Most violent were the attacks upon the Admiralty for its foolish and unwise reductions in the Navy, for selling old ships which might in this emergency have done good service, for its failure to station torpedo craft along the east coast, and to instal wireless telegraph stations there. These attacks had reason behind them, and they greatly weakened the hand of the Admiralty at a dangerous moment. Fortunately, however, the young officers of the Navy had been taught fearlessness of all consequences, and they carried out with an iron hand the regulations which were essential for success in regaining the command of the sea.
Nor were the Germans even on the east coast, where they were as yet left undisturbed, to have matters all their own way. Their cruisers, indeed, were stationed right up the coast, maintaining an effective blockade and transmitting wireless signals. At Lerwick was a considerable squadron; off Wick was the Kaiserin Augusta; off Aberdeen, the Hansa; off Newcastle, the Vineta; off Hull, the Freya; and farther south the whole massed force of the German Navy. They levied ransoms, intercepted shipping, and did what they liked beyond the range of the few coast batteries.
But in the Straits of Dover they had one very serious misadventure. People on the cliffs of Dover on Tuesday morning, watching that stretch of water, which was now empty of all shipping but for the German torpedo vessels incessantly on the patrol, and but for the outlines of large German cruisers on the northern horizon, were certain that they saw one of the big German cruisers strike a mine.
There was a great cloud of smoke, and a heavy boom came over the sea; then a big four-funnelled vessel was seen to be steering for the French coast with a very marked list. On the Wednesday it was known that the German armoured cruiser Scharnhorst had struck one of the German mines adrift in the Straits of Dover, and had sustained such serious injury that she had been compelled to make for Dunkirk in a sinking condition.
There she was immediately interned by the French authorities, and when the German Government remonstrated, the French Ministry pointed out that a precisely similar course had been taken by Germany at Kiaochau, during the Far Eastern war, with the Russian battleship Tzarevitch.
* * * * * * *
Very late on Monday night the battleships of the Channel Fleet passed the Lizard, having received orders to proceed up Channel and join the great fleet assembling at Portland. Already there were concentrated at that point eleven battleships of the Devonport and Portsmouth reserve squadrons, seven armoured cruisers, and fifty torpedo vessels of all kinds. At Chatham, where the activity shown had not been what was expected of the British Navy, the Commander-in-Chief had been removed on Monday morning and replaced, and a fresh officer had also been appointed to the command of the reserve squadron.
The policy enjoined on him was, however, a waiting one; the vessels at Chatham, being exposed, if they ventured out, to attack by the whole force of the Germans, were to remain behind the guns of the forts, or such guns as had not been sold off by the War Office and the British Government in the general anxiety to effect retrenchments. The entire naval force was mobilised, though the mobilisation was not as yet quite complete.
On Tuesday night the British Admiralty had available the following ships:—
AT PORTLAND—
Eleven battleships of the Channel Fleet.
Eleven battleships of the Reserve.
Seven armoured cruisers.
Twelve ocean-going destroyers.
Twelve coastal destroyers.
Ten submarines.
Twenty older destroyers.
Ten protected cruisers.
OFF DUNGENESS—
Two armoured cruisers.
Ten submarines.
Four sea-going destroyers.
Ten older destroyers.
Twelve coastal destroyers.
WEST COAST OF IRELAND—
Two large protected cruisers.
MILFORD HAVEN—
Nine armoured cruisers of the Channel Cruiser Squadron.
Eight ocean-going destroyers.
LAND’S END—
One large protected cruiser.
Ten older destroyers.
CAPE WRATH—
Two armoured cruisers.
Ten older destroyers.
Twelve ocean-going destroyers.