ploits was looked for from her
sister undersea craft, the _Bremen_, about whose movements the widest
speculation was centered. She was reported to have left Germany for
the United States on September 1, 1916, but did not appear, nor was
any trace of her seen en route. She never arrived, and became a
mystery of the sea. A story circulated that she had been captured by a
British patrol boat in the Straits of Dover and thirty-three of her
crew of thirty-five made prisoners, the remaining two having been
killed when the boat was caught in a steel net. The British admiralty
preserved its customary silence as to the truth of this report. Her
German owners finally acknowledged their belief that she had been lost
probably through an accident to her machinery. At any rate a life
preserver bearing the name _Bremen_ was picked up off the Maine coast
about the end of September, 1916.

As the summer of 1916 advanced American contemplation of this
agreeable trade relation with blockaded Germany by means of a
commercial submarine service was abruptly switched to a review of the
manner in which that country was observing its undertaking not to sink
unresisting vessels without warning. A certain communication credited
to Admiral von Tirpitz was circulated in Germany urging a return to
his discarded sea policy. This was nothing more nor less than the
pursuit of unrestricted and ruthless submarine warfare, the espousal
of which by him as Minister of Marine, in conflict with the milder
methods favored by the German Chancellor, forced his resignation
earlier in the year. Of course such a change would mean an immediate
clash with the United States and the ending of diplomatic relations.

President Wilson had been watching Germany's behavior since May, 1916,
when she pledged her submarine commanders to safeguard the lives on
board doomed vessels. Three months' probation, according to American
reports, failed to show any evidence that she was not living up to her
promise; but British reports cited a number of instances pointing to
an absolute disregard of her undertaking with the United States. She
had hedged this promise with a condition reserving her liberty of
action should a "new situation" develop necessitating a change in her
sea policy, and the question arose whether she was not trying to
create a new situation to justify such a change. Concurrent with the
new Von Tirpitz propaganda, at any rate, came a recrudescence of
submarine dest