St. Louis Post-Dispatch
December 19, 1915

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5 4 ä 2 E tt 9 ve fem. Ws we . 7 on vv — — ee ue eee the same ching as u reach to a his only 18,000, and you have the speed of him.) hundred yards short is as futile as one that fants have fintshed Rim. + aie it 3 ~ 3 ‘ © "yaa “3 * K : * * ro = 0 * — — — —— . —W ũ VV —— ee ae Nee e 8 r e 2 1 Deer 2 Bil Or ont i> . 6S n D ~ ee Pa pi ~ 2 — 75 —— — ST. LOUIS, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 19, 1915. W . ne eS : N * 2 — — 5 * * 8 > 3 725 42 . > yt 5 5 8 2 : * oe RE 2 5 8 Se Os „ e : . me 2 at ls short. If your shelis carry 20,000 yards and f into the sea. * For a shell that falls a) enuble you to hang on to your enemy until you . . bree Most Importas Naval ene of the Present Struggle Prove This, Declares Noted American Correspondent, Who Has Been at the Front for Over a Year and Enjoys the Confidence of French and British War Chiefs. naue military nations ot the world. The les- ue of practies in Burope ‘as oa to our country. t “the navy; which is our prime defense, 4 ise We shall never be attacked by Canada or Hexic and therefore never attacked by land ———— secter tset to yore Every 1 recruiting poster that is put up, whether or Maine, every beat of a riveter on the Pah Sabtionkin, every gun drill, has only object, the test of a decisive battle which may —— half an hour. To win we must have ew jing a modern navy requires, for we face Artes which are prepared in every detail. ae a: power, speed and range have won every fought so far. They have kept the . i Fam . Teach to a boxer that you can ‘and a blow the enemy’s falls short. If your shells car- 000 yards and his only 18,000, and you have peed of him, you stand off out of danger and r his ships tes the eee. en this war began, two European forces, y prepare * A) Be ™ ; — * W tt we Bags hn : : i 1 z 7 * 2 4 bl b . : . 5 xa — * * 2 — = n — 5 i — 7 * * * > 2 . * + obs * * 3 ‘ 1 — . ö P N x 5 x e * Sa Dy. og SE os at gt e 1 „ 8 See 4 nye Wags? >. 1 5 : N a 4 a 2 * 9 — 25 * > = = 2 * hy Aan 7 „ * 7 * 7 n N F * * th 1 7 4 * n Lot Ne z 7 7 * 1 ad a ae fo 1 * * — 1 te 2 D 5 525 8 a * N n 1 Ce r ; 75 ae . * * 5 b 1 P 8 ee P . r Ae 112 | By FREDERICK PALMER, American érrespondent with the 3 : any armored fighting ships we have in the United States Navy. She could run away from Who Frederick Palmer Is and What He Has Seen of War the great European war, Frederick Palmer Ras“ been the only official represen tative of the entire American press with the allies on the western front Beginning with the Greek War of 1897, Frederick Palmer has been at the front of every important struggle at arms that has occurred, whether in the Philippines, South Africa, Manchuria, the Balkans ort. He has enjoyed in an es- S * the beginning of FREDERICK PALMER traordinary degree the con- the front and in the war ofices, ‘somewhere in the North Sea,” and to spend several days studying and observing in dat - tle practice that great. coflec- tion of floating fortresses that gives England today her un- disputed control of the seas, With the information that he has ti on land and sea at imer i 7 o spritten a series of articles on our unpreparedness For wer; doth in a military and “way, and the: first of these te printed. today on this age. He win teu of our de- fctencies and shortcomings and {point out how we may over- come these in the light of the dence of the British war chiefs{He was the first civilian’ per experiences of the great nations in the present conflict, both at\ mitted to visit the British fleet, J nom at war. blast of 12-inch shells, and the Germans’ 8-inch fell short. Practically, the Germans might as well have aimed their guns in the opposite direction. Their desperate courage and persistence in going dewn with colors flying was in keeping with that of Craddock, but it served no end. Ghastly carnage and destruction reigned in the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, while the Inflexible and Invincible were steaming along almost as comfortably as at battle practice. For a shell that falls a hundred yards short is as futile as one that falls 6000, and three knots are enough to enable you to hang on to your enemy until you have finished him. As fit for action when the battle was over as when {t began, the Invincible and Inflexible steamed back home across the Atlantic that was freed from the threat to shipping, which had laid a pall of apprehension over every skipper fol- lowing the seas, from Labrador to the Straits of Magellan—all because they had speed and gun power and range. What Would Have Happened if England Had Had America’s Navy lair of the German navy, were the battle cruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, Von der Tann and Derfflinger; they had at least 28 knots speed to Sturdee’s 26 knots, and they could have forced battle against Sturdee on the high seas in the same way that Sturdee forced it upon Von Spee. These were the latest types of German battle cruisers, and set against them were the latest types of British battle cruisers, like the Lion, Tiger and Quecn Mary. Sir John Jellicoe was not going to spare these to go after Von Spee. He needed them in the North Sea to watch the Moltke herd. And ff he had not had the In- vincible and Inflex'bdle class he would either have had to let Von Spée go on raiding British com- merce or left the coast of England open to rad by the Moltkes. For, on