To Kiel in the 'Hercules' Part 7

The Allied inspection parties were instructed as follows:--

(_a_) To satisfy themselves that all Allied vessels are bunkered, ballasted, and sufficiently manned for the pa.s.sage to the Tyne, in the case of British and Belgian vessels, and to Dunkerque, in the case of French vessels.

(_b_) To ensure that the necessary repairs and dry docking of unseaworthy ships are carried out by the German authorities.

(_c_) To ascertain that sufficient deck and engine stores are provided for the pa.s.sage.

(_d_) That all ships' papers, including Log Book and Register, confiscated on internment are returned.

(_e_) That ammunition and explosives are landed from the vessels which have been used for war purposes.

The arrival of the lists of embargo and prize ships showed them to be scattered about among a large number of ports on both the North Sea and the Baltic. As lack of time precluded the possibility of visiting Danzig or any other Baltic ports east of Kiel, it was arranged that all seaworthy ships in these ports should proceed to Kiel for inspection.

After completing the inspection of the five ships in Wilhelmshaven (two of which were found to have machinery defects which made it impossible to deliver them without extensive repairs), the Shipping Board departed by train for Hamburg and Bremerhaven, where the greater part of their work was to be done. Before they rejoined the _Hercules_ three days later at Kiel over thirty British ships had been inspected and the preliminary steps taken for their return to the Tyne.

Admiral Goette's report at the first conference respecting conditions at Hamburg and the vicinity had made it appear probable that a visit to the Elbe would be entirely out of the question, and even after guarantees of safety had arrived it still seemed that venturing there would be attended by uncertainty if not danger. "In the Elbe," the President of the German Commission had said, "power is entirely in the hands of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, and Naval Officers have no authority or influence whatever. One of the chief supports of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council is the light cruiser _Augsburg_. There are also some torpedo-boats, mine-sweeping vessels and other small craft there which should be disarmed; but officers at Wilhelmshaven have no power to see to it, nor can they give any definite information as to what is there.... The Elbe is much less under the influence of the Berlin Government than either Wilhelmshaven or Kiel. The Elbe Republic appears to have been much more radical than the others from the start, and has from the beginning of the Revolution refused to co-operate with the Naval Officers, while such co-operation was at once in effect in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel."

It is by no means improbable that Admiral Goette was quite sincere in this summary of conditions on the Elbe; indeed, so far as the lack of authority on the part of Naval Officers was concerned, it was an accurate statement of the case. But in a.s.suming that this would necessarily make it impossible for the Allied Shipping Board to carry out their work he proved quite wrong. Contemptuous as they were of their ex-officers, the men, far from displaying any desire to interfere with the work of the Commission, proved themselves no less willing than their mates in Wilhelmshaven to help in any way they could. The Workmen's and Soldiers' Council took over the protection of the party from the moment of its arrival, and, save for a single incident which could hardly have been cla.s.sed as "preventable," nothing of an untoward nature occurred in the course of the visit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE ELBE, HAMBURG]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAILROAD STATION AT HAMBURG]

At Hamburg the party put up at the Hotel Atlantic, where they reported that their comfort was extremely well looked after in every way. Occupying a wing to themselves and using a private dining-room, they saw little of the other guests. They were not allowed to linger in the foyer or any of the public rooms on the ground floor, and as soon as they had reached their rooms an armed guard of the Workmen and Soldiers took station at the entrance to the corridor. These precautions appeared quite unnecessary, as no signs of unfriendliness of any kind were in evidence.

The rooms were large and furnished with all their pre-war luxuriousness.

The linen was abundant and of fine quality. The steam heaters had to be turned off to prevent the rooms becoming overheated. The response from the hot-water taps was immediate. The bra.s.s fittings were still in place, and there were no signs of _ersatz_ towels, sheets, or even lace curtains. Soap was the only thing missing, but that difficulty was common to all Germany. Food (even on one of the days which was meatless) was both abundant and wholesome--"well up to the average in a first-cla.s.s English hotel," as one of the members put it. There was an ample and varied wine list to order from, including--besides many Rhine and Hungarian brands--several French and Italian brandies and liqueurs.

