"There was recently published in the newspapers of the United States, I regret to inform the Imperial German Government, a formal warning, purporting to come from the Imperial Germany Embassy at Washington, addressed to the people of the United States, and stating, in effect, that any citizen of the United States who exercised his right of free travel upon the seas, would do so at his peril if his journey should take him within the zone of waters within which the Imperial German Navy was using submarines against the commerce of Great Britain and France, notwithstanding the respectful, but very earnest protests of his Government, the Government of the United States. I do not refer to this for the purpose of calling the attention of the Imperial German Government at this time to the surprising irregularity of a communication from the Imperial Germany Embassy at Washington addressed to the people of the United States through the newspapers, but only for the purpose of pointing out that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an abatement of the responsibility for its commission.
"The Government of the United States cannot believe that the commanders of the vessels which committed these acts of lawlessness did so except under a misapprehension of the orders issued by the Imperial German naval authorities.... It confidently expects, therefore, that the Imperial German Government will disavow the acts of which the Government of the United States complains, that they will make reparation so far as reparation is possible for injuries which are without measure, and that they will take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the principles of warfare for which the Imperial German Government have in the past so wisely and firmly contended.
"The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."
The demands contained in the above Note would have made the continuance of the submarine campaign impossible, and this was, no doubt, the intention of the Union Government. The German answer of May 28th, which defended the torpedoing of the Lusitania on the grounds that she should be considered as an auxiliary cruiser and provided with guns, changed the situation in no way. Besides, the Lusitania had ammunition and Canadian troops on board; there can be no doubt that the main reason why she sank so rapidly was the exploding of her cargo of ammunition by the torpedo which struck her. With regard to the loss of human life, the German Government had already expressed, to the neutral Powers concerned, its deep regret for the death of their subjects—I had in person conveyed these regrets to the United States Government a few days after the destruction of the Lusitania.
After this first exchange of Notes, the gulf between the two points of view appeared fixed, and was bound in face of the prevalent excitement to lead to a severance of diplomatic relations, unless sufficient time were gained to allow the storms of passion to abate. Telegraphic communication between the German Government and the Embassy at Washington was carried out by a circuitous route, which made it extremely slow; thus I was compelled to decide on my own responsibility and take immediate action. I fully realized that the rupture of diplomatic relations would mean war. In America we were face to face with a vigorous hostile propaganda, which had as its sole object to draw the United States into war, and thus bring about a decision by force of arms. From the time of the Lusitania incident onwards, the diplomatic struggle between ourselves and the Entente was centred entirely around the question of the future action of the United States. The threatened rupture of relations between that country and Germany would have left the field open for hostile propaganda, by taking from us all chance of combating it. War would thus have been inevitable sooner or later. The first and most urgent necessity was, therefore, the avoidance of such a rupture at whatever cost, and my efforts were now solely directed to this end. As things turned out, it might, perhaps, have been better if the United States had actually gone to war at this moment. Her military pressure, and our consequent defeat, would have come two years earlier, before the German people had been demoralized and exhausted by four years of war and blockade. But at that time I had good hopes of being able to bring about peace through American mediation, and consequently wished to gain time at all costs.
I resolved, without waiting for instructions from Berlin, to make use of my privileged position as Ambassador to demand an audience with the President. I heard later, among other things when I was at Manila, that on this very day, June 2nd, all preparations had been made for breaking off relations, and for the inevitable resulting war. As a result of my interview, however, they were cancelled. I had a long conversation with the President and two of his advisers. Mr. Wilson felt the position acutely, and was animated solely by a desire to preserve peace. We both realized that it was a question of gaining time, and succeeded in coming to an agreement on the measures to be taken to mitigate the crisis. We took the view that the isolation of Germany had given rise to an atmosphere of misunderstanding between her and the United States, and that the establishment of some sort of personal relationship might be expected to ease this tension; I, therefore, proposed, and the President agreed, that Meyer Gerhardt, a member of the Privy Council, who had accompanied Dr. Dernburg to America, and was then acting on behalf of the German Red Cross, should at once go to Germany and report in person to the Government. Mr. Wilson, for his part, undertook that no final decision should be taken until Meyer Gerhardt had reported the results of his mission.
At the end of this interview I was convinced in my own mind that the President would never enter on war with Germany, otherwise I could not conceive why he should have concurred in my proposals instead of breaking off relations at once. He would, had he chosen the latter course, have had American public opinion more decidedly behind him than it was later, at the time of the final breach. Not a voice would have been raised in opposition, except that of the Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, who, as it was, resigned his office on the ground that the exchange of Notes threatened to involve the United States in war, and could not be reconciled, therefore, with his own pacific intentions.
It is certain that if I had not at this stage of the Lusitania crisis had my interview with the President, relations would have been broken off and war between the United States and Germany must inevitably have followed. The view is still held in many quarters that we might safely have disregarded American susceptibilities, as President Wilson was entirely averse to war and would have avoided it by whatever means; then we should have been free to carry on our submarine campaign. This was not the opinion held by myself or any of my colleagues at the Embassy, and later events proved us to have been in the right, as against those Germans and German-Americans, who, in May, 1915, and afterwards, averred that the United States would never declare war on us, and maintained the same view in January and February, 1917. The principles of my later policy were based on the events of this Lusitania crisis; I had then gathered the conviction that Mr. Wilson wanted peace but the country wanted war; that the President alone had prevented an immediate rupture, but that as the responsible leader of the American people, he would be compelled to bow eventually to public opinion. When Mr. Wilson had to explain away his unlucky speech at Philadelphia, no action was taken from the German side, and no information given him which might lead him to understand that Germany desired to avoid a casus belli at all costs, for fear of giving Mr. Wilson an opportunity to gain a cheap triumph over Germany in a verbal wrangle.