Art. 5.-A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY IN NORTHERN GERMANY.*—I.

(1) THE GERMAN ADMIRALTY.

'WE are not going to take any chances with our fleet.' How often I heard that statement during the months I spent in Germany in 1915! You may listen to all the eulogies, promises, prophecies about 'Unsere wunderbare Flotte,' but you had better refrain from asking any questions about it. It may cost you your liberty if you do. Suppose you ask a German an imprudent question about the Navy, if you are lucky he will refer you to the German Admiralty; if you are unlucky, you will probably be the guest of the Government the next day, if not sooner. If you take his advice and go to the Admiralty, they usually see you coming. Oh! the many, many hours I have spent trying to reach the vitals of that palatial edifice, so symbolic of the organisation it directs. It is spick and span and brand-new, no old ramshackle building, with partitioned rooms in all sorts of corners and corridors, such as I found in the War Office on the Leipziger Strasse. The German Admiralty is a model building. On entering, you find yourself in a square marble-columned atrium which reminds one of the drawings and paintings of the portals of the old Roman baths. There are a number of waiting-rooms on both sides; and that is as far as 99 out of 100 people ever get. To advance beyond the doors leading into the 'holy of holies' is a labour that takes time, influence, and brains.

I shall not describe the devious ways and means which have to be employed in order to obtain admission to the temple of the German would-be Neptune. Suffice it to say that, after having secured an introduction to Captain Löhlein, who at the time was-and I think still is—a high official at the Admiralty, being something like their Advertising Manager, I finally passed through the inner portals of the sacred edifice.

One of the most fascinating departments of the 'Marineamt' (Admiralty) in Berlin, is 'Abteilung XVI,' where maps, plans, sketches, etc., are collected and kept.

* This article was in type before the Battle of Jutland was fought on May 31.-[EDITOR.]

I spent an interesting morning there, in room 177, and feasted my eyes on many excellently drawn and photographed maps. It was there that I saw (for the first time) a six inch to the mile map of Rosyth Harbour ; large-scale maps of Plymouth, Portsmouth, Dover, the mouth of the Thames, the entrance of the Mersey, the Liverpool Docks, the Portsmouth Dockyards, and various sea-ports; also a map of England, with the places marked where hostile landings had been made. I doubt whether there are many yards of Great Britain's coast that were not carefully mapped out there.

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But it is not of the British maps I wish to tell you. I was far more interested in the minute drawings and maps of Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, the Kiel Canal, Heligoland, the North Sea coast and its defences, etc. I was naturally most anxious to 'borrow' them for a little while. But that was easier wished than executed. Maps from eight to ten feet long, fastened on rollers, are not quite the things to borrow' clandestinely. Nevertheless I succeeded in obtaining a number of copies, much smaller, it is true, but exact replicas all the same, of those interesting and instructive German drawings. The maps accompanying these articles, viz. the general map, including the Kiel Canal; those of the German coast defences on the North Sea and Heligoland; the large-scale plan of Wilhelmshaven, and the map of Kiel Harbour and its anchorages, have all been drawn from those facsimiles. I doubt not that the German Admiralty would very much like to know how I obtained those copies. But I am not going to tell!

But to return to Captain Löhlein. He was a very pleasant suave gentleman, but unfortunately they were not doing any advertising just then in the Navy. In answer to my enquiries whether I might pay a visit to Kiel, Wilhelmshaven, the Canal, Emden, or Heligoland, I received a pointblank refusal. 'Impossible; absolutely impossible,' was the answer. In short, to use the well

worn phrase, 'Es ist verboten.'

I knew then how British sailors must feel, when cruising and searching the North Sea, eager for a sight of the German pennant. So near and yet so far! Here I was in the heart of the enemy's country, and, what's more, at large, hardly the toss of a ship's biscuit from

those pioneers of Germany's future, and yet unable to feast my eyes on them. Saddened and disappointed, I turned my back on Berlin and the inhospitable officials of the Admiralty, and moved to the Free City of Hamburg on the Elbe. Here, after a while, fortune favoured me, and my career of 'crime' began. Through friends and acquaintances and other mediums, I had several chances of visiting the principal defences of Germany on the North Sea. Short clandestine trips to the coast; interesting, if brief, voyages on all sorts of quaint old vessels; railway and automobile journeys to various parts of the German North Sea coast-in short, a veritable banquet of German Navy delicacies, with, as pièce de resistance, a trip through the Kiel Canal. And this is what I have now to tell you about.

(2) GERMANY'S COAST DEFENCES.

From what I gathered during those trips, I believe there is not another defence system in the world that can be compared with Germany's 200-mile coast-line on the North Sea (see Map). In this I have marked the forts and batteries which I know are there; and I realise that I have by no means discovered them all. Germany possesses on her North Sea border the natural advantages of shallow waters and a sandy, flat coast, which in themselves afford a valuable safeguard against offensive operations. The tide rises about ten feet on the Elbe and from six to seven on the Frisian coast. In peace the various sandbanks and dangerous places are marked by beacons and lights, but of course, since the beginning of the war, everything that might facilitate navigation has been removed. The harbours are limited to those on the Elbe, the Weser, the Jade, and the Ems. They are approached by three narrow and tortuous channels, impossible to navigate without a pilot or expert knowledge of the charts. That is what Nature has done for Germany. Science and Art have done still more.

The German coast-defence system is divided into two parts, the North Sea and the Baltic Divisions, each under command of a Vice-Admiral, with head-quarters respectively at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel. It is generally understood that the entire system is controlled by the

Navy. That is not quite correct. There is no organisation in Germany, not even the Navy, in which the German Army does not play some part. A case in point we find in the Island of Borkum, the most western of the Frisian Islands and practically in sight of Holland. It guards the channels leading to Emden Harbour and to some minor ports on the Frisian coast. Although one of the most important units of the North Sea fortifications, it is a military base and under control of the War Office. It is garrisoned and commanded by soldiers. On the other hand, the Island of Wangeroog, which is, so to speak, on the right flank of the Frisian Islands, and guards the entrance to Wilhelmshaven and the Weser Mouth, is entirely controlled and manned by the Navy. Other coast-defence stations which have remained under control of the Army are the fortifications at Neufahrwasser in the Baltic, protecting the mouth of the Vistula, the forts at Pillau at the entrance of the Frische Haff, the approach to the fortress of Königsberg, and finally Swinemünde, guarding the entrance of the Stettiner Haff, the mouth of the Oder and the Vulcan shipbuilding yards. Every unit of the entire system, i.e. every harbour, dockyard, fort, battery, nay, I believe almost every single large gun, is connected with the others by a strategical railroad and, in a smaller degree, by a system of canals. Thus Emden, on the extreme west, is connected with Memel, in the east, almost in sight of Russia. The heart and brains of this great web are at Kiel.

A great many improvements are being made at Emden. It is the object of the German Admiralty to make this port another strong naval base. The channel leading past the Island of Borkum towards Emden has recently been deepened to forty feet. Borkum is strongly fortified. It has two batteries of 10 and 11-inch guns, and a 15 or 16-inch howitzer battery. (A heavy German Battery consists of four pieces.) Emden is connected with Wilhelmshaven by the Ems-Jade Canal, so that the smaller units of the Navy can pass from one harbour to the other without having to go outside. The main submarine stations on the North Sea are at Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland, with sub-stations at Emden, Cuxhaven, and one or two other points.

'The German coast-defence system,' so everyone will