The Niobe ' The German Navy sustained a grave loss
in personnel when the barque Niobe,' which Count Luckner had fitted out as a training ship, was caught by a sudden squall in the Baltic last week and capsized. She foun- dered so rapidly that the cadets attending their classes below could not reach the deck. Forty of the officers and men on deck were picked up by a passing steamer ; sixty-nine were lost. Count Luckner, who was at Jutland and afterwards showed daring in the command of the sailing commerce destroyer ' Seeadler,' had made the Niobe ' his hobby before she was officially adopted. Her loss recalls the equally sudden disaster that overtook H.M.S. ' Eurydice ' on March 24th, 1878. That fine training ship, homeward bound from the West Indies with a crew of 250 men and boys and others on leave, was caught off Ventnor in a violent snow squall which hid her from the view of watchers ashore. When the air cleared, she had disappeared. Only a seaman and a boy were saved. The court-martial held that the disaster was one which no skill can parry, and the same verdict would doubtless be given on the Niobe.'
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