Some such effect as described above was inevitable amongst both the German civilian element and their fighting services. We know that the operation caused a great scare at Bruges. Many of the German officials there hurriedly collected their effects ready for evacuating the city; it had been reported that the allies were landing an immense force on the coast of Flanders. It is not generally known that friendship between the German Navy and Army was conspicuous by its absence. They had been at daggers drawn for some years; the Crown Prince himself was in the habit of being openly rude to naval officers of high rank. This antagonism was evidenced recently in a letter written by a certain German general to his brother-in-law, a young officer in our Navy. Apparently the general hated the German Navy to such an extent that his letter remarked that there were two British officers with whom he particularly desired to shake hands--one was the officer in charge of our siege guns on the Flanders coast and the other was the officer commanding the attack on Zeebrugge; his friendly feelings arose from the fact that these two officers had "put it across" that section {257} of the German Navy which had charge of the Flanders coast defences. The German Information Bureau had never ceased to sing the praises of their Navy; that fact was conducive to increasing the shock received by the enemy when they learned the truth. Many excuses have been invented in Germany to account for the fact that the final breakdown of morale which immediately preceded the ignominious flight of their War Lord emanated from the so-called High Seas Fleet, and that this breakdown coincided with the receipt of orders to try conclusions with our fleet. It can hardly be styled far-fetched if one suggests that the loss of morale was intimately connected with the situation at sea. It is also not outside the bounds of possibility that, in some measure, the events of St. George's Day, 1918, assisted towards the _débâcle_. A certain highly placed German official at Bruges certainly exaggerated when he averred that "the hopes of the Fatherland were buried at Zeebrugge," but such a statement as that clearly indicates the weakening of confidence. The other aspect of the effect on morale may be worthy of mention. I refer to the effect on our own public, on our fighting services, and on neutral and Allied countries.