1 - Introductory Essay, Part 1. The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner, by George-Gunther Freiherr von Forstner.
The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.”
The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.”
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part one of an introductory essay by John Hayes Hammond
Junior to the Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Sue Anderson. The Journal of
(00:24):
Submarine Commander von Forstner by Georg Gunter frahervon Forsner, translated
by Anna Krafts Codman, with commentary by John Hayes Hammond Junior,
Part one of the introductory essay The Challenge to Naval Supremacy.
In a letter to William Pitt of January sixth, eighteen
(00:45):
o six, relating to his invention of a submersible boat,
Robert Fulton wrote prophetically, Now in this business, I will
not disguise that I have full confidence in the power
which I possess, which is no less than to be
the means. Should I think proper of giving to the
world a system which must of necessity sweep all military
(01:08):
marines from the ocean, by giving the weaker maritime powers
advantages over the stronger which the stronger cannot prevent. It
is interesting to note that about one hundred years later,
Vice Admiral Fournier of the French Navy stated before a
Parliamentary Committee of Investigation that if France had possessed a
(01:30):
sufficient number of submersibles and had disposed them strategically about
her coasts and the coasts of her possessions, these vessels
could have controlled the trade routes of the world. He
said also that the fighting value of a sufficient number
of submersibles would re establish the balance of power between
(01:50):
England and France. The history of naval warfare during the
last few months has confirmed the opinions of these two authorities,
although in a manner which they in no way anticipated.
Direct comparison is the usual method by which the human
mind estimates values. We would measure the strength of two
(02:12):
men by pitting them against each other in physical encounter.
In the same way, we are prone to measure the
combative effect of weapons by pitting them in conflict against
other weapons. But modern warfare is of so complex a
nature that direct comparisons fail, and only a careful analysis
(02:33):
of military experience determines the potentiality of a weapon and
its influence on warfare. Robert Fulton and Admiral Fournier both
indicated that they believed in the submersible supremacy in actual
encounter with capital ships. The war so far has shown
that in action between fleets, the submersible has played a
(02:56):
negative part. In the Jutland Bank Battle, the submersible, handicapped
in speed and eye sight, took as active a part
as a jack tar humorously put it as a turtle
might in a cat fight. Not even under the extraordinary
conditions of the bombardment in the Dardanelles, when the circumstances
(03:18):
were as lent themselves strikingly to submarine attack, did these
vessels score against the fleet in action. It is easy
to understand why the submersible did not take a vital
part in any of the major naval actions. In the
naval battle of today, we have a number of very
high speed armoured craft fighting against one another over ranges
(03:40):
extending up to seventeen thousand yards. There is a constant
evolution in the position of the ships, which it is
impossible to follow from the low point of vantage of
a periscope. For the different formations of ships mean nothing
to the submersible commander. He is so placed that his
range of vision is extend extremely limited, and on account
(04:02):
of the low speed of his boat while submerged, he
can operate over only a very limited area of water,
while the other vessels are moving many miles. Then, too,
he is extremely vulnerable to the effect of enemy shells
and to the ramming of enemy ships. Under these conditions,
the submersible commander is more or less forced to a
(04:26):
policy of lying ambushed to surprise his enemy. It is
said that the Lusitania was decoyed into a nest of submersibles,
there was but little chance of torpedoing her in any
other way. There is also the statement that Admiral Beedie
passed with his battle cruisers through a flotilla of enemy
(04:47):
submersibles without being touched. Submersibles cannot attack their target in
definite formations as to surface vessels, and therefore they cannot
operate in numbers with the same effectiveness as do the latter.
They must maneuver more or less singly and at random.
Being limited to the torpedo, which, when they are submerged,
(05:11):
is their sole weapon of attack, they have an uncertain
means of striking their armed enemy. The eccentricities of the
automobile torpedo are well known, but even eliminating the fact
that this missile is unreliable, the important question of accuracy
in the estimate of range and speed which the submersible
(05:31):
commander has to make before firing the torpedo, must be considered.
There is usually a large percentage of error in his
calculations unless the submersible is extremely close to its target.
