s with the United States, was seen in the effort to place
upon Great Britain the responsibility for wrongs committed by Germany
against the United States and in the renewed attempt to convict the
American Government of lapses because it has not controlled Great
Britain's sea policy. In fact, the attempt to dictate the American
attitude to Great Britain in return for a promise to restrict
submarine warfare was generally resented as an impertinence.

When all was said, however, the German reply, although having the
appearance of being as little conciliatory as words could make it,
did in fact yield to President Wilson on the main issue.

The President, in considering this view, was guided by Ambassador
Gerard's dispatches reporting his interview with the kaiser on the
submarine crisis. The kaiser, he said, was animated by a keen desire
that relations between the two Governments should continue amicable,
but he felt that German public opinion must be considered in making
concessions to the United States. From the kaiser's concern for
popular approval the ambassador gathered that the German Government
faced the necessity of so wording its answer to the United States that
the German people would not feel that the Government had been forced
to modify the rules under which submarines operated. The
Administration received the impression that Germany would go to great
length to avoid a rupture with the United States, and the German note
must therefore be construed in the light of this feeling. The kaiser's
views, as transmitted by the ambassador, tended to soften the
irritating tone and language of the German note, and was not without
effect on the President and cabinet when they determined to accept it
provisionally.

The President decided to ignore the pointed suggestion of Germany that
the United States should now seek to prevail on Great Britain to
abandon her blockade of Germany. One source of irritation caused by
the note was the statement that should the United States fail to raise
the British embargo "the German Government would then be facing a new
situation in which it must reserve to itself complete liberty of
action." The Administration had no intention of accepting any
conditional compliance with its demand for the abandoning of illegal
submarine warfare; but the opinion officially prevailed that this
effort of Germany to lecture the United States as to its duty toward
another nation might be overlooked in view o