About the second week of May German submarines were reported in the Mediterranean. During the month of February the Germans completed the first of their big submarines which were capable of making the journey from Zeebrugge to the Dardanelles within three weeks. Secret bases had been established in Eastern waters, and the British Government offered a large reward for their discovery. Several of them were found on Greek islands. Before long the German submarines made their presence felt. We shall learn in a later chapter how, on 26th May, one of them managed to torpedo the Triumph, and the next day sent the Majestic to the bottom. The submarines practically put an end to the bombardment of the Dardanelles forts by our ships of war. While firing at the forts the ships were obliged to move slowly, and thus were at the mercy of an enemy under water.
Germany's new submarines in the Mediterranean mounted bigger and more effective guns than had formerly been employed on under-water craft, and they were able to destroy several vessels by shell fire. Not only British, French, and Italian vessels were sent to the bottom, but one if not two American ships. I have already told you of the sinking of the Ancona. Dastardly as it was, it was outdone on 30th December, when the Peninsular and Oriental liner Persia was sent to her doom. She was on her outward voyage, and at lunch time was off the island of Crete, when, without warning of any kind, a torpedo was launched against her. Five minutes after she received her death-blow she had vanished utterly. More than 330 out of the 501 passengers and crew were lost, and amongst the victims were a large number of women and children. Lord Montagu, who was saved, cabled home as follows:—
"I have had a miraculous escape. The ship sank by the stern, dragging me down with her. When I was blown up to the surface again I saw a dreadful scene of struggling human beings. There was hardly any wreckage to grasp. Nearly all the boats were smashed, and only three remained afloat. After a desperate struggle, I climbed on the bottom of a broken boat with 28 Lascars and three other Europeans. Our number was reduced to 19 by Thursday night, and only 11 remained on Friday, the rest having died from exposure and injuries. We saw a neutral steamer pass close by on Thursday evening at about 8 o'clock, but she took no notice of the red flare shown by another of the Persia's boats. We saw a large steamer three miles away on the next day; but she too ignored our signals, probably thinking they were a ruse of an enemy submarine. Our broken boat capsized constantly, and we were all the time washed by the waves, so that we were almost exhausted when the second night began. At 8.30 p.m. we saw the Alfred Holt steamer Ningchow near us, and shouted as loudly as we could. On Friday night at 9 o'clock she rescued us. We had been thirty-two hours in the sea without water or food, except one biscuit, since breakfast time on Thursday."
Within a day or two of this outrage the British steamer Glengyle was also sunk in the Mediterranean, but happily all the passengers were saved. In the North Sea we had got the submarine danger well in hand, but in the far more extensive Mediterranean the enemy remained powerful for mischief down to the close of the year.
CHAPTER XIV.
WINTER FIGHTING IN POLAND AND EAST PRUSSIA.
In chapter XXIX. of our third volume I told you how von Hindenburg's second attempt on Warsaw was foiled, and how the Russians during the last days of December 1914 stood firm on a front of great strength. At the beginning of the year 1915 the Russian front extended from the Baltic Sea right to the border of Rumania—a distance of at least nine hundred miles. In January 1915 the Russians were holding the longest battle front ever known in the history of the world.
We may divide this very extended battle front as Caesar divided Gaul—into three parts. The trenches in the central or Polish zone ran from the mouth of the Bzura, on the Middle Vistula, to the Upper Vistula, at its confluence with the Donajetz, in a fairly straight line, for a distance of about two hundred miles. On either side of this central zone there were two wings which differed greatly in character. Both were bent back from the line of the central zone: the north or right wing followed a sickle shape through a region of lake and marsh from the Baltic to the Vistula, and was for the most part within the East Prussian frontier; while the south or left wing ran from the Upper Vistula to follow the line of the Carpathians.
We will now learn something of the fighting which took place in the first three months of the year 1915 on the north or right wing. For the first few weeks there was ordinary trench warfare such as was going on in the West. Attacks and counter-attacks were frequent, but there was no action of any great importance. Most of the attacks were made by night, beneath the light of rockets and star-shells and the glare of searchlights. On the Bzura River the trenches of friend and foe were only sixty yards apart, and in this section of the line the Germans tried a very ingenious method of breaking down the Russian wire entanglements. They filled barrels with clay, and rolled them down the slopes towards the Russians, who believed that men with wire-cutters were hiding behind the barrels and pushing them forward. They therefore flung their hand grenades at the barrels, only to discover that they were moving by their own weight, and that there were no men behind them. When the Russians had thus exhausted their supply of hand grenades, the Germans pushed forward and tried to rush the trenches. They were only beaten off after a furious struggle. Shells and bombs containing poison gases were also used by the Germans on this part of the line.