From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915:
The great German campaign against our shipping, under which we were to be cut off from all human aid and every merchant ship that dared to approach our ports torpedoed and sunk, has ended in what can only be called an amazing fiasco. In the first three days a little damage was done, but during the past week there have been no examples of the destruction of vessels by German submarines or even by mines. That no such losses are reported is not due, we are sure, to any economy of truth or holding back of news on the part of the authorities. It is the plain fact that the Germans have sunk none of our ships. To account for this failure is not an easy matter. It is possible, of course, that the Germans are gathering themselves together for a great coup, though we do not think this is likely.
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