STAND FAST, YE FREE!
I
From the outset of this war two things have been clear to me.
First, if the war continued it was absolutely inevitable that the United
States would be either drawn into it by the impulse of democratic
sympathies or forced into it by the instinct of self-preservation.
Second, the most adequate person in the world to decide when and how the
United States should accept the great responsibility of fighting beside
France and Great Britain for peace and for the American ideal of freedom
was President Wilson.
His sagacity, his patience, his knowledge of the varied elements that
are blended in our nationality, his sincere devotion to pacific
conceptions of progress, his unwavering loyalty to the cause of liberty
secured by law, national and international, made him the one man of all
others to whom this great decision could most safely be confided.
The people of the United States believed this in the election of 1916.
They trusted him sincerely then because "he kept us out of the war"
until the inevitable hour. No less sincerely do they trust him now when
he declares that the hour has come when we must "dedicate our lives and
our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have"
(President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917), to defend ourselves
and the world from the Imperial German Government, which is waging "a
warfare against mankind."
In the quiet, but never idle, American Legation at The Hague there was
an excellent opportunity to observe and study the incredible blunders by
which Germany led us, and the unspeakable insults and injuries by which
she compelled us, to enter the war.
Our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine was, at first, an obstacle to that
entrance. Believing that European governments ought not to interfere in
domestic affairs on the American continents, we admitted the converse of
that proposition, and held that America should not meddle with European
controversies or conflicts. But we soon came to a realizing sense of the
ominous fact that Germany was the one nation of Europe which openly
despised and flouted the Monroe Doctrine as an outworn superstition. Her
learned professors (followed by a few servile American imitators) had
poured ridicule and scorn upon it in unreadable books. Her actions in
the West Indies and South America showed her contempt for it as a "bit
of American bluff." Gradually it dawned upon us that if France were
crushed and England crippled our dear old Monroe Doctrine would stand a
poor chance against a victorious and supercilious Imperial German
Government. As I wrote to Washington in August, 1914, their idea was to
"lunch in Paris, dine in London, and spend the night somewhere in
America."
Another real barrier to our taking any part in the war was our sincere,
profound, traditional love of peace. This does not mean, of course, that
America is a country of pacifists. Our history proves the contrary. Our
conscientious objections to certain shameful things, like injustice, and
dishonor, and tyranny, and systematic cruelty, are stronger than our
conscientious objection to fighting. But our national policy is averse
to war, and our national institutions are not favorable to its sudden
declaration or swift prosecution.
In effect, the United States is a pacific nation of fighting men.
What was it, then, that forced such a nation into a conflict of arms?
It was the growing sense that the very existence of this war was a crime
against humanity, that it need not and ought not to have been begun, and
that the only way to put a stop to it was to join the Allies, who had
tried to prevent its beginning, and who are still trying to bring it to
the only end that will be a finality.
It was also the conviction that the Monroe Doctrine, so far from being
an obstacle, was an incentive to our entrance. The real basis of that
doctrine is the right of free peoples, however small and weak, to
maintain by common consent their own forms of government. This Germany
and Austria denied. The issue at stake was no longer merely European. It
was worldwide.
The Monroe Doctrine could not be saved in one continent if its
foundation was destroyed in another. The only way to save it was to
broaden it.
The United States, having grown to be a World Power, must either uphold
everywhere the principles by which it had been begotten and made great
or sink into the state of an obese, helpless parasite. Its sister
republics would share its fate.
But more than this: it was the flagrant and contemptuous disregard of
all the principles of international law and common humanity by the
Imperial German Government that alarmed and incensed us. The list of
crimes and atrocities ordered in this war by the mysterious and awful
power that rules the German people--which I prefer to call, for the sake
of brevity and impersonality, the Potsdam gang--is too long to be
repeated here. The levying of unlawful tribute from captured cities and
villages; the use of old men, women, and children as a screen for
advancing troops; the extortion of military information from civilians
by cruel and barbarous methods; the burning and destruction of entire
towns as a punishment for the actual or suspected hostile deeds of
individuals, and the brutal avowal that in this punishment it was
necessary that "the innocent shall suffer with the guilty" (see the
letter of General von Nieber to the burgomaster of Wavre, August 27, and
the proclamation of Governor-General von der Goltz, September 2, 1914);
the introduction of the use of asphyxiating gas as a weapon of war (at
Ypres, April 22, 1915); the poisoning of wells; the reckless and
needless destruction of priceless monuments of art like the Cathedral of
Reims; the deliberate and treacherous violation of the Red Cross, which
is the sign of mercy and compassion for all Christendom; the bombardment
of hospitals and the cold-blooded slaughter of nurses and wounded men;
the sinking of hospital ships with their helpless and suffering
company--all these, and many other infamies committed by order of the
Potsdam gang made the heart of America hot and angry against the power
which devised and commanded such brutality. True, they were not,
technically speaking, crimes directed against the United States. They
did not injure our material interests. They injured only our souls and
the world in which we have to live. They were vivid illustrations of the
inward nature of that German Kultur whose superiority, the German
professors say, "is rooted in the unfathomable depths of its moral
constitution." (Deutsche Reden in Schwerer Zeit, II, p. 23.)
But there were two criminal blunders--or perhaps it would be more
accurate to call them two series of obstinate and stupid offenses
against international law--by which the Potsdam gang directly assailed
the sovereignty and neutrality of the United States and forced us to
choose between the surrender of our national integrity and a frank
acceptance of the war which Germany was waging, not only against our
principles and interests, but against the things which in our judgment
were essential to the welfare of mankind and to the existence of
honorable and decent relations among the peoples of the world.
