‘care for none of these things,’ because they know nothing of science.”

It was an Englishman who invented the Whitehead torpedo; it was in the brain of an Englishman that the idea of the torpedo-boat destroyer was evolved. Are there not those who will bring their inventive talent to bear on the perfecting of the diving torpedo-boat and of the many contrivances that are needed to make it an efficient weapon of offence and defence?

It may be said that the encouragement given to the inventor by the Admiralty is so scanty as to make him shy of offering them his ideas. Let us hope, now that Lord Selborne and Mr. Arnold Forster are at the Admiralty, that the bad old days when inventors were snubbed, and novel ideas ridiculed, have gone never to return. The submersible craft of to-day is no longer an ingenious toy; it is a practiced engine of warfare of no mean value. But there is vast room for improvement in its design. It must be endowed with more speed, its longitudinal stability must be improved, and its appliances for under-water vision perfected. Are there not Britons willing to devote their energies to the realisation of the ideal submarine?

The author has derived his information from a great many sources, some of which are mentioned in the brief Bibliography at the end of the book.

He desires to express his thanks to Messrs. Vickers Sons & Maxim, the Holland Torpedo-boat Company, Mr. P. W. D’Alton, Lieutenant A. T. Dawson, late R.N., Mr. Simon Lake and others, for information kindly given him respecting various boats and for photographs. To Mr. Alan H. Burgoyne his thanks are due for permission to use some of his original sketches.

Royal Societies’ Club,

St. James Street, S.W.

INTRODUCTION

BY

ADMIRAL THE HON. SIR E. R. FREMANTLE, G.C.B, C.M.G.

(Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom.)

The natural attitude of the Naval mind towards submarines is the same now as that expressed by Lord St. Vincent when Fulton invented the notorious “catamaran” expedition.

Fulton had been trying some experiments before Pitt, who favoured the project, to which Lord St. Vincent, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was strongly opposed, and he bluntly stated that “Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who commanded the seas did not want, and which, if successful, would deprive them of it.”

It was, our Admiralty recently held, “the weapon of the weaker power, and not our concern,” then we were to “watch and wait,” which sounded plausible but was evidently dangerous, and as the success of the French submarines became too evident we were forced to follow suit. As Lord Selborne reminded us when speaking about the boilers, we have too often ignored new inventions and resisted change till we were left well behind in the race, as we were with ironclads, breech-loading guns, and other improvements in naval warfare.

The fact is that every new invention has its infancy of weakness and failure, its adolescence of partial adoption, and doubtful success, and its manhood of completion and achievement. Unfortunately the natural conservatism of a profession and perhaps of human nature is apt to deride the early failures, and to prejudice the invention so as to delay its adoption. Every inventor can tell stories of the obstruction he has met with, and often of his ultimate triumph, like Mr. Whitworth and his steam hammer pile-driving competition, when he succeeded in driving piles with his steam hammer in as many minutes as it took hours under the method previously adopted, much to the astonishment of the old hands.

Certainly the submarine has had its period of failure and ridicule, for the attempt to use submarines dates from very ancient days, as Mr. Fyfe’s interesting historical résumé shows, yet it is only now arriving at the stage of development which forces us to reckon with it as a serious factor in naval warfare.

We need not follow Mr. Fyfe in his early history of the submarine, but leaving James I.’s somewhat apocryphal voyage under the waters of the Thames, the inventions of Bushnell, Fulton, Warner, and others, we may come to the Confederate diving boat during the war of secession. Here we have a real diving boat which, though it drowned three crews, did succeed in destroying the United States sloop Housatonic, one of the blockading fleet off Charleston, though she was herself sunk in the effort, drowning her fourth crew. It is interesting to compare this submarine boat with one of our modern Hollands.

The following is the description given by Captain Maury, the well-known hydrographer, then at the head of the Confederate torpedo bureau, of this unfortunate craft, or David as she was called. “It was built of boiler iron, about 35 feet long, and was manned by a crew of nine men, eight of whom worked the propeller by hand, the ninth steered the boat and regulated her movements below the surface of the water. She could be submerged at pleasure to any desired depth, or could be propelled on the surface. In smooth, still water she could be exactly controlled, and her speed was about 4 knots.”

