Germany’s top civilian and military leaders converged on Kaiser Wilhelm’s castle at Pless on January 8, 1917, to consider the plan, and the next evening Wilhelm, in his role as supreme military commander, signed an order to put it into action, a decision that would prove one of the most fateful of the war. On January 16, the German Foreign Office sent an announcement of the new campaign to Ambassador Bernstorff in Washington, with instructions that he deliver it to Secretary Lansing on January 31, the day before the new campaign was to begin. The timing was an affront to Wilson: it left no
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