and Ui3 disappeared. On the British side some 56 submarines
were available, the newest boats of the D and E class being
attached to the 8th Flotilla (18 boats) employed under Com-
modore Roger Keyes in guarding the approach to Dover Straits
with a couple (E6 and E8) reconnoitring in the Bight.
Early Days of the War. Submarines did not play a decisive
part in the Heligoland Bight action on Aug. 28. The six British
submarines present were disconcerted by the unexpected ap-
pearance of British light cruisers, and the German submarines
were retained off Heligoland guarding the approach to the rivers.
'The first British warship to be sunk by submarines was the
" Pathfinder," a small cruiser torpedoed by U2i (Otto Hersing),
off the Forth on Sept. 5, an incident which aroused little com-
icnt beyond emphasizing the danger of old ships patrolling on
regular beats. The sinking of the " Cressy," " Hogue " and
" Aboukir " off the Dutch coast on Sept. 22 1914 was a much
heavier blow. They had been sent to patrol on the Broad Four-
teens, between England and Holland, and were steaming slowly
in line abreast two miles apart at 6:30 A.M. when the " Aboukir,"
" Hogue " and " Cressy " were torpedoed in quick succession.
This was the work of Otto Weddingen in Ug, and the wholesale
disappearance of Cruiser Force C within an hour with a loss of
over 1,400 men came as an unpleasant shock, and definitely
established the power of the new weapon. By the end of Sept.
submarines were pushing past Dover Straits into the Channel,
and on Oct. 16 1914 the fear of the new weapon reached a climax,
when on a false alarm of one in Scapa Flow the British Grand
fleet hastily put to sea at night and proceeded to Lough Swilly
where by a freak of misfortune the "Audacious" ran on a mine
and was lost. Oct. 20 1914 had seen the sinking of the first
merchant ship, the ss. " Glitra," off Norway by Uiy, but it was
not until Nov. 23 that Ui8 actually attempted to enter the Flow.
The Grand fleet were at sea at the time and Ui8 was rammed by
a minesweeper, the " Dorothy Gray," close to the Hoxa entrance.
She went down to 1 1 fathoms with her hydroplanes damaged, and
coming to the surface later was rammed by the destroyer
" Garry " and forced to surrender, the first and (with the excep-
tion of UBn6 in 1918) the last attempt to enter Scapa Flow.
Defensive Methods. The war found the British navy almost
destitute of defensive methods against the submarine. A com-
mittee had sat on the subject but had evolved nothing but the
modified sweep a somewhat clumsy contrivance consisting of
a line of explosive charges towed astern, regulated in depth by a
water-kite and fired from inboard. The defence of Scapa had
been mooted as early as 1912, and Adml. Jellicoe, then at the
Admiralty, had taken an important part in discussions on the sub-
ject, but nothing had been done beyond allocating a small sum
for the purpose in 1913, which was diverted to Dover to build a
wall on the breakwater, in pursuance of the pre-war tendency to
try and fit prospective wars into the existing naval ports. By
the end of 1914 Cromarty had been supplied with Capt. Donald
Monro's boom, but Scapa with all its entrances was not secure
till Feb. 1915. Counter measures at this stage of the war were
confined to an extensive development of the Auxiliary Patrol
organization, the tentative supply of defensive armament to
merchant shipping, and the equipment of a comparatively small
number of vessels with the modified sweep. The trawlers of the
Auxiliary Patrol played an important part in minesweeping and
in escort work, but were too slow and too poorly armed to be
really effective in offensive operations against the submarine.
By the end of 1914 the submarine was generally recognized as a
new and powerful weapon in naval warfare, though its tremen-
dous potency as an instrument of the guerre de course had not
been fully realized. Germany had lost 7 and with the addition of
ii had 30 now available, with 42 U boats and 127 UB and UC
under construction and on order. Von Tirpitz, fully alive to
their possibilities, was already building great hopes on them.
The early morning of New Year's Day 1915 saw the old
battleship " Formidable " (Capt. A. N. Loxley) fall a victim to
U24 off Start Point while patrolling up and down with the Chan-
nel fleet at 10 knots. The captain went down with the ship.
Only 141 were saved out of a crew of over 800, and the incident
demolished once and for all the opinion of a certain school of
naval thought that the submarine could be ignored.
They were now going farther afield. Otto Hersing in U2i
made his first cruise to the Irish Sea in Jan. 1915, and this
month too saw the first instances pf a ship being torpedoed with-
out warning in the case of the British s.s. " Tokemaru " and s.s.
"Ikaria " off Havre on Jan. 30 by U2o (Schwieger, who was to
earn an unenviable reputation for ruthless warfare).
Campaigns of 1915. Feb. 4 1915 saw the close of what may
be termed the preliminary phase of submarine warfare. The
German naval staff now decided to conduct a general campaign
against merchant shipping, and on this date the German Govern-
ment issued a declaration constituting all waters round Great
Britain and Ireland a war zone (Kriegsgebiet), in which from
6o6
SUBMARINE CAMPAIGNS
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.
SUBMARINE CAMPAIGNS
607
Winter did not stop the activity of the British submarines.
In the latter part of 1915 E8, Eg and Eig (Comdr. F. A. N.
Cromie) attacked the important iron ore trade from Lulua
(Sweden) to Germany, and between Oct. n and 23 sank 14
large German steamers engaged in it. The " Prinz Adalbert "
too was sunk by E8 on Nov. 8, and on Dec. 12 the light cruiser
" Bremen " and- destroyer Vigi were sent to the bottom. The
Germans now set to work vigorously to devise counter measures.
Minefields were laid in the Sound off Drogden, in the Flint-Rinne
at the southern end of the passage on the Swedish side and at
Falsterbo; an old battleship was stationed to defend them; tor-
pedo flotillas were despatched to patrol the entrance to the
Baltic, and convoy flotillas were organized for the Swedish trade
with the result that British submarine activity suffered a severe
check and the difficulty of entering the Baltic was greatly in-
creased. The work of submarines there was also seriously
hampered by the inability of the Russian dockyards to cope with
their demands, an unmistakable indication of the probable failure
of any attempt to conduct a big campaign in that sea.
The Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean the ability of
submarines to assist the Dardanelles campaign by interfering
with Turkish transport in the Sea of Marmora was fully realized,
but the passage of the Dardanelles was not an easy proposition.
Twenty-seven miles long with a width of only a mile in the famous
Narrows (the 35 m. stretch between Chanak and Nagara) lent
itself easily to defence, and could be transformed into a veritable
trap for submarines. It is impossible to give the details of every
passage where every passage was an heroic venture. Lt.-Comdr.
Norman Holbrook had made the passage on Dec. n 1914 in
Bn and torpedoed an old battleship, the " Messidiyeh." 15
(Lt.-Comdr. T. S. Brodie) was now the first to go up on April 15,
but grounded in Kefez Bay (on the Asiatic side some 10 m. up)
and was lost, his ship being torpedoed later by a picket boat
under Lt.-Comdr. Eric Robinson, to prevent it falling into the
hands of the Turks. 14 (Lt.-Comdr. E. C. Boyle) followed,
passing Chanak on the surface and running submerged for forty-
four hours. She sank three ships, including the transport " Gul
Gemel " with 6,000 troops, bringing her commander a V.C.
AE2 (Lt.-Comdr. H. H. G. Stoker) made the passage on April
25, diving under the minefields, but on the 3oth broke surface
suddenly, and coming under fire was forced to the surface and
sunk. On May i the French submarine " Joule "attempted the
passage and succumbed to a mine. En (Lt.-Comdr. M. E.
Nasmith) passed safely at the end of May, sank 10 ships, pene-
trated into the Bosporus and torpedoed the transport " Stam-
boul " and an ammunition ship there. Passing KilidBahr on his
way back, her commander found a large mine perched in the
bows which he dropped neatly by dipping and going astern, and
won a V.C. in its place. 12 (Lt.-Comdr. Kenneth M. Bruce),
7 (Lt.-Comdr. A. D. Cochrane), 2 (Comdr. David Stocks),
20 (Lt.-Comdr. C. H. Warren) and Hi (Lt. Wilfred Pirie)
followed, doing the same heroic work in difficult and dangerous
waters. 14 was up again in July and sank 22 ships, great and
small, including a 5,ooo-ton steamer on Aug. 7, and clearing the
Sea of Marmora. He was assisted in this task by En, who sank
the old battleship " Hairredin Barbarossa " the same day and
the transports " Chios" and "Samsoun" with the ammunition
ships " Espahan " and " Tenedos " a week or so later. By this
time a powerful barrage had been laid at Nagara, greatly in-
creasing the risk of the passage. The French submarine " Mar-
riotte " encountered an enemy submarine and was sunk (July 26)
and 2 on her way in got badly entangled in the Nagara ob-
struction, but managed after 10 minutes' plunging about to get
! clear. 7 was not so fortunate. Going up on Aug. 4 she got
i enmeshed in the nets, and after the explosion of three mines in
; her vicinity was forced to the surface and sunk. E 12, who folio wed
in Sept., remained up 40 days with 20 and Hi in her company
I for a time and sank 37 ships. On the way down she fouled a net
in the Narrows and went down to 245 ft., with the hydroplanes
jambed and the conning tower flooded; finally she struck the
chain moorings at Kilid Bahr which swept away the entangle-
ment, and though she broke surface and came under fire managed
chain i
E~~* <
to win through. The French submarine " Turquoise " was sunk
by gunfire on Oct. 30 1915, and a final toll of British boats was
taken in 20 (Lt.-Comdr. C. H. Warren) which fell a victim to
stratagem after passing through the Narrows. With the help
of an Allied code probably taken from a captured submarine
she was inveigled to a rendezvous and torpedoed by UBi4 on
Nov. 6. Ei i remained up a record period of 48 days in Nov. and
Dec., sinking 46 ships of different sizes. The last submarine to
make the hazardous passage was 2, which was recalled on Jan.
2, a week before the final evacuation, and got safely through.
