Showing Approximate Armaments and Position of Minefields Fig 3-Map of Dardanelles Defences

Dedeagatch was bombarded on Oct. 21 and a British squadron was constantly operating at Salonika and on the Bulgarian coast until the end of the war. The collapse of Serbia in November i9i5 was followed by an Austrian naval raid upon Durazzo. The raiding force was engaged by the "Dartmouth," "Weymouth" and "Nino Bixio" (Italian), the Austrians escaping with the cruiser "Helgo land" badly damaged and a destroyer sunk. Corfu was occupied as a base for the Serbian army in Jan. 1916 but the subsequent vacillating conduct of Greece did much to hamper the Allies during the Salonika campaign (q.v.).

The year 1916 in the Mediterranean was a continual struggle with the German and Austrian submarines, whose use of the Greek ports and islands called for constant British and French activity around that coast. In December after an Allied force, landed from the fleet, was treacherously fired upon at Athens, a strict blockade of Greece was declared and enforced by the Allies. The British Aegean squadron, which was reinforced at the end of the year by four battleships, kept a close watch upon the Dardanelles and the Syrian coast during 1916.

Overseas

Feb. 28, 1916, the final surrender of the colony brought the Cameroon Campaign to an end. In East Africa, although the coast was blockaded by the Cape squadron, the coast towns remained in German hands until September 1916. By this time all were occupied and the colony was cut off from the sea. The command of Lake Tanganyika was established by two British motor boats, carried 2,000 miles overland from Cape town, but fighting in the interior continued until after the Armis tice. In Mesopotamia, 1916 was a year of pause and preparation for the next campaign. Kut surrendered on April 29 of ter a gallant naval attempt to relieve the town had failed five days previously.

Af ter the refusal of the Allies to consider her proffered peace terms at the end of 1916, Germany saw that her fate was sealed unless she could by some means, break the Allies' sea power (q.v.). The German High Naval Command was granted its wish and it was proclaimed that, after Feb. 1 submarines would sink all merchant ships on sight and without warning. The commence ment of this ruthless campaign (see SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN) was followed by the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany and on April 6 the United States entered the war against the Central Powers. The German aim was to strike a fatal blow by bringing the Allied, and more especially the British, seaborne trade to a standstill by sinking so many ships as to reduce seriously available tonnage and to make the merchantmen refuse to face the risk of sailing. To

some extent this latter was successful at first, in the case of neutral shipping, but British merchantmen continued to put to sea in spite of the heavy toll taken by the submarines. During February and March a weekly average of 23 British ships were lost and in April, the darkest month for British shipping, 196 vessels of nearly 600,000 tons were sunk. These losses were so serious, that, had they continued, success must have ultimately rewarded the German effort.

The Convoy System.

Every known method of protecting shipping at sea was adopted: camouflage (q.v.), defensive gun armaments, zig-zag courses in submarine waters and directing traffic along routes patrolled by craft armed with every anti-sub marine device were all tried; but still the toll of losses grew. In spite of constant changing of the patrolled routes, by the end of March this system had definitely broken down and the Con voy System (q.v.) was adopted. To this there was, at first, much opposition, both from the fleet and from merchant owners and ship masters, and the difficulties appeared insuperable. Chief amongst these was the finding of sufficient escort ships, mainly destroyers, for the convoys. The destroyers from the Grand Fleet and Harwich could not be spared, as the High Sea Fleet was still in being and a menace, and there were but few others. The arrival of an American flotilla at Queenstown and of a Japanese one in the Mediterranean eased the situation: the Admiralty under Jellicoe persevered and by the end of May the Convoy System was in full swing. Its effects were immediate. In the second quarter of the weekly average losses amounted to over 3o merchant ships : in the third quarter this was reduced to just over 20 and in the last quarter to well below that figure, whilst in 1918 the average weekly loss was under 15. In all, 88,000 ships sailed under convoy during the war with a loss of only one half of 1%. During 1917, 1,134 British ships were sunk by submarines, whilst 841 others were attacked and escaped: 137 were sunk by mines, mostly laid by submarines and 38 by surface craft. The total tonnage loss for the year was over 3.500,000 tons and as a counter to this great loss 75 German submarines were sunk.