Both Admiral von Tirpitz and the Austrian Admiralty seem to have begun their submarine campaigns after the method of Captain John Sirius: to starve the enemy any way they could and let the lawyers argue about it afterwards. From the beginning of the blockade, Scandinavian, Dutch, and Spanish vessels, even when bound from one neutral port to another, were torpedoed and sunk without warning by the German submarines. Their governments protested vigorously but without effect. Then came the turn of the United States.

The Falaba, a small British passenger steamer outward bound from Liverpool to the west coast of Africa was pursued and overtaken off the coast of Wales on March 28, 1915, by the fast German submarine U-28. Realizing that their vessel would be sunk but expecting that their lives would be spared, the crew and passengers began filling and lowering away the boats as rapidly as possible but without panic. The wireless operator had been sending calls for help but ceased when ordered to by the captain of the U-28. No patrol boats were in sight and the submarine was standing by on the surface, with both gun and torpedo-tubes trained on the motionless steamer and in absolute command of the situation. Without the slightest excuse or warning, a torpedo was then discharged and exploded against the Falaba’s side, directly beneath a half-lowered and crowded lifeboat. The lifeboat was blown to pieces and the steamer sunk, with the loss of one hundred and twelve lives, including that of an American citizen, Mr. Leon C. Thrasher, of Hardwick, Massachusetts.

This cold-blooded slaughter of the helpless horrified the rest of the world and did Germany’s cause an incalculable amount of harm. The German people were in no state of mind to realize this, for they had gone literally submarine-mad. They rejoiced in the cartoons depicting John Bull marooned on his island or dragged under and drowned by the swarming “U-boats.” They sincerely believed that within a few months the power of the British navy would be broken forever and that in the meanwhile the German submarines could do no wrong. This feeling was presently intensified by the loss of their hero, the gallant von Weddigen. Decorated, together with every man of his crew, with the Iron Cross and promoted to the command of a fine new submarine, the U-29, he did effective work as a blockader and captured and sank several prizes, but only after carefully removing those on board. Then the U-29 was sunk with all hands, by an armed patrol boat, the British declare: treacherously, the German people believe, by a merchant ship whose crew von Weddigen was trying to spare.28

No attempt was made to warn the American tank steamer Gulflight, bound for Rouen, France, with a contraband cargo of oil, when she was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 1. The vessel stayed afloat but the wireless operator and one of the sailors, terrified by the shock, jumped overboard and were both drowned, while the captain died of heart failure a few hours later on board the British patrol boat that took off the crew and brought the Gulflight into port.

On the same day that the Gulflight was torpedoed, these two advertisements appeared together in the New York newspapers:

This warning was not taken seriously. It was pointed out that the German submarines had sunk only comparatively small and slow steamers, and generally believed that it would be impossible for them to hit a fast-moving vessel. Not a single passenger canceled his passage on the Lusitania, though all admitted that the Germans would have a perfect right to sink her if they could, as she was laden with rifle-cartridges and shell-cases for the Allies. But every passenger knew that he had a perfect right to be taken off first, and trusted to the Government that had given him his passports to maintain it.

The Lusitania left New York on the first of May. At two o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, she was about ten miles from the Irish coast, off the Old Head of Kinsale, and running slowly to avoid reaching Queenstown at an unfavorable turn of the tide, when Captain Turner and many others saw a periscope rise out of the water about half a mile away.

“I saw a torpedo speeding toward us,” declared the captain afterwards, “and immediately I tried to change our course, but was unable to manoeuver out of the way. There was a terrible impact as the torpedo struck the starboard side of the vessel, and a second torpedo followed almost immediately. This one struck squarely over the boilers.

“I tried to turn the Lusitania shoreward, hoping to beach her, but her engines were crippled and it was impossible.

“There has been some criticism because I did not order the lifeboats out sooner, but no matter what may be done there are always some to criticize. Until the Lusitania came to a standstill it was absolutely impossible to launch the boats—they would have been swamped.”

The great ship heeled over to port so rapidly that by the time she could be brought to a stop it was no longer possible to lower the boats on the starboard side. There was no panic-stricken rush for the boats that could be lowered; all was order and seemliness and quiet heroism. Alfred Vanderbilt stripped off the lifebelt that might have saved him and buckled it about a woman; Lindon Bates, Jr., was last seen trying to save three children. Elbert Hubbard, Charles Klein, Justus Miles Forman, and more than a hundred other Americans died, and died bravely. As the Lusitania went down beneath them, Charles Frohman smiled at his companion and said:

“Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure of life.”

“I turned around to watch the great ship heel over,” said a passenger who had dived overboard and swum to a safe distance.