Realizing these limitations, the German submersibles are equipped with small torpedoes,
which are generally fired at ranges not exceeding eight hundred
(05:55):
to two thousand yards. The necessity of approaching the targets
so closely is of course a tremendous handicap in the
general operation of these boats. In view of these facts,
it is not surprising that the submersible should not have
been able to sweep the capital ship from the seas,
as was predicted by certain experts before the war. Admiral
(06:19):
Suscipient Bridge regards the functions of defense by a navy
as divisible into three main classifications. He says, the above
mentioned three divisions are called in common speech coast defense,
colonial defense, and defense of commerce. From this classification we
(06:40):
are given a hint as to what a sailor means
by naval supremacy, freedom of the seas, and other terms
so misused that today they mean nothing. Coast defense means
defense against invasion. Colonial defense means the safeguarding of distant
possess against enemy forces. The defense of commerce means such
(07:05):
supremacy on the seas as will ensure absolute safety of
the mercantile marine from enemy commerce destroyers. Today every great
nation is waging a trade war. The industrial competition of
peace is as keen as the competition of war. All
the great powers realized years ago that to gain and
(07:28):
keep their place in the sun, it was necessary for
them to construct navies that would insure to them a
certain control of the seas for the protection of their commerce.
In this way began the abnormal naval construction, in which
the powers have vied with one another for supremacy. A
simple way of looking at the question what constitutes the
(07:51):
power of a fleet is to consider the warship as
merely a floating gun platform. Even though this floating platform
is the most complex piece of mechanism that was ever
contrived by man, nevertheless, its general function is simple. The
war has given us enough experience to convince us that
(08:12):
the backbone of a navy is, after all, the heavily
armoured ship of moderately high speed carrying a very heavy armament.
This floating gun platform is the structure best fitted to
carry large guns into battle and to withstand the terrific
punishment of the enemy's fire. The battleship is today, notwithstanding
(08:35):
the development of other types, Queen of the seas. It
is therefore not difficult to estimate the relative power of
the fleets of different nations. In fact, a purely engineering
estimate of this kind can be made and the respective
ranks of the world's naval powers ascertained. Germany has shown
(08:55):
all through the war that she thoroughly appreciated the British
naval supremacy. Her fleet has ventured little more than sporadic
operations from the well fortified bases beyond Heligoland. It was
probably the pressure of public opinion, and not the expectation
that she would achieve anything of military advantage, that forced
(09:16):
her to send her high sea fleet into conflict with
the British squadrons off Jutland. If one should examine the
course of this battle, which has been represented by lines
graphically showing the paths of the British and German fleets,
one could easily see how the British imposed their will
upon the Germans in every turn that these lines make.
(09:38):
It reminds one very much of the herding of sheep,
for the German fleet was literally herded on May thirty first,
nineteen sixteen, from five thirty six in the afternoon until
nine o'clock that night. Admiral von Cheer, however, fought the
only action which was possible for him to fight. It
(09:59):
was a losing action, and one which he knew from
a purely mathematical consideration, could not be successful. Through the
very definiteness of this understanding of what constitutes naval strength,
Great Britain's navy until recently has remained a great potential force,
becoming dynamic for only a few hours at Jutland, after
(10:22):
which it returned to that mysterious northern base. Whence it
seems to dominate the seas. Because of the potentiality of
these hidden warships. Thousands of vessels have traversed the ocean,
freighted with countless tons of cargoes and millions of men
for the Allies. Even at that psychological moment when the
(10:43):
first hundred thousand were being transported to France, Germany refrained
from a naval attack which might have turned the whole
land campaign in her favor. Today, however, the world is
awakening to a new idea of sea power, to a
new conception that will have a far reaching influence on
(11:05):
the future development of naval machinery. Si Ciprian Bridge has
stated that one of the functions of a fleet is
the defense of commerce. There is no more important function
for a fleet than this. A nation may be subjugated
by direct invasion, or it may be isolated from the
(11:26):
world by blockade. If the blockade be sufficiently long and
effectively maintained, it will ruin the nation as effectually as
direct invasion. Thus, in the maintenance of a nation's merchant
marine on the high seas, its navy exercises one of
(11:46):
its most vital functions. There can therefore, be no naval
supremacy for a nation unless its commerce is assured of
immunity from considerable losses the through the attack of its enemy.
