With the Fleets.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 244, 24 March 1915, Page 5

With the Fleets.

THE BATAVIER'S CAPTURE,

PASSENGER'S STORY.

GERMANS HOIST WAR FLAG ON DUTCH BOATS.

HAMBURG AMERICA LINER INTERNED.

ATTEMPTED ESCAPE FRUSTRATED.

Received March 23, 5.30 p.m. London, March 23. A passenger on the Batavier says he was awakened on Thursday morning and told a submarine had captured the ship. German officers boarded her and took lier to Zeebruggc. All were confined to their cabins. The vessel was brought to the inner'harbor and kept imprisoned for two days, none being allowed on deck. They were transported by train to Client, the officers guarding the windows which were closed. Sixteen of the crew of the Laendstroom have arrived at Amsterdam. They .state that the Germans 'hoisted tin- war flag on the two Dutch steamers.

The Hamburg Amerika liner Openwala was interned at San Juan,. Porto Rico, and attempted to escape. The forts fired blank cartridges and then, as the steamer persisted, they used live shells. The Openwald returned to her anchorage.

AIRSHIP OVER NORTH SEA. BEGIAN GRAIN STEAMER BOMBED.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

SUCCOURED BY BRITISH DESTROYER.

Received March 24, 12.5 a.m. Amsterdam, March 23. A Tanbe over the North Sea threw four bombs at the steamer El Flante. laden with grain for the Belgian Relief Commission, but missed. -"■■-•'h>-'s;s# The oll'ieer manoeuvred the steamer until a British destroyer drove off the airman. ANOTHER STEAMER TORPEDOED. CREW LANDED AT DOVER. Received March 23, 9 p.m. London, March 23. The, steamer Concord was torpedoed in the Channel. She is still afloat. The crew were landed at Dover. GERMAN LOSSES MADE GOOD. DECLARATION' IN THE REICHSTAG. 'Amsterdam, March 23. During the discussion on the naval estimates in the Reichstag the privileges committee reported that the declared naval losses were already made good.

DRESDEN'S CREW INTERNED.

Received March 23, 9 p.m. Santiago do Chile, March 23. The Dresden's crew were interned on Quirigina Island.

GERMANS SEIZE A CARGO.

Copenhagen, March 22. The Bryssel has been released, hut the Germans seized her cargo.

THE BLUCHER BLUNDER.

THE GERMAN VIEW. It will he particularly interesting to follow the course of the firmly -planted German fables about the naval battle in the North Sea. Such additional comment as has yet reached us consists almost entirely of variations of the "well informed" story circulated by the German Press Bureau. The Frankfurter Zeitung evidently realised < that there was probably' something "wrong, and, could not say more than that, notwithstanding the' English report, it was "not impossible" that a British battle-cruiser had been sunk. The Berlin correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, perhaps the only German journalist who is not always deceived hy German official stories, sent the following curt telegram to his journal:— "A final judgment about the course and the importance of the naval battle cannot be obtained upon the T)asis of the first short German official report, and that is, no doubt, the reason why the Berlin evening papers for the present abstain from general discussion and limit themselves to brief remarks. There are reports from abroad which represent the course of the battle otherwise than the short German report, but only when this report has been completed by closer details, which must be the ease, will a technical judgment about this naval battle be possible." Count Reventlow expands the official storv without adding anything to it except that, in order to shQw that the Blucher was not really a battle-cruiser, he discloses the fact that,the German naval authorities, in thejt over-eager-ness to compete with the British Navy, made a blunder when she was laid down. Needless to say, he attributes this blunder to deliberate British guile. He wr ifcs:—"Blucher was laid down when the first English so-called Dreadnought cruisers of the Invincible type were in course of construction. The English Admiralty intentionally published false news about the measurements and the guns of these ships—especially the statement that the Invincible type would have a draught of only 10,000 tons. Thereupon the plans of construction of the Blucher were settled upon the basis of a draught of 10,000 tons. When it afterwards turned out that the Invincible class had a draught of over 20,000 tons, and a heavy artillery of eight 12in guns, no change was possible, and one could only take; the Blucher as she was. So she remained the only representative of her type, and it is only with the, Von der Tann, that the series begins of those admirable German .bat-tle-cruisers which are rightly famous throughout the whole world."