Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 299, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1914 — GERMAN WARSHIPS BOMBARD ENGLAND [ARTICLE]

GERMAN WARSHIPS BOMBARD ENGLAND

Cruisers Take Advantage of Tog, Slip Out of Channel and Shell Three English Cities. LONDON, December 16—The long expected German attack on England wa's made today and for the first time in the history of the United Kingdom hostile warships bombarded English towns. Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, on the £hore off the North Sea, were shelled by German warehips. It seems probable that Germany had sent a few swift cruisers for a raid on the coast of England, largely for its moral’ effect, and had not attempted an action with its main fleet or an invasion of England. Fighting between the Genman craft and British warships patrolling the eoast was reported in the admiralty’s first announcement, but no details of these encounters were given. In slipping out of their safe refruge at the Genman naval base, behind Helgoland, the German warships, which reached the coast of England, were obliged to dodge through the main British fleet, supposed to be on guard all along the east side of the North Sea and the English channel. Some of the German Baltic sea fleet may have passed through the Kiel canal to join the main fleet off Wilhelmshaven.