nstantinople.
All signs indicated a Russian offensive with Trebizond as its
immediate objective. The harbor's fortifications already had been
damaged by the Russian fire, and the fleet undoubtedly could cooperate
in any attack upon the city.

The Turkish navy, like the Austrian, kept to home waters. Scarcely a
month passed that engagements were not reported between the _Goeben_
and _Breslau_ with vessels of the enemy. Many of these were
circumstantial, one of which recounted a long range fight between the
_Goeben_ and Russian warships, in which the _Goeben_ was said to have
been severely damaged. According to subsequent reports a great hole in
her hull was patched with cement, armor plate being unavailable in
Constantinople.

Losses inflicted upon British shipping up to the end of February,
1916, were slightly under 4 per cent of the vessels flying the British
flag, and a shade more than 6 per cent in point of tonnage. The loss
of the other Allies, on a basis of tonnage, was as follows: France, 7
per cent; Russia, 5 per cent; and Italy, 4-1/2 per cent.

How heavy the hand of war has fallen upon neutrals may be judged from
a comparison of sea casualties. Italy lost twenty-one steamers with a
gross tonnage of 70,000 in the period before the reader, while Norway,
a neutral, lost fifty steamers having an aggregate tonnage of 96,000,
more than 25 per cent larger. Total allied shipping losses numbered
481 steamships having a tonnage of 1,621,000, and fifty-seven sailing
vessels, with a tonnage of 47,000. One hundred and forty-six neutral
craft were sunk, whose tonnage reached 293,375, while sailing vessels
to the number of forty-two, with a tonnage of 24,001, were lost.
Germany's methods cost innocent bystanders among the nations almost
one-fifth of the damage done to her foes' commercial fleets.

Inclusive of trawlers, 980 merchant craft had been sunk by the end of
February, of which 726 were vessels of good size. It was destruction
upon a scale never seen before, an economic pressure that made former
wars seem mere tournaments. And Germany's most desperate attempts
failed to accomplish her end--the halting of allied commerce. Although
it was mathematically certain that a percentage of the ships sailing
every day would be torpedoed, the world's trade went on in the usual
channels.

There was a brighter side to the situation. "After more than a year of
war," says a British admiralty statement, "the steam shipping of Gre