There was some discussion over the cigars, the only point upon which the Commission were unanimous being that they were not tobacco, and that any member desiring to experiment in the effect of them upon a human being should do so upon himself, and in his own room. German "subst.i.tute" tobacco looks better than it smokes; in fact, the only way in which the Workmen's and Soldiers' guards attached to our parties were in the least obnoxious was through putting up "smoke barrages," and even these were avoidable except in turrets, magazines, shaft tunnels, and other enclosed s.p.a.ces.

The inspection of the twenty-four British ships in the Elbe revealed the fact that it had been the German practice to convert the best of the embargo steamers into mine-layers, net-layers, seaplane carriers, and other types of war auxiliaries. These had been kept in the best of condition, and, allowing for the hard service they had been engaged in, were in practically as good shape as when first seized. The second-grade steamers and sailing vessels had merely been laid up and left to go to rack and ruin. Stripped of everything in the way of metal or gear that was likely to prove of use elsewhere, unpainted, uncared-for and covered with four-and-a-half years' acc.u.mulation of rust and filth, they presented a sorry sight. Although yielding little in the way of metal or technical instruments, the sailing ships had furnished useful loot in the form of hempen ropes and canvas, of both of which they were stripped to the last ravellings.

There was one very interesting discovery made in connection with the inspection of these laid-up ships in the Elbe. _A number of them were found to have been filled with concrete, with the evident intention of using them as block ships._ Naturally, no explanation of what had been in the wind to prompt this action was volunteered, but the fact that the work had been done at a comparatively recent date pointed strongly to the probability that the Germans, stung to the quick by the blocking of Zeebrugge and Ostend, were preparing a reply, most likely against the entrance to the Tyne. One has only to look at the chart to understand that the latter is a readily "blockable" estuary--to any adequately equipped force able to reach the proper point. Needless to say, such a contingency was not unprovided against, and it would have been a near-miracle if even the most dare-devil leadership could have brought such a force halfway across the North Sea. Whether the armistice put an end to uncompleted preparations, or whether the plan was given up in despair before that time (perhaps through a failure to secure the necessary force of volunteers), there was nothing to indicate, though doubtless revelations throwing light on this interesting mystery will be forthcoming from Germany before long.

Fortunately, the concrete had been put into these ships in the form of blocks instead of being poured, so that the clearing of their holds was not a serious matter.

The drives in motor-cars through the streets of Hamburg revealed the same well-dressed, well-fed crowds which had been so much in evidence in Wilhelmshaven, and not even in the docks or shipyards were there any signs of the starvation we had been a.s.sured prevailed in all the great industrial centres. The people were mildly curious but not in the least unfriendly. The only occasion on which anything unpleasant occurred was when a navvy, splashed by the mud from one of the leading cars, petulantly slammed his shovel through the gla.s.s of the next in line. The nerves and tempers of the three French shipping commissioners were the only things beside the gla.s.s which suffered seriously as a consequence of this contretemps. The Workmen's and Soldiers' guards promptly a.s.serted their authority by arresting the captious culprit, profuse apologies for the indignity were offered by the German officers conducting the party at the time, and later the President of their Shipping Commission called on Commodore Bevan at the hotel to make formal expression of regrets.

There was a refreshing navete in the explanation offered by one of the German officers of the reason for this little incident. "It was all the fault of the chauffeur," he said. "The man used to drive for Admiral X---- of the General Staff, and he forgot that he must no longer let his car throw mud on the street workmen."

The German naval officer who received the Allied party on one of the British merchantmen was found in a state of considerable excitement.

He had been fired at from the darkness the night before, he said, and missed by a hair. Interpreting this as a warning against wearing his naval uniform ash.o.r.e, he had dressed in civil attire that morning, brought his uniform along in a parcel, and changed into it on board.

"You'd pity any one but a Hun for having to do a thing like that," was the dry comment of one of the British members of the party when this tale of woe was translated to him.

An instance of the unquenchable optimism of the German industrialist regarding the eagerly awaited future when the seas and the markets of the world are again open to him was furnished in the course of a visit to the great Blohm and Voss yards, which occupy about the same position on the Elbe as do those of John Brown or Fairfields on the Clyde, or Harland and Wolff at Belfast. Several of the embargo ships were undergoing repairs here, and in going over one of these it was pointed out by Commodore Bevan that it ought to be ready to put to sea some days inside the limit set by the Germans for the completion of reconditioning.

