Fryatt were sent to the
prison camp at Ruhlaben, but Captain Fryatt was condemned to death as a
"franc-tireur." The news of the murder was sent to the world through a
German communique dated July 28th. It stated:

The accused was condemned to death because, although he was not a member
of a combatant force, he made an attempt on the afternoon of March 20,
1915, to ram the German submarine U-33 near the Maas lightship. The
accused, as well as the first officer and the chief engineer of the
steamer, received at the time from the British Admiralty a gold watch as
a reward of his brave conduct on that occasion, and his action was
mentioned with praise in the House of Commons.

On the occasion in question, disregarding the U-boat's signal to stop
and show his national flag, he turned at a critical moment at high speed
on the submarine, which escaped the steamer by a few meters only by
immediately diving. He confessed that in so doing he had acted in
accordance with the instructions of the Admiralty. One of the many
nefarious franc-tireur proceedings of the British merchant marine
against our war vessels has thus found a belated but merited expiation.

This brutal action by Germany coming after the murder of Edith Cavell
created intense indignation throughout the world. It ranked with the
poison gas at Ypres, the Lusitania, the Belgian atrocities, the killing
of Edith Cavell and the unrestricted submarine sinkings, as a factor in
arousing the democratic peoples of the world to a fighting pitch.

Germany sowed its seeds of destruction in the wind that bore the fumes
of poison gas, and in the ruthless brutality that decreed the sinking of
the Lusitania and the murders of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt.

It reaped the whirlwind in the world-wide wrath that brought America
into the war, and that visited disgrace and defeat upon the German
Empire.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

First to feel the effects of German terrorism through poison gas were
the gallant Canadian troops on the afternoon of April 22, 1915, at
Ypres, Belgium. Gas had been used by the Germans previously to this, but
they were mere experimental clouds directed against Belgian troops.

Before the battle, the English and Canadians held a line from
Broodseinde to half a mile north of St. Julien on the crest of the
Grafenstafel Ridge. The French prolonged the line to Steenstraate on the
Yperlee Canal. The Germans originally planned th