After an interval the British commander thought he would try his luck again, minus lights. He waited his opportunity, riding quietly on the waves in the meantime, and keeping a pair of keen eyes to his night-glasses. Presently a ship came along, seemingly intent on navigating the difficult passage through the Sound. The low-lying craft awakened into life, and followed at a respectful distance. There was just a chance that she would not be detected. The blackness of the night prevented the officer from being certain of the nature of his pilot, otherwise he would scarcely have used her as a screen. A mouse does not creep behind a cat. Meantime she was making no great speed, and looked like some old tub loaded to the Plimsoll mark with merchandise.
Then for no apparent reason the vessel suddenly developed marked eccentricity, went dead slow, then put on full speed, altered course, and made in the direction of her follower. The submarine again sought refuge in the chilly and inhospitable waters, and her company listened to the threshing of propellers racing above. She returned home, “prior to making a further attempt.” Thus the commander in his official communication to My Lords of the Admiralty.
In October 1914 it was announced that the cruiser Prinz Adalbert had been sunk by two shots from a submarine off Libau, with the loss of most of her crew. According to a Petrograd report, her demise “was effected after much skilful manœuvring” by a British submarine. The cruiser was not actually the Prinz Adalbert, but a vessel of the same class. The warship bearing that name fell a victim to a British torpedo in the autumn of the following year.[[31]]
A light cruiser—name unknown—and a torpedo-boat were taking an airing when a certain British submarine of the celebrated ‘E’ class met them. The larger vessel was torpedoed forward, apparently set on fire, and showed signs of sinking by the head. As the torpedo-boat sought to pounce on the enemy the submarine passed under her stern and struck the cruiser in or near the after-magazine. There was a double explosion. The torpedo-boat and her tornado of shell were dodged a second time. Three minutes later the periscope showed no cruiser.
On the 10th October, 1914, an attempt was made by enemy submarines to sink the Russian Admiral Makaroff, at the moment busily engaged in searching a suspicious fishing-boat flying the Dutch commercial flag. Several torpedoes were fired, but missed, and the armoured cruiser beat off the enemy. On the next day, however, the German craft atoned for previous bad marksmanship by sinking the Pallada, a sister ship of the Admiral Makaroff, while she was scouting in company with the Bayan. This success was achieved through the ‘neutral flag’ trick. The submarine lay in waiting behind a vessel displaying Dutch colours. The ruse was discovered too late. Although subjected to a heavy fire, the submarine got a shot home which apparently exploded the magazines. This vessel, armed with two 8–in., eight 6–in., and many smaller guns, had a normal complement of 568 men. Not a soul was saved. An interesting sequel to this disaster was furnished by the announcement of the Russian Naval Headquarters Staff that during the course of their predatory operations on the 10th and 11th a German submersible had been sunk by the fire of the Bayan, a second foundered through striking a mine, and a third was put to flight by a torpedo-boat. Admiral von Essen, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Baltic Fleet, told the Tsar that twenty unsuccessful submarine attacks had been made within two months previous to the sinking of the Pallada.
Early in 1915 the German cruiser Gazelle was attacked off the Danish coast by a submarine whose nationality was not disclosed, although rumour had it that she was Russian, but commanded by a British officer. Despite a big hole in her side made by the explosion, the cruiser was able to keep afloat and reach Sassnitz with the assistance of a ferry steamer. As a withering fire was kept up by the enemy, and floating mines were flung out indiscriminately as a further means of protection, a second shot was impracticable.
A lonely Russian submarine boldly attacked an enemy squadron of ten battleships and a swarm of torpedo-boats in the following summer. One evening, when far out in the Baltic, the commander picked up dense black clouds of smoke on the horizon. Then the funnels of warships and their massive hulls rose out of the sea. They were proceeding in two columns, the smaller vessels on the flanks of the larger ones.
An hour or more passed before the squadron was sufficiently near for action. As the vessels approached, the commander concluded that his best position would be on the port side of the oncoming ships, between the enemy and the light. He raised his periscope, and believing he had ample time to change his position before the torpedo-boat in the van of the right column came abreast of him, proceeded to carry out the manœuvre. The submarine rose a matter of fifteen feet to bring her periscope again into use. The ‘eye’ revealed the distance between her and the first of the oncoming battleships as certainly not more than sixty yards. The officer fired a torpedo, dived immediately, and struck the ram of the object at which he had aimed. As no German battleship draws less than twenty-six feet of water, the boat had evidently not submerged sufficiently rapidly.
Everybody on board firmly believed that their craft would founder. Only those who have been in a similar occurrence or a railway collision can appreciate the appalling suddenness of such a crash. The electric light bulbs burst, the boat assumed a list to starboard, something in the superstructure snapped, water came in. Apparently the engines had sustained no damage from the shock, for they continued to work without any appreciable loss of speed. The boat descended seventy-five feet. Then the sound of a great tumult penetrated her steel plates. The commander afterward declared that when he heard the explosion he was perfectly convinced that the boat in her damaged state could not withstand the pressure of the water. He tried to reach the surface several times, but on each occasion was compelled to descend because the thud of screws above told only too plainly that the enemy vessels were still in the same area, some doubtless assisting the wounded battleship, others zigzagging about in the hope that the assailant might be made to pay the full penalty. When the officer tried to use the periscope he found it to be irretrievably damaged, and about as useless as a broken cowl on a chimney-stack. It revealed a blank. At 11.30 the commander, hearing nothing to suggest the presence of the enemy, rose to the surface after having been below four hours. The submarine reached port without further incident, and was docked for repairs. To this day the commander does not know whether the vessel he aimed at was put hors de combat.
Late in June 1915 a number of enemy warships bombarded Windau with 9.4–in. guns, and also tried to effect a descent on the coast with a view to co-operating with the German army in Courland. The invasion project was entirely unsuccessful, and the naval forces were compelled to retire. The defence seems mainly to have been the work of torpedo-boats; no mention was made on either side of the presence of submarines. A similar attempt made three weeks before had robbed the Russians of the Yenissei, which fell a victim to a U-boat. According to reports furnished by commanders of Russian submarines, three of the enemy vessels were sunk or damaged by mines previously dropped by the wrecked vessel.