THE UNITED STATES AT WAR
When the German Emperor in his New Year's message said that victory
would remain with Germany in 1917 he must have known that the submarine
war would be inaugurated to help bring this victory to Germany. In
May, 1916, Admiral von Capelle explained to the Reichstag that the
reason the German blockade of England could not be maintained was
because Germany did not have sufficient submarines. But by December
the Kaiser, who receives all the figures of the Navy, undoubtedly knew
that submarines were being built faster than any other type of ship and
that the Navy was making ready for the grand sea offensive in 1917.
Knowing this, as well as knowing that President Wilson would break
diplomatic relations if the submarine war was conducted ruthlessly
again, the Kaiser was a very confident ruler to write such a New Year's
order to the Army and Navy. He must have felt sure that he could
defeat the United States.
* * * * * * * *
To My Army and My Navy!
Once more a war year lies behind us, replete with hard fighting and
sacrifices, rich in successes and victories.
Our enemies' hopes for the year 1916 have been blasted. All their
assaults in the East and West were broken to pieces through your
bravery and devotion!
The latest triumphal march through Roumania has, by God's decree, again
pinned imperishable laurels to your standards.
The greatest naval battle of this war, the Skager Rak victory, and the
bold exploits of the U-boats have assured to My Navy glory and
admiration for all time.
You are victorious on all theatres of war, ashore as well as afloat!
With unshaken trust and proud confidence the grateful Fatherland
regards you. The incomparable warlike spirit dwelling in your ranks,
your tenacious, untiring will to victory, your love for the Fatherland
are guaranties to Me that victory will remain with our colours in the
new year also.
God will be with us further!
Main Headquarters, Dec. 31, 1916.
WILHELM.
THE KAISER'S NEW YEAR ORDER TO THE ARMY AND NAVY
* * * * * * * *
Ambassador Gerard warned the State Department in September that Germany
would start her submarine war before the Spring of 1917 so the United
States must have known several months before the official announcement
came. But Washington probably was under the impression that the
Chancellor would not break his word. Uncle Sam at that time trusted
von Bethmann-Hollweg.
[Illustration: SCHWAB TO MR. WILSON--"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, GREAT LITTLE
LEADER, THE WHOLE PLACE WILL BLOW UP IF YOU SMOKE HERE!"]
Diplomatic relations were broken on February 1st. Ambassador Gerard
departed February 10th. Upon his arrival in Switzerland several German
citizens, living in that country because they could not endure
conditions at home, asked the Ambassador upon his arrival in Washington
to urge President Wilson if he asked Congress to declare war to say
that the United States did not desire to go to war with the German
people but with the German Government. One of these citizens was a
Prussian nobleman by birth but he had been one of the leaders of the
democratic forces in Germany and exiled himself in order to help the
Liberal movement among the people by working in Switzerland. This
suggestion was followed by the President. When he spoke to the joint
session of Congress on February 1st he declared the United States would
wage war against the Government and not against the people. In this
historic address the President said:
"I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there
are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made
immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally
permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.
"On the 3rd of February last I officially laid before you the
extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government, that on
and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all
restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every
vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and
Ireland or the western coasts of Europe, or any of the ports controlled
by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.
"That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare
earlier in the war, but since April of last year the imperial
Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its under-sea
craft, in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger
boats should not be sunk, and that due warning would be given to all
other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no
resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their
crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their
open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as
was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of
the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was
observed.
"The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every
kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their
destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom
without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on
board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of
belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the
sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were
provided with safe conduct through the prescribed areas by the German
Government itself, and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of
identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or
of principle.
"I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in
fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the
humane practices of civilised nations. International law had its
origin in the attempt to set up some law, which would be respected and
observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where
lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has
that law been built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all
was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear
view at least of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.
"This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the
plea of retaliation and necessity, and because it had no weapons which
it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ as
it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of
humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to
underlie the intercourse of the world.
"I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and
serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of
the lives of non-combatants, men, women and children, engaged in
pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern
history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid
for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.