It is further stated that she could remain submerged for half an hour “without inconvenience to her crew,” and in action she was to drag a torpedo under a ship’s bottom, which was intended to explode on striking.

Now contrast this rude and dangerous craft with the “Holland” boats now building for the British Government, and the advance which has been made in the last forty years is evident.

I need not describe the Holland here, but motive power, speed, radius of action, and torpedo are all essentially different; but above all it has been proved that a modern submersible boat like the French Gustave Zédé, or Narval, or our Holland can remain under water truly “without inconvenience to her crew” for periods of nine or ten hours, so that all the problems connected with submarine navigation may be said to have been solved, except that of seeing under water, for when submerged the submarine is in cimmerian darkness, and more helpless than an ordinary vessel in the densest of fogs. Nor is it likely that invention has said its last word in regard to the submarine now that it is acknowledged to be a weapon of practical value.

On this point it is convenient to call to mind the remarkable development of the Whitehead torpedo since it was first adopted in our Navy rather more than thirty years ago. It happens that I have been able to refer to an article on torpedoes which I wrote in Fraser’s Magazine just thirty years ago, in which I described the Whitehead of that day as having a speed of from 7 to 7½ knots, a range of 1,000 yards, and a charge of 67 lbs. of gun-cotton. Now, the speed of our modern Whiteheads is 30 knots, the range 2,000 yards, the charge 200 lbs. of gun-cotton, and, thanks to the gyroscope, it can be discharged with extraordinary accuracy.

Admitting, then, that the submarine is with us, and that it will remain, let us see what is likely to be its function in war. The submarine compares naturally with the torpedo destroyer or torpedo boat; like them it will attack by stealth, and it has neither their speed nor radius of action. But, whereas searchlights and quick-firing guns are effective weapons against the latter, they are of little use against the submarine, and as all these craft are to act by surprise, the advantage is strongly in favour of the submarine, which can approach with little danger of being discovered, with the cupola only showing, until close to her enemy, thus rendering a close blockade by large vessels impossible.

I have said that is naturally the weapon of the weaker power, but that it can be used and that it will be used by the stronger power acting on the offensive I see no reason to doubt. It can certainly be employed against ships at anchor unless they are suitably protected, and it can probably render good service in removing obstructions and clearing passages defended by torpedoes.

The question remains as to whether any antidote to the submarine is likely to be effective. It is possible that one may be discovered, but it is not easy to see in what direction we are to look for it, as the submarine differs from other craft in the fact that the possession of any number of similar vessels, by ourselves for instance, affords little or no protection against a few well-handled Gustave Zédé’s in the hands of our enemies. At the same time they would be of little or no value against torpedo boats or destroyers; and cruisers blockading, moving about at a speed of 10 knots or more, at some distance from a port known to harbour submarines, would have little to fear, as it could only be by a lucky chance that a submarine could approach near enough to them to have a fair shot. It is also worthy of remark that the navigation and pilotage of a submarine, even with her cupola above water, would be by no means easy in shallow water or thick weather, and of the value of the periscope I cannot but feel somewhat sceptical. The French are stated to have found that submarines can be easily discovered from balloons; but this must naturally apply only to daylight and fine weather, and their opportunity will naturally occur in thick weather or at night.

I have offered these remarks to show that though I consider the submarine to be an important weapon, it clearly has its limitations, and I suspect that when we have them fairly under trial we shall find that when these are fully appreciated and the position of the submarine in naval warfare is duly assigned, much of the terror and mystery now surrounding this novel weapon will be removed. Probably it will be found to be a more dangerous and effective torpedo boat, and will supplant it in great measure.

Mr. Fyfe has done good service in giving us this popular account of submarines, which is a valuable addition to the scanty literature of the subject in the English language.

THE PROBABLE FUTURE OF SUBMARINE BOAT CONSTRUCTION.

BY

SIR EDWARD J. REED, K.C.B., F.R.S., M.P.

(Chief Constructor of the Navy 1863–70.)

