* * * * *
I was sent for this morning by the Commodore's office, and handed my
appointment as Senior Lieutenant at the barracks Wilhelmshafen.
No explanation, though I suspected something of the sort was coming, as
three days after we got in from my last trip I was examined by the
medical board attached to the flotilla.
So I am to leave the U-boat service, and leave it under a cloud! It is
a sad come-down from Captain of a U-boat to Lieutenant in barracks, a
job reserved for the medically unfit for sea service.
Am I sorry? No, I think I am glad. Life here at Bruges is one long
painful episode. No one speaks to me in the Mess. I am left severely
alone with my memories. The night before last I found a revolver in my
room, and attached to it was a piece of paper bearing the words: "From
a friend."
Perhaps at Wilhelmshafen it will be different, and yet, when I went
down to the boat at noon and collected my personal affairs and stepped
over her side for the last time, I could not check a feeling of great
sadness. 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 _König_ 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_.
Such instincts are bred deep into the men of families such as mine.
We approach the culmination of events. To-day Germany has called for an
armistice. It has been inevitable since our Allies began falling away
from us like rotten print.
The terms will doubtless be hard.
* * * * *
Heavens above! but the terms are crushing!
All the U-boats to be surrendered, the High Seas Fleet interned; why
not say "surrendered" straight out, it will come to that, unless we
blow them up in German ports.
The end of Kaiserdom has come; we are virtually a republic; it is all
like a dream.
* * * * *
We have signed, and the last shot of the world-war has been fired.
Here everything is confusion; the saner elements are trying to keep
order, the roughs are going round the dockyard and ships, looting
freely.
"Better we should steal them than the English," and "There is no
Government, so all is free," are two of their cries.
There has been a little shooting in the streets, and it is not safe for
officers to move about in uniform, though, on the whole, I have
experienced little difficulty.
I was summoned to-day before the Local Council, which is run by a man
who was a Petty Officer of signals in the _König_. He recognized me and
looked away.
I was instructed to take U.122 over to Harwich for surrender to the
English.
I made no difficulty; some one has got to do it, and I verily believe I
am indifferent to all emotions.
We sail in convoy on the day after tomorrow; that is to say, if the
crew condescend to fuel the boat in time. Three looters were executed
to-day in the dockyard and this has had a steadying effect on the worst
elements.
* * * * *
I went on board 122 to-day, and on showing my authority which was
signed by the Council (which has now become the Council of Soldiers,
Sailors and Workmen), the crew of the boat held a meeting at which I
was not invited to be present.
At its conclusion the coxswain came up to me and informed me that a
resolution had been carried by seventeen votes to ten, to the effect
that I was to be obeyed as Captain of the boat.
I begged him to convey to the crew my gratification, and expressed the
hope that I should give satisfaction.