According to a tiding from Brussels decided the British cabinet some time earlier to close her naval bases on the mainland of Europe including the one at Antwerp. As a result of this decision were the facilities and stored sold in public. The supply of the British troops in Germany (1) was to be done by using large sea lighters sailing directly from British ports to Köln, Germany. But there was one problem forgotten by the British. Three months each year were these lighters unable to sail to Köln caused by the low tide and the stores were at Rotterdam transhipped with a result that England needed naval facilities at Rotterdam which now replaced Antwerp as a British naval base.
Note
1. The so-called British occupation of Rhineland which started on 2 December 1918 and ended by British troops leaving Cologne in January 1926 although some didn’t stayed at Wiesbaden until 30 June 1930.
The Dutch magazine
De Prins dated 6 March 1926 page 116 published a photo of a British flotilla which after serving more as 6 years on the Rhine left Köln a week earlier returning via channels and rivers to England and was now temporarily at Paris, France near the Pont Alexandre.
