Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/276

The leading operations of the week have been confined to the Dardanelles. Events there have already proved—contrary to the freely expressed opinions of all other experts—the immense superiority of forts over ships. The people (like myself) who really know had of course anticipated this, though it may be necessary for me to explain what I mean in a manner to be "understanded of the people." It is true that at the first sight the fleet appears to be getting the best of it. But it must be borne in mind that (as I have so often had to point out in these Notes) war is not primarily a matter of ships or guns or men, but of psychology. I take off my hat to that word—it has been a good friend to me.

It must be remembered, and it cannot be too insistently repeated, that psychologically almost every victory is a defeat. Unfortunately that is a doctrine that is very comforting to the losing side, but there is no use blinking the fact. The difficulty has always been to explain why. When the Monmouth and the Good Hope went to their doom off the South Pacific Coast I said at the time (as you will remember) that this was really—if you turn it upside down and inside out according to the best psychological methods—a victory for our fleet, just as the enemy's apparent defeat in the Bight of Heligoland was a moral triumph for Tirpitz. I need not, perhaps, go into all that now, for it is pretty complicated, nor into my other brilliant thesis, that the more food Germany gets the sooner the war will end. But I may say that as surely as we are only now recovering from our crushing reverses at Waterloo and Trafalgar, the moment when we occupy Constantinople will be a fit occasion for national humiliation.

Why should these things be? I know it is a little difficult. On land it is a simple thing to say that when a division has been exterminated it has suffered a defeat. But I have never been able to discover about land operations that margin of psychology which has so curious a bearing on naval operations. Nautically speaking, the effect of Sea Power is always mysterious. The best chess players suffer from headache when they try to work it out. Even then they rarely get an inkling. But it is immense; its results are always indirect, and it generally works backwards. The public cannot envisage that a destroyer aimlessly tossing on the surface of the sea, seemingly idle, miles and miles from anywhere in particular, may at that very moment be altering for good and all the history of the world. Napoleon never grasped that fact, possibly because destroyers were unknown in his day. The public blindly insists upon the significance of the mere fighting at sea. It has never been able to grasp that gunnery is of secondary importance, speed is only relative, torpedoes are only potentially effective. The only true way in which a fleet can make its power felt is by just moving about on the horizon, highly charged with psychology. Battles are mere unavoidable excrescences, and a ship at the bottom of the North Sea may in its negative capacity be unostentatiously exercising a terrific force upon the enemy. Things are not what they seem, and there is no use pretending that they are.

(It will be understood that one of my main ideas in writing in this way is to avoid the Censor. He never interferes with my work.)

All these concise facts have of course a direct bearing on the duration of the War. Let us get away from all doctrinaire conclusions; let us reverse all assumptions. If we can make it our main object to see that Germany gets all the food she can possibly use, the British Navy—always provided that it does not win a victory in the meantime—can conclude the War in six months.

To return to the Dardanelles. There is one more point that calls for special mention. My readers should note that the "Narrows" are situated at the widest parts of the Straits.

J. B. (Pimlico).—(1) Your scheme of throwing an adhesive harpoon at the periscope is a novel idea to me. I shall have to consider it. (2) The idea is perfect in theory, but the chances of a merchant vessel being attacked by a submarine are not more than one in a thousand, whereas the cost of your apparatus would be quite one in a hundred, and the size of it about one in ten, while the colour and shape of it would have to be one in five. It seems hardly worth while.

Heartless Gamin. "Don't go jest yet, Elf. I want ter 'ear 'im sit down on 'is spur."

To the announcement of a benefit performance at the Capetown Opera House, The Cape Times appends the following:—

"Note.—With reference to the Governor-General's Fun, to which the whole of the nett profit will be devoted..."

We should be the last to grudge Lord Buxton a little light recreation.