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The French cruiser Leon Gambetta, with a displacement of 12,351 tons and crew of 714 men, commanded by Rear Admiral Fenet, cruising at the entrance of the Otranto canal in the Ionian sea, was torpedoed the night of April 26th by the Austrian submarine U-5, and went to the bottom in ten minutes; 578 lives were lost; all officers on board, including Rear Admiral Fenet, perished.
Oct. 6 Germany asks President Wilson for armistice. Oct. 7 Americans capture hills around Argonne. Oct. 8 President Wilson refuses armistice. Oct. 9 Allies capture Cambrai. Oct. 10 Allies capture Le Gateau. Oct. 11 American transport Otranto torpedoed and sunk; 500 lost. Oct. 13 Foch's troops take Laon and La Fere.
She reached Boulogne in tow, and the American consul there reported that undoubtedly she had been torpedoed. Berlin, after much evasion, admitted that a submarine had sunk a vessel near the spot where the Sussex was lost, but gave it an entirely different description.
Every ship that's torpedoed doesn't sink, and we may be one of the lucky ones. And if I should happen to get some views of a destroyer sinking a submarine why, I'd have something that any camera man in the world would be proud of!" "That's right!" agreed Blake. "But don't take any chances."
He was en route to his post at the time and the United States Government found itself facing another serious situation. Here was an American official, bound on official business, killed by a friendly nation. There the problem became more complex. It could not be proved to whom the submarine belonged that attacked the ship; it could not even be shown that she had been torpedoed.
He scowled round at the long green slopes of the sea and shook his fist. "The curs!" he said. "The dirty scum.... Women on board.... No warning...." Anger and salt water choked him. "They wouldn't even give me a gun because I was a passenger ship. Unarmed, carrying women, torpedoed without warning.... I'll spit in the face of every German I meet from here to Kingdom Come!"
"Where is Steinbrink now?" "On December 8, 1916, the German Admiralty announced that he had just returned from a special trip, having torpedoed and mined twenty-two ships on one voyage." "What had he been doing?" "For several months last summer he trained officers and crews in this branch of warfare, which gained him international notoriety."
But there was not much excitement or crowding on the Ostende steamer or any of those sensational precautions against being torpedoed or mined, which soon afterwards oppressed the spirits of cross-Channel passengers.
And then those two 5-inch guns went off together. War-ships are built to withstand impact, but merchant-ships no. This time the chief was sure she was torpedoed. His fire-room force were mostly Spaniards. He used to talk at table about his fire-room gang.
In the meantime, however, the American ship, Nebraskan, had been torpedoed off the coast of Ireland on the twenty-sixth; and, on May twenty-eighth, Germany stated that the American steamer, Gulfflight, had been torpedoed by mistake, and apologised for this act. Bryan as Secretary of State.
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