CHAPTER XVIII.
A VOYAGE OF ADVENTURE Although Mr.Lloyd George's message to mankind on New Year's Day, 1914, was that "Anglo-German relations were far more friendly than for years past,"[87] and that there was therefore no need to strengthen the British Navy, it may be doubted, with the knowledge we now possess, whether the German Government would have been greatly incensed at the idea of a cargo of firearms finding its way from Hamburg to Ireland in the spring of that year without the knowledge of the British Government.
But if that were the case Fred Crawford had no reason to suspect it.
German surveillance was always both efficient and obtrusive, and he had to make his preparations under a vigilance by the authorities which showed no signs of laxity.

Those preparations involved the assembling and the packing of 20,000 modern rifles, 15,000 of which had to be brought from a factory in Austria; 10,000 Italian rifles previously purchased, which B.S.had in store; bayonets for all the firearms; and upwards of 3,000,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition.

The packing of the arms was a matter to which Crawford gave particular attention.

He kept in mind the circumstances under which he expected them to be landed in Ulster.

Avoidance of confusion and rapidity of handling were of the first importance.