Heligoland: The True Story of German Bight and the Island That Britain Betrayed

Heligoland: The True Story of German Bight and the Island That Britain Betrayed

George Drower

Language: English

Pages: 336

ISBN: 0750926007

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Heligoland is the astounding story of a mysterious British colony in the North Sea that the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, swapped for Zanzibar in 1890. After years of having a UK-style flag, postage stamps, taxation system and currency, Heligolanders were soon experiencing the crushing of their culture, and were forced into learning German. The unscrupulous transference of the island to Germany, in defiance of the islanders' wishes, sparked a public controversy; the explorer Stanley famously commented that Britain had obtained a waistcoat in exchange for a trouser button. The sacrifice of the enigmatic Heligoland became a strategic blunder during the two World Wars, when the island was made into a weaponry fortress by the Germans. After the Second World War there was a plot to cover up the mistake when Britain planned to destroy Heligoland with an A-bomb strength explosion. Implicated in the epic scandal are many key personalities; among them Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm, Arthur Balfour, and The Riddle of the Sands author Erskine Childers. Heligoland goes beyond an amazing story of intrigue, high adventure and national ambition. It highlights Britain's relations with continental Europe; the conduct of the British Empire; even the shape and identity of the British Isles. Using techniques of biography, popular history and narrative, this book unravels for the first time the true story of the island Britain gave away.

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Accordingly. EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7280 5 MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7279 9 Original typesetting by The History Press Contents Introduction 1. HMS Explosion Arrives 2. Gibraltar of the North Sea 3. Rivalries in Africa 4. Queen Victoria Opposes 5. Swapped 6. The Riddle of the Sands 7. Churchill Prepares to Invade 8. Project Hummerschere 9. ‘Big Bang’ 10. The Islanders Return 11. Forgotten Island Notes Bibliography (Harrison, Pastures New, 1954) Introduction ‘There are warnings of gales in.

Officials, as well as many of the leading islanders, whom the Barklys had invited to witness the ceremony. Fanny positioned herself in an upstairs window of Government House to gain the best view of the proceedings. The guard of honour was stationed in the Englishstyle garden. The officials and naval officers, all in full uniform, accompanied Arthur to a place close to the flagstaff, where he performed the brief but impressive ceremony of handing over the island to German control. The.

Foundations of the moles were destroyed by explosives, and the winter gales, always heavy, soon made them little more than a mass of ruins. The main harbour entrance was sealed by huge 2-ton blocks dropped from a floating crane. The retaining walls around the reclaimed ground created by Tirpitz, on which stood the dockyard building, were pierced to allow the sea to suck out the millions of tons of sand brought from the Elbe for its formation. Thus the whole place appeared to have been wrecked in.

Who specialised in beautifully dramatic pictures of the island in rough weather. Other scenes he depicted were of traditional fishing boats, such as the elegantly functional shallow schooners and ketches favoured by the islanders, irrespective of the sophistication of the tourists. During a celebrated speech on 21 May 1935 Hitler unilaterally repudiated the clauses demanding the disarmament of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. It was he who alleged that agents of the German Navy at Versailles.

The mouth of the Kiel Canal and then the resort of Cuxhaven. The ebbing tide exposes vast tracts of muddy saltflats, green with algae and criss-crossed with impromptu rivulets. This is all now a national wildlife park. The sight of those historic islets, the Scharhorn, Neuwerk and the Grosser Knechtsand, inevitably reminds the traveller that this was the sight Erskine Childers would have been seen from his seaplane on the Cuxhaven raid in 1914. Perhaps it was the last land the doomed Hampden.

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