A certain amount of mystery is also associated with this particular submarine. Her displacement, if she were the original U 12, was 300 tons submerged and 250 tons above water. Fourteen men would have been ample to work her, yet she had a complement of twenty-eight. It is possible, though the idea seems somewhat far-fetched on account of the limited accommodation on board, that the men in excess were being trained. What appears to be far more probable is that an old number had been given to a new boat, just as the name Arethusa has been borne by a long line of fighting ships in the Royal Navy. Ten of the pirates were picked up and landed in Scotland; eighteen were drowned.
Although Captain Otto Weddigen achieved momentary fame in Germany as the hero of an exploit that sent the Aboukir, the Cressy, and the Hogue to the bottom of the North Sea, he did not live long to enjoy his popularity. When the U 9, the submarine which he commanded on that occasion, was withdrawn from service, he was given the U 29, believed to have a displacement of some 800 tons, and to be armed with two quick-firing guns and four or more torpedo-tubes. One of the U 9’s last adventures was to get entangled in the net of a Dutch steam trawler, necessitating the cutting away of the lines.
U 29 first appeared as a commerce-destroyer about a fortnight before she was sent to the bottom. Her hunting-ground was the vicinity of the Scillies. Known as ‘the Polite Pirate,’ Weddigen sank five or six merchant ships, and on occasion regaled the crews with cigars and wine and towed their boats toward land. Not once did he behave with the stupid and blundering brutality of many of his associates in arms. When the crew of the Adenwen were taking to the boats, one of the men fell overboard. Weddigen happened to be on the conning-tower at the time. Noticing the sailor’s plight and his rescue, the captain of the U-boat sent him a suit of dry clothes.
The German commander’s order Pour le Mérite and the Iron Cross of the First Class went down with his ship. This misfortune reached the Kaiser’s ears. That august personage sent duplicates to Weddigen’s widow, at the same time condoling with her in “the bitter loss of a man whom the entire Fatherland mourns, who achieved unforgettable fame for himself and the Fatherland, and who will live for all time as a shining example of daring, calm, and resolution.”
Weddigen’s humanity came in very useful when the fate of U 29 had to be explained in the German Press. The Deutsche Tageszeitung suggested that “British ships surprised U 29 while she was busy saving the crew of the steamer. In the midst of this humane work the knightly English must have caught U 29 while she was helpless, and it would be easy for them to destroy her. The noble hypocritical sentimentality of the English Press about the captain points to facts of this kind.” Admiral Klaus, writing in the Vossische Zeitung, put forward the theory that the submarine was sunk by a British ship flying a neutral merchant flag, and added that as the British Admiralty had seen fit to withhold details there were apparently good reasons for not being proud of the success. The only information vouchsafed by the officials of the Wilhelmstrasse was couched in the baldest of bald language: “U 29 has not yet returned from her last cruise. According to the report of the British Admiralty issued on March 26 [1915], the ship sank with her entire crew. The submarine must therefore be regarded as lost.” The burial of the U-boat in a shroud of mystery must have been horribly galling to the bigwigs of Berlin. The intimation that she was “sunk by one of His Majesty’s ships” conveyed nothing to them except the obvious.
On the 9th June, 1915, Mr Balfour announced in the House of Commons that a German submarine had been sunk and the entire crew taken prisoners. The German Admiralty subsequently announced that U 14 was evidently the vessel in question, as it had “not returned from its last expedition.”
Whether the following letter is a typical revelation of the mind of the German underwater sailor or not is more than I can say, but it is particularly interesting as showing that the writer was thankful to a kindly Providence for sparing him when the game of piracy and murder had come to an end and he was safe in British hands. It could scarcely be supposed that every German who sailed in a submarine did it of his own free will or took a delight in the work. I can only suggest that all too often the Prussian Cult makes blackguards of men who are not by nature what they afterward become. The communication runs as follows:
My dear, good Parents,
Go to church the first Sunday after you receive these lines from me, and thank the good God for having so mercifully watched over and preserved me. I have fallen into the hands of the English, unwounded and whole in body and mind, and have been well treated, quite particularly so by the English naval officers.
It was an extremely sad day for me. First of all in the morning I saw dead on the deck two poor Norwegians who had unhappily fallen victims to our gunfire. The day will be engraved on my memory in letters of blood.