"It is quite true the ship will be in a state to make the voyage to the Tyne by the time you say," replied Herr M----, the Director who was showing the party round, "but it will take a number of days longer to put it in the same state it was when placed under embargo. It would be a short-sighted policy on our part to send a badly repaired ship out of our yards at the present time, for it would be certain to react seriously in the matter of future orders. You must bear in mind, sir, that we have a world-wide reputation for thoroughness to maintain."

He appeared far from rea.s.sured when he was told that the condition he sent the British ships home in would have no effect whatever upon his future business with the rest of the world; moreover, he must have found that the longer he pondered that plain statement the less comfort there was to be extracted from it. It is astonishing how few Germans appear to realize that there are other things besides workmanship and quality--to say nothing of long credits, state subsidies and pushful salesmen--that will profoundly affect the future of German trade.

The inspection of the eight interned vessels at Bremerhaven brought out nothing of more than routine interest, but the visit to the great home port of the North German Lloyd on the Weser, just as had the one to that of the Hamburg-Amerika Line on the Elbe, offered an incomparable opportunity to see at first hand the staggering blow which the war had dealt to German shipping and--through shipping--to German foreign trade. Although the fact that I had been attached for the moment to the sub-commissions inspecting seaplane and Zeppelin stations prevented my visiting Hamburg and Bremerhaven with the Shipping Board, an illuminating glimpse of the latter was offered me during the pa.s.sage of the Weser in the course of the journey to Nordholz.

Although the day was overcast and there was some mistiness on the water, one could still see far enough up and down stream during the pa.s.sage to note the effects of the complete stagnation which had settled from the outbreak of the war upon this second of Germany's great maritime ports. The name BREMERHAVEN had appeared in raised gilt letters across the stern of every one of the hundreds of North German Lloyd steamers, and from New York to Shanghai, from Sydney to Durban, one was confronted with it in most of the ports of the world, but especially those of the Far East and Australia. I had seen it on the black-hulled, buff-funnelled freighters that were carrying Dutch goods from Ternate to Batavia, Chinese goods from Tientsin to Foochow, j.a.panese goods from Kobe to Nagasaki, British goods between Sandakan and Singapore.

The "Crossed Keys" house-flag was known throughout the East as the symbol of that notorious German trade policy of heavy rate-cutting until compet.i.tion had been killed and then a forcing up of tariffs to just under a figure which would be calculated to revive compet.i.tion.

But while the Germans had plotted thus ruthlessly to strangle foreign compet.i.tion, between their own lines nothing of the kind was ever allowed to go on. The Hamburg-Amerika and the Norddeutscher-Lloyd, with three or four other German lines of secondary importance, had divided up the world into "spheres" of trade, with no line encroaching upon that of another except for certain inevitable "over-lapping" in pa.s.senger traffic on the Mediterranean and North Atlantic routes.

The lines of the Norddeutscher-Lloyd were stretched like the tentacles of an octopus over the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Pacific, and at the outbreak of the war it was sucking trade from every British, French, Dutch, and Scandinavian line that plied to the ports of Australia, Malaysia, China, and the Philippines upon which it had fastened its slimy grip. The "N.D.L." was more than a German steamship line; it was Germany itself--Germany beginning to rivet down the edges of its "places in the sun." It was Herr Heiniken, the president of this great instrument of "Deutschland Ueber Alles," who, in Hongkong in 1911, exclaimed to a diplomat with whom he was discussing the Kaiser's Agadir bluff: "War! that, sir, is the one thing I want to avoid. What do we want to spend money and men on war when--within ten years at our present rate of progress--we can win everything that the most successful war could possibly give us? War might be a short cut to German world-power; and again, it might not. But hegemony by the trade route--provided only we continue to enjoy the freedom we have today--is sure. Our ships and merchants have already won half the battle, and victory is in sight if they are only allowed to go on."

Herr Heiniken was a hard-headed, clear-seeing man, and one shudders to think how much truth there was in the words quoted. But the slower, more round-about "trade route" to world-power did not suit the hot-headed Junkers, and they forced their country to attempt to reach by the short-cut of war what was almost within the reach of their merchants and shippers. And that day at Bremerhaven we saw one of the results.

