The Great War (All 8 Volumes) - Various Authors

Скачать книгу

Consequently the Kent drew nearer to her adversary. The firing of the Nürnberg was then effective and more than twenty of her shells took good effect on the British ship. It was only through prompt action on the part of her crew that her magazine was kept from exploding, for a shell set fire to the passage leading to it.

      By seven o'clock in the evening the Nürnberg was practically "blind," for the flames from the fire that was raging on her had reached her conning tower. A member of her crew hauled down her flag, and the Kent, thinking that the fight was over, came close to her. While within a few hundred yards of her, however, she was greeted with new firing from the German cruiser. But this ceased under a raking from the Kent's starboard guns, and once again the flag of the Nürnberg, which had been run up on resumption of shooting, was hauled down. Members of her crew then had to jump into the sea to escape death from burning—the fire was quenched only when she went down at half past seven. The overworked engineers and stokers of the Kent were rewarded for their hard work by being permitted to come on deck to watch the Nürnberg go down, and all were soon engaged in helping to save the lives of the German sailors in the water. Just as the red glow of the sinking Nürnberg was dying down a large four-masted sailing ship, with all sails set, came out of the mist, her canvas tinged red by the flames' rays. Silently she went by, disappearing again into the mist, a weird addition to an uncanny scene.

      Chasing the various units of the broken line of German ships had taken the British ships miles from each other, but after ten o'clock they began to reach each other by wireless signals and all made again for Stanley. It was not until the afternoon of the next day, however, that word came from the Kent, for her pursuit had taken her farther than any of the other British ships.

      The Bristol and Macedonia had made good in their pursuit of the Santa Isabel and Baden, but in going after the Dresden the Bristol was not successful; the German ship got away in the rainstorm which came up during the evening, and the Bristol, which had hurried out of the harbor at Stanley not quite ready for battle, was unable to keep on her trail. The fast Eitel Friedrich, which as a merchant ship converted into a man-o'-warsman had greater speed than any of the ships on either side, was able to get away also. These two German ships now took up their parts as raiders of allied commerce, and were not accounted for till months later. There was now on the high seas no German squadron.

       Table of Contents

      SEA FIGHTS OF THE OCEAN PATROL

      There were some minor naval operations in the waters of Europe which have been neglected while larger actions elsewhere were recorded. During the month of September, 1914, the British admiralty established a blockade of the mouth of the River Elbe with submarines, and the German boats of the same type were showing their worth also. On August 28,1914, the day after the raid on Libau by the German cruiser Augsburg, the date of the battle of the Bight of Helgoland, the two Russian protected cruisers Pallada and Bayan, while patrolling the Russian coast in the Baltic Sea, were attacked by German submarines. Surrounded by these small craft, which made poor targets, the two Russian ships sought to escape by putting on full speed, but the former was hit by a torpedo and sank. The other got away.

      All of the Allies, with the exception of France, had by the beginning of September, 1914, suffered losses in their navies. The navy of the republic was engaged in assisting a British fleet in maintaining supremacy in the Mediterranean, and kept the Austrian fleet bottled up in the Adriatic Sea. French warships bombarded Cattaro on September 10, 1914, to assist the military operations of the Montenegrin Government. These ships then proceeded to the island of Lissa and there destroyed the wireless station maintained by Austria. The Austrian navy made no appearance while the allied fleets scoured the lower coast of Dalmatia, bringing down lighthouses, destroying wireless stations, and bombarding the islands of Pelagosa and Lesina. On the 19th of September, 1914, they returned to Lissa and landed a force which took possession of it, thus establishing a new naval base against the Central Powers' navies.

      Duels between pairs of ships took place in various seas. The career of the raider Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, a fast converted liner, was ended by the British ship Highflyer, a cruiser, near the Cape Verde Islands, on August 27, 1914, after the former had sunk the merchantman Hyades and had stopped the mail steamer Galician. The greater speed of the German vessel was of no advantage to her, for she had been caught in the act of coaling. What then transpired was not a fight, for in armament the two were quite unequal. She soon sank under the Highflyer's fire, her crew having been rescued by her colliers.

      The next duel took place between the Carmania and Cap Trafalgar, British and German converted liners, respectively. They met on September 14,1914, in the Atlantic off South America. In view of the fact that at the beginning of the war these two ships had been merchantmen and had been armed and commissioned after the outbreak of hostilities, this engagement was something of the nature of those between privateersmen in the old days. In speed, size, and armament they were about equal. For nearly two hours they exchanged shots between 3,000 and 9,000 yards, and markmanship was to determine the victory. The shots from the Carmania struck the hull of the other ship near the water line repeatedly, and the British commander was wise enough to present his stern and bow ends more often than the length of the Carmania's sides. At the end of the fight the German ship was afire and sank. Her crew got off safely in her colliers, and the British ship made off because her wireless operator heard a German cruiser, with which the Cap Trafalgar had been in communication, signaling that she was hastening to the liner's aid.

      Only two days before this the British cruiser Berwick captured the converted liner Spreewald in the North Atlantic, where she had been trying to interrupt allied commercial vessels.

      Germany kept up her policy of attrition by clever use of submarines and mines. The British battleship Audacious, while on patrol duty off the coast of Ireland in the early days of the war, met with a disaster of some sort and was brought to her home port in a sinking condition. The rigors of the British censorship almost kept the news of this out of the British papers and from the correspondents of foreign papers. It was reported that she had struck a mine, that she had been torpedoed, and that she had been made the victim of either a spy or a traitor who caused an internal explosion. The truth was never made clear. Rumors that she had gone down were denied by the British admiralty some months later, when they reported her repaired and again doing duty, but this was counteracted by a report that one of the ships that was completed after the start of hostilities had been given the same name.

      About the sinking of the Hawke there was less conjecture. This vessel had gained notoriety in times of peace by having collided with the Olympic as the latter left port on her maiden voyage to New York. On the 15th of October, 1914, while patrolling the northern British home waters she was made the target of the torpedo of a German submarine and went down, but the Theseus, which had been attacked at the same time, escaped.

      Four German destroyers were to be the next victims of the war in European waters. On October 17,1914, the S-115, S-117, S-118, and S-119 while doing patrol duty off the coast of the Netherlands, came up with a British squadron consisting of the cruiser Undaunted and the destroyers Legion, Lance, and Loyal. An engagement followed, in which damage was done to the British small boats and the four German destroyers were sunk. Captain Fox, senior British officer, had been on the Amphion when she sank the Königin Luise and had been rescued after being knocked insensible by the explosion of the mine that sent the Amphion to the bottom.

      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

Скачать книгу