The remainder of the year saw many attempts by the U-boat commanders to repeat this success; but they mostly ended in failure. On September 2, the transport _Southland_ was hit by a torpedo, but got into Madras under her own steam, with a loss of 30 men killed in the explosion. On September 19, the _Ramazan_, with 385 Indian troops on board, was shelled and sunk by a submarine, off Antikythera. In October, the transport _Marquette_ was sunk in the Ægean. On November 3, the transport _Mercian_ was heavily shelled, and had nearly 100 killed and wounded. On November 5 the _Tara_, armed boarding-steamer, was sunk in the Bay of Sollum, on the eastern border of Egypt; and immediately afterwards two small Customs cruisers--the _Prince Abbas_ of 300 tons and the _Abdul Moneim_ of 450--were sunk at the same place, and no doubt by the same pair of U-boats.
The year 1916 showed clearly that, as a weapon against armed ships, the U-boat was not likely to succeed, after the first period of surprise was past. During this year we lost three mine-sweepers--_Primula_, _Clacton_, and _Genista_; two empty transports--the _Russian_ and _Franconia_; the _Zaida_ and _Duke of Albany_, armed steamers of the auxiliary patrol; and one destroyer, the _Lassoo_, which was sunk with a loss of six men, either by mine or torpedo, off the coast of Holland. To this insignificant list must be added one disaster of a more serious kind. As we have already noted, our control of the North Sea was a continuous and effective control, and every effort was made, especially after the flight of the Germans from Jutland, to bring out the enemy fleet from its hiding-place. These efforts, of course, involved the exposure of our advanced forces to certain risks. On August 19, there was a report that the High Canal Fleet was at sea again. Hope outstripped belief, and light cruisers were sent out in every direction to find the enemy. Two of these, the _Nottingham_ and the _Falmouth_--good ships of 5,400 and 5,250 tons--were torpedoed and sunk while scouting. Here again it was the loss of the men which we felt most. The ships were new and useful ones; but they could be replaced, and they belonged to a class in which the enemy’s force, since the battle of Jutland, had been deficient, almost to a disabling degree. There was no ground for the German hope that our naval superiority could be permanently whittled away by rare and fractional losses like these. Our Battle Fleet continued to hold up theirs, and our blockade of their coasts was in no degree weakened.