It is idle for us to speak of our naval
supremacy over Germany when our navies are failing in one
(12:09):
of their most important functions, and when our commerce is
suffering such serious losses, the persons best qualified to judge
are those who are most anxious regarding the present losses
in mercantile tonnage. While it has been shown that the
submersible of to day as a fighting machine is considerably
(12:31):
limited and in no sense endangers the existence of the
capital ship, nevertheless, in the new huge submersible, it seems
that the ideal commerce destroyer has been found. This vessel
possesses the necessary cruising radius to operate over sufficient distances
to control important routes. It makes a surface speed great
(12:53):
enough to run down cargo steamers, and has a superstructure
to mount guns of considerable power up to six inch.
It embodies almost all the qualifications of the light surface cruiser,
with the additional tremendous advantage of being able to hide
by submergons. To be completely successful, it must operate in
(13:16):
flotillas of hundreds in waters that are opaque to aerial observation.
Germany has but a limited number of these submersibles, otherwise
she would be able to crush the Allied commerce. The
ideal submersible commerce raidar should be a vessel of such
(13:36):
displacement that she could carry a sufficient number of large
guns in her superstructure to enable her to fight off
the attack of surface destroyers and the smaller patrol craft.
She should be capable of cruising over a large radius
at high speed, both on the surface and submerged. The
super submersible flotillas should comprise fifty or sixty of these units.
(14:01):
The attack on the trade route should be made by
a number of flotillas operating at different points at unexpected times.
To day, Germany has concentrated her submarine more, particularly in
the constricted waters about England. It is here that the
shipping is most congested, and therefore the harvest is richest.
(14:23):
But it is also easier to protect the trade routes
over these limited areas of water by patrols, nets, et cetera,
than it would be to protect the entire trans oceanic
length of the steamship lanes. If the submersible were capable
of dealing directly with the destroyer in gun fighting, a
tremendous revolution would take place in the tactics of submarine swatting.
(14:48):
Then it would be difficult to see how the submersible
could be dealt with improvement in motive machinery is the
vital necessity in the development of the submersible. The next
few years may see unexpected strides taken in this direction.
A great deal will also be accomplished in perfecting methods
(15:08):
of receiving sounds under water, particularly in relation to ascertaining
the direction of these sounds. When this is done, it
will be possible for the submersible commander to tell a
great deal about the positions of the vessels above him,
and thus his artificial ears will compensate to a great
extent for his blindness. By the addition of a greater
(15:31):
number of torpedo tubes and the improvement of their centralized
control in the hand of the commander at the periscope,
along lines which we are now developing, it will be
possible for the submersible to achieve a greater effectiveness in
its torpedo fire. Probably torpedoes will then be used only
against the more important enemy units such as battleships, cruisers
(15:55):
and the like. To be certain of striking these valuable
targets would be worth expending a number of torpedoes in
salvol fire. Whether the German U boat campaign succeeds or
not will be largely a question of the number of
submersibles that the Central Powers can put into service, and
(16:16):
to what extent the submersible will be developed. During the
present war, German submarines have sunk over seven million, two
hundred and fifty thousand tons of the Allied shipping. In
December nineteen sixteen, it was stated in the British Parliament
(16:37):
that the merchant marine of Great Britain had at that
time over twenty million tons. Within the first three months
of the unrestricted submarine warfare, one million, one hundred thousand
tons of British shipping went to the bottom. At this rate,
(16:57):
England would lose twenty five percent of her merchant marine
per annum. It is for this reason that the attention
of the entire world is concentrated upon the vital problem
of the submarine menace on land. The Central Powers are
still holding their ground, but there is a continuous increase
(17:18):
of the forces of the Allies, which should lead finally
to such a preponderance of power as will overwhelm the
forces opposed to them. The Allied armies, however, depend for
their sustenance and supplies upon the freedom of the seas.
