"Reference your wire No. A 129 of September 10th, I ask your Excellency to be kind enough to pardon me for having taken upon myself to act on my own responsibility over the submarine question. The position at the end of August rendered some action to pacify public opinion imperative, if a breach were to be avoided. Owing to the difficulties of communication with Berlin I could do nothing but acquaint Mr. Lansing with a portion of my instructions concerning the case of the Lusitania—the only ones which had then reached me. I at once reported my action to your Excellency in my wireless message, No. 179, and in a previous telegram, No. 165, and requested approval of my action; probably these messages have been delayed in transit, or have not reached Berlin. In further explanation, I may add that in this country, confidential matter, in the European sense, does not exist, and such matter can never be kept a secret from the Press. Sometimes I have been able to come to an agreement with the Government over the wording of their communiqués to the Press; that is one of the great advantages of conducting the negotiations on the spot. Had the whole American Press entirely refused to accept our official explanations, nothing further could have been done with the Government."
While my negotiations with Mr. Lansing in Washington for a simultaneous settlement of the Arabic and Lusitania questions were still in progress, a memorandum was handed to Mr. Gerard, the American Ambassador in Berlin which purported to justify the action of the offending submarine commanders. Thus the situation once more became acute. The contents of this document were as follows:
"On August 19th a German submarine held up the English steamer Dunele about sixty miles south of Kinsale, and having ordered the crew to leave the ship, were about to sink it by gun-fire when the commander observed a large steamer heading directly towards him. This latter, which afterwards proved to be the Arabic, bore no ensign, or other marks of neutrality, and was thus obviously an enemy. Approaching nearer, she altered her original course, and again made directly for the submarine thus leading the commander of the latter to suppose that she was about to attack and ram him. In order to parry this attack, the submarine dived and fired a torpedo which struck the ship. The submarine commander observed that those on board got away in fifteen boats.
"According to his instructions, the German commander was authorized to attack the Arabic without warning, and without allowing time for the rescue of her crew, in case of an attempt at flight or resistance. The action of the Arabic undoubtedly gave him good grounds for supposing that an attack on him was intended. He was the more inclined to this belief, by the fact that a few days before, on the 14th, he had been fired at from long range by a large passenger steamer, apparently belonging to the British Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which he saw in the Irish Sea, but which he had made no attempt to attack or hold up.
"The German Government deeply regrets that loss of life should have resulted from the action of this officer, and it desires that these sentiments should be conveyed more particularly to the Government of the United States, as American citizens were among the missing. No obligation to make compensation for the damage done can, however, be admitted, even on the hypothesis that the submarine commander mistook the intentions of the Arabic. In the event of an insoluble difference arising on this point between the German and American Governments, the German Government suggests that the matter in dispute should be referred to the Hague Tribunal as a question of international law, in accordance with Article 38 of the Hague convention for the peaceful solution of differences between nations; but it can do so only with this reservation, that the arbitrator's award shall not have the validity of a general decision as to the international legality or otherwise of the German submarine warfare."
The following three reports or telegrams dispatched by me to the Imperial Chancellor describe the situation in Washington at this juncture:
(1) Cipher
"Washington, September 14th, 1915.
"Lansing has given me permission to wire you by this route, without the messages being seen by him; he will also forward your Excellency's reply, and from this it appears to be the Government's view, that any further exchange of Notes, the subsequent publication of which, in both countries, would merely involve further misunderstandings, is bound to lead to a breach. It considers the present system of confidential negotiations with me as the only promising method of arriving at an agreement. The memorandum on the Arabic is not understood here, and in so far as it is understood, is considered to be a manifestation of German bad faith—a sign that we may perhaps give way in principle, but will always in practice seek to evade our obligations thus incurred.
"Lest this telegram should, by its length, give offence to the British, Mr. Lansing is forwarding the evidence in the Arabic case to Mr. Gerard for transmission to your Excellency; he is himself quite convinced that the submarine commander was not compelled in self-defense to torpedo the Arabic, and that his action in so doing was therefore unjustified. He hopes that your Excellency will after study of the evidence, agree with him in this.