The German Submarine War , .sx 1914-1918 .sx The German Submarine War , 1914-1918 .sx By R.H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast .sx ( Constable .sx 36s .sx ) THE authors of this book have admirably gathered together all the more important facts about the German submarine war .sx They have extracted from naval literature a saying by Lord St. Vincent in 1804 which proves that the seaman's eye had a long range for history as well as for the ocean .sx When St. Vincent heard of the proposal by the American Robert Fulton that the British should build a submarine to use against the French he said :sx " Don't look at it , and don't touch it .sx If we take it up , other nations will ; and it will be the greatest blow at our supremacy on the sea that can be imagined .sx " It is strange that St. Vincent's principle was disregarded by Lord Fisher .sx When Lord Fisher created the 'Dreadnought' he in effect wiped out the naval superiority which Great Britain had over Germany .sx Of course , Germany might have invented the 'Dreadnought' and then we should have had to follow suit , but as it was we spontaneously gave away our advantage .sx In this narrative about the U boats the British reader will live his agony over again .sx The Germans doubly surprised us , firstly because they proved that the U boats had a cruising range which neither they nor we had dreamed of , and secondly because they used them in the later phases of the campaign ruthlessly to break the laws of war .sx Their excuse was that they had a right to retort thus because the Allies by their blockade were inhumanly starving the people of Germany .sx But did not Bismarck himself say nearly fifty years ago that the " hunger blockade " was " a justifiable object for shortening a war provided that it is impartially enforced against all neutral " ?sx Before the Great War began it was , of course , known that every Navy would establish a blockade as effective as it was possible to make it .sx At first the Germans anchored their U boats not far out at sea awaiting a British naval attack .sx At that time the U boats served only as floating sentry boxes .sx It was not till the Germans began to search out the British Fleet which was invisibly establishing a long-distance blockade that they discovered the unsuspected powers of their submarines .sx They changed their policy to the offensive .sx There was nothing else for them to do .sx It is true that their first attack was unsuccessful yet a new fact was established .sx The appearance of German submarines far up the North Sea created such uneasiness in the British Fleet that even Scapa Flow was regarded as a virtually unprotected place .sx The torpedoing a little later of the three British cruisers 'Aboukir,' 'Cressy' and 'Hogue' by 'U9' under the adventurous leader Captain Weddigen proved further to the Admiralty that a heavy swell running over shoal waters did not prevent a submarine from approaching undetected .sx The Admiralty grasped for the first time how imprudent was the policy of using large and old cruisers as a screen for the main Fleet .sx Escorts of destroyers and continuous variations of speed and zig-zagging by the larger ships became the rule .sx The minefields which the Admiralty placed in the North Sea and the Channel were ineffective to begin with and some of the fields were imaginary .sx Nevertheless , the belief that there were mines where there were not made the Germans shy of such areas .sx In the end the U boats suffered as much from mines as from anything else .sx The authors rightly and fairly praise the humanity as well as the seamanship of the famous Capital Weddigen who in the 'U9' sank the 'Hawke .sx ' It was Captain Droescher who first performed the feat of circumnavigating the British Isles in a U boat , and by that time the bottom had been knocked out of the whole strategical plan for dealing with the submarines .sx Just as the early mines had been a failure so was the first barrage of nets a failure in Dover Straits .sx Success came through a combination of all the different methods , each of them improved by experience .sx The convoy system would have been unavailing without the help of the depth charges .sx The number of submarines sunk by the Q boats , or " mystery ships , " was not large .sx The happiest hunting ground for the U boats was the Mediterranean where for a long time they had it all their own way .sx When Germany became frightened of her own lawless methods there was for a time a modification of the submarine campaign .sx The Allies were deceived into thinking that the attack had been beaten off .sx Nothing , however , was further from the truth .sx As soon as Germany recognized that she had no chance of winning the War except by " unrestricted " submarine warfare she made her last desperate fling with that method .sx For her it was a case of " now or never .sx " She did not even trouble to build new boats .sx She must bring the Allies to their knees before America came into the War .sx She was near winning during a few terrible months , but when American ships joined in the submarine hunt they did so to some purpose .sx Their assistance should never be underrated .sx The Brontes through French Eyes .sx The Bronte Sisters .sx By Emilie and Georges Romeiu .sx ( Skeffington .sx 12s .sx 6d .sx ) IF only the Brontes had had a good stepmother !sx Some amiable lady , not too young , with a little money , common sense and kindness , who liked cooking and gardening , who would have petted the delicate children , insisted on good fires , and planted out the churchyard !sx To Bronte worshippers such a suggestion will seem almost profane .sx " Of course if genius is nothing to you " they will begin .sx But surely , we would interrupt , so robust a genius could have endured , at least in childhood , a period of normal conditions .sx Besides , if the poor little girls had not been sent to that harsh and cruel school , we might have had five people of genius to deal with instead