to resume these methods-in fact was greatly to intensify and extend them-our Ambassador at Berlin had been recalled and passports had been handed to the German Ambassador at Washington. President Wilson had informed Germany that if American ships and American lives should again be sacrificed by. German submarine commanders "in heedless contravention of the just and reasonable understandings of international law

and the obvious dictates of humanity," he would go again before the Congress and ask that authority be given him to use any means that might be necessary for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas.

Germany's action as to submarine warfare was interpreted in neutral countries as in one sense due to her having virtually reached the end of her land victories. Brusiloff's

advance in 1916 had been PRESS ILLUSTRATING SERVICE. stopt only after a pro-German

FREDERICK CORTLAND PENFIELD

minister, Protopopoff, had be- American Ambassador to Austriacome the Russian Minister of

Hungary until 1917

the Interior and virtually master of the Government, just as the year before the Grand Duke Nicholas, like Brusiloff, had swept all before him, only to find, when he got into the enemy's territory, that another pro-German minister, Sukhomlinoff, had deprived him of ammunition and other supplies. Germany had been able to keep up the illusion of victory for a while longer when Roumania, in the late autumn of 1916, dashed gayly and light-headedly into the eagle's talons, but meanwhile she had found it impossible to defeat her real adversaries. It had been easy enough to grab little kingdoms and conquer them-easy in the case of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro, easy in the case of

Roumania, when Germany had Bulgaria, Austria and Turkey to help her, but her people at home were losing faith in the fiction of an irresistible and all-conquering Imperialism, based on successful invasions of four small kingdoms, each having only a minor fraction of her own military resources. With the supply of Roumanias, Serbias, Montenegros, and Belgiums exhausted, Germany at last saw around her the real adversaries whom she had to overcome; they had been growing continually and were now stronger than she was. She saw that the Turks could not long resist the Russians and the British; that she must give up her foremost line in France; that her allies in the Petrograd Government would not last much longer; that, in several trials of strength on the Western Front, she had failed to reach any success that suggested an ultimate decision in her favor; on the contrary, she had had terrible losses on the Somme.

In these conditions Germany proposed that peace be arranged in secret around a table at which the shrewdest manipulator would come off best. When the Allies refused to be drawn into her trap and announced their peace terms openly, a complete discomfiture came to the German plan and Germany had to put forth a second plan which meant that she had cut loose from the restrictions of civilized warfare and declared a war of "frightfulness" on all the world, in the hope that by starving England she could halt the Allied military operations before spring was far advanced. She had thus far failed completely in her effort to starve England, and her submarine war had become less terrible as it went on, altho it was still terrible enough.

Meanwhile the Allied military operations she had hoped to check had not been checked. The British had taken Bagdad and were pursuing the demoralized Turks into the jaws of the Grand Duke Nicholas's army, which was coming on from Persia without serious opposition and driving another Turkish army before it. Defeat for the Turks was certain; the only question was whether it would involve the capture of Turkey as well. In the west the Germans had retired. to the Aisne, giving up before the Allied spring drive began more than Joffre and Haig had aimed at in their Somme campaign. On the 1,300-mile Russian front the weather still

held armies fast bound; but the commander of those armies, Brusiloff, no longer was in fear of a ministerial traitor in his rear at Petrograd. The events which Germany foresaw in December, the events which prompted her haughty but anxious offer of peace, and her desperate swing loose from the bonds of civilization on the sea were moving more swiftly even than her statesmen had expected. They had expected to give up the Ancre sometime, but not in March; they had expected to lose their Petrograd alliance, but not in one day.

The destruction by a German submarine of the Cunard passenger-steamship Laconia, off the coast of Ireland, on February 25, violated every principle of humanity and almost every principle of international law for which the American Government in its written statements to Germany had contended. If this were not an overt act of the kind which the President had in mind when he broke off diplomatic relations, and said he would go to Congress in case further hostilities were committed against us by Germany, it was difficult to say what would meet any definition of the term. The Laconia was sunk in the night, without warning, by two torpedoes from a German submarine. She was a merchant ship and carried many passengers, including women and children. In the crew were ten or more Americans. Two Americans were among the dead, while one other of the dead was believed to have been a naturalized American.

The story of the disaster was pitiful and moving. Seventythree passengers, men, women, and children, were startled at half-past ten at night by the sudden lurching of the ship as the first torpedo struck. Forty minutes later the Laconia went down. There was time only to lower and fill the boats with no delay for provisions or extra clothing. The sea was running high, the water was icy cold, the danger to small boats imminent. The submarine which had committed this act appeared on the surface, and its officer, in cold blood, left the boats to themselves, after saying that they might expect to be picked up by a British patrol-boat. The loss. of life was occasioned chiefly by the overturning of one boat. Those who were thus cast into the sea were rescued by other boats, when in a desperate condition, some of them in a

dying state. Since the war began 230 Americans had now gone to their deaths through German and Austrian submarine operations. Most of them were traveling on unarmed merchant ships and, under the practises of International law and humanity, believed themselves secure.

On February 21 the Associated press was able to reveal that Germany, in planning unrestricted submarine warfare. and counting its consequences, had proposed an alliance with Mexico and Japan in order to make war on the United States provided this country did not remain neutral. Japan, through Mexican mediation, was to be urged to abandon her Entente Allies and join in an attack on the United States. Mexico, for her reward, was to receive general financial support from Germany and was to reconquer Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona-her "lost provinces"-and was to share in the victorious peace terms that Germany expected to impose. Details were left to the German Minister von Eckhardt in Mexico City, who, by instructions signed by the German Foreign Minister Zimmermann in Berlin on January 19, 1917, was directed to propose this alliance with Mexico to General Carranza. These instructions had been transmitted to Eckhardt through Count von Bernstorff, the former German Ambassador, then on his way home to Germany under a safe conduct obtained from Great Britain by this country. Germany pictured to Mexico, by broad intimation, that Great Britain and the Entente were defeated, Germany and her allies triumphant and secure in world dominion by the instrument of unrestricted submarine warfare. A copy of Zimmermann's instructions, as sent through von Bernstorff, was in the possession of the United States Government. It read as follows:

"On the first of February we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare, notwithstanding this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America. If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico. That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and

2 Floyd P. Gibbons in The Chicago Tribune. Mr. Gibbons was a passenger on the Laconia.

Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement. You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence to this plan. At the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan. Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine war

AFTER THE "IVERNIA" WAS TORPEDOED

This occurred in the Mediterranean January 1, 1917. the Ivernia being a Cunarder. She was commanded by Captain Turner, who was captain of the Lusitania when she was sunk

fare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months."

Herr Zimmermann, in a published statement to the press, made before the Reichstag, defended this letter on the ground that if Germany was in danger of war with the United States it behooved Germany to "find new allies." Many Americans recalled that only a few weeks after Zimmermann's note was sent to Mexico, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg had exprest in the Reichstag the high value. Germany set on the friendship of the United States as "an heirloom from Frederick the Great." Zimmermann spoke of "right and duty" as having dictated an alliance with Carranza, in case of war between Germany and this country,