Percy F Westerman

With Beatty off Jutland Percy F Westerman

Book Excerpt: ...the declaration of war the telegraph cables had been severed, both in the neighbourhood of the British coast and in the vicinity of the German island fortress. To all intents and purposes it seemed as if the cables were nothing more than useless cores of copper encased in gutta-percha, rotting in the ooze on the bed of the North Sea. Yet in spite of the most stringent precautions on the part of the British Government to prevent a leakage of news, the disconcerting fact remained that, thanks to an efficient and extensive espionage system, information, especially relating to the movements of the Grand Fleet, did reach Germany. Various illicit means of communication were suspected by the authorities, and drastic, though none the less highly necessary, regulations were put into force that had the effect of reducing the leakage to a minimum....