The Evolution of the Submarine and Submarine Mine
_Thomas._ They write here one Corneilius'[44] son
Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel
To swim the Haven at Dunkirk and sink all
The shipping there.
_Pennyboy._ But how is't done?
_Cymbal._ I'll show you, Sir.
It's an automa, runs under water
With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail
Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles
Betwixt the costs[45] of a ship and sinks it straight.
_Pennyboy._ A most brave device
To murder their flat bottoms!
_The Staple of News._ BEN JONSON.
"PITT", said the famous Admiral Lord St. Vincent, in the course of an
interview with the American inventor Fulton, "is the greatest fool that
ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the
seas did not want, and which, if successful, would deprive them of it."
Truer words were never spoken. Fulton had invented floating mines or
torpedoes--"infernals" as they were then called--and even an ingenious
form of submarine boat. The French, to whom he first offered them, to
their honour be it spoken, would have nothing to do with them even
though hard put to it to hold their own against the British fleet.
Admiral Decrès reported that Fulton's inventions were "fit only for
Algerines and pirates". The Maritime Prefect at Brest refused to allow
him to attack an English frigate off the coast with his submarine,
"because this type of warfare carries with it the objection that those
who undertake it and those against whom it is made will all be lost.
This cannot be called a gallant death", he said. Finally, Admiral
Pléville le Pelly, the Minister of War, stated that it appeared to him
to be "impossible to serve a Commission for Belligerency to men who
employ such a method of destroying the fleet of an enemy".
It is a sad reflection that after a century of much-boasted "advance in
civilization", we none of us appear to have any chivalric scruples of
this kind. But, in spite of our tremendous ascendancy at sea,
Pitt--being a politician and not a naval officer--was, as St. Vincent
said, "fool" enough to listen to Fulton when, repulsed from France, he
took the name of Francis and brought his schemes over to this country.
Experiments were made in the Downs, and Lieutenant Robinson of the Royal
Marines carried out a demonstration before Pitt with some of Fulton's
torpedoes, or "carcasses" as they were called, by blowing up a brig
anchored off Walmer Castle.
The famous Sir Sydney Smith was an aider and abettor of Fulton, though a
naval officer, but his attitude may have been due to a desire to stand
well with Mr. Pitt rather than to a conviction that the adoption of his
proposed methods of warfare would be of real service to the navy. What
doubtless attracted both men was the hope of destroying the French
invasion flotillas at Boulogne and in the Basque Roads, which our fleet
could not get at. Attempts were made, but ended in dismal failures. The
public generally was dead against the employment of what were regarded
as dastardly and underhand apparatus, and so were most naval officers.
An officer, in a diary made at the time, describes[46] "six copper
submarine carcasses, some to hold 540 pounds of powder and others 405
pounds" that were sent on board his ship for the purpose of being
employed against the enemy's vessels. He says further that "Johnstone
the smuggler laid one down near the gates of the new harbour before
Flushing surrendered, but we never heard of any damage being done by it.
As for our part we never tried them--indeed, _our Admiral said it was
not a fair proceeding_."
The idea of attacking an enemy under water was, however, by no means a
novel one. Attempts in this direction have been made almost from time
immemorial. Swimming under water and diving seem to have been often
resorted to in order to cut ships' cables, and even for the purpose of
boring holes in their bottoms; but the latter would appear to be rather
an impossible performance.[47] The Romans are said to have had a corps
or society of divers known as _Urinatores_. Then there are legends of
diving-apparatus employed by Alexander the Great, who himself is
frequently depicted in mediæval manuscripts being lowered to the bottom
of the sea in a glass barrel.
In manuscripts and woodcuts of the Middle Ages there are to be found
several pictures representing men in a species of diver's costume,
supposed to have been made of leather, with air-tubes leading to the
surface of the water, where they are buoyed by bladders. Some, instead
of tubes, are provided with flasks of air. Personally I should doubt
whether such dresses ever had any actual existence. I fancy they are
originally derived from a species of swimming-jacket or life-belt which
is depicted in a fourteenth-century manuscript in the Imperial
Historical Museum at Vienna.[48]
[Illustration: Diver Salving a Gun
(_From a print of 1613_)]
A comparison between the two sketches over page will, I think, go far to
prove me right, since the so-called "Diver's Helmet" is taken from
Vegetius' _De Re Militari_, not published before 1511. The earliest
picture of a diving-helmet of this kind I have been able to find is in a
German work published in 1500: both are therefore of a later date than
the "Swimming Jacket". This "jacket" was intended to be worn as follows:
The lower rectangular part was to be placed at the back, the oval
portion to the front of the body. When the swimmer wished to remain at
the surface he inflated his jacket by means of the tube; when he
required to dive out of sight he would let the air out. Look at the
position of the buckles and straps in the two drawings and you will see
that there is a strong presumption that the later artist deliberately
made the alteration in order to support his bogus picture of a
diving-_helmet_.
[Illustration: Swimming Jacket
(from a fourteenth-century MS.)
Diver's Helmet from Vegetius
(sixteenth century)
Observe the close similarity between these two nominally very different
articles. The shape of the earlier drawing has suggested a helmet to the
illustrator of _De Re Militari_ by Vegetius, and he has therefore done
away with two straps and buckles and altered the positions of the other
two. It is not clear how they are to be fastened together; but the use
of the straps and buckles on the jacket is apparent.]
The earliest mention of a submarine boat occurs in "Salman[49] and
Morolf", a German poem of 1190. This was, of course, an imaginary one,
like the famous _Nautilus_ in Jules Verne's _20,000 Leagues under the
Sea_; but in the days of "good Queen Bess" one William Bourne, a naval
gunner, published a detailed description of how to make "a shippe or
boate that may goe under the water unto the bottome, and so to come up
againe at your pleasure". The "device", as he calls it, had some quite
practical points.[50]
In the following reign a Dutchman, Corneilius Van Drebbel by name, seems
actually to have built a submarine vessel, which is stated to have gone
under water from Westminster to Greenwich, and with which James I was so
pleased that he not only had a duplicate one built, sending it as a
present to the Tsar of Russia, but so far overcame his constitutional
timidity as to adventure his precious and royal person in a submarine
trip in the Dutchman's invention. Then followed many suggestions for
submarines, but between Van Drebbel's boat in 1620 and Fulton's in 1800
probably not more than half a dozen were actually constructed.
Van Drebbel was probably responsible for the "water mines, water
petards, forged cases to be shot with fireworks, and _boates to goe
under water_" which Buckingham took with his fleet on the ill-managed
and inglorious expedition to La Rochelle in 1626. The water-petards or
floating mines were of a very feeble description. The following is a
French contemporary account of what they were like.
"The composition of these petards was of Lattin (i.e. Brass) filled with
powder, laid upon certain pieces of timber, crosse which there was a
spring, which touching any vessel would flie off and give fire to the
petards, but only one took effect, which did no great hurt, only cast
water into the ship, and that was all, the rest being taken by the
King's boats."
About 1771 David Bushnell, a native of Maine, built a curious little
submarine not unlike a walnut in shape, if you imagine a walnut floating
with the point downwards. It was propelled by a hand-turned screw and
carried a case of powder provided with a clockwork apparatus for
exploding it at the required moment. There was an ingenious arrangement
for screwing this mine to the bottom of a ship, and by its means the
navigator of Bushnell's submarine very nearly succeeded in blowing up
H.M.S. _Eagle_ when lying in the Hudson River in charge of a convoy of
transports bringing troops for the campaign against the revolted
American colonists. Other attempts were made by the Americans to blow up
our men-of-war in the course of the war, but without success. In the war
with the United States (1812-14) the Americans again attacked our ships
in a similar manner. The _Ramillies_ in particular seems to have been
singled out for these attempts. She was attacked both by a submarine
boat and by various explosive contrivances. The British retaliated by
embarking in her 100 American prisoners and notifying their presence on
board to the United States Government. They also bombarded the town of
Stonington for being "conspicuous in preparing and harbouring
torpedoes".
