was a small British flotilla, a
gunboat and two destroyers. The three battle cruisers among the German
raiders opened fire. The little British fleet did what they could but
were quickly driven off. The German ships then approached the shore and
fired on the English battery, the first fight with a foreign foe in
England since 1690. The British battery consisted of some territorials
who stood without wavering to their guns and kept up for half an hour a
furious cannonading. A great deal of damage was done; churches,
hospitals, workhouses and schools were all hit. The total death roll was
119, and the wounded over 300. Six hundred houses were damaged or
destroyed, but there was a great deal of heroism, not only among the
territorials, but among the inhabitants of the town, and when the last
shots were fired all turned to the work of relief.

Somewhere between nine and ten o'clock the bold German fleet started for
home. The British Grand Fleet had been notified of the raid and two
battle cruiser squadrons were hurrying to intercept them. But the
weather had thickened and the waters of the North Sea were covered with
fog belts stretching for hundreds of miles. And so the raiders returned
safe to receive their Iron Crosses. The German aim in such raids was
probably to create a panic, and so interfere with the English military
plans. If the English had not looked at the matter with common sense
they might easily have been tempted to spend millions of pounds on
seaboard fortifications, and keep millions of men at home who were more
necessary in the armies in France. But the English people kept their
heads.

Germany, perceiving the indignation of the world at these bombardments
of defenseless watering places, endeavored to appease criticism by
describing them as fortified towns. But the well-known excellence of the
German system of espionage makes it plain that they knew the true
condition of affairs. These towns were not selected as fortified towns,
but because they were not, and destruction in unfortified towns it was
thought would have a greater effect than in a fortified town where it
would be regarded as among the natural risks of war.

During the rest of the year of 1914 no further sea fight took place in
the North Sea nor was there any serious loss to the navy from torpedo or
submarine. But on the first of January, 1915, the British ship
Formidable, 15,000 tons, was struck by two torpedoes and sunk. The
previous day s