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Quay accommodation is no object to such visitors; intricate navigation no deterrent. Even the heaviest battleships could approach within striking distance of the land, while cruisers and military transports could penetrate to the level of Emden itself.
One of the two French destroyers suddenly dived, head-first, into the sea, one of the Emden's submerged torpedoes having dealt her a deathblow. A shell sped over the stern of the Sylph, but did no damage. Then, calmly, almost ignoring. the remaining ships of the allied fleet, the Emden put about, and made off. Her raid had been successful, and it was another victory for the Kaiser.
"To prevent that we must be on the alert continually. We'll follow him for months, if necessary. At nights we shall have to close up a bit, and take a chance that they cannot hit us." It was nearing dusk when the Emden finally gave up the chase of the Sylph as futile, and once more put about. Immediately also the Sylph's head came about, and she once more set out, to trail the German.
Under existing circumstances Leer and Papenburg could be used for transporting purposes, and these two with Emden could handle one division. The situation on the Baltic Sea is peculiarly unfavorable, no harbor, with the exception of Kiel, being deep enough to accommodate our larger steamships.
Every article in it I shudder at their origin was in strict keeping with my humble métier, for I knew they were liable to search at the frontier custom-house; but there was a Baedeker of Northern Germany in my jacket pocket. For the nonce, if questions were asked, I was an English seaman, going to Emden to join a ship, with a ticket as far as the frontier.
He had with him two sister cruisers, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, each of 11,400 tons and an armament of eight 8.2-inch guns, and three smaller cruisers, the Dresden, Leipzig, and Nürnberg, each about the size of the Emden, from 3200 to 3540 tons, and carrying ten 4.1-inch guns; none of them had a speed of less than 22 knots.
We had also passed another, which extends from Cromer to Emden.
A string of sandy islands backed by sand; the Ems river at the western end, on the Dutch border, leading to Emden not much of a place. Otherwise, no coast towns at all. Total breadth of bay twenty odd miles only; sandbanks littered about all through it. Third piece: the Schleswig coast, hopelessly fenced in behind a six to eight mile fringe of sand. No big towns; one moderate river, the Eider.
Notwithstanding the wisdom however, of this well-languaged fellow, the Queen, for some strange reason, could not be induced to change the staple from Emden, although it was shown that the public revenue of the Netherlands would gain twenty thousand pounds a year by the measure. "All Holland will cry out for it," said Leicester; "but I had rather they cried than that England should weep."
During this period, also, Heligoland, the island handed over by Britain in 1890 in exchange for certain East African rights, became the key and center of the whole German coast defense system against England. Cuxhaven, Borkum, Emden, Wilhelmshaven with twice as many Dreadnought docks as Portsmouth Wangeroog, Bremerhaven, Geestemunde, etc., were magnificently fortified and guarded.
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