BRITISH STEAMER RIDDLED BY SHELL-FIRE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2422, 30 March 1915, Page 5

BRITISH STEAMER RIDDLED BY SHELL-FIRE

SHIP'S OFFICERS FATALLY WOUNDED GERMAN SUBMARINE 'SUNK BIG GUNS OPEN FIRE ON THE DARDANELLES WAR CRISIS IN ITALY GALLANT FIGHT BY FRENCH "BLUE DEVILS" N To-day's news from both Eastern and Western theatres of the war is for the most part a formal recital of official communiques, telling oji the. whole of successful fighting by the Allies. There is a stirring account of the storming of Hartmansweiler Eopf, in Alsace, by the Alpine Chasseurs of the French Army, nicknamed the "Blue Devils." The German pirate raiders in British coastal waters have been displaying more activity, and a particularly callous and vindictive attack on a defenceless merchant steamer —British—by one of the enemy's submarines, is chronicled to-day. The steamer unsuccessfully attempted to escape, manoeuvring for two hours, but was at length riddled by shell fire, from the submarine's deck gun, and sunk, several members of the crew and pqssenger being fatally •wounded. It is. also reported that the sinking of the steamer Delmira was avenged almost immediately afterwards by the steamer Lizzie, which rau over the pirate at full speed, suggestive oily traces appearing on the surface afterwards. The big attack on the Dardanelles has begun in gtim earnest, the British battleship Queen Elizabeth opening the ball with a long-range bombardment from the Gulf of Saros. There is a remarkable story from Constantinople, telling of a proclamation by the Sultan that the French and British warships will shortly arrive in the Bospborus, the Dardanelles haying been made a free water-way for all"; and of impending chaos at the: Turkish capital. The war crisis in Italy is no\v acute, and popular demonstrations in favoijr of war, anti-Austrian outbursts of feeling,' ppint to a boil-over- at almost any ■ moment. Relations between Bulgaria and the Austro-Germany plenipotentiaries have been strained. There aye horrifying stories of Kurdish and Turkish atrocities in North-West Persia where fiendish oruelties have been perpetrated.