Part 36 (2/2)

A message has been received from the Commander of the Russian fleet demanding the surrender of the town for twelve hours to allow six of his s.h.i.+ps to fill up with coal. The captain of the _Ascalon_, in command of the port, has refused this demand, and declares that he will fight while he has a s.h.i.+p that will float or a gun that can be fired. The Russians are accompanied by the air-s.h.i.+p which a.s.sisted them to break the blockade of the Sound.

She is now floating over the town. The utmost terror prevails among the inhabitants, and crowds are flying into the country to escape the bombardment. Aid has been telegraphed for to Edinburgh and Dundee; but if the North Sea Squadron is still in the Firth of Forth, it cannot get here under nearly twelve hours' steaming.

5.30 P.M.

The bombardment has commenced, and fearful damage has been done already. With three or four sh.e.l.ls the air-s.h.i.+p has blown up and utterly destroyed the fort on Girdleness, which mounted twenty-four heavy guns. But for the s.h.i.+ps, this leaves the town almost unprotected. News has just come from the North Sh.o.r.e that the batteries there have met with the same fate. The Russians are pouring a perfect storm of shot and sh.e.l.l into the mouth of the river where our s.h.i.+ps are lying, but the town has so far been spared.

5.45 P.M.

We have just received news from Edinburgh that the North Sea Squadron left at daybreak this morning under orders to proceed to the mouth of the Elbe to a.s.sist in protecting Hamburg from an antic.i.p.ated attack by the same fleet which has attacked us. There is now no hope that the town can be successfully defended, and the Provost has called a towns-meeting to consider the advisability of surrender, though it is feared that the Russians may now make larger demands. The whole country side is in a state of the utmost panic.

7 P.M.

The towns-meeting empowered the Provost to call upon Captain Marchmont, of the _Ascalon_, to make terms with the Russians in order to save the town from destruction. He refused point blank, although one of the coast-defence s.h.i.+ps, the _Thunderer_, has been disabled by sh.e.l.ls from the air-s.h.i.+p, and all his other vessels have been terribly knocked about by the incessant cannonade from the fleet, which has now advanced to within two miles of the sh.o.r.e, having nothing more to fear from the land batteries. A terrific thunderstorm is raging, and no words can describe the horror of the scene. The air-s.h.i.+p ceased firing nearly an hour ago.

10 P.M.

Five of our eleven s.h.i.+ps--two battles.h.i.+ps and three cruisers--have been sunk; the rest are little better than mere wrecks, and seven torpedo-boats have been destroyed in attempting to torpedo some of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps. Heavy firing has been heard to the southward, and we have learnt from Dundee that four battles.h.i.+ps and six cruisers have been sent to our relief. A portion of the Russian fleet has been detached to meet them. We cannot hope anything from them. Captain Marchmont has now only four s.h.i.+ps capable of fighting, but refuses to strike his flag.

The storm has ceased, and a strong land breeze has blown the clouds and smoke to seaward. The air-s.h.i.+p has disappeared. Six large Russian ironclads are heading at full speed towards the mouth of the river--

The telegram broke off short here, and no more news was received from Aberdeen for several hours. Of this there was only one possible explanation. The town was in the hands of the Russians, and they had cut the wires. The long charm was broken, and the Isle Inviolate was inviolate no more. The next telegram from the North came from Findon, and was published in London just before ten o'clock on the following morning. It ran thus--

Findon, N.B., 9.15.

About ten o'clock last night the attack on Aberdeen ended in a rush of six ironclads into the river mouth. They charged down upon the four half-crippled British s.h.i.+ps that were left, and in less than five minutes rammed and sank them. The Russians then demanded the unconditional surrender of the town, under pain of bombardment and destruction. There was no other course but to yield, and until eight o'clock this morning the town has been in the hands of the enemy.

The Russians at once landed a large force of sailors and marines, cut the telegraph wires and the railway lines, and fired without warning upon every one who attempted to leave the town. The stores of coal and ammunition were seized, and six large cruisers were taking in coal all night. The banks were also entered, and the specie taken possession of, as indemnity for the town. At eight o'clock the cruisers and battles.h.i.+ps steamed out of the river without doing further damage. The squadron from the Tay was compelled to retire by the overwhelming force that the Russians brought to bear upon it after Aberdeen surrendered.

Half an hour ago the Russian fleet was lost sight of proceeding at full speed to the north-eastward. Our loss has been terribly heavy. The fort and batteries have been destroyed, all the s.h.i.+ps have been sunk or disabled, and of the whole defending force scarcely three hundred men remain. Captain Marchmont went down on the _Ascalon_ with his flag flying, and fighting to the last moment.

While the excitement caused by the news of the raid upon Aberdeen was at its height, that is to say, on the morning of the 2nd of July, intelligence was received in London of a tremendous disaster to the Anglo-Teutonic Alliance. It was nothing less, in short, than the fall of Berlin, the collapse of the German Empire, and the surrender of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince to the Tsar. After nearly sixty hours of almost continuous fighting, during which the fortifications had been wrecked by the war-balloons, the German ammunition-trains burnt and blown up by the fire-sh.e.l.ls rained from the air, and the heroic defenders of the city disorganised by the aerial bombardment of melinite sh.e.l.ls and cyanogen poison-bombs, and crushed by an overwhelming force of not less than four million a.s.sailants. So fell like a house of cards the stately fabric built up by the genius of Bismarck and Moltke; and so, after bearing his part gallantly in the death-struggle of his empire, had the grandson of the conqueror of Sedan yielded up his sword to the victorious Autocrat of the Russias.

The terrible news fell upon London like the premonitory echo of an approaching storm. The path of the triumphant Muscovites was now completely open to the forts of the Belgian Quadrilateral, under the walls of which they would form a junction, which nothing could now prevent, with the beleaguering forces of France. Would the Belgian strongholds be able to resist any more effectually than the fortifications of Berlin had done the a.s.saults of the terrible war-balloons of the Tsar?

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE PATH OF CONQUEST.

This narrative does not in any sense pretend to be a detailed history of the war, but only of such phases of it as more immediately concern the working out of those deep-laid and marvellously-contrived plans designed by their author to culminate in nothing less than the collapse of the existing fabric of Society, and the upheaval of the whole basis of civilisation.

It will therefore be impossible to follow the troops of the Alliance and the League through the different campaigns which were being simultaneously carried out in different parts of Europe. The most that can be done will be to present an outline of the leading events which, operating throughout a period of nearly three months, prepared the way for the final catastrophe in which the tremendous issues of the world-war were summed up.

The fall of Berlin was the first decisive blow that had been struck during the war. Under it the federation of kingdoms and states which had formed the German Empire fell asunder almost instantly, and the whole fabric collapsed like a broken bubble. The shock was felt throughout the length and breadth of Europe, and it was immediately seen that nothing but a miracle could save the whole of Central Europe from falling into the hands of the League.

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