PRESIDENT IN 1914 LAID DOWN POLICY WHICH GUIDED THE NAVY IN YEARS OF PREPARATION—ON VERGE OF WAR IN 1916—FLEET PREPARED TO MOBILIZE—"DEUTSCHLAND" AND U-53 WARNED US TO EXPECT SUBMARINES—CONGRESS AUTHORIZED BUILDING OF 157 WARSHIPS—MERCHANT SHIPS LISTED, MUNITIONS ACCUMULATED, COUNTRY'S INDUSTRIES SURVEYED.
"We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas," declared President Wilson in his annual message to Congress in December, 1914, and this was the guiding policy in the years of preparation that preceded the war. And the two years that followed were the busiest the Navy has ever known in time of peace.
The United States was on the very verge of war a year before it was declared. All preparations were made to mobilize the Fleet when President Wilson, after the sinking of the Sussex, sent his ultimatum to Germany declaring:
Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether.
That note was despatched on April 18, 1916. Germany did not reply promptly and in a few days the following order was issued:
NAVY DEPARTMENT
Washington, April 27, 1916.
Confidential.
From: Chief of Naval Operations.
Subject: Mobilization Plan.