teen vessels had been sunk
without warning causing a loss of eighty-four lives, was that German
frightfulness was already in full swing despite Berlin's promise to
the United States. The American attitude, however, was that so long as
American lives were not lost on ships sunk without warning the United
States had no ground for intervention. Hence Germany could apparently
sink vessels with impunity so long as the noncombatant victims
belonged to other nationalities.

The agitation in Germany to break the undertaking with the United
States was thrashed out between the adherents of Chancellor von
Bethmann-Hollweg and the Pan-Germanists without shaking the
Chancellor's strength. He had the support of Field Marshal von
Hindenburg and the navy chiefs, who, in frowning on an unbridled
submarine warfare, successfully imposed the weight of their authority
against any change. The subject divided the Budget Committee of the
Reichstag, the question being whether its discussion should be
permitted in open session. The outcome was that the committee decided,
by a vote of 24 to 4, to smother the agitation by refusing to permit
its ventilation in the open Reichstag.

CHAPTER LI

THE U-53'S EXPLOITS

While the German Budget Committee was thus occupied a new and
startling turn was given to the situation by the unheralded appearance
at Newport, R. I., on October 7, 1916, of a German submarine, the
_U-53_. Rising out of the water in the afternoon, it remained long
enough for its captain to deliver a missive for Count von Bernstorff,
the German Ambassador, pay a call on Admiral Knight, the American
commander there, ask for news of the missing _Bremen_, and obtain a
sheaf of New York newspapers for information regarding Allied
shipping. Then it left the port, whither it had been piloted, and
disappeared under the waves. The visit, standing by itself, was an
interesting episode; but it proved to be much more than a mere social
call.

The next day revealed the real object of the submarine's presence in
American waters. Off Nantucket it appeared in its true guise as a
raider of shipping and sank five vessels--three British, one Dutch,
and one Norwegian. Having thus brought the submarine war to the very
threshold of the United States, causing a reign of terror among
held-up shipping along the Atlantic seaboard--a state of mind which,
while it lasted, meant a virtual blockade of American ports--it
disappeared and was not again he