After admitting that the conditions of the present war are extraordinary and that changed conditions naturally bring new methods into being, he insists that those methods must conform to principle, not principle to those methods. Thus:

The rights of neutrals in time of war are based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. It is the duty and obligation of belligerents to find a way to adapt the new circumstances to them.'

In regard to the German proposal to set aside a certain number of ships which it would respect, apparently leaving itself free to destroy all others, Secretary Lansing repudiates this in the following measured language:

The Government of the United States, while not indifferent to the friendly spirit in which it is made, cannot accept the suggestion of the Imperial German Government that certain vessels be designated and agreed upon which shall be free on the seas now illegally proscribed. The very agreement would, by implication, subject other vessels to illegal attack and would be a curtailment and therefore an abandonment of the principles for which this Government contends and which in times of calmer counsels every nation would concede as of course.2

After saying that the Government of the United States will continue to contend for that freedom, from whatever quarter violated, without compromise and at any cost, Secretary Lansing concludes his note with the very solemn warning, always portending grave consequences between great Nations, that:

Friendship itself prompts it to say to the Imperial Government that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly.2

SECTION 2. THE "ARABIC"

Before taking up the case of The Sussex, brief mention should be made of The Arabic, a steamer of the White Star Line, which was torpedoed without warning at 9 o'clock on the morning of August 15, 1915. It sank in eleven minutes. At the time it was torpedoed it Official text, American Journal of International Law, Special Supplement, July, 1915, p. 156.

1

2 Ibid., p. 157.

had on board 181 passengers, among them 25 Americans. No attempt was made by the submarine to put passengers or crew in a place of safety, and 44 lives were lost, including therein three Americans. The Imperial German Government apparently appreciated the seriousness of this incident, as in a note of September 1, 1915, its Ambassador to the United States informed Secretary Lansing that the following passage occurred in the last note which he had received from his Government concerning the Lusitania case:

Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without safety of the lives of noncombatants, provided that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance.'

Although, in a note of September 4th, the German Ambassador repeated the contention of his Government that "American citizens who travel on such vessels do so on their own responsibility and incur the greatest risk," the representations of the American Government in case of The Arabic caused the Imperial German Government to state to its Ambassador, on October 5, 1915, that "the orders issued by His Majesty the Emperor to the commanders of the German submarines of which I notified you on a previous occasionhave been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the Arabic case is considered out of the question." The Ambassador, after referring to the belief of the German commander that the liner intended to ram the submarine, added that "the attack of the submarine, therefore, was undertaken against the instructions issued to the commander. The Imperial Government regrets and disavows this act and has notified Commander Schneider accordingly." He ended the note with an offer, made on behalf of his Government, to pay an indemnity for the American lives lost on The Arabic. On October 6, 1915, Secretary Lansing, in an acknowledgment to the German Ambassador, expressed satisfaction with the foregoing assurances of the German Government and stated his readiness to negotiate regarding the amount of the indemnity.

SECTION 3. THE "SUSSEX"

In the face of these assurances and in disregard of the apparent accord between the two Governments, the British passenger steamer

Official text, American Journal of International Law, Special Supplement, October, 1916, p. 166.

2 Ibid., p. 167.

Ibid., p. 172.

Sussex, plying between an English and a French port and having American passengers on board, was torpedoed on March 24, 1916, without the formalities of visit and search, without warning, and without an attempt made to save the lives of passengers and crew or to put them in a place of safety. The question involved something more than the destruction of a passenger vessel and the loss of American lives. It involved the good faith of the Imperial German Government and the degree to which the United States could rely upon the solemn pledge of that Government given after negotiations extending over a period of more than a year. The facts of the case, as stated by Secretary Lansing in his cable of April 18, 1916,' after careful investigation by the United States, were as follows:

On the 24th of March, 1916, at about 2:50 o'clock in the afternoon, the unarmed steamer Sussex, with 325 or more passengers on board, among whom were a number of American citizens, was torpedoed while crossing from Folkestone to Dieppe. The Sussex had never been armed; was a vessel known to be habitually used only for the conveyance of passengers across the English Channel; and was not following the route taken by troop ships or supply ships. About eighty of her passengers, noncombatants of all ages and sexes, including citizens of the United States, were killed or injured.2

Recognizing the peculiar gravity of the case and that the United States must stand upon the issue raised, Secretary Lansing thus stated the care with which the United States had ascertained the facts involved:

A careful, detailed, and scrupulously impartial investigation by naval and military officers of the United States has conclusively established the fact that The Sussex was torpedoed without warning or summons to surrender and that the torpedo by which she was struck was of German manufacture.2

After observing that the Government of the United States had given careful consideration to the Imperial German note of April 10, 1916, in which that Government denied that The Sussex was destroyed by a German submarine, introducing, in support of this statement, "a sketch of the vessel attacked" made by the German commander, and in which the Imperial German Government proposed that the facts be ascertained by a mixed committee of investigation pursuant

1 Official text, American Journal of International Law, Special Supplement, October, 1916, pp. 186-190. 2 Ibid., p. 187.

to the third title of The Hague Convention of October 18, 1907, for the pacific settlement of international disputes, Secretary Lansing added that "the Imperial Government has failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation which has resulted, not alone from the attack on The Sussex, but from the whole method and character of submarine warfare as disclosed by the unrestrained practice of the commanders of German undersea craft during the past twelvemonth and more in the indiscriminate destruction of merchant vessels of all sorts, nationalities, and destinations."

Secretary Lansing was willing to concede that, if the case were an isolated one, although "so tragical as to make it stand forth as one of the most terrible examples of the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of German vessels are conducting it," the "ends of justice might be satisfied by imposing upon him [the commander] an adequate punishment, coupled with a formal disavowal of the act and payment of a suitable indemnity by the Imperial Government." But, under present circumstances, the destruction of The Sussex could only be looked upon as one of a series and as evidence "of the deliberate method and spirit of indiscriminate destruction of merchant vessels of all sorts, nationalities, and destinations." Secretary Lansing referred to the attitude of the United States upon the announcement of the submarine campaign in 1915, when "it took the position that such a policy could not be pursued without constant gross and palpable violations of the accepted law of nations, particularly if submarine craft were to be employed as its instruments, inasmuch as the rules prescribed by that law, rules founded on the principles of humanity and established for the protection of the lives of noncombatants at sea, could not in the nature of the case be observed by such vessels."

Notwithstanding the requirements of the law of Nations in these matters, based upon the principles of humanity and having "the express assent of all civilized nations," the Imperial Government, to quote Secretary Lansing's exact words, "persisted in carrying out the policy announced, expressing the hope that the dangers involved, at any rate to neutral vessels, would be reduced to a minimum by the instructions which it had issued to the commanders of its submarines, and assuring the Government of the United States that it would take every possible precaution both to respect the rights of neutrals and to safeguard the lives of noncombatants." But, in spite of these promises and the protest of the United States, the submarine warfare continued, suggesting that the "Imperial Govern

ment has found it impracticable to put any such restraints upon them as it had hoped and promised to put."

After calling attention to the fact that in February, 1916, the German Government declared that it would treat armed merchantmen as vessels of war and that by so doing it pledged itself by implication "to give warning to vessels which were not armed and to accord security of life to their passengers and crews," and, after stating that commanders of German submarines "had recklessly ignored" even this limitation, Secretary Lansing used the following spirited but just language:

Vessels of neutral ownership, even vessels of neutral ownership bound from neutral port to neutral port, have been destroyed along with vessels of belligerent ownership in constantly increasing numbers. Sometimes the merchantmen attacked have been warned and summoned to surrender before being fired on or torpedoed; sometimes their passengers and crews have been vouchsafed the poor security of being allowed to take to the ship's boats before the ship was sent to the bottom. But again and again no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship's boats allowed to those on board. Great liners like The Lusitania and Arabic and mere passenger boats like The Sussex have been attacked without a moment's warning, often before they have even become aware that they were in the presence of an armed ship of the enemy, and the lives of noncombatants, passengers, and crew have been destroyed wholesale and in a manner which the Government of the United States cannot but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact been set to their indiscriminate pursuit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the waters which the Imperial Government has chosen to designate as lying within the seat of war. The roll of Americans who have lost their lives upon ships thus attacked and destroyed has grown month by month until the ominous toll has mounted into the hundreds.'

After mentioning that the American Government has been very patient, that it has allowed itself "to be guided by sentiments of very genuine friendship for the people and Government of Germany," and that "it has made every allowance for unprecedented conditions and has been willing to wait until the facts became unmistakable and were susceptible of only one interpretation," Secretary Lansing asserted, on behalf of the United States, that "it now owes

Official text, American Journal of International Law, Special Supplement, October, 1916, pp. 189-190.