"As the armament of several British ships has been used for attack, and has therefore endangered the lives of crew and passengers, of course armed ships cannot be considered as peaceful trade boats."
The cases of the Marina and Arabia put the German pledges to a test. Neither vessel attempted to escape nor offered resistance, though armed with a solitary gun. The issue therefore resolved itself into these considerations:
First. Since the German submarine commanders have pleaded extenuating circumstances on which they based their presumption that the Marina and Arabia, were transports, and not passenger vessels, were these circumstances sufficient to have justified the commanders in mistaking the two steamers for transports?
Second. If there were such extenuating circumstances, were they such as to warrant the commanders in departing from the general rule laid down by the American Government in the Sussex note, calling forth the pledges given by Germany in May, 1916, in which it was guaranteed that "in accordance with the general principles of visit and search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international law, such vessels, both within and without the area declared as naval war zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives, unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance?"
Whatever intimation was made to Germany by the United States did not become public. By December, 1916, the whole question appeared to have been suddenly shelved by the peace proposals Germany hurled at the Allies in loud tones of victory, coupled with an invitation to the United States to interpose as a mediator. Peace, of course, would dispose of further friction with the United States. While the proposals were pending, moreover, American action on German violations of her submarine agreement was suspended. What was the use of a diplomatic rupture with Germany on the eve of peace? But Germany knew that her official "peace kite" was making an abortive flight. Peace she really did not expect, knowing it was not within reach; but she was anxious to preserve friendly relations with the United States, although daily flouting it in her conduct of the submarine war. Her peace move was therefore shown to have had a double edge. It postponed, but did not avert, a final crisis with the United States, and that, indeed, might well have been its initial aim in view of the foredoomed futility of its ostensible object. Certainly President Wilson espoused the peace proposal for the same reason; but, as shown in the following chapter, the efforts of both were in vain. The real climax was to come after all.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LIII
RUPTURE WITH GERMANY
The movement for peace was at its crest, and President Wilson was apparently sanguine that his efforts in furthering it were on the eve of bearing fruit, when Great Britain planned to extend her blockade of the German coast in the North Sea. She enlarged the dangerous area which hitherto only barred the entry of German naval forces south into the Straits of Dover and the English Channel by cutting off the German North Sea coast altogether, in order to prevent the egress and ingress of German sea raiders by the northward route and to curtail the chances of the kaiser's warships making successful forays on the English coast. The significance of this action was not seen until it became known that Great Britain had discovered that Germany, while seemingly occupied with peace, was preparing a warning to neutrals of her intention to establish a deep-sea blockade of the entire British and French coasts. By extending the mined area round the German coast Great Britain sought to counteract and anticipate the new German project, the aim of which was to starve the British Isles by a bitter and unrestrained submarine war on all ships. The British warning of the extended dangerous area came on January 27, 1917. Germany announced her new policy four days later, proclaiming that it was in retaliation of Great Britain's latest attempt to tighten her strangle hold on German food supplies. But there was overwhelming evidence—the German Chancellor himself provided it—that the German plan had been matured long in advance of Great Britain's course, and that the peace overtures had really been made by Germany in order that their certain rejection could be seized upon as a justification for the ruthless sea warfare projected.
The Wilson Administration, round whose horizon mirages of peace still appeared to linger, was not prepared for the blow when it came. The President could scarcely credit the news brought by a note from Germany on January 31, 1917, that she had withdrawn her pledges to the United States not to sink ships without warning. But the situation had to be faced that a crisis confronted the country in its relations with the German Empire.
Germany found occasion in her note of renunciation to link its purport with that of the President's address delivered to the Senate nine days previously. (See Part VI, Chapter LVIII, "Peace Without Victory.") In its exalted sentiments she gave a perfunctory and manifestly insincere acquiescence by way of prefacing familiar reproaches to the Allies for refusing to accept her peace overtures. In rejecting them, she said, the Allies had disclosed their real aims, which were to "dismember and dishonor Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria."