By the end of September, 1916, a "lull" in German submarine activity was reported, due, according to Lord Robert Cecil, to a shortage in submarines. But reports showed that between June 1, 1916, and September 24, 1916, 277 vessels, sixty-six of which were neutral, had been sunk by submarines, fifteen of them without warning, and with the loss of eighty-four lives. The abatement really took place in June and July, 1916, following the American agreement with Germany in May, 1916. The "lull" may therefore be measured by these figures: Vessels sunk in June, 57; in July, 42; in August, 103; in September (to the 24th), 75.
The only real lull was a cessation in attacks on liners. The British view, based on the allegation that fifteen vessels had been sunk without warning causing a loss of eighty-four lives, was that German frightfulness was already in full swing despite Berlin's promise to the United States. The American attitude, however, was that so long as American lives were not lost on ships sunk without warning the United States had no ground for intervention. Hence Germany could apparently sink vessels with impunity so long as the noncombatant victims belonged to other nationalities.
The agitation in Germany to break the undertaking with the United States was thrashed out between the adherents of Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg and the Pan-Germanists without shaking the Chancellor's strength. He had the support of Field Marshal von Hindenburg and the navy chiefs, who, in frowning on an unbridled submarine warfare, successfully imposed the weight of their authority against any change. The subject divided the Budget Committee of the Reichstag, the question being whether its discussion should be permitted in open session. The outcome was that the committee decided, by a vote of 24 to 4, to smother the agitation by refusing to permit its ventilation in the open Reichstag.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LI
THE U-53'S EXPLOITS
While the German Budget Committee was thus occupied a new and startling turn was given to the situation by the unheralded appearance at Newport, R. I., on October 7, 1916, of a German submarine, the U-53. Rising out of the water in the afternoon, it remained long enough for its captain to deliver a missive for Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, pay a call on Admiral Knight, the American commander there, ask for news of the missing Bremen, and obtain a sheaf of New York newspapers for information regarding Allied shipping. Then it left the port, whither it had been piloted, and disappeared under the waves. The visit, standing by itself, was an interesting episode; but it proved to be much more than a mere social call.
The next day revealed the real object of the submarine's presence in American waters. Off Nantucket it appeared in its true guise as a raider of shipping and sank five vessels—three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian. Having thus brought the submarine war to the very threshold of the United States, causing a reign of terror among held-up shipping along the Atlantic seaboard—a state of mind which, while it lasted, meant a virtual blockade of American ports—it disappeared and was not again heard of.
There was no doubt that the exploits of the U-53 were intended as a demonstration to test American feeling as to whether Germany could attack on this side of the water munition and other vessels bound for Allied ports. It appeared a bold attempt to create a new precedent by overriding one laid down in 1870 by President Grant, who ruled that American waters must not be used by other nations for belligerent purposes. Outside the three-mile limit, however, German submarines could operate with the same impunity as in the Arctic Ocean, so long as they observed the requirement of giving warning and allowing people on board the intercepted vessels time to save their lives. But the manifest point was that the waters outside the three-mile limit were contiguous to the American coast, and provided highways for American shipping, coastwise and foreign. The proximity of German submarines, even though they confined their attention to Allied shipping to and from American ports, constituted too great a menace to the free movement of the American mercantile marine.
A wolf at a man's door is none the less dangerous because the wolf is lying in wait for the appearance of an inmate of the man's house and not for the man himself. Informal intimations persuaded Germany that she could not safely repeat the experiment of carrying the war to America's door.
The innovation, even in its most innocuous form, was contrary to good international usage. Great Britain had previously offended in this respect by permitting her patrolling cruisers to intercept and examine merchant vessels off the port of New York. She desisted at Washington's request. But a waiting cruiser, plain to the eye, interfering with shipping to prevent communication with Germany, was a mild offender compared with an unseen submarine crossing the paths of ships and liable to err in its indiscriminate destructiveness.