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and Austria-Hungary, and make all reservations with regard to the loss of human lives and to material damage which may result from them.

The note handed to the German Minister at Peking by the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated an intention to follow the lead of the United States in case the latter should enter a state of war with Germany. Observers in Peking have long noted what they believed to be a desire on the part of the Chinese Government to enter the war on the side of the Entente. A dispatch from Tokio on Feb. 11 stated that the Japanese Government would offer no interference with whatever course China might decide to follow. The text of the Chinese note, made public on Feb. 11, is as follows:

The new measures of submarine warfare inaugurated by Germany are imperiling the lives and property of Chinese citizens even more than the measures previously taken, which have already cost China many lives and constitute a violation of international law. The toleration of their application would introduce into international law arbitrary principles incompatible with legitimate intercourse between neutrals and between neutrals and belligerents.

China, therefore, protests energetically to Germany against the measures proclaimed on Feb. 1, and sincerely hopes that the rights of neutral States will be respected and that the said measures will not be carried out. If contrary to expectation this protest be ineffective China will be constrained, to its profound regret, to sever diplomatic relations. It is unnecessary to add that China's action is dictated by a desire for further peace and the maintenance of international law. of

A communication explanatory China's action was also handed to Dr. Paul S. Reinsch, American Minister to China. It follows:

China, like the President of the United States, is reluctant to believe that the German Government will actually execute measures which imperil the lives and property of the citizens of neutral States and jeopardize legitimate commerce, and which tend, if allowed to be enforced without opposition, to introduce new principles into international law. China, being in accord with the principles set forth in your Excellency's note and firmly associating itself with the United States, has taken similar action by protesting energetically to Germany against the new blockade measures. China also proposes to take such other action in the future as will be deemed necessary for the maintenance of the principles of international law.

A

Eighteen Days of Ruthless Submarining

SUFFICIENT time has now elapsed since the inception of unrestricted submarine warfare in accordance with the German announcement of Jan. 31 for us to formulate certain general conclusions. In the first place, it should be remembered that the restriction, which has now been removed, did not check the sinking of ships; it only limited the sinking of ships without previous warning. The present method does not, therefore, necessarily mean the destruction of greater tonnage; it means primarily a greater destruction of life. This would seem to show that the large tonnage destroyed on certain days in February is due, not to the removal of restrictions, not to the omission of warning, (after which the ship would have been sunk in any case,) but rather to the employment of larger numbers of submarines, and also, perhaps, of newer and larger types of submarines.

So far, the losses announced during the month of February, 1917, are as follows: Ships Sunk. Tonnage.

Feb.
Feb.

1..

.10

13,039

2.

8

7,337

Feb. 3.

6

10,159

Feb.
Feb. 5.

4.

2

2,623

5

8,729

Feb. 6..

.14

44,457

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This makes a total of 117 ships sunk, with a tonnage of 245,140 during the first eighteen days of February; computation at the same average rate gives 200 ships of 408,905 tons for one month, as against the total of 1,000,000 tons a month which is said to be the estimate of the German Admiralty.

The world's total mercantile tonnage is said to be about 48,000,000, of which about 20,000,000 tons are British. Complete destruction of the world's commercial navies, at the average monthly rate given above, would, therefore, require 120 months; or, if we include British tonnage alone, fifty months.

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would otherwise have been employed in building new warships to replace losses. On Feb. 14 a high Admiralty official was quoted as saying:

"More ships have entered and left English ports in the last few days than for months past. On Feb. 13 more ships arrived and departed than on any day for six months. The average loss since Friday (Feb. 9) was one ship out of every thirty-five. In the English Channel, at a period when a greater number of ships than ever before are plying between British and French ports, the losses in the last two weeks (Feb. 1-14) have been extraordinarily small."

