The Audacious War | Page 4

I was informed on "good authority" that the "Audacious" was afloat, had been towed into Birkenhead and that the repairs to her bottom were nearly finished. You can hear similar stories wherever the "accident" is discussed. I have heard it so many times that I ought to believe it. Yet if one hundred people separately and individually make assurances concerning something of which they have no personal knowledge, it does not go down with a true news man. I was able to run across a man who saw the affair of the "Audacious." He laughed at the stories of shallow water and raised guns. His position was such, both then and thereafter, that I was sure that he knew and told me the truth.
Later I learned that the "Audacious" was too far off the Irish coast to permit of talk of shallow water, and that neither guns nor 30,000-ton warships are raised from fifty-fathom depths.
Yet I am willing to narrate what has not been permitted publication in England, and I think not elsewhere: that the mines about Lough Swilly, along the Scotch and Irish coasts, and in the Irish Sea, were laid with the assistance of English fishing-boats flying the English flag. These boats had been captured by the Germans and impressed into this work.
There are also stories of Irish boats and Norwegian trawlers in this work, but I secured no confirmation of such reports.
It is still unsettled in British Admiralty circles as to whether the "Audacious" came in contact with a mine or torpedo from a German submarine. Two of her crew report that they saw the wake of a torpedo. Reports that the periscope of a submarine showed above the water I have reason to reject.
English reports were suppressed--the admiralty claimed this right, since there was no loss of life--in the belief that if the ship was torpedoed by a submarine, the Germans would give out the first report, and thereby be of assistance in determining the cause. But to-day the Germans have their doubt as to where the "Audacious" is, and as to whether or not she was ever really sunk.
Expert opinion is divided in authoritative circles in England as to the cause of the disaster; but more than 400 mines have been swept up along the Irish and Scotch coasts by the English mine sweepers.
While upon this subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this topic has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will warrant German warships coming forth to battle.
Every battleship is protected by four destroyers. Submarines, when detected, are the most easily destroyed craft. They have no protection against even a well-directed rifle bullet. Their whole protection is that of invisibility. Their plan of operation is to reach a position during the night, whence in the early morning they can single out an unprotected warship or cruiser not in motion, and launch against her side a well-directed torpedo, before being discovered.
The place for England's battleships is where they are: in the harbors with their protecting nets down until they are called for in battle. In motion or action, submarines have little show against them.
The Japanese at Port Arthur found that protecting nets picked up many torpedoes and submarines. Since that time, torpedoes have been made with cutting heads to pierce steel nets encircling the warships, but their effectiveness has not so far been practically demonstrated.
It is Kitchener's idea to keep the enemy guessing. Therefore he was rather pleased than otherwise when the story of Russians coming through England from Archangel was told all over the world. The War Office winked at the story and certainly had no objection to the Germans getting a good dose of it. I think that story might have been helpful at the time when the Allies were at their weakest, but they do not now need Russians, or stories of Russians, from Archangel.
The story must also go by the board that a submarine north of Ireland meant either a new type of boat that could go so far from Germany, or an unknown base nearer Scotland.
Submarines as now built could go from Germany around the British Isles and then across the Atlantic--in fair weather.
The eastern boundary of France divides itself into four very nearly equal sections. Italy and Switzerland are the lower quarters of this boundary line; and of the upper quarters Belgium is the larger and Germany the smaller. The southern half of the German quarter boundary is a mountain range and on the open sections stand the great fortifications of France and Germany, regarded by both countries as practically impregnable. The defence of France on the Belgian