GERMAN RAIDERS AND SUBMARINES

The next important event in the naval history of the war occurred in far-distant waters. On March 10, 1915, there ended the wonderful career of the German auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, Captain Thierichens, which on that date put in at the American port of Newport News, Va., for repairs, after making the harbor in spite of the watch kept on it by British cruisers. She brought with her more than 500 persons, 200 of them being her own crew, and the remainder being passengers and crews of French, British, Russian, and American ships that had been her victims in her roving over 30,000 miles of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans since leaving Tsing-tau seven months before. She had sent eight merchant ships to the bottom, one of them being the William P. Frye, an American vessel carrying wheat, three British ships, three flying the French flag, and one Russian ship. Their total tonnage came to 18,245. The fact that she had sunk an American ship on the high seas opened up still another diplomatic controversy between Germany and the United States, which cannot be treated here.

When she left Tsing-tau she took as her crew the men from the German gunboats Tiger and Luchs, and had their four 4.1-inch and some of their one-pounder guns as her armament. Soon afterward she stopped the British ship Schargost and expected to refill her coal bunkers from those of the merchantman, but in this she was disappointed, for those of the latter were almost empty. Her next victim was a French sailing vessel, Jean, and on board this was found a pleasant surprise for the German raider, for the vessel was laden with coal. Captain Thierichens had her towed 1,500 miles, to Easter Island, where the coal was transferred to the bunkers of the Eitel Friedrich, and the crews of her first three victims were put ashore. These marooned men were burdens to the white inhabitants of the island, for there was not too much food for the extra forty-eight mouths. Finally, on February 26, 1915, the Swedish ship Nordic saw them signaling from the island and took them off, landing them at Panama on the day after the Prinz Eitel Friedrich entered Newport News.

By the beginning of December, 1914, the German raider was in the South Atlantic, and while there heard wireless messages exchanged between the ships of the British fleet that took part in the battle off the Falkland Islands. The bark Isabella Browne, flying the Russian flag, was the next ship overtaken by the Eitel Friedrich, on January 26, 1915. She was boarded and all of her provisions and stores were removed to the German ship; after her crew and their personal effects were taken aboard the German ship she was dynamited and sank. On that same morning the French ship Pierre Loti was sighted, and while the Prinz Eitel Friedrich put an end to her, after first taking off her crew, the captive crew of the Isabella Browne was sent below, but was allowed to come on deck to watch the sinking of the French ship. The American ship William P. Frye was sunk soon afterward, and her crew, also, was made part of the party on board the raider. After sinking the French bark Jacobsen the Prinz Eitel Friedrich stopped the Thalasia on February 8, 1915, and let her go on her way, but on February 18 the British ships Cindracoe and Mary Ada Scott were sunk. On the 19th the French steamer Floride was overtaken off the coast of Brazil; all persons aboard her were transferred to the German ship and most of her provisions were also taken aboard the latter; the Floride, the largest steamer destroyed by the German ship, was set afire and left to burn. On February 20, 1915, the British ship Willerby was overtaken and nearly sank the Prinz Eitel Friedrich before being boarded. As the German ship passed across the stern of the other at a short distance the British captain, knowing that the end of his own ship was near, decided to take his captor down with him. He tried to ram the German ship with the stern of his ship, but failed in the attempt.

On the evening of February 20, 1915, the wireless operator of the Prinz Eitel Friedrich heard British cruisers "talking" with each other, one of them being the Berwick. The German captain now saw that his long raiding cruise was up, for though he could replenish his stores and bunkers from captured ships he could not make the many repairs which his vessel needed. To put them off at a neutral port or to let them go in one of the ships he captured would mean that his position would be reported to British ships within a week. He therefore decided to end his raiding and put in at Newport News. His vessel was interned in the American port.

We may now return to the story of the blockade against Germany and the retaliation she sought. The Allies were now stopping as much shipping on its way to Germany as they dared without bringing on trouble with neutral powers. The Dacia, formerly a German merchantman, was taken over, after the outbreak of the war, by an American citizen and sailed from New Orleans for Rotterdam with a cargo of cotton on February 12, 1915. She was stopped by a French warship and taken to a French port February 27, 1915, and there held till the matter of the validity of her transfer of registry could be settled.

On the other hand the German submarine exploits continued and found among their victims a British warship, along with the many merchantmen. On March 11, 1915, the British auxiliary cruiser Bayano, while on patrol duty became the victim of a German torpedo off the Scotch coast. She went down almost immediately, carrying with her the greater part of her crew.

But not always were the submarines immune. Only the day before the British destroyer Ariel rammed the German submarine U-12 and sent her to the bottom, after rescuing her crew. She was of an older type, built in 1911, of submarine, and had played an active part in the raiding in British waters. On February 21, 1915, she had sunk the Irish coasting steamer Downshire in the Irish Sea, and her destruction was particularly welcome in British shipping circles.

Once more an incident in the naval warfare of the Great War was to involve diplomatic exchanges between the belligerents and the United States. The African liner Falaba, a British ship on her way from Liverpool to Lisbon, was torpedoed in St. George's Channel on the afternoon of March 28, 1915. She had as one of her passengers an American, L. C. Thrasher, who lost his life when the ship sank.

The naval warfare was proceeding like a game of checkers. When on March 14, 1915, there came the end of still another of the German raiding cruisers, the Dresden. She was a cruiser built in 1907 and having a displacement of 3,544 tons. Her speed was good—24.5 knots—and her armament of ten 4.1-inch guns and eight 5-pounder guns made her quite a match for enemy warships of her class and superior as for merchantmen. She was a sister ship to that other famous raider the Emden. In 1909 she had taken her place among the other foreign warships in the line in the Hudson River, participating in the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In the spring of 1914 she was in the neighborhood of Central America and rescued a number of foreign refugees who fled from Mexico, and also took Senor Huerta from Puerto Mexico. She was still in that neighborhood when the war broke out, and was immediately sought after by British and French warships which were near by. She managed to get away from these pursuers and sank the British steamers Hyades and Holmwood off the Brazilian coast during the latter part of August, 1914. She then went south, rounded the Horn and joined the other ships under command of Admiral Von Spee, taking part in the battle off Coronel, on November 1, 1914.

She remained with that squadron and took part in a second battle—that off the Falkland Islands—on December 8, 1914. When Admiral von Spee saw that he had little chance of winning the battle he gave orders that the lighter ships should leave the line and seek safety in flight. The Dresden was one of the ships which escaped, to the chagrin of the British Admiral. She then turned "raider."

Five days later, on December 13, 1914, she had appeared off Punta Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan, stopped at that port long enough to take on some provisions and put to sea again, with British and Japanese warships on her trail. She was too closely hunted to be able to sink many ships, but during the week of March 12, 1915, she sank the British steamer Conway Castle, off the coast of Chile, and took coal and provisions from the two German steamers Alda and Sierra Cordoba.

On March 14, 1915, she was sighted by the British cruisers Glasgow, Kent and Orama near Juan Fernandez Island. What then ensued is in doubt, owing to conflicting reports made by the senior British officer and by the captain of the German cruiser. The latter insisted that, seeing his ship was at the end of her career, he ordered his men to leave her and then blew her up. The former declared that shots were exchanged, that she was set afire and was otherwise badly damaged by the British fire. At any rate, she was destroyed, and all of her men were saved. It was estimated that the amount of damage she inflicted on allied trade amounted to $1,250,000.

Thus at the end of March, 1915, only the Karlsruhe and Kronprinz Wilhelm, of the eleven German warships that were detached from the main German fleet in the North Sea at the outbreak of the war, and of the few ships which slipped out of various ports as converted auxiliary cruisers, were still at large on the high seas.

