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Updated: June 23, 2025


In her gentle voice she suggested every painful possibility, from the torpedoing of the hospital ship in the Channel to a bad break down, or even a worse accident, to the motor ambulances which were to convey Jervis and four other wounded officers to Witanbury.

The long-continued controversy between the United States and Germany over the methods and results of German submarine warfare came to a climax with the torpedoing of the British channel steamer Sussex, on March 24, 1916, in pursuance of the new German policy of attacking merchant vessels without warning.

That ocean voyage of mine was to take rank, in part at least, as a first-class nightmare. The Central powers could scarcely have improved on it by torpedoing us in mid-ocean or by speeding us upon our trip with a cargo of clock-work bombs.

As days go by it becomes more and more evident that the American declaration of war is having an important influence upon internal conditions in Germany just as the submarine notes had. The German people really did not begin to think during this war until President Wilson challenged them in the notes which followed the torpedoing of the Lusitania.

The great majority of the inhabitants, permanent and temporary, were deeply concerned at the conduct of their country in not having, immediately after the torpedoing of the Lusitania, joined the Allies. They found it difficult to understand, and were puzzled and suspicious, as well as humiliated in their national pride.

At present it bids fair to become one of the deciding factors in determining the final issue of this war. The first authentically known case of an attack without warning by a German submarine against an allied merchantman was the torpedoing of the French steamship Amiral Ganteaume on October 26, 1914, in the English Channel. The steamer was sunk and thirty of its passengers and crew were lost.

When finally on the 17th of March news came of the torpedoing of the Vigilancia without warning, America was prepared and calmly eager for the President's demand that Congress recognize the existence of a state of war. The demand was made by Wilson in an extraordinary joint session of Congress, held on the 2d of April.

Gerard, apart from other questions concerning doubtful cases of torpedoing, had also submitted a similar inquiry to the Foreign Office on the subject of the Sussex incident, an official reply was handed to him on the 10th April which read in the following terms: "A decision as to whether the Channel steamer Sussex was damaged by a German submarine or not is made extraordinarily difficult owing to the fact that no exact information is known as to the place, time and accompanying circumstances of the sinking, and moreover a picture of this ship could not be obtained until the 6th April.

Now, however, 'the freedom of the seas' has become the test question of American politics. Even the New York Press has become more reasonable, and capable of discussing war questions impartially; and this was notably the case over the torpedoing of the Armenian. In a word, at no time since the outbreak of war have the omens been so favorable for a rational policy on the part of America."

It came about in this way: The English food administration, about the time that we entered the war in 1917, saw that, with the German submarines torpedoing a freighter almost every day, the already low supply of shipping was going to be totally inadequate to carry the American troops across the seas, to carry the essential munitions for these troops and the Allies, to carry the food for the fighting forces, and at the same time carry enough food for the home population of England.

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