The Invasion of 1910.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13215, 28 June 1906, Page 3

The Invasion of 1910.

Copyright by William Le Queux, 1906 Published by Special Arrangement.

With a Full Account of the Siege of London. By WILLIAM LE QUEUX. With Naval Chapters by H. W. Wilson.

THE BRITISH FLEET FLIES SOUTH. After breaking off the engagement the German Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral Reissig, who had succeeded to the German command on Admiral Heluiaun's death, slowed down for some 15 minutes, during which he detached the ships that had suffered most injury; then with ten battleships, three of which were of the Sachsen class, three armoured cruisers, and 30 torpedo craft, be continued the pursuit some miles astern of the British. Gradually his torpedo craft worked in between the British tleet and the coast, and to shake them off, as the afternoon advanced, Admiral Parker determined tc stand well out to sea, and steer, making with nightfall a wide detour, for the lightships off the number, where he could get touch of the British signal system. At dusk the German fleet- was still eom-s ten miles astern of him, and the German torpedo flotilla five miles away m his starboard beam. Admiral Reissig detacher* seven battleships, under Rear-Admiral Rittenauer. with his flag in the battleship Mecklenburg, to the attack and destruction of the grounded British ships. With Admiral Rittenauer were six torpedo boats and a mining ship. Of these seven German battleships the Braunschweig and Friedrich 111. were both in grave trouble, making much water, and scarcely able to keep afloat. The Zaehringen was in little better plight. .The Pommern. which had suffered less, though nearly all her heavy gun ammunition was exhausted, received orders to stand by these three injured ships and assist them in effecting repairs. Ouo of the torpedo-boats was despatched northwards to the German store, ammunition, and repair ships, with orders to bring them to the scene, and also to instruct some of tho powerful tugs which had accompanied the German armada, but had remained well out of the battle, to steam to their aid. Additional officers and men were to join the ships which had suffered most. They were ready with the fleet on board the auxiliary cruise* Admiral Koester. This left Admiral Rittenauer only throe battleships. With these he steamed to Dunbar at about ten knots, sighting the Active ashore near Burnmouth on his way. He .was off Dunbar about half-past four in the afternoon. There be found the damaged German ships Westfalien, Sachsen,»and Caprivi. busy effecting repairs. and received the news that- the Lothringen had sunk, despite all the efforts of her crew. At the same time the Prenssen rejoined him, and her captain reported that he had steamed tc within 2000 yds of the Vanguard's wreck, and bad practically-destroy; ed the British flagship by shell lire. Hehad then proceeded to the attack of the Sultan, and, closing in to about 15C0yds, had shelled her wreck till lie felt certain that this battleship also was irreparably damaged. , --..-• It now only remained to destroy the British armoured cruisers aground near North Berwick. The Polyphemus and Gloucester lay on the coast just to the east of that famous golfing centre; the Otympia and Londonderry were on the coast, near Dirleton. The work of complete destruction was forthwith carried out. The four effective German battleships each selected one of the unfortunate cruisers for her prey. About six p.m. the Rosyth tugs, which had come out with appliances from the dockyard to the help of the Olympia, were driven off by the approach of two German. torpedo boats, and the wrecks of the two big cruisers Olympia and Londonderry were shelled for some ten minutes, after which two German torpedo-boats steamed in. and each fired two torpedoes at the stranded hulk. It was