mum by the
instructions which it had issued to its submarine commanders, and
assured the Government of the United States that it would take every
possible precaution both to respect the rights of neutrals and to
safeguard the lives of non-combatants.

What has actually happened in the year which has since elapsed has shown
that those hopes were not justified, those assurances insusceptible of
being fulfilled. In pursuance of the policy of submarine warfare against
the commerce of its adversaries, thus announced and entered upon by the
Imperial German Government in despite of the solemn protest of this
Government, the commanders of German undersea vessels have attacked
merchant ships with greater and greater activity, not only upon the high
seas surrounding Great Britain and Ireland but wherever they could
encounter them, in a way that has grown more and more ruthless, more and
more indiscriminate as the months have gone by, less and less observant
of restraints of any kind; and have delivered their attacks without
compunction against vessels of every nationality and bound upon every
sort of errand. Vessels of neutral ownership, even vessels of neutral
ownership bound from neutral port to neutral port, have been destroyed
along with vessels of belligerent ownership in constantly increasing
numbers. Sometimes the merchantman attacked has been warned and summoned
to surrender before being fired on or torpedoed; sometimes passengers or
crews have been vouchsafed the poor security of being allowed to take to
the ship's boats before she was sent to the bottom. But again and again
no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship's boats allowed to
those on board. What this Government foresaw must happen has happened.
Tragedy has followed tragedy on the seas in such fashion, with such
attendant circumstances, as to make it grossly evident that warfare of
such a sort, if warfare it be, cannot be carried on without the most
palpable violation of the dictates alike of right and of humanity.
Whatever the disposition and intention of the Imperial German
Government, it has manifestly proved impossible for it to keep such
methods of attack upon the commerce of its enemies within the bounds set
by either the reason or the heart of mankind.

In February of the present year the Imperial German Government informed
this Government and the other neutral governments of the world that it
had reason to believe that the Government of Grea