The submarine campaign has had almost as slight an effect on shipping entering and leaving French ports, according to Marcel Hutin, editor of the Echo de Paris. On Feb. 12, M. Hutin says, 112 French and neutral vessels entered French ports-little less than before the unrestricted submarine campaign. These conclusions seem to be supported by the arrival at the Port of New York of considerable groups of British and French ships of large tonnage. It has not been announced whether, or in what way, they were convoyed through the forbidden zone or across the ocean.

Anti-Submarine Defenses

Estimates of the numbers of German submarines in action vary from 100 to 300. No trustworthy figures are obtainable, but the number must be considerable. The question, therefore, arises: How have the Entente naval Powers been able to keep the losses down to the very moderate figures above recorded?

One answer comes from Italy, from Signor Paolo Giordani: "The invention of nets against submarines is due to the British Admiralty, which, not long ago, after several months of toilful silence, celebrated the certain sinking of the one hundredth enemy submarine snared in the toils. These nets are most ingenious and formidable."

The nets are towed through the water by small steam fishing boats known as drifters. Great Britain has already mobilized more than 100,000 fishermen,

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with at least 3,000 ships. Some hundreds of these drifters have been loaned to Italy. Each drifter drags out and places a section of the net some 1,000 yards long, for which it is responsible. A submarine strikes a piece of net like some blind night-flying beetle. The nearest "drifters" wait a certain time to see if the submarine is prepared to come to the surface and surrender. If not, a bomb is dropped into the water. There is a muffled report, a commotion in the waves, and then all is still. Submarine and net have disappeared, and the returning "drifter" hoists the black flag to indicate successful fishing. Every "drifter" is further armed with a small gun fore and aft, with wireless apparatus and with a megaphone to communicate with its neighbors.

Armed and Armored Boats

Next to this netting process come the armed motor boats. These speedy boats have the advantages of rapidity and vision over the submarines. They draw so little water that it is almost impossible to torpedo them. Back and forth, day and night, in calm or storm, these small boats skim in search of submarines. The first motor boats used in this way were pleasure boats impressed into service; recently special boats have been built, larger, faster, more comfortable, more seaworthy; they are painted leaden gray and carry quick-firing guns, machine guns, torpedoes, and sometimes bombs. And next, in ascending order, come torpedo boats, destroyers, cruisers, all of which aid in hunting for submarines. And, further, hydroplanes, armed with bombs which explode thirty or forty feet under water, do good service, not only in sighting submarines but often in destroying them. Every day, especially in the more confined waters of the Mediterranean, squads of airmen fly out over the waves on regular patrol duty.

There remains yet another method which is perhaps the most effective of all. It is described in a communication published on Feb. 10 and accredited to a British expert, who said:

I know personally that as many as two or three submarines have been bagged in one day by light guns in the hands of trained

gunners, mounted on merchant ships. A submarine commander looking through his periscope has a range of vision of about three miles, but he must get his target broadside on to have a reasonable chance of making a torpedo hit what it is aimed at, and as torpedoes are very expensive missiles he cannot afford to take many chances on a miss. A periscope above the water at a distance of 200 or 300 yards makes a fair mark for a gunner working from the deck of a ship thirty or forty feet above the surface of the sea. One shot hitting the mark is all that is needed, as the submarines are of light construction, easily penetrated, and a hole anywhere in the shell spells their doom. It is seldom that a torpedo is fired when a threatened ship can SO manoeuvre as to show only her stern for a mark, and in most of the cases of this nature so far reported the submersibles have come to the surface and resorted to gunfire from the deck. In this kind of a fight a gun mounted on a steamship has a great advantage, for the platform offered by a submarine is an unsteady thing to fire from, and despite the smaller target offered the gunners on ships have the better of it. Careful observations made during the last year (1916) of steamers mounting defense guns show that they are in a measure immune from attack-unless it is without warning, as in the case of the California. The number of U-boats that the Germans have lost has made them chary about showing themselves within range of ships on which they see guns, or which they have learned are defensively armed. Other methods of catching submarines, such as nets, bombs, and devices that are Admiralty secrets, are still being used, but the deck gun on steamers in the hands of good marksmen is leading all others in results.

