The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1916.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4012, 19 August 1915, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1916.

Tho regrettable nows was received .yesterday that a British transport had been sunk in the Aegean Sea with the loss ofe approximately one thousand lives. It may be mentioned in this regard that the Royal ltd ward —for that was the name of the illfated liner—is tho first transport belonging to Britain which has come to grief at the hands of the enemy. Some weeks ago, it will he recollected, another transport was caught napping by a Turkish destroyer near the Dardanelles, but happily his shots went wide and tho transport was not put down,

The Sinking of Drilish Transport.

All the same there was a loss of over a hundred lives in connection with the event as a sequel to boats which had been hurriedly launched upsetting ami thorp being not sufficient time in which to effect the rescue of all who were precipitated into the sea. When it is borne in mind, therefore, that Britain and her Allies have required to arrange for the transportation of troops on such, an unprecedented scale to so many points the loss that has now to he recorded is very small as compared with the enormous success that has so far attended the rest of this great and very risky undertaking.' It is certainly also the position fur ther that the British people be enabled to hear this particular loss all the more bravely on account of the fact that our own submarines at tin* Dardanelles have already ;i(‘bieved:«&ueh wonderful results, 'the total damage inflicted by the enemy Kubijjmnos in the Aegean Sea now eotaprisos only two losses of war ves-

—the Majestic and the '1 Humph—iff addition to too now reported loss of the transport Royal Edward. On tiie other hand, however, the British submarines operating in tho same theatre of war have it will bo seen by a message which v.c publisn Inis morning gained full control ol the Sea of Marmora with the result that the Turks are no longer able to use the sea way between Constantinople and the Peninsula ami in order to keep up their supplies of reinforcements, etc., to their troops at Gallipoli will m future have Lo depend on the very dangerous route which is open to them to use along tiie narrow and of land which forms the isthmus. The latest success of

a German submarine in the Aegean Sea will assuredy serve as an unpleasant reminder to the Allies of the necessity for even greater precautions being taken in connection with naval and transport operations in those waters. Up till the occasion of tho Lusitania outrage it had not been considered possible ior a submarine to successfully attack a well-handled vessel travelling at a speed of over fifteen knots. In the case ol tho mammoth Cunard liner it came out in the

evidence, however, that at the time she was travelling at the rate of eighteen knots. There are, it will be observed, no details as to whether the Royal Edward was even in motion when she was torpedoed, but even ii she were on her journey at the time it is doubtful whether she would be travelling at as great a rate as was the Lusitania for the reason that the latest victim of the enemy’s submarine warfare was listed as being capable of doing in normal circumstances only 19 knots per hour. When it became known that Captain Otto Hendng had taken at. least one submarine ail the way from Wilhelm shaven to the Dardanelles and on arrival, had stink the two British war vessels winch we have mentioned it must-have been generally felt that a good deal of further trouble might he experienced by tin. Allies in

connection with their operations atGallipoli. For the immunity from additional mishaps in the interim of nearly three months the Allies doubtless owe most to the- ceaseless watch which Las taken place on the part of their torpedo flotillas. On the occasion of the Majestic being submarined it- would appear irom Captain. 11. rzkig’s account of the exploit both that vessel and the Triumph were being constantly encircled by destroyers and they had to wait a considerable time before, an opportunity came to them to fire a torpedo. Even then the enemy submarine had a very close shave for she was at once attacked and just as it dived a destroyer passed directly over the spot “with a sounu like that of a motor ear/’ If on theGerman side submarines have played t)ie principal part in the naval war, on tho British side it has been the destroyer which has to maintain an incessant and unwearying activity in protecting the British licet and British commerce from submarine attacks. Not until tho end of tho war will tho extraordinary achievements of the officers and men oi the British torpedo craft become known. The Huns will no doubt gloat over this further success of their submarine strategy but all the same it- is the position that the results which have accrued to them in the Aegean Sea must have fallen farshort cf their expectations.