Before the crisis reached this stage, the German point of view regarding submarine warfare was, despite pledges, more than ever unalterably opposed to modifying that warfare to conform to the wishes of any foreign power. For eleven days after the attack of the _Sussex_ the Berlin Foreign Office preserved an attitude of ignorance regarding the torpedoing; but the seriousness with which the case was viewed in the United States, coupled with the instructions from Washington to Ambassador Gerard, at length caused the Foreign Office to call upon the admiralty for a report on the destruction of the _Sussex_ if any submarine commander could throw any light upon it. No hope, however, was entertained that a satisfactory statement would be received from Berlin. A resort to evasion, a professed lack of information, the familiar assumption of an English or French mine being to blame, were expected to be embodied in any defense Berlin made, and an explanation of this tenor was rejected in advance. Germany's answer was received on April 10, 1916, and fulfilled expectations. The United States was informed that the admiralty had subjected the affair to the fullest investigation, with this results--that no German submarine attacked the _Sussex,_ but that one torpedoed another vessel, about the same time in the same vicinity, with the same result. A sketch the submarine commander made of the vessel he struck was submitted to show that it was not the _Sussex_, as the sketch differed from the published pictures of that ship. The submarine commander, the German note said, had been led to attack the "unknown" vessel in the belief that it was a warship, that is, "a mine layer of the recently built _Arabic_ class." A violent explosion occurred in the fore part of the ship after the torpedo had been fired, which "warrants the certain conclusion that great amounts of ammunitions were on board." The German note proceeded: "No other attack whatever by German submarines at the time in question for the _Sussex_ upon the route between Folkestone and Dieppe occurred. The German Government must therefore assume that the injury to the _Sussex_ is attributable to another cause than an attack by a German submarine. "For an explanation of the case the fact may perhaps be serviceable that no less than twenty-six English mines were exploded by shots by German naval forces in the channel on the 1st and 2nd of April alone. The entire sea in that vicinity is, in fact, endangered by floating mines and by torpedoes that have not sunk. Off the English coast it is further endangered in an increasing degree through German mines which have been laid against enemy naval forces. "Should the American Government have at its disposal further material for a conclusion upon the case of the _Sussex_ the German Government would ask that it be communicated, in order to subject this material also to an investigation.