From this time onwards, Mr. Lansing agreed with me that, as a regular
thing, I should be permitted, whatever negotiations were going on,
to send cipher dispatches to my Government through the channels
of the State Department and the American Embassy in Berlin. It
will be remembered that a similar privilege had been granted me
at the time of the _Lusitania_ incident.

My sole ground of hope for success lay in one passage of the American
Note of July 21st, which read as follows:

"The Government of the United States and the Imperial German Government,
contending for the same great object, long stood together in urging
the very principles on which the Government of the United States
now so solemnly insists. They are both contending for the freedom
of the seas. The Government of the United States will continue to
contend for that freedom from whatever quarter it is violated,
without compromise and at any cost. It invites the practical
co-operation of the Imperial German Government at this time, when
co-operation may accomplish most, and this great common object can
be most strikingly and effectively achieved. The Imperial German
Government expresses the hope that this object may in some measure
be accomplished even before the present war ends. It can be.

"The Government of the United States not only feels obliged to
insist upon it, by whomsoever it is violated or ignored, in the
protection of its own citizens, but it is also deeply interested
in seeing it made practicable between the belligerents themselves.
It holds itself ready at any time to act as a common friend who
may be privileged to suggest a way."

It seemed possible to reach some sort of agreement on the basis
of the above request from America that we should co-operate in
endeavoring to restore the freedom of the seas; but there remained
the question of finding a formula which should serve as a basis
for the settlement of the _Lusitania_ question and prevent any
repetition of such incidents.

I was aware that there were two political counter-currents in Berlin:
the one party desiring at all costs to prevent war with the United
States, the other preferring to risk war for the sake of continuing
the submarine campaign. I was clearly bound to co-operate with
the first named, as I was convinced that America's participation
in the war would certainly result in our eventual defeat; this
view was, I knew, that Von Jagow, Secretary of State for Foreign
Aff