boats which remained seaworthy should be at once sent to rescue the unhappy crew from peril of being burnt to death. At the battle of Trafalgar the same routine was followed. After Nelson had made the great sacrifice and breathed his last, his spirit still animated the British Fleet under the orders of Collingwood.1 Admiral Mahan quotes an eye-witness on board the Bellerophon who described the final scene :

"Before sunset all firing had ceased. The view of the Fleet at this period was highly interesting, and would have formed a beautiful subject for a painter. Just under the setting rays were five or six dismantled prizes; on one hand lay the Victory with part of our Fleet and prizes, and on the left hand the Royal Sovereign and a similar cluster of ships. To the northwards the remnant of the combined fleets was making for Cadiz. The Achille, with the tricoloured ensign still displayed, had burnt to the water's edge about a mile from us, and our tenders and boats were using every effort to save the brave fellows who had so gloriously defended her; but only 250 were rescued, and she blew up with a tremendous explosion." 2

That is the record of the last great victory won by the British Fleet in the early years of last century, when the times were sadly out of joint, passions ran high after over a decade of fierce warfare, and when sailors had become inured to the horrors and barbarities of war.

Contrast Nelson's triumph with "the great victory" achieved by the German Fleet when the Lusitania was sunk. Plans were prepared weeks in advance by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz and his staff; the Emperor can hardly have been ignorant of them. Advertisements were even inserted in American newspapers by the German Embassy at Washington announcing that the ship would be attacked. No one credited the Germans then with such inhumanity. Before these advertisements were drafted Grand Admiral von Tirpitz and the General Naval Staff must have visualised the scene. A concentration of submarines in the area which it was assumed the liner would take was easy. It was calculated that one or other of these under-water craft would be able to get sufficiently near the Lusitania, swift though she was, to launch a torpedo, with complete assurance of hitting

(1) The spirit of the British Navy, its respect for "humanity after action," still remains the same as it was, as the present war has shown. In the various actions with the enemy down to May 2nd, British men-of-war saved from drowning 1,282 officers and men of the German Fleet, apart from others rescued by British merchant ships and other means. All this on the one hand. In the same period by gunfire or torpedo, the enemy sunk the battleship Formidable, and the cruisers Hogue, Sutlej, Cressy, Monmouth, Good Hope, and other ships; the life of no single British officer or man was saved; nor was an effort at rescue made. The Germans are too "kultured" to practise "humanity after action." What will history say to this record?

(2) About 20,000 French prisoners were taken, a large proportion being humanely rescued from imminent death.

VOL. XCVII. N.S.

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some part of the huge target. Experience the fate of the passengers of the Titanic and Empress of Ireland-had produced convincing evidence that the ship would sink speedily after the explosion of over 400 lb. of T.N.T. The conspirators were aware that about 2,000 defenceless human beings, representing many nationalities, and all of them innocent of offence against Germany, would be on board the liner at the moment of attack, and that not even a miracle could save the greater proportion of them from a terrible death.1

Is it conceivable that when all the plans for achieving this victory had been completed, the Emperor or Grand Admiral von Tirpitz withdrew into his private room and wrote in his diary any such prayer as constituted Nelson's last act on the eve of battle? The Germans knew the limitations of the engines of destruction which they were about to set in motion. They were aware that a submarine cannot rescue life, and they dared not trust at sea any other ship flying the German ensign, for they had forfeited the right to use any of the waters of the world. In these circumstances this terrible outrage was planned. One of the watching submarines got within torpedo distance of the Lusitania, hit her with two torpedoes in vulnerable parts of the hull, and in about a quarter of an hour she sank. The marvel is not that so few on board were saved, but that so many were rescued. It was an act of wholesale and calculated murder on the part not merely of Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, but of his master, the German Emperor, and the whole German people, who condoned and applauded the act. The verdict of the coroner's jury at Queenstown stands on record as the verdict of humanity: "This appalling crime was contrary to international law and the conventions of all civilised nations, and we therefore charge the officers of the said submarine and the German Emperor and Government of Germany, under whose orders they acted, with the crime of wilful and wholesale murder before the tribunal of the civilised world."

In this country and in the United States the assassination of all these travellers-men, women, and little children-has been denounced. Do we, however, really realise that the torpedoing of the Lusitania constitutes the greatest crime at sea recorded in history? It must be judged in relation to civilised opinion in these days when all war is regarded as anachronism; nor should we forget the series of conventions to which the world paid homage less

(1) "The commander of the German submarine, when he discharged his torpedo at point-blank range and saw it strike home, knew that the Lusitania would probably go down fast and long before her helpless passengers could take to the boats. This was expected and so intended by the Imperial German Admiralty."-Scientific American, May 29th, 1915.

than a year ago, conventions which were intended to buttress the ordinary dictates of humanity. Such a crime cannot be studied in isolation. Think of the horror expressed when in cold blood some man, without offence to the world, has been murdered, it may be by a dismissed, possibly a drunken, employé; recall the rage caused by the death by violence of some innocent woman; recollect the indignation occasioned when a little child has been waylaid and killed. By sinking the Lusitania the Germans murdered hundreds of defenceless men, rich and poor, and of various nationalities; they consigned to nameless graves at the bottom of the sea hundreds of weak and unprotected women, old and young; they closed in death the eyes of scores of little children on the very threshold of life. The world has become in some measure insensible, owing to the crescendo of outrage which has been in progress, to the heinous character of this crime, or neutral countries would have risen instantly to punish the offenders. If a year ago any artist had represented the German Emperor surrounded by twelve hundred corpses, the ghastly fruits of a campaign against defenceless humanity, decency would have been outraged, and the artist visited with the world's contempt. That is what exactly has now happened. More than that has happened, for hundreds of other travellers by sea and merchant sailors have also been done to death by the same methods, with the connivance not only of the German Kaiser, but of his millions of subjects. That fact constitutes the horror of the campaign; not the militarist caste, but the German people as a whole approve of the acts of the German Navy, applaud them, and are proud of them.

