"Therefore, the Austro-Hungarian Government must leave it to the Washington Cabinet to draw up the individual legal maxims which the commander of the submarine is alleged to have violated when sinking the Ancona.
"The American Government also thought it advisable to point out the attitude which the Berlin Cabinet in the before-mentioned exchange of correspondence had taken. In the highly esteemed note the Austro-Hungarian Government finds no support for this course. If the American Government should have intended thereby to express an opinion as if a precedent exists for the present case, the Austro-Hungarian Government, in order to prevent misunderstandings, must declare that it, of course, must preserve full liberty to urge its own legal interpretations during the discussion of the Ancona case."
This was a virtual refusal by Austria-Hungary to be bound by or concerned with the submarine agreement between her ally and the United States. As viewed through German-American eyes (the "New Yorker Herold"), the Austrian answer represented "a very sharp censure of a dilettante diplomacy which desires to negotiate and expects plain replies before the most essential preliminaries are given. The tenor of the Vienna note is in substance this: 'We are willing to negotiate, but first you must furnish us with the necessary material—undebatable material at that.' It is quite comprehensible that Washington is peeved at this censure."
Austria's demand for a "bill of particulars" was aptly expressed in this hostile view of the American note. The United States declined to accede to the request, which was viewed as a resort to the evasive methods practiced by Germany, but rested its case on the Austrian admiralty's self-condemning admission that the Ancona was sunk while people were still on board her. Nor would the American Government assent to the Austrian proposal that the two governments "exchange views" as to the legality of the act as described by the Austrian admiralty. President Wilson and his advisers saw no loophole for argument as to the justification or otherwise of a submarine sinking an unarmed merchantman with passengers on board her when the vessel was at a standstill.
Hence the second American note sent on December 19, 1915, was confined to a simple issue. The Government brushed aside the questions Austria raised as immaterial to the main fact based on the incriminating report of her own admiralty. The Austrian Government was informed that the admission that the Ancona was torpedoed after her engines had been stopped and while passengers remained on her was alone sufficient to fix the blame on the submarine commander. His culpability was established.
"The rules of international law," the American note continued, "and the principles of humanity which were thus willfully violated by the commander of the submarine have been so long and so universally recognized and are so manifest from the standpoint of right and justice that the Government of the United States does not feel called upon to debate them and does not understand that the Imperial and Royal Government questions or disputes them.
"The Government of the United States therefore finds no other course open to it but to hold the Imperial and Royal Government responsible for the act of its naval commander and to renew the definite but respectful demands made in its communication of the 6th of December, 1915."
Firing a torpedo from the deck of a German destroyer. The torpedo has just left the tube. Dropping into the water it will continue its course, like a small submarine boat, straight to its mark.