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Updated: May 23, 2025
The journey ended on the 25th of May, just one month after leaving Wilhelmshaven. The British ships Triumph and Majestic were sighted early in the morning, but attack upon them was difficult on account of the destroyers which circled about them; one of the destroyers passed right over the U-51 while she was submerged.
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.
Night closed in with the British Fleet between the Germans and their base at Wilhelmshaven hoping to complete their work on a glorious First of June. Jellicoe and Beatty agreed that to continue the battle in darkness amid torpedo-craft and submarines was impossible, and Von Scheer had other designs in view. It was a night of excursions and alarms with many destroyer actions.
The latter bear vessels of the largest tonnage and deepest draught to the very quays of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, and the naval dockyard of Wilhelmshaven; while two of them, the Elbe and the Weser, are commerce carriers on the vastest scale for the whole empire. The Ems, on the other hand, only serves towns of the second class. A glance at the chart explains this.
She skirted the whole of Iceland to reach Wilhelmshaven safely, making a perilous voyage into Arctic waters at the worst season of the year. All this and more the German papers recounted with pardonable pride. It was said that Germany had flung the gauntlet in the British face and escaped unscathed.
But Kiel and Wilhelmshaven were too heavily defended to make an attack by sea seem at all practicable. The lesser ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend had been successfully raided from the air and made practically useless as submarine bases.
In his opinion, practically the only thing left for the English was to embark the remnants of their army at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, and to get a portion at least of their beaten forces safely out of India. While he was in his office, despatches were continually arriving from Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, Brest, and Cherbourg.
And if the British Navy can somehow emasculate Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland I shall not complain that its behavior has been purely doctrinaire. But otherwise I see nothing practical in the Essen-Wilhelmshaven-Heligoland suggestion. Nor in the project for dethroning the Kaiser and sending him and his eldest son to settle their differences in St. Helena!
I have seen it suggested that the destruction of Essen, Wilhelmshaven, and Heligoland ought to be a condition of peace with Germany. Certainly the disappearance of these phenomena would be a gain to the world. So would the disappearance of Rosyth and Toulon.
I was much struck with the beautiful orderliness of the small gardens which we have laid out since 1914, and, in fact, wherever one looks there is evidence of the genius of the German race for thorough organization. Yet these Belgians don't seem to appreciate it. I can't understand it. I find here that social life is very much gayer than at that mad town of Wilhelmshaven.
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