There is nothing in the nature of things that I know of to prevent submarine warfare being carried on in the future to a very large extent. This development will probably follow triple lines: (1) Vessels for the defence of ports and harbours, with sufficient means of proceeding outside to give the defence a certain limited power of attack in the approaches; (2) Vessels primarily designed for attack, and therefore capable of proceeding to sea for considerable distances; and (3) Smaller vessels to be taken to sea in ships, as part of their equipment, and capable of being lowered to take part in a battle, and raised again, and re-stowed on board when no longer needed in action. All these types of vessel will need to be endowed with the power of passing easily and quickly from the floating to the submerged condition, and back again to the surface when necessary; but the boats of the second class in the foregoing category will doubtless be developed to an extent as yet anticipated by very few of us, in respect alike of their ability to proceed for great distances below water, and of their ability to steam satisfactorily afloat when submergence is needless.

All who are acquainted with the structure of waves, so to speak, will be aware that wave disturbance diminishes very rapidly as we go down below the surface, and will consequently understand that when once we have succeeded in giving submarines a great range of under-water travel, we shall have endowed them with the capability of avoiding at pleasure in bad weather the tempestuous surface of the sea, with all the drawbacks to speed which stormy seas impose upon ships, and especially upon comparatively small vessels. In order to bring about this advantage, science has to effect, no doubt, immense improvements in the production of storage of air, or of its equivalent; but there is great reason to believe that the demand will bring the supply, as in so many other matters. Nor must it be forgotten that this is a branch of science for the development of which the ship proper, as we have hitherto known it, has offered few, if any, inducements. I do not know how the sight of an ordinary modern ship of war strikes the eyes of others, but for my part I never look at one, with its vast and monstrous assemblage of gaping mouths of funnels, pipes, and cowls, without thinking that our method of supplying breathing gas to men below in a ship is at present of a very elementary and unsatisfactory character. It is certainly the roughest and readiest method that could well be adopted. Nor is it without a sense of satisfaction that one knows that the submarine ship will at least sweep away these ugly and towering excrescences, and force us to resort much more than at present to the chemical and mechanical arts for the ventilation of vessels.

The development of the sea-going submarine will bring with it, doubtless, many improvements in the vessels which have been first mentioned, viz., vessels for the defence of ports and their approaches. It is not possible yet to say to what extent the “Holland” boats building at Barrow will prove fairly satisfactory, although my acquaintance with this class of vessel for several years past has given me a favourable impression of it—favourable, that is, as furnishing many elements of initial success. More than this could not be reasonably expected; nor can we doubt that with the skill of both the Admiralty designers and those of the great manufacturing establishment which has produced the first few vessels concentrated upon this class of boat, immense improvements may be confidently anticipated.

Of the third class of vessels before referred to the Goubet boat may be regarded as a commencing type. The principle of this boat appears to be that of carrying and launching torpedoes from external supports, the size and buoyancy of the vessels being very small by comparison with those of vessels which carry their torpedoes inside. M. Goubet appears to go beyond this principle, and to have other ideas, which are mentioned in the text of this work. Suffice it here to say that the idea of relieving the submarine boat from the necessity of carrying its torpedoes with it, goes a long way towards furthering the use of submarine torpedo craft carried on the decks, or at the davits of battleships and cruisers.

If one may contrast for a moment the present attempts at aerial navigation with the concurrent attempts at submarine navigation, one quickly sees how terribly the æronaut is handicapped as compared with the under-water sailor. The advantage of the dense medium which the sea offers to the submarine navigator is precisely the same as it has offered from the beginning of time to the surface navigator, and nothing new is needed to sustain the submarine ship, whereas the unhappy man who seeks to navigate the air has to obtain from a medium of extraordinary levity the support necessary for keeping him aloft. The difference between the specific gravity of air (of which ships are full) and of water is so great by comparison between the specific gravity of any gas available for filling aerial-ships and that of air, that the problem of the submarinist is easy indeed compared with the other. But it is in the face of this initial and enormous difficulty that the æronauts of to-day have apparently persuaded themselves that they can successfully float their balloon-ship in mid-air, and propel it not only against the rapid tides of the air in which it floats, but also drive it at a good additional speed. When men are to be found capable of committing their fortunes, and even their lives, to navigation of this kind, it is not surprising to find that the far easier problem of navigating the seas beneath the surface has won the attention and the effort of enterprising men. They certainly have chosen, if the humbler, also the more practical and promising field of operation. I doubt not that they have likewise chosen the more fruitful field.

