MERCHANTMEN CAPTURED AND SUNK

During the first months of the war a large number of merchant vessels, principally German and British, were captured or sunk.  According to a British Admiralty return, issued September 28, twelve British ships with an aggregate tonnage of 59,331 tons had been sunk on the high seas by German cruisers up to September 23.  Eight other British ships, whose tonnage aggregated 2,970, had been sunk by German mines in the North Sea, and 24 fishing craft, with a tonnage of 4,334, had been captured or sunk by the Germans in the same waters.  British ships detained at German ports numbered 74, with a total tonnage of 170,000.

On the other side the Admiralty reported 102 German ships, with a total tonnage of 200,000, detained in British ports since the outbreak of the war; while 88 German ships, of an aggregate tonnage of 338,000, had been captured since hostilities began.

The return also showed that 168 German ships, with an aggregate tonnage of 283,000, had been detained or captured by the Allies.  Fifteen ships, with a tonnage of 247,000, were detained in American ports, while fourteen others, with a tonnage of 72,000, remained in the Suez Canal.

The German mines in the North Sea had also destroyed seven Scandinavian ships, with a tonnage of 11,098.

GERMAN CRUISERS ACTIVE

Several German cruisers were amazingly active in distant waters early in the war.  Among these were the Goeben, Breslau, Emden, Karlsruhe, and Leipzig, which captured or sank a number of vessels of the enemy.  The German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau also operated in the Pacific, bombarding the French colony of Papeete, on the island of Tahiti, and inflicting much damage, including the sinking of two vessels.

On August 26 the big converted German liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, while cruising on the northwest coast of Africa, was sunk by the British cruiser Highflyer.

The German cruiser Dresden was reported sunk by British cruisers in South American waters in the second week of September.  The Emden, operating under the German flag in the Indian Ocean, sank several British steamers.  Several Austrian vessels succumbed to mines off the coast of Dalmatia and in the Baltic there were a number of casualties in which both Russian and German cruisers suffered.  The Russian armored cruiser Bayan was sunk in a fight near the entrance to the Gulf of Finland.

On September 20 the German protected cruiser Koenigsberg attacked the British light cruiser Pegasus in the harbor of Zanzibar and disabled her.  Off the east coast of South America the British auxiliary cruiser Carmania, a former Cunard liner, destroyed a German merchant cruiser mounting eight four-inch guns.  About the same time the German cruiser Hela was sunk in the North Sea by the British submarine E-9.  The Kronprinz Wilhelm, a former German liner, which had been supplying coal to German cruisers in the Atlantic, was also sunk by the British.