temptible little army," but he had a wholesome respect for its fleet and made no serious attempt to cope with it. His armies were mobilized and rushed irresistibly into France and Russia. But his mighty war fleet remained within the shelter of inland waters, chiefly at the Kiel Canal, while the mercantile marine of Germany, which had been the second largest in the world, disappeared utterly from the high seas. All vessels that could ran into home waters for safety. Many which were in American and other neutral waters remained there, interned for the duration of the war. Many were captured or destroyed by the navies of the allies. Meantime, despite many losses inflicted by a few daring German cruisers, the sea power of Great Britain enabled the commerce of the allies to continue substantially as in time of peace.

THE COMMERCE OF THE NATIONS

At the outbreak of the war the chief maritime nations had the following mercantile fleets:

These figures suggest how comparatively slight was the loss to the British Empire of the nearly 2,000,000 tons of shipping destroyed during the war by the German U-boats and a few cruisers. It amounts to less than ten per cent of the whole; and in fact was nearly compensated for by the building and purchasing of new ships and the capture of German vessels.

THE NAVIES OF THE WORLD

Statistics of the navies of the various powers cannot be given quite so completely as of the mercantile fleets, the tonnage being lacking. The following table gives, however, the numbers of ships of various classes in the navies of the chief eight powers just before the outbreak of the war. The numbers include those built and in commission and also those actually in process of construction. Under "Battleships" are included dreadnoughts, pre-dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts. The eight powers, the names of which are abbreviated in the table, are the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Germany, AustriaHungary, and the United States. They are thus given, not in the order of their strength, but according to their grouping in the early part of the war; the first five being the allied powers, the next two the central empires, and the last being the then neutral United States:

SECTIONAL PLAN OF A SUBMARINE

Upper View-Top of vessel showing deck torpedo tubes and fore and aft diving rudders.
Center View Section showing the upper half of the submarine with engine room, crew and officers' quarters, and one of the
bow torpedo tubes with a torpedo ready to be loaded.

Lower View-Plan of submarine showing arrangement of torpedo tubes, engines, motors, batteries, tanks and crew quarters.
A typical submarine measures 120 feet in length, has a beam of 12 feet and a draught of 12 feet, 5 inches. The displacement
is 225 tons, and when submerged, 280. The motive power consists of two Diesel heavy oil engines of 200-220 horsepower, with
two electric motors developing a total of 250 horsepower for running under water. The conning tower in the deck is used when
partment.
running on the surface, and when submerged the boat is operated by the periscopes and controls in the central operating com-

This destroyer escaped a torpedo from a hunted submarine by quick turning. Generally the torpedo travels at about fifteen feet under water.