The claim was unjustified; but, so far, it was not--to an uninstructed neutral--obviously unjustified. The Americans were not yet at war; the submarines of France and Britain were hardly ever heard of. Our boats had few targets, and their operations were still further restricted by the rules of international law, which we continued to keep, though our enemies did not. Moreover, whatever our Service did achieve was done secretly; and even our successes were announced so briefly and vaguely as to make no impression. The result was that the Germans were able to make out a plausible title to the ‘command of the sea beneath the surface’; and they even gained a hearing for the other half of their claim, which was unsupported by any evidence whatever. The submarine is not, in its origin, of German invention; the idea of submarine war was not a German idea, nor have Germans contributed anything of value to the long process of experiment and development by which the idea has been made to issue in practical under-water navigation. From beginning to end, the Germans have played their characteristic part. They have been behind their rivals in intelligence; they have relied on imitation of the work of others; on discoveries methodically borrowed and adapted; and when they have had to trust to their own abilities, they have never passed beyond mediocrity. They have shown originality in one direction only--their ruthless disregard of law and humanity. These statements are not the outcome of partisanship, but of a frank study of the facts. They are clearly proved by the history of submarine war. That history may be said to begin with the second half of the sixteenth century, when the two main principles or aims of submarine war were first set forth--both by English seamen. Happily the records remain. Sir William Monson, one of Queen Elizabeth’s admirals, in his famous ‘Naval Tracts,’ suggests that a powerful ship may be sunk much more easily by an under-water shot than by ordinary gunfire. His plan is ‘to place a cannon in the hold of a bark, with her mouth to the side of the ship: the bark shall board, and then to give fire to the cannon that is stowed under water, and they shall both instantly sink: the man that shall execute this stratagem may escape in a small boat hauled the other side of the bark.’