But as valuable booty for our submarines particularly those ships are to be regarded that import any kinds of commodities to England. And statistics will later be able to show on the basis of these figures the great success of the German submarine warfare, as indicated by figures.
A glance at the map that accompanies the list of losses suffices to show that mine fields as little as great distances are factors of decisive importance in the activities of our submarines. The closing of the English Channel and of the North Channel (between Ireland and Scotland) has not prevented our boats from penetrating wherever there was booty. Even on the northwest coast of Scotland and out in the west of Ireland the German submarines have carried on a successful hunt. The numbers in the little circles on the map represent the successive ships on the list.
The Frankfurter Zeitung adds figures given by the British Admiralty on the same subject. These, it says, total 130 merchant ships with a registered tonnage of 457,000 tons, from the beginning of the war to May 26. Added to these, it says, are 83 fishing vessels with a tonnage of 13,585 tons, making a total of 213 ships with 470,585 tons. It says:
These figures, however, are certainly incomplete, inasmuch as up to March 16 there had already been announced 145 ships with a total tonnage of 500,000 as lost, and the figures published by us above, based upon authentic material, concerning the victims of our submarines in three months, contradict beyond any power of dispute the euphemistic presentation of the British Admiralty. Even so, however, the English list still shows that since the beginning of the submarine warfare, although in that period there was little to speak of in the way of activities of the German cruisers abroad, the damage done to the English fleet has risen according to the confession of the Admiralty itself. Since Feb. 18, that is to say, since scarcely more than a quarter of a year, according to the English figures, no less than 56 British merchant ships with a tonnage of 187,000 tons (that is to say, more than 40 per cent. of the total number of merchant ships designated as lost) have been sunk. But if instead of these English figures the German compilation, which is indubitably correct, be accepted, then the entire picture changes considerably in our favor.
ADMIRAL SIR HENRY B. JACKSON
Who Succeeded Lord Fisher as First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty
(Photo by Elliott & Fry.)