It is worthy of remark that it is once again in connection with the arts of war that a great extension of human progress has been commenced. But for the temptation of gaining equality with, and even mastery over, our possible foes, the art of submarine navigation would certainly not have been attracting the attention of some of our best and most scientific men, who are once again eagerly developing—

“Those dire implements

Which sombre science with unpitying pains,

That love of neither man nor God restrains,

To warring foes presents.”

One can only be thankful that the world is so constituted and so ruled, that out of seeming evil often comes great good to men.

I have not been asked to say anything of the book with which these lines are associated. I may nevertheless remark that I have had an opportunity of hastily looking through the author’s proofsheets, and have formed the opinion that it is a most timely and highly instructive work, and one which gives to the non-technical world an extremely good review of all that has been done in the way of submarine war vessels, while the technical man into whose hands it may come will be compelled, by its great interest and by its clever record of facts, to read every page of it.

PART I

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY

“The submarine craft is a miracle of ingenuity though Nelson and his hearts of oak, fighting only on deck, in God’s free air, and with ‘the meteor flag of England’ fluttering overhead, would have loathed and scorned her burglarious, area-sneak dodges down below.”

In modern under-water warfare two weapons are employed, the Mine and the Torpedo. Both are explosive devices, but whilst mines are stationary, torpedoes are endowed with the power of locomotion in some form or another.

The modern submarine boat is in reality a diving torpedo-boat and like all other torpedo craft of the present day its function is to discharge automobile torpedoes.

The submarine boat is sometimes said to be the child of the torpedo-boat. As a matter of fact the earliest known torpedo vessel was designed to do its work under water.

In 1776 an attack was made on the English frigate H.M.S. Eagle, and in 1777 on the English man-of-war H.M.S. Cerberus by a submarine vessel invented by David Bushnell and provided with “torpedoes.” Although no injury was inflicted on these ships, three of the crew of a prize schooner astern of the Cerberus, in hauling one of Bushnell’s drifting torpedoes on board, were killed by its explosion.

A few years afterwards Robert Fulton occupied himself with torpedoes, and like Bushnell he came to the conclusion that a submarine boat was the best suited for the discharge of his weapons. In time of peace Fulton showed that his torpedoes could sink ships, but in actual warfare he failed to accomplish the destruction of any craft. For a while torpedo warfare received but scant attention, but on the outbreak of the American Civil War the mine and the torpedo “leapt at one bound from the condition of theory and experiment to become accepted once for all as practical and valuable factors for offence and defence.”

At this period also it is to be noted that the torpedoists considered the under-water vessel the most favourable method of utilising the spar-torpedo, the weapon of the day. Both Federals and Confederates paid much attention to submarine navigation, and success attended the efforts of the latter, for on February 17, 1864, the Federal frigate Housatonic was sunk off Charleston by a submarine boat manned by the Confederates and armed with a spar-torpedo. This is the sole occasion on which an under-water vessel has ever succeeded in sinking a hostile craft in actual warfare, and even then it was being navigated in the awash condition, and not completely submerged.

The introduction of the automobile or fish torpedo led to the building of above-water torpedo vessels by all the great Powers. The idea of discharging this weapon from a submarine boat occupied the attention of numerous inventors, amongst others of Mr. Nordenfelt, of machine-gun fame.

Greece and Turkey both bought Nordenfelt submarine boats, but although they achieved a certain amount of success and were certainly the best specimens of under-water fighting vessels extant, they failed to receive wider recognition owing to their serious disadvantages.

