t to
throw a clear light upon the still more stupendous events which were to
follow.

In consequence of the almost incredible destruction and slaughter during
these first four awful days and nights of the war, both sides had lost
the command of the sea, and the capture of the _Hohenzollern_ in broad
daylight less than a dozen miles from the English coast had produced
such a panic among the rank and file of the invaders, and the
reinforcements of men waiting on the other side of the Channel and the
North Sea, that communication save by airship had practically stopped.

The consequence of this was that, geographically, the Allied armies,
after the release of the prisoners from Portsmouth and Folkestone,
amounted to some three million men of all arms, with half a million
horses, and two thousand guns--it will be remembered that a vast number
of horses, guns and stores had gone to the bottom in the warships which
the _Ithuriel_ had sunk--were confined within a district bounded by the
coast-line from Ramsgate to the Needles, and thence by a line running
north to Southampton; thence, across Hampshire to Petersfield, and via
Horsham, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, and over Canterbury, back to
Ramsgate.

In view of the defeat and destruction of the expedition against London,
the troops that had been thrown forward to Chatham and Rochester to
co-operate with it were re-called, and concentrated between Ashford and
Canterbury. The rest of England, Scotland and Ireland was to the present
a closed country to them. The blockade on Swansea and Liverpool had been
raised by the _Ithuriel_, and there was nothing to prevent any amount of
supplies from the west and south being poured in through half a hundred
ports.

Thus the dream of starving the British Islands out had been dissipated
at a stroke. True, the dockyards of Devonport and Milford Haven had been
destroyed by the airships, but copies of the plans of the _Ithuriel_ had
been sent to Liverpool, Barrow, Belfast, the Clyde and the Tyne, and
hundreds of men were working at them night and day. Scores of
battleships, cruisers and destroyers, belonging both to Britain and
other countries, which were nearing completion, were being laboured at
with feverish intensity, so that they might be fitted for sea in
something like fighting trim; submarines were being finished off by
dozens, and Thorneycroft's and Yarrow's yards were, like the rest,
working to their full capacity.

The blind fren