Suddenly, a little thing happened that turned Frederick William towards a decision which practically ended the war. The little thing was a burst of music from the _Koenig Albert_, steaming at the head of the nearer battleship column two miles distant. On she came, shouldering great waves from her bows while hundreds of blue-jackets lined her rails as if to salute or defy the tragic fate hanging over them. As General Wood appeared once more before his tortured prisoner, there floated over the sea the strains of “Die Wacht Am Rhein,” whereupon up on his feet came the Crown Prince and, head bared, stood listening to this great hymn of the Fatherland, while tears streamed down his face. “I yield,” he said in broken tones. “I cannot stand out any longer. I will do as you wish, sir.” “My terms are unconditional surrender,” said the American commander, “to be followed by a truce for peace negotiations. Does Your Imperial Highness agree to unconditional surrender?” “Those are harsh terms. In our talk at Chicago Your Excellency only asked that I prevent this expedition from sailing. I am ready to order the expedition back to Germany.” General Wood shook his head. “Conditions are different now. Your Imperial Highness refused my Chicago suggestion and chose the issue of battle which has turned in our favour. To the victors belong the spoils. These battleships are our prizes of war. These German soldiers in the troopships are our prisoners.” “Impossible!” protested the Prince. “Do you think five hundred men in aeroplanes can make prisoners of a hundred and fifty thousand in battleships?” “I do, sir,” declared General Wood with grim finality. “There’s a perfectly safe prison--down below.” He glanced into the green abyss above which we were soaring. “I must ask Your Imperial Highness to decide quickly. The Commodore is waiting.” Every schoolboy knows what happened then, how the Prince, in this crisis, turned from grief to defiance, how he dared General Wood to do his worst, how the American commander sank the _Koenig Albert_ and two more transports in the next half hour with a loss of five seaplanes, and how, finally, Frederick William, seeing that the entire German expedition would be annihilated, surrendered absolutely and ran up the stars and stripes above German dreadnoughts, transports and destroyers. For the first time in history an insignificant air force had conquered a great fleet. The Widding-Edison invention had made good. * * * * *