Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1916, Supplement, The World War

File No. 763.72/2610

The Consul at Cork (Frost) to the Secretary of State

No. 175

Cork (Queenstown), Ireland, April 6, 1916 .
[Received April 21.]

Sir: In connection with the numerous submarine incidents which have recently been reported from this consular district I have the honor to transmit hereby a transcript of a news paragraph published in the Cork Examiner on March 30, 1916. The German treatment accorded to the non-English victims of the warfare would appear from this account to be painstakingly humane: but on the other hand the absence of English seamen among the persons preserved leaves room for a sinister inference.

It may be well to state that I am inclined to give credence to the account, although I have felt that it would be injudicious for me to investigate it. The Examiner is the largest and oldest journal in this district, and has reliable correspondents. No hoax or fabrication could be attempted through its columns; and its references to submarine incidents have been exceedingly guarded and careful at all times, partly owing to censorship.

From the submarine incidents in this consular district it is impossible, in my judgment, to generalize back to the orders under which German submarine officers conduct their operations. After conversing with the officers and seamen from some 14 or 15 merchant vessels which have been attacked by submarines off the Irish coast, and after taking affidavits in many of these cases, I have reached the conclusion that the personal ideas of the different officers of the various submarines have as a matter of practice directed the actions of these submarines. I was for some months prone to formulate a general rule that all submarine commanders showed consideration and humanity unless circumstances, sometimes misconstrued, seemed to force them to sharp decisions. Certainly there have been many instances where every possible latitude has been allowed to merchant ships. The master of the Bengairn said to me very candidly that he had been very slow and awkward in comprehending the signals flown at him by the submarine which attacked his vessel, and that the commander of the submarine might well have lost patience and fired into the Bengairn instead of allowing ample time for the crew to quit the vessel. On the other hand, the instances in which any consideration is shown appear to be diminishing. The attack on the Berwindvale seems to have been unwarrantably merciless. To-day a new case has arisen, in which no American citizens are involved, that of the Zent, an Elder and Fife fruit steamship outward bound, which was sunk without the faintest warning at 10 p. m. last night 30 miles south of the Fastnet Rock. This ship went down within two minutes, it is said, and there are only 8 survivors out of a crew of about 50 men.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to deduce from actual submarine attacks the principles which the commanders are under instructions to heed, to my mind: but there is an unmistakable tendency toward ruthlessness in the recent group of submarine attacks in the waters bounding this consular district.

The liberty of expressing these conclusions is taken lest the rigidly colorless reports of facts which have been transmitted may have failed in some respects in enabling the Department to make deductions in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the Department.

I have [etc.]

Wesley Frost

[Enclosure]

Transcript from the Cork “Examiner,” March 30, 1916

Baltimore,¹ Wednesday. The skipper of the Union Hall motor fishing boat, The Pet, arrived here this morning, having on board the crew of a trading ship which was torpedoed off the Irish coast on Saturday evening last. The crew consisted of two British Indians, and nine Russians, who seemed nothing the worse after their thrilling experience on board the submarine from Saturday till late yesterday evening. Mr. Hayes, skipper of The Pet, a native of Glandore, gives the following short account:

When shooting his nets at 6.15 yesterday evening he sighted a German submarine approaching them, colored white, and having two guns on deck. One of the crew of the submarine hailed the skipper to come alongside, and the latter with his crew naturally got afraid, and asked if they were going to sink them, but the German, who spoke good English, said no, but they had a crew of 11 that they wanted to be taken ashore. The foreigners were promptly taken in charge by the fishing boat, and the submarine soon disappeared in the dusk of the evening.

The shipwrecked crew also give an account of their experience while on the submarine. They say they were well treated, the food consisting of black coffee and biscuits. They Were allowed on the deck of the submarine for two hours daily to indulge in a smoke, and had a trip through the Irish Sea, and around the English coast. The weather was bad at the time they first met the submarine, and when lowering their boats their lifeboat got smashed close to the submarine. The crew are proceeding from here to the Sailors’ Home, Cork.

1. A large fishing village on the western coast-line of County Cork, Ireland.