ion received from Germany and Austria-Hungary two days later
notifying that, beginning March 1, 1916, their submarines would sink
all armed merchantmen without warning. Germany's revised draft
apparently deciding the _Lusitania_ issue came to hand on February 15,
1916. The following day the Administration intimated that the
submarine controversy over the _Lusitania_ could not be closed until
the United States had fully considered the possible effect of the new
policy of the Teutonic Powers.

Germany later informed the United States that her assurances regarding
the future conduct of submarine warfare, given in the _Lusitania_ and
_Arabic_ cases, were still binding, but that they applied only to
merchantmen of a peaceful character; that the new orders issued to the
submarine commanders, which directed them to sink without warning all
belligerent merchantmen carrying arms, either for defense or offense,
were not in conflict with these assurances; and that Germany and
Austria-Hungary had entered into an agreement regarding the new
submarine orders, which would go into effect by midnight, February 29,
1916.

Germany charged that Great Britain had instructed all her merchantmen
to arm for offensive purposes against submarine attacks, and cited
instances in which submarines were attacked by vessels seemingly of a
peaceful character. This accusation was denied by Lord Robert Cecil,
Great Britain's Minister for War Trade, who told the House of Commons:

"The British view has always been that defensively armed merchantmen
must not fire on submarines or on any other warships, except in
self-defense. The Germans have twisted a passage in a document taken
from a transport which they sank into meaning that merchant vessels
have instructions to take the offensive. This is not so."

The question of armed merchantmen had been simmering during the course
of the _Lusitania_ negotiations. It arose over the unexplained sinking
in the Mediterranean of a Peninsular and Oriental liner, the _Persia_,
on December 29, 1915. The American Consul to Aden, Robert N. McNeely,
was among the passengers who lost their lives. The _Persia_ carried a
4.7 gun. The Administration was believed to be exercised--though
erroneously--over the question whether an armed liner was entitled to
be regarded as any other than an auxiliary cruiser, and hence liable
to be sunk without warning. No new issue, however, was raised by the
United States with the Teutonic Po