On November 29, 1917, a German torpedo boat struck a mine off the coast of Belgium and sank, all of her crew with the exception of two being lost. During the night of December 9-10, 1917, Italian naval forces entered the harbor of Trieste and successfully torpedoed the Austrian battleship _Wien_, which sank almost immediately. A German submarine bombarded on December 12, 1917, for about twenty minutes Funchal on the island of Madeira, destroying many houses and killing and wounding many people. On the same day German destroyers attacked a convoy of merchantmen in the North Sea and sank six of them as well as a British destroyer and four armed trawlers. Two days later, December 14, 1917, the French cruiser _Château Renault_ was sunk in the Mediterranean by a submarine which itself was destroyed later on. During the night of December 22-23, 1917, three British destroyers were lost off the Dutch coast with a total loss of lives of 193 officers and men. On December 30, 1917, the British transport _Aragon_ and a British destroyer, coming to her assistance, were torpedoed and sunk. The following day, December 31, 1917, the auxiliary _Osmanieh_ struck a mine and sank. The total loss involved in these three sinkings was 809 lives, of which forty-three were members of the crew and officers, and 766 military officers and soldiers. During the night of January 12, 1918, two British destroyers ran ashore off the coast of Scotland. All hands were lost. Yarmouth was bombarded on January 14, 1918, for five minutes by German naval forces and four persons were killed and eight injured. British naval forces fought an action at the entrance to the Dardanelles on January 20, 1918. As a result the Turkish cruiser _Midullu_, formerly the German cruiser _Breslau_, was sunk and the battle cruiser _Sultan Selim_, formerly the _Goeben_, damaged and beached. The British lost two monitors and, a week later, a submarine which attempted to enter the Dardanelles in order to complete the destruction of the _Goeben_. On January 28, 1918, the British torpedo gunboat _Hazard_ was lost as the result of a collision. The day before the big Cunard liner _Andania_ of 13,405 tons was attacked off the Ulster coast. Her passengers and crew were saved, the boat, however, sank a few days later. Another severe loss was the sinking of the British armed boarding steamer _Louvain_ in the Mediterranean with a loss of 224 lives on January 21, 1918. Two German destroyers sank off the coast of Jutland during the same week. The United States Navy, during the six months' period covered in this chapter, fared comparatively well, in spite of the fact that large forces were engaged in patrol duty in European waters and many transports crossed from the States to Europe and vice versa. Of the latter only one was lost. On October 17, 1917, the _Antilles_ while returning to the United States was torpedoed and sunk. Of those on board sixty-seven were drowned, including sixteen soldiers.