THE GERMAN PIRATE His Methods and Record By AJAX "_Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars--and the short peace more than the long._" Fr. Nietzsche's "_War and Warriors_." "_The German who loves his people, and believes in the greatness and the future of our home ... must not let himself be lazily sung to sleep by the peace-lullabies of the Utopians._" The German Crown Prince in "_Germany under Arms_." "_Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimental to the national health so soon as they influence politics._" General von Bernhardi's "_Germany and the Next War_." LONDON: C. ARTHUR PEARSON LTD. 18 Henrietta Street, W.C. 2. 1918 FOREWORD "_The German people is always right, because it is the German people, and numbers 87 million souls._"[A] O. R. TANNENBERG. The sea is a stern mistress. She demands from her sons both vigilance and skill in her service, and for the man who fails her the penalty is death. From generation to generation men have faced and fought the same dangers in every ocean. Going down to the sea in ships from a thousand different ports, the mariners of the world have triumphed or died like their fathers before them, in the face of dangers as old as the world itself. And because they have braved the same perils, seamen of all nations have been united in a splendid fellowship, which is called the Brotherhood of the Sea. The mariner in danger who sent out a call for help could count on assistance from his brother of the sea, regardless of nationality; while with the advance of science and coming of wireless telegraphy, the scope of such mutual assistance became more and more extended. Without hesitation men turned their ships from their intended course, on receiving the S.O.S. signal, and sped for miles to the help of their unfortunate brothers. It bound men together, this Brotherhood of the Sea, in a way never fully to be comprehended by landsmen. It was a fine, manly freemasonry, and demanded from its members those qualities of courage, honour, and chivalry which are the true seaman's heritage. Not until the coming of the German submarine commander was the Brotherhood of the Sea destroyed. The following accounts of German submarine exploits have been compiled from British Admiralty documents and the sworn statements of survivors. Each story is a plain statement of fact. They are, of course, merely a selection, but they show quite clearly the lines upon which the German submarine campaign has been conducted from the beginning of the war up to the latter part of 1917.