After talking over this critical situation with the Prime Minister and other members of the Government, I cannot refrain from most strongly recommending the immediate sending over of every destroyer and all other craft that can be of anti-submarine use. This seems to me the sharpest crisis of the war, and the most dangerous situation for the Allies that has arisen or could arise.
If enough submarines can be destroyed in the next two or three months the war will be won, and if we can contribute effective help immediately it will be won directly by our aid. I cannot exaggerate the pressing and increasing danger of this situation. Thirty or more destroyers and other similar craft sent by us immediately would very likely be decisive.
There is no time to be lost.
Page.
But Mr. Page and I thought that we had not completely done our duty even after sending these urgent messages. Whatever might happen, we were determined that it could never be charged that we had not presented the Allied situation in its absolutely true light. It seemed likely that an authoritative statement from the British Government would give added assurance that our statements were not the result of panic, and with this idea in mind, Mr. Page and I called upon Mr. Balfour, Foreign Secretary, who, in response to our request, sent a despatch to Washington describing the seriousness of the situation.
All these messages made the same point: that the United States should immediately assemble all its destroyers and other light craft, and send them to the port where they could render the greatest service in the anti-submarine campaign—Queenstown.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The statements published were not false, but they were inconclusive and intentionally so. They gave the number of British ships sunk, but not their tonnage, and not the total losses of British, Allied, and neutral tonnage.
[2] See Appendices II and III for my cable and letter to the Navy Department, explaining the submarine situation in detail.
[3] See Appendix IV for my statement to Washington on arming merchant ships.