GERMANY’S OBJECT LESSON TO THE UNITED STATES
During the first two years of the war many Americans, especially those
in the West, observed the great events which were happening with great
interest, no doubt, but with a feeling of detachment. The war was a
long way off. The Atlantic Ocean separated Europe from America, and it
seemed almost absurd to think that the Great War could ever affect us.
In the year 1916, however, two events happened which seemed to bring
the war to our door. The first was the arrival at Baltimore, on July
9th, of the Deutschland, a German submarine of great size, built
entirely for commercial purposes, and the second was the appearance,
on the 7th of October, of a German war submarine in the harbor at
Newport, Rhode Island, and its exploit on the following day when
it sunk a number of British and neutral vessels just outside the
three-mile line on the Atlantic coast.
[Illustration: _© G. V. Buck, Washington, D. C._
THE CARGO SUBMARINE “DEUTSCHLAND”
Shortly before the United States entered the war, Germany sent over a
merchant submarine with a cargo of dye stuffs and drugs, an implied
threat which was later realized in the U-boat attacks on the American
coast.]
The performances of these two vessels were equally suggestive, but the
popular feeling with regard to what they had done was very divergent.
The voyage of the Deutschland roused the widest admiration but the
action of the U-53 stirred up the deepest indignation. Yet the voyages
of each showed with equal clearness that, however much America might
consider herself separated from the Great War, the new scientific
invention, the submarine, had annihilated space, and America, too, was
now but a neighbor of the nations at war.
The voyage of the Deutschland was a romance in itself. It was commanded
by Captain Paul Koenig, a German officer of the old school. He had
been captain of the Schleswig of the North German Lloyd, and of other
big liners. When the power of the British fleet drove German commerce
from the seas, he had found himself without a job, and, as he phrased
it, “was drifting about the country like a derelict.” One day, in
September, 1915, he was asked to meet Herr Alfred Lohmann, an agent of
the North German Lloyd Line, and surprised by an offer to navigate a
submarine cargo ship from Germany to America. Captain Koenig, who seems
to have been in every way an admirable personage, at once consented. He
has told us the story of his trip in his interesting book called “The
Voyage of the Deutschland.”
The Deutschland itself was three hundred feet long, thirty feet wide,
and carried one thousand tons of cargo and a crew of twenty-nine men.
It cost a half a million dollars, but paid for itself in the first
trip. According to Captain Koenig the voyage on the whole seems to
have been most enjoyable. He understood his boat well and had watched
its construction. Before setting out on his voyage he carefully
trained his crew, and experimented with the Deutschland until he was
thoroughly familiar with all its peculiarities. The cargo was composed
of dye stuffs, and the ship was well supplied with provisions and
comforts. In his description of the trip he lays most emphasis upon the
discomfort resulting from heavy weather and from storms. He was able
to avoid all danger from hostile ships by the very simple process of
diving. No English ship approached him closely as he was always able to
see them from a distance, usually observing their course by means of
their smoke.
One of his liveliest adventures, however, occurred when attempting to
submerge suddenly during a heavy sea on the appearance of a destroyer.
The destroyer apparently never observed the Deutschland, but in the
endeavor to dive quickly the submarine practically stood on its
head, and dived down into the mud, where it found itself held fast.
Captain Koenig however was equal to the emergency, and by balancing
and trimming the tanks he finally restored the center of gravity and
released his boat.
A considerable portion of his trip was passed upon the surface as he
only submerged when there was suspicion of danger. According to his
story his men kept always in the highest spirits. They had plenty of
music, and doubtless appreciated the extraordinary nature of their
voyage.
An amusing incident during the trip was the attempt to camouflage his
ship by a framework, made of canvas and so constructed as to give
the outline of a steamer. One day a hostile steamer appeared in the
distance and Captain Koenig proceeded to test his disguise. After great
difficulties, especially in connection with the production of smoke, he
finally had the whole construction fairly at work. The steamer, which
had been peacefully going its way, on seeing the new ship suddenly
changed her course and steered directly toward the Deutschland. It
evidently took the Deutschland for some kind of a wreck and was
hurrying to give it assistance. Captain Koenig at once pulled off his
super-structure and revealed himself as a submarine, and the strange
vessel veered about and hurried off as fast as it could.
On the arrival of the Deutschland in America Captain Koenig and his
crew found their difficulties over. All arrangements had been made by
representatives of the North German Lloyd for their safety and comfort.
As they ran up Chesapeake Bay they were greeted by the whistles of
the neutral steamers that they passed. The moving-picture companies
immortalized the crew and they were treated with the utmost hospitality.
The Allied governments protested that the Deutschland was really a war
vessel and on the 12th of July a commission of three American naval
officers was sent down from Washington to make an investigation. The
investigation showed the Deutschland was absolutely unarmed and the
American Government decided not to interfere.
