3-083-070 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ironclads of all nations in the Bay of Kiel during a thunderstorm, 1895. View of the collected squadrons on the second day of the celebrations. 'The completion of a great engineering work by which the navigation of the Baltic is connected with that of the North Sea...is an event of much interest to Englishmen as well as to Germans. At an early period of English history the North Sea and Baltic trade was of greater relative importance, especially to London, than any other foreign commerce, that with Flanders and France not being largely developed until after the 14th century. There seems now reason to expect as one of the consequences of German imperial union a large increase of traffic not only at Hamburg and Bremen, which have not ceased to flourish by their immediate access to the outer sea, but also at the ports of the Baltic coast; and it is likely that English shipowners will gain considerable advantage by the opening of the new maritime canal...The British Royal Navy was represented in Kiel Harbour by the Channel squadron, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lord Walter Kerr, on board his flag-ship, the Royal Sovereign, with the first-class battle-ships Empress of India, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Alington, Repulse, and Resolution'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.