Between this time and the latter portion of the century innumerable
submarine boats were designed and a considerable number of experimental
ones actually built. A few of them promised very well, though most were
failures, the principal reason of their non-success being the want of a
suitable means of propulsion. Every conceivable method was attempted,
but it was not till the advent of the internal-combustion engine that
the submarine became a really practical proposition. Space forbids
mention of even a tithe of these inventions, but among the most notable
was that invented by the German Bauer, between 1850 and 1860, when he
made a futile attempt to blow up a Danish man-of-war. Then there were
the _Davids_, used by the Confederates in the Civil War in America.
Most of these drowned their crews. One, however, succeeded in torpedoing
the Federal sloop _Housatonic_, but accompanied her to "Davy Jones's
locker". A Swede, Mr. Nordenfeldt, built about half a dozen submarines
between 1880 and 1890, one for this country, one--his first experimental
one--which was eventually purchased by Greece, two for the Turkish
Government, and, lastly, two or three for the German Admiralty. All of
these may be regarded as experimental craft, but they are noteworthy as
being the first submarines to be equipped with Whitehead torpedoes, and
certainly marked a step forward in the science of underwater navigation.
The French navy was the first to tackle the problem of submarine
navigation with any real enthusiasm. French inventors had been
responsible for a very large proportion of the designs for submarines,
which had continually increased in numbers as the nineteenth century
progressed. After extensive experiments with the _Gymnote_ (launched
1888), _Gustave Zèdé_ (1893), and _Morse_ (1899), France set about the
construction of a regular submarine flotilla of considerable size,
launching nearly thirty boats between 1900 and 1903. Other Powers,
except perhaps Russia, held back from the new departure, and it is not
impossible that it would have been politic for the British Government to
have maintained that attitude, in accordance with the views of Lord St.
Vincent, and to have announced that it would refuse to recognize the
crews of submarines as legitimate belligerents. To have done this would
not have been to enunciate any new theory, for from time immemorial this
was the attitude adopted by all navies towards the crews of fire-ships,
and that it was later on accepted to apply to those who made use of
torpedoes and floating mines is evident by the following quotation from
the naval officer's diary which has already been referred to.
He states that on the occasion of the attack on the French ships in the
Basque Roads by Lord Cochrane, when _explosion-ships_ as well as
fire-ships were used, volunteers were called for to take them in, and
"no one was compelled to go, as the enemy by the laws of war can put
anyone to death who is taken belonging to a fire-ship". Had we refrained
from following the example of the French most probably the Germans would
have done so also, first because the French submarines sustained many
accidents and did not appear very likely, to experts such as the German
naval officers, to become a very valuable arm; and, secondly, because in
naval matters they have always tried to follow our lead. But the
newspaper "experts" and other laymen in this country to whom the idea of
submarine navigation was most captivating as something mysterious, new,
and strange, with great potentialities, not only for warfare but for
"copy", clamoured in the Press for submarines. The Admiralty eventually
ordered four "Holland" boats for "experimental purposes".
John P. Holland was an American inventor, and his first boat, built in
1875, "was a tiny affair with just enough room in her for one man to sit
down amidships and work the pedals that turned the propeller. It was
only 16 feet long, 2 feet deep, and 20 inches wide, and it is probably
the smallest submarine ever constructed. The 'crew' had to wear a
diving-dress, and drew air from reservoirs at either end of the vessel.
Five little torpedoes were carried, which could be put out through the
dome and fired from a distance by electricity."[51] Between this time
and 1902 Holland was responsible for six more submarines and the design
for another which was never built. The earlier ones were small, but the
last two or three of considerable size.
The _Holland VIII_ deserves some description, as she may be regarded as
the prototype of the British earlier submarine vessels from which nearly
all of our larger and later types have been evolved. "She was a
porpoise-like vessel 65 feet long, nearly 11 feet in diameter, and of 75
tons displacement. Her single propeller was driven by a gas-engine when
at the surface and by an electric motor when below, both being placed on
the same shaft and connected or disconnected as required. She carried a
torpedo-tube, a tube for throwing aerial torpedoes, and a submarine gun,
the latter being placed aft and inclined upwards, as was the aerial
torpedo-tube forward".[52] This vessel, after very considerable
alterations had been made in her, was re-named the _Holland IX_ and
purchased for the United States navy.
