SMS Gneisenau (1879)
The crew attempted to drop the starboard anchor, but it did not catch in the stony ground. "Gneisenau" was driven into the mole repeatedly, striking it with her stern twice before being turned and pushed bow-first on the starboard side, forcing her aground. A merchant ship attempted to come to the crew's aid, but they were unable to connect a line between the two ships before "Gneisenau" began to list 35 degrees. A boat from shore also attempted to rescue the crew, but it too was forced ashore in the heavy seas. Wave action quickly smashed "Gneisenau"s hull against the mole, and part of her crew attempted to find safety by climbing the rigging. The ship rolled over onto her side, and the surviving crewmen reached shore with a line. Forty-one men were killed in the accident, including Kretschmann and the ship's first officer. "Charlotte" and the British ironclad were sent to aid the wounded. Those killed in the sinking were buried in Málaga's cemetery, and the survivors returned to Germany aboard the HAPAG steamship on 2 January 1901.
Sinking of the RMS Lusitania
On 27 March, Room 40 had intercepted a message which clearly demonstrated that the Germans had broken the code used to pass messages to British merchant ships. Cruisers protecting merchant ships were warned not to use the code to give directions to shipping because it could just as easily attract enemy submarines as steer ships away from them. However, Queenstown (now Cobh) was not given this warning and continued to give directions in the compromised code, which was not changed until after "Lusitania"s sinking. At this time, the Royal Navy was significantly involved with operations leading up to the landings at Gallipoli, and the intelligence department had been undertaking a program of misinformation to convince Germany to expect an attack on her northern coast. As part of this, ordinary cross-channel traffic to the Netherlands was halted from 19 April and false reports were leaked about troop ship movements from ports on Britain's western and southern coasts. This led to a demand from the German army for offensive action against the expected troop movements and consequently, a surge in German submarine activity on the British west coast. The fleet was warned to expect additional submarines, but this warning was not passed on to those sections of the navy dealing with merchant vessels. The return of the battleship "Orion" from Devonport to Scotland was delayed until 4 May and she was given orders to stay from the Irish coast.
On 5 May, "U-20" stopped a merchant schooner, "Earl of Lathom", off the Old Head of Kinsale, examined her papers, then ordered her crew to leave before sinking the schooner with gunfire. On 6 May, "U-20" fired a torpedo at "Cayo Romano" from Cuba, a British steamer flying a neutral flag, off Fastnet Rock narrowly missing by a few feet. At 22:30 on 5 May, the Royal Navy sent an uncoded warning to all ships – "Submarines active off the south coast of Ireland" – and at midnight an addition was made to the regular nightly warnings, "submarine off Fastnet". On 6 May "U-20" sank the 6,000 ton steamer "Candidate". It then failed to get off a shot at the 16,000 ton liner "Arabic", because although she kept a straight course the liner was too fast, but then sank another 6,000 ton British cargo ship flying no flag, "Centurion", all in the region of the Coningbeg light ship. The specific mention of a submarine was dropped from the midnight broadcast on 6–7 May as news of the new sinkings had not yet reached the navy at Queenstown, and it was correctly assumed that there was no longer a submarine at Fastnet.