Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-12-21
The Long Arm Of Seq Power

The Long Arm Of Sea Power
Mr.. Winston Churchill, first lord of
the British admiralty, is not always
happy in the choice of ebullient Eng
lish when he ventures to give utter
ance to emotions that spring from
events in the war at sea. Some of
his remarks while serving in the
same capacity during the World War
were the preludes to disastrous hap
penings in the royal navy. and.
even in the present Anglo-German
naval conflict, militant Churchillisms
have not always synchronized with
developments of lustrous conse-
quence to the white ensign.
But this week, with prescience
that seems almost uncanny, the
civilian head of the British fleet
gave expression to an observation of
unquestionable merit. He described
Nazi Germany as "a guilty regime
which feels the long arm of sea
power laid upon its shoulder" Mr..
Churchill so epitomized the ever
Tightening stranglehold of the British
Navy after the inglorious scuttling
of the Admiral Graf Spec at Monte
video, but before the self-destruction
of the de luxe North German Lloyd
liner Columbus off the New Jersey
coast, before the freighter Arauca
scurried for refuge into Port Ever
glades Harbor, Florida, and before
Captain Hans Langsdorff took his
own life at Buenos Aires yesterday.
Each and every one of these four
successive events within barely as
many days-"just one blow after the
other" as John Schroeder, North
German Lloyd manager at New York,
plaintively puts it-denotes that the
spirit of defeatism has seized upon a
Germany thus progressively made
conscious of her powerlessness to
wrest from Britannia the mastery Of
the sea, and, with it, victory in this
Nazi-made war. 1t approaches the
height of irony that the Reich's
crowning series of disasters afloat
should synchronize with the proc
lamation of one of the Hitler hier-
archy, Robert Ley, leader of the
labor front, that Germany's real pur-
pose in the campaign which began
on September is to establish her
manifest right" to rule over all
other nations because of her supe-
rior racial and cultural attributes.
1t looks as If "the long arm of sea
power" welded on the other side of
the North Sea, has become an insu-
perable barrier to the realization
of deutschland uber Alles," Nazi
pattern.
Mr.. Churchill warns Britain that
many vexatious tasks lie before the
Kings navy and before its comrades
in the merchant fleet" and he re-
peats the admonition that trough
and violent times are ahead" But
"the whole vast movement of British
traffic is proceeding" the first lord
hastens to add, II will not say unim-
peded, but uninterrupted" Graphic
evidence Of that is the arrival at an
English port this week of the Active
Force Division of the Canadian Army,
strongly escorted across the Atlantic
and guarded by the main British
battle fleet and finally disembarked
safely and smoothly for a period of
intensive training before proceeding
to the western front.
Meantime some arresting figures
tell what is happening to the Ger
man merchant fleet. The Columbus
was the eighteenth Nazi ship-a
total of ,428 tons-to be scuttled
to keep them from falling into en-
envy hands. Unofficial estimates
bring the aggregate of German ship
ping losses to forty-one ships, &C
counting for 224,O0O tons. In addi-
ton to the vessels scuttled, four were
sunk lin other ways" Sixteen were
captured at sea by allied warships
and made prizes. Three were seized
in allied ports on the outbreak of
war. U-boats, mines and destroyers
have destroyed probably twice as
much allied and neutral tonnage,
but, proportionate to enemy tonnage
IN reserve (notably BRITISH the
damage done to it by Germany thus
far is of merely pin-prick impor-
lance. The same cannot, of course
be said about the losses of Germany
whose tonnage on September 1 was
a bare quarter of Great Britain's.
THE long arm of sea power" does
indeed rest heavily on the Reich's
overburdened shoulder. Day by day
Mahan's theory that defeat is i'm
possible for the power which rules
the waves is finding fresh vindi-
cation.