As these big storms roar past Cape Hatteras, the winds shift to northwest and the sky clears, unless you happen to be on shipboard and the tops of big waves are being torn off by the wind and thrown into the air, to pass overhead in streaks or splatter on the decks. In the days of the sailing ship, the master was not surprised when he got into trouble in the area between Bermuda and Hatteras. Here many merchantmen from far places passed, en route to or from New York or other Atlantic ports. Slowed by cross seas and dirty weather hatched over the Gulf Stream, they were soon reduced to storm stay-sails. As the gales mounted, the crews could see other ships rising on the billows in one instant before slithering into a great trough where, in the next instant, they could see nothing but jagged peaks of water and a welter of foam. On the Hatteras side, especially, the master could get into a rendezvous with death, for he often had only two choices. He could run full tilt toward the west and try to get around the front of a hurricane moving northward, but this maneuver would take him toward Hatteras, where he might find company in the wrecks of countless other ships that had failed in the effort and had been thrown against the coast. The other choice was no better. He could make such progress as was possible toward the east and hope that he would not be caught in the dangerous sector of the oncoming hurricane, a course which more likely than not would lead to disaster. As has been noted, however, it was the tragic losses caused by extratropical cyclones that induced governments to take over the job of hunting storms and issuing warnings. In France, the first country to take positive action, the immediate cause was the catastrophe which struck the allied fleets in the harbor at Balaclava in 1854, during the Crimean War. Ships of England and France were caught in this desperate position because of jealousies and hatreds which have abounded in Europe for centuries. In this case, the Tsar of Russia seized a pretext to try to gain control of a part of Turkey. This was not unexpected. Russia always has looked with covetous eyes at the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which lead through the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. On this score Europe is perpetually uneasy. France and England, who had been enemies, now joined forces and planned a campaign against Russia.