On February 1 Germany entered upon unrestricted submarine warfare, a last resort of desperation.  Ten ships were reported sunk and eight lives lost that day.  Neutral vessels and belligerents were destroyed without discrimination, and in the first six days the tonnage of the vessels sunk by German U-boats was 86, tons, including 45 ships of all nationalities.  The British liner California, formerly of the Anchor Line, was torpedoed on the seventh day, and sank with a loss of 100 lives.  Transatlantic ships were held in New York and other eastern ports, pending instructions from the Government as to sailing in the face of the German warning, against which President Wilson had strongly protested.

RELATIONS WITH GERMANY SEVERED.

Diplomatic relations were broken with Germany on February 2, when President Wilson appeared before a joint session of Congress and announced that the German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, had been given his passports, and that Ambassador Gerard had been recalled from Berlin.  War with Germany was then believed to be only a matter of hours, awaiting the first German overt act.  The reserve force of the Atlantic Fleet was ordered to make ready for immediate service.  But the hour had not yet struck for war.

INTERNED SHIPS DAMAGED BY GERMANS.

Examination of a number of the German merchant vessels interned in United States ports showed that most of them had been seriously damaged by their crews to render them unseaworthy, and it was rumored that the partial wreckage of these ships had been ordered February 1 by the German government.  Twenty-three German ships seized by the naval authorities at Manila were also found to have received willful damage.

On February 8 the State Department notified all American vessel-owners that merchant ships under the American flag might arm against submarines but that no naval convoys would be supplied by the Government.  Sailings of American liners were still held up pending decision about their armament.

The United States Senate indorsed the stand of the President in the break with Germany, by a vote of 78 to 5.

On February 13 it was announced at Washington that an advance was made by the German government, through the Swiss legation, offering to reopen the discussion of submarine methods.  The answer of the United States was to the effect that the Government refused to discuss the international situation with Germany until the U-boat warfare was abandoned and the pledges made in the case of the steamer Sussex were restored.  The Spanish ambassador took over the deserted American embassy at Berlin.  President Wilson, with his cabinet, prepared a bill of particulars containing the grievances against the German government, with special emphasis on the refusal of the latter to liberate seventy-two American seamen taken to Germany as prisoners on the steamer Yarrowdale, one of the vessels captured in the South Atlantic by the raider supposed to be the Moewe.