“The Government of the United States has been very patient.  At every stage of this distressing experience of tragedy after tragedy it has sought to be governed by the most thoughtful considerations of the extraordinary circumstances of an unprecedented war and to be guided by sentiments of very genuine friendship for the people and the Government of Germany.  It has accepted the successive explanations and assurances of the Imperial Government as of course given in entire sincerity and good faith, and has hoped even against hope that it would prove to be possible for the Imperial Government so to order and control the acts of its naval commanders as to square its policy with the recognised principles of humanity as embodied in the law of nations.  It has made every allowance for unprecedented conditions and has been willing to wait until the facts became unmistakable and were susceptible of only one interpretation.  It now owes it to a just regard, for its own rights to say to the Imperial Government that that time has come.  It has become painfully evident to it that the position which it took at the very outset is inevitable, namely that the use of submarines for the destruction of enemy commerce is of necessity, because of the very character of the vessels employed and the very methods, of attack which their employment of course involves, utterly incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals and the sacred immunities of non-combatants.

“If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Government to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the Government of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognised dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue.  Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Government altogether.  This action the Government of the United States contemplates with the greatest reluctance but feels constrained to take in behalf of humanity and the rights of neutral nations.”

After von Jagow read the note the Foreign Office Telegraph Bureau sent it to Great Headquarters, which at this time was still located in Charleville, France, for the information of the Kaiser and General von Falkenhayn.  It was evident to every one in Berlin that again, not only the submarine issue was to be debated at Great Headquarters, but that the Kaiser was to be forced again to decide between the Chancellor and his democratic supporters and von Falkenhayn and the military party.  Before the Conference convened