February 4, 1915, Germany declared the waters about the British Isles a "war zone"

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On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the waters about the British Isles a "war zone" in which submarines would destroy every enemy merchant vessel found there. She warned neutrals that neither the crews nor passengers of such vessels, whether enemy or neutral subjects, would be safe in the zone. This was quite a different matter from the interference of the British with the trade rights of the United States. Compensation for property losses might be made after the war, but compensation for loss of lives as a result of the new German rules of submarine warfare was impossible.

    The sinking of the Lusitania. Events soon showed the German announcement to be no idle threat. British ships with Americans aboard and American vessels with their crews were destroyed. The outstanding horror of the submarine warfare was the sinking of the Lusitania, a British passenger and merchant ship, on May 7, 1915. Eleven hundred of the passengers and crew were drowned, including 128 American men, women, and children. (There is much controversy over the sinking of the Lusitania; it was not armed and had no troops; however, it did carry 4,200 cases of cartridges. The German Embassy had published advertisements in New York newspapers warning Americans not to sail on belligerent passenger ships.)

    Wilson's patient attitude. In their anger the people of the United States forgot about British restrictions on neutral trade. For the first time there arose a widespread demand that the United States should intervene. LikeJefferson after the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, Wilson after the attack on the Lusitania might have won from Congress support for a declaration of war against Germany. It would not, however, have represented the will of the united nation. West of the Mississippi the attitude toward the submarine issue was still one of indifference. Wilson was determined to make war the last resort. "The example of America," be said, "must be a special example . . . of peace, because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not." Unfortunately the President obscured meaning of his high ideal by the phrase, "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight."