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Description
Date: 17 February 1917.
Transcript:
THAT SIGNIFICANT SILENCE.
GERMANY AWAITING NEWS OF U BOATS.
Nervous Tension.
WHY THE KAISER WENT TO VIENNA.
Yesterday’s list of shipping losses due to the U boat campaign is lighter than that of some previous days, and serves to confirm the belief that the pirates’ intensified activity is yielding results far below what Berlin expected. Even the German Press is constrained to make excuses, the public being told that only very meagre reports are yet available. The comments of the papers reflect the tension generally prevailing.
Lloyd’s announced yesterday that the following ships have been sunk:-
Hopemoor… London… 3,740 [Tons.]
Afton… Glasgow… 1156
Longscar… British… 2,777
Mary Bell… British… 144
Percy Roy (sailing vessel)… British –
Greenland… British… 1,753
Kyanite… British… 564
Belvior Castle… British… 221.
The crews of the Greenland, Kyanite, and Belvoir Castle have been landed. Eight of the crew of the Mary Bell have also landed. They report that the master was taken prisoner. Reuter’s Madrid correspondent states that six men of the Percy Roy have been saved.
Messrs T. W. Willis and Co., West Hartlepool, owners of the steamer Longscar, reported sunk, have received news that 13 the crew have been landed. Another boat, containing 10 men, is not accounted for.
The captain and crew of four of the Lowestoft ketch Zircon were landed yesterday morning in a terribly exhausted state, after being in open boat since 10.45 a.m. Monday last. Their vessel was blown up by the pirates.
A British officer and 27 chinamen, of the Glasgow steamer Metherlee (previously reported sunk) have been landed. They are survivors of the crew, and report that the fourth engineer and a greaser were immediately killed by the explosion when the steamer was torpedoed and sunk. The survivors got away in three boats, and were in them for 17 hours in bitterly cold weather, with a high sea running, until picked up. They lost everything.
This was the second experience of torpedoing.
According to a Central News Rome message, the naval correspondent of the “Giornale d’Italia” states that the measures adopted by the Italian Admiralty have proven so efficacious that the results of the new Austro-German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas have been negligible. He speaks of a wonderful Italian anti-submarine invention which has given extraordinarily good results.
NO REJOICING YET. GERMANS STILL AWAIT NEWS OF THE U BOATS.
Amsterdam, Friday. Count Reventlow devotes an article in the "Deutsche Tageszeitung” to the submarine debate in the House of Lords. He expects much from U boat warfare in the matter of diminishing the importation into Great Britain of pit props and iron ore, and argues that when the submarine war was on previous occasions impeded, this was due not to the British Admiralty's measures, but to the menace of diplomatic intervention by America.
To Admiral Jellicoe’s statement that he was not dissatisfied with the number of submarines which would not return to Germany, Count Reventlow can only feebly retort that it is an old custom of the British Admiralty to speak mysteriously of enormous German boat losses, but never to say anything definite, and he leaves the answer to the question to the future.
Commenting on Lord Beresford's speech in the House of Lords, the “Koelnische Volkszeitung” insists that the new U boat warfare is not the result of desperation but a long and carefully prepared measure. The writer confesses “We do not yet know what our U boats have really achieved hitherto. The period of grace for neutral ships has only just come to an end. We have hardly any news of our own from our U boats at present. They could give wireless news of their successes, but they are debarred from this because they would thereby immediately betray themselves to the enemy since German wireless messages, although they might not be understood, would be immediately recognised as such and wouId make known the position of the boats sending them.”
The writer adds that U boat successes are first fully learned when the vessels return their base, and that as to reports which have recently been published they are generally from boats which went out before the announcement of unrestricted submarining. Press Association.
Source: "THAT SIGNIFICANT SILENCE. GERMANY AWAITING NEWS OF U BOATS. Nervous Tension. WHY THE KAISER WENT TO VIENNA." Sheffield Independent. 17 February. 1917. 1.
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