[Illustration: A FLEET OF SUBMARINES IN PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR
Observe the _Victory_ in the background. If Nelson were standing on the
poop with his glass, what would he think and say of these "microbes of
the sea"?]
The First Lord of the Admiralty, in reply to a question asked in the
House of Parliament in 1900, had replied "that the Admiralty had _not_
designed a submarine boat, and did not propose to design one, because
such a boat would be the weapon of an inferior power". Whether he was
right or wrong, the statement was a straightforward and an
understandable one. Possibly it struck the First Lord as being too
straightforward for a politician, so he at once began to "hedge", and
qualified what he had said by adding: "But if it could be produced as a
working article, the Power which possessed such an article would no
longer be an inferior but a superior Power". It is hard to reconcile the
two statements; for if a submarine was an unworkable proposition it
would be no good to any Power, strong or weak.
However, a couple of years later, as I have already mentioned, the
Admiralty determined to acquire a few submarine boats, nominally with
the view of finding out how their use by an enemy could be rendered
abortive. First one and then four other practically similar ones, to be
built on Holland's designs, were ordered from Vickers of
Barrow-in-Furness. Their displacement--submerged--was 120 tons. It must
be remembered that a submarine's surface displacement is always less
than when she has filled her tanks to sink her deeper in the water. They
were 63 feet 4 inches long and 11 feet 9 inches wide at their greatest
beam; steamed from 8 to 10 knots above and 5 to 7 knots below water,
carried a crew of seven men, and had a single torpedo-tube. Many
experiments were carried out with these little vessels, the net result
being that series after series of larger and larger submarines were
constructed, each batch an improvement on the preceding one. Thus we
had, after the first five "Hollands", the A, B, C, D, and E classes, and
are now turning out the "F" class. The description of our latest
submarines must be postponed till the chapter dealing with the
fighting-ships of to-day; but it may be noted that up to 1914 all had
been improved "Hollands". That is to say, that while some other naval
powers, notably Germany, were building their submarines more and more on
the lines of surface vessels with flat tops or decks, we remained
faithful to the "porpoise" or "fat cigar" type, only modifying them by
increasing their size and length, and by adding to the length of the
narrow superstructure, which formed a deck and eventually a cut-water
for use at the surface, but which was independent of the actual
watertight hull or body of the vessel, since the water was allowed free
access below the platform.
* * * * *
It is time now to give some description of the evolution of that
terrible instrument of destruction, the Submarine Mine, under which head
may be included both those that are placed below water and those that
float or drift at the surface. The utilization of explosives for the
attack of shipping has been attempted by belligerents for centuries, but
I am not aware that they have ever been employed against peaceful
traders and fishermen before the Great War. The Germans may attempt to
excuse themselves by alleging that some merchantmen carry guns for
defence; but that has been the universal practice for centuries, and no
merchantmen were more heavily armed than the old trading-ships of the
Hansa League. Such ships were entirely different from the privateers,
provided with Letters of Marque which entitled them to attack and
capture enemy vessels if they could. On principles of self-defence,
merchantmen were always entitled to beat off an attack if they could,
and such action exposed other merchantmen to no reprisals. It is only of
late years, when civilization was supposed to be so far advanced as to
render the sinking of merchantmen "on their lawful occasions" an
impossibility, that they ceased to carry guns.
Probably the first inventor of a floating mine--in the shape of an
explosion-ship, as distinguished from a fire-ship--was an Italian
engineer, who in contemporary accounts is variously referred to as
"Gianibelli", "Gedevilo", "Genebelli", "Gienily", "Jenabel", and
"Innibel", who, by means of a couple of small vessels filled with
powder, which was built over with tons of bricks, gravestones,
millstones, and "everything heavy, hooked, and sharp which 'this wicked
witty man thought most damageable'", blew to absolute "smithereens" the
great bridge which the Duke of Parma had built across the Scheldt in
order to complete the blockade of Antwerp in 1585. It is rather
interesting to note in passing that Gianibelli seems to have spent some
time in this country. He had a good deal to do with the building of
Tilbury Fort, and brought forward extended proposals for the reopening
of Rye Harbour, which had become silted up. This he does not seem to
have effected satisfactorily, and payment of £821, 9_s._, which he
demanded of the Mayor and jurats of that famous town, was refused. He
may have had something to do with the preparation of the fire-ships sent
against the Spanish Armada in Calais Roads. At any rate the Spaniards on
board thought so, for they, considering them "to be of those kind of
dreadful Powder-Ships, which that famous Enginier Frederick Innibel had
devised not long before in the River of Skeld", cried "the Fire
Antwerp", cut their cables, and put to sea in the confusion that proved
their ruin.
