An emergency war fund of $100,000,000 was voted by Congress for the

use of the President at his discretion.

The Allied warships which had been patrolling the Atlantic coast

outside American territorial waters since the war began, to prevent

the German ships in American ports from escaping, were withdrawn.

There was no need of further vigilance, as one of the first acts of

the Government was to seize every German and Austrian vessel which had

lain safe under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. There were

ninety-one German ships, several of them interned men-o'-war,

aggregating 629,000 gross tonnage. The largest group were moored in

New York Harbor, numbering 27, and included leviathans like the

_Vaterland_, (54,282 gross tons), _George Washington_ (25,570 tons),

and _Kaiser Wilhelm II_ (19,361 tons). Six were in Boston Harbor,

among them the _Amerika_ (22,622 tons), and the _Kronprinzessin

Cecile_ (19,503 tons). Others were held in the Philippines and Hawaii.

Seven Austrian vessels were seized, but subject to payment, the United

States not being at war with the Dual Monarchy.

All the German officers and crews were taken in charge by the

immigration authorities and held in the status of intending immigrants

whose eligibility for entering the country was in question until the

end of the war. This decision meant internment.

The machinery of most of the German ships was found to be damaged to

prevent the Government making immediate use of them as transports, for

which the larger ones were admirably fitted. The damage dated from the

severance of relations on February 3, 1917, and was a preconcerted

movement undertaken by the various captains and officers upon

instructions from Berlin to cripple the machinery when war seemed

imminent. Captain Polack of the North German Lloyd liner

_Kronprinzessin Cecile_, held in Boston, admitted that he had received

orders to make his vessel unseaworthy from the German Embassy at

Washington three days before the rupture with Germany took place.

Congress later authorized the President to take title to the German

ships for the United States and to put them into service in the

conduct of the war. Payment or any other method of return for their

seizure was to wait until the war ended. In a short time more than

half of the seized vessels had been repaired and put upon the seas

under the American flag with new names. Fifteen were fitted for

transports. The Stars and Stripes was duly hoisted on the great German

liner _Vaterland_.

Simultaneous with the seizure of these vessels came wholesale arrests

of Germans suspected of being spies. Federal officers swooped down on

them in various parts of the country as soon as war was declared. They

could not now safely be at large. Several had already been convicted

of violating American neutrality by hatching German plots and were at

liberty under bond pending the result of court appeals; others were

under indictment for similar offenses and waiting trial; the remainder

were suspects who had long been under Federal surveillance. It was a

war measure taken without regard to the civil law to circumvent

further machinations of German conspirators, who had now become alien

enemies.

Bearing upon these precautions was a proclamation issued by the

President warning citizens and aliens against the commission of

treason, which was punishable by death or by a heavy fine and

imprisonment. The acts defined as treasonable were: The use of force

or violence against the American army and navy establishment; the

acquisition, use, or disposal of property with the knowledge that it

was to be utilized for the service of the nation's enemies; and the

performance of any act and the publication of statements or

information that would give aid and comfort to the enemy.

The Government had previously assured Germans and German reservists

domiciled on American soil that they would be free from official

molestation so long as they conducted themselves in accordance with

American law. A general internment of German aliens was deemed to be

both impracticable and impolitic.

Precautions taken against internal uprisings by Teutonic sympathizers

proved to be sufficient without corralling the great number of German

citizens established among the populace--a step which would not only

be costly but inflict great hardships on many unoffending and orderly

aliens. The Administration held by its previous determination not to

resort to reprisals in its treatment of Germans nor to lose its head

in the periodic waves of spy fever which spread throughout the

country.

The President and his advisers, while taking all these preliminary

measures of war, were deeply conscious of the enormous field of other

activities, calling for leadership and statesmanship of a high order,

which the war situation had opened out. Without being daunted by the

prospect, the President took the step of appealing to the people at

large for cooperation. There were so many things to be done besides

fighting--things without which mere fighting would be fruitless. The

President thus stated them:

"We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our armies and our

seamen, not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom

we have now made common cause, in whose support and by whose sides we

shall be fighting.

"We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to carry to

the other side of the sea, submarines or no submarines, what will

every day be needed there, and abundant materials out of our fields

and our mines and our factories with which not only to clothe and

equip our own forces on land and sea, but also to clothe and support

our people, for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer

work; to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are

cooperating in Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there

in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in

the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of

which to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for

worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling

stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules,

horses, cattle for labor and for military service; everything with

which the people of England and France and Italy and Russia have

usually supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the men, the

materials, or the machinery to make."

