The German Pirate His Methods and Record
THE
German Pirate
His Methods and Record
By AJAX
“Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and theshort peace more than the long.”
Fr. Nietzsche’s “War and Warriors.”
“The German who loves his people, and believes in thegreatness and the future of our home ... must not let himselfbe lazily sung to sleep by the peace-lullabies of the Utopians.”
The German Crown Prince in “Germany under Arms.”
“Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimentalto the national health so soon as they influence politics.”
General von Bernhardi’s “Germany and the Next War.”
LONDON:
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LTD.
18 Henrietta Street, W.C. 2.
1918
FOREWORD
“The German people is always right, because it is theGerman people, and numbers 87 million souls.”[A]
O. R. Tannenberg.
The sea is a stern mistress. She demandsfrom her sons both vigilance and skill inher service, and for the man who fails her thepenalty is death. From generation to generationmen have faced and fought the samedangers in every ocean. Going down to thesea in ships from a thousand different ports, themariners of the world have triumphed or diedlike their fathers before them, in the face ofdangers as old as the world itself. And becausethey have braved the same perils, seamenof all nations have been united in a splendidfellowship, which is called the Brotherhoodof the Sea. The mariner in danger who sentout a call for help could count on assistancefrom his brother of the sea, regardless of[Pg 4]nationality; while with the advance of scienceand coming of wireless telegraphy, the scope ofsuch mutual assistance became more and moreextended. Without hesitation men turnedtheir ships from their intended course, onreceiving the S.O.S. signal, and sped formiles to the help of their unfortunatebrothers.
It bound men together, this Brotherhoodof the Sea, in a way never fully to be comprehendedby landsmen. It was a fine, manlyfreemasonry, and demanded from its membersthose qualities of courage, honour, andchivalry which are the true seaman’s heritage.Not until the coming of the Germansubmarine commander was the Brotherhoodof the Sea destroyed.
The following accounts of German submarineexploits have been compiled fromBritish Admiralty documents and the swornstatements of survivors. Each story is aplain statement of fact. They are, of course,merely a selection, but they show quite clearlythe lines upon which the German submarine[Pg 5]campaign has been conducted from the beginningof the war up to the latter part of 1917.
It is only right that the tale of thesesinkings should be widely known, becauseonly by knowing what has actually takenplace can a true opinion be formed about theGerman submariner and his work. For thisreason, the following accounts have been setdown as simply as possible, without exaggerationor