Germany will not postpone submarine warfare

On 28 February 1916 the German ambassador in Washington, Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, handed Secretary of State Robert Lansing his government’s memorandum on armed merchant ships. The British chronology of the war records this German reply under 29 February. The most important part was the last sentence: Germany welcomed the American efforts to bring the belligerents to an agreement on disarming merchant ships, but could not change or postpone the new orders to its commanders, since it would not allow its submarines to remain exposed to unlawful attacks by armed enemy ships. That same day the Austro-Hungarian chargé d’affaires read Lansing a short statement that Vienna took an identical position.

Pledges unchanged

Berlin tried to persuade the Americans that nothing had really changed. The memorandum gave assurances that the Imperial government stood by its pledges of 1 September and 5 October 1915 that liners would not be sunk without warning. It recalled that in the dispute over the Lusitania the discussion had always concerned unarmed ships, and that the formula agreed in September contained the proviso that the ship must not offer resistance. A gun on board meant, in the German view, that the ship intended to offer it, because a submarine commander could not warn a liner that had the right to fire on him. Berlin also invoked the Americans themselves. When the armed Italian liners Verdi and Verona put into New York, the State Department had demanded assurances from Italy that they would not fire on submarines that stopped them. Finally, the memorandum gave assurances that the orders had been worded so that a liner would not be sunk because of its armament until that armament had been established.

On 29 February Bernstorff sent Lansing a follow-up letter with quotations from the London press. The naval commentator of The Times admitted that several ships had opened fire on submarines as soon as they sighted them, and the Daily Graphic wrote: “let it be clear that we shall not confine ourselves to defensive measures”. For the ambassador this was proof that British merchant ships did not meet even the American definition of defensive armament.

Wilson hastens the vote

In Washington the German memorandum did not change the administration’s course. That same day President Woodrow Wilson wrote to the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives asking it to put to the vote as soon as possible the resolutions calling on Americans to avoid travelling on armed ships. Rumours of a split in Congress, he wrote, were being eagerly exploited in foreign capitals. The President counted on Congress rejecting them, and he was not mistaken. On 3 March the Senate tabled Senator Thomas Gore’s resolution by 68 votes to 14, and on 7 March the House of Representatives disposed of Jeff McLemore’s resolution in the same way, by 276 votes to 142.

On 29 February the orders came into force under which German submarines could attack armed Entente cargo ships without warning. The British chronology dates the start of the extended submarine campaign from 1 March. In Germany, however, the dispute continued. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and the Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, demanded unrestricted submarine warfare, and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg opposed it. At the beginning of March Emperor Wilhelm II sided with the Chancellor and postponed the decision. In mid-March Tirpitz resigned, and on 24 March a submarine torpedoed the French passenger ship Sussex in the English Channel. There were Americans on board, and the dispute with Washington broke out again.