Last updated: October 24, 2018


La fin des guerres navales - 1903

Future of the Submarine - 1902/1904

French
(J-M Margot)
Jules Verne
Encyclopedia
Myers
Bibliography
Galagher
Bibliography
XX
Vxxx
Mxxx
Axxx

Alternate English Titles: 
    Future of the Submarine. An instructive article by Jules Verne.


Details: (jump right to the text of the article)
This article was re-discovered by Andrew Nash (Ed Note: me!) in 1970. Page 1 of the article was noticed in the book 50 Years of Popular Mechanics, 1902-1952. He brought the article to the attention of Piero Gondolo della Riva, who included it in a listing in his 1985 bibliography: 
Bibliographie Analytique de Toutes les Oeuvres de Jules Verne: II - Oeuvres non Romanesques Publiées et Oeuvres Inédites, published by the Société Jules Verne, Paris.

In the entry, Piero says that the article may be apocryphal (meaning attributed to Jules Verne, but not really by Jules Verne). He surmises that it might be by Michel Verne, Verne's son.

Since the publication of the bibliography, there have been many other discoveries about works by Jules Verne, and it is now considered possible that this article is indeed by Jules Verne.

The French version of this article and the London version was reported in the Bulletin de la Societe Jules Verne, No 121, 1er trimestre 1997, in the article: Un article ignore de Jules Verne: L'Avenir de la navigation sous-marine, by Jean-Luc Buard, pages 11-15. The french version is reproduced in the article.

Note: see also the page: Submarines and Jules Verne

There are many articles around 1900-1920 which have the phrase "Future of the Submarine" or talk about Submarines.
Here are a couple that are noteworthy!

  • The Arkansas Democrat, Little Rock, Arkansas, Thursday Afternoon, September 5, 1901
    The Future of War in which H. G., Wells is quoted.
    "The Future of War.
    Mr. H. G. Wells, the author of "The War of the Worlds," etc, is writing in the North American Review a series of forecasts of the future states, which he calls "Anticipations." ............ Mr. Wells enlarges upon the naval position of the future war, and his inferences and arguments regarding the future of the submarine boat are so plausible that they are worth quoting here..."
    PDF of the article
  • The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, 26 Apr 1904, Page 1
    "No More Battleships
    Fighting Craft of the Future to be Submarines and Torpedoes"
    PDF of the article
  • The Billings Gazette, Billings Montana, Sunday May 5, 1901, Page 2
    This article appears in numerous papers (Quad-City Times, April 28 1901 / Lawrence Daily Journal, May 16, 1901)
    "Future Marine Travel" , Observations by J. P. Holland, Inventor
    PDF of the article
  • The Gibson Courier, Oct 17. 1902, Gibson, Illinois
    "To Give Submarine Trips
    A Swiss amusement company arranges excursions under water.
    It is now known that the Gubet submarine boat, recently sold at Paris, at auction, was purchased by a Swiss amusement company, which intends to five submerged excursions in lake Geneva. The prospectus says the tickets will be $25 and the distance covered will be 25 miles under water and a mile and a half on the surface. In order to demonstrate the safttey of the boat, each passenger will be presented with a free life insurance policy for $2500"

Plot Synopsis: 
Jules Verne talks about what he perceives the future of the submarine to be.

Book Collecting Information:
First French
Edition
n/a La fin des guerres navales
Mon dimanche
2e annee no. 9, 1 fevrier 1903
page 68, 2 illustr.

Identified in Bulletin de la Societe Jules Verne, No. 121, 1er trimestre, 1997
by Jean-Luc Buard

First UK
Editon
n/a The Future of the Submarine. An instructive article by Jules Verne
Answers
No. 759, December 13, 1902
Page 79 (9 paragraphs, right column)

Identified in Bulletin de la Societe Jules Verne, No. 121, 1er trimestre, 1997
by Jean-Luc Buard

First Australian
Edition
The Future of the Submarine
World's News
Sydney, NSW
Saturday May 2, 1903, Page 16

PDF of the article

The above article indicates that the article was reprinted from the Examiner, San Francisco.