The President's specific appeal was to the agricultural and industrial

workers of the country to put their shoulder to the wheel to help

provision and equip the armies in Europe. On the farmers and their

laborers, he said, in large measure rested the issue of the war and

the fate of the nations. To the middlemen of every sort the President

was bluntly candid: "The eyes of the country are especially upon you,"

he said. "The country expects you, as it expects all others, to forego

unusual profits, to organize and expedite shipments of supplies of

every kind, but especially of food," in a disinterested spirit. He

asked railroad men of all ranks not to permit the nation's arteries to

suffer any obstruction, inefficiency, or slackened power in carrying

war supplies. To the merchant he suggested the motto: "small profits

and quick service" to the shipbuilder the thought that the war

depended on him. "The food and the war supplies must be carried across

the seas, no matter how many ships are sent to the bottom." The miner

he ranked with the farmer--the work of the world waited upon him.

Finally, every one who created or cultivated a garden helped to solve

the problem of feeding the nation; and every housewife who practiced

economy placed herself in the ranks of those who served.

Legislative tasks which confronted Congress were overwhelming and not

a little confusing. They embraced measures for authorizing huge issues

of bonds to finance the Allies and provide funds for the American

campaign; new taxation; food control; the provision of an enormous

fleet of airships; forbidding trading with the enemy; an embargo on

exports to neutral countries to prevent their shipment to Germany; an

espionage bill; and chiefly, a measure of compulsory military service

by selective draft to raise a preliminary army of 500,000 men, to be

followed by a second draft of the same number, to enable 1,000,000

Americans to help the Allies defeat Germany.

The Bond Bill passed both houses of Congress without a dissentient

vote within eleven days of the war declaration and five days of the

bill's submission. The Administration sought authority for an issue of

$5,000,000,000 bonds, to be raised by public subscription, and

$2,000,000,000 bonds in Treasury certificates of indebtedness, the

latter to be redeemed in a year by the aid of new war taxation then

expected to be available. Both bonds and certificates bore 3-1/2 per

cent interest. The main portion of the five-billion issue, or three

billions, was apportioned as a loan to the Allies, in the disposition

of which the President was to be wholly unhampered. Securities at par

to that amount were to be acquired from the various foreign

governments to cover the loan. Representative Kitchin, in presenting

the bill to the House, described it as representing "the most

momentous project ever undertaken by our Government and carried the

greatest authorization of bonds ever contained in a bill submitted to

any legislative body in the world." The only material amendments made

limited the loans and the acquisition of foreign securities as

collateral to the period of the war. The House passed the measure

after two days' debate on April 14, 1917, by a vote of 889 to 0. The

Senate vote, three days later, after a day's debate, was 84 to 0. The

various factions in both Houses, which were hostile to the

Administration's policy before war was declared, dropped all

partisanship in their eagerness to support measures for prosecuting

the war now that the die had been cast.

The War Revenue Bill was less easily disposed of. It bristled with

contentious points bearing upon the most equitable ways and means of

raising supplementary imposts to meet the first year's war outlays. As

submitted to the House it was designed to raise a revenue of

$1,800,000,000; but the barometer of the Treasury's needs kept rising

and presently stood at $2,250,000,000 as the amount needed to be

raised by the bill. The House hurriedly passed a loosely constructed

measure, taxing practically every industry and individual, especially

the incomes of corporations and men of wealth. It raised all tariff

duties and abolished the free list by making the exempted articles

subject to a duty of 10 per cent. The House accepted it as a war

measure, full of inequalities that would never be tolerated in times

of peace. It threw upon the Senate the onus of repairing the defects

of the bill. It passed it largely as it stood, a hasty piece of

patchwork, in order to get some kind of legislation before Congress to

meet the Treasury's requirements. The measure was discussed in a cloud

of confusion, and so perplexed the members that, in disposing of it,

they relied upon the Senate to return it in better shape for

adjustment in conference. The Senate was inclined to confine the

measure's revenue scope to $1,250,000,000, leaving the balance needed

by the Government to be raised by authorized bond issues. But in

redrafting the bill the Senate committee, after vainly succeeding in

paring the imposts below $1,670,000,000, was eventually obliged to

raise them $500,000,000. The conferees' report further enhanced them

to yield approximately $2,500,000,000. In this shape the bill finally

passed the Senate October 2, 1917.