“The monster took a sudden plunge, and I saw a crowd still on her decks, and boats filled with helpless women and children glued to her side. I sickened with horror at the sight.

“There was a thunderous roar, as of the collapse of a great building on fire; then she disappeared, dragging with her hundreds of fellow-creatures into the vortex. Many never rose to the surface, but the sea rapidly grew thick with the figures of struggling men and women and children.” The total number of deaths was more than a thousand.

The most fitting comment on the sinking of the Lusitania were the words of Tinkling Cloud, a full-blooded Sioux Indian:

“Now you white men can never call us red men savages again.”

Resting its case on “Many sacred principles of justice and humanity,” refusing to accept the warning published in the advertising columns of the newspapers by the German embassy either “as an excuse or palliation,” and assuming that the commanders of submarines guilty of torpedoing without warning vessels carrying non-combatants had acted “under a misapprehension of orders,” the United States concluded its note to Germany, six days after the sinking of the Lusitania, with these words of warning:

“The Imperial German government will not expect the government of the United States to omit any word or 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.”

Before any reply had been made to this, a German submarine torpedoed without warning the American freight steamer Nebraskan, on May 25, a few hours after she had left Liverpool in ballast for the United States. Fortunately no lives were lost, and although the Nebraskan’s bows had been blown wide open by the explosion, she remained afloat and was brought back to Liverpool under her own steam. The attack was tardily admitted by Germany and explained by the fact that it had been made at dusk, when the commander of the submarine had been unable to recognize the steamer’s nationality.

On the last day of May, Germany’s answer was received. The Imperial government declared that the Lusitania had not been an unarmed merchantman but an auxiliary cruiser of the British navy. That she had had masked guns mounted on her lower deck, that she had Canadian troops among her passengers, and that in violation of American law she had been laden with high explosives which were the real cause of her destruction because they were set off by the detonation of the single torpedo that had been discharged by the submarine.

To these allegations, unaccompanied by the slightest proof and contradicted by the testimony both of British and American eye-witnesses, the United States replied calmly and categorically. It was pointed out that if the German ambassador at Washington or the German consul at New York had complained to the Federal authorities before the Lusitania sailed and either guns or troops had been found concealed on her, she would have been interned. The statement of Mr. Dudley Field Malone, collector of the Port of New York, that the Lusitania was not armed, may be accepted as final. Gustav Stahl, the German reservist who signed an affidavit that he had seen guns on board her, later pleaded guilty to a charge of perjury and was sentenced to eighteen months in a Federal penitentiary. As for her cargo, every passenger train and steamer in this country is allowed to transport boxes of revolver and rifle cartridges—the only explosives carried on the Lusitania—because it is extremely difficult to set off any number of them together, either by heat or concussion.

Dropping these points, Germany then pledged the safety of American ships in the war zone, if distinctly marked, and to facilitate American travel offered to permit the United States to hoist its flag on four belligerent passenger steamers. This, if accepted, would by implication have made Americans fair game anywhere else on the high seas, and was accordingly rejected in the strong American note of July 21.

“The rights of neutrals in time of war,” declared President Wilson through the medium of Secretary Lansing, “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.

“The events of the past two months have clearly indicated that it is possible and practicable to conduct such submarine operations as have characterized the activity of the Imperial German naval commanders within the so-called war-zone in substantial accord with the accepted practices of regulated warfare. The whole world has looked with interest and increasing satisfaction at the demonstration of that possibility by German naval commanders. It is manifestly possible, therefore, to lift the whole practice of submarine attack above the criticism which it has aroused and remove the chief causes of offense.”

Repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts contravening neutral rights “must be regarded by the Government of the United States, where they effect American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly.”

On July 9, a German submarine discharged a torpedo at the west-bound Cunard liner Orduna, narrowly missed her, rose to the surface and fired some twenty shells before the steamer got out of range. Fortunately, none of these took effect. There were American passengers on board and nothing but bad marksmanship averted another Lusitania horror.

Three days later, another German submarine stopped an American freight steamer, the Leelanlaw, and had her visited and searched by a boarding party, who reported that she was carrying contraband to Great Britain. Because the vessel could not be taken into a German port and there was no time to throw her cargo overboard, the crew were taken off and she was sunk.

Here was a perfectly proper procedure, where no neutral lives had been endangered and the question of the damage to property could be settled amicably in a court of law. It was to the practice in the Leelanlaw case that President Wilson referred to so hopefully in his note of July 21. Though the weeks went by without any answer from Germany, it was hoped that the Imperial government had quietly amended the orders to its submarine commanders and that no more passenger ships would be attacked without warning.

But on the 19th of August, the White Star liner Arabic sighted and went to the rescue of a sinking ship. This proved to be the British steamer Dunsley, which had been torpedoed by a German submarine. As the Arabic came up and prepared to lower her boats, another torpedo from the same submarine exploded against the liner’s side, killing several of her crew and sending her to the bottom in eleven minutes. She went down within fifty miles of the resting place of the Lusitania. She was sunk without warning and without cause, for she had been bound to New York, with neither arms nor ammunition on board, nor had she made the slightest attempt either to escape or attack the submarine. She carried one hundred and eighty-one passengers, twenty-five of whom were Americans. Two Americans were drowned.

The German government at once asked for time in which to explain, and the Imperial chancellor hinted that the commander of the submarine that sank the Arabic might have “gone beyond his instructions, in which case the Imperial government would not hesitate to give such complete satisfaction to the United States as would conform to the friendly relations existing between both governments.”

Great was the rejoicing on the first of September, when Ambassador von Bernstorff declared himself authorized to say to the State Department that:

“Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance.”

But only three days afterwards, the west-bound Canadian liner Hesperian was sunk by the explosion of what seemed to have been a torpedo launched without warning from a hostile submarine. And on top of this disturbing incident came the German note on the sinking of the Arabic, the perusal of which sent a chill through every peace-lover in America. Affirming that the captain of the Arabic had tried to ram the submarine, the note declared that orders had been issued to commanders of German submarines not to sink liners without provocation, but added that if by mistake or otherwise liners were sunk without provocation, Germany would not be responsible.

“The German government,” it ran, “is unable to acknowledge any obligation to grant indemnity in the matter, even if the commander should have been mistaken as to the aggressive intention of the Arabic.

“If it should prove to be the case that it is impossible for the German and American governments to reach a harmonious opinion on this point, the German government would be prepared to submit the difference of opinion, as being a question of international law, to The Hague Tribunal for arbitration....

“In so doing, it assumes that, as matter of course, the arbitral decision shall not be admitted to have the importance of a general decision on the permissibility ... under international law of German submarine warfare.”

Assuming that this extraordinary stand was based on a misapprehension of the facts, the United States submitted to Germany the testimony of American passengers on the Arabic, and the sworn affidavits of her officers, that the submarine had not been sighted from the steamer and that no attempt had been made to ram the undersea boat or do anything but rescue the crew of the Dunsley.

By this time a change had come over the spirit of the Imperial German government. It realized that the submarine blockade of the British Isles had broken down, and that further examples of “Frightfulness” on the high seas would do Germany no good and would probably force the United States into the ranks of Germany’s enemies. The sensible and obvious thing to do was to take the easy and honorable way out the American government was holding open. On October 6, Ambassador von Bernstorff gave out the following statement:

“Prompted by the desire to reach a satisfactory agreement with regard to the Arabic incident, my government has given me the following instructions:

“The order issued by His Majesty the Emperor to the commanders of the German submarines, of which I notified you on a previous occasion, has been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the Arabic case is considered out of the question.

“According to the report of Commander Schneider of the submarine which sank the Arabic, and his affidavit, as well as those of his men, Commander Schneider was convinced that the Arabic intended to ram the submarine.

“On the other hand, the Imperial government does not doubt the good faith of the affidavit of the British officers of the Arabic, according to which the Arabic did not intend to ram the submarine. The attack of the submarine was undertaken against the instructions issued to the commander. The Imperial government regrets and disavows this act, and has notified Commander Schneider accordingly.

“Under these circumstances, my government is prepared to pay an indemnity for American lives which, to its deep regret, have been lost on the Arabic. I am authorized to negotiate with you about the amount of this indemnity.”

In the meantime, fragments of the metal box of high explosives that had blown in the side of the Hesperian had been picked up on her deck, and forwarded by the British government to America. United States naval experts examined the twisted bits of metal and declared them to have been pieces, not of a mine, as the German government insists, but of an automobile torpedo. However, in view of the fact that the Hesperian was armed with a 4.7 gun, and because of the happy outcome of the Arabic affair, it seems unlikely that anything will be done about it.

But only a month later there was begun another “Campaign of Frightfulness,” this time by Austrian submarines in the Mediterranean. As the passengers on the Italian liner Ancona, one day out from Naples to New York, were sitting at luncheon on November 7th, they “felt a tremor through the ship as her engines stopped and reversed.”29 Then, while we were stopping, there was an explosion forward. A shell had struck us.

“When I reached the deck,” continues Dr. Greil, “shell was fairly pouring into us from the submarine, which we could see through the fog, about 100 yards away. I hurried below to pack a few things in my trunk. As I was standing over it, a shell came through the porthole and struck my maid, who was standing at my side. It tore away her scalp and part of her skull and went on through the wall, bursting somewhere inside the ship.

“When I went on deck again I found the wildest excitement. It was like the old-time stories one used to read of shipwrecks at sea. I will not say anything about the crew because I could not say anything good. They launched fifteen boats but only eight got away. I was in one of these.... I do not believe the submarine fired deliberately on the lifeboats. They were trying to sink the Ancona with shells, but they finally used a torpedo to send her to the bottom. I looked at my watch when she took her last plunge. It was 12.45. We were picked up by the French cruiser Pluton about midnight.”

The commander of the submarine declared, in his official report, that he had fired only because the Ancona had tried to escape, that he had ceased firing as soon as she came to a stop, that the loss of life was due to the incompetence of the panic-stricken crew of the liner, whom the Austrian officer allowed forty-five minutes in which to launch the lifeboats. He admitted, however, that at the expiration of this time he had torpedoed and sunk the Ancona, while there were still a number of people on her decks.

About two hundred of the passengers and crew were drowned or killed by shellfire. Among them were several American citizens.

“The conduct of the commander,” declared the strongly-worded American note of December 6th, “can only be characterized as wanton slaughter of defenseless non-combatants.”... The government of the United States is unwilling ... to credit the Austro-Hungarian government with an intention to permit its submarines to destroy the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It prefers to believe that the commander of the submarine committed this outrage without authority and contrary to the general or special instructions which he had received.

“As the good relations of the two countries must rest upon a common regard for law and humanity, the government of the United States cannot be expected to do otherwise than to denounce the sinking of the Ancona as an illegal and indefensible act, and to demand that the officer who perpetrated the deed be punished, and that reparation by the payment of an indemnity be made for the citizens of the United States who were killed or injured by the attack on the vessel.”

This undiplomatic language caused no little resentment in Vienna. But after a restatement of the Austrian case, and a much milder rejoinder from Washington, the American demands were apparently acceded to. In the second Austro-Hungarian note, which was published in America on January 1st, 1915, the government of the Dual-Monarchy disavowed the act of its submarine commander, declared that he had acted in violation of his orders and would be punished therefore, and agreed to pay an indemnity for the American citizens who had been killed or injured.

“The Imperial and Royal Government,” the note continued, “agrees thoroughly with the American Cabinet that the sacred commandments of humanity must be observed also in war.... The Imperial and Royal Government can also substantially concur in the principle expressed ... that private ships, in so far as they do not attempt to escape or offer resistance, may not be destroyed without the persons aboard being brought into safety.”

Like the settlement of the Arabic case, this was hailed as a great diplomatic victory for the United States. Unlike it, there was no question of sharing the credit with the anti-submarine activities of the Allies, whose merchant ships in the Mediterranean were being torpedoed with startling frequency. On December 21st, the new 12,000 ton Japanese liner Yasaka Maru was sunk without warning, near Port Said. Thanks to the splendid discipline of her crew, no lives were lost. There was an alleged American on board, but there was some irregularity about his citizenship papers. Nor were there any Americans aboard the French passenger ship Ville de la Ciotat, torpedoed on Christmas Eve, with the loss of seventy lives. There was nothing to mar the smug satisfaction of the American people on New Year’s Day.

Then came the news of the sinking of the Peninsular and Oriental liner Persia, on December 30th, off the Island of Crete.

“I was in the dining room of the Persia at 1.05 P.M.,” declares Mr. Charles Grant of Boston, who was one of the two Americans on board. “I had just finished my soup, and the steward was asking me what I would take for my second course, when a terrific explosion occurred.

“The saloon became filled with smoke, broken glass and steam from the boiler, which appeared to have burst. There was no panic on board. We went on deck as though we were at drill, and reported at the lifeboats on the starboard side, as the vessel had listed to port....

“The last I saw of the Persia, she had her bow in the air, five minutes after the explosion....

“Robert McNeely, American Consul at Aden, sat at the same table with me on the voyage. He was not seen, probably because his cabin was on the port side.

“It was a horrible scene. The water was black as ink. Some passengers were screaming, others were calling out good-by. Those in one boat sang hymns.”

The Persia was apparently torpedoed, without warning. Like the Hesperian, she was armed with a 4.7 gun. One of the ship’s officers saw the white wake of the torpedo. But no one saw the submarine.

The commander of that submarine evidently believed, like Captain Sirius, in striking first and letting the lawyers talk about it afterwards.