1619 HIST. 1 COPYRIGHT, 1917, HISTORY I Printed in the United States of America PREFACE I HAVE attempted in the pages that follow to describe the origin and development of the controversy which was the immediate cause of war between the United States and Germany. The diplomatic exchanges dealing with the submarine issue are not accessible to every one; and in any event they contain so much verbiage and are so arranged that they will not be resorted to in order to secure a knowledge of the issues involved. I have sought to furnish a chronological account of Mr. Wilson's policy-narrative and explanatory, not critical or defensive, for it is too early to pass definite judgment. There are unmistakable evidences that the justice of our case against Germany has not been clearly understood even by loyal Americans. If one reads the debates in Congress on the war resolution or armed neutrality, for example, he cannot fail to discover an amount of misinformation which is surprising and dis heartening. And so I have thought it worth while to give a treatment of the points of international law involved as brief and untechnical as is consistent with the necessity for explaining the legal grounds of the American position-particularly with regard to the submarine as a new weapon, not subject to established rules, the status of armed merchant ships, the problem of munition exports, and the difference between the English and German "blockades." These are the problems which seem to have caused the greatest confusion of thought, and no attempt has yet been made to treat them together and to furnish the basis upon which war with Germany was inevitable. In the introductory chapter I refer briefly to the fact that President Wilson has ascribed our participation in the war to the duty of fighting for peace, democracy, and liberty against a state which has committed terrible outrages on these ideals, and that there are grounds, other than the legal one, upon which our case against Germany may be rested. The formulation of a moral indictment is not here attempted; it has already been repeatedly |