For the latter part of the year '191 5 two submarines had usually
been working in the Sea of Marmora at a time. Altogether some
32 passages had been made or attempted by submarines, and
though they had incurred the loss of 7 of their number (15,
AE2, Ey, 20, " Joule," " Mariotte " and " Turquoise," their
efforts had met with a large degree of success. The Sea of
Marmora had been made unsafe, the Turks had been forced to
send their troops by a roundabout route by rail to Rodosti and
then a three days' march to Gallipoli. Their tale of losses in-
cluded two old battleships, one destroyer, 12 sloops and small
craft, 7 transports, and no less than 197 vessels of all sorts and
sizes, steam and sail, of which 36 were over 1,000 tons. This was
the end of the Dardanelles submarine campaign, whose record
fills a golden page^in the annals of the navy.
In the autumn of 1915, when activity in British waters di-
minished, five more German submarines were sent to the
Mediterranean. With them went Max Valentiner in 1138 and
Arnauld de la Periere in 1/35, two of the most distinguished
German submarine commanders. The result was immediately
evident. Valentiner, on his way from Gibraltar to Cattaro alone
sank a round dozen' of ships, including the Italian liner " An-
cona " with a loss of over 200 lives, and the sinkings in the
Mediterranean in Nov. went up to 23 chiefly off Crete, Malta and
Tunis. They were nearly all merchant ships. No more men of
war fell to them, and out of 242 transports only three were lost,
the " Royal Edward " (Aug. 13, loss of life 955), " Ramazan "
(Sept. 19) and the "Marquette " on Oct. 23. On Dec. 30 1915
Valentiner sank the P: & O. liner " Persia " (7,974 tons) off
Crete without warning with a loss of 334 lives, but Germany
refused to admit that it was one of her submarines and tried to
transfer the responsibility to Austria. This brought the year
1915 to an end, a year fertile in hope and speculation, begetting
vast promises of further success. To all Germany the future of
her navy lay beneath the waters, though few could read the
riddle as far as the bottom of Scapa Flow.
Types of German Submarines. A short digression may be inserted
here on the general types and characteristics of German submarines.
They comprised four main classes converted mercantiles (Deutsch-
land class), U boats, UB and UC. The converted mercantile num-
bered a bare half-dozen (Uisi Ui55) and were used chiefly off the
Azores and in 1918 off the coast of America. They were about 213
ft. long, large, slow and clumsy, going about nine knots only on the
surface, but capable of remaining put for. three to five months. They
had a good armament of two 5-g-in. guns, six torpedo tubes (4 bow,
2 beam) and 30 torpedoes. The U boats were the principal type, and
were large boats which did most of their work in the Atlantic
approaches. They were 210-225 ft. long, could go 142-17 knots on
the surface, and 8-9 knots submerged. They could only maintain
this speed submerged for an hour or so, but could continue at a speed
of about two knots for as much as 48 hours ; then, like all submarines,
they had to come to the surface and recharge their batteries with the
help of their Diesel motors. They carried two guns (usually one 4-1
in. and one 22-pounder), with 4 to 6 torpedo tubes and 8 to 12
torpedoes, and remained out generally from 25-30 days. There was
also a special class of U minelayers, which originally numbered 10,
viz. Uyi-USo, carrying 36 mines and 2 torpedoes. They had only a
single hull and were slow boats, rarely cruising at more than 5 knots.
Though the work on the west coast of Scotland and off the Dutch
coast in 1918 was done by these boats they were not as a class very-
successful, and by 1918 there were only 5 of them left. The UB
boats were originally built for coastal work, and the first 17 were
small boats capable of being sent in sections overland. The earlier
boats could remain out from 7-14 days, the Jater boats from 14-24
days. They carried one gun forward (a 4-1 in. or 22-pounder) and
the earlier boats 2 to 6 torpedoes, which were increased to 5 tubes
(4 bow, i stern) and 10 torpedoes in the later type. The UC boats
were essentially minelayers, carrying one 22-pounder forward, 3.
tubes with 4 to 6 torpedoes, and 18 mines. They remained out
6o8
SUBMARINE CAMPAIGNS
from 10-20 days in the North Sea, but when working in the Channel
from Flanders rarely more than twelve. Submarines cruised nor-
mally on the surface. When attacking they usually proceeded at
periscope depth (about 45 ft. for U boats), cruising at 65-85 ft"., and
going to 150 ft. if attacked. The fact that a periscope was rarely
visible, even with glasses, at over a mile, emphasizes the difficulty of
counter-attack.
German Submarine Flotillas. The flotillas were distributed in
four principal commands the North Sea (or High Sea fleet) flotillas
working from the Bight and usually termed the North Sea flotillas;
the Flanders flotillas working from Zeebrugge; the Mediterranean
based on Pola, Cattaro and Constantinople, and the Baltic (or
Kurland) flotilla working from Baltic ports. The Flanders flotilla
consisted wholly of UB and UC boats and was allotted a definite
area of operations, which extended on the east coast of Great
Britain as far as Flamborough Head (Yorks), and in the Channel as
far as 7 W. (about as far as Waterford) and down to the Gironde.