Other victories followed in prompt succession. Weddingen's wonderful prowess off the Hoek of Holland, on September 22, 1914, will never be forgotten. In the space of an hour he sunk the three English armored cruisers, "Cressy," "Hague," and "Aboukir," and shortly afterwards dispatched their comrade "Hawke" to keep them company at the bottom of the North Sea.
Let me add to this list the English cruiser "Hermes" near Dover, the "Niger" off the Downs of the English coast; the Russian cruiser "Pallada" in the Baltic; and a great number of other English torpedo boats, torpedo boat destroyers, as well as auxiliary cruisers and transports. All this was achieved before the end of 1914. Unfortunately I am not at liberty, for obvious reasons, to describe my own part in the beginning of the War, but hope to be able to do so after we achieve a victorious peace.
Our dear cousins on the other side of the Channel must have been rather disquieted by the loss of so much shipping at the hands of our boats or of our mines; and they must have realized that a new method of warfare had begun, for their fleet no longer paraded in the North Sea or in any of the waters in the war zone. Their great, valuable ships were withdrawn, and the patrol of their coast was confided only to smaller craft and to the mine-layers, in order that their people might supposedly sleep in peace.
Our adversary was concealed by day, and only ventured forth at night, confident that darkness would insure his safety. This was then the hour for us to lie in watch for our prey, and no more glorious clarion call could have heralded in the New Year than the torpedo shot, which, on the New Year's Eve of 1915, sent the mighty ship of the line "Formidable" to the bottom of the Channel. This was our first triumphant victory, which showed that not even darkness could circumvent our plans, and which dispelled all further doubts as to our efficiency. A few days after the sinking of the "Formidable" a piece of one of the row boats was washed ashore at Zeebrugge, and now adorns our Sea Museum as the only reminder left of the great ship.
We stood at last on the same footing as our dear old sister, the torpedo boat, to whom we in reality owed our present development, and from now on, in proud independence, we were justified in considering ourselves a separate branch of the Navy.
Now that England felt obliged to withhold the activities of her fleet, she instigated against us the commercial blockade and hunger-war; she obliged neutrals to follow a prescribed route; and, by subjecting their vessels to search, she prevented them from selling us any of their wares. In this manner, she sought to redeem herself from the paralysis we had brought on her fleet, and her unscrupulous treatment of the right of nations and her interpretation of the so-called "freedom of the seas" are only too well known.
We retaliated on February 4, 1915, by prescribing a certain danger zone, which extended around Great Britain and Ireland and along the north coast of France. By this interdict, public opinion was enlightened as to the part our U-boats were going to perform in this new commercial warfare, a part, I must admit, that few people had anticipated before the commencement of hostilities. Of course, new demands were to be made upon us; we should have to make long undersea trips, and remain for some time in the enemy's waters, after which we should have to return unperceived. The English called it German bluff, but their tone soon changed after we had made our first raid in the heart of the Irish Channel, and few of them now ventured abroad except when forced by the most imperative obligations.
At the end of October, 1914, the first English steamer "Glitra" was sunk off the Norwegian coast. It carried a cargo of sewing machines, whisky, and steel from Leith. The captain was wise enough to stop at the first signal of the commander of the U-boat, and he thereby saved the lives of his crew, who escaped with their belongings after the steamer was peacefully sunk. If others later had likewise followed his example, innocent passengers and crew would not have been drowned; and after all, people are fond of their own lives; but these English captains were following the orders of their Government to save their ships through flight. The English authorities even went so far as to inaugurate a sharp-shooting system at sea by offering a reward to any captain who rammed or destroyed a German submarine, although the latter could only obey this command at the risk of their lives; but what cared the rulers in England for the existence of men belonging to the lower classes of the Nation? They offered tempting rewards for these exploits in the shape of gold watches, and bribed the captains of the merchant marine with the promise of being raised to the rank of officers in the Reserve. Therefore, the British newspapers were filled with the account of the destruction of German U-boats, and of the generous rewards given for these fine deeds. It was jolly for us on our return to port to read the record of our own doom, and scarcely would there be a submarine afloat if these records had been true.
I should like to tell a short story in connection with these assertions of English prowess. One of their small steamers had actually contrived in misty weather to ram the turret of one of our submarines while it was in the act of submerging. The English captain was loudly praised in all the newspapers and received the promised rewards for having sunk, as he declared, a German U-boat; he had distinctly felt, he said, the shock of the collision. His statement was certainly accurate, for the submarine was also conscious of the shock, but it was fortunately followed with no evil results, and our commander had the joyful surprise, shortly afterwards, when he emerged, to find the blade of the foe's propeller stuck in the wall of the turret, whose excellent material had preserved it from serious injury. We happily hope that the German Empire will never run so short of bronze that it will be obliged to appropriate, for the melting pot, this fine propeller blade, which is one of the many interesting trophies preserved in our Submarine Museum.