We have already mentioned the attempts made by the British at La
Rochelle with floating mines and devices of that kind, and, coming to
the time of William III, we find "Honest Benbow" employing an
explosion-ship, evidently modelled on those of Gianibelli, against the
town of St. Malo. It did a lot of damage and unroofed a great number of
houses, but effected nothing of any military value. One Meesters, a
Dutchman, was the leading spirit in this kind of warfare. Whether he was
any connection of Van Drebbel and Dr. Kuffler I cannot say, but he
induced the Government to use his explosion-ships, or "machines" as they
were termed, probably with the view of emulating these two nautical Guy
Fawkeses who had succeeded in getting good incomes and considerable sums
of money out of the British Government for their ideas and inventions,
although, as far as can be ascertained, none of them had proved of the
slightest value or efficiency. Explosion-ships or machines became for a
time recognized units in the British navy, and were employed against
Dunkirk, Dieppe, and various French ports without much effect. "At the
former, the machine-ships, as they are called, did nothing but blow up
themselves, and the credit of their inventor, as some say; but he being
come hither, complains he was not seconded with ships as he ought to
have been."[53] Very possibly he was not, for this class of warfare did
not meet with much appreciation in the Royal Navy. On the other hand,
the naval commanders complained that Mr. Meesters "had not his
machine-ships in readiness when they had a fair opportunity of wind and
weather to attack the forts at Dunkirk, and that he had trifled all the
time and put the Government to great expense only to enrich himself,
when the whole matter was impracticable". It is not surprising,
therefore, that we hear no more of explosion-ships for a very long
time.[54] The attempts made against the British ships by the Americans,
and those we ourselves carried out with indifferent success against the
French Invasion flotillas, have been already referred to. Though this
form of attack was not again employed by the navy for many years, the
following description in Müller's _Elements of the Science of War_
(1811) shows that something like a floating mine was used in armies for
the destruction of bridges. It consisted of a chest fitted with a rudder
and filled with powder, and fired by means of two gun-locks, which were
set in action by a stick protruding from the water and attached to their
triggers.
[Illustration: Submarine Mine laid by the Russians in the Crimean War
Made of staves about 3 in. thick, and containing an inner case filled
with flue gunpowder.]
In 1844 some attention was attracted to an alleged invention of a
Captain Warner for blowing up ships. The _John of Gaunt_, a
sailing-ship, was taken in tow by a steamer and blown up off Brighton in
the presence of an immense crowd of spectators; but as the inventor
wanted the Admiralty to pay him £400,000 for it before he showed them
what it was like, his secret naturally remained a secret. It would seem
to have been merely a mine floating just beneath the surface of the
water, with some arrangement to explode it on contact. The Crimean War
gave us some little experience of underwater mines, for several were
employed by the Russians in the Baltic and the Black Sea. They were
feeble affairs, and did no damage worth mentioning. One was fished up
and exploded on board one of our ships, but no one was seriously hurt.
Some were made of copper, others of wood fastened together like the
staves of a barrel. But the rumour of these mines, which were stated to
contain 700 pounds of powder and to explode either on contact or by what
was then called a "galvanic current"--that is to say, electricity--caused
the allied French and British fleets in the Baltic to exercise great
care in their movements. As at the present day, a system of trawling for
them was instituted, and no less than fifty were picked up off Cronstadt
in ten days.
