The conflict was fierce, but quickly ended.
Heavy fire was kept up from the fort at Tynemouth, from Spanish Battery, from Trow Battery, and from several new batteries with disappearing guns between the Groyne and the quarry at Trow, that had been constructed and manned since the mobilisation by Volunteers, consisting of the 1st Newcastle Volunteer Engineers, the 3rd Durham Volunteer Artillery, and the 4th Durham Light Infantry from Newcastle. Nevertheless the assistance received by the British ships from the land was of but little avail, for a Russian torpedo boat sent forth its messenger of death at the third-class cruiser Canada, blowing her up, while the engines of both the Active and Bonaventure were so seriously damaged as to be practically useless. Rapid signalling by the semaphore at Spanish Battery had placed the defenders on the alert, and although the British were suffering so heavily on account of their minority, still the enemy were everywhere feeling the effect of the hot and unexpected reception.
Before half an hour had passed two Russian gunboats had been torpedoed, and the French cruiser D'Estaing, having caught fire, was burning furiously, many of her crew perishing at their guns.
The Lazare Carnot and the Masséna, heedless of the fire from the shore, steamed at half speed across the estuary until they were opposite the Tynemouth Battery, when they suddenly opened fire, being quickly joined by six French and Russian cruisers. In the meantime the contact mines were being blown up by piquet boats, who, although suffering heavily from the fire from the shore, nevertheless continued their task. It was then seen how utterly inadequate were the defences of the Tyne, and what negligence had been displayed on the part of the War Office in not providing at Tynemouth adequate means of warding off or successfully coping with an attack.
From behind the tall grey lighthouse a few guns were thundering, but in face of the overwhelming force at sea it was but a sorry attempt. One shot from the battery severely damaged the superstructure of the Lazare Carnot, another cut through the funnel of the Neptune, carrying it away, and a third entering the magazine of one of the small cruisers caused it to explode with serious loss of life. Yet the devastating effect of the enemy's shells on the obsolete defences of Tynemouth was appalling.
Enclosed in the fortifications were the crumbling ruins of the ancient Priory, with its restored chapel, a graveyard, and an old Castle that had been converted into artillery barracks. As flame and smoke rushed continuously from the barbettes, turrets, and broadsides of the hostile ships, the shots brought down the bare, dark old walls of the Priory, and, crashing into the Castle, played havoc with the building. The lantern of the lighthouse, too, was carried away, probably by a shot flying accidentally wide, and every moment death and desolation was being spread throughout the fort. Such a magnificent natural position, commanding as it did the whole estuary of the Tyne, should have been rendered impregnable, yet, as it remained in 1894, so it stood on this fatal day, a typical example of War Office apathy and shortsightedness.
Its guns were a mere make-believe, that gave the place an appearance of strength that it did not possess. In the North Battery, on the left side, commanding a broad sweep of sea beyond Sharpness, only one gun, a 64-pounder, was mounted, the remaining five rotting platforms being unoccupied! At the extreme point, to command the mouth of the river, a single 5-tonner was placed well forward with great ostentation, its weight, calibre, and other details having been painted up in conspicuous white letters, for the delectation of an admiring public admitted to view the Priory. The South Battery, a trifle stronger, was, nevertheless, a sheer burlesque, its weakness being a disgrace to the British nation. In fact, in the whole of the battery the upper defences had long been known to experts to be obsolete, and the lower ones totally inadequate for the resistance they should have been able to offer.
Was it any wonder, then, that the shells of the enemy should cause such frightful destruction? Among the British artillerymen there was no lack of courage, for they exerted every muscle in their gallant efforts to repulse the foe. Yet, handicapped as they were by lack of efficient arms and properly constructed fortifications, their heroic struggles were futile, and they sacrificed their lives to no purpose. The deadly hail from the floating monsters swept away the whole of the ancient Priory walls, demolishing the old red brick barracks, blowing up the Castle gateway, wrecking the guardroom, and igniting the Priory Chapel. The loss of life was terrible, the whole of the men manning the 5-ton gun pointing seaward having been killed by a single shell that burst among them, while everywhere else men of the Royal Artillery, and those of the Tynemouth Volunteer Artillery, who were assisting, were killed or maimed by the incessant rain of projectiles.
Night clouds gathered black and threatening, and it appeared as if the enemy were carrying all before them. The French battleship Neptune, seeing the guns of all three batteries had been considerably weakened, was steaming slowly into the mouth of the Tyne, followed by the Russian cruiser Syzran, when suddenly two terrific explosions occurred, shaking both North and South Shields to their very foundations. High into the air the water rose, and it was then seen that two submarine mines had been exploded simultaneously by electric current from the Tynemouth Battery, and that both vessels had been completely blown up. Such was the force of the explosion, that the hull of the Neptune, a great armour-clad of over ten thousand tons, had been ripped up like paper, and of her crew scarcely a man escaped, while the cruiser had been completely broken in half, and many of her crew blown to atoms. Scarcely had this success of the defenders been realised when it was followed by another, for a second later a British torpedo boat succeeded in blowing up with all hands the French torpedo gunboat Lance.
These reverses, however, caused but little dismay among the invaders, for ere long the British cruisers had been driven off, the guns at Trow had been silenced, while those at Spanish Battery and Tynemouth could only keep up a desultory fire. Then, in the falling gloom, ship after ship, guided by foreign pilots, and carefully evading a number of hulks that had been placed near the estuary, entered the Tyne, pouring forth their heavy monotonous fire into North Shields and South Shields. Skilfully as the despairing defenders managed their submarine mines, they only succeeded in destroying three more of the enemy's ships, the French torpedo gunboats Iberville and Cassini and the cruiser Desaix, the crews perishing.
Not for a moment was there a cessation of the cannonade as the smaller ships of the enemy advanced up the river, and the damage wrought by their shells was enormous. Tynemouth had already suffered heavily, many of the streets being in flames. The tower of St. Saviour's Church had fallen, the conspicuous spire of the Congregational Chapel had been shot away, the Piers Office had been reduced to ruins, and the long building of the Royal Hotel completely wrecked. The houses facing Percy Park had in many cases been shattered, a shell exploding under the archway of the Bath Hotel had demolished it, and the handsome clock tower at the end of the road had been hurled down and scattered.
Slackening opposite the Scarp, the gunboats and cruisers belched forth shot and shell upon North Shields, aiming first at the more conspicuous objects, such as the Sailors' Home, the Custom House, the tall tower of Christ Church, and the Harbour Master's office, either totally destroying them or injuring them irreparably, while the houses on Union Quay and those in Dockway Square and in adjoining streets, from the gasometers down to the Town Hall, were also swept by shells. Resistance was made from Fort Clifford on the one side of the town, from a position occupied by a battery of the Durham Volunteer Artillery, who had mounted guns on the hill behind Smith's Yard, and also by the submarine mines of the Tyne Division Volunteer Miners; but it was most ineffectual, and, when night fell, hundreds of terror-stricken persons had been killed, and the town was on fire in dozens of places, the flames illuminating the sky with their lurid brilliancy.
In South Shields tragic scenes were being enacted. Shells flying about the town from the river on the one side and the sea on the other exploded in the streets, blowing unfortunate men, women, and children into atoms, wrecking public buildings, and setting fire to the cherished homes of the toilers. The congested blocks of buildings around Panash Point were one huge furnace; the Custom House, the River Police Station, and the Plate Glass Works were wrecked, while a shell exploding in one of the