of three , or even six if we count Anne .sx In stronger hands than those of his silly old sister and his little children , Parson Bronte might have been less horrid .sx Tough old piece as he was , he might have given in , for there is no limit to be set to powers of soft femininity , coupled with plenty of loose silver .sx There must have been a better side to him once .sx Did not his first wife in a moment of unreserve allude to him as " Saucy Pat " !sx " That man is no father !sx " cry Emilie and Georges Romieu , the latest biographers of this fearsome family .sx It is true what they say , but as we read their terrible story we feel an impulse of defence .sx We would like to screen him and Branwell and Emily and Charlotte and all of them from the piercing eyes of these French critics .sx Couldn't they have been satisfied with reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights ?sx Like M. Maurois , they are concerned with the authors and their environment , not with their books , and they have not Maurois' uncanny understanding of another people .sx On the other hand the narrative , as they tell it , if stark and terrible , is enthralling .sx We want to draw a veil over the picture of the dying child , brought home from school in the coach by her father , no arm put round her , no word of kindness said .sx She died directly she got to the Rectory .sx He did not send for her little sister till she too was at death's door !sx Yet , after all , the father was not a fiend :sx apart from their genius , which , we suppose , is not inherited , the daughters all got from him the best of principles , distinguished manners and the clearest of heads .sx A harsh puritan and an obtuse intellectual , he shut himself up in his study , and by his high minded egotism caused the death of two daughters and ( theology apart ) the damnation of one son .sx Yet he was not such a brute as Eugenie Grandet's father when all is said .sx Charlotte fascinates her biographers .sx They find her so lovable when she is in love .sx Yet here again we long for a veil .sx Her " frantic need to be enslaved " is repellent .sx Emily is drawn so as to suggest a mad woman wandering on the moors with a dog for whose portrait a hyena has evidently sat .sx His savagery will convince no dog lover !sx We are not given his dimensions , but he looms enormous and could at any moment have broken Emily's arm with one snap of his huge jaws !sx No one has ever solved the mystery of Wuthering Heights .sx These critics , while not favouring the fanciful theory that Branwell wrote it , find in Emily's terrible experiences in nursing her drunken brother , and listening to the mad out-pourings of this boy , depraved at eighteen , who speaks of himself as " revelling in a cold debauchery , " while his sisters deny themselves to pay his opium bills , the key to her marvellous imaginings .sx The sense of the power of evil which darkened the outlook of this cloistered daughter of the moors must have had some origin more tangible than magical fancy .sx The book provokes the reader to contradiction , but it holds his imagination .sx A Prince of Music .sx Letters of Hans Von Bulow .sx Edited , with an Introduction , by Count Du Moulin Eckart .sx The Translation edited with a Preface and Notes by Scott Goddard .sx ( Knopf .sx 1,000 copies at 21s .sx ) There is still a large number of people who love to lose themselves in the Golden age of Musical Europe , that magical period beginning with Bach and ending with the death of Brahms .sx Such people will enjoy reading Count Eckart's selection of letters written by Von Bulow , because it will supply a vivid commentary on the recently published Life of Cosima Wagner and also on the already vast literature about the Master .sx The cruel and unnecessary war between the so-called classical school ( the Mendelssohn , Schumann group wit their headquarters in Dresden ) and the so-called romantic school ( Wagner , Berlioz , Klindworth , Stephen Heller and others gathered round Liszt at Weimar ) , is now only pathetic history .sx The tendency , however , is to exaggerate the implacable hatreds of the two sides .sx This may be due to the fact that our records of that war are drawn from contemporary papers , where the musico-journalists laid about them with more noise and gusto than depth of conviction .sx It is a habit with musicians .sx The spoken , and still more the written word , is such a flat , dull , and unfeeling medium after their own art , and they tend to scream in public conversation .sx Singers are the same ; very loud , very vociferous .sx One might think they were quarrelling when they are only comparing notes !sx That terrible conflict rather shrinks in importance when we recollect that the two emperors , Wagner at Weimar , and Brahms at Dresden via Vienna , lamented the whole sordid business , and each deeply reverenced the work of the other .sx As a proof of this we have their letters and records of their conversations ; and evidence of study of each other's work , as in the last movement of Brahms' Fourth Symphony - a work which should make Mr. Bernard Shaw ashamed that he once accused Brahms of having " a second-rate mind .sx " Those unhappy quarrels were fostered by hangers-on and impresarios .sx Hans Von Bulow was the only non-creative member of that world who had the vision , the mind , and the courage to disregard the enmities and to interpret so superbly , with such intellectual and emotional closeness to the intention of the composers , that his performances , both as conductor and soloist , have become legendary .sx Indeed , his interpretative and executive genius was so startling that the wonder was why an artist with such power and originality was not himself a great creative force .sx He himself so wondered ; and because of his inability to answer the question his other triumphs turned to dust and ashes .sx The constant sense of being cheated of the final consummation of his gifts poisoned his whole life .sx 4 .sx