SUBMARINE WARFARE
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
[Illustration:
“DAVID AND GOLIATH.”
_The Russian Battleship “Retvisan” (12,700 tons) and the U.S.
Submarine “Holland” (75 tons)._
]
SUBMARINE WARFARE
PAST, 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. ✜ ✜ ✜ ✜ ✜
[Illustration]
WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
48, LEICESTER SQUARE
1902
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
CONTENTS
PART I.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PLACE OF THE SUBMARINE IN WARFARE 6
CHAPTER III.
THE MORALITY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE 27
CHAPTER IV.
THE MECHANISM OF THE SUBMARINE AND SUBMARINES OF THE FUTURE 64
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMANCE OF UNDER-WATER WARFARE 102
CHAPTER VI.
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF UNDER-WATER WARFARE 111
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION 120
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ANTIDOTE TO SUBMARINES 136
PART II.
CHAPTER IX.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE 149
CHAPTER X.
EARLY EFFORTS IN SUBMARINE NAVIGATION 157
CHAPTER XI.
DAVID BUSHNELL 179
CHAPTER XII.
FULTON’S SUBMARINE BOATS 190
CHAPTER XIII.
UNDER-WATER CRAFT IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 201
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO 214
CHAPTER XV.
THE NORDENFELT SUBMARINES 233
PART III.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I. THE BRITISH SUBMARINES 249
APPENDIX II. THE AMERICAN SUBMARINES 261
APPENDIX III. THE FRENCH SUBMARINES 273
APPENDIX IV. SUBMARINES OLD AND NEW 311
APPENDIX V. THE LAKE SUBMARINES 319
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE 331
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“DAVID AND GOLIATH” _Frontispiece_
MODEL OF FIRST BRITISH SUBMARINE _Title-page_
THE FIRST BRITISH SUBMARINE 7
“SHARK” ON THE STOCKS 11
LAUNCH OF THE “SHARK” 17
THE “FULTON” 23
EMERGING TO TAKE BEARINGS 47
BENEATH THE WAVES 53
INTERIOR OF FIRST BRITISH SUBMARINES 65
SUBMARINE OF A. CONSTANTIN 70
“GOUBET II.” 71
M. GOUBET GOING UNDER WATER 72
PROFESSOR TUCK’S SUBMARINE 75
INSIDE THE “GOUBET” 86
GASOLINE ENGINES OF FIRST BRITISH SUBMARINES 87
ARMAMENT AND PERISCOPE OF THE “GOUBET” 91
THE “GOUBET” OUT OF WATER 110
INTERIOR OF A BRITISH SUBMARINE 111
THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION 123
EXIT SUBMARINE (AN ORIGINAL SKETCH BY A. H. BURGOYNE) 143
THE EARLIEST PICTURE OF A SUBMARINE 159
M. BAUER’S “DIABLE MARIN” 167
M. APOSTOLOFF’S PROPOSED SUBMARINE (BY A. H. BURGOYNE) 173
THE “INTELLIGENT WHALE” 175
THE “AQUAPEDE” 179
BUSHNELL’S SUBMARINE 183
BUSHNELL’S SUBMARINE 188
THE “NAUTILUS” 193
THE “DAVID” 207
THE SINKING OF THE “HOUSATONIC” 210
THE “SPUTYEN DUYVIL” 213
INTERIOR OF THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO 221
THE FIRING OF A TORPEDO 227
A BRITISH DESTROYER 232
“NORDENFELT II.” RUNNING AWASH 237
“NORDENFELT II.” AT CONSTANTINOPLE 242
MR. HOLLAND’S EARLIEST SUBMARINE 262
BOW VIEW OF THE “HOLLAND” 265
STERN VIEW OF THE “HOLLAND” 271
“GYMNOTE” 285
“GUSTAVE ZÉDÉ” 289
“NARVAL” 303
“NARVAL” ON SURFACE 305
“NARVAL” AWASH 307
“PERAL” 315
“ARGONAUT” IN DRY DOCK 321
“ARGONAUT” AWASH 325
“ARGONAUT” ON THE SEA BOTTOM 329
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.”