I have the honour to be. ... (Signed by the German Minister.)
March 10, 1917.
With a Parliamentary endorsement behind them there remained
nothing for the Peking Government but to take the vital step of
severing diplomatic relations. Certain details remained to be
settled but these were expeditiously handled. Consequently,
without any further discussion, at noon on the 14th March the
German Minister was handed his passports, with the following
covering dispatch from the Chinese Foreign Office. It is worthy of
record that in the interval between the Chinese Note of the 9th
February and the German reply of the 10th March the French mail-
steamer Athos had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean and five
hundred Chinese labourers proceeding to France on board her
drowned.
Your Excellency:--
With reference to the new submarine policy of Germany, the
Government of the Republic of China, dictated by the desire to
further the cause of world's peace and to maintain the sanctity of
International Law, addressed a protest to Your Excellency on
February 9th and declared that in case, contrary to its
expectations its protest be ineffectual, it would be constrained
to sever the diplomatic relations at present existing between the
two countries.
During the lapse of a month no heed has been paid to the protest
of the Government of the Republic in the activities of the German
Submarines, activities which have caused the loss of many Chinese
lives.
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