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.

Germany replied to this on March 1, expressing her willingness to act favorably on the proposal. The same day the British Government stated that because of the war-zone decree of the German Government the British Government must take measures to prevent commodities of all kinds from reaching or leaving Germany. On March 15 the British Government flatly refused the modus vivendi suggestion.

On April 4 Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador at Washington, submitted a memorandum to the United States Government regarding German-American trade and the exportation of arms. Mr. Bryan replied to the memorandum on April 21, insisting that the United States was preserving her strict status of neutrality according to the accepted laws of nations.

On May 7 the Cunard steamship Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in the war zone as decreed by Germany, and more than 100 American citizens perished, with 1,000 other persons on board.

Thereupon, on May 13, the United States transmitted to the German Government a note on the subject of this loss. It said:

This note concluded:

Germany replied to this note on May 29. It stated that it had heard that the Lusitania was an armed naval ship which had attempted to use American passengers as a protection, and that, anyway, such passengers should not have been present. It added:

To the foregoing the United States maintained in a note sent to the German Government on June 9 that the Lusitania was not an armed vessel and that she had sailed in accordance with the laws of the United States, and that "only her actual resistance to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so ... could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on board the ship in jeopardy."

In support of this view the note cited international law and added:

Exactly one month later, on July 9, came Germany's reply. Its preamble praised the United States for its humane attitude and said that Germany was fully in accord therewith. Something, it asserted, should be done, for "the case of the Lusitania shows with horrible clearness to what jeopardizing of human lives the manner of conducting war employed by our adversaries leads," and that under certain conditions which it set forth, American ships might have safe passage through the war zone, or even some enemy ships flying the American flag. It continued:

It is to this reply that the note of the United States Government made public on July 24 is an answer.

Germany's reply of July 8 and President Wilson's final rejoinder of July 21—which was given to the American press of July 24—are presented below, together with accounts of the recent German submarine attacks on the ships Armenian, Anglo-Californian, Normandy, and Orduna, involving American lives, and an appraisal of the German operations in the submarine "war zone" since February 18, 1915, when it was proclaimed. Also Austro-Hungary's note of June 29, protesting against American exports of arms, and an account of American and German press opinion on the Lusitania case are treated hereunder.

THE GERMAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO
THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

BERLIN, July 8, 1915.

The undersigned has the honor to make the following reply to his Excellency Ambassador Gerard to the note of the 10th ultimo re the impairment of American interests by the German submarine war:

The Imperial Government learned with satisfaction from the note how earnestly the Government of the United States is concerned in seeing the principles of humanity realized in the present war. Also this appeal finds ready echo in Germany, and the Imperial Government is quite willing to permit its statements and decisions in the present case to be governed by the principles of humanity just as it has done always.

The Imperial Government welcomed with gratitude when the American Government, in the note of May 15, itself recalled that Germany had always permitted itself to be governed by the principles of progress and humanity in dealing with the law of maritime war.

Since the time when Frederick the Great negotiated with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce of September 9, 1785, between Prussia and the Republic of the West, German and American statesmen have, in fact, always stood together in the struggle for the freedom of the seas and for the protection of peaceable trade.

In the international proceedings which since have been conducted for the regulation of the laws of maritime war, Germany and America have jointly advocated progressive principles, especially the abolishment of the right of capture at sea and the protection of the interests of neutrals.

Even at the beginning of the present war the German Government immediately declared its willingness, in response to proposals of the American Government, to ratify the Declaration of London and thereby subject itself in the use of its naval forces to all the restrictions provided therein in favor of neutrals.

Germany likewise has been always tenacious of the principle that war should be conducted against the armed and organized forces of an enemy country, but that the enemy civilian population must be spared as far as possible from the measures of war. The Imperial Government cherishes the definite hope that some way will be found when peace is concluded, or perhaps earlier, to regulate the law of maritime war in a manner guaranteeing the freedom of the seas, and will welcome it with gratitude and satisfaction if it can work hand in hand with the American Government on that occasion.

If in the present war the principles which should be the ideal of the future have been traversed more and more, the longer its duration, the German Government has no guilt therein. It is known to the American Government how Germany's adversaries, by completely paralyzing