ARE PANZERS PULSED FUR ARMAGE
¥ A ship's upturned lifeboat brought alongside
a patrol. Clinging to the keel tn ulter exhaus-
tion are four survivors. Only one had sufficient
strength to reach for the lines which were thrown
by the rescuers. But they did not represent all
who had been on board, ‘ for some were doomed
to burn and drown.”
B TANKER, oil laden, rolls upon
WG the Caribbean’s salty waves.
gd Her engines are throbbing, her
4 able seamen upon the watch,
her captain at the helm. A sudden crash,
and then another, blasts her engine room
and her sturdy hull, snuffs out the lives of
three good men, and sets the vessel on fire.
In the offing hovers a monster sub-
marine, ready with her deck guns to finish
off the work of destruction her torpedoes
have begun. But there is no need for
further blows; already the ship is becoming
enveloped in smoke and flames. Already a
lifeboat rides the heaving waves, and brave
sailors are being rescued, as they flounder
in the oil-soaked sea. But not all, for some
are doomed to burn and drown.
This is war—cruel, relentless, heart-
breaking. The survivors, it is true, will be
landed at a friendly port. The burned and
injured will be given hospital care. But
the submarine will, shark-like, prowl the
sea and seek for new and larger prey. And
it will find it, for this lone tanker is
only one of thousands of ships which, in
these days of world-wide struggle, will join
the silent armada of the deep.
There are three important areas of the
seven seas where ship sinkings seem to
have been increasing; namely, the Carib-
bean Sea; the various waterways, straits,
and seas about the Netherlands Kast
Indies, centering at Singapore; and the
Mediterranean area. The North Sea and
the waters about Great Britain have had
their share of marine disasters, as have also
the waters of the north Atlantic. But the
world’s attention seems to be centered
upon the Netherlands East Indies, the
Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. There
the fighting ships of the great nations
gather, and the naval battles to take place
at these strategic points may yet rival the
renowned contest of the first World War,
fought between the British and the German
navies at Jutland. Hence, it is not without
point that the world’s attention is focused
upon these trouble-spots.
If vou will look at your map, you will see
that the reason for this is to be found in
the fact that the Strait of Malacca, and
the various seas adjoining the Philippines
and the Netherlands Indies; the Panama
Canal; and the Suez Canal, not to exclude
the Strait of Gibraltar and the Dardanelles
and Bosporus, are vitally necessary to the
sea highways of the world. They are to the
ocean's ‘commerce what steel bridges are
to our railroads. The sea-borne traflic of
Page TEN
the world passes through these canals and
straits. He who controls them, controls
the world s commerce. Close these great
waterways, and all ships east- and west-
bound from continent to continent would
be compelled to add thousands of miles to
every voyage. With these passages closed,
it would be necessary to sail around the
tip of South America through the Strait
of Magellan, around the southern tip of
Australia past Melbourne and King George
Sound, and around the southernmost point
of Africa, past the Cape of Good Hope.
But of all these important points, Suez
is paramount, for Suez is the gateway be-
tween the Far East and Europe. And this
portion of the world is even more vital to
world trade because of the fact that the
Dardanelles and the Bosporus constitute
for Russia her only warm-water outlet to
the sea, and that Turkey, Iraq, and Iran
(ancient Mesopotamia and Persia) provide
the land bridge between Europe and South-
ern Asia. A railway line from Bremen,
Hamburg, and Berlin to Bagdad was the
dream of the late Kaiser Wilhelm II, and
control of the straits at Constantinople and
Gallipoli was the dream of Peter the Great.
That famous king became emperor of all
Russia in 1688, when he was but sixteen
vears of age and enjoyed a prosperous
reign for thirty-seven years. lie is reputed
to have left to his successors a famous “last
will and testament,” in Article Nine of
which he enjoined the following policy:
“To take every possible means of gain-
ing Constantinople and the Indies (for he
who rules there will be the true sovereign of
the world); excite war continually in
Turkey and Persia; establish fortresses in
the Black Sea, which is a double point,
necessary to the realization of our project;
accelerate as much as possible the decay
of Persia; penetrate to the Persian Gulf; re-
establish, if possible, by the way of Syria,
the ancient commerce of the Levant;
advance to the Indies, which are the great
depot of the world. Once there, we can do
without the gold of England.”
This, however, is not all, for the Eleventh
Article reads: “Interest the House of
Austria in the expulsion of the Turks from
Europe, and quiet their dissensions at the
moment of the conquest of Constantinople
(having excited war among the old states of
Europe), by giving to Austria a portion of
the conquest, which afterward will or can
be reclaimed.”
That this policy has not been lost to view
is shown by the facts of Russian history.
Peter the Great succeeded in 1696 in wrest-
ing the Sea of Azov from the Turks.
Catherine the Great next gained the
Crimea, and in 1812, by the treaty of
Bucharest, Alexander I obtained Moldavia
and Bessarabia. The Czar Nicholas won
for Russia the right to freely navigate the
Black Sea, the Dardanelles, and the Dan-
ube, but in the Crimean War he lost the
right to navigate the Danube, found him-
self restricted in the Black Sea, and lost
Moldavia. But Russia awaited her oppor-
tunity, and in 1870, when the Western na-
tions were busily watching the Iranco-
Prussian war, she declared her intention to
be no longer bound by the treaty of 1856,
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE