DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, June 9, 1915.
American Ambassador, Berlin:
You are instructed to deliver textually the following note to the
Minister of Foreign Affairs:
In compliance with your Excellency's request I did not fail to
transmit to my Government immediately upon their receipt your note of
May 28 in reply to my note of May 15, and your supplementary note of
June 1, setting forth the conclusions so far as reached by the
Imperial German Government concerning the attacks on the American
steamers Cushing and Gulflight. I am now instructed by my Government
to communicate the following in reply:
The Government of the United States notes with gratification the full
recognition by the Imperial German Government, in discussing the cases
of the Cushing and the Gulflight, of the principle of the freedom of
all parts of the open sea to neutral ships and the frank willingness
of the Imperial German Government to acknowledge and meet its
liability where the fact of attack upon neutral ships "which have not
been guilty of any hostile act" by German aircraft or vessels of war
is satisfactorily established; and the Government of the United States
will in due course lay before the Imperial German Government, as it
requests, full information concerning the attack on the steamer
Cushing.
With regard to the sinking of the steamer Falaba, by which an American
citizen lost his life, the Government of the United States is
surprised to find the Imperial German Government contending that an
effort on the part of a merchantman to escape capture and secure
assistance alters the obligation of the officer seeking to make the
capture in respect of the safety of the lives of those on board the
merchantman, although the vessel had ceased her attempt to escape when
torpedoed. These are not new circumstances. They have been in the
minds of statesmen and of international jurists throughout the
development of naval warfare, and the Government of the United States
does not understand that they have ever been held to alter the
principles of humanity upon which it has insisted. Nothing but actual
forcible resistance or continued efforts to escape by flight when
ordered to stop for the purpose of visit on the part of the
merchantman has ever been held to forfeit the lives of her passengers
or crew. The Government of the United States, however, does not
understand that the Imperial German Government is seeking in this case
to relieve itself of liability, but only intends to set forth the
circumstances which led the commander of the submarine to allow
himself to be hurried into the course which he took.
Your Excellency's note, in discussing the loss of American lives
resulting from the sinking of the steamship Lusitania, adverts at some
length to certain information which the Imperial German Government has
received with regard to the character and outfit of that vessel, and
your Excellency expresses the fear that this information may not have
been brought to the attention of the Government of the United States.
It is stated in the note that the Lusitania was undoubtedly equipped
with masked guns, supplied with trained gunners and special
ammunition, transporting troops from Canada, carrying a cargo not
permitted under the laws of the United States to a vessel also
carrying passengers, and serving, in virtual effect, as an auxiliary
to the naval forces of Great Britain. Fortunately these are matters
concerning which the Government of the United States is in a position
to give the Imperial German Government official information. Of the
facts alleged in your Excellency's note, if true, the Government of
the United States would have been bound to take official cognizance in
performing its recognized duty as a neutral power and in enforcing its
national laws. It was its duty to see to it that the Lusitania was not
armed for offensive action, that she was not serving as a transport,
that she did not carry a cargo prohibited by the statutes of the
United States, and that, if in fact she was a naval vessel of Great
Britain, she should not receive clearance as a merchantman; and it
performed that duty and enforced its statutes with scrupulous
vigilance through its regularly constituted officials. It is able,
therefore, to assure the Imperial German Government that it has been
misinformed. If the Imperial German Government should deem itself to
be in possession of convincing evidence that the officials of the
Government of the United States did not perform these duties with
thoroughness the Government of the United States sincerely hopes that
it will submit that evidence for consideration.
Whatever may be the contentions of the Imperial German Government
regarding the carriage of contraband of war on board the Lusitania or
regarding the explosion of that material by the torpedo, it need only
be said that in the view of this Government these contentions are
irrelevant to the question of the legality of the methods used by the
German naval authorities in sinking the vessel.
But the sinking of passenger ships involves principles of humanity
which throw into the background any special circumstances of detail
that may be thought to affect the cases, principles which lift it, as
the Imperial German Government will no doubt be quick to recognize and
acknowledge, out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomatic
discussion or of international controversy. Whatever be the other
facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is that a great
steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, and
carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the
conduct of the war, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a
challenge or a warning, and that men, women, and children were sent to
their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare. The fact
that more than one hundred American citizens were among those who
perished made it the duty of the Government of the United States to
speak of these things and once more, with solemn emphasis, to call the
attention of the Imperial German Government to the grave
responsibility which the Government of the United States conceives
that it has incurred in this tragic occurrence, and to the
indisputable principle upon which that responsibility rests. The
Government of the United States is contending for something much
greater than mere rights of property or privileges of commerce. It is
contending for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of
humanity, which every Government honors itself in respecting and which
no Government is justified in resigning on behalf of those under its
care and authority. Only her actual resistance to capture or refusal
to stop when ordered to do so for the purpose of visit 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. This
principle the Government of the United States understands the explicit
instructions issued on August 3, 1914,[3] by the Imperial German
Admiralty to its commanders at sea to have recognized and embodied, as
do the naval codes of all other nations, and upon it every traveler
and seaman had a right to depend. It is upon this principle of
humanity as well as upon the law founded upon this principle that the
United States must stand.
[Footnote 3: The reference made by President Wilson in his first note
of May 13 to the German Government regarding the sinking of the
Lusitania to the "humane and enlightened attitude hitherto assumed by
the Imperial German Government in matters of international right, and
particularly with regard to the freedom of the seas," was based, it
was learned in Washington on June 12, upon the instructions of Aug. 3,
1914, which the German Government sent to its naval commanders. These
German rules are now in the possession of the State Department. While
no mention is made in them of submarine warfare, the extent and method
of the exercise of the right of search and the stoppage of ships is
prescribed with great nicety, and provision is made for the safety of
passengers and crew. After outlining the purpose of visiting and
searching vessels, the regulations state:
All measures are to be carried out in a form whose
observance, even against the enemy, will comport with the
dignity of the German Empire and with a regard for neutrals
conformable to the usages of international law and the
German interest.
The method of signaling ships to be halted is prescribed, and it is
directed that "two successive blank charges are to be fired, and, if
necessary, a shotted charge over the ship" if the signals are not
obeyed. "If the ship does not then stop or makes resistance, the
Captain will compel her to stop," the instructions continue. After
specifying what ships may be captured and destroyed, the regulations
continue:
Before destruction all persons on board, if possible with
their personal effects, are to be placed in safety and all
the ship's papers and other articles of evidence, which in
the opinion of the interested parties are of value for the
judgment of the prize court, are to be taken over by the
Captain.]
The Government of the United States is happy to observe that your
Excellency's note closes with the intimation that the Imperial German
Government is willing, now as before, to accept the good offices of
the United States in an attempt to come to an understanding with the
Government of Great Britain by which the character and conditions of
the war upon the sea may be changed. The Government of the United
States would consider it a privilege thus to serve its friends and the
world. It stands ready at any time to convey to either Government any
intimation or suggestion the other may be willing to have it convey
and cordially invites the Imperial German Government to make use of
its services in this way at its convenience. The whole world is
concerned in anything that may bring about even a partial
accommodation of interests or in any way mitigate the terrors of the
present distressing conflict.
In the meantime, whatever arrangement may happily be made between the
parties to the war, and whatever may in the opinion of the Imperial
German Government have been the provocation or the circumstantial
justification for the past acts of its commanders at sea, the
Government of the United States confidently looks to see the justice
and humanity of the Government of Germany vindicated in all cases
where Americans have been wronged or their rights as neutrals invaded.
The Government of the United States therefore very earnestly and very
solemnly renews the representations of its note transmitted to the
Imperial German Government on the 15th of May, and relies in these
representations upon the principles of humanity, the universally
recognized understandings of international law, and the ancient
friendship of the German Nation.
The Government of the United States cannot admit that the proclamation
of a war zone from which neutral ships have been warned to keep away
may be made to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights
either of American shipmasters or of American citizens bound on lawful
errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent nationality. It
does not understand the Imperial German Government to question those
rights. It understands it, also, to accept as established beyond
question the principle that the lives of non combatants cannot
lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or
destruction of an unresisting merchantman, and to recognize the
obligation to take sufficient precaution to ascertain whether a
suspected merchantman is in fact of belligerent nationality or is in
fact carrying contraband of war under a neutral flag. The Government
of the United States therefore deems it reasonable to expect that the
Imperial German Government will adopt the measures necessary to put
these principles into practice in respect of the safeguarding of
American lives and American ships, and asks for assurances that this
will be done.
ROBERT LANSING,
Secretary of State ad Interim.