The British submarine _E-7_ was sunk by a Turkish land battery in the Sea of Marmora on September 4, 1915, thirty-two men being lost. She was the first undersea boat of the Allies to meet that fate in the Dardanelles operations.
The combination of care and luck that had kept British transports inviolate for more than a year, which ended with the sinking of the _Royal Edward_, was to be reversed during the coming months when German submarines inflicted heavy losses on this class of ships. The Mediterranean proved to be the grave of several thousand men lost in this manner. The _Ramazan_, of 3,477 tons, bringing native troops from India, was torpedoed and sunk on September 19, 1915, in the Ægean Sea. Out of about 1,000 men on board some 300 were landed at Malta. The levy which she had aboard consisted of Sikhs and Gurkhas. The sea was new to these men, drawn from interior provinces, and they had embarked upon their first voyage with all the misgivings which usually accompany that experience. The panic among them when the _Ramazan_ was hit may well be imagined. Hints of it crept into the British press, but it was said that after a few wild minutes the officers got their men in hand and all died together with true British fortitude.
One of the few announcements made by Germany concerning lost submarines was given out on September 27, 1915, whether for diplomatic reasons or otherwise it would be difficult to say. The _U-27_, it was said, had not been heard from since August 10, 1915, and was deemed to have been sunk or captured. Berlin concluded with the observation that the _U-27_ might have been destroyed after sinking the _Arabic_, inasmuch as none of her commanders had reported the torpedoing of the liner up to that date. It was Germany's plea at the time that she knew nothing officially of the _Arabic's_ loss. The disappearance of the _U-27_, a new and fast submarine having seventeen knots speed on the surface, therefore, was a matter of diplomatic importance. The puzzle never was answered.
For some unexplained reason Great Britain never resorted to submarine attacks upon German shipping in the Baltic Sea until the fall of 1915. While her own vessels were being sunk she spared those of her enemy, either because the navy had not been prepared to undertake an expedition into the Baltic, or because it had been looked upon as a small issue in the face of graver problems. This situation was changed by the German threat against Riga, Russia's important Baltic port, following the fall of Libau and the progress of German troops in Courland within cannon range almost of Riga.