The trade roots of the world constitute the arteries which
(17:40):
feed the muscles of these armies. Germany is endeavoring to
cut these arteries by the submarine. Should she even appreciably
limit the supplies that cross the ocean to the Allies,
she will bring about a condition that will make it
impossible to augment their armies. In this way, there will
(18:01):
inevitably be a deadlock, which, from the German standpoint, would
be a highly desirable consummation. End of the first part
of the introductory essay by John Hayes Hammond Junior
Part one of an introductory essay by John Hayes Hammond
Junior to the Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Sue Anderson. The Journal of
(00:24):
Submarine Commander von Forstner by Georg Gunter frahervon Forsner, translated
by Anna Krafts Codman, with commentary by John Hayes Hammond Junior,
Part one of the introductory essay The Challenge to Naval Supremacy.
In a letter to William Pitt of January sixth, eighteen
(00:45):
o six, relating to his invention of a submersible boat,
Robert Fulton wrote prophetically, Now in this business, I will
not disguise that I have full confidence in the power
which I possess, which is no less than to be
the means. Should I think proper of giving to the
world a system which must of necessity sweep all military
(01:08):
marines from the ocean, by giving the weaker maritime powers
advantages over the stronger which the stronger cannot prevent. It
is interesting to note that about one hundred years later,
Vice Admiral Fournier of the French Navy stated before a
Parliamentary Committee of Investigation that if France had possessed a
(01:30):
sufficient number of submersibles and had disposed them strategically about
her coasts and the coasts of her possessions, these vessels
could have controlled the trade routes of the world. He
said also that the fighting value of a sufficient number
of submersibles would re establish the balance of power between
(01:50):
England and France. The history of naval warfare during the
last few months has confirmed the opinions of these two authorities,
although in a manner which they in no way anticipated.
Direct comparison is the usual method by which the human
mind estimates values. We would measure the strength of two
(02:12):
men by pitting them against each other in physical encounter.
In the same way, we are prone to measure the
combative effect of weapons by pitting them in conflict against
other weapons. But modern warfare is of so complex a
nature that direct comparisons fail, and only a careful analysis
(02:33):
of military experience determines the potentiality of a weapon and
its influence on warfare. Robert Fulton and Admiral Fournier both
indicated that they believed in the submersible supremacy in actual
encounter with capital ships. The war so far has shown
that in action between fleets, the submersible has played a
(02:56):
negative part. In the Jutland Bank Battle, the submersible, handicapped
in speed and eye sight, took as active a part
as a jack tar humorously put it as a turtle
might in a cat fight. Not even under the extraordinary
conditions of the bombardment in the Dardanelles, when the circumstances
(03:18):
were as lent themselves strikingly to submarine attack, did these
vessels score against the fleet in action. It is easy
to understand why the submersible did not take a vital
part in any of the major naval actions. In the
naval battle of today, we have a number of very
high speed armoured craft fighting against one another over ranges
(03:40):
extending up to seventeen thousand yards. There is a constant
evolution in the position of the ships, which it is
impossible to follow from the low point of vantage of
a periscope. For the different formations of ships mean nothing
to the submersible commander. He is so placed that his
range of vision is extend extremely limited, and on account
(04:02):
of the low speed of his boat while submerged, he
can operate over only a very limited area of water,
while the other vessels are moving many miles. Then, too,
he is extremely vulnerable to the effect of enemy shells
and to the ramming of enemy ships. Under these conditions,
the submersible commander is more or less forced to a
(04:26):
policy of lying ambushed to surprise his enemy. It is
said that the Lusitania was decoyed into a nest of submersibles,
there was but little chance of torpedoing her in any
other way. There is also the statement that Admiral Beedie
passed with his battle cruisers through a flotilla of enemy
(04:47):
submersibles without being touched. Submersibles cannot attack their target in
definite formations as to surface vessels, and therefore they cannot
operate in numbers with the same effectiveness as do the latter.
They must maneuver more or less singly and at random.
Being limited to the torpedo, which, when they are submerged,
(05:11):
is their sole weapon of attack, they have an uncertain
means of striking their armed enemy. The eccentricities of the
automobile torpedo are well known, but even eliminating the fact
that this missile is unreliable, the important question of accuracy
in the estimate of range and speed which the submersible
(05:31):
commander has to make before firing the torpedo, must be considered.
There is usually a large percentage of error in his
calculations unless the submersible is extremely close to its target.
