As plainly as words could state it, this was a warning that American and other neutral vessels might be sunk by German submarines and that Germany would repudiate responsibility for such action. The American press denounced the declaration and its intent, and the United States government made public a note to Germany, containing the following paragraph:
UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE
“If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel, or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily subsisting between the two governments.”
Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an authority on international law, said in discussing the war zone:
“From the beginning the United States government always maintained the right to treat the open sea as a public highway, and refused to acquiesce in one attempt after another to establish a closed sea. It refused to submit to an imposition of the Sound dues by Denmark, or to recognize the Baltic as a closed sea. It refused to pay tribute to the Barbary powers for the privilege of navigating the Mediterranean, and gave notice to Russia that it would disregard the claim to make the North Pacific a closed sea.
A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS
“No one has ever pretended to assert a claim to control the navigation of the North Sea, and Germany has no more right to plant mines in the open sea between Great Britain and Belgium and France than she would have to do so in Delaware Bay, or than a property owner, who was annoyed by automobiles, would have to plant torpedoes in a turnpike.
“The right to plant mines as a defense to a harbor, from which all vessels might lawfully be excluded, is one thing, but to destroy the use of the open sea as a highway, by sowing mines which might indeed destroy British ships, but might also destroy American ships, is an act of hostility which, if persisted in, would constitute a casus belli, and if we had Mr. Webster, or Mr. Marcey, or Mr. Evarts in Washington as Secretary of State, prompt notice would be given that for any damage done Germany would be held responsible.”
A representative quotation from the newspapers of the United States is the following:
“The imperial decree making all of the waters surrounding the British isles a ‘war zone,’ and threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 18, whether they be English or neutral, is surely the maddest proposal ever put forth by a civilized nation.