A simple named bill "to increase temporarily the military

establishment of the United States," which was early presented to

Congress after the declaration of April 6, 1917, stood out as the

Administration's chief war measure. It became known as the Selective

Draft Bill because of its chief provisions, which authorized the

President to institute a modified form of conscription for raising a

new army. It also authorized him to raise the regular army and the

National Guard to their maximum strength and officer and equip them.

These latter enlistments were to be voluntary, under existing laws,

unless the required number was not forthcoming by that means, in

which case the regular military establishment was to be replenished

from recruits obtained by the selective draft. This latter method the

President was empowered to use for creating two forces of 500,000 men

each, one immediately, the other later, as deemed expedient. All men,

citizens and intended citizens, between the ages of 21 and 30, were

subject to call under the selective draft and were required to

register their names for possible enrollment. The census showed that

some 10,000,000 men between the ages named could be located by

registration, from which number the Government could select the

million of men required in two divisions. The House and Senate adopted

the measure on April 28, 1917, by substantial majorities, the voting

being respectively 397 to 24 and 81 to 8. A vain attempt was made in

both Houses to raise the new army by voluntary enlistments.

There was a popular demand for sending former President Roosevelt to

France as head of a volunteer force of four infantry divisions, and

the Senate adopted an amendment authorizing the project. The House had

rejected the proposal. When the bill reached the Conference Committee,

the Senate amendment authorizing the Roosevelt expedition was deleted.

But upon the bill's return the House reversed itself by refusing to

accept it, and sent it back to the Conference Committee with the

instruction to restore the section permitting Colonel Roosevelt to

organize a volunteer force for service in Europe. The bill went to the

President for signature with this provision restored; but the

President declined, in his discretion, to avail himself of the

authority to permit the dispatch of the Roosevelt division, and it

never went.

The Food Control Bill which conferred large powers on the Government

for safeguarding the food supplies of the country for war purposes

proved as difficult to pass as the War Revenue Bill, but succeeded in

reaching the President. Its presentation to Congress was heralded by a

public statement from the President, who sought to impress upon the

country the immediate need of legislation to conserve and stimulate

the country's food production. He sought authority to appoint a food

administrator, and named Herbert C. Hoover, who had creditably

directed the feeding of the Belgians as head of the Relief Committee,

for the post. The President drew a sharp line of distinction between

the work of the Government as conducted by the Department of

Agriculture in its ordinary supervision of food production and the

emergencies produced by the war.

"All measures intended directly to extend the normal activities of the

Department of Agriculture," he said, "in reference to the production,

conservation, and the marketing of farm crops will be administered, as

in normal times, through that department, and the powers asked for

over distribution and consumption, over exports, imports, prices,

purchase, and requisition of commodities, storing, and the like which

may require regulation during the war, will be placed in the hands of

a commissioner of food administration, appointed by the President and

directly responsible to him.

"The objects sought to be served by the legislation asked for are:

Full inquiry into the existing available stocks of foodstuffs and into

the costs and practices of the various food producing and distributing

trades; the prevention of all unwarranted hoarding of every kind and

of the control of foodstuffs by persons who are not in any legitimate

sense producers, dealers, or traders; the requisitioning when

necessary for the public use of food supplies and of the equipment

necessary for handling them properly; the licensing of wholesome and

legitimate mixtures and milling percentages, and the prohibition of

the unnecessary or wasteful use of foods.

"Authority is asked also to establish prices, but not in order to

limit the profits of the farmers, but only to guarantee to them when

necessary a minimum price which will insure them a profit where they

are asked to attempt new crops and to secure the consumer against

extortion by breaking up corners and attempts at speculation, when

they occur, by fixing temporarily a reasonable price at which

middlemen must sell.

"Although it is absolutely necessary that unquestionable powers shall

be placed in my hands, in order to insure the success of this

administration of the food supplies of the country, I am confident

that the exercise of those powers will be necessary only in the few

cases where some small and selfish minority proves unwilling to put

the nation's interests above personal advantage."

A sweeping bill was thereupon presented to the House empowering the

President, under the war clause of the Constitution, to take the

measures he named whenever, in his opinion, the national emergency

called for their exercise.

The mere conferring of such extreme powers on the President, it was

hoped, would suffice. The Government view was that armed with the

effective weapons the bill provided, no difficulty would be

encountered in enlisting on the side of the public interest all

recalcitrant private agencies without legal action.

The House, in passing the measure, made it more drastic by inserting

an amendment prohibiting the further manufacturing of alcoholic

liquors during the war, and authorizing the President, in his

discretion, to commandeer existing stocks of distilled spirits. The

President was unwilling to countenance such a drastic curb on the

liquor industry, and the Senate Agriculture Committee, on his

recommendation, restricted the veto on the manufacture of liquor to

whisky, rum, gin, and brandy, removing the ban on light wines and

beer, but retained the clause empowering him to acquire all distilled

spirits in bond, as above named, should the national exigency call for

such action. The Senate approved the bill as thus amended.

The antiwhisky provisions, which were due to the Prohibitionists, were

denounced as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the House vote on the

bill was 365 to 5. The Senate vote was as emphatic, being 81 to 6.

A more direct contest with the President over his war powers was waged

around the Espionage Bill. Though primarily framed to make spying and

its attendant acts treasonable offenses punishable by death or heavy

fines and imprisonment, it was projected more as a measure aimed at

news censorship, on account of a section forbidding the pursuit and

publication of information on the war. A violent and persistent

agitation by the press of the country against such a restriction,

echoed in both Houses in the course of lengthy debates, finally won

the day. All control of the publication of war news was denied the

Administration, despite the President's appeals to Congress for the

provision of a press censorship. The newspapers demanded to be placed

on their good behavior and scouted the idea that any law was needed to

restrain them from publishing information likely to give aid and

comfort to the enemy. Thwarted by Congress, the President had to be

content to forego the authority he sought for placing a veto on war

news except such as the Government permitted to be disclosed. He was

reminded that when relations were broken with Germany and war neared,

the press readily responded to the Administration's request--made in

the absence of legal authority to establish a press censorship--to

suppress the publication and transmission of information concerning

the movements of American merchant craft, then about to be armed

against German submarines. Since then announcements of arrivals at and

sailings from American ports of all vessels were excluded from the

newspapers.

The Espionage Bill had an inherent importance of its own, but its

purposes had been so overshadowed by the prominence given to the

censorship provision that they were lost sight of. It empowered the

President to place an embargo on exports when public safety and

welfare so required; provided for the censoring of mails and the

exclusion of matter therefrom deemed to be seditious and anarchistic,

and making its transmission punishable by heavy fines; the punishment

of espionage; the wrongful use of military information; circulation of

false reports designed to interfere with military operations; attempts

to cause disaffection in the army and navy, or obstruction of

recruiting; the control of merchant vessels on American waters; the

seizure of arms and ammunition and prohibition of their exportation

under certain conditions; the penalizing of conspiracies designed to

harm American foreign relations; punishment for the destruction of

property arising from a state of war; and increased restrictions on

the issue of passports.

The measure acquired a conspicuous place in the war legislation by

reason of the embargo provision. It appeared an inconsequential

clause, judging from the little public attention paid to it; but the

President saw a weapon in it that might have more effect in bringing

Germany to her knees than Great Britain's blockade of her coasts,

stringent as the latter had proved. It developed into a measure for

instituting a blockade of Germany from American ports. It had long

been known that the maritime European neutrals--Holland, Denmark,

Norway, and Sweden--had flourished enormously by supplying Germany

with various necessities--mainly obtained from the United States on

the pretense that the huge increase of their American trade was due to

enlarged domestic consumption, the same being due, in its turn, to the

cutting off of needed supplies from other countries by the British

blockade and the war situation on land. The design of the embargo

provision was to stop these neutrals from receiving any American goods

until it was clearly established, _before_ leaving an American port,

that they would not be transhipped to Germany. With this object the

President was authorized to stop any or all exports to any or all

countries in his discretion. This was a sweeping blanket instruction

from Congress aimed at placing a barrier on transhipment trade with

Germany from the port of departure. "Satisfy us that your goods are

not going to Germany via neutral countries," the Government told

exporters, "and your ships can get clearance. Otherwise they cannot."