[Illustration: Russian Mine laid in the Baltic in the Crimean War
A B, Close-fitting copper cases containing powder. C, Leather tube
containing electric wire. D, Mooring weight. E, Small white wooden ball
showing position of mine. F, Openings to load mine. G, Iron framework
supporting mine. K, Iron ring-part of frame. L, Mooring rope.]
"The angling for this dangerous kind of prey was thus managed: two boats
took between them a long rope, which was sunk by heavy weights to a
depth of ten or twelve feet, and held suspended at that depth by empty
casks as floats; the boats then separated as far as the rope would
allow, and rowed onwards at right angles to the length of the rope; it
was a species of trawl fishing in which the agitation of the floats
showed that a prey had been caught, which prey was then hauled up
carefully."[55] Mines were also fished up off Kertch and other Black Sea
ports, showing that the Russians had gone in extensively for submarine
defence, and only failed in causing us serious loss on account of the
primitive character of the mines and the precautions which we took
against them. On our part we had some idea of using a so-called
submarine invented by Mr. Scott Russell, a noted engineer; but it seems
to have been merely an elongated diving-bell which could not carry out a
satisfactory trial. Two attempts were made by Boatswain John Shepherd,
R.N., to blow up Russian ships in the harbour of Sebastopol, but
apparently without success. He went in alone in a punt, taking with him
some kind of an explosive apparatus, and for his "bold and gallantly
executed" exploits he received the Victoria Cross.
[Illustration: A, Wires to catch side of ship. B, Lead weight. C, Jars
of Gunpowder. D, Case with side broken away to show jars. E, Raft.]
[Illustration: A, Can buoy containing powder. B, Box containing lighted
match and punk below. C, Lid or slide between match and punk. D, String
for pulling out slide, to allow match to ignite punk.
VARIOUS CHINESE FLOATING MINES USED AGAINST H.M.S. _ENCOUNTER_]
At the end of the 'fifties we were engaged in war with China for a
considerable period, and the wily Celestials tried all sorts of dodges
to blow up our ships by means of floating mines, or "infernal machines"
as they were still called. They were ingenious apparatus, some of them.
The following extracts from a letter written by an officer on board the
_Encounter_, off Canton, give a good idea of the means employed. Three
attempts were made to blow her up.
[Illustration: Chinese Floating Mine
One of two, tied together, with which an attempt was made to blow up
H.M.S. _Encounter_.]
"The first was a sampan", he writes, "towed by a canoe on 24th December,
1856, and captured close under the bow by our second gig rowing guard.
The fuse was lighted in the bamboo tubes at the side. The second attempt
was on the morning of 5th January, 1857, about 2.30. Two rafts, moored
together, with about 20 fathom of line buoyed up, with hooks to catch
cables or anything else, and, on the wires touching the ship's side, to
break by the little lead weight the lighted fuse on the top of the
bamboo, which communicated with the powder. These were lighted and all
ready, but fortunately observed by our guard-boat and towed clear of
ship. Being only a raft it was just awash, and in each caisson at least
17 cwt. of gunpowder in open tubs and jars. The raft itself was made of
6-inch plank well bound together, and caulked. The third attempt was on
the morning of the 7th January, 1857, at 4.30. A pair of vessels in the
shape of a can-buoy with a flag on the top, about 8 inches long; the
fuse, with a tin box containing punk[56] over the fuse, then a cover
with lighted match on top; this had a string to it, which, when pulled,
drew out the centre partition and communicated the fire to the punk, to
allow the fellows who swam off with them towards the ship to make their
escape; but they got frightened at some stir with the boats, and by
accident one went off with a fearful explosion on the starboard bow,
about 60 yards, and the other, being deserted, floated down on our
booms. One of the men was caught and brought on board here, and had his
brains blown out at the port gangway. The buoy-shaped vessel was capable
of holding about 10 cwt. of gunpowder." The _Encounter_ was afterwards
attacked by two floating mines coupled together by a length of rope,
each containing half a ton of powder. They were towed by a Chinaman in a
small boat, who was shot by the look-outs and the mines destroyed. The
_Niger_, however, had a small junk exploded alongside her which had, on
the top of the powder in her hold, a cargo of the most evil-smelling
filth that could be found even in a Chinese city. No damage was done to
her hull, but she was absolutely smothered with this poisonous muck,
and for years afterwards the crew of the _Niger_ was subject to the
annoyance of being reminded of this malodorous incident, for whenever a
man belonging to another ship met a _Niger_, he made a point of holding
his nose!
