With the Fleets.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 245, 25 March 1915, Page 5

With the Fleets.

RUSSIA'S BLACK SEA FLEET. BOMBARDING TURKISH POETS. Received March 24, 7.20 p.m. . London, March 24. iiic Russian fleet bombarded several Turkish ports in Asia Minor. THE GERMAN BLOCKADE. FIVE BRITISH STEAMERS SUNK BY ONE SU'BMARIXE. Received March -24, 7.30 p.m. Paris, March 24. A German submarine placed the cn-w of a British steamer aboard the barque Jacques Coena, 85 miles off the Lizard. The submarine stated that s'io had sunk five British vessels. The Jacques Coena transferred the crew to a British vessel. PLANNING TO ESCAPE. GERMAN INTERNED STEAMERS GIVING TROUBLE, Received March 24, 8.35 p.m. Washington, Murch 24. The Government has ordered the despatch of destroyers and the cruiser Algonquin to prevent the attempts of interned German steamers to escape from San Juan, Porto Rico. The authorities have been informed tbat the. Oldenburg and President were planning to : tscape. The former was recently re- 1 captured 'while attempting to leave, and ' the Porto Rican authorities have begiin confiscation 'proceedings for breach c! neutrality. j

DUTCH SHIPS DETAINED AND CARGO CONFISCATED. A QUESTION FOR THE GERMANS. GOVERNMENT WANTS EXPLANATION. Amsterdam, March 23. The Government inquired in Bei'lin why cargo that was not contraband aboard the Zaanstroom and Bata.'ier was confiscated, why the vessels wen; detained, and why they were compe'l'd to strike their flag and hoist that of Germany? The Netherlands reply to Britain and Franco regarding reprisals against Germany protests against encroachment on neutral rights. THE MACEDONIA INCIDENT. Received March 24, 10.20 p.m. Madrid, March 2-1. The escape of the Macedonia from I.as Palmas is denied. SUBMARINE SUCCESSES. So much has been heard of German submarines during the present war that it is interesting to learn that an expert considers the British submarine service has made more use of its limited opportunities than the Germans of theirs. Mr Fred T. Jane, the well-known naval writer, refers to this subject in the Edinburgh Review, and states that it can be safely assumed that as far as relative, efficiency is concerned, British, French, German, and Austrian submarines are "much of a muchness." Then lie says:— "The difference between the very best and the very worst of them is a trivial and a tiny flea-bite compared to the human element concerned in the control of tin' delicate mechanism which luis been created." He sees in this the whole crux of the submarine matter, and he lavs great stress on the fact that in a submarine where officers and men all live "hugger-mugger" together, the old emit vasts between the ranks have largely to go by the board. Submarine efficiency, he says, depends mainly upon how far this state of feeling can be assimilated without the men taking advantage of their officers—that is to say, on the officer being able to maintain his authority on purely personal grounds in which neither age, bivi.li, nor rank has any status whatever. In the British submarine .service the requisite conditions obtain almost invariably. The normal temperament r,» the British gentleman leads him that way. The normal temperament of the German gentleman is somewhat otherwise—and here, in Mr .lane's opinion, lie-, the secret of the general failure of tin- German .submarine attacks on the British Navy. "We have, it is true, lost, some ships by submarine attack. But in each anil every one <:f these ea- ; es 1 lie loss has been neacniinjilishcd by -nrfae> aiil-a trawler or yacht under a neutral llag. Though opportunities have hem many, every German submarine attack, in the. real sense of the word, lias been a failure. Wo. 'in the other hand, have been very nearly devoid of opportunity, yet we have managed to score three purely submarine successes."