t in the naval warfare of the Great War was
to involve diplomatic exchanges between the belligerents and the
United States. The African liner _Falaba_, a British ship on her
way from Liverpool to Lisbon, was torpedoed in St. George's Channel
on the afternoon of March 28, 1915. She had as one of her passengers
an American, L. C. Thrasher, who lost his life when the ship sank.

The naval warfare was proceeding like a game of checkers. When on
March 14, 1915, there came the end of still another of the German
raiding cruisers, the _Dresden_. She was a cruiser built in 1907
and having a displacement of 3,544 tons. Her speed was good--24.5
knots--and her armament of ten 4.1-inch guns and eight 5-pounder
guns made her quite a match for enemy warships of her class and
superior as for merchantmen. She was a sister ship to that other
famous raider the _Emden_. In 1909 she had taken her place among
the other foreign warships in the line in the Hudson River,
participating in the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In the spring of
1914 she was in the neighborhood of Central America and rescued
a number of foreign refugees who fled from Mexico, and also took
Senor Huerta from Puerto Mexico.

She was still in that neighborhood when the war broke out, and
was immediately sought after by British and French warships which
were near by. She managed to get away from these pursuers and sank
the British steamers _Hyades_ and _Holmwood_ off the Brazilian
coast during the latter part of August, 1914. She then went south,
rounded the Horn and joined the other ships under command of Admiral
Von Spee, taking part in the battle off Coronel, on November 1,
1914.

She remained with that squadron and took part in a second battle--that
off the Falkland Islands--on December 8, 1914. When Admiral von
Spee saw that he had little chance of winning the battle he gave
orders that the lighter ships should leave the line and seek safety
in flight. The _Dresden_ was one of the ships which escaped, to
the chagrin of the British Admiral. She then turned "raider."

Five days later, on December 13, 1914, she had appeared off Punta
Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan, stopped at that port long enough
to take on some provisions and put to sea again, with British and
Japanese warships on her trail. She was too closely hunted to be
able to sink many ships, but during the week of March 12, 1915,
she sank the British steamer _Conway Castle_, off the coast of
Chile, and too