Naval activity in the northern waters of Europe did not abate. The British admiralty on March 25, 1915, had announced that the German submarine U-29, one of the most improved craft of the type in use, had been sunk. This loss was admitted by the German admiralty on April 7, 1915. It was a serious loss to the German navy, for its commander was Otto von Weddigen, he who, in the U-9, had sent the Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue to the bottom in September, 1914.

The naval warfare at the Dardanelles proceeded in the same desultory fashion. A Turkish torpedo boat caught up with the British transport Manitou, and opened fire on her, killing some twenty of the soldiers on board.

In answer to calls for help from the Manitou the British cruiser Minerva and some torpedo boats went to the scene and attacked the Turkish craft on April 7, 1915, driving it ashore off Chios and destroyed it as it lay beached. But during April, 1915, it seemed as though there would be another pitched fight between British and German warships in the North Sea. On April 23, 1915, the German admiralty announced that "the German High Sea Fleet has recently cruised repeatedly in the North Sea, advancing into English waters without meeting the sea forces of Great Britain." The British admiralty had undoubtedly been aware of this activity on the part of their enemy, but for reasons of their own did not choose to send British ships to meet the German fleet, and the expected battle did not take place.

France, on April 26, 1915, was to sustain a severe loss to her navy; she had up to this time not lost as many ships as her ally, England, or her enemy, Germany, but her navy was so much smaller than either of them that the sinking of the Leon Gambetta on that date was a matter of weight. The Gambetta was an armored cruiser, built in 1904, and carrying four 7.6-inch guns, sixteen 6.4-inch guns and a number of smaller caliber. She had a speed of twenty-three knots. While doing patrol duty in the Strait of Otranto she was made the victim of the Austrian submarine U-5, and sank, carrying with her 552 men.

On April 28, 1915, there occurred another incident which gave rise to diplomatic exchanges between Germany and the United States. On that date a German seaplane attacked the American merchantman in broad daylight in the North Sea, but fortunately for its crew the ship was not sent to the bottom. The first American ship to be struck by a torpedo in the war zone established by the German admiralty's proclamation of February 5, 1915, was the Gulflight. This tank steamer was hit by a torpedo fired by a German submarine off the Scilly Islands, on the 1st of May, 1915.

But of more importance, because of the number of American lives lost, the standing of the matter in international law and the prominence of the vessel, was the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania, on May 7, 1915. This is fully described in the chapter on submarines, and in the diplomatic developments discussed in the chapter on the United States and the War. The Lusitania had left New York for Liverpool on the 1st of May, 1915. She was one of the fastest ships plying between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Larger than any warship afloat at the time, she was able to make the trip from Liverpool to New York in a little under five days. On her last crossing she carried 2,160 persons, including passengers and crew, many of the former being Americans, some of them of great prominence. While off Old Head of Kinsale, on the southeastern end of Ireland, at about half past two, on the afternoon of May 7, 1915, with a calm sea and no wind, she was hit by one or more torpedoes from a German submarine without warning.

Those on board immediately went to the life boats, but it was only twenty minutes after she had first been hit that she sank, and not enough of the small craft could be gotten over her side in that time to rescue all those on board. Out of the 2,160 souls aboard at least 1,398 were lost. Of these 107 were American citizens. Small boats in the neighborhood of the disaster hurried to the scene and rescued those whom they could reach in the water and brought them to Queenstown. The sacks of mail which the liner carried and which went down with her were the first American mail sacks ever lost at sea as a result of war. The controversies which this disaster gave rise to between England, Germany and the United States are given elsewhere.

Against British warships the submarine warfare was also effective during the month of May, 1915. On the 1st day of that month the old British destroyer Recruit was sent to the bottom of the North Sea by a German submarine, but the two German destroyers which had accompanied the submarine that did this were pursued immediately by British destroyers and were sunk. On the same day that the Lusitania went down a German mine ended the career of the British destroyer Maori.[Back to Contents]