I again left the ship that evening—­she being then in charge of the Admiralty.  I visited the ship on Monday.  I went out again on Tuesday, but it was too rough to get on board.  To the best of my knowledge there was no examination of the vessel made by divers until Wednesday about 3 P.M., when members from the American Embassy were present.  The divers at this time made an external examination only of the ship’s bottom and left the ship with me at 5:40 P.M.

Aim of Submarine Warfare

[From The London Times, April 30, 1915.]

Dr. Flamm, Professor of Ship Construction at the Technical High School at Charlottenburg, publishes in the Vossische Zeitung an extraordinary article on the impending destruction of the British Empire by German submarines.  Whatever Professor Flamm’s professional opinion may be worth, he is evidently attacking his task with a passionate hatred of England that leaves nothing to be desired.

Professor Flamm begins by explaining how England has been protected for centuries by her insularity.  He writes: 

This country, whose dishonorable Government produced this terrible world war by the most contemptible means, and solely in selfish greed of gain, has always been able to enjoy the fruits of its unscrupulousness because it was reckoned as unassailable.  But everything is subject to change, and that applies today to the security of England’s position.  Thank God, the time has now come when precisely its complete encirclement by the sea has become the greatest danger for the existence of the British Nation.

The writer explains that England cannot be self-supporting, and, strangely enough, admits that recognition of this fact justifies British naval policy.  He proceeds: 

The time, however, has passed in which even the strongest squadron of battleships or cruisers can protect England’s frontiers and secure imports from oversea.  Technical progress, in the shape of submarines, has put into the hands of all England’s enemies the means at last to sever the vital nerve of the much-hated enemy, and to pull him down from his position of ruler of the world, which he has occupied for centuries with ever-increasing ruthlessness and selfishness.  What science has once begun she continues, and for every shipbuilder in the whole world there is now no sphere which offers a stronger stimulus to progressive activity than the sphere of the submarines.  Here an endless amount of work is being, and will be, done, because the reward which beckons on the horizon is an extraordinarily high one, an extraordinarily profitable one, a reward containing the most ideal blessings for humanity—­the destruction of English world supremacy, the liberation of the seas.  This exalted and noble aim has today come within reach, and it is German intellect and German work that have paved the way.

It will be noted that Professor Flamm, as other contemporary