Feb. 4 all enemy merchant ships would be destroyed without it being always possible to avoid danger to passengers or crew, and where even neutral vessels would be exposed to danger of attack. This evoked on Feb. 1 1 a strong protest from" the United States denouncing it as an indefensible violation of neutral rights. The date was postponed to Feb. 18 and the order modified to the extent that neutral ships were to be spared, though in adjudging their neutrality all circumstances and not the flag only were to be taken into account. March 18 1915 saw the end of Otto Weddingen in 1/29 which was on her way home round Great Britain, about half-way between Kinnaird Head and Norway, when she was rammed by the battleship " Dreadnought " after attacking the battleship " Maryborough." The inauguration of the new campaign was followed in March by the establish- ment of the Flanders flotilla, which at first consisted of small UB and UC boats working chiefly round the Thames and east coast. By Oct. 1915 it had grown to 16 boats, and was contributing a fair proportion of the ships sunk.
The Flanders flotilla had hardly started its career when it met with a formidable obstacle in Dover Straits. Experiments had been proceeding for some months in the use of steel wire nets to indicate and obstruct the passage of submarines, and the admiral at Dover (Rear-Adml. Hon. Horace Hood) now succeeded in closing the Straits by this means for over four months. The nets used were in lengths of 100 yds. and 60 or 30 ft. deep, shot by drifters, and by Feb. 13 1915 he had some 30 drifters riding to their nets in the Straits. Bad weather took a heavy toll of the equipment, but the results were surprisingly successful to an extent hardly appreciated at the time. U8 fouled one of these nets on March 8 1915 off the Varne and was forced to come up by the destroyer " Ghurka," which exploded a modified sweep over her. U37 went down the Channel later in the month and never returned. Early in April 1/32 got caught in a net, and had so much difficulty in getting clear that she went home north- about. She drew a formidable picture of the obstruction, and on the strength of her report the Bight flotillas received instruc- tions to go northabout, and the Flanders boats following their example also eschewed the Straits for over four months. It was thought at first that in the net a permanent antidote to the submarine had been found, and net bases were established at several ports, particularly at Larne for the North Channel, but technical difficulties (clips and indicator buoys) supervened, and the Germans overcame the lighter form of net by net cutters.
The sinking of the liners " Falaba," " Lusitania " and " Ara- bic " constituted three beacons in the 1915 campaign. The former, an Elder Dempster liner of 4,806 tons on the way to Sierra Leone, was torpedoed with five minutes' warning on March 27 by UaS off the south of Ireland, and sank in eight minutes with the loss of over 100 lives. The indignation arising from this incident had hardly subsided when it was fanned to fever heat by one of the most momentous incidents of the war. On May 71915 Schwieger in U2o was off the Old Head of Kinsale (south of Ireland) when he sighted a great liner homeward bound. This was the " Lusitania " going only 18 knots, her decks crowded with women and children. At 2:15 P.M. he sent two torpedoes into her without warning and she went down in 20 minutes with the loss of 1,198 lives, while Schwieger " moved with mixed feelings " watched the terrific scene. A chorus of applause arose in Germany, but the deed can be seen now as an error of the first magnitude, which set on foot the whole train of circumstances which brought America into the war. The con- troversy between the German naval staff and the Chancellor immediately reached a crisis. The latter refused to be responsible for such acts, and on June 5 1915 an imperial order was issued forbidding the sinking of large passenger vessels. Von Tirpitz, the Secretary of State, was furious, and he and Bachmann, the chief of the naval staff, both sent in their resignations, but were commanded bluntly to remain at their posts.
