“But he has stood out against public opinion in his own country, waited ten months for an answer, and done everything that he could in honour due to soften the feeling here.  Yet just on the eve of a settlement that would have been unsatisfactory to many of our people, Germany announced the policy that we had condemned as illegal, and that plainly is illegal.  The trouble in Berlin is an utter inability to see anything wrong in the attack on the Lusitania, or to appreciate the sense of horror that was stirred in this country by it.  The idea seems to be that the policy of frightfulness could be extended to the high seas without in any way shocking the American people.  Nothing has come from Berlin that indicates any feeling of guilt on the part of the German people or their Government.

“In the United States, on the contrary, the act is regarded as one of the blackest crimes of history.  And yet, in spite of that feeling, we have waited patiently for ten months in the hope that the German Government would do justice, and clear its name of reproach.  Yet now we are told that it is Germany that has shown a ‘patient attitude,’ the implication or insinuation being that our long suffering administration has been unreasonable and impatient.  That will not be the verdict of history, as it is not the verdict of our own people.  We have made every allowance for the conditions existing in Germany, and have resolutely refused to take advantage of her distress.  We doubt whether there is any other government in the world that would have shown the patience and moderation, under like provocation, that have been shown by the American Government in these Lusitania negotiations.”

I sent the editorial to von Jagow, who returned it the next day with the brief comment on one of his calling cards:  “With many thanks.”

About this time Count Reventlow and the other naval writers began to refer to everything President Wilson did as a “bluff.”  When Col.  E. M. House came to Berlin early in 1916, he tried to impress the officials with the fact that Mr. Wilson was not only not bluffing, but that the American people would support him in whatever he did in dealing with the German Government.  Mr. Gerard tried too to impress the Foreign Office but because he could only deal with that branch of the Government, he could not change the Navy’s impression, which was that Wilson would never take a definite stand against Germany.  On the 8th of February, the London Times printed the following despatch which I had sent to the United States: