Relationships between Washington and Berlin frayed by threat merchant vessels

February 15th, 1916

New York telegrams indicate that the new German stated policy of sinking armed merchantmen without warning may affect the settlement reached between Washington and Berlin on an apology and financial settlement for the sinking of the

Lusitania

. New York press suggests President Woodrow Wilson (left) may have been duped by the German ambassador Count Bernstorff.

Irish Times Editorial: "Shakespeare and bombs": "In the course of his recent lecture on Shakespeare as national hero, Sir Sidney Leo said that the Germans had sedulously fostered the impression that the Shakespearean cult flourished in Germany before it was seriously developed in Shakespeare's own country.

"The German press has lately afforded some curious examples of this fact. In a Berlin newspaper a critic winds up his notice of a new production of A Winter's Tale by asking: 'Are we not to enjoy and appreciate all this simply because the right honourable Mister Grey [the British foreign secretary] has worked out a diplomatic villainous plot? Are we Germans, who have become the poet 's spiritual home, to cast him off?' – and so on . . . It , also, has the usual phrases about 'the nation which understands and appreciates Shakespeare better than his own.' We are glad to have Sir Sidney Leo's authority for dismissing the German boast as a delusion. The truth is that in his lifetime Shakespeare acquired a national repute, and from start to finish the honours of a national hero were never withheld from his name."

The paper suggests that the playwright’s birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon has even been spared from bombing because of German reverence for its favourite son.

The government announces it will take over Irish patent still whiskey distilleries for munitions supplies – war needs represent 15 million gallons out of a total output of 40 million gallons. The balance will be sold for consumption. The Daily Mail also reports that the Liquor Control Board is contemplating the issuing of an order allowing for the dilution of spirits up to 50 per cent of water. Manufacturers are conducting experiments to overcome the cloudy effect of water dilution on whiskey.

Following heavy bombardment of trenches near Ypres, Germans inflicted heavy casualties on defenders in repeated attacks.