Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/743

 BLACKWOOD'S EDINBUBGH MAGAZINE.

No. DCCCXXXYI. JUNE 1885.

VOL. CXXXVII.

THE TORPEDO SCARE.

[TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Sir, If I presume to endeavour to stem the tide of public opinion as regards the very great efficacy of the fish-torpedo as a weapon of mari- time warfare, it is not with any confidence in my powers of persuasion, or for the pleasure of controversy, but because I am perhaps the only person living who has commanded squadrons or single ships in war, where torpedoes were used as offensive weapons. – I am, yours truly,

HOBART PACHA.]

During the late Turco-Russian war, Russian torpedo-boats constantly attacked Turkish ships. These attacks were made not only by boats armed with the Pole and Harvey torpedo, but with the newest type of the Whitehead torpedo then invented. They were commanded by as active and gallant a set of men as ever stepped a ship's deck, and who made every possible effort to destroy Turkish ironclads, every one of which returned safely to Constantinople after the war. The only loss to the Turkish squadron was two small wooden gun-boats blown up in the Danube through the carelessness of their commanders.

I venture to maintain that the power of the torpedo, as a weapon of offence as well as of defence, is enormously exaggerated. Were it not so, one might almost say that naval warfare would soon come to an end altogether, inasmuch as no fleet or ship could resist such a deadly weapon. Blockade of an enemy's port could not be maintained. Vessels could never lie at anchor near an enemy's coast. Fleets could not cruise in the neighbourhood of hostile ships carrying torpedo-boats. Ports defended by torpedoes could not be attacked, harbours and estuaries could not be approached; and, in fact, none of the old systems of naval warfare could be put into execution. The courage of naval officers, their coolness in time of action, their seamanlike qualities;