CHAPTER XXIX
VON JAGOW, ZIMMERMANN, AND GERMAN-AMERICANS
OUR train drew into the Berlin station on the evening of February 2, 1916. The date is worth mentioning, for that marked an important crisis in German-American relations. Almost the first man I met was my old friend and colleague. Ambassador James W. Gerard. Mr. Gerard told me that he was packing up and expected to leave Berlin at any moment, for he believed that a break between Germany and the United States was a matter only of days, perhaps of hours. At that time Germany and the United States were discussing the settlement of the Lusitania outrage. The negotiations had reached a point where the Imperial Government had expressed a willingness to express her regrets, pay an indemnity, and promise not to do it again. But the President and Mr. Lansing insisted that Germany should declare that the sinking of the Lusitania had been an illegal act. This meant that Germany at no time in the future could resume submarine warfare without stultifying herself and doing something which her own government had denounced as contrary to international law. But our government would accept nothing less and the two nations were, therefore, at loggerheads.
"I can do nothing more," said Mr. Gerard. "I want to have you talk with Zimmermann and Von Jagow, and perhaps you can give them a new point of view."
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