| Total number of ships definitely reported sunk by German submarines in sixty-four days, since the Lusitania was torpedoed | 122 |
| Number of ships on which any loss of life occurred | 14 |
| [Note: Some of these fatalities occurred, according to British Admiralty reports, either from explosion of torpedoes or from upsetting of lifeboats, or from gunfire of submarines while the enemy ship was trying to escape.] | |
| Total loss of life on 122 ships, from all causes | 131 |
GERMAN ACCOUNTS
In a Berlin dispatch of July 14, by wireless to Sayville, Long Island, the following was given out by the Overseas News Agency:
During the month of June twenty-nine British, three French, one Belgian, and nine Russian merchantmen were sunk by German submarines.
The total loss of the Entente Allies by submarines, including fishing steamers, which mostly were armed patrol boats, aggregated 125,000 tons.
The loss of human life was remarkably small, the submarines using every precaution and giving ample warning and time for crews to leave their ships if no resistance was attempted.
The total of losses in ships of the Allies' merchant marine around the English coast in the period between February 18 (the beginning of the German submarine war zone) and May 18, as compiled from German data, was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung of June 6. This publication, the first issue from German quarters, contains also a list of the various allied ships sunk, totaling 111, together with the nationality and tonnage of each, and a charted map of the British Isles showing where each ship was sunk.
In describing the achievements of the German submarine against their foes—the neutral ships sunk are not included—the Frankfurter Zeitung's article says:
In the period of three months since the 18th of February, a day memorable for history, our submarines have inflicted on the enemy merchant shipping, in the first place the English merchant marine, a total loss of 111 ships with a displacement of 234,239 tons. The figures may, perhaps, not seem especially large in comparison with the gigantic number of merchant ships flying the flag of the enemy. But in this method of warfare the percentage loss of ships of our opponent as compared with his total does not count, but rather the fact that through the regularity and inevitableness of the marine catastrophes the enemy shipping shall be disturbed as poignantly as possible, and that there should as a result of this disturbance appear in the economic life of England phenomena similar to those which the English plan of the isolation of Germany aims at without, however, having succeeded in getting any nearer to its goal, owing to the inherent strength and power of adaptation of German business.
The rise of prices now prevalent in England, and the paralyzing of great branches of trade which could not occur in an England that really ruled the sea, may be attributed in chief part to this war of the submarines. The advantage of the insular position of England has been greatly lessened, thanks to this excellent German weapon, even if it cannot be completely eliminated. But if one compares with the total voyages of the English merchant shipping the losses of the English merchant marine, amounting to more than 100 ships in a period of exactly ninety days, and a tonnage of 216,000 tons, (from the totals mentioned above there must be deducted the shares of France and Russia,) then we must consider only that part of the British merchant marine that entered ports of the island kingdom in this period or left them; and one must bear in mind further that a large number of those ships is contained several times in the English statistics, since they do coast service.