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attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do not other.

PART XVI.

SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

Ambassador Penfield to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram.]

AMERICAN EMBASSY, Vienna, February 1, 1917.

Following is text of note received from Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday:

January thirty-first.

The undersigned Minister of the Imperial and Royal Household and of Foreign Affairs had the honor to receive the communication of the twenty-second instant in which His Excellency Frederic Courtland Penfield had the kindness to communicate the message which the President of the United States of America addressed to the American Senate on the same day.

The Imperial and Royal Government did not fail to subject to an attentive consideration the contents of this significant manifestation full of high moral earnestness. It does not fail to recognize the sublime aims which the President had in view, but before all else must point out that Mr. Wilson's desire to pave the way for a permanent peace appears even now frustrated through the rejection which the offer of peace by Austria-Hungary and its allies has experienced at the hand of the enemy.

In August, 1914, Austria-Hungary and its allies took up the struggle which was forced upon them. The consciousness that it was a question of time, defense of their existence and vital interests, gave them strength to withstand the numerical superiority of their enemies and to achieve successes which those of the adversary cannot approach. In thirty months of war these successes have been strengthened and increased. In the same measure in which the enemy's plans of conquest have come to naught, Austria-Hungary and its allies were able

to consider their purely defense aims as achieved. This moderate conception and the wish to avoid further useless bloodshed, led to the peace offer of the four allied powers. Their adversaries, blinded by the delusion that they can even yet give a favorable turn to the course of events and annihilate us, have bluntly rejected this offer. They have demanded terms for the conclusion of peace which would assume the complete overthrow of the four allied powers and annihilation for their aims.

God and the world are witness as to who bears the guilt for the continuation of the war. In view of the intention of the enemy to conquer the armies of Austria-Hungary and its allies, to destroy their fleets and starve their peoples, the struggle must take its course on land and sea with all, even the sharpest weapons. The increased use of all means of warfare alone makes a shortening of the war possible. The enemies have already been intent upon stopping the maritime traffic of Austria-Hungary and its allies and preventing all importation by these powers. As on the other seas so also in the Adriatic they have torpedoed without warning hospital ships such as the Electra and unarmed passenger steamers such as the Dubrovnik, the Biokovo, the Daniel Ernoe and the Zagreb. Austria-Hungary and its allies of their part will henceforth apply the same method in that they will cut off Great Britain, France and Italy from all maritime traffic and for the accomplishment of their purpose will from February 1, 1917, prevent by every means any navigation whatsoever within a definite closed area.

In the execution of this intention all maritime traffic within the closed areas around about Great Britain, France and Italy and in the Eastern Mediterranean, as below designated and shown upon the two inclosed charts, will from February first, 1917, be opposed without further ado with all weapons.

One. Closed area in the North: This area is bounded by line twenty sea miles distant along the coast of Holland to the Terschelling Lightship by the meridian of longitude of the Terschelling Lightship to Odsire, a line from there through the position sixty-two degrees north latitude zero degree longitude to sixty-two degrees north, five degrees west further to a point three sea miles south of southern extremity of the Faroe Islands, from there through a point sixty-two degrees north latitude, ten degrees west longitude, to sixty-one degrees north latitude, fifteen degrees west longitude, then fifty-seven degrees north latitude, twenty degrees west longitude, to forty-seven degrees latitude north, twenty degrees west longitude, further to forty-three degrees north latitude, fifteen degrees west longitude, then along the parallel of forty-three degrees north latitude to twenty sea miles from Cape Finistere and all a distance of twenty sea miles along the north coast of Spain to the French boundary.

Two. The Mediterranean is declared to be a war zone. There

remains open for neutral navigation the sea area west of the line Pt. de L'Espifuetti to thirty-eight degrees twenty minutes north latitude and six degrees east longitude, as well as north and west of a strip sixty sea miles broad along the north African coast beginning at two degrees west longitude.

To connect this area with Greece a strip twenty sea miles wide runs in a northerly or easterly direction along the following line:

Thirty-eight degrees north latitude and six degrees east longitude to thirty-eight degrees north latitude and ten degrees east longitude to thirty-seven degrees north latitude and eleven degrees thirty minutes east longitude to thirty-four degrees north latitude and eleven degrees thirty minutes east longitude to thirty-four degrees north latitude and twenty-two degrees thirty minutes east longitude; there runs from here a strip twenty miles wide to the westward of twentytwo degrees thirty minutes east longitude into the Greek territorial waters.

risk.

Neutrals' ships which navigate these areas do so at their own

Although provision has been made to spare during a suitable period neutral ships which in making passage to ports within the closed areas have arrived in the vicinity thereof on February first yet it is urgently to be advised that they be warned by all available means and diverted elsewhere.

Neutral ships lying in ports on the closed areas can still leave these areas with the same security if they depart before the fifth of February and take the shortest course to free waters.

This decision has also been made by Austria-Hungary with the intention of shortening the struggle by effective means of warfare and approaching a peace for which it, as distinguished from its opponents, contemplates moderate conditions which are not guided by ideas of destruction now as hitherto animated by the intention that the ultimate aim of this war is not one of conquest but the free assured development of its own as well as of other states.

Sustained by the confidence in the proved valor and efficiency of their military and naval forces and steeled by the necessity to frustrate the destructive designs of the enemy, Austria-Hungary and its allies enter upon this forthcoming earnest phase of the struggle with bitter determination, but also with the certainty that it will lead to successes which will finally decide the struggle of years and thereby justify the sacrifice of wealth and blood.

In requesting His Excellency, the Ambassador of the United States of America, to be good enough to communicate the foregoing to the Government of the United States of America the undersigned avails himself, etcetera.

PENFIELD.

The Secretary of State to Ambassador Penfield.

[Telegram-Paraphrase.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 14, 1917.

Mr. Lansing states that the Government of the United States, in a note dated December 6, 1915, concerning the attack on the vessel Ancona, the Austro-Hungarian Government's attention was called to the views of the United States Government on submarine operations in naval warfare which had been expressed in positive terms to Austria-Hungary's ally and of which it was presumed the Government of Austria-Hungary had full knowledge. The Austro-Hungarian Government in its reply of December 15, 1915, stated that it was not in possession of authentic knowledge of all of the pertinent correspondence of the Government of the United States nor was it the opinion of the Austro-Hungarian Government that such knowledge would suffice to cover the case of the vessel Ancona, which essentially differed in character from the cases under discussion with the German Government. Nevertheless, in its note of December 29, replying to the United States Government's note of December 19, 1915, the AustroHungarian Government stated " as concerns the principle expressed in the very esteemed note that hostile private ships, in so far as they do not flee or offer resistance, may not be destroyed without the persons on board having been placed in safety, the Imperial and Royal Government is able substantially to assent to this view of the Washington Cabinet."

Moreover, the Government of Austria-Hungary in January, 1916, in the case of the vessel Persia, stated in effect that, while no information concerning the sinking of the vessel Persia had been received by the Austro-Hungarian Government yet, in case its responsibility was involved, the principles agreed to in the case of the Ancona would guide the Austro-Hungarian Government.

Within the period of one month thereafter the Austro-Hungarian Government, coincidently with the German Government's declaration of February 10, 1916, regarding the treatment of armed merchant vessels, announced that "All merchant vessels armed with cannon for whatever purpose, by this very fact lose the character of peaceable vessels," and that "Under these conditions orders have been given to Austro-Hungarian naval forces to treat such ships as belligerent vessels."

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