Loss of the Dutch Steamer Tubantia (International Commission of Inquiry)

Facts

On 15 March 1916, the steamer Tubantia, belonging to the corporation Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd, departed from Amsterdam bound for South America with 80 passengers and 280 crew members on board. The ship was sufficiently illuminated by its position-lights and by arc lamps illuminating the name Tubantia, Amsterdam.

Just as the captain had given the order to prepare to anchor near the light-ship Nord-Hinder, one of the officers noticed a streak in the water moving towards the Tubantia. He had the impression that it was the wake of a torpedo. An explosion followed, and the ship sank. Several of the ship's launches were found to contain fragments of a torpedo that had been part of the armament of the German submarine U.B. 13.

According to the German Government, however, this torpedo had, on 6 March 1916, already been launched by that submarine against a British destroyer, and had missed its mark. Germany and The Netherlands therefore decided to establish an international commission of inquiry for the purpose of elucidating the circumstances in which the Tubantia had been torpedoed.

Questions submitted to the Commission

1. Did the submarine U.B. 13 launch a torpedo against the steamer Tubantia in the night of 15 March 1916?

2. If not, did the Tubantia collide with a torpedo launched against an English destroyer by the submarine U.B. 13 in the night of 6 March 1916 that had remained afloat?

Report of the Commission

From the testimony of the officers and crew of the Tubantia that they saw the wake of a torpedo immediately before the explosion, and from the retrieval of fragments of a torpedo belonging to the armament of the U.B. 13, the Commission concluded that the U.B. 13 had launched the torpedo which caused the explosion on the Tubantia. It did not address the question of whether this was done deliberately or by accident.

The Comission rejected the German Government's contention that, on the night in question, the submarine had launched a torpedo against a vessel that could not have been the Tubantia, because it had no lights except in the masthead. The Commission also rejected, for lack of supporting evidence, the argument that the Tubantia could have been torpedoed by a vessel belonging to a power hostile to Germany.

Finally, while the Commission was unable to absolutely exclude the possibility that the loss of the Tubantia may have been caused by collision with a previously-launched torpedo that had remained afloat, and while it acknowledged that there were certain indications in favour of this hypothesis, it found that in the light of the other evidence these indications were inconclusive and lacked probative force.

Case information