e S.W. of Ireland.

* * * * *

"You must keep constantly before the U.S. authorities the great gravity
of the situation and the need that exists for immediate action.

"Our new methods will not be effective until July and the critical
period is April to July."

It was very necessary to bring home to the United States Navy Department
the need for early action. Admiral Sims informed me--as soon as he
became aware of the heavy losses to merchant shipping that were taking
place--that neither he nor anyone else in the United States had realized
that the situation was so serious. This was, of course, largely due to
the necessity which we were under of not publishing facts which would
encourage the enemy or unduly depress our own people. Further, he
informed me that an idea was prevalent in the United States that the
_morale_ of the German submarine crews had been completely broken by
their losses in submarines. This impression was the successful result of
certain action on our part taken with intent to discourage the enemy.
Whatever may have been the case later in the year, we had, however, no
evidence in the spring of 1917 of deterioration of _morale_ amongst
German submarine crews, nor was there any reason for such a result. It
was therefore necessary to be quite frank with Admiral Sims; we knew
quite well that we could not expect new measures to be effective for
some few months, and we knew also that we could not afford a continuance
of the heavy rate of loss experienced in April, without a serious effect
being produced upon our war effort. We were certainly not in the state
of panic which has been ascribed to us in certain quarters, but we did
want those who were engaged in the war on the side of the Allies to
understand the situation in order that they might realize the value that
early naval assistance would bring to the Allied cause. There is no
doubt that great difficulty must be experienced by those far removed
from the theatre of war in understanding the conditions in the war zone.
This was exemplified at a time when we had organized the trade in
convoys and the system was showing itself effective in greatly reducing
losses from submarine attack. We were pressing the United States to
strengthen our escorting forces as far as possible in order to extend
the convoy system, when a telegram arrived from Washington to the effect
that it was considered that ships which were armed were s