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.  There was no pretense that the Sussex was an “armed merchantman,” and no warning was given the passengers and crew, the former including a number of Americans on their way from Folkestone to the French port of Dieppe.  The ship, though badly damaged, made port with assistance, but the loss of life from the explosion and drowning amounted to fifty, and several American passengers were injured.  Germany disclaimed responsibility for the disaster, but the weight of evidence pointed to a German submarine as the cause, and in view of the repeated violations of German promises to the United States to give due warning to passenger vessels and insure safety to their occupants, President Wilson and his advisers, in April, seriously considered the advisability of breaking off diplomatic relations with the German Empire, by way of a protest in the name of humanity.  On April 18 the President decided to lay the whole matter before Congress.

The record of German submarine attacks involving death or injury to American citizens up to this time included the sinking or damaging of the following vessels:  British steamer Falaba, 160 lives lost, including one American; American steamer Gulflight, three Americans lost; British steamship Lusitania, 1,134 lives lost, including 115 Americans; American steamer Leelanaw, sunk; liner Arabic sunk, two Americans killed; liner Hesperian sunk mysteriously, three days after Germany had promised to sink no more liners; Italian liner Ancona sunk (by Austrian submarine), with loss of American lives; Japanese liner Yanaka Maru sunk in Mediterranean; British liner Persia sunk, United States Consul McNeely killed; steamer Sussex attacked, several Americans seriously injured; British steamers Manchester Engineer, Eagle Point and Berwyn Dale attacked, endangering American members of crews.

A FINAL NOTE TO GERMANY.

On Wednesday, April 19, President Wilson appeared before Congress, assembled in joint session for the purpose of hearing him, and announced that he had addressed a final note of warning to Germany, giving the Imperial German Government irrevocable notice that the United States would break off diplomatic relations if the illegal and inhuman submarine campaign was continued.  The language used by the President, after recounting the course of events leading to his action, was as follows: 

“I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines, the government of the United States is at least forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present method of warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels this government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the government of the German Empire altogether.”