We had endured much together, my boat and I, and the parting
was hard.
_At Barracks_.
As I suspected when I was appointed here, my job is deadly to a degree,
and my main duty is to sign leave passes.
Our great effort in France has failed, and now the Allies react
furiously. The great war machine is strained to its utmost capacity;
can it endure the load?
Our proper move is to paralyse the Allied offensive by striking with
all our naval weight at his cross-channel communications. The U-boat
war is too slow, and time is not on our side, whilst a hammer blow down
the Channel might do great things. But we have no naval imagination,
and who am I, that I should advance an opinion?
A discredited Lieutenant in barracks--that's all.
Worse and worse--there are rumours of troubles in the Fleet taking
place under certain conditions.
It is the beginning of the end!
Last night the High Seas Fleet were ordered to weigh at 8 a.m. this
morning.
A mutiny broke out in the _Koenig_ and quickly spread.
By 9 a.m. half a dozen ships were flying the red flag, and to-day
Wilhelmshafen is being administered by the Council of Soldiers and
Sailors.
There has been little disorder; the men have been unanimous in
declaring that they would not go to sea for a last useless massacre, a
last oblation on the bloodstained altars of war.
Can they be blamed? Of what use would such sacrifice be?
Yet to an officer it is all very sad and disheartening.
I have seen enough to sicken me of the whole German system of making
war, and yet if the call came I know I would gladly go forth and die
when _tout est perdu fors l'honneur_.
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