“According to the report of Commander Schneider of the submarine which sank the Arabic, and his affidavit, as well as those of his men, Commander Schneider was convinced that the Arabic intended to ram the submarine.
“On the other hand, the Imperial government does not doubt the good faith of the affidavit of the British officers of the Arabic, according to which the Arabic did not intend to ram the submarine. The attack of the submarine was undertaken against the instructions issued to the commander. The Imperial government regrets and disavows this act, and has notified Commander Schneider accordingly.
“Under these circumstances, my government is prepared to pay an indemnity for American lives which, to its deep regret, have been lost on the Arabic. I am authorized to negotiate with you about the amount of this indemnity.”
In the meantime, fragments of the metal box of high explosives that had blown in the side of the Hesperian had been picked up on her deck, and forwarded by the British government to America. United States naval experts examined the twisted bits of metal and declared them to have been pieces, not of a mine, as the German government insists, but of an automobile torpedo. However, in view of the fact that the Hesperian was armed with a 4.7 gun, and because of the happy outcome of the Arabic affair, it seems unlikely that anything will be done about it.
But only a month later there was begun another “Campaign of Frightfulness,” this time by Austrian submarines in the Mediterranean. As the passengers on the Italian liner Ancona, one day out from Naples to New York, were sitting at luncheon on November 7th, they “felt a tremor through the ship as her engines stopped and reversed.”[29] Then, while we were stopping, there was an explosion forward. A shell had struck us.
“When I reached the deck,” continues Dr. Greil, “shell was fairly pouring into us from the submarine, which we could see through the fog, about 100 yards away. I hurried below to pack a few things in my trunk. As I was standing over it, a shell came through the porthole and struck my maid, who was standing at my side. It tore away her scalp and part of her skull and went on through the wall, bursting somewhere inside the ship.
“When I went on deck again I found the wildest excitement. It was like the old-time stories one used to read of shipwrecks at sea. I will not say anything about the crew because I could not say anything good. They launched fifteen boats but only eight got away. I was in one of these.... I do not believe the submarine fired deliberately on the lifeboats. They were trying to sink the Ancona with shells, but they finally used a torpedo to send her to the bottom. I looked at my watch when she took her last plunge. It was 12.45. We were picked up by the French cruiser Pluton about midnight.”
The commander of the submarine declared, in his official report, that he had fired only because the Ancona had tried to escape, that he had ceased firing as soon as she came to a stop, that the loss of life was due to the incompetence of the panic-stricken crew of the liner, whom the Austrian officer allowed forty-five minutes in which to launch the lifeboats. He admitted, however, that at the expiration of this time he had torpedoed and sunk the Ancona, while there were still a number of people on her decks.
About two hundred of the passengers and crew were drowned or killed by shellfire. Among them were several American citizens.
“The conduct of the commander,” declared the strongly-worded American note of December 6th, “can only be characterized as wanton slaughter of defenseless non-combatants.”... The government of the United States is unwilling ... to credit the Austro-Hungarian government with an intention to permit its submarines to destroy the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It prefers to believe that the commander of the submarine committed this outrage without authority and contrary to the general or special instructions which he had received.