The embargo was even aimed at neutral countries that permitted their

own goods to cross the German frontier by threatening to cut those

countries off from any trade with the United States. But it was not

clear how it could be made effective in this respect. Its chief aim

was rather to make it impossible for the neutrals to replenish with

American goods such of their domestic stocks which had been depleted

by exports to German customers.

The subject raised a stormy debate during a secret session of the

Senate. Senator Townsend, in an assault upon the embargo proposal,

took the view that the Administration wished to use the embargo to

force small neutral nations into the war as American allies.

"I am not willing," he said, "to vote for the very German methods we

have condemned. I understand that this provision is not to be used for

the protection of American produce or to protect the American supply,

but to coerce neutral countries. We stood for neutrality, and urged

the nations of the world to support neutrality. Now that we are

engaged in war we ought not to coerce other nations and force them to

enter the struggle."

The Administration found a supporter from an unexpected quarter--from

Senator Stone, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who

opposed the war and all its works. He thus defended the embargo:

"If we were still neutral I should join readily in opposing such

legislation. But we are now belligerent. If it is true that any

neutral country, contiguous to Germany, which is now our enemy, is

supplying Germany with food, munitions, and other materials out of its

own productions, and then comes to the United States to purchase here

and transport there a sufficient quantity to replenish its supply,

doesn't the senator think the United States is within its belligerent

rights to say that the United States doesn't consent?"

"It is true we are no longer neutral," insisted Mr. Townsend, "and we

don't intend that any other country shall remain neutral. We are in

trouble and want everybody else to be in trouble if we are strong

enough to put them in."

The admitted purpose of the embargo was to force neutral countries

contiguous to Germany to suspend trade with her as an enemy of the

United States. The sentiment of the Senate, barring the objections of

a few members like Senator Townsend, who protested against the

embargo's "injustice," was that the United States had full control

over its own trade, and, especially in time of war, could restrict it

as its foreign interests required. No international law was involved

in American legislation which determined the disposition of American

exports, even if that legislation had a direct bearing on the

prosecution of the war. The Administration refused to see any analogy

between this embargo policy and the questions raised by the blockade

controversy between the United States and Great Britain when the

former was a neutral. American belligerency had necessitated a change

of basis in the Government's attitude.

The President went to some pains to explain to the country what the

export embargo meant. He created a Board of Exports Control, or

Exports Council, composed of Herbert C. Hoover, the selected head of

the food administration body, and a number of leading Government

officials. This board's duty was to prevent a single bushel of wheat

or the smallest quantity of any other commodity from leaving an

American port without the board's license and approval. This check on

exports, the President pointed out, regulated and supervised their

disposition, and was not really an embargo, except on consignments to

Germany.

"There will, of course, be no prohibition of exports," he said. "The

normal course of trade will be interfered with as little as possible,

and, so far as possible, only its abnormal course directed. The whole

object will be to direct exports in such a way that they will go first

and by preference where they are most needed and most immediately

needed, and temporarily to withhold them, if necessary, where they can

best be spared.

"Our primary duty in the matter of foodstuffs and like necessaries is

to see to it that the peoples associated with us in the war get as

generous a proportion as possible of our surplus, but it will also be

our wish and purpose to supply the neutral nations whose peoples

depend upon us for such supplies as nearly in proportion to their need

as the amount to be divided permits."

Nevertheless the proclamation that came from the White House on July

9, 1917, disclosed an exercise of presidential authority without

precedent in American history in that it contemplated, with British

cooperation, the virtual domination of the country's trade with the

whole world. It provided for the absolute governmental control, by

license, of the exports of essential war commodities to fifty-six

nations and their possessions, including all the Allied belligerents,

all the neutrals, as well as the enemy countries. These commodities

embraced coal, coke, fuel, oils, kerosene and gasoline, including

bunkers, food grains, flour and meal, fodder and feeds, meats and

fats, pig iron, steel billets, ship plates and structural shapes,

scrap iron and scrap steel, ferromanganese, fertilizers, arms,

ammunition and explosives. By the control of coal and other fuels the

Government was bent on obtaining a firm grasp on shipping. And the

point was, as stated in the preamble of the proclamation, "the public

safety requires that succor shall be prevented from reaching the

enemy."

