Ogden Daily Standard | 1915-05-28 | Page 1 | French Liner Goes Ashore

FRENCH LINER GOES ASHORE Steamer Champagne Stranded Near St. Nazaire Is Badly Damaged. WAS NOT TORPEDOED Nine Hundred Persons on Board Have Been Taken Off Plot Reported. Nantes, France, May 28. - 40 n m The steamer Champagne of the French trans-Atlantic line Is ashore near St Nazaire. She is badly damaged The 900 persons on board of her have been taken off. La Champagne was engaged in trans-Atlantic trade between Central and South American ports and France She was last reported as having sailed from Colon on May 7 The steamer was built in St Nazaire Na-zaire In 1S88. Her net tonnage is 3,068. She was 493 feet long and 52 feet bo;irn A plot to blow up La Champagne was reported last February in a dispatch dis-patch from Madrid to a Paris newspaper news-paper A man on board, believed to be a German intended to destroy the vessel, according to the dispatch The man was arrested and five dynamite dyna-mite bombs were found In his trunk. Paris. May 28, 3 20 p. m Officials Offi-cials of the French line here say that all the passengers on La Champagne have be-n landed at St Naznire. and that there is no need of anxiety as to the safety of the vessel. They state she was not torpedoed. The Nantes steamer which took off La Champagne passengers is unknown at the company's offices in Paris Representati cs of the compain ex-pn ex-pn B8 the opinion that the stranding of the vessel was an accident.