FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



grew more desperate and hopeless, to apply to neu- 

 trals the ruthless methods which they had adopted 

 in connection with their avowed foes. 



Wanton attacks, which it was scarcely attempted 

 to justify, were made on inoffensive neutral fishing 

 vessels, and in the fourth year of the war a case 

 was reported in which a Dutch boy, aged fifteen 

 years, was killed by a German submarine which, 

 without warning, torpedoed a Scheveningen herring 

 trawler twenty-five miles from the Dutch coast. 

 After drifting for seven hours a boat containing the 

 ten surviving members of the crew was taken into 

 Ymuiden by another Dutch vessel. 



The effect of these ruthless onslaughts was to fill 

 many of the fishermen of neutral countries with 

 dread and to make them determined not to go to 

 sea to carry on their calling. Protests were unavail- 

 ing, and it was impossible for the injured parties to 

 get redress. If explanations were given by Ger- 

 many, they took the form of an unavoidable mistake 

 having been made or accusing the injured parties of 

 having brought the losses upon themselves by ignor- 

 ing or defying the so-called rules which the Ger- 

 mans had imposed on helpless little nations in con- 

 nection with the war. Almost invariably it was 

 seen that the German " explanation " was directly 

 opposed to the facts which had been stated by sur- 

 vivors of these deliberately-planned outrages on 

 fishi-ng vessels belonging to non-belligerent nations. 



Further proof of Germany's cruel and unwar- 

 rantable treatment of Dutch fishermen was given 



238 



