THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT.
On the morning of Tuesday, the 9th of March 1904, the _Times_
published the following telegram at the head of its Foreign
Intelligence:--
ASTOUNDING OCCURRENCE IN RUSSIA.
_Destruction of Kronstadt by an unknown Air-Ship._
(_From our own Correspondent._)
St. Petersburg, _March 8th_, 4 P.M.
Between six and seven this morning, the fortress of Kronstadt was
partially destroyed by an unknown air-ship, which was first
sighted approaching from the westward at a tremendous speed.
Four shots in all were fired upon the fortress, and produced the
most appalling destruction. There was no smoke or flame visible
from the guns of the air-ship, and the explosives with which the
missiles were charged must have been far more powerful than
anything hitherto used in warfare, as in the focus of the
explosion masses of iron and steel and solid masonry were
instantly reduced to powder.
Two shots were fired as the strange vessel approached, and two as
she left the fortress. The two latter exploded over one of the
powder magazines, dissolved the steel roof to dust, and ignited
the whole contents of the magazine, blowing that portion of the
fortification bodily into the sea. At least half the garrison has
disappeared, most of the unfortunate men having been practically
annihilated by the terrific force of the explosions.
The air-ship was not of the navigable balloon type, and is
described by the survivors as looking more like a flying
torpedo-boat than anything else. She flew no flag, and there is
no clue to her origin.
After destroying the fortress, she ascended several thousand
feet, and continued her eastward course at such a prodigious
speed, that in less than five minutes she was lost to sight.
The excitement in St. Petersburg almost reaches the point of
panic. All efforts to keep the news of the disaster secret have
completely failed, and I have therefore received permission to
send this telegram, which has been revised by the Censorship, and
may therefore be accepted as authentic.
Within an hour of the appearance of this telegram, which appeared
only in the _Times_, the Russian Censorship having refused to allow
any more to be despatched, the astounding news was flying over the
wires to every corner of the world.
The _Times_ had a lengthy and very able article on the subject,
which, although by no means alarmist in tone, told the world, in
grave and weighty sentences, that there could now be no doubt but
that the problem of aërial navigation had been completely solved, and
that therefore mankind stood confronted by a power that was
practically irresistible, and which changed the whole aspect of
warfare by land and sea.
In the face of this power, the fortresses, armies, and fleets of the
world were useless and helpless. The destruction of Kronstadt had
proved that to demonstration. From a height of several thousand feet,
and a distance of nearly seven miles, the unknown air-vessel had
practically destroyed, with four shots from her mysterious,
smokeless, and flameless guns, the strongest fortress in Europe. If
it could do that, and there was not the slightest doubt but that it
had done so, it could destroy armies wholesale without a chance of
reprisals, sink fleets, and lay cities in ruins, at the leisure of
those who commanded it.
And here arose the supreme question of the hour--a question beside
which all other questions of national or international policy sank
instantly into insignificance--Who were those who held this new and
appalling power in their hands? It was hardly to be believed that
they were representatives of any regularly-constituted national
Power, for, although the air was full of rumours of war, there was at
present unbroken peace all over the world.
Even in the hands of a recognised Power, the possession of such a
frightful engine of destruction could not be viewed by the rest of
the world with anything but the gravest apprehension, for that Power,
however insignificant otherwise, would now be in a position to
terrorise any other nation, or league of nations, however great.
Manifestly those who had built the one air-vessel that had been seen,
and had given such conclusive proof of her terrible powers, could
construct a fleet if they chose to do so, and then the world would be
at their mercy.
If, however, as seemed only too probable, the machine was in the
hands of a few irresponsible individuals, or, still worse, in those
of such enemies of humanity as the Nihilists, or that yet more
mysterious and terrible society who were popularly known as the
Terrorists, then indeed the outlook was serious beyond forecast or
description. At any moment the forces of destruction and anarchy
might be let loose upon the world, in such fashion that little less
than the collapse of the whole fabric of Society might be expected as
the result.