Two conclusions seem to follow from these facts. The figures of losses during the first three weeks of unrestricted submarining show that the average tonnage of ships lost is low, apparently under 2,000 tons per ship. If we deduct the larger ships, like the Afric and the California, the average of ships sunk is considerably under 2,000 tons. It is probable that these small ships are often unarmed. Their large numbers would make this almost necessary. There are over 12,000 British steamships in commission; with one gun each, this would mean over 12,000 guns, with gun crews; with a gun fore and aft, it would mean 24,000 guns, with crews, to say nothing of the needed structural alterations to support the guns. Here is a large practical difficulty; also, perhaps, the explanation of the fact that the larger steamships seem

nearly immune; they are well armed. The second conclusion is this: So far, only belligerents have armed their ships. Norway, which has lost very heavily, is, as a neutral, debarred, not from putting guns on her ships, so much as from using them. To fire on a duly commissioned war vessel is an act of war, and hitherto this has debarred neutrals from defending themselves. The net result of this situation is to give belligerents a very large and valuable advantage, as against neutrals, throughout the whole field of

war commerce.

According to the Board of Trade Jour

nal of London the first week of the un-
restricted warfare by submarines did not
affect England's food importations. In
the week ended Feb. 10, the first full
week of the intensified submarine activi-
ties, the amount of wheat imported into
the United Kingdom was 2,766,200 cwt.
The figures for the corresponding weeks
in the three preceding years are: 1916,
1,111,800 cwt.; 1915, 1,839,700 cwt., and
1914, 1,474,400 cwt. The totals of corn,
grain, meal and flour imported in the
same weeks are: 1917, 4,265,810 cwt.;
1916, 2,456,440 cwt.; 1915, 4,050,044 cwt.,
and 1914, 2,972,910 cwt.

Two Hundred Americans Lost in
Submarine Attacks

T least 200 Americans, and probably more, went to their deaths through German and Austrian submarine operations up to Feb. 1, 1917. Most of the Americans lost were traveling on unarmed merchant ships. More than 2,000 citizens of other nationalities lost their lives in the attacks which cost the lives of Americans, but they comprise only part of the toll of life taken by submarine warfare.

The cases which involve the United States and Germany are primarily those in which American life was lost or endangered. The first American of whom there is record to lose his life in submarine attack was Leon Chester Thresher, a passenger on the British liner Falaba, bound from Liverpool for West Africa, which was torpedoed and sunk March 28, 1915, off Milford, England. The Falaba, after a hopeless attempt to escape, stopped and while boats were being lowered and passengers still were aboard, the submarine drove a torpedo into her side, and she went down in ten minutes. Of 242 persons, 136 were saved. Thresher was among the lost.

The first American ship attacked by submarines was the Gulflight, an oil tanker, from Port Arthur, Texas, for Rouen, France, torpedoed without warn

ing off the Scilly Islands May 1, 1915.
Two men jumped overboard and were
drowned; her Captain died of heart fail-
ure. The Gulflight did not sink, and was
towed to port by British patrols. The
German Government acknowledged the
attack as an accident, expressed its re-
grets, and promised to pay damages.

The Lusitania Tragedy

The next attack shocked the civilized world and brought the United States and Germany for the first time to the verge of war. It was the destruction of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. Unarmed, with 1,257 passengers, of whom 159 were Americans, and a crew of 702, she was torpedoed without warning and sank in twenty-three minutes off Old Head of Kinsale, as she was nearing Liverpool. In all, 1,198 lives were lost, of which 124 were Americans, many of them men of national prominence. The case passed into diplomatic negotiations, which never took final form.

