BURMA during World War I 1914–1918 The war itself did not reach Burmese soil, although the German battleship called Emden lurked for months in the nearby Bay of Bengal. It scared off merchants shippers until it was eventually sunk by the Russian destroyer Zemschung off Penang in November 1914. But World War I rocked colonial economies. European governments and their overseas dependencies piled their resources into the intense war effort. Travel plummeted, particularly after the tragic sinking of the Lusitania liner in 1915, an event which made people scared of crossing the oceans. To put this in a contemporary perspective, the consequences for the market were similar to the aftermath of 9/11. 1915: The oil industry was huge. By now, Burma ranked as the 14th largest petroleum producer on the planet. 1918: Across Asia, hotels had suffered from the war. The Sarkies network was no exception. Both Raffles in Singapore and the E&O in Penang were in desperate need of renovation. The Strand was also due for a fresh lick of paint. Moreover, the Sarkies houses began to drift apart. Although at the start of and even during the conflict, Sarkies advertising still mentioned all the hotels as a group, after 1918 they were always listed as independent hotels.