Meanwhile Otto Hersing, the pioneer in distant fields, had sailed on April 25 in U2i for the Mediterranean. Arrangements had been made to provide him with oil on the way, probably in the vicinity of Tangiers, but they broke down, and he arrived
at Cattaro on May 13 with only half a ton of oil fuel left. He reached the Dardanelles on May 25 and instantly made his presence felt. The " Vengeance" was missed by a torpedo that day; the old battleship " Triumph " supporting the Anzacs off Gaba Tepe was hit by two torpedoes at 12:30 P.M. and turned turtle in nine minutes with a loss of over 200 lives. Two days later (May 27) the " Majestic," supporting the troops inside the Straits, was hit and capsized with the loss of 49 men. The whole system of naval bombardment received a severe shock, though it was not till Aug. 13, when the " Royal Edward " was sunk near Kos by UBi4, that the transports began to suffer.
By this time another counter to the submarine had been found in the decoy ship, whose early type consisted of trawlers or vessels with submarines in tow. Three submarines were sunk in this way during the summer of 1915 (U4O on June 23 by C24, U23 on July 20 by C27, and 1136 on July 24 by the " Prince Charles "). Aug. 19 1915 saw the destruction in the approach to St. George's Channel by the decoy ship " Baralong " of 1127, while she was attacking the " Nicosian." Several German sailors had boarded the latter vessel, and the American cattlemen in her, when they saw the submarine disappear, fell on them and threw them overboard. Germany gave vent to a roar of indigna- tion, undisturbed by the fact that the very day U27 was sunk U24 (Schneider) met the White Star liner " Arabic " outward bound off the south of Ireland and sank her without warning with the loss of 44 lives. Indignation in America flamed up anew. Again at great headquarters von Tirpitz wrestled with the Chancellor and again the Chancellor won the day. The use of decoy ships and defensively armed merchantmen, by increasing the danger of coming to the surface, provided the German naval staff with a strong argument for unrestricted warfare, but the imperial decision went in favour of the Chancellor, and orders were issued on Aug. 30 that no liners were to be sunk without warning and due regard for the safety of passengers. This was a bitter blow to the partisans of submarine warfare, and Adml. Bachmann, the chief of the naval staff, who had not been con- sulted on the issue, resigned and was succeeded by Adml. von Holtzendorff. The commander-in-chief of the High Sea fleet, Adml. von Pohl, also asked to be relieved, but to no purpose. He was told he did not understand the political situation. On Sept. 20 1915 further orders were issued to suspend submarine warfare on the west coast and in the Channel. The campaign now languished in British waters. From Sept. 1915 to Feb. 1916 activity against merchant shipping practically ceased in the Bight and was transferred to the Mediterranean.
During the year Feb. 1915 to Jan. 1916 a total of 394 Allied and neutral ships had been sunk by submarines with a gross tonnage of 1,059,141 tons; of these 225 (760,440 tons) were Brit- ish, 54 of which had been sunk in the Mediterranean. Some 60 merchant ships had been sunk without warning during the year and 17 submarines had been destroyed, an average of one submarine for 23-1 ships.
The Baltic. Meanwhile British submarines had been active in the Baltic and the Dardanelles, where a great field had opened to British heroism. In the Baltic 9 (Comdr. Max Horton) and Ei (Comdr. N. F. Laurence) were the first to penetrate early in 1915, and proved a valuable addition to the Russian (Adml. Essen's) force. On July 2 1915, when the Russians sank the minelayer " Albatross," 9 sent two torpedoes into the old cruiser " Prinz Adalbert " and drove her back to port. On Aug. 4 1915 13 ran ashore on the Danish island of Saltholm while passing the Sound. Before the 24 hours given her by the Danes to get off had elapsed two German destroyers appeared and, opening fire on her, killed half the crew, an act which did not pass unavenged. The Germans at the time were making a determined attempt to force the Gulf of Riga with a view to operating on the Russian flank, and the battle-cruisers of the ist Scouting Group with the ist Battle Squadron and a number of light cruisers had been lent for this purpose by the High Sea fleet. Ei now ap- peared on the scene, and the very day that 13 received its deadly hail of fire sent a torpedo into the battle-cruiser " Moltke" off the Gulf of Riga, driving her back to port.
