To Kiel in the 'Hercules'

reversed during the armistice interval, was furnished by the attitude of all the enemy people-from the highest offic

tovsk, and the beaten Rumanians at Bucharest, they adopted from the outset an attitude of sullen distrust, evidently with the idea that it was the one best calculated to minimize the concessions they would be called upon to make. When it transpired that the Allied commissioners appeared to have no intention of exercising their victor's prerogative of humiliating the emissaries of a beaten enemy-as no Prussian could ever have refrained from doing in similar circu

f the Allied Commission were already assembled and in their places. Most of the Germans were in frock coats (of fine material and extremely well cut), with small dirk-like swords at hip, and much-bemedalled. There was none of them, so far as one could see, without one grade or another of the Iron Cross, worn low on the

Browning's Chief of Staff, sat next to Admiral Robinson, in the fourth chair on the Allied side of the table. The Flag Lieutenants of the French and American Admirals, and the two officers representing respectively Japan and Italy, occupied chairs immediately beyond the senior officers of the Commission. At two smaller tables in the rear were several British

rom the General Naval Staff in Berlin, which accounted, doubtless, for the fact that Admiral Goette turned to him for advice in connection with practically every question discussed. Commander Lohman had charge of merchant shipping interests, which were principally in connection with the return of British tonnage interned in German harbours at the outbreak of the war. Cap

NAVAL COMMISSION, ADMI

ISSION AND STAFF, TAK

actically out of the question. The disturbed state of the country, the uncertain situation in Berlin, the lack of discipline among the men remaining in the ships and at the air stations, the shortage of petrol, the possibility of the hostility of the people in some sections-such as Hamburg and Bremen-to Allied visitors-these were a few of the reasons advanced why it would be difficult or dangerous to go to this place or that, and why the best and simplest way would be to be con

sition to guarantee the personal safety of any parties landing even at the dockyard. Moreover, he would not be in position to give such a guarantee until the

e terms laid down in the armistice, not only all of the remaining German warships, but also all interned British merchantmen, irrespective of where they were, and all naval airship and seaplane stations, on the Baltic as well as the North Sea side. Also, that full and complet

traightened up again. Then his deep-set eyes wandered to the large-scale map of the Western Front which occupied most of the wall of the cabin toward which he faced. The row of pins, which had marked the line of the Front at the moment of the armistice, but had now been moved up and over the Rhine in three protuberant bridgeheads, evidently brought home to him th

led a film as a consequence of his consideration. Observing that the galley scuttle opened out upon the quarter-deck, but not (in his haste) that the pots of beans simmering on the range were filling the air with clouds of steam as thick as fragrant, set up his machine just inside. Engrossed in turning the crank as one Hun after another went through his heel-c

if at all. There was not even positive assurance that a safe conduct would be forthcoming for the landing in Wilhelmshaven, where the headquarters of the German Naval Command were located at the moment, and where there had been a minimum of disorder. The wireless caught ominous fragments pointing to a

ilway, and told they were free to go home. This appears to have been done at a good many prison camps, and where these were within a few days' march of the Western Front, or of Holland, it probably saved a good deal of time over waiting for regular transport by the demoralized and congested railway systems. The cruelty of this criminal evasion of responsibility was most felt in the parts of the country more remote from the Western Front, where many hundreds of miles had to be covered before the prison

ES" TALKING WITH NEWLY A

siderately treated on the food score, they found travelling simple enough, but extremely tedious and full of delays. Arriving at Emden, they learned that there had been no provision whatever made for dispatching ships with prisoners from there, and that-both on account of the lack of shipping and the danger of navigating the still unswept minefields-there was no prospect of anything of the kind in the near future. Instead of crossing over the neighbouring frontier of Holland, as they might easily have done, they pushed north to B

r superstructure, when a steward came up from the galley to ask what the new arrivals would like to have for supper. There was quite a list to choose from, it appears. They could have roast beef, said the steward, or sausage and "mashed," or steak and kidney pie, or-"Stop right there, mytey," cut in one of the men, raising his hand with the gesture of a crossings policeman halting the flow of the traffic. "No use goin' any further. 'Styke an' kidney' fer mine." Then, turning to the Commander apologetically, "Begging your pardo

Northern Germany, they said. Nobody was starving, and where the people took any notice of them at all, it was-since the armistice-invariably of a friendly character. "W'y, 'pon my word, sir," said one of them, where I found him that night in a warm corner of one of the mess decks, the centre o

hose of us who talked with them quite prepared to expect the "guarantee of safety," which came off in the morning, with word that arrangements had been made for parties to land at once for the inspection of warships and the seaplane station. It even forecasted the message received in the course of the afternoon, to the effect that conditions now appeared to be favourable t

to confine its work entirely to warships and land fortifications, had at least one member of each of the Allied nationalities represented in the Commission. The head of it was the Flag Commander of

an, R.A.F., who was one of England's pioneers in the development of lighter-than-air machines, his experience dating back to the experiments with the ill-fated Mayfly. His in

