Up to the middle of March, 1915, all the ships which had become victims of German submarines had been of the slower coasting variety. There had been numerous unconfirmed reports that the faster transatlantic ships had been chased, but no credence had been given to them. On the 27th of March, 1915, however, when the Arabic arrived at Liverpool it was reported by those on board that she had given a submarine a lively chase and had gotten away safely. At about nine o'clock the evening before the submarine was sighted off Holyhead. She was only 200 yards ahead, and while her commander jockeyed for a position from which he could successfully launch a torpedo, the commander of the Arabic gave the order "Full speed ahead." His passengers lined the rail of the ship to watch the maneuvers. Soon the steamship had up a speed of 18 knots, which was a bit too fast for the submarine, and she fell to the rearward. Her chance for launching a torpedo was gone, but she brought her deck guns into action, firing two shots which went wild. The Arabic proceeded to port unmolested.
At times even the cost of shell fire was figured by the commanders of German submarines, and pistol and rifles were used instead. This was done in the case of the Delmira on the 26th of March, 1915. This steamship was sunk off Boulogne. Ten minutes were given by the crew of the submarine to the crew of the steamship for them to get off. The submarine had come up off the bow of the Delmira, and men standing on the deck of the former had fired shots toward the bridge of the latter to make her captain bring her to a stop. The latter ordered his engines started again at full speed, with the intention of ramming the enemy, but his Chinese stokers refused to obey the order, and his ship did not move. The crew of the steamship got into their small boats, and for an hour and a half these were towed by the submarine so that their row to shore would not be so long. Though torpedoed, the Delmira did not sink, and was last seen in a burning condition off the French coast near Cape de la Hogue.
The sinking of the steamship Falaba, which is mentioned, though not narrated in full, in another chapter, was the last act of German submarines during the month of March, 1915. This ship on the 29th of March, 1915, was overtaken by a German submarine in St. George's Channel. She was engaged in the African trade, voyaging between the African ports and Liverpool. On her last journey she carried a crew of 90 men and some 160 passengers, many of the latter being women and children. The commander of the submarine brought his craft to the surface off the bow of the Falaba, and gave the captain of the steamship five minutes in which to put his crew and passengers into lifeboats. A torpedo was sent against her hull and found the engine room, causing a tremendous explosion. One hundred and eleven persons lost their lives because they had not been able to get off in time, or because they were too near the liner when she went down. This was the most important merchantman which had been sent to the bottom by a submarine since the proclamation of February 15, 1915.
The next two victims of this sort of warfare were the steamships Flaminian and the Crown of Castile, one of which was sunk by the U-28, and the other by an unidentified submarine on April 1, 1915. They went down off the west coast of England with no loss of life, though the Crown of Castile was torpedoed before her crew could get off. The Flaminian had tried to get away, but had to stop under fire from deck guns on the submarine. The shells did not hit her in vital spots, however, and it was necessary to send a torpedo into her hull to sink her.
The ease with which submarines had been able to bob up in unexpected places and to sink British merchantmen, in spite of the patrols maintained by British warships, caused the captains of merchant vessels to petition the British Government to be allowed to arm their vessels on April 1, 1915. This was not granted, because their being armed would have made the steamship legitimate prey for the submarines, nor was any attention paid to the demand made by the British press that the crews and officers of captured German submarines be treated, not as prisoners of war, but as pirates. Reprisals on the part of the Germans was feared.
Beachy Head on the 1st of April, 1915, was again the scene of two successful attacks on merchantmen by submarines. On that day the French steamship Emma, after being torpedoed, went to the bottom with all of the nineteen men in her crew. The same submarine sank the British steamer Seven Seas, causing the deaths of eleven of her men.
In order to indicate the amount of harm which the submarine warfare caused British shipping, the admiralty on April 1, 1915, announced that though five merchantmen had been sent to the bottom and one had been only partially damaged by submarines during the week ending March 31, 1915, some 1,559 vessels entered and sailed from British ports during the same period.
Efforts were made to damage the base, from which many of the German submarines had been putting out at Zeebrugge, with aircraft. On the 1st of April, 1915, the British Government's press bureau announced that bombs had been dropped, with unknown success, on two German submarines lying there, and that on the same day a British airman had flown over Hoboken and had seen submarines in building there.
The steamship Lockwood, while off Start Point in Devonshire, was hit abaft the engine room by a German torpedo on the morning of April 2, 1915, and though she went down almost immediately, her crew was able to get off in small boats and were picked up by fishing trawlers.
The U-28, which had done such effective work for the Germans during the month of March, 1915, was relieved of duty near the British Isles during the first week of April by the U-31, which sank the Russian bark Hermes and the British steamship Olivine off the coast of Wales on April 5, 1915.