All through that night the staff of the Foreign Office were
wonderfully cheered up in their own work by looking across the famous
Horse Guards Parade at the Admiralty, which was ablaze with lights from
roof to cellar. The usual way, after the Royal Review that ended the
big fleet manoeuvres for the year, was to "demobilize" ships that had
been specially "mobilized" (made ready for the front) by adding Reserve
men to their nucleus crews. But this year things were different. War
was in the very air. So the whole fleet was kept mobilized; and the
wireless on top of the Admiralty roof was kept in constant touch with
every ship and squadron all round the Seven Seas. By Friday night, the
31st, the whole Grand Fleet had steamed through the Straits of Dover
into the grim North Sea and on to Scapa Flow, where it was already
waiting when, four days later, it got the midnight call to arms.
By the third War Wednesday (August 5th) the Germans had invaded Belgium
and France; that great soldier and creator of new armies, Lord
Kitchener, had replaced the civilian, Lord Haldane, at the head of the
War Office; Lord French's immortal first army had just got the word
_GO!_ and a German mine-layer was already at the work which cost her
own life but sank the cruiser _Amphion_.
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