The possibility of utilising the electric accumulator revived the hopes of the advocates of submarine navigation, and towards the end of the eighties, France added the first under-water torpedo-boat to her navy: since then her interest in the subject has never abated, and although it would be unfair to attribute to all French naval men and officials the ideas as to the superiority of the torpedo vessel to the ironclad put forward by a certain class of writers, it cannot be denied that the question of under-water warfare has attracted more attention in France than in any other country. A few years after the launch of the first French submarine, the Gymnote, the U.S. Government purchased the Holland, and in the same year ordered six more Hollands of an improved type.

When Greece and Turkey purchased Nordenfelt boats there were not wanting those who declared that Great Britain should also add under-water vessels to her navy. The official view was however hostile to such craft. In the early part of 1900, Viscount Goschen said that while close attention had been given by the Admiralty to the subject of submarine boats, they considered that even if the practical difficulties attending their use could be overcome, they would seem to be weapons for “maritime Powers on the defensive.” It seemed to him that the reply to this weapon must be looked for in other ways than in building submarine boats ourselves, for it was clear that one submarine boat could not fight another. It would seem from this that the Admiralty had no very high opinion of the submarine as an offensive weapon. However this may be, an order was placed in the autumn of 1900 with Messrs. Vickers Sons and Maxim for five of the newest “Holland” boats, they being the agents in Europe for the Holland Torpedo-boat Company of New York, and this being the only type available. Not till the statement of the First Lord was published on March 1, 1901, was the fact of the ordering of these boats made public; the secret had indeed been well kept.

He would be a bold man who would prophesy how the question of submarine navigation will stand fifty years hence. Some declare that the under-water vessel will go the way of the dynamite gun, the circular battleship, the aerial torpedo and other inventions; others affirm that the warfare of the future will take place neither on land nor on the seas, but in the air and beneath the waves. We shall see what we shall see. At present we would prefer to go no further than the cautious statement of the First Lord. “What the future value of these boats may be in naval warfare can only be a matter of conjecture. The experiments with these boats will assist the Admiralty in assessing their true value. The question of their employment must be studied, and all developments in their mechanism carefully watched by this country.”

CHAPTER II THE PLACE OF THE SUBMARINE IN WARFARE

“Drake would have understood Trafalgar. Neither Drake nor Nelson could understand a modern naval action.”

“Competent authorities hold that the submersible torpedo-boat is the vessel of the future rather than either the existing type, or the ‘Destroyer’” (Excubitor in the Fortnightly Review for August, 1901).

“It is not only the unstable opinions of experts, liable to sudden change, which makes the forecast of future naval war difficult; it is that the progress of invention may be, for all we know, undermining the whole position by disturbing the balance which creates existing warship design” (the late Vice-Admiral P. H. Colomb).

“Conservatism has thus far delayed the adoption of a most valuable offensive and defensive weapon, not because success was ever proved to be unattainable, but because some vessels built by inexperienced inventors happened to be failures” (Mr. J. P. Holland).

“In the dawn of the twentieth century there has entered into the history of the world’s navies a class of vessel which is probably destined to revolutionise, eventually, the whole system of maritime construction. The problem of submarine navigation, in a limited sense at least, has been solved” (Lieutenant G. E. Armstrong).

“Most torpedo destruction has been done with a bag of explosive tied to the end of a pole, and the submarine boat will permit you to get closer to the enemy with a bigger bag of explosive and with less damage to the pole. You have all the advantages of attack with almost absolute safety to the torpedo-boat itself.”

THE FIRST SUBMARINE TO FLY THE WHITE ENSIGN. (By permission of the Admiralty and Messrs. Vickers, Sons, and Maxim.)

At the present time opinion is divided as to the part that the submarine boat is likely to play in the naval warfare of the future. Those who have expressed themselves on the subject may be roughly divided into three classes.

1. Those who have little or no faith in submarines.

2. Those who believe that submarines will revolutionise warfare, ocean locomotion, marine industries, &c., and that an epoch may come in which merchantmen will alone sail the ocean and all the warships will be submarines or submersibles.

3. Those who recognise that the submarine boat of to-day is a great improvement on the boats of twenty years ago; who believe that although at present it suffers from grave defects, its development will continue, and who are of opinion that it will find useful spheres of action in time of war.

