America's War for Humanity

by Thomas Herbert Russell

For the first time in history since the days of the American commander, Paul Jones, British coast towns were bombarded on December 16, when a squadron of German cruisers, slipping across the North Sea in a fog, from their Heligoland base, appeared off Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, on the eastern coast of England, and shelled each of them in turn. The loss of life in the three towns was about 100 men, women and children, and a considerable number of buildings were partially wrecked by the German shells. Comparatively speaking, of course the damage inflicted was trifling and from a military point of view the incident was unimportant, the German ships disappearing in the fog after a half-hour's bombardment But the moral effect upon the British public was tremendous. The event came as a distinct shock to their over-confidence and as a reminder that the German navy was still to be reckoned with. The warships of the Kaiser brought home to the people of the United Kingdom the meaning of the war, as no previous incident had done, and fear of further attacks took possession of them. This fear, however, soon turned to rage, and then to a fierce determination to prosecute the war to a bitter end. The attack stimulated recruiting for Lord Kitchener's new army, and this was its chief result, though Germany had proved that her ships could reach British shores and bombard their defenseless towns, in spite of all the vigilance of the British fleet.

BRITISH RAID GERMAN PORT

By way of answer to the German attack on Scarborough and Hartlepool, a daring raid was made Christmas Day by the British navy on the German naval base at Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe. The chief participants were seven British naval airmen. They were assisted in the attack by several light cruisers, destroyers and submarines. The airmen piloted seaplanes and succeeded in dropping a number of bombs in the vicinity of Cuxhaven, in an attempt to bring out into the open a portion of the German fleet lying there. The affair resulted in a contest between the most modern of war machines. No surface warships were sent out by the Germans, but the attack was repelled by means of Zeppelins, sea-planes and submarines. No great damage was done on either side and the British airmen all escaped without injury, though four of them lost their machines. One, Flight Commander Hewlett, fell with his plane into the North Sea at a considerable distance from Cuxhaven and was picked up by a Dutch trawler, which landed him in Holland several days afterward. The British vessels remained off Cuxhaven for three hours, engaged in the most novel combat in naval history.

A short time previous to the attack on Cuxhaven, the British submarine B-11 accomplished one of the most remarkable exploits of the war when it penetrated into the Dardanelles and torpedoed the Turkish battleship Messudieh. In doing so the submarine successfully passed and repassed five lines of submerged mines and returned to its base in safety after being under water for many hours at a stretch.

U.S. PROTEST ON MARINE CONDITIONS

On December 31, by mutual agreement between the State Department at Washington and the British Foreign Office, the text of a note sent by the United States to England, requesting an early improvement in the treatment of American shipping by the British fleet, was made public. The note of protest had been presented on December 29. It dealt with the manner in which American ships suspected of carrying contraband of war had been held up on the high seas and sent into British ports for examination. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, and Walter Hines Page, United States ambassador, conferred on the subject in London, and it was announced on January 1, 1915, that an answer to the American note would be drawn up as soon as possible and that it would be in the same friendly spirit in which the American note was written.

ON THE WESTERN BATTLE FRONT

The battle lines in the western theater of war held firm and fast during the first two months of 1915. Along the entire front, from Flanders to the Swiss frontier, there were few changes in the relative positions of the German forces and the Allies up to March 1, at which time both sides were occupied with preparations for the spring campaign. British reinforcements, forming part of Lord Kitchener's new army, were being transported to the front, while the far-flung lines of trenches were filled with battle-weary veterans of the winter campaign. In many places the entrenchments of the opposing forces were only a few yards apart and trenches were frequently destroyed by mines, resulting in losses to both sides, but without materially changing the general aspect of the conflict.

NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA

One of the most important naval battles of the war took place on January 24 in the North Sea between a British battle cruiser squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, comprising the battle cruisers Tiger, Lion, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable, assisted by a few light cruisers and destroyers, on the one hand, and on the other a German squadron, consisting of the battle cruisers Derflinger, Seydlitz and Moltke, the armored cruiser Bluecher, one of the finest in the Kaiser's navy, and several light cruisers.