It had become instantly clear, however, that the original provision of eighty-two trawlers would be insufficient; and, by the end of August, this had been increased to 250—to be yet further and immensely added to as the busy months went by. Nothing in our naval record, indeed, was more dramatic or so signal an evidence of the national sense of admiralty than the gathering together of that vast auxiliary service of fishermen, pilots, and amateur yachtsmen, and the enormous responsibilities thrust into their hands to be so efficiently and light-heartedly carried. Time after time, by the resource of our fishermen, of sea-loving undergraduates, of amateurs of all sorts, what might have been disasters of the first magnitude were averted or overcome. Between the navy proper, with its thousands of other problems, and these new and insidious dangers—the laying of minefields by apparently innocent neutrals, the ever-present activities of enemy submarines—the courage, the cunning, the native sea-instinct of these otherwise untrained forces was the buffer. The fishermen of Galilee became fishers of men. The fishermen of Britain became fishers of mines. And the debt of human freedom to the latter is not immeasurably less, perhaps, than to their predecessors.
This was the true picture then of the North Sea—an area nearly three times the size of Great Britain—a Grand Fleet holding the exits and entrances against every possible sortie in force, but itself so threatened by submarines and minefields that at one time its war-stations were actually changed, and so nearly paralyzed that there were not a few hours when considerable units of it were practically embayed. Thus, definite minefields were laid by the enemy at Southwold, the mouth of the Tyne, and near Flamborough Head, and not only there but off the north of Ireland, where it was hoped to destroy or disorganize the Canadian transports. Nor were our most vital waters, such as those of the Firth of Forth, free from the repeated visits of those early submarines; and it is primarily as trapping expeditions, leading us into prepared minefields, and only secondarily as baby-killing bombardments, that such raids as those on Lowestoft, Gorleston, and Yarmouth must in reality be considered.
The first of these took place on November 3, 1914, the day following the Admiralty proclamation in which it had been announced that from November 5th the North Sea was to be considered a closed area. This had become necessary, as was then publicly indicated, owing to the persistent and indiscriminate sowing of mines; because peaceful merchant-ships had already been destroyed by these on the main trade-route between Liverpool and America; because these mines had been laid by vessels flying neutral flags; and because exceptional measures had in consequence now become imperative. For these reasons it was announced, therefore, that all vessels passing, from the fifth of November onward, a line drawn from the northernmost point of the Hebrides through the Faroe Islands to Iceland would do so at their own peril. Traders to and from Norway, the Baltic, Denmark, and Holland, were advised to use the English Channel and the Straits of Dover, and were then assured that they would receive full sailing directions, and, as far as Great Britain could secure it, a safe passage.
Meanwhile, in every dockyard, work was being pushed forward upon all sorts of naval construction, and each new problem, as it arose, was being considered and vigorously dealt with. To guarantee, however, in all circumstances and at any given moment, the integrity of our whole coast-line was plainly impossible, though every month saw its increase of patrols and personnel; and, on December 16th, the enemy again bombarded three of our seaside towns.
These were Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough, casualties being inflicted in every case. It was a foggy winter morning when three hostile cruisers were sighted off Hartlepool about 8 o'clock; and, a quarter of an hour later, the bombardment began, lasting till ten minutes to nine. The enemy agents in this case seem to have been two battle-cruisers and one armoured cruiser; and, though Hartlepool itself was an open town, land batteries in the neighbourhood endeavoured to reply. Their fire was ineffective, however; several soldiers attached to the Durham Light Infantry and Royal Engineers were killed and wounded; the gasworks were set on fire; and the civilian casualties amounted to nearly a hundred. Almost at the same time, a battle-cruiser and armoured cruiser approached and shelled Scarborough, firing about sixty shots, while two battle-cruisers attacked Whitby, civilians in both towns being killed and wounded.
Owing to the objectives chosen, the conditions of the weather, the brevity of their visit, and their power and speed, the enemy squadrons made port intact again, though a patrol of destroyers very pluckily attacked them. In all nearly one hundred civilians were killed in these three towns, about five hundred being wounded; the military casualties amounted to thirty-four, and those on the three destroyers to twenty-eight. The German battle-cruisers, employed in this expedition were identified as the Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke, von der Tann, and Blücher, the three latter, it was believed, having been also engaged in the previous raid upon the Norfolk coast.
Though, as we have said, it was quite impossible to give an absolute guarantee against such incidents as these, they were certainly not soothing to the feelings of the Grand Fleet and least of all to those of its cruiser squadrons. In spite of the elaborate justifications voiced in the German Press by such writers as Count Reventlow, they had outraged every canon not only of international law but of decent seaman-like feeling, and were an early indication of the horrible license that German sea-policy was prepared to allow itself. That had not yet staggered the world, as the sinking of the Lusitania was to stagger it, or such incredible atrocities as that to be associated with the Belgian Prince; but it had opened up a vista to every clean-hearted sailor sufficiently dark as to have changed the character of the war. It was now plain, for example, that such naval leaders as Admiral von Spee and the captain of the Emden were no longer to be regarded as typical of the directing minds of Germany's navy. How completely they were in the end to be disregarded was not yet manifest; but it was already clear that the old and peculiar amenities, the traditional chivalry of sea-warfare, were but poorly respected, even if they were understood, by this latest aspirant to sea-power. It was with a special satisfaction, therefore, that early on January 24, 1915, a strong patrolling fleet, under Sir David Beatty, received news of a powerful enemy squadron not far away to the south-south-east.
This consisted, as soon became clear, of the Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke, and Blücher, with six light cruisers and a strong force of destroyers; and there was little doubt that they were once more en route for a bombardment of some part of our coast. With Admiral Beatty, who was flying his flag on the Lion, were the Princess Royal, the Tiger, the New Zealand, and Indomitable, all powerful vessels, the three former each carrying eight 13.5-inch guns, while the New Zealand and Indomitable carried the same number of 12-inch guns. In company with these, disposed on their port beam, were the light cruisers Southampton, Nottingham, Birmingham, and Lowestoft, and, scouting ahead—the two squadrons having met at sea—were Commodore Tyrwhitt in the Arethusa, commanding three flotillas of destroyers, and the two light cruisers Aurora and Undaunted.