New-York tribune., 1919-06-23
The Scapa Melodrama


drama in the sinking Of the German
warships interned in Scapa Flow. Were
it possible to connect the German gov
ernment with this sensational enter
prise it might be viewed as a spec
tacular gesture Of defiance-a piece of
futile curtain heroics, intended to ex-
punge. the memory of the very unheroic
surrender of Tirpitz's vaunted high sea
fleet.
Germany, cowed, broken, on the point
Of signing what her leaders have called
a treaty of bondage" suddenly orders
her navy to go down, with either the
Red flag or the old imperial ensign
flying, in the waters of an enemy naval
basel That might pique the imagina-
ton of the galleries at home and abroad
But there is little possibility of i'm
putting to the Weimar government any
responsibility for what happened at
Scapa Flow. The German ships there
were delivered under the terms of the
armstice to the Allied powers Germany
surrendered their custody She re-
nounced control of them. The armistice
provided that the warships which it
enumerated should be "interned in neu-
trail ports or, for the want of them, in
Allied ports, to be designated by the
Allies and the United States of America,
and placed under the surveillance of the
Allies and the United States Of America,
only caretakers to be left on board"
The caretakers were entirely under
the control of the powers which ac-
cepted surveillance. Had a neutral
power consented to intern any of these
ships it would have been responsible
for their safety. Allied powers agree
ing to intern them were equally re-
sponsible, for they were assuming Gus
tody of enemy property in which they
not only had direct interest but which
they were holding in trust for all the
nations at war with Germany
Only lax surveillance could have
permitted the Matching and execution
of the conspiracy which brought about
the destruction Of the majority of the
enemy vessels lying in the Scottish har-
Dor of refuge. 1t is useless to charge
the German government with violating
the armistice. The caretakers on the
ships may have abused the trust put in
them by the British naval commandant
at Scapa, but he was there to see that
the captured fleet was kept intact until
the peace conference decided what to do
with it.
Possibly the British Admiralty and
the head of our own Navy Department
may regard the loss of the German
ships as blessing in disguise. They
favored a ceremonial scuttling of the
surrendered battleships and battle-crus-
crs in the middle of the Atlantic Diff
ficulties in making an allotment among
the Allied powers were to be met by
destroying the capital stock to be dis
tributed.
This solution naturally offended those
who believed that it would have in
volved wantOn waste of material
costing hundreds Of millions of marks.
Some of the Allied powers were willing
10 take German ships and have their
value charged against reparations A
few of the neutrals might have been
induced to bid for vessels which the
belllgerents could make no use of. Now
considerable cash asset Of Germany
has disappeared, and disappeared in
manner which leaves the Allied advo-
Gates OF deliberate destruction no chance
to claim that such destruction repre-
sentcd All altruistic effort to promote
the reduction of naval armaments.
The Scapa Flow elimination has
therefore all the ironical characteristics
of an anti-climax. If the Germans had
sent their fleet out to fight and had lost
it, or even If they had sunk it in their
own harbor before asking for an armis-
tice, Germany might at least have re-
tanned her sclf-respect as claimant
for sea power. To destroy by stealth
and trcachery warships already sur
rendered only adds to the ignominy Of