in a collision, though she later succeeded in reaching port.
On October 11th the American steamer Otranto was sunk in a collision
with the British liner Cashmere. Of seven hundred American soldiers who
were on board 365 were lost. At this time about three thousand
anti-submarine craft were in operation day and night around the British
Isles, and about five thousand working in the open sea. This was what
made it possible for the Allies to win the war.

Inasmuch as the illegal use of the submarine by Germany brought America
into the war it was extremely appropriate that she should take an active
part in the suppression of the submarine menace. The methods which were
used in fighting the submarines differed much in different cases. The
action of the government in arming merchantmen and in providing them
with trained gun crews did much to lower the number of such ships sunk
by the U-boats.

The submarine, which had formerly been able to stop the unarmed
merchantman and sink him at leisure, after a few combats with an armed
merchantman began to be very wary and to depend almost entirely upon his
torpedoes. It was not always easy for the submarine to get in a position
where her torpedo would be effective, and the merchantman was carefully
directed, if attacked, to pursue a ziz-zag irregular course, and at the
same time endeavor to hamper the submarine by shooting as near her
periscope as possible.

Along the sea coasts and at certain points in the English Channel great
nets were used effectively. Submarines, however, toward the end of the
war were made sufficiently large to be able to force their way through
these nets, and net-cutting devices were also used by them with
considerable effect. The best way to destroy the submarines seemed to be
in a direct attack by flotillas of destroyers.

By the end of the war the whole process of sinking or destroying
submarines had been thoroughly organized. Practically every portion of
the seas near Great Britain and France was carefully watched and the
appearance of a submarine immediately reported. As the submarine would
only travel at a certain well-understood speed during a given time, it
was possible to calculate, after the locality of one was known, about
how far from that point it would be found at any later period.
Destroyers were therefore sent circling around the point where the
submarine had been discovered, enlarging their distance from the center
every hour. In the cours