Europe hailed the establishment of the American embargo as signalizing

a "real blockade" against Germany. The Paris "Temps" succinctly

expressed the prevailing view in the Allied countries:

"The Allies, despite the patience of their diplomats and the vigilance

of their navies, have failed to make the blockade sufficiently tight.

A new measure was needed; the United States has now supplied it. By

forbidding indirect assistance the United States has introduced a new

and efficient condition. If the Allies firmly apply the principle, as

public opinion strongly demands, President Wilson's proclamation will

have been one of the decisive acts of the war."

The need for sending foodstuffs and like necessaries to the Allies, as

pointed out by the President in explaining the embargo, called for

shipping facilities of a magnitude that demanded the immediate

attention of Congress. Exports there would be in unexampled

quantities, but their destination must largely be to the Entente

countries, consigned in armed ships. Coastwise craft were drafted for

transatlantic trade; ships under construction for private concerns

were subject to acquisition by the Government; every craft afloat

adaptable to war service--ferryboats, private yachts, motor boats and

the like--were listed for contingent use; and the thousand or more

merchant ships of American registry demanded an equipment of guns and

ammunition to enable them to run the submarine blockade.

The seized German and Austrian ships helped to supply the needed

tonnage, but they did not go far. War conditions, created by the

recognition that the United States would practically win the war for

the Allies by keeping their countries generously supplied with all

necessities required the construction of a huge trade fleet of steel

or wooden ships at a cost of a billion dollars. The Government,

through the Shipping Board, reserved the right of preempting the

products of every steel mill in the country and of canceling all their

existing contracts with private consumers, so as to divert the use of

steel products for the trade fleet. The acquisition of every shipyard

in the country was also contemplated as a contingency. Tentative

estimates provided for the construction of thousands of steel and

wooden cargo ships aggregating between five and six million tonnage

within the coming two years.

The shipbuilding program was undertaken by General Goethals, builder

of the Panama Canal, as general manager of a new Government body

called the Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, and William

Denman, its president. Conflict immediately arose between them

regarding the expediency of building steel or wooden ships to meet the

emergency, and the whole project was imperiled by their personal

differences. General Goethals favored a steel fleet and planned to

apply the available balance of an appropriation of $550,000,000 to the

construction of fabricated steel ships of standard pattern. Early in

July contracts for 348 wooden ships, aggregating 1,218,000 tons, and

costing some $174,000,000, had been made or agreed upon and contracts

for a further 100 were under negotiation. Of steel ships seventy-seven

had been contracted for or agreed upon, amounting to 642,800 tons, at

a cost of $101,660,356. This was a good beginning, as it represented a

program under way for providing 525 ships of all sorts. The remainder

of the Goethals program called for steel ships, of which he promised

3,000,000 tons in eighteen months. Another feature of the Goethals

policy was the immediate commandeering of private ships in the stocks,

whether owned by Americans, Allies, or neutrals. Acute friction arose

between General Goethals and Mr. Denman, mainly over the question of

the former's negotiations and plans with the steel interests. In the

end President Wilson intervened by accepting the invited resignations

of both, and placing the shipbuilding in the hands of Admiral

Washington L. Capps, a naval ship constructor of renown, and Edward

N. Hurley, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

By now the foundations of a huge war machine had been laid by

legislative and executive action; but it was discovered that a vital

factor in modern wars had been overlooked. An enormous air fleet was

necessary to provide further eyes for the Allies. Congress repaired

this omission by voting $640,000,000 for building 22,000 airships and

for raising and equipping an American corps of 100,000 aviators.

CHAPTER LXVII

MEN AND MONEY IN MILLIONS

The country early realized the practical effect of the legislation

passed by Congress enabling the President to call on the national

resources in men, money, and material for conducting the war with

Germany.

The Administration's first nation-wide appeal was for money. Under the

Bond Bill it was empowered to raise war funds, and proceeded to do so

by floating the first issue of the "Liberty loan of 1917," this being

a demand for $2,000,000,000 from the popular purse. The money raised

was to provide credits to the Allied governments to meet the enormous

war purchases they were making in the United States, and, like

previous accommodations to them, this provision of funds was not so

much a loan as a transfer or exchange of credits. American money was

lent to the Allies, deposited in American banks, to enable them to buy

American products. Not a cent of the Liberty loan went out of the

country.

