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Updated: June 7, 2025
The sun was westering now, and the sea had turned to gold, and the grey lady looked black against the glare, but the fire of her guns was brighter than the evening sunset, and she was a spit-fire, after all, this dignified queen, and she, "let 'em have it," too, while the long, lean torpedo-boats looked on.
Stretching out to the right were the Montgomery, Wilmington, Newport, and smaller craft; to the left was the Nashville in the lead, followed by the Cincinnati, Castine, Machias, Mayflower, and some of the torpedo-boats. At seven o’clock in the morning the first gun of the war was fired.
Ranged along the coast from Folkestone to Deal was an armament consisting of forty-five battleships of the first, second, and third classes, supported by fifteen coast-defence ironclads, seventy armoured and thirty-two unarmoured cruisers, forty gunboats, and a hundred and fifty torpedo-boats.
The most important event in the early history of the war, and the event that controlled the movements of the Red Cross steamer State of Texas, as well as the movements of General Shafter's army, was the arrival of the Spanish fleet of cruisers and torpedo-boats at Santiago de Cuba on May 19.
When the captain of the Ascalon, who was in command of the port, saw the overwhelming force of the hostile fleet, he at once came to the conclusion that it would be madness for him to attempt to put to sea with his eleven ships and six torpedo-boats.
Unwilling, therefore, to expose his vessels to profitless danger, the Vice-Admiral ordered the torpedo-boats to retire from the front, and the whole line of them proceeded to a point north of the fleet, where they lay to.
There was one very large white steamer lying off Havre, but she steamed west before I could reach her. I dare say Stephan or one of the others would get her before long. But those infernal aeroplanes spoiled our sport for that day. Not another steamer did I see, save the never-ending torpedo-boats. I consoled myself with the reflection, however, that no food was passing me on its way to London.
Save the dreadnoughts we could not, but I decided to save what we could. The widening and deepening of the canal system so as to shift boats from the Baltic to the Volga had been considered in the time of the Tzar. It was considered and dismissed as impracticable. Once, indeed, they did try to take two torpedo-boats over, and they lifted them on barges to make the attempt.
The firing was furious and sustained from beginning to end of the rush, but the damage inflicted by the cannonade of the Russian fleet and the torpedo-boats, which every now and then darted out from between the warships as opportunity offered to employ their silent and deadly weapons, was as nothing in comparison with the frightful havoc achieved by the air-ship.
Two cruisers and a battleship with two torpedo-boats were coming up from the south-east; one cruiser, the other battleship, and two torpedo-boats were bearing down from the south-west, and the remaining cruiser and brace of torpedo-boats had managed to slip through the British line and gain a position to the northward. This large force had not been brought up without good reason.
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