Realizing these limitations, the German submersibles are equipped with small torpedoes,
which are generally fired at ranges not exceeding eight hundred
(05:55):
to two thousand yards. The necessity of approaching the targets
so closely is of course a tremendous handicap in the
general operation of these boats. In view of these facts,
it is not surprising that the submersible should not have
been able to sweep the capital ship from the seas,
as was predicted by certain experts before the war. Admiral
(06:19):
Suscipient Bridge regards the functions of defense by a navy
as divisible into three main classifications. He says, the above
mentioned three divisions are called in common speech coast defense,
colonial defense, and defense of commerce. From this classification we
(06:40):
are given a hint as to what a sailor means
by naval supremacy, freedom of the seas, and other terms
so misused that today they mean nothing. Coast defense means
defense against invasion. Colonial defense means the safeguarding of distant
possess against enemy forces. The defense of commerce means such
(07:05):
supremacy on the seas as will ensure absolute safety of
the mercantile marine from enemy commerce destroyers. Today every great
nation is waging a trade war. The industrial competition of
peace is as keen as the competition of war. All
the great powers realized years ago that to gain and
(07:28):
keep their place in the sun, it was necessary for
them to construct navies that would insure to them a
certain control of the seas for the protection of their commerce.
In this way began the abnormal naval construction, in which
the powers have vied with one another for supremacy. A
simple way of looking at the question what constitutes the
(07:51):
power of a fleet is to consider the warship as
merely a floating gun platform. Even though this floating platform
is the most complex piece of mechanism that was ever
contrived by man, nevertheless, its general function is simple. The
war has given us enough experience to convince us that
(08:12):
the backbone of a navy is, after all, the heavily
armoured ship of moderately high speed carrying a very heavy armament.
This floating gun platform is the structure best fitted to
carry large guns into battle and to withstand the terrific
punishment of the enemy's fire. The battleship is today, notwithstanding
(08:35):
the development of other types, Queen of the seas. It
is therefore not difficult to estimate the relative power of
the fleets of different nations. In fact, a purely engineering
estimate of this kind can be made and the respective
ranks of the world's naval powers ascertained. Germany has shown
(08:55):
all through the war that she thoroughly appreciated the British
naval supremacy. Her fleet has ventured little more than sporadic
operations from the well fortified bases beyond Heligoland. It was
probably the pressure of public opinion, and not the expectation
that she would achieve anything of military advantage, that forced
(09:16):
her to send her high sea fleet into conflict with
the British squadrons off Jutland. If one should examine the
course of this battle, which has been represented by lines
graphically showing the paths of the British and German fleets,
one could easily see how the British imposed their will
upon the Germans in every turn that these lines make.
(09:38):
It reminds one very much of the herding of sheep,
for the German fleet was literally herded on May thirty first,
nineteen sixteen, from five thirty six in the afternoon until
nine o'clock that night. Admiral von Cheer, however, fought the
only action which was possible for him to fight. It
(09:59):
was a losing action, and one which he knew from
a purely mathematical consideration, could not be successful. Through the
very definiteness of this understanding of what constitutes naval strength,
Great Britain's navy until recently has remained a great potential force,
becoming dynamic for only a few hours at Jutland, after
(10:22):
which it returned to that mysterious northern base. Whence it
seems to dominate the seas. Because of the potentiality of
these hidden warships. Thousands of vessels have traversed the ocean,
freighted with countless tons of cargoes and millions of men
for the Allies. Even at that psychological moment when the
(10:43):
first hundred thousand were being transported to France, Germany refrained
from a naval attack which might have turned the whole
land campaign in her favor. Today, however, the world is
awakening to a new idea of sea power, to a
new conception that will have a far reaching influence on
(11:05):
the future development of naval machinery. Si Ciprian Bridge has
stated that one of the functions of a fleet is
the defense of commerce. There is no more important function
for a fleet than this. A nation may be subjugated
by direct invasion, or it may be isolated from the
(11:26):
world by blockade. If the blockade be sufficiently long and
effectively maintained, it will ruin the nation as effectually as
direct invasion. Thus, in the maintenance of a nation's merchant
marine on the high seas, its navy exercises one of
(11:46):
its most vital functions. There can therefore, be no naval
supremacy for a nation unless its commerce is assured of
immunity from considerable losses the through the attack of its enemy.
