ar zone" was issued
they were individual cases; the first instance of a merchant ship
being sunk as a result of the new policy of the German admiralty
was the sinking of the British steamer _Cambark_ on the 20th of
February, 1915. This ship was bound for Liverpool, from Huelva,
Spain. While off the north coast of Wales, on the morning of the
20th, the periscope of a hostile submarine was sighted only 200
yards ahead. The engines of the steamship were immediately reversed,
but she had no time to make off, for a torpedo caught her amidships
and she started to sink immediately. Her crew managed to get off
in small boats, but all of their personal belongings were lost.

The small Irish coasting steamer _Downshire_ was made a victim
on the 21st of February, 1915, but instead of sending a torpedo
into her hull, the commander of the _U-12_, the submarine which
overhauled her, resorted to boarding. After trying to elude the
submarine by steering a zigzag course, the _Downshire_ was finally
overtaken. The crew was ordered to take to the small boats, while
nineteen men of the submarine, which had come above water, watched
the operations from the deck. A crew from the submarine took one of
the small boats of the steamship and rowed toward her. They placed
a bomb in a vital spot and set it off, sinking the merchantman.
In this way the submarine's commander had saved a torpedo. A
conversation which took place between the captains of the two craft
revealed the methods by which the submarine commanders were able,
not only to steal up on their intended victims, but to elude being
sighted by the patrolling British warships. Some fishing smacks
had been in the vicinity while the _Downshire_ was sunk, and the
British captain asked the German captain why they had not been
attacked. The latter hinted that his plans worked best if the fishing
boats were unmolested. When asked whether he had hidden behind
one these little boats he changed the subject, but it was learned
later that the commanders of the submarines made a practice of
coming to the surface right near fishing boats and bade them act
as screens while they lay in wait for victims. By keeping the small
boats covered with a deck gun or by putting a boarding crew aboard,
it was possible for the commanders of the submarines to keep their
periscopes or the hulls of their vessels behind the sails of the
fishing boats, unobservable to lookouts on larger ships.

By the 23d of February,