Clearly, this reasoning would be equally valid (or invalid!) with Hughes as president as with Wilson, which is why it is hard for me to see Germany reaching a different decision.
Agreed. I mentioned it only as an outside chance.
What really gets me about it is how small a difference USW made. According to
American Merchant Marine at War, (
www.usmm.org), of eight US ships destroyed between the announcement of USW and the declaration of war, only three - the
Vigilancia on March 16, the
Healdton on March 21, and the
Aztec on April 1 - were sunk by "unrestricted" means. The rest were destroyed under "cruiser rules" and without loss of life - something Wilson had accepted in the past, and Hughes might well also swallow. After that, and despite there now being a war on, no more American lives were lost until the
Vacuum was sunk on April 28.
And so it continued throughout 1917. By the end of the year, 59 US ships had gone down, but 39 of these were "cruiser rules" sinkings, and only 20 led to American deaths. Even if one assumes that none of the 20 could have been sunk by cruiser rules (I suspect quite a few could, had the U-boat captains been so minded) that still seems a rather pathetic gain for provoking a war with the US. Talk about "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad"