WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
view, as there was great delay in the coaling, owing to the damage done by the Germans in South Wales.
For military reasons, the Admiralty, which had now at last been freed from hampering civilian control and granted a free hand, issued orders on the Sunday night that all news of the British successes should be suppressed. It was publicly given out in London that the raiders had escaped after a sharp action in the Channel, and that only one of them had been captured. The officers and men in the British ships engaged most loyally observed secrecy, and the large number of prisoners were sent north to the Isle of Man, control of which island and the telegraph cables leading to it the Admiralty had now taken over.
It was strange and tragi-comic that, though the German ships which had made the raid were lying at the bottom of the sea or in British hands, the public furiously attacked the Navy for its failure to destroy them or prevent their attacks. The news had come during the afternoon of Sunday that heavy and continuous firing had been heard off the South Wales coast. From Newquay, reports had been telegraphed to much the same effect, of heavy gusts of cannonading during the afternoon and evening far out to sea, and had raised men’s hopes and expectations.
No one was allowed to telegraph from Milford the news that a great German liner had arrived there under a British prize crew. The Press messages were accepted at the post-office and were quietly popped into the waste-paper basket by a lieutenant, who, with a file of marines, had been installed there to act as censor. The towns of Pembroke and Milford were placed under martial law by special proclamation, and on Sunday night a British general order appeared stating that any person found sending military or naval news would be shot by drum-head court-martial.
On Monday similar proclamations were posted up in Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham, and caused quite a scurry of correspondents from these towns. The Government and the Admiralty were most furiously attacked for this interference with liberty, and, but for the terrible series of defeats and the rapid progress of the German invasion, the Government would probably have thrown the Admiralty over and surrendered to the cries of the mob.
Most violent were the attacks upon the Admiralty for its foolish and unwise reductions in the Navy, for selling old ships which might in this emergency have done good service, for its failure to station torpedo craft along the east coast, and to instal wireless telegraph stations there. These attacks had reason behind them, and they greatly weakened the hand of the Admiralty at a dangerous moment. Fortunately, however, the young officers of the Navy had been taught fearlessness of all consequences, and they carried out with an iron hand the regulations which were essential for success in regaining the command of the sea.
Nor were the Germans even on the east coast, where they were as yet left undisturbed, to have matters all their own way. Their cruisers, indeed, were stationed right up the coast, maintaining an effective blockade and transmitting wireless signals. At Lerwick was a considerable squadron; off Wick was the Kaiserin Augusta; off Aberdeen, the Hansa; off Newcastle, the Vineta; off Hull, the Freya; and farther south the whole massed force of the German Navy. They levied ransoms, intercepted shipping, and did what they liked beyond the range of the few coast batteries.
But in the Straits of Dover they had one very serious misadventure. People on the cliffs of Dover on Tuesday morning, watching that stretch of water, which was now empty of all shipping but for the German torpedo vessels incessantly on the patrol, and but for the outlines of large German cruisers on the northern horizon, were certain that they saw one of the big German cruisers strike a mine.
There was a great cloud of smoke, and a heavy boom came over the sea; then a big four-funnelled vessel was seen to be steering for the French coast with a very marked list. On the Wednesday it was known that the German armoured cruiser Scharnhorst had struck one of the German mines adrift in the Straits of Dover, and had sustained such serious injury that she had been compelled to make for Dunkirk in a sinking condition.
There she was immediately interned by the French authorities, and when the German Government remonstrated, the French Ministry pointed out that a precisely similar course had been taken by Germany at Kiaochau, during the Far Eastern war, with the Russian battleship Tzarevitch.
* * * * * * *
Very late on Monday night the battleships of the Channel Fleet passed the Lizard, having received orders to proceed up Channel and join the great fleet assembling at Portland. Already there were concentrated at that point eleven battleships of the Devonport and Portsmouth reserve squadrons, seven armoured cruisers, and fifty torpedo vessels of all kinds. At Chatham, where the activity shown had not been what was expected of the British Navy, the Commander-in-Chief had been removed on Monday morning and replaced, and a fresh officer had also been appointed to the command of the reserve squadron.
The policy enjoined on him was, however, a waiting one; the vessels at Chatham, being exposed, if they ventured out, to attack by the whole force of the Germans, were to remain behind the guns of the forts, or such guns as had not been sold off by the War Office and the British Government in the general anxiety to effect retrenchments. The entire naval force was mobilised, though the mobilisation was not as yet quite complete.
On Tuesday night the British Admiralty had available the following ships: —
AT PORTLAND —
Eleven battleships of the Channel Fleet.
Eleven battleships of the Reserve.
Seven armoured cruisers.
Twelve ocean-going destroyers.
Twelve coastal destroyers.
Ten submarines.
Twenty older destroyers.
Ten protected cruisers.
OFF DUNGENESS —
Two armoured cruisers.
Ten submarines.
Four sea-going destroyers.
Ten older destroyers.
Twelve coastal destroyers.
WEST COAST OF IRELAND —
Two large protected cruisers.
MILFORD HAVEN —
Nine armoured cruisers of the Channel Cruiser Squadron.
Eight ocean-going destroyers.
LAND’S END —
One large protected cruiser.
Ten older destroyers.
CAPE WRATH —
Two armoured cruisers.
Ten older destroyers.
Twelve ocean-going destroyers.
And at various points along the south coast twelve coastal destroyers and a dozen old protected cruisers. The Chatham ships were not included in this force, and mustered eight battleships, four armoured cruisers, twelve coastal destroyers, twenty older destroyers, and twenty submarines, besides a number of smaller and older cruisers of doubtful value.
On Tuesday evening the Admiralty ordered the Channel Armoured Cruiser Squadron to put to sea from Milford, proceed north round the coast of Scotland, picking up on its way the two armoured cruisers and torpedo flotilla off Cape Wrath, which had taken up their position at Loch Eriboll, and then to attack the German detachment at Lerwick, and clear the northern entrance to the North Sea. A large number of colliers were to accompany or follow the fleet, which was strictly ordered not to risk an engagement with the main German forces, but to retire if they appeared, falling back on the Irish Sea.
The squadron at 6 p.m. that night, with bunkers full, weighed anchor and proceeded at 18 knots. It passed rapidly up the west coast of Scotland without communicating with the shore, and shortly before midnight on Wednesday joined the Loch Eriboll detachment, which was waiting its arrival, ready to proceed with it. At Loch Eriboll it refilled its bunkers from four colliers that had been sent in advance, and soon after daybreak on Thursday steamed out from that remote Scottish haven for the scene of action, leaving four destroyers to watch the harbour. Two more colliers arrived as it left.
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