SEA GIVES UP ITS DEAD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4580, 8 June 1917, Page 6

SEA GIVES UP ITS DEAD.

ADRIATIC DISCLOSURE. ANOTHER STORY OF GERMAN TREACHERY, “Many, I dare say. reading almost daily of German perfidies, pillagings, and atrocities, must sometimes think of the Duke of Alva and his Spanish soldiers in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century,” writes the Rev. Alexander Robertson, of Venice, in the Scotsman.“They too, were what Mr Morse, in his bopk. ‘An Englishman in the Russian Ranks,’ calls the Germans—‘an organised band of criminals, a trained body of thieves and murderers.’ _ The Germans to-day are overrunning much of the same country as they did, and. like them, they are deporting and massacring unarmed men, insulting and abusing women, mutilating children, destroying historic buildings, and looting and burning everywhere with savage cruelty. KAISER AS SPY AT VENICE. “And the Kaiser and his War Lords, like the Duke of Alva and his generals, have shown themselves adepts in deception and lying. Only, I am afraid, Alva and his generals must yield the palm to the Emperor and his War Lords, for whilst the former deceived a few cities, the latter have deceived and betrayed every nation on the face of the ’earth with whom they had dealings, and did so whilst professing towards them the sincerest friendship and goodwill. “Italy is conspicuously amongst these deceived and betrayed nations. For years before the war the Kaiser came regularly each spring to Venice with a large suite, when he met. at the homes of his lady friends, Italian naval and military authorities. Ostensibly His visits were tho outcome of admiration and love of Italy, but in reality, like those to England, were made for spying purposes. And all this when Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance! A TALE, FROM THE ADRIATIC.

“And now the blue Adriatic reveals another instance of German* treachery. It could not rest till its waters had cast up this German ‘mire and dirt.’

“At midnight on May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria. On June 17 a submarine, measuring 120 feet long and some 14 feet wide, with a displacement of 300 tons, was launched at Pola. going at once to Brioni, a mountainous island off fee Italian coast, famous as having supplied the Venetians with most- of tlte stones of which their city is built. Sho flew the Austrian flag, and was numbered TJB24. She had a crew of fourteen men. She was built not to sink ships by torpedoing them, hut to do so by placing mines in their routes. Earl’v in July she began her work. Across the mouth of the Taranto Bay she laid a lino of mines, hoping to blow up the Italian war vessels frequenting that port. But the mine-sweepers detected them in time, and cleared them away. “In August she returned to Taranto and again set her traps and once more they were detected in time ahd swept up. She then changed her mission, and, leaving for a time minelaying, carried arms and ammunition from Catetaro to Bardia. in Cyrennica, to foment and feed the rebellion of the Arabs against Italy. Then, early in 1916, it became known that tho Serbian army and refugees, having endured terrible hardships and sufferings in their journey across the mountains of Albania, were reaching in safety the Adriatic coast at Durazzo, and that Italian ships were being sent to take them board at that port. Immediately U 824 ceased her Cyrenaica mission, and was busily engaged sowing the waters ot the Adriatic all about Durazzo with mines. , “But once again the vigilance, daring, and endurance of the Italian mine-sweepers were crowned \\ ith success, and not a transport was sunk During the months ot February and March. 1916, TTB24 seems to have had a sort of roving commission to go here, there and everywhere about the Adriatic Italian coast, and sow mines broadcast at every poit, in the hopes that some one would take effect. And at last one or them did. As she was completing her ncfarious'Work outside a liiuch-R'oqueiit-eel harbor, she herself struck one of her own mines. A loud explosion followed, the vessel was seen to break and bend at the centre, and quickly she disappeared from. view.

the SEA GIVES UP A U-BOAT

“Anc! non', after nearlv a_ year, the sea has given up TJ.824., and the dead that were in it, and at tlic same tune disclosed a tale of German treachery. Italy and Germany were not at vai during the operations of tins boat, nor for some six months hitei. SI met her end in the last days ot Maicli, img • Italv did not declare war on cers and crew were all. German. Its loi states that it was built at Bremen inA.9ls, in the shipyard of one called Woser. Its first operations uei against England in the Aor h Sea. Then a few irooks after My had tieclared war on Austria, she put. into Kiel She was there taken to pieces, hex various sections put.into wagons, which, on June 21, arrived at tola. There the vessel was reconstructed, and on the. 27th. as J. have said, crossed over to the island of®Brioni to .enter upon her piratical career, as an Austrian submarine. bhe ms evidently prepared to .put on other disguises, for she carried an Englisn a French, and a Greek flag on hoard. “Death found officers and ciew all at their posts, and had overtaken them suddenly, for they bore no traces of suffering. Tlio cap am was in the conning tower Ho had evi dently perceived tlm dangei. and had riven the order, ‘Back, full speedand his lieutenant had turned the indicator to those words. 1 tit .as too late, and in a moment they met their tragiejmek” •- „