a. In view not less, however, of the increasing difficulties of our diplomatic relations with Germany than of the spontaneous friendship that had been growing

each country was to help the other-such co?peration, even if desired, would almost certainly be fruitless. At the same time, in a letter written on November 22, 1912, to the French ambassador, Sir Edward G

ommand of the sea, were the speed and secrecy with which those first divisions were conveyed across the Channel. That in mere numbers they seem in retrospect to have been almost ridiculously inadequate is merely a measure of the colossal proportions that the war on land afterward assumed. Small as that a

with such precision day and night; and of the feelings produced in France by this visible pledge of our friendship there was instant and abundant evidence. Between August 9th and August 23d five D

Brigade, one heavy battery, a divisional ammunition column, the Headquarters' division of engineers, two Field companies, one Signal company, one Cavalry squadron, one Divisional train, and three Field ambulances-comprising a t

olkestone, Newhaven, Avonmouth, and many other ports, that constant stream of men, horses, provisions, and equipment poured ceaselessly for nearly a fortnight, screened by destroyer-escorts, and with aeroplanes and seaplanes keeping watch over them from the sky. Without a single casualty as the resu

ination, under the unsuspected force of the heavy German artillery, the crumpling up of those iron-clad cupolas of the Brialmont forts at Liège-few would have thought twice, perhaps, even if they had known what they were doing, of those tiny submarines E6 and E8 creeping, the first of their kind, into the Bight of Heligoland.

en safely landed, the submarines kept their watch. In the lee of islands, at the mouths of channels, in hourly danger of detection and death, day and night, without relief, those cautious periscopes maintained their vigil. Farther to the south, guarding the approaches to the Channel, betwe

t and torpedo, and working at a distance from their bases then unprecedented. Nevertheless, after the Expeditionary Force had been safely transported to France, they were, in the words of Commodore, afterward Vice-Admiral, Roger Keyes, "incessantly employed on the enemy's coast in the Heligoland Bight and elsewhere, and have ob

n a very few all that it meant from a strategical standpoint. Between three and four hundred miles from the nearest of our naval bases, and from some of the chief of them more than six hundred miles

each of the four great estuaries, from west to east, of the Ems, the Jade, the Weser, and the Elbe, had been subdivided by sandbanks into a meshwork of channels than which nothing could have been easier to make impregnable. These were further guarded by the continuation of the scimitar curve of the Frisian Islands, beginning opposite Helder in

stern coast of it, lay Bremerhaven, another naval base and important dockyard; and, on the same stretch of coast, at the point of the tongue of land between the Weser and the Elbe, lay Cuxhaven, yet a third and immensely powerful naval port. T

ets. Of rocky formation and rising, at its highest point, to about 200 feet, it was not only a useful observation post but a fortress of the utmost strength. With wide views extending to the mouth of the Elbe and the coast

British smugglers. During the Danish blockade of the German ports in the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848, its advantages had become so manifest to the then British Governor that he made a special report about it to the Colonial Office. "Possessing pilots of all the surrounding coasts and rivers and with its roadstead sufficient for a steam f

to its prevalent winds with short steep seas of peculiar violence, it had been mined and protected since the outbreak of war with every means that ingenuity could suggest. As for the island itself, from which all women and civilians, with the exception of five nurses, had been removed, new guns had been m

g able to cut off the enemy's returning night patrols; and an operation was accordingly decided upon, of which the following were the broad outlines. On the morning of August 28, 1914, the day appointed for the action, some submarines, with a couple of destroyers in attendance, were to penetrate into the Bight and expose themselves to the enemy, and were then to lure them, if possible, into contact with other forces that would be waiting. In close proxi

ith the proposed scene of action. Setting out at midnight on August 26th, they escorted the eight submarines chosen for this hazardous duty, D2, D8, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, and E9; and, while these were kept in the background throughout the next day, the Lurcher

