THESTOSCHERA 21

sea offered us. It was not very long since Palmerston had threatened to treat any ship flying the German flag as a pirate. When we were at Amrum in the same year (1872), several trawlers from Finkenwerder hid themselves behind the island because the English North Sea fishing fleet with eighty or ninety boats was covering the sea in front of Amrum. We advised the people of Finkenwerder to put out because we should have liked nothing better than to be able to seize one of those foreign fishermen for any transgression of the three-mile limit. The men replied, however, that they would not dare to do this because we were not always there to protect them. This was the state of our national pride and prestige along our own coasts. How we had fallen since the days of the Hanseatic League!

Stosch's increasing endeavour to further Germany's maritime interests in all directions was pursued under great difficulties from the beginning of his period of office. Foreign service at this time almost overstrained the resources of the navy. Every commander, however, could reckon upon Stosch's consistent support in his activities abroad, even in the often independent and difficult decisions which foreign service required as a result of the scarcity of cable connections. But this was not done without some friction with the Imperial Chancellor. In 1873, when I was officer of the watch on the Friedrich Karl, we received orders to protect Germans in the ports of Southern Spain where there was civil war. While doing so we seized