impossible for the British crews to offer any elfctive resistance to the attack. The Polyphemus and Gloucester were treated in the same way. All four were so damaged that their repair in any reasonable time was now quite out of the question. The losses of the combatants in the day'." fighting which opened with the torpedo attack and closed with the battleship encounter have next to be given.. The British lost four armoured cruisers more or less completely destroyed—the Olympia. Polyphemus, "Gloucester, and- Londonderry and one armoured cruiser badly damaged by a- torpedo, the Leicestershire. 'The three cruisers which emerged from the battle. Achates. Imperiouse. and Aurora, were all so much injured that repairs to render them fit to fight again at -sec; would take at least ten days, supposing that spare guns and equipment were available. The British battleship fleet had lost two battleships torpedoed, the Indefatigable and Resistance, the repair of which would take at the very least a month, as no dryclock was available at Rosyth, and the repairing facilities were quite inadequate. The battleships Defiance. Excellent, and Glasgow had been sunk in the battle; the Active was ashore, a complete wreck, near Bcrwick-on-Tweed : the Vanguard and Sultan were beached as the result of torpedo injuries, and were destroyed by the Germans while aground. Thus, in all. the British Navy had lost. temporarily or permanently, five armoured cruisers and eight battleships. The Germans lost, among their armoured cruisers, the Bismarck, sunk:' the Caprivi, completelv disabled; and the Friedrich Karl and York, badly damaged, making four German armoured cruisers sunk or temporarily out of action. In battleships, the Germans lost the Willi elm 11. and Eothringen. sunk, and the Sachsen. Braunschweig. Friedrich 111., and Westfalien sc damaged that they would need to return to port for repairs. THE PURSUIT OF THE BRITISH FLEET. It is fortunate for the Germans that at this point the weather held fair; the sea was. unusually calm, and the difficulties of attending to "tire injured ships were, consequently much lessened. Each side lost terribly in officers and men. In the British battleships Defiance and Excellent, nearly the entire crews perished though the captain of the Excellent and about fifty officers and men were rescued by German torpedo boats. In his "pursuit of the British fleet Admiral Reissig had determined to run no risks, but merely to follow and to keep touch of his enemy. He knew by his instructions that the whole of the German reserve licet would concentrate off Yarmouth : indeed, he was already in touch with its scouts by means of wireless telegraphy. He calculated that he would find in the neighbourhood of the Norfolk coast the battleships Barbarossa, Kaiser Karl, the four- ships ot the Brandenburg class, six of the.Siegfrieds, and four first-class battleships whose appearance on the scene was one of the most terrible surprises of the war. These four ships had been built for Russia by German yards, and were completing for sea on the eve of war when they were quietly taken over by the German navy under the law sanctioning the pre-emption of ships building lor foreign Powers during war or on the eve of war. These tout battleships of the Dreadnought type, the Hohensluufen, Silesien, Sehleswig, and Kronprinz Eriedrich, carried each ten I2in guns, and were almost exact copies of the Dreadnought. With them were two new large armoured cruisers, which had also been completing for Russia, in Germany—the Buelow and Gneisenau. Their" appearance was as astonishing and disconcerting as was that of the strange battleships. They mounted each ten lOin guns. Finally tins i -■n had attached to it thirty destroyers. All these ships were, intact, with an ample supply of ammunition on board. They had not as yet been engaged, and it was" to them and their commander, i