In what do the German Navy's crimes consist? The essence of prize law lies not in destruction, but in seizure; the one navy endeavours to take from its opponent vessels under its guardianship, thus enriching the one nation at the expense of the other, and by this means exercising economic pressure. The routine of warfare against commerce at sea has been consecrated by precedent and by conventions to which Germany and all the other nations agreed. There are no differences of view as to the procedure which must be followed by warships when engaged in attacking commerce.

1. A merchant vessel, under suspicion of being an enemy ship or a neutral ship carrying contraband, must be stopped. 2. A visit by an officer must then be made to establish her nationality.

3. The papers of the ship must be examined to ascertain the character of the cargo-whether, in fact, it be liable to capture.

4. If the ship be liable to capture, she must be taken to the nearest convenient port and adjudicated upon by a prize

court.

5. (a) If she be an enemy ship, she may, in exceptional circumstances, definitely specified, be destroyed; but in that event "all persons on board must be placed in safety and all the ship's papers and other documents which the parties consider relevant to the purpose of deciding the validity of capture must be taken on board the warship." (b) A neutral ship which has been captured may not be destroyed by the captor; "she must be taken into such port as is proper for the determination there of all questions concerning the validity of the capture." In exceptional circumstances, even a neutral vessel may be destroyed; but, in that case, the captor must prove the necessity of sinking her, otherwise compensation must be paid, even though the ship was liable to capture.1

The charge which history will make against the German Navy is that, in reference to seizure or destruction, it has made the exception the rule. It has done more than that; it has disregarded all the usual routine of stoppage, visit, and search, consecrated by precedent, and has acted as a brigand force, destroying everything, enemy and neutral, which has come within striking distance of its submarines. Let it be remembered that one of the contributory causes of the American war was our insistence on the right of visit and search of American ships, involving inconvenience and delay, and the gross affront by Germany of neutral nations in sinking out of hand scores of neutral ships, with much destruction of life, will be appreciated.

Excuses have been made by the Germans. It has been asserted that Germany has no convenient ports into which to take prizes. It has been claimed that on board submarines there is insufficient accommodation for passengers or crews of ships destroyed. It has been urged that submarines are peculiarly susceptible to attack, and therefore cannot observe the ordinary routine of the sea. For these reasons it was assumed that no civilised Power would employ them in commerce destruction. The Germans have made a virtue of the short-comings of the submarine. They have declared that, owing to the character of the submarine, its action is subject to no restraint that it is outside the law. Furthermore, in the effort to justify murder, they have claimed that ships attacked have no right either to endeavour to evade capture or to defend them

(1) Hague Conventions, which codified the generally accepted laws of naval warfare, Germany concurring.

Two com

selves. That, again, is a contention opposed alike to the recognised rule of the sea from time immemorial and commonsense. At one time merchant ships were compelled by law to be armed; until a comparatively recent date they carried guns specifically for purposes of defence, and, in conformity with this practice, the British Admiralty a year or two before the opening of war arranged to provide a certain number of merchant vessels with a defensive armament, claiming that thereby the status of the vessels would not be changed, but that they would remain merchant ships entitled in time of war to all the privileges of merchant ships. That contention has since been admitted by the Government of the United States, which was most directly concerned with the reversion to the old practice of the sea. Simultaneously with the German campaign on merchant ships, the German Navy has been making war on fishermen. Its acts have no parallel in the history of warfare at sea. paratively recent incidents will illustrate the character of this branch of naval warfare as practised by the enemy. The Milford Haven trawler Victoria carried a crew of nine men, and there was a boy on board named James Jones, who was making a pleasure trip. The trawler was about 130 miles off St. Ann's Head on Tuesday evening, June 1st, when, without warning, a shot came overhead, smashing the small boat. The boy Jones was sent to the bridge, and the crew lashed some boards into a raft. A second shot killed the boy. The skipper, Steve Stephenson, went forward and was talking to the chief engineer, Albert Cole, in the forecastle doorway, when a shot killed them both. Huddlestone was struck on the arm and hand by shrapnel, and fell down the forecastle ladder. Another shot blew off both legs of the mate, Dennis McCarthy, and another broke the legs of the trimmer, Frank Slade. Four survivors, with George Rudge, of Milford, the cook, got aboard the improvised raft, but Rudge was drowned. The other four were taken aboard the submarine and kept there throughout the night, being most of the time submerged. Next morning they saw another trawler, the Hirose, sunk in similar fashion to the Victoria off Lundy Island. About thirty shots were fired at the trawler. The Germans temporarily took the crew on board the submarine. The commander sent men on board the Hirose with bombs, which they fired and returned, but the trawler did not go under as quickly as expected, whereupon the commander ordered two shells to be put into her amidships. These sunk her. Afterwards the crew were put into their lifeboat with the four survivors of the Victoria, and cast adrift with six or seven biscuits and not a drop of water. Bad weather came on, rain and a strong wind