No international compliments are to be paid, and all
conversation is forbidden except in regard to the immediate business to
be transacted.

"If it should be necessary to provide food for the German officers and
men, they should not be entertained, but it should be served to them in
a place specifically set. If it should be necessary to accept food
from the Germans, the request is made that it be similarly served."

[Illustration: The British Cruiser _Curacoa_, Admiral Tyrwhitt's
flagship, leading out one column of British cruisers at the surrender
of the German navy. Overhead is a captive or "kite" balloon. As used
in naval work, it is attached to an anchored or moving ship by a small
steel cable, by which it is regulated for purposes of observation. The
tubular surfaces which give the balloon the appearance of an elephant's
head are not filled with hydrogen gas, but are inflated by the winds at
high altitudes, thus keeping the balloon relatively steady like a kite
with a long tail. The stationary balloon is such a good target for
anti-aircraft guns that the observers are supplied with parachutes, the
type of which appears on page 341.]

Later, notices were posted giving the hour when they were to meet the
Germans and requiring every precaution to be taken against treachery.

"At 9:40 the Battle Fleet will meet the German fleet. Immediate
readiness for action is to be assumed."

They would not trust the people to whom solemn treaties were but scraps
of paper, and whose necessity made any act however treacherous appear
to them to be a right one.

The Allied fleets were anchored on the night of November 20 in the
Firth of Forth above and below its famous bridge. The United States
was represented by the _New York_, the _Florida_, the _Arkansas_, and
the _Wyoming_, and France by a cruiser and two destroyers. Ships from
Canada, New Zealand, and Australia were also in line. There were
nearly four hundred warships in the Allied fleet, including sixty
dreadnoughts, fifty cruisers, and over two hundred destroyers.

At four o'clock on the morning of Friday, November 21, the great Battle
Fleet weighed anchor and one by one steamed out to sea. It was, even
in the darkness, a wonderful and thrilling sight, an exhibition of sea
power never before seen in the history of mankind.

Picture that scene in the gray darkness before the dawn. Mile after
mile of mighty dreadnoughts and swift cruisers and destroyers weigh