Page:The Galaxy (New York, Sheldon & Co.) Volume 24 (1877).djvu/299

 VOL. XXIV.—SEPTEMBER 1877.—No. 3.

 

 HAS THE DAY OF GREAT NAVIES PASSED?

1805 one of England's greatest admirals, after hearing Fulton explain his torpedo plans, and thinking of the encouragement these plans had received from the Prime Minister, exclaimed, "Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the sea did not want, and which if successful would deprive them of it."

The revolution in naval warfare thus foreshadowed is close at hand; indeed; it is not too much to say that the complete paralyzation of the vast navy of France during the late war with Germany, through the fear of German torpedoes, shows that this revolution has already taken place, and that the days of ocean supremacy and of great navies have passed away. This momentous change has been brought about by the submarine torpedo, an instrument which assails the ship from underneath, below the water line. The consequence is that no thickness of iron plating on the vessel's sides can avail for her protection.

This potent instrument of destruction has added far more to the power of the defence than it has to the power of attack; and in this light, like some other instruments for human destruction, it may be looked upon as a peace-maker. So long as sails were the only means for the propulsion of ships, England, by reason of her superiority in trained seamen, maintained a position superior to any other power; but the screw propeller slowly made its way as the universal naval motor, and gradually this great advantage was lessened. When the iron-clad came upon the scene, it was followed, in less than fifteen years, by a change in naval ordnance, which is summarized by stating that in 1860 the heaviest naval gun weighed some seven tons, using a charge of sixteen pounds of powder and a shot of less than seventy pounds; whereas the largest naval gun now weighs one hundred tons, and throws a projectile of no less than two thousand pounds, with a charge of over four hundred pounds of powder; giving a force to the shot one hundred-fold greater, while the shot itself weighs a ton, against a comparatively few pounds seventeen years ago. To mount and handle such monster ordnance has taxed the resources of engineers, and such is the extent of the almost innumerable mechanical contrivances which enter into the construction of the latest European monitors, that such sailors as were the pride and strength of Nelson's fleets are almost as much out of their element in the present war machines as they would be if placed in the galleys which fought at Salamis and Actium.

But while the Duilo, the heaviest of these floating gun carriages, as a monitor may be called, is still on the stocks,