1.German naval officers estimated that it would take two hundred
submarines to strangle British commerce; in 1914 Germany only had
28. Robert M. Grant, U-Boats Destroyed ( London: Putnam, 1964), 167; R. H. Gibson and
Maurice Prendergast, The German Submarine
Warfare ( London: Constable, 1931), 24-5.
2. Gibson and
Prendergast, Submarine Warfare, 22.
3.For a complete explanation of contemporary maritime
international law, see Coogan, Neutrality, passim.
4.Tirpitz made his early fame as unalloyed supporter of battleship
construction. Initially he had little faith in U-boats. Moreover, German
submarine construction was barely able to keep up with losses, and
only twentynine boats were on hand in January 1915, with another
fiftytwo boats building.
Gibson and
Prendergast, Submarine Warfare, 26; Grant, U-Boats Destroyed, 29.
5. May, Isolation, 116-20.
6. Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 116-8; Walter Gorlitz (ed.), The
Kaiser and his Court, trans.
Mervyn Savill ( London: MacDonald, 1961), 63-4.
7.Gerard to Secretary of State, February 4, 1915, FRUS 1915,
Supt., 94.
8.Press Conference 22 February 1915, PWW, LI, 288-305.
9.Secretary of State to Gerard, February 10, 1915, FRUS 1915,
Supt., 98-100.
10. Wilson to Bryan, April 28, 1915, in FRUS: The Lansing
Papers, 1914-1920 ( Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939), I, 380. At that very moment, House was in Europe secretly
reviewing peace options with the belligerents.
11. Wilson's Address at a Meeting of the Associated Press, New
York, April 20, 1915,
Shaw (ed.), State Papers, 108-13.
12.The wreck is now privately owned and over thirty dives have
been made on it. Evidence suggests that the ship was carrying artillery
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