Genre:

News-Commentary

Subjects:

Military Technology, Steamships, War, Cultural Geography

Institutions mentioned:

Royal Navy

    Begins by pondering the 'pleasant' prospect that an English war with Prussia and Germany is unlikely, but presents an extract from a recent 'leader' in The Times on 'The Cruise of the Lords of the Admiralty' (Anon 1869), warning that if the English fleet were to be called into action, it would soon be engulfed by such dense smoke (from its guns) that both signals and enemy ships would become invisible. Notes that the Germans invented gun-cotton and could use it to fire naval guns without shrouding their own ships in smoke, whilst accurately firing on smoke-shrouded English vessels.