ched against the unsuspecting and unprotected leviathan.
Traveling true to its mark, it tore its frightful way through the thin
sheathing of the ship and, exploding on impact, pierced her vitals and
sealed her doom. * * *

Barely a quarter of an hour elapsed before the giant vessel disappeared
from sight, plunging bow foremost to the bottom in waters scarcely more
than one-third of her length in depth, so that the shock of her bow
striking the bottom of the sea was felt by the gallant captain on the
bridge before he was torn loose from his ill-fated vessel.

And when the waters of the Atlantic closed over the hull of the
Lusitania, within sight of the Irish coast on that fatal Friday, the
lives of over eleven hundred non-combatant men, women and children,
including more than a hundred American neutrals, were ruthlessly
sacrificed to the Teuton god of war.

CHAPTER XXIV

A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER

_Submarine Activities--Horrors in Serbia--Bloody Battles East and
West--Italy Enters the War and Invades Austria--Russians Pushed Back in
Galicia._

The Lusitania was the twenty-ninth vessel to be sunk or damaged in the
first week of May, 1915, in the war zone established by Germany about
the British isles. Most of these vessels were torpedoed by German
submarines, although in some cases it has not been established whether
the damage was inflicted by mines or underwater boats.

Sixteen of the twenty-nine vessels were British trawlers. There were
four British and one French merchantman in the list. The others were
vessels of neutral nations.

One of them was the American steamer Gulflight, torpedoed off Scilly
islands on May 1, with the loss of three lives. There were three
Norwegian, two Swedish, and one Danish merchant vessel sunk.

BLOODY BATTLES EAST AND WEST.

The second week in May saw minor German successes on the western front,
but these were immediately succeeded by determined efforts on the part
of the Allies to retrieve lost ground. The week of May 10 to 15 was
marked by fierce assaults by the British and French upon the German
positions in Flanders and northern France. Thousands of lives were
sacrificed on both sides. At one point on the Yser where the Germans
were beaten back, they left 2,000 dead on the field, but this was only a
small percentage of the total losses during this series of engagements
in May. Around Ypres early in the month the Canadians lost heavily, but
made a splendid record for gal