The U.S. demanded it stop, and Germany did so. Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff (1853–1919), chief of the admiralty staff, argued successfully in January 1917 to resume the attacks and thus starve the British. The German high command realized the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare meant war with the United States but calculated that American mobilization would be too slow to stop a German victory on the Western Front.[1][2] and played a large role in the United States entering the war in April 1917.