The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1916-02-05 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5. 1916:  Ihe an raid on The Air Raid. Monday night was by tar the most elaborate and extensive of the series of aerial invasions of this country carried out by an unserepulous and pitiless enemy, The hostile aircraft, Biz or seven in number, appear to have flown in company from the vicinity of Willielmsha.vee, to have separated on reaching the Engliah coast, and then to have pursued, either singly or in pairs, an independent course. Six counties in, all were visited, a considerable amount of material damage but no military injury of any kind was caused, and, unhappily, 59 persons were killed and 101 injured. The feature which distinguishes this particular murder raid from ()there of similar character is the extent of °ground" covered by the Zeppelins, and the obvious deteignination of the enemy to make the exploit as "spectacular" as possible. Out and home each machine must have voyaged nearly a thousand miles, which is a sufficient indication—especially as every raider appears to have escaped with absolute immunity—of the capacity of the Zeppelin type of aircraft for murderous employment against defenceless towns and peaceful citizens. It would, of course, be a mere waste of words to attempt to give expression to the horror and loathing which fills decent minds in contemplation of a system of warfare which seems to fill the German people of all claws with rapture. The moral turpitude winch can find joy in the massacre of harmless men and women, and innocent children, is so deep se to be beyond plumbing by normal folk, and we can only accept the fact that the people of Germany not only connive at but approve of the wholesale though haphazard murder of civilians of all ages. The object of the Zeppelin raids is the same as that which was the cold and calculated purpose of the nameless atrocities perpetrated by Germany in the autumn of 1914. It is to strike terror, by means of "frightfulness," into the hearts of the people in order that they may be driven by fear to clamour for peace. The idea that the British nation, which broke Napoleon and has stood in the forefront of the battle for liberty for five hundred years, can be oubdile.d by suoh meana is one that could only find accommodation in the essentially material German mind. We English are riot indifferent to the death and suffering oecasiOned by a 'Cruel Ind cowardly foe, but each successive outrage only serves to steel our hearts and confirm us in our determination to use our resources to the last fraction to bring the most sinister power in the world crashing to the ground. The spirit which animates the nation as a whole must also be shown by the community as individuals, and that there will be further occasions for the exercise of courage and fortitude by the plain citizen seems certain. The Germans boast that their extensive raid of Monday night is only the first of many, and recent history is evidence that they will prove as good as their word. They assumed too much from their last raid, which, according to German official reports, included the bombardment of the docke and warehouses of Liverpool and the "fortress of Birkenhead," but there can be no question that other attempts will be made to reach Merseyside, which the enemy know to be not only a shipping and shipbuilding centre of great importance but also a centre of the milling industry. Past experience of Zeppelin raids, fortunately, shows that the desire of their directors to inflict really material damage is greatly in excess of their ability to do so with anything approaching certainty. It is at once the duty and to the interest of the public to do all in their power, in the event of future raids, to ensure that the raiders shall be afforded the fewest indications possible of the existence of an objective for their bombs such as would appeal to them. It is not less the duty of the public to remember that they are British, and, should danger come, to meet it with courage worthy of their race and of the men of the Empire of all classes and many races who are dauntlessly facing everpresent peril on land and sea.