There, sluddered down into the slime from which he rose, his tentacles all either severed or drawn in, was the remains of the "N.D.L." octopus.

Miles and miles of what were once black-and-buff freighters and liners were lying so deep in harbour silt that it would have taken a dredger to get them out of their slips. The tangles of sagging, weed-fringed mooring cables running over and about them--for all the world as though they had been meshed in the web of a Gargantuan spider--accentuated the helpless immobility of craft that had once flaunted the arrogant red, white, and black bunting of the German merchant marine in the uttermost corners of the Seven Seas.

That river full of rotting ships was more than quiet--it was _dead_.

The anchorage of the interned High Sea Fleet, off the inner entrance to Gutter Sound in Scapa Flow, was the first cemetery I had seen of the ships of the power whose ruler had proclaimed that its future was upon the sea. Bremerhaven was another graveyard of that ambient ambition. And the rusting hulks of the remains of the "N.D.L." fleet was not all that was buried in the port of opulent Bremen. The ships were only the tombstones. Deep in the mud beneath their keels was sunk the crumpled framework of a plan which was a long way farther on the way to consummation than most of Americans and Britons will ever realize--Germany's scheme to attain world domination by trade. Germany will, in time undoubtedly have another merchant marine, and she may even begin striving before long toward world domination by any means, fair or foul, that offers a chance of success. But there is a slight probability that she will ever again hit upon any road that will take her so far toward the goal of "_Deutschland Ueber Alles_" as did the "trade route,"

the way to which is now all but closed. There was the dankness of mould in the wind that blew across the graveyard of the high ambitions that lie buried beyond hope of resurrection in the mud beneath the weed-foul bottoms of the ships of Bremerhaven.

The whole atmosphere of the stagnant waterfront was brooding and gloomy, and as we drew near to the landing I was conscious of a p.r.o.nounced depression, for no man who loves the sea can remain unmoved at the sight of neglected ships. To this mood the cheery chatter of a young American Ensign, who had just sauntered out on deck after warming his toes at the charcoal brazier in the tug's cabin, came as a welcome diversion.

"There's a lot of funny things chalked up on the walls around the docks," he said, running his eyes over the signs along the front, "but the one word that is written over the whole darn layout is 'Ichabod.'

'N.D.L.' is the only other to run 'one-two-three' with it. By the look of things I take it that stands for 'No D----m Luck.'"

VII

THE BOMBING OF TONDERN

The German airship station at Tondern was by no means the largest of the enemy naval stations, but its position gave it an importance not measured by the number of its sheds or its airships.

Situated in Schleswig, not far from the Danish border, its ships were available equally for reconnaissance in the North Sea or the Baltic, including the Kattegat, and all the devious straits and pa.s.sages between Denmark and the Scandinavian Peninsula. In a way, with the seaplane station at Sylt, it formed the first line of defence against the ever increasing British mine-laying sorties in the North Sea and Kattegat. The actual attacks against these mine-layers came to be left more and more to the seaplanes, though, in the first years of the war, considerable bomb-dropping was attempted here from Zeppelins. The vulnerability of the airship to aeroplane attack--and, notably, the destruction of a Zeppelin by a plane launched from the light cruiser _Yarmouth_--put an end to their work in this _role_, and compelled them to confine their activities entirely to reconnaissance. It was the great effectiveness of the long observation flights from Tondern which determined the R.N.A.S. to make a strong endeavour to put an end to the menace by destroying the sheds. Besides greatly hampering the British mine-laying program they were also credited with supplying the Germans with invaluable information for both their surface raids and submarine attacks on the Norwegian convoys.

The only way in which Tondern could be reached was by machines launched from a carrier ship, and for this purpose the _Furious_, on account of her great speed and size, was perhaps better adapted than even a ship of the type of the _Argus_, in spite of the fact that the latter was specially built for the work, while the former was converted from a cruiser of the _Courageous_ cla.s.s. The raid, as any attempt of the kind must be, was prepared for some time in advance, and was only launched when it appeared that all conditions were especially favourable for its success. Probably the astonishing Admiralty intelligence service played an important, perhaps a decisive, part.

