But if the submarine has not dethroned the battleship, she has, in the hands of the enemy, done other remarkable things. She has struck a mortal blow at what many excellent people have hitherto regarded as the settled and accepted code of International Law; she has appeared as a pirate commerce-destroyer. Without warning and without pity she has sunk fishing vessels, tramp steamers, stately liners, and hospital ships. The code of honour is not observed by her. The German submarine officer has orders to run no risks, although in the old wars naval officers—who had no means of submerging either to attack or to escape—gladly ran every risk incidental to the service in which they were engaged. When the _Lusitania_ was sunk it was explained that if the commander of the submarine had permitted the passengers to take to the boats before firing his torpedo, “this would have meant the certain destruction of his own vessel.” There was no evidence that such would have been the case, but the risk, which implied a danger merely incidental to naval service, was held to justify the sinking of the great liner with 1,200 souls on board. The wildest imagination could not have conceived that any human being could take such a distorted view of right and wrong, and of the plain duty of the seaman. The submarine has accomplished other remarkable things in the war. She has converted benevolent neutrals into resolute enemies. She has brought the United States into the war in support of the Allies. She has transformed the mercantile marines opposed to her into actual fighting forces. A few merchant ships were armed before the war began, but now, because of ruthless submarine attack, the British mercantile marine is for practical purposes embodied with the Navy, in the sense that it is under naval control, is provided with means of defence, and acts directly under naval orders. Moreover, one-half or more of its shipping has been taken over by the naval service. The same is true of the merchant ships of the Allies. The German submarine has had a further effect. She has created a whole array of means directed to her destruction. Countless inventors have been set at work, and extraordinarily ingenious methods have been employed with the purpose of putting an end to submarine activities by sinking every boat as she appeared.