The position of the Allies was that a submarine, even though without
guns or torpedoes, was practically a vessel of war from its very
nature, and for it to pretend to be a merchant vessel was as if some
great German man-of-war should dismount its guns and pass them over to
some tender and then undertake to visit an American port. They argued
that if the submarine would come out from harbor it might be easily
fitted with detachable torpedo tubes, and become as dangerous as any
U-boat. Even without arms it might easily sink an unarmed merchant
vessel by ramming. But the United States was not convinced, and
American citizens rather admired the genial captain.
His return was almost as uneventful as his voyage out. At the
very beginning he had trouble in not being able to rise after an
experimental dive. This misadventure was caused by a plug of mud which
had stopped up the opening of the manometer. But the difficulty was
overcome, and he was able to pass under water between the British ships
which were on the lookout. His return home was a triumph. Hundreds
of thousands of people gathered along the banks of the Weser, filled
with the greatest enthusiasm. Poems were written in his honor and his
appearance was everywhere greeted with enthusiastic applause. The
Germans felt sure that through the Deutschland and similar boats they
had broken the British blockade.
Captain Koenig made a second voyage, landing at New London,
Connecticut, on November 1st, where he took on a cargo of rubber,
nickel and other valuable commodities. On November 16th, in attempting
to get away to sea, he met with a collision with the tug T. A. Scott,
Jr., and had to return to New London for repairs. He concluded his
voyage, however, without difficulty. In spite of his success the
Germans did not make any very great attempt to develop a fleet of
submarine cargo boats. It was commonly reported that at least one
sister vessel was either captured by the British or was lost at sea,
and in the latter years of the war the gradual entrance of America into
the conflict of course prevented any further developments of this form
of trade.
The other German act which brought home to Americans the possibilities
of the submarine, the visit of the U-53, was a very different sort of
matter. U-53 was a German submarine of the largest type. On October
7, 1916, it made a sudden appearance at Newport, and its captain,
Lieutenant-Captain Hans Rose, was entertained as if he were a welcome
guest. He sent a letter to the German Ambassador at Washington and
received visitors in his beautiful boat. The U-53 was a war submarine,
two hundred and thirteen feet long, with two deck guns and four torpedo
tubes. It had been engaged in the war against Allied commerce in the
Mediterranean. Captain Rose paid formal visits to Rear-Admiral Austin
Knight, Commander of the United States Second Naval District, stationed
at Newport, and Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves, Commander of the American
destroyer flotilla at that place, and then set out secretly to his
destination.
On the next day the news came in that the U-53 had sunk five merchant
vessels. These were the Strathdene, which was torpedoed; the West
Point, a British freighter, also torpedoed; the Stephano, a passenger
liner between New York and Halifax, which the submarine attempted
to sink by opening its sea valves but was finally torpedoed; the
Blommersdijk, a Dutch freighter, and the Christian Knudsen, a Norwegian
boat. The American steamer Kansan was also stopped, but allowed to
proceed. When the submarine began its work wireless signals soon told
what was happening, and Admiral Knight, with the Newport destroyer
flotilla, hurried to the rescue. These destroyers picked up two hundred
and sixteen men and acted with such promptness that not a single life
was lost.
The action of the U-53 produced intense excitement in America. The
newspapers were filled with editorial denunciation, and the people
were roused to indignation. The American Government apparently took
the ground that the Germans were acting according to law and according
to their promise to America. They had given warning in each case and
allowed the crews of the vessels which they sunk to take to their
boats. This was believed to be a fulfilment of their pledge “not to
sink merchant vessels without warning and without saving human lives,
unless the ship attempts to escape or offers resistance.”
The general feeling, however, of American public opinion, was that it
was a brutal act. In the case of the Stephano there were ninety-four
passengers. These, together with the crew, were placed adrift in boats
at eight o’clock in the evening, in a rough sea sixty miles away from
the nearest land. If the American destroyer fleet had not rushed to the
rescue it is extremely likely that a great many of these boats would
never have reached land. The German Government did not save these human
lives. It was the American navy which did that. But, technicalities
aside, the pride of the American people was wounded. They could not
tolerate a situation in which American men-of-war should stand idly
by and watch a submarine in a leisurely manner sink ships engaged in
American trade whose passengers and crews contained many American
citizens.
It was another one of those foolish things that Germans were constantly
doing, which gave them no appreciable military advantage, but stirred
up against them the sentiment of the world. The Germans perhaps were
anxious to show the power of the submarines, and to give America an
object lesson in that power. They wished to make plain that they could
destroy overseas trade, and that if the United States should endeavor
to send troops across the water they would be able to sink those troops.
The Germans probably never seriously contemplated a blockade of the
American coast. The U-53 returned to its base and the danger was ended.
American commerce went peacefully on, and the net result of the German
audacity was in the increase of bitterness in the popular feeling
toward the German methods.