HELIGOLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12081, 9 August 1917, Page 7

HELIGOLAND.

GERMANY'S ISLAND DREADNOUGHT. HOW ENGLAND'S TEA-GARDEN BECAME HER ENEMY'S FORTRESS. ('' Munsey's Magazine."') "For want of a nail the shoe wa? lost; for want of a shoe; the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider wa lost." And the chain of misfortum stretched so far that the moral of it was, as Lewis CarrolJ's Duchess mightsay: " Look in a. horse's mouth before you give it away." Had there not been a man hidden in a cioseb when Alexander and Napoleon met a!h Tilsit, England would never have taken Heligoland from Denmark. Had England's conscience not ached at Ui-e reminiscence of an injustice in which she was misled in 1807, a page in the Diplomatic Flysheet in 18% would not referred to the gift of Heligoland to Germany as "an excrescence adroitly removed from the British Empire.'' Had not Herr von Tirpitz turned the Kaiser's toy into an anchored hatterv to protoct the German North Sea front, the English Admiralty would not have announced that " three hours after tho outbreak of the war submarines JE6 and E8 proceeded unaccompanied tocaro reconnaissance in tho Heligoland ~ght, fhesc .fl- - obtained much valuable inioiraation regarding the composition and movement of the enemj s patro. What the man heard in the closet at Tilsit and reported to Britain s ministry of all the talents'' was that the French were to seize the Danish flee and turn it against England Loid Catheart was sent to forestall Napoleon, and his successful expedition gave Heligoland to England in popeStiity'* .

..,.. :; «:-ck had his oyo on the Xortli Sea rock as early as 1871, and proposed a scheme whereby the beaten .Irench exchange Pondicherry, iu India, tor Heligoland, so that Germany might benefit. The suggestion did no* prove and some years later Oapmi —who advised his countrymen ' betore all to maintain our good understaiKluig with Great Britain "—mentioned tin ■r.i-3 valuable consideration oi Zanzibar

.ff.cr all, what is Heligoland little garden ""here wo go to take tear' said Lord Salisbury's young men m the Foreign Office, and the exchange was made,

ih'vo is a slab on Heligoland bearing the inscription, "'Wilhelm 11.. Augur, 10, 1*90," to mark the days when England gave away its tea garden and Germany pot a Gibraltar in the North S«a. The little island is a. triangle ol vcrl rock and 150 feet high. An old rime-; says :—- White is the sand. Red is the. strand. Green is the land; Those are the colours of Heligoland. An active man could walK around it in half a » nour - Uut it is an excellent. outpost of observation for Cuxhaven and WUhelmsnafen. The German coast is fortV miles away; yet, because of the shallows along the Frisian shore, the island is only fifteen miles, or a big gun's shot, in front, of the open water of the sea zone.

When the English had it, it was inhabited by a. race oi fishermen whosluces were as red as taie seared roeivs ut tueir home, ihey lived huddiea to gtutcr m a little town with streets not ten feet w,ue, where Victoria Street ran panihel to O'JJrieu Street., until K'ai.sersira.s:^ 'c-.-.r.'j and cat oouh alright angles. Summer brought a crowd of bathers from the towns along tin, cocli-i, una autumn saw them hurry homeward a gam. Notlnng grew there but potatoes, and the governor's cow, the only four-footed beast on the island, gave milk for the afternoon tea.* of tho little British official coterie. When Germany came, Heligoland—or Helgoland, as its present owners call it—<-|u;ciiiy lost) fame as a bathing resort, and the islanders began to regret the old clays when a. man could ramble over the rocks at will. Krupp guns appeared and disappeared as if ly magic on its cliffs. Searchlights' blazed by night on the sea. Wireless machines sang their secret songs over widening arcs. Submarines and torpedo boats made their nest close to shore in the haunts of the wild Jowl, while heavier ships rode at anchor in the shelter of the Oberland.

When England's hour struck. Heligoland stood out as the vanguard ot the Kaiser's fleet, a supordread:iou dn ruby armed, which no toruedo cculd sink. During the first month of the war Sir David Beatty won Ins sin rs by a bold raid into tho waters of the bight but the German .-hips took refuge behind the batteries <n tne rock and the combat, of Hoh'gol/m,.' was no Trafalgar.

Ihe excrosenee adroitly removed from the British Emnire l.nd Income a thorn in its side, challenging the skill of all the surgeons in th 0 fleet. England looks out over the North £ta and counts the wrecks of h*r ..Inns there are regrets for the lea v,v,]vn and plans to tear up bv the roots the thorns that now bristle there.