“During the early days of the war the promise of social sponsorship
which any embassy in Washington could extend proved bait for a number
of ingénues of various ages, with ambition and mischief in their minds,
and the gracious Ambassador played them smoothly and dexterously.
Mostly they were not German women, for the German women of America were
not so likely to be useful socially, nor as a type so astute as to
qualify them for von Bernstorff’s delicate work. To those women whom
he chose to see he was courteous, and superficially frank almost to
the point of naïveté. The pressure of negotiation between Washington
and Berlin became more and more exacting as the war progressed, yet he
found time to command a campaign whose success would have resulted
in disaster to the United States. That he was not blamed for the
failure of that campaign when he returned to Germany in April, 1917, is
evidenced by his prompt appointment to the court of Turkey, a difficult
and important post, and in the case of Michaelis, a stepping-stone to
the highest post in the Foreign Office.
[Illustration:
© _Underwood and Underwood._
Count Johann von Bernstorff.
German ambassador to the United States at the time the _Lusitania_
was torpedoed. One of his many acts of duplicity was the sending of
a secret message to Germany asking for funds to be used to influence
members of the United States Congress.]
“Upon the shoulders of Dr. Heinrich Albert, privy counselor and
fiscal agent of the German Empire, fell the practical execution of
German propaganda throughout America. He was the American agent of
a government which has done more than any other to coöperate with
business towards the extension of influence abroad, on the principle
that ‘the flag follows the constitution.’ As such he had had his
finger on the pulse of American trade, had catalogued exhaustively
the economic resources of the country, and held in his debt, as his
nation’s treasurer in America, scores of bankers, manufacturers and
traders to whom Germany had extended subsidy. As such also he was the
paymaster of the Imperial secret diplomatic and consular agents.
[Illustration:
© _Bain._