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miles or so, although still regarded as being in an experimental stage, will also be asked for in the Navy bill. We ought to lay down an increasing number of them every year. As a consequence of this policy, the naval authorities, far from abandoning the present number of navy yards, are actually considering the establishment of sixteen submarine bases, to be located at Frenchman's Bay, Massachusetts Bay, Narragansett Bay, New York Harbor, Delaware Bay, the mouth of the Chesapeake, Charleston, Key West, San Francisco, Hawaii, San Diego, and Guam. Submarines are regarded by our Navy as having proved conclusively their usefulness as a major element in coast defense. As organized now, every five submarines, whose crews total only 100 men, require a tender with a crew of about 200 men. With the new scheme of bases 10 submarines would be allotted to each base and all the tenders would be dispensed with. In many instances, of course, as at Guantanamo, Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, and Key West, the submarine base is already a regularly established naval base and in the territory of an established navy yard.

Our naval bill this year appropriated $146,500,000. Of this amount, roughly, $102,000,000 went for pay of officers and men, food, supplies, repairs, wages of navy yard workmen, etc. The balance, $44,500,000, went for building new ships. Of course, if Congress shall pass the shipbuilding programme of four dreadnaughts, etc., there must be also a corresponding increase in officers and men; with, of course, more food, more supplies, more repairs, The bill will include, therefore, a provision to greatly increase, perhaps to double, the number of cadets at the Naval Academy, i. e., from the present 700 to 1,200 or more. For such an increase the Academy at Annapolis is fortunately already equipped.

A NATIONAL NAVAL RESERVE

The new idea first advocated by Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, of a national naval reserve, will probably be incorporated in the new Navy legislation, although its inclusion in an appropriation bill is hardly necessary since all the additional expense necessary to its creation will be in

the shape of a card index equipment and a couple of extra clerks in the department.

This scheme is intended to provide, in the time of emergency, 50,000 naval reserves known to, and at the direction of, the Navy Department. It will be made up of four classes: (a) Retired officers and ex-enlisted men; (b) other branches of the Federal Service, such as the Coast Guard, harbor police, revenue cutter and lighthouse services, coast survey, etc.; (c) volunteer and patriotic civilians at large, of the kind that went to Plattsburg; and (d) owners and crews of privately owned ships, yachts, and motor boats, organized and drilled on their own vessels.

An increase from one to five million dollars will be urged for the aeronautical service in the Navy.

THE COST OF PREPAREDNESS

Now in order to gain a just relation of the estimates which will be presented to Congress, let us compare the last appropriation with those of Great Britain, Germany, and France for the year 1914-15; that is, with the estimates made by those Powers before the outbreak of war, but for a period inevitably overlapping on the war. The table on page 59, prepared by the Bureau of Naval Intelligence, presents this comparison in a striking way.

To read this table properly, several additional facts must be kept clearly in mind. In the first place it is known that large sums of money which do not appear in the official German budget, as here given, go toward the maintenance and improvement of the fleet, distributed through the budgets of the other departments. The German total, therefore, is only accurate pro rata. The second fact to be noted is that the United States spends more than 30 per cent. for pay, active and retired, pensions, etc., as compared to 22 per cent. in Great Britain, 12 per cent. in Germany, and 16 per cent. in France. We also spend more money in clothing and medical care, recruiting, and the scientific work of hydrography, etc.

With regard to the items coming under the vexed territory of navy yards, a great deal of this expenditure represents capital investment in plant. Recently a new

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ROUGH ANALYSIS OF NAVAL ESTIMATES FOR THE FOUR LEADING NAVIES OF THE WORLD, 1914-1915

Number of officers, men, and marines

Item.

Pay and allowances

1.

2.

Provisions and subsistence allowances

3.

Clothing

United States, 1914-15. Great Britain, 1914-15-Germany, 1914-15

Expended. penditure. Expended.

41,400,000 (a) 28.0 $ 44,600,000 (g)

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-France, 191469,000

Amount

Expended.
$ 15,790,000 (j)

5,050,000

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....

Per Cent. of
Tota! Ex-
penditure.
16.0

5.0
1.0

1.0

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Per Cent.of

Total Ex

penditure.

17.0

16,000,000

6.0

7.0

0.2

1,500,000

0.6

550,000 (i)

0.5

940,000

0.6

900,000

0.4

250,000

0.3

40,000

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(a) Exclusive of retired pay-see item 17.

(b) Marine corps, $600,000; navy (outfit on first enlistment), $800,000.

(c) Includes Naval Hospital Fund $700,000 and fines and forfeitures $500,000, deducted

from pay accounts.

(d) Armor and armament account. See item 8.

(e) Includes $7,000,000 estimated unassignable yard charges, included in foreign budgets in items 8, 9, and 10.

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(h) Pay of fleet and hospital corps. Also allowances. Other pay included in succeeding items.

(i) Includes subsistence.

(j) Pay of fleet. Allowances. Other pay included in succeeding items.

(k) Including pay of commissioned and civil personnel.

(m) Included in Item 8.

(n) It is difficult to reconcile statistics at hand relating to estimates for new construction
during the period covered by this report. From best information at hand the
original estimates including armor and armament are as follows: Great Britain,
$84,000,000; Germany, $51,000,000; France, $58,000,000; United States, $41,000,-
000.

It is impossible to reconcile the above lump figures with the detailed estimates at hand as tabulated above.

(p) Not included in figuring percentage.

light has been shed on this subject of supposedly useless navy yards, the same yards which were condemned by Secretary Meyer four years ago. The development of submarines and naval air craft requires many sub-bases to give these engines their greatest effectiveness, and the new demands for the manufacture of naval war supplies and quick repair and construction of ships of all kinds make it extremely advisable for the Government to hold on to all existing plants of that character.

