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The British Fleet holds the North Sea more strongly than it has ever held it; and behind the barbed wire defences of Wilhelmshaven or Heligoland the German Fleet has been nursing its wounds. Some ten weeks have passed, and as these results have become plain to all the world, the German lie, or what remained of it, has begun to droop, even in the country of its birth.
One episode that was greatly stirring both Great Britain and the United States at this time was the trial of Sir Roger Casement, the Irish leader who had left Wilhelmshaven for Ireland in a German submarine and who had been captured at Tralee in the act of landing arms and munitions for an Irish insurrection.
The former effected nothing except sowing of some floating mines which subsequently sank British submarine and two fishing-smacks, while one of the participating cruisers, the Yorck, struck a German mine and sank on entering Wilhelmshaven. The December raid was more successful in its murderous intention of extending the schrecklichkeit practised in Belgium to civilians on British shores.
There might be something on Borkum to defend the Ems; but it's very unlikely, and, anyway, I had passed Borkum and was at Norderney. There's nothing else to defend. Of course it's different in the second division, where the big rivers are. There are probably hosts of forts and mines round Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, and at Cuxhaven just at the mouth of the Elbe.
It was clean, well-organized and radiated the efficiency inseparable from the German Army. Back at Wilhelmshaven curse it! Yesterday morning, when about to start on a tour of the ammunition supply arrangements, I received an urgent wire recalling me at once! There was nothing for it but to obey.
Adequate harbouring facilities had been provided at Konigsberg, Berlin, Posen, Breslau, Kiel, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Frankfort, Metz, Mannheim, Strasburg, and other places, with elaborate headquarters, of course, at Friedrichshafen upon Lake Constance.
With the addition of ships from Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Glückstadt and Kiel we would be able to despatch in the same length of time, at least six infantry divisions, or five infantry and one cavalry division. To these must be added several especially large and fast German steamers, partly for the shipment that might be delayed and partly to expedite the return to home waters.
Quietly, stealthily the hidden submarine awaited the approach of her adversary, for it seemed only too certain that the ship that had suddenly come dashing up out of the east was out of Cuxhaven or Wilhelmshaven, and had but a short time before passed under the mighty German guns on Heligoland.
Enver Pasha has of late been somewhat out of favour in Berlin, and I cannot but think it curious that when, on April 2, 1917, he visited the submarine base at Wilhelmshaven, he was very nearly killed in a motor accident. But it may have been an accident.
However, the strategical advantage over water lies with the British, because their control of the deep parts of the North Sea enables them to establish a temporary aeronautical base of mother ships sufficiently close to the German fleet to enable the British to launch a torpedo-plane attack from it on the German fleets in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, while the Germans could not possibly establish an aeronautical base sufficiently close to the British fleet.
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