It was the largest single financial transaction ever undertaken by the

United States Government. It greatly exceeded all previous bond issues

and squarely brought the country to face the necessities of war

finance on a huge scale. But the prewar period, which produced a high

tide of prosperity, due to the unexampled calls on American industries

by the Allied Powers, had revealed the enormous wealth and economic

strength of the American investing community, as well as a

flourishing condition of the working population. The Government

entered upon the financial operation with no misgivings and the result

proved its confidence in the success of the loan. Bank subscriptions

were discouraged. National loans hitherto issued in war time were

floated as a basis of national currency and were taken up by the banks

in large amounts. But the Liberty loan was an appeal to the

million--to several millions; to the man in the street, the small

tradesman, the salaried class. Workers realized that in subscribing to

the loan they were not only securing an absolutely safe investment,

but were providing funds for wages and profits. The money they

invested as a loan to the Allies was applied by them to buying

American goods.

The Liberty loan was floated on May 14, 1917, in denominations as low

as $50, rising to $100,000, at 3-1/2 per cent. interest, redeemable in

fifteen or thirty years. The banks of the country, national and State,

the trust companies, newspapers, department stores, express companies,

and numerous corporations and firms placed their establishments and

staffs at the national service for receiving applications, which came

from all classes. The response flagged as the date for closing the

subscription lists neared (June 15, 1917), but there was a rally at

the last moment by small investors, and the lists closed with the loan

greatly oversubscribed.

Germany had been watching its progress. There were lulls during the

month in which the loan was under issue and Germany was eager to see

in a passing slowness of response a popular unwillingness to shoulder

the burden of war and an apathy that she welcomed. The people had no

spirit for the war and it was largely a bankers' loan, said her

spokesmen. Anticipating this criticism the Government, aided by the

press, publicists, and bankers, conducted a propaganda which

successfully impressed the country that a large popular

oversubscription could not be misconstrued by Germany, as it would

convince her that there would be no stinting of national resources by

the United States to aid the Allies in encompassing her defeat. The

result showed that a request for $2,000,000,000 had been met by a

response of $3,035,226,850 from over 4,000,000 investors, mainly for

small amounts. The success of the loan, especially in its appeal to

modest purses, was imposing. Secretary McAdoo of the Treasury thus

expressed the Government's gratification:

"The widespread distribution of the bonds and the great amount of the

oversubscription constitute an eloquent and conclusive reply to the

enemies of the country who claimed that the heart of America was not

in this war. The result, of which every citizen may well be proud,

reflects the patriotism and the determination of the American people

to fight for the vindication of outraged American rights, the speedy

restoration of peace, and the establishment of liberty throughout the

world.

"The Congress pledged all the resources of America to bring the war to

a successful determination. The issue just closed will serve as an

indication of the temper and purpose of the American people and of the

manner in which they may be expected to respond to future calls of

their country for the necessary credits to carry on the war."

The operation of the Selective Draft law provided a simultaneous

opportunity for a display of patriotism. Acting under its provisions,

the President in a stirring proclamation issued on May 18, 1917,

called upon every man in the country between the age of 21 and 30 to

register his readiness to be called upon for army service at the

designated registration place within the precinct where he permanently

resided. It was a call to the nation to arm.

"The power against which we are arrayed," the President said, "has

sought to impose its will upon the world. To this end it has increased

armament until it has changed the face of war. In the sense in which

we have been wont to think of armies, there are no armies in this

struggle, there are entire nations armed. Thus, the men who remain to

till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of the army

that is in France than the men beneath the battle flags. It must be so

with us. It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is

a nation.

"To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a

common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose.

All must pursue one purpose. The nation needs all men; but it needs

each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the

endeavor that will best serve the common good. Thus, though a

sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip hammer for the forging of great

guns and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the

nation is being served only when the sharpshooter marches and the

machinist remains at his levers.

"The whole nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the

part for which he is best fitted. To this end, Congress has provided

that the nation shall be organized for war by selection; that each man

shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best

serve the general good to call him.

"The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in

our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of

accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful

devotion to the common purpose of us all. It is in no sense a

conscription of the unwilling; it is, rather, selection from a nation

which has volunteered in mass. It is no more a choosing of those who

shall march with the colors than it is a selection of those who shall

serve an equally necessary and devoted purpose in the industries that

lie behind the battle line."

