CONTENTS
[THE LUSITANIA CASE]
[The American Rejoinder]
[German and American Press Opinion]
[Austria-Hungary's Protest]
[Armenian, Orduna, and Others]
[Results of Submarine Warfare]
[In Memoriam: REGINALD WARNEFORD]
[American Preparedness]
[First Year of the War]
[Inferences from Eleven Months of the European Conflict]
["Revenge for Elisabeth!"]
[A Year of the War in Africa and Asia]
[An "Insult" to War]
[The Drive at Warsaw]
[Naval Losses During the War]
[Battles in the West]
[France's "Eyewitness" Reports]
[The Crown Prince in the Argonne]
[Gallipoli's Shambles]
[Italy's War on Austria]
[The Task of Italy]
[Two Devoted Nations]
[Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece]
[Dr. Conybeare's Recantation]
[The Case of Muenter]
[Devotion to the Kaiser]
[Scientists and the Military]
[Hudson Maxim on Explosives]
[Thor!]
["I am the Gravest Danger"]
[THE EUROPEAN WAR AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS]
[The Belligerents' Munitions]
[The Power of the Purse]
[Cases Reserved]
[New Recruiting in Britain]
[American War Supplies]
[Magazinists of the World on the War]
[Germany's Long-Nourished Powers]
["To Avenge"]
[The Pope, the Vatican, and Italy]
[Are the Allies Winning?]
[Selling Arms to the Allies]
[War and Non-Resistance]
["Good Natured Germany"]
[Italy's Defection]
[Apologies for English Words]
[Germanic Peace Terms]
[France's Bill of Damages]
[A French Rejoinder]
[Dr. Von Bode's Polemic]
["Carnegie and German Peace"]
[Russia's Supply of Warriors]
[Austria and the Balkans]
[Italy's Publications in War-Time]
[Sweden and the Lusitania]
[A Threatened Despotism of Spirit]
["Gott Mit Uns"]
[On the Psychology of Neutrals]
[Chlorine Warfare]
[Rheims Cathedral]
[The English Falsehood]
[Calais or Suez?]
[Note on the Principle of Nationality]
[Singer of "La Marseillaise"]
[Depression—Common-Sense and the Situation]
[The War and Racial Progress]
[The English Word, Thought, and Life]
[Evviva L'Italia]
[Who Died Content!]
["The Germans, Destroyers of Cathedrals"]
[Chronology of the War]
THE LUSITANIA CASE
The American Note to Berlin of July 21
Steps Leading Up to President Wilson’s Rejection
of Germany’s Proposals
THE German Admiralty on Feb. 4 proclaimed a war zone around Great Britain announcing that every enemy merchant ship found therein would be destroyed "without its being always possible to avert the dangers threatening the crews and passengers on that account."
The text of this proclamation was made known by Ambassador Gerard on Feb. 6. Four days later the United States Government sent to Germany a note of protest which has come to be known as the "strict accountability note." After pointing out that a serious infringement of American rights on the high seas was likely to occur, should Germany carry out her war-zone decree in the manner she had proclaimed, it declared:
"If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas."
The war-zone decree went into effect on Feb. 18. Two days later dispatches were cabled to Ambassador Page at London and to Ambassador Gerard at Berlin suggesting that a modus vivendi be entered into by England and Germany by which submarine warfare and sowing of mines at sea might be abandoned if foodstuffs were allowed to reach the German civil population under American consular inspection.