While the Lusitania case was still fresh in the public mind a German submarine torpedoed another American ship, the Nebraskan, without warning, on May 25, 1915, south of Fastnet Rock. The Nebraskan's name was painted on her sides in letters six feet high, but her American

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flag had been hauled down at dark, as is the custom at sea. Like the Gulflight, the Nebraskan owed her safety to her seaworthiness, and she reached port, damaged, under her own steam, and no one was injured. The German Government again expressed its regret for a mistake and promised to pay damages.

Twenty American negro muleteers on the Leyland liner Armenian were killed June 28, 1915, by shellfire and drowning when the Armenian failed to escape with her cargo of army mules from a submersible near the Cornwall coast. The Armenian was warned and invited her destruction by flight.

Case of the Orduna

The next submarine attack in which Americans were endangered was unsuccessful, but only because the Cunard liner Orduna was too speedy for her pursuer. After sending a torpedo just under the Orduna's stern, the submarine rained shells after the fleeing liner without hitting the mark, and then gave up the chase. A score or more of Americans were on the ship, and the attack, coming close on the assurances for the safety of passenger liners during the course of the Lusitania negotiations, aroused American public opinion to a high pitch. Germany explained that the submarine commander had failed to observe his orders and that more explicit instructions had been issued.

Three Americans were endangered when the Russian steamer Leo was torpedoed without warning on her way from Philadelphia to Manchester on July 9, 1915. An American bark, the Normandy, which had just been permitted to go on her way by a German submarine, picked up the survivors. Fourteen were lost, but none was American.

On July 25, 1915, came the first complete destruction of an American ship by a submarine. It was the Leelanaw of New York, bound from Archangel to Belfast with flax, which is contraband. The American sailing ship William P. Frye had been previously sunk in the war, but under different circumstances.

The Leelanaw, which was caught off the Orkney Islands, attempted to escape. She finally stopped, as the German submarine

was firing at her, and sent her papers to the submersible by a small boat. The German commander, evidently proceeding on the theory that he could not take the contraband cargo into port, decided to destroy it by sinking the ship. He not only gave the Leelanaw crew all the time they required to take to their boats, but after sinking their ship by shot and torpedo took the crew on board the submarine and towed their boats toward the Orkney mainland. Eight miles from land a strange steamer appeared, and he set the crew in their boats and disappeared beneath the surface. The men reached Kirkwall the next morning.

Nicosian and Baralong

On Aug. 19, 1915, came the case of the Leyland liner Nicosian and the British patrol boat Baralong. The Nicosian, with mules from New Orleans to Avonmouth, was stopped by a submarine off Ireland, and her crew, including thirty-six Americans, took to the boats.

While the submarine was making ready to destroy the Nicosian, the Baralong appeared and destroyed the submarine by gunfire, took on the Nicosian's crew, and towed the ship to safety. The German Government charged that the British commander ordered his men to take no prisoners among the Germans on the submarine, and that many were deliberately murdered. No Americans were hurt.

The next crisis came on Aug. 19, 1915, when the White Star liner Arabic from Liverpool to New York was torpedoed without warning near the Lusitania's grave, and sunk in about ten minutes. Out of 375 passengers and were crew, forty-eight lost. Thirty Americans were on board and all but two were saved. The German Government contended that the submarine commander thought the Arabic was about to ram him and fired in self-defense, but disavowed the act, expressed regret, and gave additional assurances for the future safety of passenger ships, supplementing those previously given in the Lusitania case.

One American of the crew of the Allan liner Hesperian was lost on Sept. 4, 1915, when the ship, returning from Liverpool to Montreal, was torpedoed and sunk without warning off the southern coast of Ireland. The German Admiralty contended that no German submarine was in that vicinity, but a piece of a German torpedo was picked up on the Hesperian's deck.

Sinking of the Ancona

Austria's first submarine operations of consequence, and those which brought Germany's closest ally into the situation, began with the destruction of the Italian liner Ancona in the Mediterranean on Nov. 7, 1915. With hundreds of passengers, many of them women and children, bound from Naples to New York, the Ancona was chased and stopped by an Austrian submarine. Twelve Americans were on board and nine were lost.

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