Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920, Volume I

763.72/2142½b

The Secretary of State to President Wilson

Washington, September 12, 1915.

My Dear Mr. President: We have for several days held at Norfolk a British merchant vessel² because she had on board a mounted 4.7 gun, endeavoring meanwhile to have the British Admiralty direct its removal before the vessel left our port.

We are now advised that the British Admiralty declines to remove the gun and asserts, correctly, that the vessel has complied with our declaration of September 19, 1914,^2a as to armed merchant vessels. Up to the present time the British Admiralty as a result of an informal understanding have kept guns off British merchant vessels entering American ports. For a year, therefore, the question has not been discussed as no case has arisen.

Meanwhile submarine warfare has developed as a practical method of interrupting merchant vessels. At the time we issued the declaration as to the status of armed merchant vessels this use of the submarine as a commerce destroyer was unknown, and the declaration was based on the means employed prior to that time.

I feel in my own mind that these changed conditions require a new declaration because an armament, which under previous conditions, was clearly defensive, may now be employed for offensive operations against so small and unarmored a craft as a submarine. On the 4th of this month the German Ambassador called my attention to the fact that on two occasions German submarines were attacked and fired upon by British passenger steamers.³ While these may be isolated cases the fact that such vessels are attacking submarines makes it difficult to demand that a submarine shall give warning and so expose itself to the heavy guns carried by some of the British passenger vessels.

As to the effect of these cases on our declaration, it would seem to me that we ought to amend it by asserting that in view of the successful employment of submarines as commerce destroyers and the possibility of offensive operations against them by a merchant vessel carrying an armament regardless of the number, size or location of the guns composing it, this Government will hereafter treat as a ship of war any merchant vessel of belligerent nationality which enters an American port with any armament.

The assumption of this position has another advantage and that is that the term “armed” [“unarmed”] instead of “unresisting” will be justified, and as it was used I feel that we ought to stand by it.

In the particular case of the vessel at Norfolk I think that we should be less rigid on account of our former declaration. A proposed note to the British Ambassador is enclosed⁴ treating the case specially and leniently.

I enclose also the entire docket in the case directing your attention in particular to Count von Bernstorff’s note of the 4th instant, and our declaration of September 19,1914, which immediately follows it.

Faithfully yours,

Robert Lansing

2. i. e., the Waimana; for correspondence previously printed concerning this vessel, see ibid., 1915, supp., pp. 848 ff.
3. Ibid., 1914, supp., p. 611.
3. Ibid., 1915, supp., p. 535.
4. No enclosures with file copy of this letter; reference is probably to the note of Sept. 11, 1915, to the British Ambassador, ibid., p. 849.