flying operations from the Furious, with the Grand Fleet. Having sent off the aeroplanes whose bombs had practically wiped out the Zeppelin station at Tondern, near the Danish border, the previous summer, he had an

er in the war as commander of the British trawler patrol in the Mediterranean. With him were associated Commander John Leighton, R.N.R., who had achieved notable success in effecting the return to England of the numerous British merchant ships in Baltic ports at the

der, early in the war, and as none of the Americans had even the latter, it was evident at once that there was no use competing in a dress parade with the Germans, who were operating at their own base, so to speak. The best that could be done was to borrow swords-from any of the ward-room officers chancing to have theirs along-for the Americans, and let it go at that. The "International" members, whose principal dut

gard of the men for such few of their officers as still remained-were everywhere much worse than had been anticipated. This may well be accounted for by the fact that the surrendered ships were manned entirely by volunteers, and these, naturally, being the men less revolutionary in spirit and more amenable to discipline, had taken better care of themselves and their quarters than those who re

ry first ship visited the whole of the remaining crew were found loitering indolently about the decks, in direct contravention of the clause in the armistice which provided that all men should be sent ashore during the visits of Allied searching parties. The captain, on being appealed to, shrugged his shoulders and said that he was quite helpless. "I ordered the

keep reminding myself that the man was a brother officer of the swine that sank the Lusitania, and so many hospital s

he emergency. "If these men are not out on the dock in ten minutes," he said to the captain, "I shall have no alternative but to return at once to the Hercules and re

an attempt upon the part of the men to show contempt for their officers, and was not intended to interfere with the work of the searching party. Although we observed countless instances of indiscipline in one form or another, on no subsequent occasion did it appear in a way calculated to annoy or delay one of the Allied parties. On the contrary, indeed, t

em, and they exhibited no evidences of ill-feeling over the failure of their attempts to establish such relations. The Naval authorities and the Council had evidently come to an agreement by which the latter were to be allowed to have a representative-"watching" but not "talking"-with every Allied party landing, in return for which privilege the Council undertook to prevent any interference from the men remaining in ships or air stations visited. Later, when journeys by railway were undertaken, and a guarantee of fr

er was the thread by which the authority of the once proud and domineering German naval officer hung. After cooling their heels in the slush of the dockyard for half an hour, the party returned to the Hercules to aw

ar my sword and epaulettes and other markings of an officer was not sent to me, and so I could not be allowed to travel by the tramway until I had made known the trouble by tele

Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was shown, these had to be removed as soon as they went ashore. The constant "self-pity" which the officers kept showing in the matter of their humiliating predi

best of the under-water craft had also been made. The most interesting ships which the Allied Commission expected to see in German waters were the battleship Baden, sister of the surrendered Bayern, and the battle-cruiser Mackensen, sister of the surrendered Hindenburg. The Regensburg and K?n

Von Spee's squadron at the Falklands to the battle-cruisers of Von Hipper at Jutland-had put up when it was once drawn into action, it was only natural to expect that some radical departures in construction, armament, and gunnery control would be revealed on closer acquaintance. This did not prove to be the case, t

to multiply bulkheads and dispense with doors. But there was nothing new in this fact to those who knew the amount of hammering the Seydlitz and Derfflinger had survived at Dogger Bank and Jutland. Even so, however, there

ce the war, been built in light cruisers and even destroyer leaders, was only adopted by the Germans with the laying down of the Bayern and Hindenburg. Similarly, the armament-both main and secondary-of the r

ike unfurnished rooms in their emptiness. So, too, the foretops and what must have been the director towers. One moot point may, however, be regarded as settled. There have been many who maintained that, since the German fire was almost invariably extremely accurate in the opening stages of an action, and tended to fall off rapidly after the ship came under fire herself, the enemy gunnery control involved the use of a very elaborate and highly complicated installation

t that the latter was superior in the first years of the war. The German ships unquestionably had more accurate range-finders than did the British, and it is also known now that the Germans took great care in testing the eyesight of the men employed to handle these instruments, and that much attention was given to their training. It is be

mshaven and the very crude, inadequate living quarters in even the most modern of the ships searched-gave him only less of a shock, and aroused in him only less contempt, than did the filth and indiscipline of the German sailors. The German officer who ass

the war was over. In a previous chapter I have told how we intercepted a wireless from Admiral Von Reuter, saying that he had "gone sick" at Scapa and asking to be relieved. That was not the last by any means that we were to hear of the "hardships" of life in those German "fighting ships" at good old Scapa. The veritable howls of protest rising from the Orkneys were echoing in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel during all the time the Commission spent in German waters. Some

f variation, cringingly obsequious-officers to be endured. The sullen ones usually improved when they found that no "indignities" were to be heaped upon them, and that they had only to answer a few questions and show the way round; but you had to keep a weather eye lifting for the obsequious ones to prevent their helping you up ladders by steadying your elbow, rubbing imaginary spots of grease off your monkey jacket, and

ng about the same length of time. At Hamburg and Bremen there were principally merchant ships and U-boats, and the search of-and for-both of these is a story of its own. The remainder of the work on the North Sea