1915. The operations of allied submarines
were the next phases of the attack on the Dardanelles to be reported.
The _E-5_ grounded near Kephez Point on April 17, 1915, but before she
could be captured by the Turks picket boats from the allied fleet
rescued her crew and then destroyed her. It was just two months now
since the naval operations had begun at the Dardanelles; it was seen
then that all attempts to take them by naval operations alone must
fail as did the attack of March 18, 1915.

CHAPTER XXIX

GERMAN RAIDERS AND SUBMARINES

The next important event in the naval history of the war occurred in
far-distant waters. On March 10, 1915, there ended the wonderful
career of the German auxiliary cruiser _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_,
Captain Thierichens, which on that date put in at the American port of
Newport News, Va., for repairs, after making the harbor in spite of
the watch kept on it by British cruisers. She brought with her more
than 500 persons, 200 of them being her own crew, and the remainder
being passengers and crews of French, British, Russian, and American
ships that had been her victims in her roving over 30,000 miles of the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans since leaving Tsing-tau seven months
before.

She had sent eight merchant ships to the bottom, one of them being the
_William P. Frye_, an American vessel carrying wheat, three British
ships, three flying the French flag, and one Russian ship. Their total
tonnage came to 18,245. The fact that she had sunk an American ship on
the high seas opened up still another diplomatic controversy between
Germany and the United States, which cannot be treated here.

When she left Tsing-tau she took as her crew the men from the German
gunboats _Tiger_ and _Luchs_, and had their four 4.1-inch and some of
their one-pounder guns as her armament. Soon afterward she stopped the
British ship _Schargost_ and expected to refill her coal bunkers from
those of the merchantman, but in this she was disappointed, for those
of the latter were almost empty. Her next victim was a French sailing
vessel, _Jean_, and on board this was found a pleasant surprise for
the German raider, for the vessel was laden with coal. Captain
Thierichens had her towed 1,500 miles, to Easter Island, where the
coal was transferred to the bunkers of the _Eitel Friedrich_, and the
crews of her first three victims were put ashore. These marooned men
were burdens to the white inhabitants of the island,