A second Russian hospital ship, the Vperiode, was torpedoed in the Black Sea, July 9, 1916, with a loss of seven lives. She was a ship of 850 tons, having accommodations for about 120 wounded. Like the Portugal, sunk by a submarine some weeks before the Vperiode was plainly marked with the usual Red Cross emblem. The attack came in daylight and was accepted by the Russians as having been deliberately made, which once more aroused the indignation of the Russian people.
Berlin announced July 7, 1916, that the British steamer Lestris, outward bound from Liverpool had been captured near the British East Coast and taken to a German port. This second capture in the channel within a few days caused considerable criticism in England.
As dawn was breaking on July 10, 1916, a submarine came alongside a tug in Hampton Roads and asked for a pilot. The pilot went aboard and found himself on the subsea freighter Deutschland, first merchant submarine to be built and the first to make a voyage. She came from Bremerhaven, a distance of 4,000 miles, in sixteen days. Reports had been current since the U-35 made her trip to Cartagena that the kaiser would send a message to President Wilson by an undersea boat. The American public scouted the idea as being impossible of accomplishment, but the report persisted, and cities along the Atlantic Coast line had been on the watch for several days. The Deutschland eventually turned into Hampton Roads, piloted by a waiting tug, and tied up at a Baltimore dock.
The submarine, which was the largest ever seen in American waters, became a seven days' wonder. Captain Paul Koenig and his twenty-nine men and officers told some interesting stories of their trip across the ocean. It was said that the Deutschland could remain submerged for four days. When they got into the English Channel there was a cordon of warships barring exit to the Atlantic that made them extremely cautious. So Captain Koenig let his vessel lay on the bottom of the channel for a day and a night while the men enjoyed themselves with a phonograph and rousing German songs. When their enemies thinned out to some extent the submarine started again on her way and headed directly for Baltimore, which she reached without special incident.
The Deutschland immediately received the name of supersubmarine. Some thousand tons of dyes and other valuable products filled her hold. They were reported to be worth $1,000,000. The vessel was able to make twelve knots an hour on the surface and about seven knots when submerged. She traveled most of the way across on the surface, being under water about one-third of the time. In addition to her valuable cargo, she brought a special message from Kaiser Wilhelm to the president.
No other submarine, so far as known, had made a trip of such distance as the Deutschland up to that time. Longer voyages have been accredited to several British submarines, but they were either made with a convoy or broken by stops enroute. Soon after the beginning of the war, several Australian submarines journeyed from their far-away home ports to the Dardanelles, traveling 13,000 miles. They called at various points in the two Americas. Submarines built in America and assembled in Canada proceeded from Newfoundland to Liverpool before the Deutschland crossed the Atlantic, but they had another ship as convoy.
The Sultan Selim and the Midullu clashed with Russian ships in the Black Sea, July 11, 1916, sinking four merchant vessels. They also bombarded harbor works on the Caucasian Coast near Puab. Both attacking vessels made their escape without injury.
Vienna reported on the same day the sinking of five British patrol boats in the Otranto Road, between Italy and Albania, by the cruiser Novara. Only nine men were saved.
Seaham Harbor, a small coal port near Sunderland, on the British Channel coast, was shelled by a submarine the night of July 11, 1916. Thirty rounds of shrapnel started several fires and caused the death of one woman. Berlin also claimed the sinking of a British auxiliary cruiser of 7,000 tons and three patrol vessels on the night of that day. The statement was never denied in London, and no details were made public as to the fate of the crews.
The Italian destroyer Impetuoso was torpedoed in the Adriatic, July 16, 1916, with a loss of 125 lives.