The first of these offenses was the cynical and persistent attempt to
take advantage of the good nature and unsuspiciousness of the United
States for the establishment of an impudent system of German espionage;
to use our territory as a base of conspiracy and treacherous hostilities
against countries with which we were at peace; and to lose no
opportunity of mobilizing the privileges granted by "these idiotic
Yankees" (quotation from the military attache of the Imperial German
Embassy at Washington)--including, of course, the diplomatic
privilege--to make America unconsciously help in playing the game of the
Potsdam gang.
The second of these offenses was the illegal, piratical submarine
warfare which the Potsdam gang ordered and waged against the merchant
shipping of the world, thereby destroying the lives and the property of
American citizens and violating the most vital principle of our
steadfast contention for the freedom of the sea.
The message of the President to Congress on April 2, 1917, marked these
two offenses as the main causes which made it impossible for the United
States to maintain longer an official attitude of neutrality toward the
German Government, which "did what it pleased and told its people
nothing." The President generously declared that the source of these
offenses "lay not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people
toward us." That was a magnanimous declaration, and we sincerely hope it
may prove true.
But practically the difficulty lies in the fact that at the present hour
several millions of the German people stand in arms, on land that does
not belong to them, to maintain the purpose and continue the practices
of the Potsdam gang. It is a pity, but it is true. The only way to get
at the gang which chose and forced this atrocious war is to go through
the armed people who still defend that choice and the atrocities which
have emphasized it.
Forgiveness must wait upon repentance. Repentance must be proved by
restitution and reparation. Any other settlement of this world conflict
would be a world calamity. For America and for all the Allies who are
fighting for a peace worth having and keeping, the watchword must be:
Stand fast, ye free!
II
The offenses against the neutrality of the United States which were
instigated and financed by the Potsdam gang were enumerated by the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives in the
first week of April, 1917, and amounted to at least twenty-one distinct
crimes or unfriendly acts, including the furnishing of bogus passports
to German reservists and spies, the incitement of rebellion in India and
in Mexico, the preparation of dynamite outrages against Canada, the
placing of bombs in ships sailing from American ports, and many other
ill-judged pleasantries of a similar character.
The crown was put on this series of blundering misdeeds by the note of
January 19, 1917, sent from the German Foreign Office (under cover of
our diplomatic privilege, of course) to the German Minister in Mexico,
directing him to prepare an alliance with that country against the
United States in the event of war, urging him to use Mexico as an agent
to draw Japan into that alliance, and offering as a bribe to the
Mexicans the possession of American territory in Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona. (See War Message and Facts Behind It, p. 13. Published by the
Committee on Public Information, Washington, Government Printing Office,
1917.)
The fact is, we have only just begun to understand the real nature of
the German secret service, which works with, and either under or over,
the diplomatic service.
It is certainly the most highly organized, systematic, and expensive,
and at the same time probably the most bone-headed and unscrupulous,
secret service in the world.
Its powers of falsification and evasion are only exceeded by its
capacity for making those mistakes which spring from a congenital
contempt for other people.
At The Hague I had numerous opportunities of observing and noting the
workings of this peculiar system. The story of many of them cannot be
publicly told without violating that reserve which I prefer to maintain
in regard to confidential communications and private affairs in which
the personal reputation of individuals is involved. But there are two or
three experiences of which I may write freely without incurring either
self-reproach or a just reproach from others. They are not at all
sensational. But they seemed at the time, and they seem still, to have a
certain significance as indications of the psychology of the people with
whom we were then in nominal friendship.
Three requests were made to me for the forwarding of important
communications to Brussels under cover of the diplomatic privilege of
the American Legation. The memoranda of the dates and so on are in the
Chancellery at The Hague, so I cannot refer to them. But it is certain
that the requests came shortly after the beginning of the war, in the
first or second week of August, 1914, and the content and purport of
them are absolutely clear in my memory.
The first request was from Berlin for the transmission of a note to the
Belgian Government, renewing the proposition which the Potsdam gang had
made on August 2: namely, that Belgium should permit the free passage of
German troops through her neutral ground on condition that Germany would
pay for all damage done and that Belgian territory would not be annexed.
(Off. Dip. Doc., p. 402.) King Albert had already replied, on August 3,
to this proposition, saying that to permit such a passage of hostile
troops against France would be "a flagrant violation of international
law" and would "sacrifice the honor of the nation." (Off. Dip. Doc., p.
421.) After such an answer it did not seem to me that the renewal of the
dishonorable proposal was likely to have a good effect. Yet the Berlin
note was entirely correct in form. It merely offered a chance for
Belgium to choose again between peace with the friendship of Germany and
dishonor attached, and war in defense of the neutrality to which she was
bound by the very treaties (1831, 1839) which brought her into being. I
had no right to interpose an obstacle to the repetition of Belgium's
first heroic choice. I pointed out that, not being accredited to the
Belgian Government, I was not in a position to transmit any
communication to it. But I was willing to forward the note to my
colleague the American Minister in Brussels, absolutely without
recommendation, but simply for such disposal as he thought fit.
Accordingly the note was transmitted to him. [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: My colleague, Honorable James W. Gerard, Ex-Ambassador to
Germany, has referred to this in his very interesting book, "My Four
Years in Germany," p. 136.]
What Whitlock did with it I do not know. What answer, if any, Belgium
made I do not know. But I do know that she stood to her guns and kept
her honor intact and immortal.
The second request was of a different quality. It came to me from the
Imperial German Legation at The Hague. It was a note for transmission to
the Belgian Government, beginning with a reference to the fall of Liege
and the hopeless folly of attempting to resist the German invasion, and
continuing with an intimation of the terrible consequences which would
follow Belgium's persistence in her mad idea of keeping her word of
honor. In effect the note was a curious combination of an insult and a
threat. I promptly and positively refused to transmit it or to have
anything to do with it.
"But why," said the German counsellor, sitting by my study fire---a
Prussian of the Prussians--"why do you refuse? You are a neutral, a
friend of both parties. Why not simply transmit the note to your
colleague in Brussels as you did before? You are not in any way
responsible for its contents."
"Quite so," I answered, "and thank God for that! But suppose you had a
quarrel with a neighbor in the Rheinland, who had positively declined a
proposition which you had made to him. And suppose, the ordinary
post-boy services being interrupted, you asked me to convey to your
neighbor a note which began by addressing him as a 'silly s-- of a
b----,' and ended by telling him that if he did not agree you would
certainly grind him to powder. Would you expect me to play the post-boy
for such a billet-doux on the ground that I was not responsible for its
contents and was a friend of both parties?"
"Well," replied the counsellor, laughing at the North American
directness of my language, "probably not." So he folded up the note and
took it away. What became of it I do not know nor care.
The third request was of still another quality. It came from the
Imperial Austro-Hungarian Legation, which very politely asked me to
transmit a message in the American diplomatic code to my colleague in
Brussels for delivery to the Austro-Hungarian Legation, which still
lingered in that city. The first and last parts of the message were in
plain language, good English, quite innocent and proper. But the kernel
of the despatch was written in the numerical secret cipher of Vienna,
which of course I was unable to read. I drew attention to this, and
asked mildly how I could be expected to put this passage into our code
without knowing what the words were. The answer was that it would not be
necessary to code this passage; it could be transmitted in numbers just
as it stood; the Austro-Hungarian charge d'affaires at Brussels would
understand it.
"Quite so," I answered, "but you see the point is that I do not
understand it. My dear count, you are my very good friend, and it
grieves me deeply to decline any requests of yours. But the simple fact
is that our instructions explicitly forbid us to send any message in two
codes."
The count--who, by the way, was an excellent and most amiable man--
blushed and stammered that he was only carrying out the instructions of
his chief, but that my point was perfectly clear and indisputable. I was
glad that he saw it in that light, and we parted on the most friendly
terms. What became of the message I do not know nor care.
It was about the 1st of September, 1915, that I came into brief contact
with the case of Mr. J. F. J. Archibald. This gentleman was an American
journalist, and a very clever and agreeable man. We had met some months
before, when he was on his way back to America from his professional
work in Germany, and he had been a welcome guest at my table. But the
second meeting was different.
This time Mr. Archibald was returning toward Germany on the
Holland-America steamship Rotterdam. When the boat touched at Falmouth,
on August 30, the British authorities examined his luggage and found
that he was carrying private letters and official despatches from Doctor
Dumba the Austrian Ambassador at Washington, from Count Bernstorff the
German Ambassador, and from Captain von Papen his military attache. Not
only was the carrying of these letters by a private person on a regular
mail route a recognized offense against the law, but the documents
themselves contained matter of an incriminating and seditious nature,
most unfriendly to the United States. The egregious Doctor Dumba, for
example, described how it would be possible to "disorganize and hold up
for months if not entirely prevent," the work of American factories; and
the colossal Captain von Papen, in a letter referring to the activities
of German secret agents in America, gave birth to his eloquent and
unforgettable phrase, "these idiotic Yankees." The papers, of course,
were taken from Mr. Archibald at Falmouth, but he was allowed to
continue his voyage to Rotterdam en route for Berlin.
Before his arrival, however, a cablegram came from the Department of
State at Washington instructing me to take up his regular passport which
was made out to cover travel in Germany; to give him an emergency
passport valid for one month and good only for the return to the United
States; and to use all proper means to get him back to New York at the
earliest possible date.
Having found out that he was lodged at a certain hotel I sent him a
courteous invitation to call at the Legation on business of importance.
He came promptly and we sat down in the library for a conversation which
you will admit had its delicate points.
He began by saying that he supposed I had seen the newspaper accounts of
what happened to him at Falmouth; that he was greatly surprised and
chagrined about the matter; that he had been entirely ignorant of the
contents of the documents found in his possession; that he had
imagined--indeed he had been distinctly told--that they were innocent
private letters relating to personal and domestic affairs; that he did
not know there was any impropriety in conveying such letters; that if he
had suspected their nature or known that they included official
despatches he would never have taken them.
I replied that his personal statement was enough for me on that point,
but that it seemed to throw rather a dark shadow on the character and
conduct of his friends in the German and Austrian Embassies who had
knowingly exposed his innocence to such a risk. I added that it was
probably with a view to obtaining his help in clearing up the matter
that the Department of State had instructed me to take up his passport.
"But have you the legal right to do that?"
"Under American law, yes, unquestionably."
"But under Dutch law?"
"Probably not. But I hope it will not be necessary to invoke that law.
Simply to inform the Dutch Foreign Minister of the presence of an
American whose passport had been revoked but who refused to give it up,
would be sufficient for my purpose."
He reflected for a moment, and then said, smiling:
"I don't refuse to give it up. Here it is. Now tell me what I shall do
without a passport.
"Thank you. Fortunately I have authority to give you an emergency
passport, good for a month, and covering the return voyage to America."
"But I don't want to go there. I want to go on to Berlin."
"Unfortunately I fear that will be impossible. Your old passport is
invalid and will not carry you over the Dutch border. Your new passport
cannot be made out for Germany. Your best course is to return home."
"I see. But have you any right to arrest me and send me to America?"
"None whatever, my dear sir. Please don't misunderstand me. This is just
a bit of friendly advice. 'Your country needs you.' You naturally want
an early chance to tell Washington what you have told me. The Rotterdam
is a very comfortable ship, and she sails for New York the day after
to-morrow. I have already bespoken an excellent room for you. Do you
accept?"
"Yes, and thank you for the way you have put the matter. But do you
think they will arrest me when I get to New York?"
"Probably not. But to help in forestalling that unpleasant possibility I
will cable Washington that you are coming at once, of your own free
will, and anxious to tell the whole story."
So he went, and I saw him off on the Rotterdam, a pallid and downcast
figure. I pitied him. It seemed strange that any one should ever trust
that unscrupulous, callous, thick-pated diplomatic-secret-service
machine which is always ready to expose a too confiding and admiring
friend to danger or disgrace in order to serve its imperious
necessities.
Holland, of course, owing to its geographical situation, was a regular
nest of German espionage. Other spies were there, too, but they were
much less in evidence than the Germans. Of the tricks and the manners of
the latter I had some picturesque experiences which I do not feel at
liberty to narrate. The Department of State has been informed of them,
and has no doubt put the information safely away with a lot of other
things which it knows but does not think it expedient or necessary to
tell until the proper time.
But there is no reason why the simple little tale of the futile attempt
to plant two German spies in my household at The Hague should not be
told. One of the men in our domestic service, a Hollander, had been
obliged to leave and we wanted to fill his place. This was difficult
because the requirements of the Dutch army service claimed such a large
number of the younger men.
The first who applied for the vacant place professed to be a Belgian.
Perhaps he was. On demand he produced his "papers"--birth-certificate,
baptismal registry, several Passier-scheine, and so forth. But down in a
corner on the back of one of the papers was a dim blue stamp--"Imperial
German Marine." What was the meaning of this? What had the Potsdam
High-Sea Fleet to do with this peaceable overland traveller from
Belgium? Voluble excuses, but no satisfactory explanation. I told him
that I feared he was too experienced for the place.
The second who applied was an unquestionable Dutchman, young, good-
looking, intelligent. Papers in perfect order. Present service with a
well-known pro-German family. Previous service of one year with a lady
who was one of my best friends--the wife of a high government official.
I rang her up on the telephone and asked if she could tell me anything
about A. B., who had been in service with her for a year. A second of
silence, then the answer: "Yes, a good deal, but not on the telephone,
please. Come around to tea this afternoon." Madame L. then told me that
while the young man was clean, sober, and industrious, he had been found
rummaging among her husband's official papers, in a room which he was
forbidden to enter, and had been caught several times listening at the
keyhole of doors while private conferences were going on.
It seemed to me that a young man with such an uncontrollable thirst for
knowledge would not be suited for the very simple service which would be
required of him in our household.
Afterward, traces of both of these men were found which led unmistakably
to the lair of the chief spider of the German secret service at The
Hague. The incident was a very small one. But, after all, life is made
up of small incidents with a connected meaning.
At the time when I am writing this (September 24, 1917) the moral
character of the tools of the Potsdam gang has again been stripped naked
by the disclosure of the treachery by which the German Legation in
Argentina has utilized the Swedish Legation in that country to transmit,
under diplomatic privilege, messages inciting to murder on the high
seas. Argentina has already taken the action to be expected from an
American Republic by dismissing the German Minister. What Sweden will do
to vindicate her honor remains to be seen. Her attitude may affect our
opinion of her as a victim or a vassal of Potsdam.
There are two points in the disclosures made on September 23 by the
Department of State which bear directly upon this simple narrative of
experiences at The Hague.
The fetching female comic-opera star, Ray Beveridge, discreetly alluded
to in the third chapter (p. 71), was secretly paid three thousand
dollars by the Imperial German Embassy in Washington to finance her
artistic activities. So, you see, I was not far wrong in forwarding her
divorce papers to Germany and refusing to transmit her newspaper
correspondence to America. She was a paid soubrette in the Potsdam
troupe.
The affable and intelligent Mr. Archibald, alluded to in this chapter
(p. 169), received on April 21, 1915, according to these disclosures,
five thousand dollars from the Imperial German Embassy in Washington for
"propaganda" services. If I had known this when he came to me in
September, it is possible that I should have been less careful to spare
his feelings.
III
The record of the German submarine warfare on merchant shipping is one
of the most extraordinary chapters in history. Americans have read it
with appropriate indignation, but not always with clear understanding of
the precise issues involved. Let me try to make those issues plain,
since the submarine campaign was one of the causes which forced this war
upon the United States. (President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917,
paragraphs 2-10.)
In war all naval vessels, including of course submarines, have the right
to attack and destroy, by any means in their power, any war-ship of the
enemy. In regard to merchant-ships the case is different, according to
international law. (See G. G. Wilson, International Law, paragraphs 1l4,
136, New York, 1901-1909.)
The war-vessel has the right of "visit and search" on all
merchant-ships, enemy or neutral. It has also the right, in case the
cargo of the merchant-ship appears to include more than a certain
percentage of contraband, to capture it and take it into a port for
adjudication as a prize. The war-vessel has also the right to sink a
presumptive prize under conditions (such as distance, stress of weather,
and so forth) which make it impossible to take it into port.
But here the right of the war-vessel stops. It has absolutely no right
to sink the merchant-ship without warning and without making efficient
provision for the safety of the passengers and crew. That is the common
law of civilized nations. To break it is to put one's self beyond the
pale.
Some Germanophile critics have faulted me for calling the Teutonic
submarines "Potsdam pirates." A commissioned vessel, these critics say,
which merely executes the orders of its government, cannot properly be
called a pirate.
Why not? Take the definition of piracy given in the New Oxford
Dictionary: "The crime of robbery or depredation on the sea by persons
not holding a commission from an established civilized state."
There's the point! Is a nation which orders its servants to commit deeds
forbidden by international law, a nation which commands its naval
officers to commit deliberate, wanton, dastardly murder on the high seas
(case of Belgian Prince, July 31, 1917, and others), is such a nation to
be regarded as "an established civilized state"?
Were Algiers and Tunis and Tripoli "civilized states" when they sent out
the Barbary pirates in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? We
thought not, and we sent our war-ships to whip the barbarism out of
them.
Commodore Stephen Decatur, in 1815, forced the cruel and cowardly Dey of
Algiers to sign a deed of renunciation and a promise of good conduct, on
the deck of an American frigate, under the Stars and Stripes.
A hundred years ago the glory of the American navy was made clear to the
world in the suppression of the pirates of North Africa. To-day that
glory must be maintained by firm, fearless, unrelenting war against the
pirates of North Germany.
A commission to do a certain thing which is in itself unlawful does not
change the nature of the misdeed. No nation has a right to commission
its officers to violate the law of nations.
But the Germans say their submarines are such wonderful, delicate,
scientific machines that it is impossible for them to give warning of an
attack, or to do anything to save the helpless people whose peaceful
vessel has been sunk beneath their feet. The precious, fragile submarine
cannot be expected to observe any law of humanity which would imperil
its further usefulness as an instrument of destruction.
Marvellous argument--worthy of the Potsdam mind in its highest state of
Kultur! By the same reasoning any assassin might claim the right to kill
without resistance because he proposed to commit the crime with a dagger
so delicately wrought, so frail, so slender, that the slightest struggle
on the part of his victim would break the costly, beautiful, murderous
weapon.
Again, these extraordinary Germans say that merchant-ships ought not to
carry weapons for defense; it is too dangerous for the dainty U-boat;
every merchantman thus armed must be treated as a vessel of war. But the
law of nations for more than two centuries has sanctioned the carrying
of defensive armament by merchant-ships, and precisely because they
might need it to protect themselves against pirates.
Shall the United States be asked to rewrite this article of
international law, in the midst of a great war on sea and land? Shall
the government at Washington be seduced by cajolery, or compelled by
threats, to rob the merchantmen of the poor protection of a single gun
in order that they may fall absolutely helpless into the black hands of
the prowling Potsdam pirates? That would be neutrality with a vengeance!
Yet that is just what the Imperial German Government tried to persuade
or force the United States to do. Thank God the effort was vain.
These were the matters under discussion when I was called to Washington
in February, 1916, for consultation with the President. The long and
wearing controversy had been going on for months. Every month notes were
coming from Berlin, each more evasive and unsatisfactory than the last.
Every week Count Bernstorff and his aides were coming to the State
Department with new excuses, new subterfuges, and the same old lies. The
President and Secretary Lansing, both of whom are excellent
international lawyers, found their patience tried to the uttermost by
the absurdity of the arguments presented to them and by the veiled
contempt in the manner of the presentation. But they kept their tempers
and did their best to keep the peace.
On two points they were firm as adamant. First, the law of nations
should not and could not be changed in the midst of a war to suit the
need of one of the parties. Second, "the use of submarines for the
destruction of commerce is of necessity, because of the very character
of the vessels employed and the very methods of attack which their
employment of course involves, incompatible with the principles of
humanity, the long-established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals,
and the sacred immunities of non-combatants." (President Wilson's
Address to Congress, April 19, 1916.)
It was on my return from this visit to Washington that I had an
opportunity of observing at close range the crooked methods of the
Potsdam gang in regard to the U-boat warfare. Arriving at The Hague on
March 24, 1916, I found Holland aflame with helpless rage over the
recent sinking of the S.S. Tubantia, the newest and best boat of the
Netherlands-Lloyd merchant-fleet. She was torpedoed by an unseen
submarine on March 15.
An explanation was promptly demanded from the German Government, which
denied any knowledge of the affair. Holland, lacking evidence as to the
perpetrator of the crime, would have had to swallow this denial but for
an accident which furnished her with the missing proof. One of the
Tubantia's small boats drifted ashore. In the boat was a fragment of a
Schwarzkopf torpedo--a type manufactured and used only by Germany. This
fragment was forwarded to Berlin, with another and more urgent demand
for explanation, apology, and reparation.
The German newspapers coolly replied with the astounding statement that
there had been two or three Schwarzkopf torpedoes in naval museums in
England, and that this particular specimen had probably been given to a
British submarine and used by her to destroy the good ship Tubantia.
Again Holland would have been left helpless, choking with indignation,
but for a second accident. Another of the lost steamship's boats was
found, and in it there was another fragment of the torpedo. This
fragment bore the mark of the German navy, telling just when the torpedo
was made and to which of the U-boats it had been issued.
With this bit of damning evidence in his bag a Dutch naval expert was
sent to Berlin to get to the bottom of the crime and to demand justice.
He got there, but he found no justice in that shop.
The German navy is very systematic, keeps accurate books, makes no
accidental mistake. The pedigree and record of the Schwarzkopf were
found. It was issued to a certain U-boat on a certain date. Undoubtedly
it was the missile which unfortunately sank the Tubantia. All this was
admitted and deeply regretted. But Germany was free from all
responsibility for the sad occurrence. The following amazing reason was
given by the Imperial German Government.
This certain U-boat had fired this certain torpedo at a British
war-vessel somewhere in the North Sea ten days before the Tubantia was
sunk. The shot missed its mark. But the naughty, undisciplined little
torpedo went cruising around in the sea on its own hook for ten days
waiting for a chance to kill somebody. Then the Tubantia came along, and
the wandering-Willy torpedo promptly, stupidly, ran into the ship and
sank her. This was the explanation. Germany was not to blame. (See the
official report in the Orange Books of the Netherlands Government, July,
1916, December, 1916.)
This stupendous fairy-tale Holland was expected to believe and to accept
as the end of the affair. She did not believe it. She had to accept it.
What else could she do? Fight? She did not want to share Belgium's
dreadful fate. The Dutch Government proposed that the whole Tubantia
incident be submitted to an international commission. The German
Government accepted this proposal en principe, but said it must be
deferred until after the war.
I wonder why some of the Americans who blame Holland for not being in
arms against Germany never think of that stern and awful deterrent which
stands under her eyes and presses upon her very bosom. She is still
independent, still neutral, still unravaged. Five-sixths of her people,
I believe, have no sympathy with the German Government in its choice and
conduct of this war. At least this was the case while I was at The
Hague. But the one thing that Holland is, above all else, is pro-Dutch.
She wants to keep her liberty, her sovereignty, her land untouched. To
defend these treasures she will fight, and for no other reason. I have
heard Queen Wilhelmina say this a score of times. She means it, and her
people are with her.
Seven Dutch ships were sunk in a bunch in the English Channel by the
Potsdam pirates on February 22, 1917. Holland was furious. She stated
her grievance, protested, remonstrated--and there she stopped. If she
had tried to do anything more she stood to lose a third of her territory
in a few days and the whole in a few weeks--lose it, mark you, to the
gang that ruined Belgium.
But the position, and therefore the case, of America in regard to the
German submarine warfare was quite different. She was one of the eight
"Big Powers" of the world. She was the mightiest of the neutrals.
Her rights at sea were no greater than theirs. But her duties were
greater, just because she was larger, more powerful, better able to
champion those rights not only for herself but also for others.
She would not have to pay such an instant, awful, crushing penalty for
armed resistance to the brutalities of the Potsdam gang as would
certainly be inflicted upon the little northern neutrals if they
attempted to defend themselves against injustice and aggression.
Their part was to make protest, and record it, and wait for justice
until the war was ended. America's part was to make protest, and
then--her protest being mocked, scorned, disregarded--to stand up in
arms with France and Great Britain and help to end the war by a victory
of righteous peace.
But did we not also have objections to some of the measures and actions
of the British blockade--as, for instance, the seizure and search of the
mails? Certainly we did, and Secretary Lansing stated them clearly and
maintained them firmly. But here is the difference. These objections
concerned only the rights of neutral property on the high seas. We knew
by positive assurance from England, and by our experience with her in
the Alabama Claims Arbitration, that she was ready to refer all such
questions to an impartial tribunal and abide by its decision. Our
objections to the conduct of the German navy concerned the far more
sacred rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The murder of one American child at sea meant more to us than the
seizure of a thousand cargoes of alleged contraband.
No one has ever accused the British or French or Italian sailors in this
war of sinking merchant-ships without warning, leaving their crews and
passengers to drown. On the contrary, British seamen have risked and
lost their lives in a chivalrous attempt to save the lives even of their
enemies after the fair sinking of a German war-ship.
But the hands of the Potsdam pirates are red with innocent blood. The
bottom of the sea is strewn with the wrecks they have made. "The dark
unfathom'd caves of ocean" hide the bones of their helpless victims, who
shall arise at the judgment-day to testify against them.
On May 7, 1915, the passenger liner Lusitania, unarmed, was sunk without
warning by a German U-boat off the Irish coast. One hundred and fourteen
Americans--men, women, and little children, lawful and peaceful
travellers--were drowned--
"Butchered to make a [German] holiday."
The holiday was celebrated in Germany. The schools were let out. The
soldiers in the reserve camps had leave to join in the festivities. The
towns and cities were filled with fluttering flags and singing folks. A
German pastor preached: "Whoever cannot bring himself to approve from
the bottom of his heart the sinking of the Lusitania--him we judge to be
no true German." (Deutsche Reden in Schwerer Zeit, No. 24, p. 7.) A
medal was struck to commemorate the great achievement. It is a very ugly
medal. I keep a copy of it in order that I may never forget the
character of a nation which was not content with rejoicing over such a
crime but desired to immortalize it in bronze.
The three strong and eloquent notes of President Wilson in regard to the
Lusitania are too well known to be quoted here. The practical answer
from Potsdam (passing over the usual subterfuges and falsehoods) was the
sinking of the Arabic August 19 and the murder of three more Americans.
Then the correspondence languished until the torpedoing (March 24, 1916)
of the Sussex, a Channel ferry-boat, crowded with passengers, among whom
were many Americans. Then the President sent a flat message calling down
the Potsdam pirates and declaring that unless they abandoned their
nefarious practices "the United States had no choice but to sever
diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether" (April 18,
1916).
This brought a grudging promise from Germany that she would henceforth
refrain from sinking merchant-vessels "without warning and without
saving human lives, unless the ship attempted to escape or offer
resistance." How this promise was kept may be judged from the sinking of
the Marina (October 28), with the loss of eight American lives, and of
the Russian (December 14), with the loss of seventeen American lives,
and other similar sinkings.
During all this time Germany had been building new and larger submarines
with wonderful industry. She had filled up her pack of sea-wolves. On
January 31, 1917, she revoked her flimsy pledge, let loose her
wolf-pack, and sent word to all the neutral nations that she would sink
at sight all ships found in the zones which she had marked "around Great
Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean." (Why We Are
at War, p. 23, New York, 1917.) The President promptly broke off
diplomatic relations (February 3), and said that we should refrain from
hostilities until the commission of "actual overt acts" by Germany
forced us to the conviction that she meant to carry out her base threat.
The overt acts came quickly. Between February 3 and April 1 eight
American merchant-ships were sunk, and more than forty American lives
were destroyed by the Potsdam pirates.
The die was cast. On April 2, 1917, the President advised Congress that
the United States could no longer delay the formal acceptance of "the
status of belligerent which had been thrust upon it." On April 6
Congress took the necessary action. On the same day the President
proclaimed that "a state of war exists between the United States and the
Imperial German Government."
Back of this momentous and noble decision, in which the hearts of the
immense majority of Americans are with the President, there are
undoubtedly many strong and righteous reasons. Some of these I have
tried to set forth in the first part of this article. But we must never
forget that the specific reason given by the President, the definite
cause which forced us into the war, is the German method of submarine
warfare, which he has repeatedly denounced as illegal, immoral,
inhuman--a direct and brutal attack upon us and upon all mankind. These
words cannot be forgotten, nor is it likely that the President will
retract them.
They set up at least one steadfast mark in the midst of the present
flood of peace talk. There can be no parley with a criminal who is in
full and exultant practice of his crime. Unless the U-boat warfare is
renounced, repented of, and abandoned by the Potsdam pirates, an
honorable peace is unattainable except by fighting for it and winning
it. [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Belgian Relief ships sunk: S.S. Camilla, Trevier, Feistein,
Storstad, Lars Kruse, Euphrates. Haelen, and Tunis (the last two shelled
but not sunk).
Hospital ships sunk: Britannic (probably but not certainly torpedoed);
Asturias, March 24. 1917; Gloucester Castle, March 30; Donegal, April
17; Lanfranc, April 17 (with British wounded and German wounded
prisoners).
Among the neutral nations Norway alone has lost more than six hundred
ships by mines and torpedoes of German origin. The dance of death still
goes on.]
IV
Only a little space is left for writing of my retirement from the post
at The Hague and my experiences thereafter in England and France.
The reader may have gathered from the tenor of these chapters that the
work at the legation was hard and that the situation was trying to a man
with strong convictions and the habit of expressing them frankly. My
resignation was tendered in September, 1916, with the request that it
should not be made public until after the re-election of President
Wilson, which I earnestly desired and expected. My reasons for resigning
were partly of a domestic nature. But the main reason was a personal
wish to get back to my work as a writer, "with full freedom to say what
I thought and felt about the war."
The German-American press has tried to start a rumor that I was recalled
to Washington to explain my action on a certain point. That is
absolutely and entirely false. The government never asked for an
explanation of anything in my conduct while in office, or afterward. On
the contrary, the President has been kind enough to express his approval
of my services in terms too friendly to be quoted here.
In November, after President Wilson had been triumphantly chosen for a
second term, I ventured to recall his attention to my letter of
September. He answered that he would "reluctantly yield" to my wishes,
but would appreciate my remaining at The Hague until a successor could
be found for the post. Of course I willingly agreed to this.
In December the name of this successor was cabled to me with
instructions to find out whether he would be acceptable to the Queen and
the Government of Holland. Her Majesty said that this gentleman would
certainly be persona grata, and I cabled to Washington to this effect.
Early in January a message came from the Secretary of State saying that,
as all was arranged except the final confirmation of the appointment, I
might feel free to leave at my convenience. Having cleaned up my work
and left everything in order for my successor (including the lease of my
house), I took ship from Flushing for England on January 15, 1917.
The voyage through the danger zone was uneventful. The visit to England
was unforgettable.
Everywhere I saw the evidences that Great Britain was at war, in
earnest, and resolved to "carry on" with her Allies until the victory of
a real peace was won.
Women and girls were at work in the railway stations, on the trams and
omnibuses, in the munition factories, in postal and telegraph service,
doing the tasks of men. We shall have to revise that phrase which speaks
of "the weaker sex."
By night London was
"Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark."
But it was not still, nor terrified by the instant danger of Zeppelin
raids. Every time a German vulture passed over England dropping bolts of
indiscriminate death, it woke the heart of the people to a new impulse,
not of fear but of hot indignation.
By day the great city swarmed with eager life. Business was going on at
full swing, though not "as usual." Women were driving trucks, carrying
packages, running ticket-offices. Men in khaki outnumbered those in
civilian dress. Wounded soldiers hobbled cheerfully along the streets.
The parks were adorned with hospitals. Mrs. Pankhurst spoke from a
soap-box near the Marble Arch; not now for woman-suffrage--"That will
come," she said, "but the great thing to-day is to carry on the war to a
victory for freedom!"
Oxford--gray city of the golden dream, Learning's fairest and most
lovely seat in all the world--Oxford was transformed into a hospital for
the wounded, a training-camp for new soldiers, a nursery of noble
manhood equipped for the stern duties of war.
Every family that I knew was in grief for a dear one lost on the field
of glorious strife. But not one was in mourning. The great sacrifice was
bravely accepted as a part of the greater duty.
The friends with whom I talked most--men like Lord Bryce, Sir Sydney
Lee, Sir Herbert Warren, Sir Robertson Nicoll, Sir William Osler--were
lovers of peace, tried and well-known. All were of one mind in holding
that Britain's faith and honor bound her to accept the war when Germany
violated Belgium, and that it must be fought through until the Prussian
military autocracy which began it was broken.
There were restricted rations in England; but no starvation and no sign
of it. There were partisan criticisms and plenty of "grousing." The
Britisher is never contented unless he can grumble--especially at his
own government. But there was no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of
a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to hang on to the enemy until
he came down. It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, which was
almost ignorant of what military preparedness meant, to put between
three and four million troops into the field in defense of justice and
liberty.
At the end of January I went to France, eager to see with my own eyes
the great things that were doing there and to taste with my own lips the
cup of danger. That at least I was bound to do before I could come home
and urge my countrymen to face the duty and brave the peril of a part in
this war.
Paris was not so dark as London but more tragic. After Belgium and
Servia the heaviest brunt of this dreadful conflict has fallen upon
France. She has suffered most. Yet on the faces of her women I saw no
tears and in the eyes of her men no fear nor regret.
If Britain was magnificent, France was miraculous! Loving and desiring
peace she accepted the cross of war without a murmur. Her women were no
less brave than her men. She wears the hero-star of Roland and the
saintly halo of Joan of Arc.
After meeting many men in Paris--statesmen, men of letters,
generals--and after visiting the splendid American Ambulance at Neuilly
and other institutions in which our boys and girls were giving their
help to France in the chivalric spirit of Lafayette, I went out toward
the front.
The first visit was under the escort of Captain Francois Monod to a
chateau beyond Compiegne, where Rudyard Kipling with his family and I
with my family had passed the Christmas week of 1913 together, as joyous
guests of the American chatelaine Mrs. Julia Park. She has given the
spacious, lovely house for a military hospital. And there, while the
German guns thundered a few kilometres away from us and a German sausage
balloon floated in the sky, I watched the skilful ministrations of
French and American doctors and nurses to the wounded.
One thought haunted me--the memory of Kipling's only son, nineteen years
old, who was with us in that happy Christmastide. The lad was reported
"missing" after one of the battles between Loos and Hulluch. For six
months I sought, with the help of Herr von Kuhlmann, German Minister at
The Hague, to find a trace of the brave boy. But never a word could we
get.
The second visit was to the battle-field of the Marne under the escort
of Captain the Count de Ganay. We motored slowly through the ruined
towns and villages. Those which had been wrecked by shellfire were like
mouthfuls of broken teeth--chimneys and fragments of walls still
standing. Those which had been vengefully burned by the retreating
Germans were mere heaps of ashes. Most of our time was spent around the
Marais de St. Gond, where the French General Foch held the Thermopylae
of Europe.
Four times he advanced across that marsh and was driven back, but not
beaten. The fifth time he advanced and stayed, and Paris was forever
lost to the Germans. Think of the men who made that last advance and
saved Europe from the Potsdam gang. Their graves, carefully marked and
tended, lie thickly strewn along the lonely ridges of all that
region--humble but immortal reminders of glorious heroism.
The third visit was with the same escort to the fighting front at
Verdun.
The long, bare, rolling ridges between Bar-le-Duc and the Meuse; the
high-shouldered hills along the river and around the ruined little
city; the open fields, the narrow valleys, the wrecked villages, the
shattered woodlands--all were covered with dazzling snow. The sun was
bright in a cloudless sky. A bitter, biting wind poured fiercely,
steadily out of the north, driving the glittering snow-dust before it.
Every man had put on all the clothes he possessed, and more; pads of
sheepskin over back and breast; gunny sacks tied around the shoulders.
The troops of cavalry, the teams of mules and horses dragging
munition-wagons or travelling kitchens or long "75" guns, clattered
along the iron surface of the Via Sacra--that blessed road which made
the salvation of Verdun possible after the only railway was destroyed.
Endless trains of motor-lorries lumbered by. The narrow trenches were
coated with ice. The hillside trails were slippery as glass. In the deep
dugouts small sheet-iron stoves were burning, giving out a little heat
and a great deal of choking smoke. The soldiers sat around them playing
cards or telling stories.
But there! What I saw in that shell-pitted, snow-covered, hard-frozen
amphitheatre of heroism cannot be described in these brief paragraphs.
The serenity, cheerfulness, courtesy, and indomitable courage of the
French poilus defending their own land; the scenes in the trenches with
the German shells breaking around us and the wounded men being carried
past us; the luncheon in the citadel with the commandant and officers in
a subterranean room where the motto on the wall, above the
world-renowned escutcheon of Verdun, was "On ne passe pas"--"They don't
get by"; the dinner with the general and staff of the Verdun army, in a
little village "somewhere in France," and their last words to me, "On
les aura! Ca peut etre long, mais on les aura!"--"It may take long, but
we shall get them!"--all these and a thousand more things are vivid in
my memory but cannot be told now.
One scene sticks in my mind and asks to be recorded.
The hospital was just back of the Verdun lines. Its roofs were marked
with the Red Cross. Twenty-four hundred beds, all clean and quiet. Wards
full of German wounded, cared for as tenderly as the French. "Will you
see an operation?" said the proud little commandant who was showing me
through his domain. "Certainly." A big, husky fellow was on the
operating-table, unconscious, under ether. One of the best surgeons in
France was performing the operation of trepanning. I could see the
patient's brain, bare and beating, while the surgeon did his skilful
work. Other doctors stood around, and three nurses, one an American
girl, Miss Cowen, of Pittsburgh. "Will the man get well?" I asked the
surgeon. "I hope so," he answered. "At all events, we shall do our best
for him. You know, he is a German--c'est un Boche!"
On August 20, 1917, that very hospital, marked with the Red Cross, was
bombed by German aeroplanes. One wing was set on fire. While the nurses
and helpers were trying to rescue the patients, the bloody Potsdam
vultures flew back and forth three times over the place, raking it with
machine guns. More than thirty persons were killed, including doctors,
German wounded, and one woman nurse. God grant it was not the American
girl! Yet why would not the killing of a French sister under the Red
Cross be just as wicked?
Here I break off--uncompleted--my narration of the evil choice of war
and the crimes in the conduct of war which have made the name of Germany
abhorred.
The Allies, from the beginning, have pleaded for peace and fought for
peace. America, obeying her conscience, has joined them in the conflict.
But what do we mean now by peace? We mean more than a mere cessation of
hostilities. We mean that the burglar shall give back all that he has
grabbed. We mean that the marauder shall make good all the damage that
he has done. We mean that there shall be an open league of free
democratic states, great and small, to guard against the recurrence of
such a bloody calamity as the autocratic, militaristic Potsdam gang
precipitated upon the world in 1914.
In the next chapter I shall discuss briefly the practical significance
of this kind of peace and the absolute preconditions which must be
realized before any conference on the subject will be profitable or even
safe.
The duty of the present is to fight on beside France, Great Britain,
Italy, Belgium, Servia, Roumania, and, we hope, Russia, "to bring the
Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war."
To talk of any other course is treason, not only to our country but to
the cause of true Peace.