"The present German warfare against commerce is a warfare against
mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been
sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply
to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly
nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way.
There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind.
Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we
make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a
temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a
nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be
revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the
nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we
are only a single champion.
"When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I
thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms,
our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to
keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality,
it now appears, is impracticable.
"Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German
submarines have been used, against merchant shipping, it is impossible
to defend ships against their attacks, as the law of nations has
assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or
cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common
prudence in such circumstances--grim necessity, indeed--to endeavour to
destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be
dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.
"The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all
within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the
defence of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned
their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed
guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as
beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be.
"Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances
and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is
likely to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically
certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the
effectiveness of belligerents.
"There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: We
will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred
rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The
wrongs against which we now array ourselves are not common wrongs; they
cut to the very roots of human life.
"With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the
step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,
but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I
advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial
German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the
Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the
status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it
take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
state of defence, but also to exert all its power and employ all its
resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end
the war.
"What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost
practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now
at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those
governments of the most liberal financial credits in order that our
resources may, so far as possible, be added to theirs.
"It will involve the organisation and mobilisation of all the material
resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the
incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most
economical and efficient way possible.
"It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all
respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of
dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate
addition to the armed forces of the United States, already provided for
by law in case of war, at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion,
be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service; and
also the authorisation of subsequent additional increments of equal
force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.
"It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to
the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be
sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation. I say
sustained so far as may be by equitable taxation because it seems to me
that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be
necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most
respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the
very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of
the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
"In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be
accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of
interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the
equipment of our own military forces with the duty--for it will be a
very practical duty--of supplying the nations already at war with
Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our
assistance. They are in the field, and we should help them in every
way to be effective there.
"I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive
departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees
measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have
mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as
having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the
Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and
safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.
"While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be
very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and
our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual
and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I
do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or
clouded by them.
"I have exactly the same thing in mind now that I had in mind when I
addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in
mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the
26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the
principles of peace and the justice in the life of the world as against
selfish and autocratic power and to set up among the really free and
self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of
action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.
"Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to
that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments
backed by organised force which is controlled wholly by their will, not
by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in
such circumstances.
"We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that
the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done
shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed
among the individual citizens of civilised states.
"We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward
them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse
that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with
their previous knowledge or approval.
"It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the
old unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers
and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of
little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their
fellowmen as pawns and tools.
"Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or
set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of
affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make
conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked only under cover and
where no one has the right to ask questions.
"Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may
be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the
light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded
confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily
impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full
information concerning all the nation's affairs.
"A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be
trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants.
"It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue
would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could
plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption
seated at its very heart.
"Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a
common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest
of their own.
"Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope
for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening
things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia?
"Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact
democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the
intimate relationships of her people that spoke for their natural
instinct, their habitual attitude toward life.
"Autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as
it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in
fact Russian in origin, in character or purpose, and now it has been
shaken, and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all
their native majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for
freedom in the world, for justice and for peace. Here is a fit partner
for a league of honour.
"One of the things that have served to convince us that the Prussian
autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very
outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities
and even our offices of government with spies, and set criminal
intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, our
peace within and without, our industries and our commerce.
"Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war
began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact
proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues, which have more
than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating
the industries of the country, have been carried on at the instigation,
with the support, and even under the personal direction, of official
agents of the imperial Government accredited to the Government of the
United States.
"Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have
sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them,
because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or
purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant
of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a
government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But
they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that
Government entertains no real friendship for us, and means to act
against our peace and security at its convenience.
"That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the
intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent
evidence.
"We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know
that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a
friend, and that in the presence of its organised power, always lying
in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured
security for the democratic governments of the world.
"We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to
liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to
check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that
we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight
thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its
peoples, the German peoples included, for the rights of nations great
and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of
life and of obedience.
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
upon the trusted foundations of political liberty.
"We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion.
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the
sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of
the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have
been as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nation can make them.
"Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish objects,
seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all
free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as
belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio
the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
"I have said nothing of the governments allied with the imperial
Government of Germany, because they have not made war upon us or
challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian
Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and
acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now
without disguise by the imperial Government, and it has therefore not
been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the
ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the imperial and
royal Government of Austria-Hungary, but that Government has not
actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on
the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of
postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at
Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it
because there are no other means of defending our rights.
"It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents
in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus,
not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or
disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an
irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of
humanity and of right and is running amuck.
"We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people,
and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of
intimate relations of mutual advantage between us--however hard it may
be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from
our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through all
these bitter months because of that friendship--exercising a patience
and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible.
"We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship
in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women
of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our
life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact
loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test.
They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had
never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to
stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a
different mind and purpose.
"If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand
of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it
only here and there, and without countenance, except from a lawless and
malignant few.
"It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress,
which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most
terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilisation itself seeming to be
in the balance.
"But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their
own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a
universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall
bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last
free.
"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who
know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her
blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she
can do no other."
After this speech was printed in Germany, first in excerpts and then as
a whole in a few papers, there were three distinct reactions:
1. The Government press and the circles controlled by the Army
published violent articles against President Wilson and the United
States.
2. The democratic press led by the _Vorwaerts_ took advantage of
Wilson's statements to again demand election reforms.
3. Public feeling generally was so aroused that the official _North
German Gazette_ said at the end of a long editorial that the Kaiser
favoured a "people's kingdom of Hohenzollern."
The ammunition interests were among the first to express their
satisfaction with America as an enemy. The _Rheinische Westfaelische
Zeitung_, their official graphophone, said:
"The real policy of America is now fully disclosed by the outbreak of
the war. Now a flood of lies and insults, clothed in pious
phraseology, will descend on us. This is a surprise only to those who
have been reluctant to admit that America was our enemy from the
beginning. The voice of America does not sound differently from that
of any other enemy. They are all tarred with the same brush--those
humanitarians and democrats who hurl the world into war and refuse
peace."
The _Lokal Anzeiger_, which is practically edited by the Foreign
Office, said President Wilson's attempt to inveigle the German people
into a revolt against the dynasty beats anything for sheer hypocrisy in
the records of the world.
"We must assume that President Wilson deliberately tells an untruth.
Not the German Government but the German race, hates this Anglo-Saxon
fanatic, who has stirred into flame the consuming hatred in America
while prating friendship and sympathy for the German people."
The _Lokal Anzeiger_ was right when it said the German people hated
America. The _Lokal Anzeiger_ was one of the means the Government used
to make the German people hate the United States.
The _North German Gazette_, which prints only editorials dictated, or
authorised by, the Secretary of State, said:
"A certain phrase in President Wilson's speech must be especially
pointed out. The President represents himself as the bearer of true
freedom to our people who are engaged in a severe struggle for their
existence and liberty. What slave soul does he believe exists in the
German people when it thinks that it will allow its freedom to be meted
out to them from without? The freedom which our enemies have in store
for us we know sufficiently.
"The German people, become clearsighted in war, and see in President
Wilson's word nothing but an attempt to loosen the bonds between the
people and princes of Germany so that we may become an easier prey for
our enemies. We ourselves know that an important task remains to us to
consolidate our external power and our freedom at home."
But the mask fell from the face of Germany which she shows the outside
world, when the Kaiser issued his Easter proclamation promising
election reforms after the war. Why did the Kaiser issue this
proclamation again at this time? As early as January, 1916, he said
the same thing to the German people in his address from the throne to
the Prussian Diet. Why did the Kaiser feel that it was necessary to
again call the attention of the people to the fact that he would be a
democrat when the war was over? The Kaiser and the German army are
clever in dealing with the German people. If the Kaiser makes a
mistake or does something that his army does not approve it can always
be remedied before the mistake becomes public.
Last Fall a young German soldier who had been in the United States as a
moving picture operator was called to the General Staff to take moving
pictures at the front for propaganda purposes. One week he was ordered
to Belgium, to follow and photograph His Majesty. At Ostend, the
famous Belgian summer resort, the Kaiser was walking along the beach
one day with Admiral von Schroeder, who is in command of the German
defences there. The movie operator followed him. The soldier had been
following the Kaiser several days so His Majesty recognised him,
ordered him to put up his camera and prepare to make a special film.
When the camera was ready His Majesty danced a jig, waved his sceptre
and then his helmet, smiled and shouted greetings to the camera
man--then went on along the beach.
When the photographer reached Berlin and showed the film to the censors
of the General Staff they were shocked by the section of the Kaiser at
Ostend. They ordered it cut out of the film because they did not think
it advisable to show the German people how much their Emperor was
enjoying the war!
The Kaiser throughout his reign has posed as a peace man although he
has been first a soldier and then an executive. So when the Big War
broke out the Kaiser had a chance to make real what had been play for
him for forty years. Is it surprising then that he should urge the
people to go on with the war and promise them to reform the government
when the fighting was over?
The Kaiser's proclamation itself shows that the Kaiser is not through
fighting.
"Never before have the German people proved to be so firm as in this
war. The knowledge that the Fatherland is fighting in bitter self
defence has exercised a wonderful reconciling power, and, despite all
sacrifices on the battlefield and severe privations at home, their
determination has remained imperturbable to stake their last for the
victorious issue."
Could any one except a soldier who was pleased with the progress of the
war have written such words?
"The national and social spirit have understood each other and become
united, and have given us steadfast strength. Both of them realise
what was built up in long years of peace and amid many internal
struggles. _This was certainly worth fighting for_," the Emperor's
order continued. "Brightly before my eyes stand the achievements of
the entire nation in battle and distress. The events of this struggle
for the existence of the empire introduce with high solemnity a new
time.
"It falls to you as the responsible Chancellor of the German Empire and
First Minister of my Government in Prussia to assist in obtaining the
fulfilment of the demands of this hour by right means and at the right
time, and in this spirit shape our political life in order to make room
for the free and joyful co-operation of all the members of our people.
"The principles which you have developed in this respect have, as you
know, my approval.
"I feel conscious of remaining thereby on the road which my
grandfather, the founder of the empire, as King of Prussia with
military organisation and as German Emperor with social reform,
typically fulfilled as his monarchial obligations, thereby creating
conditions by which the German people, in united and wrathful
perseverance, will overcome this sanguinary time. _The maintenance_ of
the _fighting force_ as a real people's army and the promotion of the
social uplift of the people in all its classes was, from the beginning
of my reign, my aim.
"In this endeavour, while holding a just balance between the people and
the monarchy to serve the welfare of the whole, I am resolved to begin
building up our internal political, economic, and social life as soon
as the war situation permits.
"While millions of our fellow-countrymen are in the field, the conflict
of opinions behind the front, which is unavoidable in such a
far-reaching change of constitution, must be postponed in the highest
interests of the Fatherland until the time of the homecoming of our
warriors and when they themselves are able to join in the counsel and
the voting on the progress of the new order."
It was but natural that the Socialists should hail this declaration of
the Kaiser's at first with enthusiasm.
"Internal freedom in Prussia--that is a goal for which for more than
one hundred years the best heads and best forces in the nation have
worked. Resurrection day of the third war year--will go down in
history as the day of the resurrection of old Prussia to a new
development," said the _Vorwaerts_.
"It has brought us a promise, to be sure; not the resurrection itself,
but a promise which is more hopeful and certain than all former
announcements together. This proclamation can never be annulled and
lapse into dusty archives.
"This message promises us a thorough reform of the Prussian three class
electoral system in addition to a reform of the Prussian Upper House.
In the coming new orientation the Government is only one factor,
another is Parliament, the third and decisive factor is the people."
Other Berlin newspapers spoke in a similar vein but not one of them
pointed out to the public the fact that this concession by the Kaiser
was not made in such a definite form, _until the United States had
declared war_. As the United States entered the war to aid the
democratic movement in Germany this concession by the Kaiser may be
considered our first victory.
As days go by it becomes more and more evident that the American
declaration of war is having an important influence upon internal
conditions in Germany just as the submarine notes had. The German
people really did not begin to think during this war until President
Wilson challenged them in the notes which followed the torpedoing of
the _Lusitania_. And now with the United States at war not only the
people but the Government have decided to do some thinking.
By April 12th when reports began to reach Germany of America's
determination to fight until there was a democracy in Germany the
democratic press began to give more serious consideration to Americans
alliance with the Allies. Dr. Ludwig Haas, one of the Socialist
members of the Reichstag, in an article in the Berlin _Tageblatt_ made
the following significant statements.
"One man may be a hypocrite, but never a whole nation. If the American
people accept this message [President Wilson's address before Congress]
without a protest, then a tremendous abyss separates the logic of
Germans from that of other nations.
"Woodrow Wilson is not so far wrong if he means the planning of war
might be prevented if the people asserted the right to know everything
about the foreign policies of their countries. But the President seems
blind to the fact that a handful of men have made it their secret and
uncontrolled business to direct the fate of the European democracies.
With the press at one's command one can easily drive a poor people to a
mania of enthusiasm, when they will carry on their shoulders the
criminals who have led to the brink of disaster."
[Illustration: "THE NEW OLD PRESIDENT. LONG LIVE AMERICA! LONG LIVE
PEACE! LONG LIVE THE AMMUNITION FACTORIES!"]
Dr. Haas was beginning to understand that the anti-American campaign in
Germany which the Navy started and the Foreign Office encouraged, had
had some effect.
Everything the United States does from now on will have a decisive
influence in the world war. The Allies realise it and Washington knows
it. Mr. Lloyd-George, the British Prime Minister, realised what a
decisive effect American ships would have, when he said at the banquet
of the American Luncheon Club in London:
"The road to victory, the guaranty of victory, the absolute assurance
of victory, has to be found in one word, 'ships,' and a second word,
'ships,' and a third word, 'ships.'"
But our financial economic and military aid to the Allies will not be
our greatest contribution towards victory. The influence of President
Wilson's utterances, of our determination and of our value as a
friendly nation after the war will have a tremendous effect as time
goes on upon the German people. As days and weeks pass, as the victory
which the German Government has promised the people becomes further and
further away, the people, who are now doing more thinking than they
ever have done since the beginning of the war, will some day realise
that in order to obtain peace, which they pray for and hope for, they
will have to reform their government _during the war_--not after the
war as the Kaiser plans.
Military pressure from the outside is going to help this democratic
movement in Germany succeed in spite of itself. The New York World
editorial on April 14th, discussing Mr. Lloyd-George's statement that
"Prussia is not a democracy; Prussia is not a state; Prussia is an
army," said:
"It was the army and the arrogance actuating it which ordered
hostilities in the first place. Because there was no democracy in
Prussia, the army had its way. The democracies of Great Britain and
France, like the democracy of the United States, were reluctant to take
arms but were forced to it. Russian democracy found its own
deliverance on the fighting-line.
"In the fact that Prussia is not a democracy or a state but an army we
may see a reason for many things usually regarded as inexplicable. It
is Prussia the army which violates treaties. It is Prussia the army
which disregards international law. It is Prussia the army,
represented by the General Staff and the Admiralty, which sets at
naught the engagements of the Foreign Office. It is Prussia the army
which has filled neutral countries with spies and lawbreakers, which
has placed frightfulness above humanity, and in a fury of egotism and
savagery has challenged the world.
"Under such a terrorism, as infamous at home as it is abroad, civil
government has perished. There is no civil government in a Germany
dragooned by Prussia. There is no law in Germany but military law.
There is no obligation in Germany except to the army. It is not
Germany the democracy or Germany the state, it is Germany the army,
that is to be crushed for its own good no less than for that of
civilisation."
The United States entered the war at the psychological and critical
moment. We enter it at the moment when our economic and financial
resources, and _our determination_ will have the decisive influence.
We enter at the moment when every one of our future acts will assist
and help the democratic movement in Germany succeed.