Postcard of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars.
Völkerkrieg (people's war)1914; In Treue FestPeople's WarFirm in Loyalty
". . . on 22 September. Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, in the old submarine U.9, torpedoed and sank the cruisers Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue on the Broad Fourteens, the name given to the area they patrolled off the Dutch coast. Three cruisers, sixty-two officers, and 1,397 men (most middle-aged reservists, but some young cadets mobilized directly from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth) were lost in a little more than an hour."
The British Royal Navy had been on maneuvers in the North Sea when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and stayed at sea rather than returning to port, effectively controlling it, and barring access to the German High Seas Fleet. Although Germany had a weaker surface fleet, Weddigen demonstrated the threat German submarines posed to the superior British navy. The British fleet retired, virtually abandoning the North Sea, giving German ships the opportunity to shell towns on the English coast.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 33, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
U.9, U-9, U9, 1914, September, 1914-09-22, Weddigen, submarine, Aboukir, Hogue, Cressy, German submarine sinks three British armored cruisers, German submarine sinks three British battleships, German
