"telconia" - 1 õppematerjal

TheCodeBreakers

heaving waters of the North Sea. Off Emden, where the Dutch coast joins the German, she dropped some grappling gear overboard with a dull splash, and shortly there rose dripping from the sea great snakelike monsters, covered with mud and seaweed. Grunts of men, chopping sounds—and soon they were returned, severed and useless, to the depths. These were Germany's transatlantic cables, her chief communications lifelines to the world, and the vessel was the British cable ship Telconia. Though the Committee of Imperial Defence never dreamed of it when it planned the move in 1912, the cutting of these cables, England's first offensive action of the war, forged the first link in a chain that helped to end it. Germany was now forced to communicate with the World beyond the encircling Entente by radio or over cables controlled by her enemies. She thus delivered into the hands of her foes her most secret and confidential