Excerpt........THE German Admiralty on Feb. 4 proclaimed a war zone around Great Britain announcing that every enemy merchant ship found therein would be destroyed "without its being always possible to avert the dangers threatening the crews and pass ... Read more

Excerpt........THE German Admiralty on Feb. 4 proclaimed a war zone around Great Britain announcing that every enemy merchant ship found therein would be destroyed "without its being always possible to avert the dangers threatening the crews and passengers on that account." The text of this proclamation was made known by Ambassador Gerard on Feb. 6. Four days later the United States Government sent to Germany a note of protest which has come to be known as the "strict accountability note." After pointing out that a serious infringement of American rights on the high seas was likely to occur, should Germany carry out her war-zone decree in the manner she had proclaimed, it declared: "If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas." The war-zone decree went into effect on Feb. 18. Two days later dispatches were cabled to Ambassador Page at London and to Ambassador Gerard at Berlin suggesting that a modus vivendi be entered into by England and Germany by which submarine warfare and sowing of mines at sea might be abandoned if foodstuffs were allowed to reach the German civil population under American consular inspection. Less