United States arms its merchant ships

On 12 March 1917 the State Department sent a short note to all the embassies and legations in Washington. It recalled that on 31 January Germany had announced that in designated zones it would sink all ships, including neutral ones, without search and without regard for the safety of the people on board. In view of this, the United States government had decided to place on all American merchant ships sailing through these zones an “armed guard” for the protection of the ships and their crews. This meant guns and sailors from the Navy to man them. The armed neutrality that President Woodrow Wilson had asked Congress for two weeks earlier became a fact without the consent of Congress.

Without a bill

The armed ship bill had died in the Senate. On 1 March the House of Representatives passed it by a huge majority, but a dozen or so senators dragged out the debate until noon on 4 March, when the term of Congress expired. Neither the publication of the Zimmermann Telegram nor the fact that on 3 March Zimmermann admitted that the dispatch was genuine was of any help. Seventy-five senators signed a statement that they would have supported the bill had it come to a vote. Wilson, who on 5 March was ceremonially inaugurated for his second term, responded with a sharp attack on a “little group of wilful men” and demanded a change in the Senate’s rules. The new Senate, assembled for a short special session, on 8 March adopted by 76 votes to 3 the first rule in its history allowing debate to be closed by a two-thirds majority. It was the first limitation on obstruction, known in America as the filibuster.

The president, however, did not want to wait for the new Congress. The problem was a law of 1819, passed to fight pirates, which according to some lawyers forbade American merchant ships to use force against warships of a state with which the United States was at peace. Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Attorney General Thomas Gregory concluded that the provision concerned pirates and did not apply to defence against an unlawful attack by a submarine. On 9 March the White House announced two decisions. The president summoned the new Congress to a special session on 16 April, and his secretary Joseph Tumulty stated that Wilson was convinced of his right to arm the ships and intended to exercise it. The note of 12 March formally notified the world of this. This difference of dates can also be seen in the sources: some give 9 March, when the decision was announced, and some 12 March, when it came into effect.

Policemen on the tram

The newspapers wondered who on an armed ship would decide on opening fire. Officials in Washington explained it by comparison with a mayor who during a strike sends policemen to protect the trams. The motorman goes on driving the tram, and when the policeman reaches for his weapon is decided by his superior. The master of the ship was thus still to command it, but the decision to fire on a submarine was to rest with the commander of the gun crew, acting on the instructions of the Navy Department. The government stressed that a ship with a gun for defence remained a merchant ship and not an auxiliary warship. Against the Germans, however, who had announced that they would attack without warning, the gunners would probably fire as soon as they identified a submarine.

On the morning of the same day, about 65 miles west of Bishop Rock off the Isles of Scilly, Kapitänleutnant Ernst Hashagen’s U-62 shelled without warning the American steamer Algonquin, sailing with food from New York to London. The ship had American flags painted on her sides. The submarine kept firing until the lifeboats had pulled away from her side, and then sank the ship with gunfire and explosive charges. The entire crew of 27 survived more than a day in the boats and reached the shore. The news reached Washington only on 14 March. According to American officials it was the first unquestionable case since 1 February of the Germans attacking a ship under the American flag without any warning.

Preparations took several days, and shipowners who had kept their ships in port since February began to get them ready for sailing. By the end of March the first armed American ships were already on their way to the war zone. Before any of them reached it, however, German submarines sank more American ships. Armed neutrality proved a half-measure, and on 2 April Wilson himself admitted before Congress that it was ineffective and asked for a declaration of war on Germany.