First Battle-Cruiser and First Light Cruiser Squadrons to be at hand in case of necessity. By the evening of August 27th, therefore, all were in their places; the submarines were feeling their way into the heart of the Bight; and the excitement of all engaged, during those hushed hours of darkness

ossible hostile submarines, three of our own, E6, E7, and E8, designedly exposing themselves, proceeded toward Heligoland. Finding the sea clear, Commodore Keyes with the Lurcher a

was poor, seldom at first extending to more than three miles, and though the fighting in consequence afterward became confused, the general strategical plan soon proved itself to have been sound. Issuing apparently from berths between the Frisian Islands and the coast-line, a patrol of German destroyers, setting out toward Heligoland, suddenly discovered our

erman cruisers loomed out of the mist, one with four funnels and one with two. Whether these had come from Heligoland or had followed up the destroyer-patrol was not appar

out of the builders' hands, was already in as tight a corner as

sult of them; Lieutenant Westmacott was killed at Commodore Tyrwhitt's side; the foremost port gun was shot out of action, the gunlayer being blown out of his seat; gun after gun wa

ing fresh foes, was most inspiriting"-and appeared on the scene, and attracted to herself the guns of the four-funnelled German cruiser. Thus relieved a little, for ten minutes longe

he chances of war, she should have been sunk a dozen times over. Struck first in the boiler-room, the after funnel was blown in, and the main steam-pipe damaged, four men being killed, but the remainder sticking to their posts with the utmost coolness and heroism. Next she was struck forward, three more men being killed and

Tyrwhitt, "in an able and gallant manner under most trying conditions." Few on board, indeed, would have given much for her chances of ever coming out at all; and, when a final shell struck her near the centre gun, causing a violent explosion and setting her on fire, the likelihood of the Laurel making port must have seemed remote to the last degree. Thanks in a

part from this, though many of our vessels, especially the Laurel and Arethusa, had been heavily battered, all the flotillas were intact; while, unknown to Commodore Tyrwhitt and his command, even the abandoned boats' crews were being rescued. For, peeping through her periscope, Submarine E4 had witnessed the whole occurrence-the sinking of V187, the subsequent work of rescue, and the approach of the hostile cruiser. Under her resourceful captain, Commander E. W. Leir, she had at once proceeded to attack t

m we had last seen heading for Heligoland in the wake of the decoy submarines. These also had been successful in getting into touch with the enemy forces, and, at ten o'clock, the

ritical, Commodore Tyrwhitt ordered the Fearless to attack and the First Flotilla to launch torpedoes; but, though they did so with immense spirit, the cruiser evaded the onslaught and vanished in the mist. Ten minutes later she appeared again from another direction, to be attacked both by the Arethusa and

en off action, disappearing into the mist again in the direction of the Island. How badly she was damaged could only be guessed, but, four minutes later, yet another cruiser was sighted, the three-funnelled Mainz, which was immediately attacked both by the Arethusa and the Fearless. The blood of everybody was up now as never before, and, for twenty-five minutes, the assault w

irst completely puzzled by two things-the absence of corpses and the enormous profusion of deck-sponges soaked in blood. It was not for some time that he began to

in an action where speed was essential-the main German bases being so close at hand-the lighter forces might not be able to deal with the situation sufficiently rapidly. Bearing in mind the possibilities of a concerted submarine attack, and the conceivable sort

st before one; mines had been reported eastward; it was essential that the squadrons should not be too far dispersed; and therefore Admiral Beatty, desisting from pursuit, ordered a withdrawal, and returned to the K?ln. She was sighted at 1:25, with her ensign still flying; the Lion opened fire upon her from two turrets; a couple of salvoes sufficed to sink her; and, within ten minutes, she had disappeared. By this time, the Arethusa, the Fearless, and the advanced destroyer flotillas had been in action almost continuously for more than six hours; the Arethusa's speed, owing to her injuries, was slowly diminishing knot by knot; upon the bridge of the little Laurel, Commander Frank Rose, with both his legs crippled, still kept his post; three German cruisers and two destroyers, including the commodore in command, were known to have been sunk; and, b

him and Rear-Admiral Campbell had been allotted the task of intercepting any vessels that might have escaped in this direction; and, at about half-past four, some of Admiral Campbell's cruisers met Commodore Keyes in the returning Lur

the Nore. Meanwhile, the Arethusa, after her fiery ordeals, was in hardly better case than the Laurel, and, at seven o'clock, after struggling along homeward at about six knots an hour, found herself unable to proceed farther, and

rethusa returned to harbour, scarred and lopsided-with her eleven dead and seventeen wounded officers and men-it was little wonder that every ship's syre