he _Sussex_ under the
lee of a captured Belgian vessel, and when within easy target distance
fired the torpedo. According to this version, the Belgian ship then
was compelled to put about and leave the stricken steamer's passengers
and crew to what seemed certain destruction. The presence of this
third craft never was definitely established, although vouched for by
a number of those on the _Sussex_.

Of thirty American passengers five or six sustained painful injuries.
The victims included several prominent persons, one of whom was
Enrique Granados, the Spanish composer, and his wife. They had just
returned from the United States where they had witnessed the
presentation of his opera "Goyescas."

The _Sussex_, which flew the French flag, although owned by a British
company, had no guns aboard and was in no wise an auxiliary craft. She
reached Boulogne in tow, and the American consul there reported that
undoubtedly she had been torpedoed. (For an account of the
negotiations between the United States and Germany in relation to this
affair see United States and the Belligerents, Vol. V, Part X.)
Ambassador Gerard, in Berlin, was instructed to ask the German
Government for any particulars of the incident in its possession, so
as to aid the United States in reaching a conclusion. Berlin, after
much evasion, admitted that a submarine had sunk a vessel near the
spot where the _Sussex_ was lost, but gave it an entirely different
description.

The British converted liner _Minneapolis_, used as a transport, was
torpedoed in the Mediterranean with a loss of eleven lives, although
this vessel also stayed afloat, according to a statement issued in
London, March 26, 1916. She was a ship of 15,543 tons and formerly ran
in the New York-Liverpool service. In a brush between German and
British forces near the German coast, March 25, 1916, a British light
cruiser, the _Cleopatra_, rammed and sunk a German destroyer. The
British destroyer _Medusa_ also was sunk, but her crew escaped to
other vessels. In addition the Germans lost two of their armed fishing
craft.

Fourteen nuns and 101 other persons were killed or drowned March 30,
1916, when the Russian hospital ship _Portugal_ was sunk in the Black
Sea between Batum and Rizeh on the Anatolian coast by a torpedo. The
_Portugal_ had stopped and was preparing to take aboard wounded men on
shore. Several of those on the vessel saw the periscope of a
submarine appear above the waves, but