The Great War (All 8 Volumes). Various Authors
officers and men in smart dress, the vessels were reviewed by the king on the royal yacht.
But in the eventful year of 1914, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, for the truth may never be known, the review had a different aspect. There was no gaiety. The number of ships assembled this time was greater than ever before—216 actual fighting ships passed slowly before the royal yacht—there were no flags, no bunting, no holiday crowds, no smart dress for officers and men. Instead, the fleet was drawn up ready for battle, with decks cleared, guns uncovered, steam up, and magazines replenished. During the tense weeks in which the war clouds gathered over southern Europe this great fighting force remained in the British home waters, and when, at fifteen minutes after midnight on August 4, "Der Tag" had come, this fleet sailed under sealed orders. And throughout the seven seas there were sundry ships flying the Union Jack which immediately received orders by cable and by wireless.
Of the disposition of the naval forces of Germany less was known. Her greatest strength was concentrated in the North Sea, where the island of Helgoland, the Gibraltar of the north, and the Kiel Canal with its exits to the Baltic and North Seas, furnished excellently both as naval bases and impenetrable protection. Throughout the rest of the watery surface of the globe were eleven German warships, to which automatically fell the task of protecting the thousands of ships which, flying the German red, white, and black, were carrying freight and passengers from port to port.
The first naval movements in the Great War occurred on the morning of August 5, 1914. The British ship Drake cut two cables off the Azores which connected Germany with North and South America, thus leaving these eleven German fighting ships without communication with the German admiralty direct. And the war was not a day old between England and Germany before the German ship Königin Luise was caught sowing mines off the eastern English ports by the British destroyer Lance.
CHAPTER XXXIII
FIRST BLOOD—BATTLE OF THE BIGHT
The Germans had taken heed of the value of mines from lessons learned at the cost of Russia in the war with Japan, and set about distributing these engines of destruction throughout the North Sea. The British admiralty knowing this, sent out a fleet of destroyers to scour home waters in search of German mine layers.
About ten o'clock on the morning of August 5, 1914, Captain Fox, on board the Amphion, came up with a fishing boat which reported that it had seen a boat "throwing things overboard" along the east coast. A flotilla, consisting of the Lance, Laurel, Lark and Linnet, set out in search of the stranger and soon found her. She was the Königin Luise, and the things she was casting overboard were mines. The Lance fired a shot across her bow to stop her, but she put on extra speed and made an attempt to escape. A chase followed; the gunners on the British ship now fired to hit. The first of these shots carried away the bridge of the German ship, a second shot missed, and a third and fourth hit her hull. Six minutes after the firing of the first shot her stern was shot away, and she went to the bottom, bow up. Fifty of her 130 men were picked up and brought to the English shore.
The first naval blood of the Great War had been drawn by Britain on August 5, 1914. The Königin Luise's efforts had not been in vain. She had posthumous revenge on the morning of August 6, when the Amphion, flagship of the third flotilla of destroyers, hit one of the mines which the German ship had sowed. It was seen immediately by her officers that she must sink; three minutes after her crew had left her there came a second explosion, which, throwing débris aloft, brought about the death of many of the British sailors in the small boats, as well as that of a German prisoner from the Königin Luise.
All the world, with possibly the exception of the men in the German admiralty, now looked for a great decisive battle "between the giants" in the North Sea. The British spoke of it as a coming second Trafalgar, but it was not to take place. For reasons of their own the Germans kept their larger and heavier ships within the protection of Helgoland and the Kiel Canal, but their ships of smaller type immediately became active and left German shores to do what damage they might to the British navy. It was hoped, perhaps, that the naval forces of the two powers could be equalized and a battle fought on even terms after the Germans had cut down British advantage by a policy of attrition.
A flotilla of German submarines on August 9 attacked a cruiser belonging to the main British fleet, but was unable to inflict any damage. The lord mayor of the city of Birmingham received the following telegram the next morning: "Birmingham will be proud to learn that the first German submarine destroyed in the war was sunk by H. M. S. Birmingham." Two shots from the British ship had struck the German U-15, and she sank immediately.
The German admiralty, even before England had declared war, suspected that the greatest use for the German navy in the months to come would be to fight the British navy, but they ventured to show their naval strength against Russia beforehand. Early in August they sent the Augsburg into the Baltic Sea to bombard the Russian port of Libau, but after doing a good bit of damage the German ship retired. It is probable that this raid was nothing more than a feint to remind Russia that she continually faced the danger of invasion from German troops landed on the Baltic shores under the cover of German ships, and that she must consequently keep a large force on her northern shores instead of sending it west to meet the German army on the border.
Among the German ships which were separated from the main fleet in the North Sea, and which were left without direct communication with the German admiralty after the cutting of the cables off the Azores by the Drake, were the cruisers Goeben and Breslau. When England declared war these two German ships were off the coast of Algeria. Both were very fast vessels, having a speed of 28 knots, and they were designed to go 6,000 knots without needing replenishment of their coal bunkers.
On the morning of August 5, after having bombarded some of the coast cities of Algeria they found themselves cut off on the east by a French fleet and on the west by an English fleet, but by a very clever bit of stratagem they escaped. The band of the Goeben was placed on a raft and ordered on a given moment to play the German national airs after an appreciable period. Meanwhile, under the cover of the night's darkness the two German ships steamed away. After they had a good start the band on the raft began to play. The British patrols heard the airs and immediately all British ships were searching for the source of the music. To find a small raft in mid-sea was an impossible task, and while the enemy was engaged in it the two Germans headed for Messina, then a neutral port, which they reached successfully. The Italian authorities permitted them to remain there only twenty-four hours.
Before leaving they took a dramatic farewell, which received publicity in the press of the whole world, and which was designed to lead the British fleet commanders to believe that the Germans were coming out to do battle. Instead, they headed for Constantinople. They escaped all the ships of the British Mediterranean fleet with the exception of the cruiser Gloucester. With this ship they exchanged shots and were in turn slightly damaged, but they reached the Porte in seaworthy condition, and were immediately sold to the Turkish Government, which was then still neutral. The crews were sent to Germany and were warmly welcomed at Berlin. The officers responsible for their escape were disciplined by the British authorities.
Both Germany and England, the former by means of the eleven ships at large, and the latter by means of her preponderance in the number of ships, now made great efforts to capture trading ships of the enemy. When England declared war there was issued a royal proclamation which stated that up to midnight of August 14 England would permit German merchantmen in British harbors to sail for home ports, provided Germany gave British merchantmen the same privilege, but it was specified that ships of over 5,000 tons would not receive the privilege because they could be converted into fighting ships afterward. But on the high seas enemy ships come upon were captured.
The German admiralty on August 1 had issued orders to German merchantmen to keep within neutral ports, and by this means such important ships as the Friedrich der Grosse and the Grosser Kurfürst eluded capture. In the harbor of New York was the Kronprinzessin