One striking instance of this occurred when the Wilhelmstrasse discovered that Washington was in possession of information in the "_Arabic_ incident" which made the official excuses palpably too thin. After the German authorities became convinced that their failure to guarantee that unresisting merchantmen would not be sunk until passengers and crew were removed to a place of safety would cause a break with the United States, Tirpitz asserted that the disadvantages to Germany from America as an enemy would be slight in comparison with the advantages from the relentless submarining which in his opinion would defeat Britain. He therefore advocated that no concessions be made to Washington. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was of the opposite opinion. A deadlock resulted, which was broken when the Kaiser summoned both men to separate and secret conferences. He decided in favour of the Chancellor, whereupon Washington received the famous "_Arabic_ Guarantees." It is highly significant that these were never made known to the German people. Then followed six months of "frightfulness," broken pledges, notes, crises, semi-crises, and finally the great crisis _de luxe_ in the case of the _Sussex_. When, a few days after my return to England from Germany, I used the expression "_Sussex_ Crisis" to a leading Englishman, he expressed surprise at the term "crisis." "We did not get the impression in England that the affair was a real crisis," he said. My experiences in Germany during the last week in April and the first four days in May, 1916, left no doubt in my mind that I was living through a crisis, the outcome of which would have a tremendous effect upon the subsequent course of the war. Previous dealings with Washington had convinced the German Government as well as the German people that the American Government would stand for anything. Thus the extraordinary explanation of the German Foreign Office that the Sussex was not torpedoed by a German submarine, since the only U-boat commander who had fired a torpedo in the channel waters on the fateful day had made a sketch of the vessel which he had attacked, which, according to the sketch, was not the Sussex.