The beginning of April found growing discontent among neutrals against the British blockade of Germany and the virtual embargo on many other nations. Sweden especially demonstrated resentment. The United States made new representations about the seizure and search of first-class mail. All of this did not deter the Allies from pursuing their policy of attrition toward Germany. The opening day of the month saw the arrival in New York harbor of the first armed French steamer to reach that port. The _Vulcain_, a freighter, tied up at her dock with a 47-millimeter quick-firing gun mounted at the stern. Inquiries followed, with the usual result, and the advancing days found other French vessels arriving, some of the passenger liners carrying three and four 75-millimeter pieces, the famous 75's. On April 5, 1916, Paris announced that French and British warships had sunk a submarine at an unnamed point and captured the crew. In this connection it should be said that many reports were current of frequent captures made by the Allies of enemy submersibles. The British seldom admitted such captures, seeking to befog Berlin as to the fate of her submarines. But there was little doubt that numbers of them had been taken by both French and British. An Austrian transport was torpedoed by a French submarine and lost in the Adriatic, April 8, 1916. Neither the loss of life nor the name of the vessel was made public by Vienna. Two days later a Russian destroyer, the _Strogi_, rammed and sunk an enemy submersible near the spot where the hospital ship _Portugal_ was torpedoed. Reports from Paris, April 18, 1916, stated that the French had captured the submarine that torpedoed the _Sussex_. It was said that her crew and commander were prisoners, and that documentary evidence had been obtained on the vessel to prove that she sank the _Sussex_. The report could not be verified, but Paris semiofficially intimated that she had indisputable proof that the _Sussex_ was a submarine's victim. The two incidents coincided so well that the capture of the vessel was believed to have been made. Trebizond fell April 18, 1916, the Russian fleet cooperating in a grand assault. This gave Russia possession of a fine port on the Turkish side of the Black Sea and marked important progress for her armies in Asia. Zeebrugge, Belgium, was shelled by the British fleet, April 25, 1916, the city sustaining one of the longest and heaviest bombardments which it had suffered since its capture by the Germans. As a convenient base for submarines it was a particularly troublesome thorn to the Allies, and the bombardment was directed mainly at buildings suspected of being submarine workshops, and the harbor defenses. Several vessels were sunk and much damage wrought, the German batteries at Heyst, Blankenberghe, and Knocke coming in for the heavy fire.