File No. 865.857An2/125
The German Embassy to
the Department of State
J. Nr. A 8257]
Washington,
December 17, 1915.
The Imperial German Embassy presents its compliments to the United
States Department of State and has the honor to enclose herewith a
wireless cipher message, in duplicate, to the Foreign Office,
Berlin, for kind transmission to the Tuckerton radio station.2
Duplicate copies of the text of the message are likewise
enclosed.
[Enclosure—Translation]
The Austro-Hungarian Chargé at Washington
(Zwiedinek) to the
Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs (Burian)
Washington,
December 17, 1915.
268. Yesterday’s wireless concerning preliminary answer Ancona received. Saw informally Secretary
of State who greatly disappointed over a cablegram of American
Ambassador in Vienna and newspaper reports indicating lines of
probable answer. Without giving me details of this report he
objected to argument that Austria-Hungary was not bound by
negotiations with Germany in submarine question saying that
Austrian Government has official cognizance of American
viewpoint as Austrian Embassy here had received copies of notes
and as Bryan had
discussed matter with Dumba.
During the conversation I observed that I believed that my
Government would not object to declaring that the commander was
not allowed to shell any more after steamer had stopped; that
the American note, however, demanded that all passengers should be in the boats before
torpedoing and that I doubted if this last extreme principle had
been accepted by us. Secretary answered that this ought not to
be taken absolutely verbally without however entering further
into the question mentioning only the particular difficulty of
the transfer of wounded. He mentioned also that according to the
Admiralty report not the safety of the passengers seems to have
been the first consideration but the fear that the prey might
escape: From this report one could conclude that this last
consideration not only justified the torpedoing but made it
obligatory for the commander to sink the ship without further
delay.
Mr. Lansing insisted again
that only our immediate declaration would be acceptable that we
were ready to disavow the action of the submarine commander [Page 641] and fulfil the
American demands in case an investigation would prove that the
facts were such as represented in the American note. The
American Government would not enter into discussion of the case
before the principles of humanity had been recognized by us.
Discussion of facts could only follow after this principle was
recognized. Mr. Lansing is
unwilling to believe that we would not accept this view.
