Loss of the Italian auxiliary cruiser _Citta di Messina_, 3,495 tons, and the French destroyer _Fourche_ was announced by Paris June 25, 1916. The _Messina_ was carrying troops across the Strait of Otranto when a submarine torpedoed her. The _Fourche_, serving as a convoy, gave pursuit without result, then turned back to save such survivors as she could. Within a few minutes she was struck by a second torpedo and sunk. All on board the two vessels, probably 300 men, were drowned. [Illustration: Earl Kitchener.] The Austrians lost two transports in the harbor of Durazzo, June 26, 1916, when Italian submarines succeeded in passing the forts and inflicting a heavy blow. Both ships had troops, arms and ammunition aboard, according to a Rome report. The casualties were unknown. Petrograd announced that Russian torpedo craft intercepted a large convoy of Turkish sailing vessels in the Black Sea on June 29, 1916, and destroyed fifty-four ships. The attack took place off the Anatolian coast, and several hundred men were believed to have been drowned. If the number of ships sunk was correct it established a record for the war. The former German warship _Goeben_, renamed the _Sultan Selim_, shelled Tournose, a Russian Black Sea port, on July 3, 1916, and did considerable damage. One steamship in the harbor went down as a result of shell fire and large oil works near the city broke into flames. The _Breslau_, called the _Midullu_ by the Turks, bombarded Scotchy, a near-by port, about the same time. Several fires started in the latter city and there were some casualties at both points. A second Russian hospital ship, the _Vperiode_, was torpedoed in the Black Sea, July 9, 1916, with a loss of seven lives. She was a ship of 850 tons, having accommodations for about 120 wounded. Like the _Portugal_, sunk by a submarine some weeks before the _Vperiode_ was plainly marked with the usual Red Cross emblem. The attack came in daylight and was accepted by the Russians as having been deliberately made, which once more aroused the indignation of the Russian people. Berlin announced July 7, 1916, that the British steamer _Lestris_, outward bound from Liverpool had been captured near the British East Coast and taken to a German port. This second capture in the channel within a few days caused considerable criticism in England.