"Grey and solemn on the wave, Vast of beam, immense of length; Coldly scorning death and grave-- Citadel of monster strength. "Darkened sky and troubled sea, Thunder-crashing sound in air; Massive citadel--was she Such a thing as founders there." "Submarined." (From _The Battleship_, by Walter Wood, 1912.) THE next phase of the naval operations in the Channel and North Sea does not afford quite such satisfactory reading as the "Battle of the Bight", for the loss of several of our cruisers and smaller vessels by mine and torpedo has to be recorded. At the same time the very fact that our ships were at sea, and so offering a target to the German submarines, while their ships were hiding under the fortifications of Kiel and Heligoland, must not be lost sight of. If we claim command of the sea we must face the risks of the position. The sinking of a few men-of-war by mines or submarines will not transfer the "trident of Neptune" to a fleet which only plays for safety, any more than the destruction of one or two public buildings by a dynamitard will give him the reins of government. The "silver lining" to the cloud of our losses in men and material is the magnificent bravery and discipline displayed by the crews of the vessels attacked, officers, seamen, and marines alike. Space forbids a detailed account of each of these losses, but it is as well to mention them. Thus the _Speedy_ and _Pathfinder_, small cruisers of mature age, were blown up, the first by a mine, the second by a submarine, during September. In the month of October the cruiser _Hawke_, when in company with the _Theseus_ in the North Sea, was attacked and torpedoed by a German submarine, while the _Hermes_, fitted as a tender for aeroplanes, was sunk in a similar way in the Channel, where, on the 27th, the German submarine service went so far as to torpedo the French steamer _Amiral Ganteaume_, crowded as she was with 2500 refugees. The biggest and most dramatic of the losses occasioned by the enemy submarines was the torpedoing of the three big cruisers _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, and _Hogue_ on the morning of 22nd September. The ships were by no means new, and their loss is not to be compared with that of the many gallant men who formed their crews.