New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 | Page 2

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:
"American citizens act within their indisputable rights in taking their
ships and in traveling wherever their legitimate business calls them
upon the high seas, and exercise those rights in what should be the well
justified confidence that their lives will not be endangered by acts done
in clear violation of universally acknowledged international obligations,
and certainly in the confidence that their own Government will sustain
them in the exercise of their rights."
This note concluded:
"The Imperial Government will not expect the Government of the
United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance
of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its
citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."
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:
"The German commanders are consequently no longer in a position to
observe the rules of capture otherwise usual and with which they
invariably complied before this."
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:
"It is upon this principle of humanity, as well as upon the law founded
upon this principle, that the United States must stand."
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:
"The Imperial Government, however, confidently hopes the American
Government will assume to guarantee that these vessels have no
contraband on board, details of arrangements for the unhampered
passage of these vessels to be agreed upon by the naval authorities of
both sides."
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