Under the cover of the Frisian Islands, from every canal, river, and creek had been assembled a huge multitude of flats and barges, ready to be towed by tugs alongside the wharves and filled with troops. Of a sudden, in a single hour it seemed, Hamburg, Altona, Cuxhaven, and Wilhelmshaven were in excited activity, and almost before the inhabitants themselves realised what was really in progress, the embarkation had well commenced. At Emden, with its direct cable to the theatre of war in England, was concentrated the brain of the whole movement. Beneath the lee of the covering screen of Frisian Islands, Borkum, Juist, Norderney, Langebog, and the others, the preparations for the descent upon England rapidly matured. Troop-trains from every part of the Fatherland arrived with the punctuality of clockwork. From Düsseldorf came the VIIth Army Corps, the VIIIth from Coblenz, the IXth were already assembled at their headquarters at Altona, while many of them being stationed at Bremen embarked from there; the Xth came up from Hanover, the XIVth from Magdeburg, and the Corps of German Guards, the pride and flower of the Kaiser's troops, arrived eagerly at Hamburg from Berlin and Potsdam, among the first to embark. Each army corps consisted of about 38,000 officers and men, 11,000 horses, 144 guns, and about 2,000 motor-cars, wagons, and carts. But for this campaign--which was more of the nature of a raid than of any protracted campaign--the supply of wheeled transport, with the exception of motor-cars, had been somewhat reduced. Each cavalry brigade attached to an army corps consisted of 1,400 horses and men, with some thirty-five light machine guns and wagons. The German calculation--which proved pretty correct--was that each army corps could come over to England in 100,000 tons gross of shipping, bringing with them supplies for twenty-seven days in another 3,000 tons gross. Therefore about 618,000 tons gross conveyed the whole of the six corps, leaving an ample margin still in German ports for any emergencies. Half this tonnage consisted of about 100 steamers, averaging 3,000 tons each, the remainder being the boats, flats, lighters, barges, and tugs previously alluded to. [Illustration: GERMANY'S POINTS OF EMBARKATION] The Saxons who, disregarding the neutrality of Belgium, had embarked at Antwerp, had seized the whole of the flat-bottomed craft in the Scheldt and the numerous canals, as well as the merchant ships in the port, finding no difficulty in commandeering the amount of tonnage necessary to convey them to the Blackwater and the Crouch. As hour succeeded hour the panic increased.