Republican farmer., 1919-06-27

| GeFf1an Ileet III SCdpd FLOW we
 scuttling of the German fleet,
 may have been drowned and
 reached the Orkney Islands anc The main force of the British fleet
 was absent exercising at sea when the | German ships were sunk, only some ! drifters. small warships and patroll-
 ing aircraft being on guard over the | interned enemy squadron.
 l Admiral Won Reuter-. commander of | the surrendered German fleet, says he | issued an order to sink the ships, the | Daily Mail adds. and did so because | at the beginning of the war the Ger
 man emperor directed that no German
 warship should fall into the enemy's | hands. He says that he believed, from l newspaper reports that the armistice 1 had been ended.
 | Admiral von Reuter- visited Germany
 some weeks ago, it being understood
 at the time that the reason for his
 trip was that he was i'll. but he soon
 returned. and it is believed that at l that time he circulated the order to
 sink the German ships by evading the
 censorship or making signals to the
 various vessels, an act which the close
 proximity of the German ships made quite easy. The Mail quotes the ad-
 miralty denying that the German
 crews were periodically changed and
 saying that the original crews re-
 mained on board the vessels. There | were from 15O to 200 men the big
 ships and from 10 to 20 on board the ldestroyers. Therefore, there were | nearly 5000 in the water or in the | ships boats when the fleet was sunk.
 Fourteen hundred were landed by the
 British on Sunday at Nigg, on the
 northern shore of Cromarty Firth. ! They were placed in hutments and
 are being held under military guard. From the behavior of the ships, according to the Mail. 1t was evident | the sea valves had been opened, and | in a surprisingly short time the vessels | big and small, began to settle down. | Every effort was made by the British naval craft to beach the sinking ships and in the case of destroyers con- siderable success was achieved. By 1 o'clock in the afternoon, however, | what an hour before had been a stately fleet riding comfortably at an- | chor was an array of reeling, rocking battleships, the doom of which was | written in their movements. Here a destroyer would disappear | amid a cloud of steam, and there a battleship would take her last plunge | and disappear in a cloud of spray. One would settle down by the stern and another would heel over until | only the keel showed above water. The Derfflinger. Hindenbur, Won Der
 Tam. Moltke and Seydlitz settled | down beside each other. the last
 named turning turtle as she filled with | water. Her keel is still showing | where she capsized. The waters of
 Scapa Flow were dotted with small
 boats full of men who had. with dra- | matic suddenness, settled the ques-
 ton of the disposition of the interned
 ships.
 As the first boatload was lowed | along side H. M. s. Victorious by | drifter, a German officer in the boat | ordered his men to cheer. They re- | sponded with three vigorous "Hochs." | Craft of every description followed | fast to the side of the warship, each ! towing boatloads of Germans, who
 were taken on board the Victorious. | the decks of which soon became | crowded with men and bundles. A German officer who came aboard | wore a sword and seemed to wish to | make an impressive ceremony by | handing it over to an officer who had | been in command of a division of in- | termed destroyers.
 We are not Bolsheviki." he said. | Peace was signed today. We had Il | out"
 The Germans were not aware the | armistice had been extended until l Monday, and there was an almost | continuous heel-clicking and saluting | as the officers of various ships greet l ed each other on coming aboard. | That the Germans were ready for the
 event was apparent from the amount
 and variety of the gear they had | ct ,p | under weight of bundles bigger than
 themselves, the salvage representing everything from bantos to pet dogs. l Both the officers and men seemed
 very anxious that none of their ships should be saved.
 One officer, who wore the iron cross,
 pointed to the ships and said: See how the German navy goes down with its flags flying"
 IBritish sailors had boarded most of the German ships and had hauled down .the flags before the vessels went un- Ider.
 | The prospect of salvaging a few
 ships is fairly hopeful, the Mail says.
 None has gone down in really deep
 water. The beaching of the sinking
 ships proved a dificult, and at times a
 dangerous matter. One destroyer
 sank as 1t was being lowed ashore, British sailors on board having
 sarcely time to jump clear before the craft went down. About 20 destroyers out of the 50 that were interned were lbeached during the afternoon. The Herman crews which were taken to the Vtctorious wore later transferred to or1er warsnlp0-
 What was a crowded anchorage this morning." wired a Mail corre- spondent on Saturday. 'is a desolate
 expanse of water tonight, with here and there the masts of sunken Ger man ship marking the final resting place of a once proud and mighty high seas fleet"
 One of tho Mails correspondents twho watched the sinking ships from