Unofficially came reports from Berlin scouting as impossible the assumption that a German submarine was the culprit, the assurance being repeated that Germany in no circumstance would violate her pledge to the United States not to destroy enemy vessels except after full warning to enable crews and passengers to save their lives. No official statement was forthcoming. The German admiralty declined to "deny or explain" until all the submarines operating off the French coast had returned and reported.
The American procedure in the Sussex case differed from that followed in previous issues with Germany arising from submarine warfare. There were no official representations made to Berlin; Ambassador Gerard was merely asked to ascertain informally and transmit to Washington any pertinent facts he could gather bearing on Germany's culpability. The submarine issue, in fact, had reached a stage where explanations and excuses were of minor importance. Evidence showing whether Germany had or had not broken her pledge not to torpedo passenger vessels without warning was alone of interest to the President. Proof of Germany's guilt foreshadowed an unqualified threat by the United States to break off diplomatic relations. The United States determined to be the judge with Germany in the dock as a defendant, instead of arguing an issue with Berlin, as in the past. This attitude placed Germany in the position of having to prove her innocence in the face of damaging evidence of her guilt. No discussion was even invited with the German ambassador over the case, and Count von Bernstorff apparently did not want to make his usual extenuatory or defensive pleas.
Germany assumed a mien of innocence. Her spokesmen by implication declined to consider that she was in any way involved in the Sussex case; hence there could be no need for Count von Bernstorff to make it a subject of discussion with the American Government.
"I cannot help it," said the ambassador unofficially. "One cannot blame Germany because the Sussex struck a British mine. Why should we discuss it? It does not concern us."
This was Germany's first informal explanation. The readiest means of exculpating Germany from complicity in the Sussex affair was eagerly seized upon and clung to. What other cause except a British mine would there be for the calamity the Sussex had encountered when Germany had pledged herself not to make such attacks?
Meantime information reached Washington that the German secret orders to submarine commanders relating to the armed-merchantmen decree did not conform to the pledges given to the United States, but urged the importance of a policy of concealment in their operations, so that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to lay the proof at Germany's door, if any vessel was sunk contrary to pledge. By this means the German Government could decline to acknowledge responsibility for any attack unless the United States could prove that the submarine was of German nationality.
Whether Washington was correctly informed or not, Germany's attitude gave color to the theory that she had predetermined on repudiating having any hand in submarine attacks if she could successfully cloak the operations of her U-boat commanders. The situation embarrassed the United States and influenced the procedure of the diplomatic negotiations necessary to elucidate any given case. Germany's attitude, in short, placed the United States in the position of either assuming that the word of a friendly government could not be accepted at its face value, or of abandoning further inquiry, as happened in the case of the Persia, recorded in the previous volume. The President boldly undertook to act on the first of these alternatives.
Before the crisis reached this stage, the German point of view regarding submarine warfare was, despite pledges, more than ever unalterably opposed to modifying that warfare to conform to the wishes of any foreign power. For eleven days after the attack of the Sussex the Berlin Foreign Office preserved an attitude of ignorance regarding the torpedoing; but the seriousness with which the case was viewed in the United States, coupled with the instructions from Washington to Ambassador Gerard, at length caused the Foreign Office to call upon the admiralty for a report on the destruction of the Sussex if any submarine commander could throw any light upon it. No hope, however, was entertained that a satisfactory statement would be received from Berlin. A resort to evasion, a professed lack of information, the familiar assumption of an English or French mine being to blame, were expected to be embodied in any defense Berlin made, and an explanation of this tenor was rejected in advance.
Germany's answer was received on April 10, 1916, and fulfilled expectations. The United States was informed that the admiralty had subjected the affair to the fullest investigation, with this results—that no German submarine attacked the Sussex, but that one torpedoed another vessel, about the same time in the same vicinity, with the same result. A sketch the submarine commander made of the vessel he struck was submitted to show that it was not the Sussex, as the sketch differed from the published pictures of that ship. The submarine commander, the German note said, had been led to attack the "unknown" vessel in the belief that it was a warship, that is, "a mine layer of the recently built Arabic class." A violent explosion occurred in the fore part of the ship after the torpedo had been fired, which "warrants the certain conclusion that great amounts of ammunitions were on board." The German note proceeded:
"No other attack whatever by German submarines at the time in question for the Sussex upon the route between Folkestone and Dieppe occurred. The German Government must therefore assume that the injury to the Sussex is attributable to another cause than an attack by a German submarine.