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

First US
Edition
Submarine Boats
The Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express,
Buffalo, New York
Saturday December 27, 1902
Page 3

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

The Future of the Submarine
The Wilkes-Barre News
Wilkes-Barre, Pensylvania
Wednesday, January 7, 1903
Page 6

AND
THE IDENTICAL ARTICLE
Saturday, February 14, 1903
Page 6

AND
THE IDENTICAL ARTICLE
February 26, 1903
Page 5

ALL Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

Submarine Boats
The Buffalo Commercial,
Buffalo, New York
Friday, Jan 16, 1903
Page 5

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

Their Destructiveness is Great
The Missoulian
Missoula, Montana
Sunday Morning, January 18, 1903
Page 11

PDF of the article

The title of this article is:

“THEIR DESTRUCTIVENESS IS GREAT.
Designer of the “Chambered Nantilus” Says They Will Never Do for Carrying Passengers”

  1. Yes, it says “Nantilus”!!! AND
  2. Designer of the Chambered Nautilus???

WHAT was this editor thinking???

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

"No title" !
Star-Gazette
Elmira, New York
Mon, January 19, 1903
Page 4

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

Submarine Boats
The Morning Post
Raleigh, North Carolina
Saturday Jan 24, 1903

This article begins:
Submarine Boats
To Begin with, says M. Jules Verne in London Answers,
I am not in any way the inventor of submarine navigation,
and reference to the authorities will show that many years
--fully fifty, I should say, before I wrote about the Nautilus
-- the Italians were at work upon submarine war vessels and
other nations were busied with them too.
All that I did was to avail myself of the great privileges
of the fiction writer, spring over every scientific difficulty
with fancy's seven legued (sic) boots and create on paper
what other men were planning out in steel and other metals.

The future of the submarine as I regard it .....

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

The Future of the Submarine
San Francisco Examiner
Sunday Examiner Magazine
Sunday March 29, 1903
page 58

PDF of the article

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

Jules Verne Foresaw Deadliness of “Sub”
The Pacific Commercial Advertiser,
Honolulu, Hawaii Teritory
Monday, February 24, 1919
Page 2

PDF of the article

Discovered by Andrew Nash - October, 2018

First US
Edition
that was discovered!

above is the
magazine cover

This article started it all...

This was the first english version of the article discovered.
Andrew Nash discovered it in the Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, public library, around 1970. The first page of the article was reprinted in "Fifty Years of Popular Mechanics, 1902-1952", page 35. (Note: the date of the article was not shown in the book! It had to be researched. I eventually found a copy of the 1904 June Popular Mechanics in the Library of Congress)

Future of the Submarine
Popular Mechanics
June 1904

Discovered by Andrew Nash - 1970, Oshawa, Ontario

Significant
Edition
Future of the Submarine
Extraordinary Voyages
(newsletter of the NAJVS)
March 1994, Vol. 1, No. 3
Toronto, Canada
Future of the Submarine

appears in:
Bandits & Rebels
2013
BearManor Media
Albany, GA

Series: The Palik Series, Volume 7

ISBN-10: 1593933959
ISBN-13: 978-1593933951 ( Paperback Buy from Amazon )

Contents of this Volume:

  • Introduction (by Daniel Compere, translated by Jean-Michel Margot with Brian Taves)
  • San Carlos (translated by Edward Baxter)
  • Future of the Submarine
  • The Siege of Rome (translated by Edward Baxter)
  • Appendix: Martin Paz, or The Pearl of Lima (translated by Anne T. Wilbur)
  • Illustrations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Contributors
  • The Palik Series
  • Previous Volumes in the Palik Series

The Palik Series is published by BearManor Fiction, under the auspices of the NAJVS – (North American Jules Verne Society) (*external link) and is edited by Brian Taves. The NAJVS is very proud to be offering these never-before-translated English editions


Actual text of the article:
From the magazine:
Popular Mechanics
June 1904

This article was brought to the attention of Verne scholar Piero Gondollo della Riva, by Andrew Nash (me) and this discovery was published in 1985 in Bibliographie Analytique de Toutes les Oeuvres de Jules Verne: II - Oeuvres non Romanesques Publiées et Oeuvres Inédites. It was described on page 132, entry no 175. At the time, Piero thought it was probably written by Michel Verne, but he has since had second thoughts, and indeed it may have been written by Jules.

Future of the Submarine
Author of the Nautilus Says Its Use Will Be Confined to War 
and It Will Bring Peace
By Jules Verne

For some inexplicable reason many people insist upon regarding me as the inventor, or the imaginer, of the submarine. I am not in any way the inventor of submarine navigation, and reference to the authorities will show that many years -- fully fifty, I should say, before I wrote about the Nautilus -- the Italians were at work upon submarine war vessels, and other nations were busied with them, too. All that I did was to avail myself of the great privileges of the fiction writer, spring over every scientific difficulty with fancy's seven-leagued boots, and create on paper what other men were planning out in steel and other metals.