In the table on page 59 the items for the United States have been greatly con

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(4) 18,000,000

(6)

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Scouts

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*The figures printed below each appropriation represent the number of ships of that class.

$268,000,000

$253,000,000

THE PROPOSED EXPENDITURES FOR NAVAL DEFENSE

densed. Appropriations for the Navy are actually made under 500 separate heads, the mere classification and accounting of which is a work of great complexity, involving the employment of a large civilian force of clerks.

The table above shows our last naval appropriation in comparison with the tentative programme now advocated by the consensus of naval opinion for the next three years and the approximate cost of adequate defense. In each column the total figures are intended to indicate the expenditures covering work which takes, as in the case of a battleship, three or four years to complete. The authorization of a given year provides for the expenditure in other years of the requisite sum for the given item. For the sake of greater clearness in this table, each authorization has been summed up complete, with no

desirable citizens-but of the men whose sworn duty is to study what adequate defense means for the United States and to recommend according to their best judgment. It is based on something like a definite policy, on the desire to protect our continental coast lines, to guard our commerce, to keep intact our overseas enterprises, territories, and dependencies, and to maintain inviolate the international policies on the Western hemisphere and on the seas for which this Nation has always stood. It is not a defense adequate against attack by a combination of great sea Powers, but it is aimed to give the country reasonable security based on probabilities. It is costly but less so than lack of security. It is not militaristic or aggressive, because the spirit which conceives it and would maintain it is democratic and peaceful.

THE LIFE AND DEATH CHESS GAME

IN EUROPE

A STRATEGIC VIEW OF THE GENERAL SITUATION UP TO OCTOBER IST-THE
MOVES OF MEN AND MACHINERY SHIFTED OVER THE BOARD BY THE BEST
MILITARY BRAINS IN SEVEN FIGHTING NATIONS-THE BATTLE FRONTS
IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND THE BALKANS

T

THE SITUATION IN GENERAL

HE vastness of the whole military situation in Europe is such that if one begins to look into a particular campaign as distinguished from the salient aspects of the whole war, it is very difficult to form a connected mental picture of what is occurring. Enormous as was the field of operations at the beginning of the war it has continually been spreading and will still further spread.

In outline, the happenings of the last four months have been as follows: the Allies in France, up to the last week in September, when the most determined offensive since the Battle of the Marne was launched against the German catacombs, had been able to do nothing against a static German resistance; that is, the Germans blocked them safely at arm's length. On the Austrian-Italian front the Italians were still held off by the Austrians in the same way that the French had been locked up by the Germans. In the eastern theatre of war the Teutonic Allies have been continuously advancing against the Russians. In the Turkish theatre of war another deadlock has prevailed. Therefore, if matters go on as they have been going on for the last four months, Russia is very apt to be cut to pieces unless something can be done by the Entente Allies to divert, check, or defeat the German arms.

The British and French have been keeping up constant diplomatic pressure to reform the Balkan League for the purpose of attacking Turkey and settling that question for the rest of the war. The success or failure of their efforts depends en

tirely on the attitude of Bulgaria. On the 1st of October it appeared, by the mobilization of Bulgarians in Macedonia, and by the Turko-Bulgarian entente, that Bulgaria was going to side with Turkey and the central Powers. At all events, one effect of the diplomatic manoeuvering in the Balkans has been a concentration by the central empires of 500,000 men on the Servian frontier, which removes about 12 army corps from either the Russian or French frontiers, or from both. If the central empires were short of troops, such a new concentration would offer great provocation for a forward move by the French, and it is very possible that the move on Servia may have been made for. that very purpose. We do not find any indication, however, that the central empires are in any way short of men, and therefore the Balkan diplomatic campaign may turn out in the form of a boomerang for the Entente Allies. In the absence of a direct move on the French or Italian fronts that might be decisive there remains the possibility of forcing the Cattegat Straits and opening the Baltic by the British navy. That the German fears this flank attack more and more is certain, on account of the constantly growing sea power of Great Britain. The undertaking would be a very difficult one, as the Straits are heavily mined and covered by all sorts of naval craft. The French theatre of war remains the field of the ultimate decision on land, and all the other operations are for the purpose of clearing the foreground. completely for that supreme contest.

With the German and Austrian troops distributed as they are in France, Russia,

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THE AUSTRIAN-ITALIAN BATTLE FRONT-SEPTEMBER 24TH

The operations along the Italian front are much the same as those along the French front have been in so far as the stationary character of the fighting is concerned. The Italians have come up to the Austrian positions everywhere and have been stopped. During the last two months there has been so little change that it will not show on a map of ordinary

and along the Italian and Balkan frontiers, the maximum dispersion of the armies of the central empires since the beginning of the war has been made. It does not appear probable that a much greater scattering of troops will be made by these Powers in the future. Therefore, their lines at any one place are already about as thin as they will ever be. Russia's armies, although pretty well cut up, are still capable of making a fight and holding many Teutonic forces in their front. The time appears propitious, then, for the Allies to make a concerted attack at all points in an attempt

size. The Italians have succeeded in destroying some of the forts covering Rovereto and in many other places their artillery has damaged Austrian works. The Austrians have reinforced their troops to some extent and now have about 500,000 men available on this front. The Italians have about 800,000, practically the whole of their field army

to force the Teutonic lines at some weaker place. If this could be done anywhere and the central empires could be made to use up their general reserves before the Entente Allies had to put in their reserves a decisive stroke might be made. The French have the maximum number of men with the colors that they can ever muster during the continuance of the war, and the English have been transporting all their available troops to the continent. It therefore seemed probable early in September that arrangements had been made by the Allies for a simultaneous attack

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