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whether a German submarine had been responsible for the sinking. There was from the first no real doubt as to this question, since the torpedo had been observed as it approached the vessel and the captain had sharply turned the Sussex in an unsuccessful effort to avoid it. Ambassador Gerard had to make repeated requests before the Foreign Office finally procured from the admiralty on the 10th of April a report of the torpedoing. The report was of the disingenuous sort which we had unfortunately come to expect from the German Foreign Office. Its denial of having caused the sinking was so improbable as to seem grotesque in an official communication. The statement was designed to mislead, since the facts must have been known by the German navy, as the submarine had remained in the neighborhood after torpedoing the Sussex and had even attempted to sink another British vessel which was seeking to rescue a boat-load of the survivors. The denial was unavailing, however, for though the forward part of the Sussex had been blown off she stayed afloat long enough to be towed to Boulogne, and American naval officers de

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A number of boats with Americans on board were torpedoed without warning.

tailed to investigate discovered in the vessel unmistakable portions of the exploded German torpedo.

After establishing the facts in the case, Washington sent a note to Berlin, pointing out "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 commanders of German undersea craft during the past twelve months and more in the indiscriminating destruction of merchant vessels of all sorts, nationalities, and destinations." It continued to give a résumé of the deliberate and wholesale method of destruction which had become more and more unmistakable as the activities of German undersea vessels of war had in recent months been extended. It then reviewed the negotiations between the United States and Germany, and showed that the limitations which the Imperial Government had promised to put upon her submarine commanders had been regularly ignored, in a manner which the

United States could not but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. "No limit," it continued, "of any kind has in fact been set to their indiscriminate pursuit and destroying of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities," and "the roll of Americans who have lost their lives upon ships thus attacked and destroyed had grown from month to month until the ominous toll has mounted into the hundreds." The note then concluded in a tone and with statements that gave it the character of an ultimatum.

"The Government of the United States has been very patient. At every stage of this distressing experience of tragedy after tragedy it has sought to be governed by the most thoughtful consideration of the extraordinary circumstances of an unprecedented war and to be guided by sentiments of very genuine friendship for the people and Government of Germany. It has accepted the successive explanations and assurances of the Imperial Government as of course given in entire sincerity and good faith, and has hoped, even against hope, that it would prove to be possible for the Imperial Government so to order and control the acts of its naval commanders as to square its policy with the recognized principles of humanity as embodied

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