763.72/2323½
The German Ambassador (Bernstorff) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: In answer to your favor of 24th inst. I beg to say that I wrote a confidential report to my Government directly after our last conversation. However, as you know, I have no other means for confidential communications to my Government than the mail, so that certainly several weeks will elapse before I shall be able to renew the confidential discussion on the Lusitania question with you. As you will kindly remember, I gave you our proposals for a solution of the question nearly two months ago, whilst I have had your counter proposals only since a few days.
Whatever the decision of my Government may be, I feel bound to tell you, as my personal opinion, that my Government will not be prepared to make any further concessions. Permit me to recapitulate in a few words the course of the negotiations as far as I have been intrusted with them. When the first official notes on the Lusitania question had been exchanged and had created a tension which made war between our two countries probable, I considered it my duty without instructions from my Government to ask the President to grant me an audience, because I hoped, that I might be able to restore the usual friendly relations between our two Governments. The President at that time kindly outlined his policy to me and on this basis I recommended with all possible emphasis to my Government the policy which has since been adopted. I took up the matter, because the President showed me a common ground [Page 497] on which we could meet, viz. his policy of “the freedom of the seas”. Besides, the President left no doubt in my mind, that if we gave binding assurances for the future, the past would cause no more friction. As far as I am concerned, I have fully carried out the work I undertook. We have given binding assurances for the future and have adhered strictly to them. In so doing we have been seriously hampered in our reprisals against the British blockade, which you yourself have publicly denounced as illegal. The effect has been that the blockade has not yet been relaxed, but in the contrary tightened, e. g. by the abolishment of the parcel post to Germany. I can not recognize that the Ancona incident has in any way changed the state of affairs, because 1) we are not responsible for it, and 2) the captain of the Ancona did not stop when warned. If he had acted according to the rules of maritime warfare, I am convinced that the commander of the Austrian-Hungarian submarine would have let the Ancona go on to her destination unmolested.
You expressed the opinion to me, that the note you wrote to the British Government with regard to the blockade75 might have the influence to induce my Government to make further concessions. Personally I do not believe that my Government will share this view till the action you took against Great Britain has had some effect. My Government has always declared its intention to recognize the declaration of London as binding, if our enemies would do the same. But as long as the latter increase their illegal methods instead of relaxing them, my Government will hardly be inclined to make any further concessions. Public opinion in Germany would not understand such concessions without any equivalent. I am afraid that if the case of the Lusitania is now pressed too much on my Government, the effect will be contrary to the one you desire. By such pressure my Government might be led to consider that the policy of concessions to the United States for the purpose of obtaining the great and common object of the “freedom of the sea” was wrong and that it would be better to return to a policy of severe reprisals against Great Britain’s illegal blockade.
I am [etc.]