File No. 763.72/2183
The Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 10, 7.30 p. m.]
2990. Following official press [sic] appears in to-day’s papers:
Foreign papers have for sometime been publishing statements as to German losses in submarine warfare, and the figures given of the losses have become larger and larger. Thus the New York service of the English wireless station at Poldhu places our losses of submarines on October 5 at sixty.
In contravention of this report, which is very greatly exaggerated for a definite purpose, we are authorized by the competent quarters to state that the actual losses of German submarines do not reach one fourth of the number given.
In publishing these figures of losses, foreign papers add that they assume that Germany was only compelled by her losses to restrict submarine warfare to a certain extent. To this we may reply that the number of submarines now available is considerably larger than at the beginning of the submarine warfare.