The Germans on board the _Lanfranc_ at once made a rush for the boats. They managed to launch one, but it was overloaded and swamped. The British soldiers stood to attention and behaved with great coolness, as also did the medical staff and crew. As a result of the outrage two wounded British officers and 11 other ranks were drowned, as well as one of the R.A.M.C. and five of the crew. Of the Germans, two wounded officers and 13 other ranks were drowned. The casualties in the _Donegal_ amounted to 41. This outrageous German crime was the sequel to a series of accusations by the Berlin Government to the effect that Great Britain was misusing her hospital ships. The evidence produced by the Germans in support of their assertions proved to be of a flimsy and wholly untrustworthy character, as the following examples taken from the British Government White Paper, Miscellaneous, No. 16 (1917), will show. A man named Alexander Buttler, of Hamburg, swore that he had sailed in the s.s. _Escaut_ from Brooklyn to La Rochelle, where he arrived about the middle of July, 1915. There he saw a British hospital ship being loaded with munitions from the _Escaut_, which carried no cargo but munitions of war: The reply of the British Government was as follows:--"No British hospital ship was at La Rochelle during July, 1915. All British hospital ships have their names painted distinctly on them in the usual place, and all fly the Red Cross flag and the British defaced Blue Ensign worn by transports. The credibility of the witness may be judged from the fact that the log of the steamship _Escaut_, on which he claims to have been serving, shows that that vessel called neither at La Rochelle nor at La Pallice in June, July or August, 1915, and that she was fitted at the time for the transport of horses. He cannot have been in a position to know that the ship on which he served, if his story is not entirely fabricated, carried no cargo but munitions of war." Another witness is thus described by the German Government:--"... merchant, a Dutch subject, living at Rotterdam," ... declared that he was at Cardiff on business from the beginning of December to the end of January, 1916. About the middle of December the hospital ship _Formosa_ arrived, was docked and took in coal and a number of cases. On the 29th December about 300 infantrymen in marching order were taken on board, besides about 50 naval officers who went on board on the 1st January, the date of departure. He adds: "I can confidently assert that the soldiers and the 50 naval officers sailed with her."