* * * * *
The above necessarily brief and imperfect digest gives only the
headings of an article which filled nearly two columns of the
_Times_, and it is needless to say that such an article in the
leading columns of the most serious and respectable newspaper in the
world produced an intense impression wherever it was read.
Of course the telegram was instantly copied by the evening papers,
which ran out special editions for the sole purpose of reproducing
it, with their own comments upon it, which, after all, were not much
more original than the telegram. Meanwhile the _Berliner Tageblatt_,
the _Newe Freie Presse_, the _Kölnische Zeitung_, and the _Journal
des Débats_ had received later and somewhat similar telegrams, and
had given their respective views of the catastrophe to the world.
By noon all the capitals of Europe were in a fever of expectation and
apprehension. The cables had carried the news to America and India;
and when the evening of the same day brought the telegraphic account
of the extraordinary occurrence at Tiumen in the grey dusk of the
early morning, proving almost conclusively that the rescue had been
effected by the same agency that had destroyed Kronstadt, and that,
worse than all, the air-vessel was at the command of Natas, the
unknown Chief of the mysterious Terrorists, excitement rose almost to
frenzy, and everywhere the wildest rumours were accepted as truth.
In a word, the "psychological moment" had come all over Europe, the
moment in which all men were thinking of the same thing, discussing
the same event, and dreading the same results. To have found a
parallel state of affairs, it would have been necessary to go back
more than a hundred years, to the hour when the head of Louis XVI.
fell into the basket of the guillotine, and the monarchies of Europe
sprang to arms to avenge his death.
Meanwhile other and not less momentous events had, unknown to the
newspapers or the public, been taking place in three very different
parts of the world.
On the evening of Saturday, the 6th, Lord Alanmere had called upon
Mr. Balfour in Downing Street, and laid the duplicates of the secret
treaty between France and Russia, and copies of all the memoranda
appertaining to it, before him, and had convinced him of their
authenticity. At the same time he showed him plans of the
war-balloons, of which a fleet of fifty would within a few days be at
the command of the Tsar.
The result of this interview was a meeting of a Cabinet Council, and
the immediate despatch of secret orders to mobilise the fleet and the
army, to put every available ship into commission, and to double the
strength of the Mediterranean Squadron at once. That evening three
Queen's messengers left Charing Cross by the night mail, one for
Berlin, one for Vienna, and one for Rome, each of them bearing a copy
of the secret treaty.
On Monday morning a Council of Ministers was held at the Peterhof
Palace in St. Petersburg, presided over by the Tsar, and convened to
discuss the destruction of Kronstadt.
At this Council it was announced that the fleet of war-balloons would
be ready to take the air in a week's time from then, and that the
concentration of troops on the Afghan frontier was as complete as it
could be without provoking immediate hostilities with Britain. In
fact, so close were the Cossacks and the Indian troops to each other,
both on the Pamirs and on the western slopes of the Hindu Kush, that
a collision might be expected at any moment.
The Council of the Tsar decided to let matters take their course in
the East, and to make all arrangements with France to simultaneously
attack the Triple Alliance as soon as the war-balloons had been
satisfactorily tested.
Soon after daybreak on Wednesday, the 10th, an affair of outposts
took place near the northern end of the Sir Ulang Pass of the Hindu
Kush, between two considerable bodies of Cossacks and Ghoorkhas, in
which, after a stubborn fight, the Russians gave way before the
magazine fire of the Indian troops, and fled, leaving nearly a fourth
of their number on the field.
The news of this encounter reached London on Wednesday night, and was
published in the papers on Thursday morning, together with the
intelligence that the fight had been watched from a height of nearly
three thousand feet by a small party of men and women in an air-ship,
evidently a vessel of war, from the fact that she carried four long
guns. She took no part in the fight, and as soon as it was over went
off to the south-west at a speed which carried her out of sight in a
few minutes.