Much of the adverse criticism which the “submarine boat” has had to encounter has been due to the popular belief that this type of craft was intended to do its work below the surface of the water. As it is impossible at present to see beneath the waves, many critics have declared the submarine to be a perfectly useless fighting vessel. It cannot be too often asserted, for the sake of overcoming prejudice, that the proper place of the submarine is at the surface, and that she only goes below for short intervals. This is now universally recognised by constructors of such craft, which it might be more correct to term “submersibles” or “diving torpedo-boats.” So far back as 1886 Mr. Nordenfelt remarked, “It is impossible to think of a submarine boat that actually manœuvres and does its work under water. I gave that up from the very commencement.”

By the term “submarine” we mean to imply a vessel capable of manœuvring on the surface like an ordinary torpedo boat, of running awash with her conning tower alone above water to enable her to be steered, and of totally immersing herself for short periods either to escape detection, avoid the fire of the enemy, or fire torpedoes.

The history of the submarine bears a curious resemblance to that of the torpedo and the torpedo vessel in many particulars. All three have been declared to be the weapons of the weaker power and of no possible value to a nation which must maintain the command of the seas. The first Whitehead torpedoes were certainly slow and erratic; now they are capable of running within a few inches of the required depth at a speed of over 37 miles an hour for a range up to 2,000 yards, and hitting the point aimed at with almost the same precision as a gun.

In spite of the sneers of fossilised officials, Great Britain adopted the torpedo-boat, and in the process of time evolved the destroyer, an offensive weapon of no mean value, and a type of craft which some have declared to be the fighting vessel of the future. She will soon be in the possession of nine under-water vessels, and it may be that the submarines of twenty years hence will bear the same resemblance to those of to-day, as the Albatross does to the Lightning of 1877.

The very first submarine to figure in actual warfare was the boat invented by David Bushnell. His attempt to blow up the British frigate Eagle failed, mainly owing to the incapacity of the operator, Sergeant Ezra Lee. Fulton, although he blew up several old hulks in time of peace, was afforded no opportunity of testing the capabilities of his vessel in actual warfare.

U.S. SUBMARINE “SHARK” ON THE STOCKS.

During the American Civil War there occurred the famous incident of the destruction of the Housatonic by the Confederate diving torpedo-boat David—the only occasion on which a submarine boat has succeeded in inflicting injury on a hostile vessel in a naval action. Though many lives were lost in the David, this would not have occurred had the most ordinary precautions been taken.

On February 5, 1886, Mr. Nordenfelt read a paper before the Royal United Service Institution on his Submarine Boats; in the discussion that followed many eminent naval authorities took part, and the following are extracts taken from their speeches on this occasion:—

“My opinion is that all torpedo-boats should be submarine boats” (Admiral Arthur).

“With the cupola above water the submarine boat would prove a very formidable means of attack” (Admiral Sir Astley Cooper Key).

“Mr. Nordenfelt has done much towards solving a problem which is likely to be of great importance in future naval operations” (Vice-Admiral H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh).

“I think Mr. Nordenfelt is to be congratulated on having made an enormous step forward, and one which I am sure has a great future before it” (Admiral Selwyn).

“If you want to economically defend a port it is better to have a boat that does not show at all. The moral effect of this boat would be enormous, and I am perfectly certain that foreign war vessels would not lay off a port to intercept outward- and homeward-bound vessels if they knew that there was a submarine vessel inside that could come out without being seen” (Major-General Hardinge Stewart).

“As far as practicability for warfare is concerned this submarine boat (the Nordenfelt) is pretty well accepted by the profession.... Therefore as a craft not altogether wholly submerged, but just a boat awash for coast defence, and also for the attack of ships at sea, and especially in heavy weather, when the fast torpedo boats cannot act, I believe the vessel will be found of great practical and reliable service” (Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke).

The Nordenfelt boats, as will be seen in Chapter XV, failed to come up to the high expectations that had been formed of them, and the British Admiralty considered themselves relieved from the necessity of taking up the subject of submarine navigation.

In 1888 France added the first submarine (the Gymnote) to her navy, and proceeded to lay down a certain number of under-water craft yearly. In 1900 the United States Government bought the Holland, and in many quarters the opinion was held that the Admiralty should carefully investigate the whole question of submarine warfare.

