US note on the Sussex

At six in the evening on 18 April 1916 Secretary of State Robert Lansing cabled the United States ambassador in Berlin, James W. Gerard, a note for the German Foreign Minister. It was the reply to the German explanations concerning the torpedoing of the ferry Sussex in the English Channel on 24 March. It ended with a sentence that made it an ultimatum: unless the Imperial German Government should immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the United States would have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire.

The German explanations

The Germans had replied to the American inquiries in a note of 10 April. They admitted that on 24 March one of their submarines had torpedoed, in mid-Channel, a long black vessel without a flag and with two high masts. The commander had been convinced that he faced a warship, a new British minelayer. His sketch and a photograph of the Sussex from a British newspaper were attached to the note, and these were supposed to show that two different vessels were involved. Berlin therefore claimed that the Sussex must have been damaged by some other cause, and recalled that the Channel was full of drifting mines. If the Americans had other evidence, it asked for it to be passed on, and in case of disagreement proposed that the facts be established by a mixed commission of inquiry under the Hague Convention of 1907.

The contents of the note

The Americans, however, did have evidence. A statement of facts was attached to the note. The ferry, which had never been armed or carried troops, had left Folkestone with more than 325 passengers, among them about 25 American citizens. At 2.50 p.m., about 13 miles from Dungeness, the captain saw the wake of a torpedo from the bridge and tried to turn away, but was too late. According to the American note about 80 people were killed or injured. American naval and army officers who examined the wreck at Boulogne recovered 15 pieces of metal from the debris. Two bolts were stamped with the letter “K” and numbers, identical to the bolts fastening the warhead to the air flask of the German torpedoes that the officers had examined at Toulon and Portsmouth. French and British torpedoes had no such markings. According to the note, the explanations of 10 April only confirmed that the ferry had been torpedoed by a German submarine.

Washington did not stop at the Sussex alone. Had it been an isolated case, the note said, it might have been enough to punish the commander, express regret and pay compensation. But the attack was only one of the most glaring examples of methods that since February 1915 had led to the indiscriminate destruction of vessels of every flag. The note recalled that Germany had repeatedly given assurances that at least passenger ships would be spared, and yet the Lusitania, the Arabic and the Sussex had been attacked without warning, and the number of Americans killed had reached the hundreds. The United States government had been “very patient”, but it now concluded that it had been right from the start: submarines by their very nature could not destroy the enemy’s commerce in accordance with the principles of humanity and the rights of neutrals. The note set no deadline for a reply.

Wilson before Congress

On the morning of 19 April President Woodrow Wilson presented the contents of the note to the leaders of both houses, and in the afternoon he addressed a joint session of Congress. He repeated the key sentences of the note and said that the United States was “in some sense and by the force of circumstances” the spokesman of the rights of humanity, and so could not remain silent while those rights were swept away in the maelstrom of war. According to the Italian agency Stefani, the speech was heard in complete silence and its conclusion greeted with unanimous applause. The German ambassador in Washington, Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, warned Berlin that without a swift concession relations would be broken off.

Gerard handed the note to the Foreign Minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, on the evening of 20 April. After reading it, Jagow said that it meant a break, but that he had to consult the chancellor, who was at headquarters. He added that Germany could not give up sinking merchant ships without warning in the war zone. In Berlin a dispute was going on between Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who wanted to avoid war with America, and the naval command. On 4 May Germany gave way and undertook that its submarines would not sink merchant ships without warning and without saving lives, while stating at the same time that it expected Washington to put pressure on Great Britain over the blockade.