It was in the summer of 1918 that the Germans made their only attempt at what might be called an offensive against their American enemies. Between the beginning of May and the end of October, 1918, five German submarines crossed the Atlantic and torpedoed a few ships on our coast. That submarines could make this long journey had long been known. Singularly enough, however, the impression still prevails in this country that the German U-boats were the first to accomplish the feat. In the early autumn of 1916 the _U-53_--commanded by that submarine officer, Hans Rose, who has been previously mentioned in these pages--crossed the Atlantic, dropped in for a call at Newport, R.I., and, on the way back, sank a few merchant vessels off Nantucket. A few months previous the so-called merchant submarine _Deutschland_ had made its trip to Newport News. The Teutonic press, and even some Germanophiles in this country, hailed these achievements as marking a glorious page in the record of the German navy. Doubtless the real purpose was to show the American people how easily these destructive vessels could cross the Atlantic; and to impress upon their minds the fate which awaited them in case they maintained their rights against the Prussian bully. As a matter of fact, it had been proved, long before the _Deutschland_ or the _U-53_ had made their voyages, that submarines could cross the Atlantic. In 1915, not one but ten submarines had gone from North America to Europe under their own power. Admiral Sir John Fisher tells about this expedition in his recently published memoirs. In 1914, the British Admiralty had contracted for submarines with Charles M. Schwab, president of the Bethlehem Steel Company. As international law prohibited the construction of war vessels by a nation in wartime for the use of a belligerent with which it was at peace, the parts of ten submarines were sent to Canada, where they were put together. These submarines then crossed the Atlantic under their own power, and were sent from British ports to the Dardanelles, where they succeeded in driving Turkish and German shipping out of the Sea of Marmora. Thus a crossing of the Atlantic by American-built submarines manned by British crews had been accomplished before the Germans made their voyages. It was therefore not necessary for the two German submarines to cross the Atlantic to prove that the thing could be done; but the Germans doubtless believed that this demonstration of their ability to operate on the American coast would serve as a warning to the American people.