The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-07
OLD WOODEN WARSH|PS
AND MODERN |R0NCLADS
Present Method of Conducting a
Naval Engagement More Mer-
ciful than the Old Way.
FIGHTS THAT LAST A DAY

Frank T. Bullen in London Mail.
Few as are the people who can imagine a
battlefield on shore, they are vastly fewer
who can picture with any certainty the
scene of a naval conflict.
Terrible, too as are all scenes of war
fare, there seems something akin to
rilege, to dissertation of Gods own realm, in
man daring to carry his bloodthirsty. de-
structive animosities out upon the stainless
blue of the pure Yet here. no matter
how terrific the slaughter, how widespread
the destruction wrought by man upon his
fellow-man, the merciful sea, impollutable,
reticent, Immediately effaces all trace there
of-hides mans misdoings from the gaze
of high heaven, nor allows the poor re-
mains TO lie and fill the air with pestiience.
And this, of course, more so now than
ever it has been before. In the days when
Britain became the sovereign power at
sea. and her wooden walls were handled and
fought through whole days in closest proxi-
nifty with their enemies, il often befell that
ships hulled through and through with
shot drifted for many days, while the hand
full of unwounded survivors accomplished
tasks such as make the mind reel to
think Of
They fought for life as fercely as they
had faced their human enemies; hacked
and hewed at the wreckage around them
so that the sea might take it away with
its deadly danger TO them; doggedly stuck
TO the pumps, cleansed the shambles of
their snip Tor the avoidance of pestience
ana held at bay the sense of utter weari-
ness and horlessness which was the dead
Hest foe of ALL And the wide, clean sea
around them waited impartially for what
4
up all traces of them if they failed to live,
or bear them bravely on its bosom into
port and safety.
In the days of sail and wood there was
something romantic. in spite of its horror.
In the maneuvering of those winged fleets
upon the open sea. Something solemn in the
sight of two hostile fleets eager TO destroy
one another. held in the bonds of unwll-
ing peace by the failing of the wind. The
vast shining surface of the sea lying in
placid beauty beneath the bright blue
sky, and the two mOtonless groups of YES
sells, with idle sails downhanging, just
gently moving in the tender heaving of the
swell Peace, as at the beginning. over
nature above; but in the recesses of the
ships, what seething passions, ambitions,
fears!
WAR AND THE ELEMENTS.
In contrast most striking, think of two
hostile fleets endeavoring TO get at each
other in a gale. The awe-inspiring war of
the elements seeming to brook no interior
ence with their high controversy, and man.
actuated by the most desperate and prim-
tive of all instincts, daring to disregard
the cosmic quarerl of wind and wave The
puny voices of the cannon competing pre-
sumptuously with the clangor of the tenn
pest and the tbunders of heaven, the tiny
red flashes from the vessels heaving sides
hardly noticeable amid the dazzling splen-
doris of the lightning, and the feeble wall
ing and groanings of the wounded almost
unheard, even in the hiding places of the
ships, by reason of the sound of complain
ing timbers and crashing down of spars.
But modern warfare has changed
nearly all that. Far more terrible. but
mercifully far more swift, will be the con-
fict between hostile fleets in the future.
There will be scarcely any such thing as
the lingering agony, long drawn out, Of
the old days of sea fighting. For one thing,
modern irOnciads and cruisers going into
action will choose the lesser of two evils
confronting them. Because of the deadly
peril of splinters and of fire, everything of
wood in their fittings, even to the boats
Will be cast away at the beginning of the
fight.
Then, when the battle is Joined. the sea-
man must needs have a heart of brass en-
cased in triple steel, a mind that refuses to
mediate upon the immediate possibility of
one OF those terrible twelve-inch projectiles
plungIng down upon his vessels deck and
out. amid the disintegration Of all her
gangliOns of energy, through the bottom
rendering her an easy target to an unin-
utcS
And when she sinks, stone-lke-pumping
being, If possible to a yet unchanged en-
CINE, a manifest absurdity in that rent fab
ric of steel-with her must go all her crew
Il may sound cruel and hard hearted 10
speak of their end being mercifully swift
but, in view of the horrors of the old wood
en- ships floating Veritable charnel-
houses, when the battle was over. there was
hardly any other term applicable.
The modern man-of-was will not at any
rate. prOlong the agonies Of her crew when
she is scuttled. She will go down quick into
the pit in halo of steam, a whirling vor-
tex OF waves, and in five minutes frCm the
commencement of her downward Plunge
there viii be no sign that she has ever been
aud only II other vessels be very near will
there be any possible chance of saving the
handful of stalwart swimmers whose SUPER
human struggles have wrenched them clear
OF the devouring, down-dragging eddies.
More than n mere handful there could not
be in any case, since another tremendous
difference between past and present sea
fighting is that the steel-clad monsters go
into battle with hardly a man visible.
almost all Of them hidden behind massive