Admiral Stalilberger, that Admiral Reiseig intended to leave the destruction of the remainder of the British ih.ct, merely cooperating with his ten battleships, three armoured cruisers, and thirty torpedo craft. He- knew already by wireless telegraphy that the entrance to" the Thames and to the Medway had been successfully blocked or closed with mines; and that the Straits of Dover ' were temporarily impassable owing to the large number of mines that had been turned adrift there. There was nothing to interfere with him, except the British destroyers, and he was well aware that these were in tlie Irish Sea. They would return forthwith, of course; but, even so, Tie could meet them with equal or superior force, ana a powerful detachment of German destroyers of the largest size and latest type was watching the Straits of Dover for their approach. The North Sep was in his hands; indeed, at three, p.m. he had sent a wireless message via. Emden to Berlin which was as simple as it was brief:" I command the' entire North Sea," and had received an hour later the Kaiser's warm congratulations rat the heroism and skill of his fleet. The German plane, in fact, had Worked perfectly; everything had happened precisely as the German staff had calculated. Since tho day when Japan went tt war with' Russia in. the Far East there had been no such example of precise and accurate plans executed with astonishing and remorseless success. There was only one danger, and this was removed by the German ■ dispositions and by the arrival of the four Holienstaufens, which had not been ready to put to sea with the main fleet. It was the risk of the British fleet dashing south and attacking the German transports during the disembarkation. But by -hanging on to the British fleet with his big ships, and pressing it closely with his torpedo craft, Admiral Reissig felt that he could neutralise any such attempt to work mischief. Thus now it was, in the first place, to be a trial of speed between the two fleets. But in the second place- the Germans were well aware, though the British officers and men were not, that it the British fleet won in this contest and reached Yarmouth and the Norfolk coast in advance of Admiral Reissig its destruction was assured. It was - morally impossible for the German screen, of small cruisers and torpedo craft, that extended from Yarmouth sixty miles out to sea, to Brown Ridge, where the water of the ocean shoals, midway between the Hutch and British coasts, to miss the fleet. In this screen were placed ' six small cruisers of the Muencben class and twenty torpedo vessels. CAUGHT IX A TRAP. Heartrending was the position of the British fleet. The deepest dejection filled officers and men in that unhappy force. The honouv of the navy and the nation had, it seemed to them, "been for ever lost. But what paralysed them with fear and anxiety, what wrung their hearts more cruelly even than the bloody scenes through which they had been condemned tc pass, 'the anguish and suffering of the combat, the spectacle of British ship after ship destroyed oy a terrible fire which all their skill of gunnery had not been able to beat clown, the memory of hundreds of dear comrades on whom the sea had for ever closed, or the. dreadful sights of the sickbay and improvised hospitals, was the thought that England was undone, that she lay open to a conquering army, that the feebleness and apathy of her people had brought upon them the most terribleof judgments, tho worst calamity that cam befall a race. • ■""' They were powerless to help or save her; the only service they could render was to take their ships as swiftly as possible out of the zone of danger, and wait the coming of reinforcements. And would they bo permitted even this? Always as I lie melancholy afternoon wore on to night the German destroyers were away to the east, working ahead, and with the most- perfect ease maintaining their position. Always astern were the shot-torn silhouettes of the leading German battleships. A supreme effort was to be made at dusk to shake off pursuit, but would itsucceed? All the ships were short of ammunition; not fifteen rounds per gun remained in the 12in magazines of the three Dreadnoughts ; only twenty rounds per gun in the magazines of the Captain. The others were in as bad or worse plight. Many of the guns had been worn almost to the condition of smooth-bores by the heavy firing of the battle, and could no longer be trusted to shoot correctly; the British propellant, unlike the German, eroded the rifling after fifty ov sixty full rounds and affected the hitting power of the gun. Most serious? of all, perhaps, was the fact that officers and men were completely worn out and exhausted. Titer had been almost continuously m work for thirty-six hours, preparing for battle, removing wood, resisting torpedo attacks, or taking part in the great battle. Even when the fleets drew apart, '.hey could he given little rest Barbettes and casements bad to be cleared of the grim human wreckage that filled them"; the mass of debris and shattered metal-work removed; funnels and sides patched as well as might be ; some semblance of order restored inside the battered hulls. From extreme weariness and exhaustion the working parties, fell prostrate on the decks during their labours. Here the Germans had a great advantage. Their crews bad had a full night's rest before the battle ?nd no excessive amount of work on the eve of the encounter. They had not been through the unnerving experiences of a night torpedo attack, but had steamed straight to the scene of action in perfect security. Thus, not only did they possess a quantitative advantage in the force of their fleet; they had also a qualitative advantage in the freshness of their men. Their torpedo flotilla, or that part of it which accompanied and shadowed the British, had not yet been engaged. (To be continued daily.) NEW STORY BY FERGUS HUME. On Saturday next ■ we commence the serial publication of " The Yellow Hunchback," am. intensely interesting story of love and mystery, by Fergus Hume, author of " The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," and other wellknown novels.