The future of the submarine, as I regard it -- and let me here disclaim all gift of prophecy -- is to be wholly a war future. The Nautilus, as I have written of it, will never be, I think, an actual fact, and I do not believe that under-sea ships will be built in future years to carry traffic across the ocean's bed to America and to Australia. Even if the air difficulty were successfully encountered (and I have my grave doubts as to the possibility of that", what would be gained by any such sub-ocean traffic except freedom from sea-sickness? No submarine would ever cross the bed of the Atlantic faster than a ship upon the waves would traverse it, and surely freedom from that bugbear is not a sufficient incentive for the creation of a Cunard line beneath the sea.

I am an old man now, and working, as well as my deficient eyesight will allow me, upon my one hundred and second volume of boys' stories and as I look back on the years which have passed since I first wrote the life-story of the Nautilus, and of its owner, I see no progress in the submarine which makes me hope for its use as a commercial medium. It has been wonderfully improved, I grant you -- miraculously improved almost -- but the improvements have all tended to one point -- its efficacy as a war weapon; and that will be its one use in the future, I believe. I even think that in the distant future the submarine may be the cause of bringing battle to a stoppage altogether, for fleets will become useless, and as other war material continues to improve, war will become impossible. As time goes on, each nation will acquire a large and very rapid fleet of submarines. Each little vessel (I am inclined to think that in the future they will be smaller than they are today, and manned by one of two men only) will be absolutely in control, and will be able with scientific accuracy to place torpedoes underneath the greatest vessels, and to blow those vessels up. I do not think that any apparatus will be found to counteract the intense rapidity and certainty of the submarine, and eventually, when every nation has its fleet of hundreds of these little vessels, what is to war with them? They may be able even to blow up huge tracts of country, and retreat unseen, some day; who knows?

Of course, before these things can be, improvements in the submarine will have to be manifold, and almost as wonderfully ingenious as the beginnings of this greatest wonder of man's science; but these things will, I think, be possible.

I followed very carefully the experiments made lately during the French maneuvers in the Mediterranean, and during the maneuvers of the English fleet, and I was very much struck by the accuracy with which the submarines of both fleets managed to slip in, strike, and get away in safety.

Imagine hundreds of these vessels with their deadly freight. Can you suggest that any means would counteract their deadly power? I do not think so. The refraction of the water, the depths to which the submarine can sink, its freedom from all observation -- all these things make it the deadliest of war inventions, and in future years, when I myself am under ground, these powers will be enhanced. I do not think that apparatus will be found to render them more harmless. The sea is hard to pierce, and I can think of nothing, even upon paper, which will enable men on board the supermare vessels to trace the tracks of their deadly little foes beneath the waves.

But as a commercial item in the world's civilization, I do not think that submarines have any future. Air may be found for them, but even so it will never be found plentifully enough to make it possible for a large number of passengers to travel for a length of time in comfort. Electricity for their propulsion may, one day, be gathered from the sea itself, but I have doubts of it; and even if these things were done, the pressure of the sea at any depth would crush a submarine to fragments unless some hitherto unheard-of metal were discovered which would withstand the pressure. Think of the size a trans-Atlantic submarine would have to be, and think how slowly it must travel, owing to the pressure of the waters round it, and tell me if you think a Majestic will ever be made to travel to New York upon the sea bottom.

I doubt it -- doubt it very gravely; and, as I have said, I do not see that there is any need for submarine trans-ocean vessels. But submarine fleets are in the near future and they will, I believe, prove the thin end of the beneficent wedge which will cause war to cease between the nations, owing to their very deadliness. Unfortunately their work will not be done in my time. I am a man of peace and should have loved to see it, but it seems that my fading eyes are destined to behold sickening carnage in the unequal contest of the improved submarine machine with the heavy battleship, whose days are numbered.
 

- the above is the article, previously published in 1904 in Popular Mechanics magazine - 

NOTE: The article in The World's News, Sydney, NSW ends truncated:

I doubt it -- doubt it very gravely, and as I have said, I do not see that there is any need for submarine trans-oceanic vessels. But submarine war fleets are in the near futres, and they will, I believe, prove the thin end of the beneficent wedge which will cause war to cease between the nations, owing to their very deadliness. Unfortuneately, their work will not be done in my time. I am a man of peace, and should have loved to see it. -

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