The official mind thought otherwise, and expressed itself thus: “We know all about submarines: they are the weapons of the weaker power; they are very poor fighting machines, and can be of no possible use to the Mistress of the Seas. We are very grateful to the Governments of France and the United States for expending so much money in experimenting with these craft, and in allowing us to buy experience for nothing; if ever they produce a vessel which we consider satisfactory we shall begin to build, but not till then.” The official mind was inclined to apply to submarine warfare, the words used by Earl St. Vincent in reference to Fulton’s torpedo warfare—“A mode of war which we who command the seas do not want, and which, if successful, would deprive us of it.”

This council of sitting still and watching others experiment did not commend itself to many thinking people who saw that the French and the Americans were every year improving their vessels and converting them little by little from expensive toys into fighting machines with which we should have to reckon sooner or later. Even the Engineer, never enthusiastic about submarine boats, went so far as to remark that “the day for pooh-poohing them is past.”

The anti-submarine party replied that the French and Americans were suffering from hallucinations; that the submarine boat was of no value except for purposes of defence, as its range of action was very limited. The advent of the Holland and the Narval, each capable of making long journeys, proved the fallacy of this view.

Shifting their ground they said that the submarine would be of no use as a weapon of offence, because it was blind; that it would never be able to fire a torpedo at a moving vessel whilst itself in motion; that its speed was so small that big ships could always avoid it; that it would be unable to remain under water for long, as the effect of “potted air” on the crew would be disastrous; and that its lack of longitudinal stability was a fatal drawback to its employment in action.

The behaviour of the Gustave Zédé, the Narval, and the Holland in manœuvres, during the course of which they have all fired fish torpedoes whilst moving, which have hit targets, again showed that such arguments could not hold water.

Now whilst it is one thing to say that the submarine boat is a useless weapon to-day, it is quite another to prophecy that it will never be of any value to a navy whose ships are intended to act on the offensive.

The introduction of gunpowder; of steam; of the screw-propeller; of iron-built ships; of high-pressure engines; of rifled ordnance; of explosive shells; of armour plating; of twin-screws; of breech-loading guns; of steel-built ships; of the locomotive torpedo; of electricity on shipboard; of quick-firing and machine guns; of collapsible boats; of wireless telegraphy; of turbine vessels; of devices for coaling ships at sea; of magazine-rifles, &c., &c., have been successively ridiculed by those responsible for the condition of the British Navy.

Officialism is, and always has been, a foe to inventive progress, and the official mind still seems incapable of realising that invention is a plant of slow growth; that improvements or innovations when first mooted do not necessarily represent their final form, and that all the great advances and revolutions in the past in the world of science, invention, and discovery have sprung from small beginnings which have grown gradually and slowly until they forced upon themselves the recognition that was their due.

Faraday, when asked by “practical people” the use of any of his experimental researches, would reply, “What is the use of a baby?” An invention resembles a baby, in that it needs to be carefully watched, tended, and cared for in its initial stages if ever it is to be of any value in the world.

We all remember the gentleman who said that he would eat the first steamboat that crossed the Atlantic; the Quarterly Reviewer who wrote with reference to the proposal to build a line to Woolwich that “he should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off by one of Congreve’s ricochet rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of a high-pressure steam engine travelling at the awful speed of eighteen to twenty miles an hour”; and the wiseacres who pooh-poohed the electric telegraph and telephone, the electric light, the electric car, the pneumatic-tyred bicycle, and many other inventions which have come into general use.

Granting, as we do, that the submarine is at present in a very inefficient stage of its existence, the necessity for experiment in view of the march of science during the past century is obvious. What should we say of a professor who pleaded that his experiments were a waste of time and money, as he could arrive at his end quite as well by simply reading what other professors in foreign countries were doing?

One cannot too often insist on the fact that it is only by actual experiment that useful facts are arrived at, and that in the investigation of new devices more can, as a rule, be learnt from an experiment carefully arranged and personally carried out than from the reading of voluminous reports of the work of others.