The exploit of Lieutenant Commander Horton in the British submarine E-9 when he sank the Hela has already been narrated. The same commander, with the same craft, during the first week of October, 1914, proceeded to the harbor of the German port of Emden, whence had sailed many dangerous German submarines and destroyers that preyed on British ships. He lay submerged there for a long period, keeping his men amused with a phonograph, and then carefully came to the surface. Through the periscope he saw very near him a German destroyer, but he feared that the explosion of a torpedo sent against her would damage his own craft, so he allowed her to steam off, and when she was 600 yards away he let go with two torpedoes. The second found its mark, and the S-126 was no more. He immediately went beneath the surface and escaped the cordon of destroyers which immediately searched for him. By October 7 the E-9 was back in Harwich, its home port.
On the 31st of October, 1914, the cross-channel steamer Invicta received the S. O. S. signal and went to rescue the crew of the old British cruiser Hermes, which had been struck by two torpedoes from a German submarine near Dunkirk. All but forty-four of her men were saved.
The next victim of a German submarine was the gunboat Niger, which, in the presence of thousands of persons on the shore at Deal, foundered without loss of life on November 11, 1914. But one of the German submarines was to go to the bottom in retaliation. On the 23d of November the U-18 was seen and rammed off the Scotch coast, and some hours later was again seen near by. This time she was floating on the surface and carrying a white flag. The British destroyer Garry brought up alongside of her and took off her crew, just as she foundered.
Three days later the Bulwark, a British battleship of 15,000 tons and carrying a crew of 750 officers and men, was blown up in the Thames while at anchor at Sheerness. It was never discovered whether she was a victim of a torpedo, a mine, or an internal explosion. It is possible that a spy had placed a heavy charge of explosives within her hull. Only fourteen men of her entire complement survived the disaster.
It was in November, 1914, also, that the sometime German cruisers Goeben and Breslau, now flying the Turkish flag, became active again. As units in a Turkish fleet they bombarded unfortified ports on the Black Sea on the first day of the month. Retaliation for this was made by the Allies two days later when a combined fleet of French and English battleships bombarded the Dardanelles forts, inflicting a certain amount of damage.
On the 18th of November, 1914, the Goeben and Breslau engaged a Russian fleet off Sebastopol. The composition of this Russian fleet was never made public by the Russian admiralty, but it is known that the Russian battleship Evstafi was the flagship. She came up on the starboard side of the two German ships and opened fire on the nearer, the Goeben, at a distance of 8,000 yards. The latter, hit by the Russian 12-inch guns was at first unable to reply because the first shots set her afire in several places, but she finally let go with her own guns and after a fourteen-minute engagement she sailed off into a fog. Her sister ship the Breslau took no part in the exchange of shots, and also made off. The damage done to the Goeben was not enough to put her out of commission; the Evstafi suffered slight damage and had twenty-four of her crew killed.
The British submarine commander, Holbrook, with the B-11 upheld the prestige of this sort of craft in the British navy. He entered the waters of the Dardanelles on the 13th of December, 1914, and submerging, traveled safely through five lines of Turkish mines and sent a torpedo against the hull of the Turkish battleship Messudiyeh. The B-11 slowly came to the surface to see what had been the result of her exploit, and her commander, through the periscope saw her going down by the stern. It was claimed later by the British that she had sunk, a claim which was officially denied by the Turks. Her loss to Turkey, if it did occur, was not serious, for she was too old to move about, and her only service was to guard the mine fields. The B-11 after being pursued by destroyers again submerged for nine hours and came successfully from the scene of the exploit.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XXXVIII
WAR ON GERMAN TRADE AND POSSESSIONS
With the exceptions of the deeds done by the German sea raiders the remaining naval history of the first six months of the war had to do for the most part with British victories. When Von Spee's squadron, with the exception of the light cruiser Dresden, which was afterward sunk at the Island of Juan Fernandez, was dispersed off the Falkland Islands there was no more possibility of there being a pitched fight between German and British fleets other than in the North Sea.