om Germany, I used the expression "_Sussex_ Crisis" to a leading
Englishman, he expressed surprise at the term "crisis." "We did
not get the impression in England that the affair was a real
crisis," he said.

My experiences in Germany during the last week in April and the
first four days in May, 1916, left no doubt in my mind that I was
living through a crisis, the outcome of which would have a
tremendous effect upon the subsequent course of the war. Previous
dealings with Washington had convinced the German Government as
well as the German people that the American Government would stand
for anything. Thus the extraordinary explanation of the German
Foreign Office that the Sussex was not torpedoed by a German
submarine, since the only U-boat commander who had fired a torpedo
in the channel waters on the fateful day had made a sketch of the
vessel which he had attacked, which, according to the sketch, was
not the Sussex.

The German people were so supremely satisfied with this explanation
that they displayed chagrin which quickly changed to ugliness when
the German Press was allowed to print enough of the news from
Washington to prepare the public mind for something sharp from
across the Atlantic. I have seen Berlin joyful, serious, and sad
during the war; I have seen it on many memorable days; but never
have I seen it exactly as on Saturday, April 22nd, the day when the
_Sussex_ Ultimatum was made known through the Press. The news was
headlined in the afternoon editions. The eager crowds snapped them
up, stood still in their tracks, and then one and all expressed
their amazement to anybody near them, "President Wilson began by
shaking his fist at Germany, and ended by shaking his finger," was
the way one of the President's political opponents summarised his
Notes. That was the opinion in Germany. And now he had "pulled a
gun." The Germans could not understand it. When they encountered
any of the few Americans left in their country they either foamed
in rage at them, or, in blank amazement, asked them what it was all
about.

It was extremely interesting to the student of the war to see that
the people really did not understand what it was all about.
Theodor Wolff, the brilliant editor of the _Berliner Tageblatt_,
with great daring for a German editor, raised this point in the
edition in which the Ultimatum was printed. He asserted that the
German people did not understand the case because they purposely