of St. Hilda were damaged, as were the shipyards and the office of the local newspaper. The destruction of the gas works left the town in almost complete darkness for many nights afterward. The authorities issued a proclamation ordering all citizens to remain indoors for a time, and then began to count the number of dead and injured. The first estimate gave the former as 22 and the latter as 50, but subsequent reckoning showed that both figures were too low.
In Scarborough most of the inhabitants were still in bed when the bombardment started and for a few minutes did not become excited, thinking the booming of the guns was the sound of thunder. But when the shells began to drop on their houses they knew better. Many were killed or wounded while they hastily got into their clothes. One shell hit St. Martin's Church while communion was being held. Here, too, the railway station was made the objective of many refugees, and the police did what they could to send the women and children out of range of fire by putting them on trains of extra length. As in all such scenes there were humorous sides to it. One old workman, while hurrying along a street was heard to say: "This is what comes of having a Liberal Government." In all, about 6,000 people left the town immediately and did not return for some days.
Similar were the scenes enacted in Whitby when the turn of that town came. Only two persons were killed in that town, while thirteen casualties were reported from Scarborough.
The raid immediately became the subject for discussion in the newspapers of every country on the globe. In England it was bitterly denounced, and the term "baby killers" was applied to the men of the German navy. In Germany it was justified on the ground that the German admiralty had information and proof that the bombarded cities were fortified, and therefore, under international law, subject to bombardment. Nor did the German journalists lose the opportunity to declare that Great Britain no longer ruled the waves nor to show pride over the fact that their fleet had successfully left the German coast and had successfully returned to its home port. The war, they said, had been brought to England's door.
The year 1914 ended gloomily for the British public; nothing could have disappointed them more than the failure to catch the Germans. Nor did the new year open brightly for Britain, for on the first day of January, 1915, there came the news of disaster to the Formidable, sister ship to the Bulwark. The lesson of the Hogue, Cressy, and Aboukir had not been learned, for this ship went down under the same circumstances. While patrolling near Torbay during a night on which there was a bright moon and a calm sea, this ship, in company with seven other large ships unaccompanied by a "screen" of destroyers, was hit by a torpedo fired from a German submarine. Most of her crew were asleep when the torpedo struck and damaged the engine room so much that no lights could be turned on. In the darkness they hurried to the deck, which was slanting from her list. In obedience to orders issued by the admiralty after the sinking of the Cressy and the ships with her, the rest of the fleet immediately sailed away from the scene, so that no more of them would be hit. Only a light cruiser stood by the sinking Formidable. A second torpedo struck her and this had the effect of letting water into her hold on the side which was slowly coming out of the water. She took a position with even keel after that, and this fact enabled most of her crew to get off safely before she sank.
Once more the Germans were to attempt a raid on the coast cities of England. The date of this third attempt was January 24, 1915. This time the British were a bit better prepared, for a squadron of battle cruisers, consisting of the Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indomitable, put out from a port in the north of England at about the same time that the Germans left their base. All of these ships, with the exception of the last named, were quite fast, having speeds of from 25 to 28.5 knots; they were at the same time carrying heavy armament—13.5-inch guns in the main batteries. In company with them went four cruisers of what is known in England as the "town class"; these were the Nottingham, Birmingham, Lowestoft, and Southampton, together with the three light cruisers Arethusa, Aurora, and Undaunted, and a squadron of destroyers. The German fleet which was engaged in this raid consisted of the Seydlitz, Moltke, Derfflinger, and Blücher, in company with a fleet of destroyers. The German ships were not quite as fast as the English ships, nor did they carry guns of such range or destructive power as their British opponents.
Early in the first hours of January 24, these two forces, unknown to each other were steaming head on, the Germans taking a course leading northwest and the English a course leading southeast. At twenty minutes past seven in the morning the Aurora first sighted the enemy and engaged him immediately with her two 6-inch guns, sending at the same time word of her discovery to Admiral Beatty. Admiral Hipper, the German commander, as soon as he knew the enemy had sighted him, turned about and started to steam in a southeasterly direction.
In view of the results of this battle, it is best to go into the matter of the tactics involved. Tactics may be of two kinds—spontaneous or premeditated. When two hostile fleets meet on the high sea far from the base of either, the object of each is the complete destruction of the other, and the tactics employed are spontaneous. Such an action was that off Coronel. But on a closed sea such as the North Sea spontaneous tactics can rarely be used, for the reason that naval bases are too near, and from these there may slyly come reenforcements to one or the other or to both of the fighting fleets, making the arrangement of traps an easy matter. This is particularly true of the North Sea, on which it is possible for a fleet to leave Cuxhaven early in the evening and to be at Scarborough early the following morning. In addition, sailing is restricted because an unusually large portion of its waters is too shallow to permit of the passage of large ships.
The Germans on this occasion had arranged a trap. They knew that after making two successful raids on the English coast the British would keep even a closer watch for them. When they sailed from their base, it was with the expectation of meeting a hostile force, as was undoubtedly their expectation on the first two raids. But they did not intend to fight matters out on high waters. What they wanted to do was to get the British involved in a good running engagement, steering a southeasterly course the while and luring the British ships within striking force of a waiting fleet of superdreadnoughts and perhaps land guns and mines. This explains why Admiral Hipper turned stern as soon as he got into touch with the enemy.
There was a distance of fourteen miles between the two fleets when the Lion got her heavy guns into action. The German line was off her port (left) bow. At the head of that line was the Moltke, and following her came the Seydlitz, Derfflinger, Blücher, and the destroyers in the order given. At the head of the British line was the Lion, followed by the Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indomitable in the order named. The other cruisers and the destroyers of the British fleet brought up the rear. In the chase which followed the Germans were handicapped by the fact that the Blücher was far too slow to be brought into action, which meant that either the other ships must leave her behind to certain destruction or that they must slow down to keep with her. They chose the latter course, while her stokers did their best to increase her speed. In the English fleet there was the same trouble with the Indomitable, but inasmuch as the British were the pursuers and had a preponderance in ships and in the range of their guns, this did not matter so much to them. But the stokers of the Indomitable worked as hard, if not harder, than those of the Blücher.
By half past nine the two forces were seven miles apart and the battle was on. It is necessary here to give certain facts about gunnery on a large modern battleship. Firing at a range of seven miles means a test of mathematics rather than of the mere matter of pointing guns. At that distance the target—the ship to be hit—is barely visible on the sky line on the clearest and calmest sea. If a hole the size of the head of a pin be made in a piece of cardboard and the latter be held about a foot and a half from the eye, the distant ship will just about fill the hole.
The guns on the modern battleships are not "laid"; that is, they are not aimed as were the cannon of past days or the rifle of to-day. It is set toward its target by two factors. The first is known as "traverse," which means
