On May 28, 1915, Germany replied with a note which covered a wide range of argument and was in every respect unsatisfactory. It alleged that the Lusitania had masked guns aboard; that she in effect was a British auxiliary cruiser; that she carried munitions of war; that her owning company, aware of the damages she risked in the submarine war zone, was in reality responsible for the loss of American lives, and referred to the fact that the British Admiralty had offered large rewards to ship captains who rammed or destroyed submarines. PROMISED TO PAY DAMAGES. The note met none of the contentions of the United States so far as the Lusitania and Falaba incidents were concerned, although a supplementary note did acknowledge that Germany was wrong in the attacks on the Cushing and the Gulflight, expressed regret for these two cases and promised to pay damages. While the American reply to the note was being framed dissension in the Cabinet resulted in the resignation of Secretary Bryan, who contended for a policy of warning Americans off belligerent ships. He resigned because he thought he could not sign the next note to Germany, which he feared would lead the United States into war. Meanwhile several sensational incidents cropped up in connection with the negotiations, chief of which was the sending of a message to the Berlin Foreign Office by Doctor Dumba, the Austrian Ambassador, afterward recalled at the request of President Wilson, which was represented as stating substantially that Mr. Bryan had intimated to the Ambassador that the vigorous tone of the American notes should not be regarded in Berlin as too warlike. Secretary Lansing took office as Mr. Bryan's successor, and his reply to the German note took issue with every contention Germany had set up in the Falaba and Lusitania cases, denied flatly the contention that the Lusitania was armed or was to be treated as other than a peaceful merchant ship. The note averred that the declaration of a submarine war zone could not abbreviate the rights of Americans on lawful journeys, and added: "The Government of the United States therefore very earnestly and solemnly renews the representations of its note transmitted to the Imperial German Government on May 15, and relies in these representations upon the principles of humanity, the universally recognized understandings of international law and the ancient friendship of the German nation." JAGOW'S EVASIVE ANSWER. To that note Germany did not reply until July 8, and the German rejoinder was preponderately characterized by American newspapers not as a note, but as an address by Foreign Minister von Jagow to the American people. In official circles it was said to come no nearer to meeting the American contentions than did the former German note.