Zeebrugge was the more important because it was directly connected by canal with medieval Bruges. Previous to the outbreak of hostilities the City of the Golden Fleece was a sort of Sleepy Hollow kept awake by its carillon and tourists. The German invaders transformed the place into a naval arsenal. Torpedo-boats and submarines found shelter in the port, making their entry and exit _via_ Zeebrugge Harbour, with its broad mole extending about a mile and a half seaward. The latter was connected with the shore by a wooden jetty of enormous strength. This arrangement prevented the harbour from silting up, which otherwise it would have done. The long concrete arm sheltering the canal was something more than a mere breakwater. It had been converted into a fort, with batteries and machine-guns, seaplane hangars and stores, and was strongly garrisoned. No fewer than 120 guns guarded the littoral of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Could the ports be sealed, despite the difficulties presented by the treacherous nature of the coast, the mine-fields that shielded them, the batteries that bristled on the sand-dunes, the aircraft that kept watch and ward, the warships that lay in hiding? The question was entertained seriously by Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt. There seemed to be little likelihood at that date that the Army would achieve the result by military means, and so if these places were to be rendered useless as sea bases the task, it was clear, must be accomplished by the Navy. The scheme was laid before Sir John Jellicoe, at that time First Sea Lord, and given to Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, in command at Dover, to carry out. We have already met the latter as Commodore of Submarines in August 1914; he now returned to a task he had undertaken on a much smaller scale in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion in China. With a dozen men he stormed a fort and blew it up, despite the opinion of some of his seniors that the attempt was little more than a forlorn hope. While he and his associates were planning the multitudinous details of the Zeebrugge-Ostend expedition, the memory of the former ‘impossible’ task must have crossed his mind more than once. Here was an operation ten thousand times more difficult, requiring the most minute calculations, an efficient fighting force, a considerable fleet, and an exact time-table. Chinamen can fight, and fight desperately, but the garrison Keyes purposed to attack was officered and manned by the German Army, and the place defended by the most modern weapons.