THE WORLD WAR
We shall not undertake a long discussion of the causes of the World
War but simply examine the reasons for the participation in it of the
United States on the side of the Allies. For the first time in
history the generation living through a great war has been able to
ascertain the facts regarding its origin. These facts, however, have
not yet become the common property of the great masses, although they
are gradually becoming evident to everybody. A great many people are
still influenced by the passions and hatreds aroused by the conflict.
Briefly stated, the causes of the conflict were trade rivalry between
Great Britain and Germany, the scramble for territory especially in
Africa, the conflict between Russia and Germany for the domination of
the Balkan Peninsula, and the old inherited animosity between France
and Germany. The accusation of "sole" guilt against Germany is held
no longer by persons who have studied the facts, although there still
are and will no doubt always be differences of opinion about minor
points. The immediate occasion for the opening of hostilities in
1914 was the murder of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary. This murder took place while he was in Bosnia. The
crime was committed by representatives of a Pan-Slavic organization
working hand in hand with the Serbian government with a view to
annexing Bosnia to Serbia.
Up to the nineteenth century, the Balkan Peninsula was owned by
Turkey, but the last century has witnessed the gradual break-up of
European Turkey on the Balkan Peninsula. In connection with this
disintegration, Russia tried to gain territory at the expense of
Turkey. Austria-Hungary also tried to penetrate the same area. A
conflict was the inevitable consequence. This Balkan problem had
been a source of trouble in Europe for a century. The people of
Serbia were Slavs and looked to Russia for support,--in fact, Serbia
was practically governed by Russian diplomacy. Austria-Hungary
looked to Germany for support. In 1908, Bosnia, which was then a
Turkish province but had been administered by Austria-Hungary since
1878, was annexed by Austria-Hungary. This act offended Serbia, who
wished to annex it as part of the Pan-Slavic dream for the domination
by Russia of Bosnia, Serbia, and the remainder of the Balkans. This
annexation by Austria-Hungary defeated the Pan-Slavic dream and was a
victory for Pan-Germany. Feeling became more and more acute when in
1914 the Archduke Ferdinand was killed. The incident was applauded
by Serbia, and conflict followed. The details of events in 1914 are
too complicated to go into for our brief space, but popular accounts
reaching the United States were from Allied sources and were
correspondingly biased.
In 1914 all Europe was divided into two great military camps--the
Allied and the Central Powers. The following is the size of the
principal armies of Europe in 1914: Germany, 806,000; Austria,
370,000; Italy, 305,000; France, 818,000; Russia, 1,284,000; Belgium,
280,000. All Europe was equipped as a military machine, and the
murder in 1914 simply put the machinery in motion. It was an absurd
fallacy to think that Germany was the only armed nation at the time,
and to believe that Great Britain entered the conflict to defend
Belgium is equally absurd. As early as 1911, Great Britain had made
plans with France for marching an army through Belgium to Germany in
the event of war with Germany. Belgium was regarded as part of the
Allied powers. Great Britain has officially acknowledged to be false
her ostensible reason for entering the war--the protection of
Belgium. Her reason was the struggle between rival imperialisms,
which secret treaties later exposed show clearly.
However, we are concerned here only with why the United States
entered the war. The three outstanding causes were interference with
neutral trade, economic ties with the Allies, and Allied propaganda
in the United States. These causes overlap in such a way as to make
it impossible to discuss them separately.
Soon after war was declared in 1914, Great Britain placed mines in
the North Sea and with the aid of her navy blockaded Germany and the
adjacent neutral portions of North Europe. As a result, all goods
going in that direction were captured. The United States protested,
but Great Britain refused to yield the point, claiming it to be a
military necessity albeit illegal from the point of view of
international law. Great Britain blockaded Germany by mines, and cut
off all foreign trade with Germany and neutral ports near Germany to
prevent the entrance of goods into Germany. Germany retaliated in
February, 1915, by employing the submarine to blockade Great Britain.
One policy was as legal as the other. Mr. Wilson protested, but
neither side yielded. In no case in history has a nation at war
observed the established rules if the rules conflict with military
expediency. The United States has been no exception to this
procedure. Since the object of warfare is the physical destruction
of an opponent, once you justify the war you must justify any means
employed to gain the victory. In protesting to Germany, we argued
that the submarines could not warn ships to take off passengers
before they were sunk, but neither could the mines planted by Great
Britain. American ships kept out of the mine zones but disregarded
the submarine zones for reasons we shall later explain. The
_Lusitania_, a British ship, was sunk by a submarine on May 7, 1915.
One hundred and fourteen Americans lost their lives. We immediately
protested. But the facts have shown that the _Lusitania_ carried a
large quantity of munitions of war. At the time the boat was sunk a
United States senator asked the Treasury Department for the bill of
lading. He was told it had been turned over to the State Department.
When the senator asked the State Department for a copy of the bill of
lading in order to see what was on board, the State Department
refused to disclose the contents, on the grounds that it was to be
kept for diplomatic correspondence. It was not known till after the
war was over what had actually been on board the ship. Since then it
has been officially stated by the collector of customs then at New
York that the _Lusitania_ carried munitions of war. Besides, Germany
had warned the passengers before getting on board that in all
probability the ship would be sunk. This notice was officially
published in the New York papers before the ship sailed. There is no
question but that the passengers had been given due warning. Whether
the sinking was legal or not depends upon the point of view.
According to Germany, she did more than the law required by her
warning before the ship left harbor, which is rather better than
being warned a few minutes before being sunk in mid-ocean.
The British seized and searched the mails. United States officials
below the rank of minister were searched by the British while
traveling to and from the continent. Before the close of 1914,
thirty-one cargoes of copper valued at $5,500,000 had been captured
by Great Britain, but the United States owners were compensated.
Their seizure, however, was illegal. Early in 1916, Germany agreed
to give up the use of the submarine, but on condition that the United
States make Great Britain obey international law. We could not force
Great Britain to abide by international law, and consequently Germany
resumed her submarine warfare in 1917, which was our official reason
for entering the war. But this was only our legal excuse. The
effective causes were our economic ties with the Allies, and Allied
propaganda in the United States. We will examine these causes more
carefully.
Modern warfare is a conflict of economic resources as well as armies.
The British navy cut off all economic intercourse between Germany and
the United States. In this way, the economic resources of the United
States were in the hands of the Allies. American agriculture,
credit, and industry soon became indispensable to the Allied cause.
In 1915 an Anglo-French mission came to New York and secured a loan
of $500,000,000. This money was left with various banks in New York
for the purpose of buying supplies from America. The Allied
governments continued to borrow in Wall Street, and these banks
loaned England and France money with which to buy materials. Soon
the House of Morgan became the purchasing agent of the Allies. The
Morgan firm selected Edward R. Stetinius, President of the Diamond
Match Company, as the purchasing agent. Mr. Stetinius selected one
hundred and seventy-five men to assist him in the task. They were
soon purchasing supplies for the Allies at the rate of $10,000,000 a
day. By September, 1917, the Morgan firm had purchased
$3,000,000,000 in merchandise and munitions for the Allies in
addition to the selling of Allied bonds. The day the United States
declared war against Germany the British government's bank account
with Morgan was heavily overdrawn.
When Kitchener became Minister of War in Great Britain in 1915 one of
his first acts was to cable Charles M. Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel
Company to come to England immediately. Schwab went and agreed to
sell all the output of the Bethlehem Steel Company to the British
government. In less than two years, he shipped about $300,000,000
worth of war material to England. Twenty submarines were built and
sent in parts to Canada where they were assembled and sent across to
England. This was done a year before the German submarine
_Deutschland_ came to the United States and was advertised as the
first to cross the Atlantic. (See John Moody, "Masters of Capital,"
pages 162-172.)
American industry had become one with the Allies. Our greatest
banking and industrial institutions had become dependent upon an
Allied victory and an Allied victory was dependent upon them.
American industry became pro-Ally because the British blockade cut
off our trade with Germany. German and Austrian agents such as
Dumba, Karl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen were expelled from the country
because of their un-neutral activities on behalf of the Central
Powers.
"Patriotic" societies such as "The Navy League," "The American
Defense Society," and the "National Security League" were all tied up
financially with munition plants. These societies were propaganda
bureaus for "preparedness" and later for our entrance into the
conflict. The nineteen men who founded the Navy League had among
their number representatives of the three manufacturers of armor
plate in America,--the Midvale, Bethlehem, and Carnegie Companies.
The Navy League was in practice the propaganda bureau of the three
companies working together to sell armor plate.
Modern warfare has become even more than a conflict of armies and of
economic resources. Propaganda to secure popular support, has become
more and more necessary. Both sides in the European conflict made
great efforts to present their propaganda before America, but the
Central Powers failed primarily because of the British blockade. The
Allies, on their side, had the co-operation of American business, and
easily accomplished their purpose. Professor Hayes in his "Brief
History of the Great War" says: "The British resorted to every known
device of propaganda from employing secret service agents in New York
to maintaining at Washington the great journalist, Lord Northcliffe,
with a host of assistants, as a publicity director." These
propagandists had the co-operation of the bankers who had made loans
to the Allies or had acted as purchasing agents. All this happened
in 1916, but the American people never knew the source of their "war
news" until the conflict was over. Mr. Rathom, of the Providence
_Journal_, of Providence, R.I., was notorious for his accounts of
German "crimes." The Boston _Herald_ of December 30, 1923, in an
editorial comment, says: "It is, of course, true, as most well
informed people now understand, that the Rathom disclosures which
made the Providence _Journal_ famous during the war were fiction--but
Rathom did this for the praiseworthy purpose of arousing his
countrymen to a war fury. He took one of the practical ways of doing
so." Captain Ferdinand Tuohy of the British Secret Service in "The
Secret Corps" says: "All the trickery and subterfuge and war-wisdom
of the ages brought up-to-date, intensified and harnessed to every
modern invention and device, ... a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or some
other master schemer of the ages come back to earth, would have
thrilled at the amazing cunning and corruption of it all." The
Belgium authorities themselves have denied the truth of the crimes
given out in the Bryce Report. Mr. Lloyd George has stated in print
that careful investigations disclosed no case of Belgian children
with hands cut off. Yet these are some of the crimes with which the
American public were fed during 1916, 1917 and 1918. The peoples of
the Central Powers were, of course, furnished similar crimes
attributed to the Allies. There were many crimes committed as in all
wars, but every nation, including the United States, was guilty of
them.
It is not easy to explain the attitudes of many prominent officials
of the United States during the years preceding our entrance into the
war. Ambassador Walter H. Page, our representative in London, was
guilty of direct disloyalty to the American Government and people.
When President Wilson protested to the British Government against her
disregard of neutral rights Mr. Page did not give the messages to Sir
Edward Grey of the British Foreign Office. He would read them to him
and would then ask Grey to co-operate with him in making a reply to
the United States. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs: "Page came
to see me at the foreign office one day and produced a long dispatch
from Washington contesting our claims to act as we were doing in
stopping contraband in going to neutral ports. 'I am instructed' he
said 'to read this dispatch to you.' He read and I listened. He
then said 'I have now read the dispatch but I do not agree with it.
Let us consider how it should be answered.'" In all diplomacy there
is no other example of such a procedure. Page was determined upon
our entrance from the very beginning of the war. Many of our
representatives at the principal courts of Europe were connected with
the Allies personally through business or banking interests in this
country.
Mr. Wilson himself was pro-British in scholarship. He was a great
admirer of the cabinet-parliamentary form of government used in
England. All his heroes in political science were English
authorities. Mr. Wilson's former attorney-general, Thomas W.
Gregory, says in a letter to the New York _Times_ of February 9,
1925, that Wilson was "by inheritance, tradition, and reasoning at
all times the friend of the Allies." Mr. Tumulty also now says Mr.
Wilson was never neutral.
President Wilson had become converted to the idea of intervention by
the spring of 1916. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs that Colonel
House assured him in February, 1916, that Wilson would do his best to
bring the United States to the aid of the Allies. In April, 1916,
the President consulted Champ Clark, Speaker of the House; Claude
Kitchen, Democratic Leader; H. D. Flood, Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee; and other Democratic leaders regarding their
willingness to bring the United States into the war on the Allied
side. This is known as the famous "Sunrise Conference." They
refused, and Mr. Wilson allowed his party to use as the 1916 slogan,
"He kept us out of war." At the time he was afraid to advocate
intervention for fear of splitting his party. There were demands on
the part of certain political leaders and the press for immediate
intervention but these demands were not representative of public
opinion at the time. Ambassador Page brought his influence to bear
on preventing the Allies from considering German proposals for peace
offered in 1916 and 1917.
Allied propaganda represented Germany as lustful for world dominion.
Careful examination now shows that there was no such policy except
that which is common to all powers. This was part of the false
propaganda spread in the United States to inflame public opinion and
make our entrance "defensive." Both sides resorted to trickery of
every description. Much stir was created by the Zimmermann note
published in March, 1917. It was a proposal by Germany to Mexico to
enter on the side of Germany should the United States join the
Allies, with a view to recovering New Mexico and the surrounding
territory taken by the United States from Mexico in 1848. But this
was exactly what the Allies had done, when they persuaded Japan to
enter in order to capture the German sphere of influence in Shantung,
China. It is obvious that every nation at war will try to weaken its
opponent. We encouraged the Latin American republics to declare war
on Germany, which was no more than Germany did in encouraging Mexico
to declare war on the United States, should we declare war on
Germany. This note was distorted and reported in 1917 in a manner to
give the impression that Germany was actively trying to create
trouble for the United States even in peace. The fact remains that
the Zimmermann proposal was not to apply unless we entered the war
against Germany, when it would be a legitimate defensive measure for
Germany to secure the aid of Mexico.
Brigadier General J. C. Charteris, Chief of Intelligence of the
British Army during the war, stated boastfully, in New York, in an
address in the fall of 1925, before the National Arts Club, that he
had invented the report that Germany was boiling down the bodies of
her dead soldiers to be used as fertilizer. He made the statement
under the impression that no reporters were present. The Richmond
_Times-Dispatch_, on December 6, 1925, said editorially:
"Not the least of the horrors of modern warfare is the propaganda
bureau which is an important item in the military establishment of
every nation. Neither is it the least of the many encouraging signs
which each year add to the probability of eventual peace on earth.
"The famous cadaver story which aroused hatred against the German to
the boiling point in this and other allied nations during the war has
been denounced as a lie in the British House of Commons. Months ago,
the world learned the details of how this lie was planned and
broadcasted by the efficient officer in the British intelligence
service. Now we are told that 'imbued with the spirit of the Locarno
pact,' Sir Austen Chamberlain rose in the House, said that the German
Chancellor had denied the truth of the story and that the denial had
been accepted by the British government.
"A few years ago, the story of how the Kaiser was reducing human
corpses to fat, aroused the citizens of this and other enlightened
nations to a fury of hatred. Normally sane men doubled their fists
and rushed off to the nearest recruiting sergeant. Now they are
being told, in effect, that they were dupes and fools; that their own
officers deliberately goaded them to the desired boiling point, using
an infamous lie to arouse them, just as a grown bully whispers to one
little boy that another little boy said he could lick him.
"The encouraging sign found in this revolting admission of how modern
war is waged is the natural inference that the modern man is not
overeager to throw himself at his brother's throat at the simple word
of command. His passions must be played upon, so the propaganda
bureau has taken its place as one of the chief weapons.
"In the next war, the propaganda must be more subtle and clever than
the best the World War produced. These frank admissions of wholesale
lying on the part of trusted governments in the last war will not
soon be forgotten."
After the United States entered the war in April, 1917, we
immediately created a government propaganda bureau, which was known
as "The Committee on Public Information," with George Creel as
chairman. Since the war, Mr. Creel has given us an account of the
propaganda activities in his book--"How We Advertised America." No
effort was made to present the truth. Allied propaganda was accepted
and to it we added ours. This "Committee on Public Information"
issued 75,099,023 pamphlets and books to encourage the public
"morale." They hired the services of 75,000 speakers who operated in
5,200 communities. Altogether, about 755,190 speeches were made by
these people known as the "Four Minute Men." Exhibits were given at
fairs, and war films were prepared for the cinema, from which the
Committee on Public Information received a royalty. A total of 1,438
drawings were employed to arouse popular hatred. An official daily
newspaper was issued which had a circulation of 100,000 copies. A
propaganda bureau was established by the United States, in the
capitals of every nation in the world except those of the Central
Powers. The total expenditure by the United States for propaganda
was $6,738,223. (See George Creel, "How We Advertised America,"
Chapter I.) This was the greatest fraud ever sold to the public in
the name of patriotism and religion.
The Espionage Act was passed making it illegal to spread "false"
reports that would hinder recruiting. Every report was false which
did not harmonize with the propaganda released by this Committee on
Public Information. The best we can now say for Mr. Wilson and the
American public is that they were the victims of Allied propaganda,
and contributed to the wrecking of civilization.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beard, Charles A.--_Cross Currents in Europe Today_.
Barnes, Harry E.--_The Genesis of the World War_.
Creel, George--_How We Advertised America_.
Chafee, Zechariah--_Freedom of Speech_.
Fay, A. S.--_Origin of the World War_.
Flick, A. C.--_Modern World History_. Chapter 34.
Grattan, C. H.--_Why We Fought_.
Lasswell, H. D.--_Propaganda Technique in the World War_.
Moody, John--_Masters of Capital_. Chapter 9.
Nock, A. J.--_The Myth of a Guilty Nation_.