eir own searchlights the French and German admirals,
steaming as they thought to join hands with their victorious friends,
saw the strangest and most exasperating sight that their eyes had ever
beheld. The advancing force was a curiously composed one. Trained, as
they were, to recognise at first sight every warship of every nation,
they could nevertheless hardly believe their eyes. There were six
battleships in the centre of the first line. One was the _Britain_,
three others were of the _Edward the Seventh_ class; two were French. Of
the sixteen cruisers which formed the wings, seven were French--and
every warship of the whole lot was flying the White Ensign!

Did it mean disaster--almost impossible disaster--or was it only a _ruse
de guerre_?

They were not left very long in doubt. At three miles from a direction
almost due south-east of Dover, the advancing battleships opened fire
with their heavy forward guns, and the cruisers spread out in a fan on
either side of the French and German Fleets. The _Britain_, as though
glorying in her strength and speed, steamed ahead in solitary pride
right into the midst of the Allies, thundering and flaming ahead and
from each broadside. The _Braunschweig_ had the bad luck to get in her
way. She made a desperate effort to get out of it; but eighteen knots
was no good against twenty-five. The huge ram crashed into her vitals as
she swerved, and reeling and pitching like some drunken leviathan, she
went down with a mighty plunge, and the _Britain_ ploughed on over the
eddies that marked her ocean grave.

This was the beginning of the greatest and most decisive sea-fight that
had been fought since Trafalgar. The sailors of Britain knew that they
were fighting not only for the honour of their King and country, but, as
British sailors had not done for a hundred and four years, for the very
existence of England and the Empire. On the other hand, the Allies knew
that this battle meant the loss or the keeping of the command of the
sea, and therefore the possibility or otherwise of starving the United
Kingdom into submission after the landing had been effected.

So from midnight until dawn battleship thundered against battleship, and
cruiser engaged cruiser, while the torpedo craft darted with flaming
funnels in and out among the wrestling giants, and the submarines did
their deadly work in silence. Miracles of valour and devotion were
achieved on both sides. From admiral and commodore