was simple. Germany's navy dared not come out and face the British fleet, and all maritime operations had therefore to be conducted by submarines. But submarines were so vulnerable that they dared not show themselves above water in the vicinity of possibly hostile vessels. They dared not, therefore, employ the usual and legal methods of visit and search, but purposed to attack and destroy suspected ships without any such formalities.

THE AMERICAN PROTEST

Against this monstrous policy the United States protested. In a note of February 10, 1915, it declared that if in pursuance of this policy Germany should "destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relation subsisting between the two governments." In the same note our State Department continued with the memorable words:

"If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas."

GERMANY ON THE BLOCKADE

The German Government replied on February 16th that it had been driven to the adoption of this policy by

'England's murderous method of conducting maritime war." The "murderous method" was nothing in the world but the long-established and universally recognized system of blockade, by means of which contraband goods were excluded from the ports of the enemy-precisely such as the United States maintained along its Southern coast during the Civil War. This, of course, excluded foodstuffs, and thus threatened Germany with famine. But in railing against this as "murderous" and "contrary to law of war and every dictate of humanity," Germany strangely ignored the fact that in her war against France in 1870-71 she had pursued precisely the same course, excluding foodstuffs from the cities of Strasburg, Metz and Paris until the civilian population died by thousands of sheer starvation and the places were forced for that reason alone to surrender. She ignored the fact that when, on those occasions, the women and children and other helpless non-combatants sought to depart from the beleaguered cities, leaving the fighting men to bear the brunt of famine, they were forced back into the cities at the point of the bayonet and were even fired upon.

In further communications the German Government refused to admit the right of merchant ships to be armed, even for purposes of defense, and insisted upon the free admission of food supplies into Germany to meet the wants of the civilian population. The pretense that imports of food were thus sought solely for civilians, and that such food should not be considered contraband, was of course a quibble, since the civilians would have had enough food without importing any if their supplies had not been taken from them for the army. The new supplies which were demanded were therefore intended to meet a deficit caused by military uses, and were thus obviously contraband.

TRAFFIC IN MUNITIONS OF WAR

The German Government in April, 1915, accused the United States Government of violation of neutrality and of taking an unfair attitude toward Germany, because it did not prohibit the export of munitions of war to the allied powers. This was grossly disingenuous, to say the least. The German Government must have known that it was not in the power of the Administration, but required an act of Congress, to place such an embargo on commerce. It certainly knew that in selling arms the United States was merely maintaining the policy which had prevailed since the foundation of the government, and the policy which other nations, Germany herself conspicuously included, consistently followed. Germany had provided Spain with all the munitions of war she needed in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the United States had never thought of objecting or remonstrating.

Of course in the present war there was no unfairness to Germany. American manufacturers would have been just as ready to sell munitions to Germany as to the allies. But Germany, because of the disappearance of her commercial marine from the high seas, was unable to purchase our goods; or if she did purchase any, was unable to get them transported to her shores. Her claim was, therefore, the absurdly illogical and unreasonable one, that because she did not want or could not carry home our goods, we should refuse them to those who did want them and were able to take them. To this preposterous demand the American Government fittingly replied that "the placing of an embargo on the trade in arms would be a direct violation of the neutrality of the United States," inasmuch as it would be a change of policy calculated to help one belligerent and to injure another.

GERMAN ORDERS TO AMERICAN CITIZENS

There then occurred an incident unique in diplomatic history, involving one of the grossest affronts that one government ever offered to another. The United States, as already related, had insisted upon the right of its citizens

GERMANY'S OFFICIAL PAID ADVERTISEMENT FOREWARNING AMERICANS AGAINST DISASTER; MAP SHOWING WHERE IT TOOK PLACE

This advertisement was wired to forty American newspapers by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington. It was ordered inserted on the morning of the day the Lusitania sailed.

to travel unmolested upon the high seas, and had said that it would hold to "strict accountability" anyone who interfered with that right. Now the German Imperial Government, through its embassy at Washington, issued a proclamation to the people of the United States, by means of advertisements in the leading newspapers. In that

proclamation it warned them that they would thus travel at peril of their lives, unless they complied with the commands of the German Government as to the routes which they should take, the time of their journeys, and the vessels on which they traveled. It practically told American citizens that if they wanted to travel in safety they must not trust to the protection of their own government, but must obey the directions and trust to the protection of Germany.

In any other country of the civilized world the publication of so astounding an impertinence would probably have resulted in the instantaneous dismissal and expulsion of the Ambassador who had dared to utter it, if not also severance of relations with his government. But our government patiently endured the outrage, merely referring to its "surprising irregularity" and saying that no such warning could be accepted as an excuse for or palliation of an unlawful act.

THE LUSITANIA

There swiftly followed fulfilment of the German menace. On May 7, 1915, the British steamer Lusitania, an unarmed merchantman, bound on her regular voyage from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine. Of her passengers and crew numbering 1,959, no fewer than 1,198 were lost, including 124 Americans, a large proportion of them being women and children. This unparalleled atrocity, which was regarded with horror by all the rest of the world, was greeted with delirious outbursts of joy throughout Germany, and by the German and proGerman element in the United States. When the news of it reached New York, the walls of German restaurants, theatres and beer gardens literally quivered under the stress of the exultant cheers. In Germany the government