The Administration's position in the submarine issue with Germany, now that Congress had upheld the President, seemed to be that Germany's decree condemning armed merchantmen curtailed the liberty of Americans to travel on the high seas. The status quo had not been affected. Germany, in the _Arabic_ case, had undertaken that merchant vessels would not be torpedoed without first being warned, and that pledge the United States looked to her to respect, whether the vessels were armed for defense or not. What, then, would now happen, with Germany's latest decree sent ringing round the world with resounding bombast, by way of telling neutral noncombatants, including Americans, to stay at home, as though cataclysmic destruction awaited all vessels which dared to show a gun at the stern? The United States waited. Nothing, so far as the German armed-merchantmen decree was concerned, did happen. There was no appreciable increase in the number of vessels sunk by Teutonic submarines, and armed merchantmen did not especially figure among the victims. In the face of this tame execution of the terrible decree, providing a sorry anticlimax to its noisy proclamation, the German press called for a policy of no compromise with the United States. The "Berliner Tageblatt" announced that Germany intended to wage a ruthless U-boat war against her enemies, whatever the American attitude might be. Apparently the German people believed that a renewal of submarine activity was vitally necessary, and were convinced of the propriety of their stand, both from the point of view of ethics and international law. Germany's armed-merchantmen decree, as indicated, was not immediately followed by any submarine activity of a character in keeping with the dire threat made; but toward the close of March, 1916, a sudden indiscriminate outbreak of destruction came against merchantmen of every type. Many were sunk without warning, the question of whether they were armed or not seemingly being disregarded in the new crusade. The United States began to take stern cognizance of these reckless operations when four ships having Americans on board, either among the crews or passengers, became targets for the kaiser's torpedoes, without warning. These were the _Eagle Point_, the _Manchester Engineer_, the _Englishman_, and the _Sussex_. All were sunk except the last-named vessel, and the Americans were saved except one on the _Englishman_, though not, in several cases, without injury.