There was one point which favoured a raid upon Tondern as compared with an air attack upon one of the stations farther south. This was its proximity to the Danish border, which offered an alternative way of escape if return to the vicinity of the carrier ship should be impracticable. This was fully reckoned with in planning the raid, for it was well understood that the presence of numerous chaser squadrons from the German coastal seaplane stations might effectually bar the way back to the _Furious_ or her escorting destroyers. Of the raid from the British standpoint I can tell little or no more than was revealed in the bulletin issued by the Admiralty a few days after it took place. This said, in effect, that a number of aeroplanes, launched from a carrier ship, had carried out a raid upon the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern shortly after daylight; that, in spite of the vigorous anti-aircraft fire encountered, hits had been observed upon at least two of the sheds, and that it was believed that any airships they contained must have been destroyed; and that some of the pilots had been picked up at sea, while others had landed safely in Denmark. Two or three were still unaccounted for, and might have either been lost in the sea or been taken prisoner by the enemy. This number was subsequently reduced to one, and he, it was reckoned, must have sunk with his machine in the sea.

This was all the public were told of what was undoubtedly the most successful raid of its kind ever carried out, except for the usual more or less conflicting versions from Denmark and Holland. No one seemed to know for certain whether any Zeppelins had been destroyed or not, and if the Admiralty Intelligence Department knew, it kept its knowledge to itself. The fact that the British mine-laying squadrons had, from that time on, less to report of Zeppelin activity in the Skager Rak was encouraging, however, and seemed to show that the Zeppelins were being kept out of harm's way.

Under the armistice agreement the Allied Naval Commission had the right of visiting any of the German naval air stations. This gave them an opportunity to see at first hand what damage had been inflicted in the Tondern raid. So one of the sub-commissions put this station upon their itinerary. One officer in particular--he had directed the raiding operations from the _Furious_--was especially anxious to go. But luck was against him, for the destroyer in which he was visiting the Bork.u.m and Heligoland stations was delayed by fog, and he was too late to go with the Tondern party.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOATING DOCK FOR LIFTING SUBMARINES IN KIEL HARBOR]

The efforts made by the Germans, first, to prevent this Tondern visit being scheduled at all, and, after it was decided upon, so to delay it that the party making it should only arrive after dark and thus have limited opportunities for observation, were a revelation of Hun psychology. "The Hun," said an officer of one of the air-station parties on his return to the _Hercules_ one evening, "is one of the most truthful individuals in the world--just as long as he knows you are in a position to find out the truth anyway. But if he thinks he can prevent your finding out the truth by lying, there seems to be no limit to the lengths he will go." Then he went on to tell of how an unusually affable and courteous young German flying officer, who had conducted his party to Norderney two days previously, had taken every occasion to point out how much trouble, and how profitless and uninteresting a visit to Tondern would be. He said that the station was a long distance out of the way, that reaching it would involve trips of some hours by both train and destroyer, that it was not in a region under the control of the Wilhelmshaven authorities, and that there was nothing to see anyway, as the sheds had been dismantled before they were bombed, and that there were no airships in them at the time they were destroyed. Pressed on the latter point, he had reiterated the statement, adding that the raid, though it was well planned and executed, had been a great waste of effort. "It will take much time, and you will see nothing, nothing at all, I a.s.sure you."

"When I told him," continued the British officer, "that we would go ahead with the visit for sentimental reasons, if for no others, he seemed a good deal upset, and this morning he did not turn up at all.

The commander who came in his stead told me quite frankly that there were two Zeppelins destroyed at Tondern, and that he was to go in person with the party to see, as he put it, that it was 'properly received.'

He had such an 'open-and-above-board' manner about everything that I'm inclined to think there's some 'catch' in his plan. It's probably on the score of time, or connections, or something of that kind. He says that, between destroyer, launch, and train, it is an eight-hour journey; but I have made up a schedule that will give us a good two hours of daylight there if there is no slip up on the Huns' end of the arrangements. We push off in the _Viceroy_ at seven in the morning, and ought to be at Tondern by three. When we rejoin her again at Brunsb.u.t.tel's another matter."