the morning of Nov. 4, 1914, some ships of the German fast battle cruiser sqradron ap- peared in the thick fog off the east coast of Na- gland, between East and West Hartlepool, Scar- be rough a-d Whitby. Without any warning, they sent out broadside after broadside into these towns. They had come far from their base over night, relying on their gun power, spe d and the fog to escape any or light cruisers that might see them, knowing that no dreadnoughts could overtake them, and that the only force that could trip them was the British battle cruisers of Bo behind the guns of Heligoland, in the Aimateds Navy 10 Years Behind Ze 3 today up and down the Atlantic coast if we were at war with Germany. But the German battle cruiser nema deen did not tarry long on the English coast. They knew that the instant their presence was known, the British battle cruiser squadron, with more gun power and slightly better speed, would be run- ning between them and their home base. They could not get away from the British and they would have to fight against odds, as Von Spee had at Falklands. The art of any kind of war- fare is getting there first with the strongest force and holding the other fellow under your blows until you have beaten him. After having killed and wounded more than 200 women and children, and destroyed a great deal of property, the Germans managed to slip past the British battle cruiser squadron through the fog back to Kiel. One the morning of Jan. 24 the German battle squadron, under H'pper, came out again. Hipper had with him, of course, some light cruisers, which we lack, and a flotilla of destroyers, in which we are woefully deficient. They guarded his flanks, they protected “the superior gun fire and the range of bis battle cruisers from sur- prise. But the Brittish battle cruiser squadron, under Vice Admiral David Beatty, also put to sea about the same time. It had news of the German's com- ing, perhaps secret service news from Kiel. Not the least Important part of preparedness is intel- ligence of your enemy’s movements. If the news did not come from Kiel, Beatty got it from the light cruisers and destroyers scouting in the North Sea, which flashed their wireless messages back to Sir John Jellicoe. When Beatty went out, it was with force enough to beat Hipper if he met him. Not only must you have battle cruisers, but better ones than the en- The British had taken care of this. Year aes N ee ry 15 92 5 i is Ria . ene te e eee * 8. * 1 . be ) Seydlitz, next in line, while the Tiger had her ce Be — * Poor old out- of · date (an 8 cruiser or battleship we “nave: . er, which qt per 5 ; at {gn lang & blow when the enemy's } you stand off out of danger and batter his ships) five thousand, and three knots are enough to Bluecher, only 24 knots, yet she was faster than * * The Lion Kept on battering the Bluecher}to the wolves. * * © le) until her speed brought her within range of the the Bluecher, thot old aMp could I 2 ͤ stiiteracscit — —— eee * Few Signs of the Havoc Wrought : in * Barly 1 Are Apparent and the Fields Are Tilled a, e to the eb Emplacements at the Front. By RICHARD HARDING Davis. HERE promised to be a story for someone to write a year after the war. It would tell how quickly France recovered from the in- vasion of the Germans. But one need not walt until after war. The story can be written now, We know that the enemy was thrown across the Aisne. It is one of the most splendid pages in the history of France. We know that the ‘Germans drove the French and English be- fore him until at the Forest of Montmorency and at Claye he was within 10 and 16 miles of Paris. But, today, by any outward Wi- dence, he would have a hard time to prove it. And that is not be cause when he advanced he was careful not to tramp on the grass or pick the flowers. He did not obey even the warnings in the vil- lages to automobilists: Atten- tion, les enfants!” On the con- trary, as he came, he threw before him thousands of tons of steel and iron. Like a cyclone, he uprooted boudoir, the children’s n the German were. villages the humble shops. sacked, -¢ fields of beets and turnips u or where he 2 * Tit 115 — LE a 2 : 3 J trees, unroofed houses; like a tidal | wave, he excavated roads that had CHARD WARDENS OAS. been built by the Romans, swept away walls and broke the backs of stone bridges that for hundreds of years had held their own against swollen rivers. A year ago I followed the German in his retreat from Claye through Meaux, Chateau Thierry to . i ; 1 pee They are gray with fertilizers, manure; the swiftly dug trenches of & have given way to the peaked moun turnips wait transplanting. | vast stretches of Soissons, where, on the east bank of the Aisne, (ments, with the 1 watched the French artillery shell his guns oa) munitior carts, with stale, {1 the hills opposite. The French then were hot upon rea gpa Hae bis heels. In one place they had not had time to remove even their own dead; and to avoid bodies in the open road the car had to twist turn. ‘Yesterday, coming back to Paris trenches that guard Rheims, I cove road. But it was not the same. It must surely have lost the way. signs at the crossroads and the m before and scarred with pencil dences that again I was follc and foot by foot, the route of polluting the air. But until to their homes, or to 5 ; SEL ORO A hegys 1 * 8 95 1 — a 22Cͤ ps ae YS RR ER, a 3 a * : 8 Wr 1 2 ö * i . ‘wes 19) ; — gem — 52 et = ee ee —— 80 a a