It is idle for us to speak of our naval
supremacy over Germany when our navies are failing in one
(12:09):
of their most important functions, and when our commerce is
suffering such serious losses, the persons best qualified to judge
are those who are most anxious regarding the present losses
in mercantile tonnage. While it has been shown that the
submersible of to day as a fighting machine is considerably
(12:31):
limited and in no sense endangers the existence of the
capital ship, nevertheless, in the new huge submersible, it seems
that the ideal commerce destroyer has been found. This vessel
possesses the necessary cruising radius to operate over sufficient distances
to control important routes. It makes a surface speed great
(12:53):
enough to run down cargo steamers, and has a superstructure
to mount guns of considerable power up to six inch.
It embodies almost all the qualifications of the light surface cruiser,
with the additional tremendous advantage of being able to hide
by submergons. To be completely successful, it must operate in
(13:16):
flotillas of hundreds in waters that are opaque to aerial observation.
Germany has but a limited number of these submersibles, otherwise
she would be able to crush the Allied commerce. The
ideal submersible commerce raidar should be a vessel of such
(13:36):
displacement that she could carry a sufficient number of large
guns in her superstructure to enable her to fight off
the attack of surface destroyers and the smaller patrol craft.
She should be capable of cruising over a large radius
at high speed, both on the surface and submerged. The
super submersible flotillas should comprise fifty or sixty of these units.
(14:01):
The attack on the trade route should be made by
a number of flotillas operating at different points at unexpected times.
To day, Germany has concentrated her submarine more, particularly in
the constricted waters about England. It is here that the
shipping is most congested, and therefore the harvest is richest.
(14:23):
But it is also easier to protect the trade routes
over these limited areas of water by patrols, nets, et cetera,
than it would be to protect the entire trans oceanic
length of the steamship lanes. If the submersible were capable
of dealing directly with the destroyer in gun fighting, a
tremendous revolution would take place in the tactics of submarine swatting.
(14:48):
Then it would be difficult to see how the submersible
could be dealt with improvement in motive machinery is the
vital necessity in the development of the submersible. The next
few years may see unexpected strides taken in this direction.
A great deal will also be accomplished in perfecting methods
(15:08):
of receiving sounds under water, particularly in relation to ascertaining
the direction of these sounds. When this is done, it
will be possible for the submersible commander to tell a
great deal about the positions of the vessels above him,
and thus his artificial ears will compensate to a great
extent for his blindness. By the addition of a greater
(15:31):
number of torpedo tubes and the improvement of their centralized
control in the hand of the commander at the periscope,
along lines which we are now developing, it will be
possible for the submersible to achieve a greater effectiveness in
its torpedo fire. Probably torpedoes will then be used only
against the more important enemy units such as battleships, cruisers
(15:55):
and the like. To be certain of striking these valuable
targets would be worth expending a number of torpedoes in
salvol fire. Whether the German U boat campaign succeeds or
not will be largely a question of the number of
submersibles that the Central Powers can put into service, and
(16:16):
to what extent the submersible will be developed. During the
present war, German submarines have sunk over seven million, two
hundred and fifty thousand tons of the Allied shipping. In
December nineteen sixteen, it was stated in the British Parliament
(16:37):
that the merchant marine of Great Britain had at that
time over twenty million tons. Within the first three months
of the unrestricted submarine warfare, one million, one hundred thousand
tons of British shipping went to the bottom. At this rate,
(16:57):
England would lose twenty five percent of her merchant marine
per annum. It is for this reason that the attention
of the entire world is concentrated upon the vital problem
of the submarine menace on land. The Central Powers are
still holding their ground, but there is a continuous increase
(17:18):
of the forces of the Allies, which should lead finally
to such a preponderance of power as will overwhelm the
forces opposed to them. The Allied armies, however, depend for
their sustenance and supplies upon the freedom of the seas.
The trade roots of the world constitute the arteries which
(17:40):
feed the muscles of these armies. Germany is endeavoring to
cut these arteries by the submarine. Should she even appreciably
limit the supplies that cross the ocean to the Allies,
she will bring about a condition that will make it
impossible to augment their armies. In this way, there will
(18:01):
inevitably be a deadlock, which, from the German standpoint, would
be a highly desirable consummation. End of the first part
of the introductory essay by John Hayes Hammond Junior
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