NAVAL RAIDS ON THE EAST COAST OF ENGLAND.
Every British boy and girl remembers Campbell's stirring lines:—[184]
"Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain waves, Her home is on the deep."
In these days of fast warships, aeroplanes, and airships, we can no longer say that "Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep." While it is probably true that no invasion of Great Britain could be successful while the British Navy remains undefeated, it is likewise true that the Navy in war time cannot guarantee that an enemy with bases on the North Sea will not be able to make sudden swoops upon certain parts of the British coast. During the darkness of night or amidst the obscurity of fog, fast warships can dash across the North Sea, turn their guns on seaside towns for a short time, and then hurry back to the safety of their own waters before a British fleet can catch them. Aeroplanes and airships can also fly across by day and drop bombs on coast towns by night. Of course, such attacks can never decide the war. At the best they can only cause panic and spread dismay amongst the people. The British, however, are not easily frightened or dismayed. Those who know the British temper best will tell you that such naval raids and air attacks can only make our people more determined than ever to defeat the enemy.
Perhaps you think that the Navy ought to protect coast towns from sudden raids. You must remember that the business of the Navy is to destroy the fleets of the enemy, and that it must always be ready to give battle whenever occasion offers. Were our warships to be strung out along the coast for the protection of towns, they would be an easy prey; they would be quite unable to concentrate rapidly in order to meet the enemy when he came out in strength or to fall upon him in the open sea on his way to or from an attack on our coasts.
During the month of October, when the German guns thundering against Ypres could be heard across the Channel, we began to prepare seriously against raids and even invasion. Mine fields were laid along the threatened shores, and within easy reach of all possible landing-places Yeomanry and Territorials were stationed, trenches were dug, wire entanglements were erected, and anti-aircraft guns were mounted. Over and over again there were false alarms that the enemy were coming. In the early days of November he made his first appearance.
Late on the afternoon of 2nd November eight German warships steamed out of the mouth of the Elbe, and cleared for action, ready for a descent upon the east coast of England. Probably some of the many German spies who then swarmed in the eastern counties had reported that the coast was clear, and that a sudden swoop had every prospect of success. The squadron consisted of the Seydlitz, the Moltke, and the Von der Tann, battle cruisers; the Bluecher and the Yorck, armoured cruisers; and the Kolberg, the Graudenz, and the Strassburg, light cruisers. All but the Yorck could steam 25 knots an hour, and the battle cruisers mounted 11-inch guns. Early on the morning of the 3rd they ran through the nets of a fishing fleet about eight miles east of Lowestoft, and sighted an old coast patrol boat, the Halcyon. Shots were fired at her, but she managed to get away unpursued, with her wireless apparatus, bridge and funnel damaged, and one man wounded.
By eight in the morning the German ships were ten miles off Yarmouth, and had begun to aim their guns at the wireless station and the naval air station. Their shells ploughed the beach or plumped harmlessly into the sea. For a quarter of an hour they kept up their cannonade without doing any damage. Then they retired, and while doing so threw out mines to prevent pursuit. Later in the day a British submarine, D5, ran on one of these mines and was blown up. Before the voyage ended the engineer was hoisted on his own petard.[185] The Yorck collided with another of the mines, and went to the bottom with all her crew.
The destruction of von Spee's squadron off the Falkland Islands aroused much anger and bitterness in Germany, and many Germans loudly complained that their great and expensive fleet did nothing but skulk in its ports. Stung by these reproaches, and eager to avenge the defeat in the Southern Seas, the German naval authorities now prepared a raid upon the Yorkshire coast. The distance between Heligoland and Scarborough is about 320 miles. A ship leaving Heligoland at five in the evening, and steaming between 20 and 25 knots an hour, can easily reach Scarborough about eight in the morning, spend an hour in shelling the town, and be back again at its base before midnight.
On the evening of 15th December, seven days after the Battle off the Falkland Islands, a German raiding force steamed westward from Heligoland. We do not yet know exactly what ships were included in it, but probably Rear-Admiral Funke had with him most of the vessels which took part in the former raid, as well as the Derfflinger. Before daybreak, when a thick, cold mist lay low on the coast, the squadron arrived off the mouth of the Tees. There the forces were divided. The Derfflinger and the Von der Tann, with another vessel, probably the Bluecher, were sent north against the Hartlepools; while two light cruisers, along with, probably, the Seydlitz and the Graudenz, sailed south against Scarborough.
According to the laws of war, which Germany has undertaken to recognize, unfortified towns may not be bombarded. Nobody in his senses could possibly call Scarborough a fortified town. On a green promontory there are the picturesque ruins of a castle, now crumbling to decay, and formerly there was a battery below it. But when the German ships appeared off Scarborough, its only weapon of defence was an old 60-pounder Russian gun captured in the Crimea, and sent to the town as an interesting relic. True, there was a wireless station on a hill behind the town, and some battalions of the new army were in the neighbourhood. Otherwise the Germans had not the shadow of an excuse for attacking Scarborough.
A few minutes before eight o'clock, when the all-the-year-round bathers were taking their morning dip, four strange warships were seen looming through the mist, and a few moments later the booming of guns was heard. Shells began to crash on the coastguard station and in the castle grounds, and shortly afterwards the ships steamed in front of the town to within five hundred yards of the shore. Quite unmolested, they proceeded to bombard every large object within sight. The Grand Hotel was struck by three shells; churches, public buildings, and hospitals—one of them flying the Red Cross flag—were hit, and large numbers of private houses were wrecked. Many shells were directed against the wireless station and the gas works.
For forty minutes the bombardment continued, and probably some five hundred shots were fired. Eighteen persons, chiefly women and children, were killed, and about seventy were wounded. One house was struck by a shell which glanced off a railway bridge about twenty yards distant. The whole place crumpled up as though struck by a giant's hammer, and a child of nine, another of five, the mother, and a soldier son, were instantly killed, while the father and another son were severely wounded. The number of narrow escapes was great. In some cases roofs were torn off and walls crushed in, yet the occupants remained unharmed. By a quarter to nine all was over, and the hulls of the raiding vessels disappeared round the castle promontory.
Some fifteen miles north of Scarborough is the pleasant seaside resort of Whitby, built on both sides of the estuary of the little river Esk. Those of you who have spent your holidays in the town will remember the red-tiled cottages of the fishermen, the gray walls of the quays and houses, the little bridge, and the ships sailing up the river at high tide. Most of the town is on the West Cliff, and across the river, on a high, treeless headland, are the roofless ruins of an abbey on the site of an older monastic building, which has always been regarded as the cradle of English song. It was on this spot that the first English poem composed in England flowed from the lips of Caedmon, a humble man who, in the seventh century, tended the cows and slept in the byre of the monastery, which was then under the rule of the abbess Hilda. For this reason Whitby is sacred all the world over to lovers of English literature. This quiet seaside place, without a vestige of fortification, was now to receive a visit of destruction from the sailors of a nation which has always professed to reverence art, learning, and literature.
About nine o'clock the coastguard at Whitby saw through the haze two warships rapidly steaming up from the south. Ten minutes later they began firing at the coastguard station on West Cliff, where many townsfolk gathered to watch the bombardment, which continued for a quarter of an hour. Some of the shots damaged the coastguard station, destroyed the western gateway of the ancient abbey on the East Cliff, and wrecked a number of private houses. Shells fell at Ruswarp, a mile inland, and damaged a school at Meadowfield. Happily, the scholars, who had just begun their morning lessons, were unhurt. In all, three persons were killed and two were injured. After the bombardment the cruisers turned northwards, and were quickly lost to view in the haze.
