w aging w ar to t ransform the w orld 89their leader. One key actor with strong pro-British leanings was State
Department Counselor Robert Lansing. Because Wilson kept such a
tight leash on foreign policy, none of his diplomats could exercise
much discretion. Still, Lansing made or influenced several minor
decisions early in the war that the Germans viewed as pro-British, such
as relaxing a ban on loans to belligerent powers that facilitated Allied
purchases of American products. American popular opinion also
backed trade with the Allies, while there was little direct commerce
with Germany. ^
For Germany to enforce its blockade, on the other hand, its navy
would need to resort to unorthodox techniques. Most of the German
surface fl eet remained anchored at its main base. To halt ships from
reaching Allied ports, then, the Germans would have to rely on its
modest fl eet of submarines (popularly called U-boats). But submarines
could only give warnings to merchant and commercial traffi c by inter-
cepting ships while surfaced, which made them vulnerable if the other
vessels were armed. Surfacing also deprived the U-boats of the key
advantage of surprise. Wilson, refusing to see that established interna-
tional law governing blockades worked to British advantage, expected
German submarines to conform to traditional practice. In February
1915 the Imperial German government announced a new policy under
which its U-boats would attack without warning Allied ships as well as
neutral ships because Allied vessels often flew under neutral flags.
Wilson responded that the United States would hold Germany strictly
accountable for American loss of life or property, a stance that implied
war if the Germans made good on their threat.
Despite several attacks on American ships with loss of lives and
published warnings in newspapers, American civilians continued to sail
aboard ships bearing Allied fl ags. Th e sinking of the liner Lusitania
(with a cargo that included munitions) on May 7, 1915, resulted in more
than one hundred American deaths. Additional ship losses and casu-
alties over the summer precipitated a diplomatic crisis between
Germany and the United States that brought the two nations to the
brink of war. Unwilling at that point to provoke the United States to
join its enemies, the German government under Chancellor Th eobald
von Bethmann Hollweg decided to back down, in part because it had
too few U-boats to make the blockade fully effective. It suspended