Naval disasters

Majestic sunk

Auxiliary blown up at Sheerness

Last night late news has had its inevitable sequel in a feeling of depression. Despite the hardening effects of this unequalled war a succession of blows like those just recently experienced a calculated to shake the stoutest hearted and generate doubts in the minds of even the most confident.

The menace from underwater-craft is the most formidable we have to face and it is idle to deny that the peril is growing.

To lose two battleships – first the Triumph and now the Majestic – within three days, suggests an arithmetical calculation of a particularly disturbing character and points also to the urgent necessity of getting on with our work with the utmost dispatch – not only in Gallipoli and the Straits but on every field.

How costly the Dardanelles operations have been and are likely to have been apparent for sometime. Out of a total loss of armoured ships represented by a tonnage of 190,962, a tonnage of 65,714 has been accounted for in the attempt to reach Constantinople.

In the land fighting of the same operations our casualty lies have been appalling, but both by land and sea the campaign must go on until in reaches a successful conclusion.

Too much depends upon it for there to be halting or faltering. It is a back door the forcing of which our necessities and the niceties of Russia dictate.

Our great Ally has done wonders and we can neither complain of the conduct of the Russian soldiers, nor the generalship of their leaders. They were handicapped by the same honourable unpreparedness which on other fields gave the enemy his great opportunity in the early days of the war.

Time and again the Russians. Have torn victory out of defeat. Pushed back here, compelled to retreat there, they have ultimately rallied in a fashion which had extorted admiration from all.

At present they are fighting magnificently to preserve an unbroken centre and this morning’s telegrams once more suggest that success will eventually crown their efforts.

The fewer facilities which, however, possess for they possess for the manufacture of arms and ammunitions are a hindrance to that rapid recovery which would otherwise be the case and it is imperative both for this reason and because an absolutely co-ordinated plan is essential, that west and east should be in close contact.

The twain will meet when we have seized the key of Constantinople. That key is still dangling a little above our reach but we may hope to have it in our hands before long.

Nearly all the officers and re men of the Majestic are reporter to a be been saved but the disaster in home waters, the blowing up by an internal explosion of the auxiliary ship Princess Irene in Sheerness Harbour is entirely unaccompanied by mitigating circumstances.

Not a man absorbed has escaped to tell the tale tale or to explain how the calamity was caused, and it is feared that 200 lives have been lost.