May 8—British torpedo boat destroyer Crusader is sunk by a mine off Zeebrugge and the crew taken prisoners by the Germans.
May 9—Russians sink six Turkish transports off the Bosporus and two in the Sea of Marmora.
May 12—Turkish destroyers in the Dardanelles torpedo and sink the British pre-dreadnought Goliath, 500 men being lost; allied fleet bombards the forts at Kilid Bahr, Chanak Kalessi, and Nagara; Italian steamer Astrea sinks near Taranto, it being believed that she hit a mine.
May 15—Russian Black Sea fleet destroys four Turkish steamers and twenty sailing vessels; the fleet bombards Keffen, Eregli, and Kilimali.
May 16—For three days the allied fleet has been bombarding Turkish troop positions on the Dardanelles; shell fire is stated to have smashed whole trenches filled with Turkish soldiers.
May 17—Parliamentary Secretary of the British Admiralty announces in House of Commons that 460,628 tons of British shipping, other than warships, have been sunk or captured by the German Navy since the beginning of the war; that the number of persons killed in connection with the sinkings is 1,556; that the tonnage of German shipping, not warships, sunk or captured by the British Navy is 314,465, no lives being lost, so far as is known.
May 20—Bombardment of Nagara by the allied fleet continues night and day; British battleship Queen Elizabeth is supporting the allied troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula with the fire of her big guns from the Gulf of Saros; a new bombardment of the Turkish encampments on the Gulf of Smyrna is under way by ships of Allies.
May 24—Small naval units of Austria, especially destroyers and torpedo boats, bombard the Italian portions of the Adriatic coast; they are attacked by Italian torpedo boats and withdraw after a brief cannonade; the value of German and Austrian ships now in Italian ports, which have become prizes of war, is estimated at $20,000,000.
May 25—American steamer Nebraskan, en route from Liverpool to Delaware Breakwater, without cargo, is struck by either a torpedo or a mine forty miles off the south coast of Ireland; the ship is not seriously damaged and starts for Liverpool at reduced speed; Italy declares a blockade of the Austrian and Albanian coasts; allied warships bombard Adalia, Makri, Kakava, and other places along the coast of Asia Minor, destroying Government buildings and public works; Austrian ships sink an Italian destroyer near Barletta.
May 27—Captain Greene of the Nebraskan, which arrives at Liverpool, states that he thinks his ship was hit by a torpedo; the American flag had been hauled down shortly before she was struck, but the ship's name and nationality were plainly painted on her sides; British auxiliary ship Princess Irene is blown to pieces off Sheerness, 321 men being killed; it is presumed that careless handling of explosives caused the disaster.