then
showed themselves capable of sinking a merchantman.

In the four engagements of importance which had been fought by the end
of January, 1915, the British had been the victors in three--the battles
of the Bight of Helgoland, the Falkland Islands, and the third German
raid of January 24, 1915--the Germans had been victors in one--the fight
off Coronel.

British and other allied ships were unable to inflict damage on the
coast defenses of Germany, but the latter in two successful raids had
been able to bombard British coast towns, offsetting in a way the loss
of oversea dominions.

Great Britain, after six months of naval warfare had lost three
battleships, the _Bulwark_, _Formidable_, and _Audacious_;[1] the five
armored cruisers _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, _Hogue_, _Monmouth_, and _Good
Hope_; the second-class cruisers _Hawke_ and _Hermes_; the two
third-class cruisers _Amphion_ and _Pegasus_; the protected scout
_Pathfinder_ and the converted liner _Oceanic_; losses in destroyers and
other small vessels were negligible.

[Footnote 1: The British admiralty did not clear up the
mystery of her disaster.]

Germany had lost no first-class battleships, but in third-class cruisers
her loss was great, those that went down being the eleven ships
_Ariadne_, _Augsburg_, _Emden_, _Graudenz_, _Hela_, _Koeln_,
_Koenigsberg_, _Leipzig_, _Nuernberg_, _Magdeburg_, _Mainz_, and the
_Dresden_; she lost, also, the four armored cruisers _Bluecher_,
_Scharnhorst_, _Gneisenau_, and _Yorck_; the old cruiser _Geier_
(interned); the three converted liners _Spreewald_, _Cap Trafalgar_, and
_Kaiser Wilhelm_; and the mine layer _Koenigin Luise_.

The German policy of attrition had not taken off as many ships as had
been lost by Germany herself, and, as England's ships so far outnumbered
her own, it may well be said that the "whittling" policy was not
successful. She made up for this by having still at large the cruiser
_Karlsruhe_ which damaged a great amount of commerce, and by the
exploits of her submarines, far outshining those of the Allies.

Russia had lost the armored cruiser _Pallada_, and the _Jemchug_, a
third-class cruiser, and the losses of the French and Austrian navies
were not worth accounting. With regard to interned vessels both sides
had losses. While the Germans were unable to use the great modern
merchantmen which lay in American and other ports, and had to do without
them either as converted cruisers or