MOST TERRIBLE BLUFF IN THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 207, 30 August 1916, Page 5

MOST TERRIBLE BLUFF IN THE WAR.

WHY THE GERMANS STOPPED THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN MARVELLOUS WORK OF THE PATROL SHIP 3. FRITZ DOES NOT SINK UNARMED TRAWLERS NOW. (Received 8.-50 a.m.) LONDON, Aagast 29. Mr. Alfred Xoycs, the noted British poet, in his second article, states that for many months a certain strip of the North African coast was strewn with wreckage and men's bodies from merchant ships, allied and neutral, who met German submarines. We dispatched a flotilla of trawlers and drifters there and that ccaet is to-day as clean as any in Britain. On one occasion one squadron was withdrawn to the mouth of the Adriatic in order to deal with unexpected trouble in the -Egean Sea. The submarines promptly emerged from the unguarded gates, and more wreckage and dead strewed the unwatched shores. British longshore fishermen may be found patrolling the frozen wastes of the White Sea. Others are always patrolling the coast of Bulgaria. Sinking unarmed fishing boats was one of Fritz's favourite amusements early in the war. Mr. Noye3 relates a typical true story recorded in the official logbook of how a submarine surprised the trawler Victoria on a fishing bank 130 miles from land. The trawler took a forlorn hope and tore' homewards. One after another shells killed her crew -until four were left. The submarine picked up tho survivors and the commander examined them singly concerning the patrol system, but all refused to answer. Mr. Noyes continues that the sinking of these fishing boats suddenly ceased, except on rar. occasions, and the fact is now acknowledged that when a submarine sees one it submerges or bolts. Qetails must not be given, but one may give one or two. There was once a simple fishing boat shooting nets. A submarine gave the men five minutes to leave, and immediately there was a panic ahoard the boat, which had been part of the drill in port. Two of the crew went down on their knees for mercy. Others hauled at boats like men possessed. Passing over details again the resultant picture showed a dummy boat on the deck in four pieces, and* a fine big gun lei-elled at the submarine with the Navy's gunners in attendance, and trro Germans kneeling for mercy; an abolished submarine, and oil upon the troubled waters. The war has niade many queer transformations. What looks like a battleship may be a comparatively harmless thing resembling Noah's Ark. German warships run from a boat harmless as a mouse. They are confronting tbe most terrible bluff in war gamble. Passengers by American and other neutral liners heave sighs of content at sighting a British man-of-war. which' is not a man-of-war at all, while all around the sea as dotted with insignificant craft, ships of Drake and Hawkins, loaded with unimagined thunderbolts. They are England's world-patrolling hattle fleet;