[Illustration: Barrel Torpedo used at Charleston, made of an ordinary
barrel with ends of solid wood; fired by electricity]
[Illustration: Confederate Torpedo for Rivers
A, Outer shell. B, Air chamber to keep end up. C, Gunpowder. D, Pistol
with trigger connected with rod. E, Rod with prongs to catch vessel
coming up stream. F, Iron bands with rings. G, Weights anchoring
torpedo.
SUBMARINE MINES USED IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR]
It remained for the mechanical ingenuity of the Americans to establish
the submarine mine as a recognized naval weapon. In the long war between
North and South a considerable use was made of improvised submarine
mines, principally by the Southerners in trying to prevent the ships of
the big Federal Fleet from penetrating their estuaries and harbours.
Space forbids description in detail of these contrivances, but the
sketches on p. 185 will enable you to form some idea of their
construction. The results obtained induced the British Admiralty to
carry out a series of experiments in 1865. The old _Terpsichore_ was
blown up by a "torpedo-shell" charged with 75 pounds of powder, and very
much higher powered mines were tried in various ways. Other European
nations could not afford to overlook this form of warfare, and it was
largely owing to the use of defensive submarine mines that the Germans
kept the powerful French fleet from attacking their coast in the war of
1870. Ten years later mines and their appliances were part of the
equipment of most large war-vessels, which carried two kinds, one
holding 250, the other 500 pounds of gun-cotton. They were perfectly
safe to handle, although fully charged, since the gun-cotton was kept
wet and could only be exploded by inserting a small canister of dry
gun-cotton as a primer. They were intended to be used for countermining
and blowing up an enemy's mine defences, or for defending the ship at
anchor. For harbour defence at home and in our overseas dominions a
special branch of the Royal Engineers was formed, known as the Submarine
Miners, who had charge of everything connected with this part of our
national defences; but with the advent of the submarine this duty was
assumed by the Royal Navy.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] i.e. Corneilius Van Drebbel.
[45] Sides.
[46] _A Mariner of England, 1780-1817._ Colonel Spencer Childers.
[47] The Chinese considered this a practical form of warfare even in
comparatively recent times. In _The Voyage of H.M.S. Nemesis_ (1841) an
account is given of the preparations made against the British fleet. At
Canton it was stated that "several hundred divers were said to be in
training who were to go down and bore holes in our ships at night; or
even, as the Chinese privately reported, to carry down with them some
combustible material which would burn under water and destroy our
vessels".
[48] There is, however, in this MS. a picture of what is probably
intended for a diver wearing a metal helmet without a tube.
[49] i.e. King Solomon.
[50] Included in the ships' companies of the Middle Ages were "seamen
who knew how to swim for a long time under water". These divers "pierced
the ships (of the enemy) in many places so that the water could enter".
In an old work on naval architecture, published in 1629, it is stated in
reference to the Turkish pirates of Barbary that "The Corsairs, indeed,
are very wily in attack and defence, acquainted with many kinds of
projectiles, even _Submarine Torpedoes_, which a diver will attach to an
enemy's keel".
[51] See _The Story of the Submarine_, by Colonel C. Field, R.M.L.I.
[52] _See The Story of the Submarine_, by Colonel C. Field, R.M.L.I.
[53] Letter from Mr. Ellis to Lord Lexington, 9th August, 1695.
[54] In the Civil War in America the _Louisiana_ was filled with 430,000
pounds of powder, and exploded against Fort Fisher on Christmas Eve,
1864, with little or no effect. This is the last recorded case of an
explosion-ship, unless we reckon the four fireships in the form of rafts
that in April, 1915, were sent by the Germans against a fort at Osowiec.
Some never arrived; the others were blown up by the guns of the fort.
[55] _War with Russia_, by H. Tyrell.
[56] i.e. tinder.