The President had strongly espoused the selective draft in preference

to the voluntary system of raising an army organization. He had

pointed out that many forms of patriotic service were open to the

people, and emphasized that the military part of the service,

important though it was, was not, under modern war conditions, the

most vital part. The selective draft enabled the selection for service

in the army of those who could be most readily spared from the pursuit

of other industries and occupations. There being a universal

obligation to serve in time of war, the Administration felt the need

of being empowered to select men for military service and select

others to do the rest of the nation's work, either by keeping them in

their existing employment, if that employment was useful for war

purposes, or utilizing their services in a like field.

"The volunteer system does not do this," he said. "When men choose

themselves they sometimes choose without due regard to their other

responsibilities. Men may come from the farms or from the mines or

from the factories or centers of business who ought not to come but

ought to stand back of the armies in the field and see that they get

everything that they need and that the people of the country are

sustained in the meantime."

Registration day, which was fixed for June 5, 1917, partook of the

character of an election day. The young manhood of the country of the

prescribed ages trooped to the registration places of their districts

like voters depositing ballots at polling booths. It was a national

roll call of the pick of civilian manhood available for military duty,

and yielded an enrollment of 9,649,938 from which the first army was

to be drafted.

"The registration," reported the Government, "was accomplished in a

fashion measuring up to the highest standards of Americanism. The

young men came to the registration places enthusiastic; there was no

hint of a slacking spirit anywhere, except in a few cases where

misguided persons had been prevailed upon to attempt to avoid their

national obligation."

The machinery for the selective draft had merely been started. Only

the groundwork had been laid. The principal operation--the draft

itself--had to be undertaken, and the process was a slow one. Half the

men who registered claimed exemption from military service for a

multitude of reasons, but as not more than 6 per cent were to be

chosen to compose the first citizen army, this was not important even

if most of the exemption claims were justified and allowed.

The outstanding fact was that the registrants were all on an equal

footing and that their mustering brought nearer the realization of the

President's dream of a "citizenry trained" without favoritism or

discrimination. The son of the millionaire and of the laborer, the

college-bred man and the worker forced to earn his living from early

youth, were to march side by side in the ranks and practice

marksmanship and trench digging together. Great Britain and France had

democratized their armies; the United States did the same.

The President increased the number of men to be drafted for the first

army from 500,000 to 687,000 in order to use drafted men to bring the

regular army and the National Guard to their full strength. Thus there

were 687,000 men to be selected from a registration of 9,649,938. The

quota required from each State, based upon each State's number of

registrants, was determined in that proportion.

The draft, which was practically a great lottery to establish the

order in which the registrants were to be called into war service,

took place on July 20, 1917, in Washington. As it was anticipated that

fully half of the men called would either be exempted or rejected

after medical examination, the exemption boards appointed throughout

the country, located in 4,557 districts, were required to call double

the number of their quota for examination in the order in which the

men's numbers appeared on the district list after the drawing. This

meant a call of 1,374,000 men.

The drawing itself was based on a system of master-key numbers in two

groups, written on slips of paper. These slips were rolled and placed

in a bowl, from which they were drawn one at a time by blindfolded

men. The picking of a single number out of one set of a thousand

numerals, or out of another set of eleven numerals, drafted each man

in the 4,557 districts whose registration card bore the serial number

picked. The method fixed with absolute equality of chance the order in

which all registrants--if called upon--were to report to their local

boards for examination and subsequent exemption, discharge, or

acceptance for military service. The local boards at once organized

for the examination and enrollment of the men called.

The new citizen force became known as the National Army, in

contradistinction to the regular army and the National Guard, and was

organized into sixteen divisions, grouped by States as under:

First--Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont,

and New Hampshire.

Second--Lower New York State and Long Island.

Third--Upper New York State and northern Pennsylvania.

Fourth--Southern Pennsylvania.

Fifth--Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and District

of Columbia.

Sixth--Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Seventh--Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

Eighth--Ohio and West Virginia.

Ninth--Indiana and Kentucky.

Tenth--Wisconsin and Michigan.

Eleventh--Illinois.

Twelfth--Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Thirteenth--North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota,

and Iowa.

Fourteenth--Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri.

Fifteenth--Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Sixteenth--Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California,

Nevada, and Utah.

Huge cantonments, or concentration camps--army cities--were put under

construction in the various sections of the country where the drafted

men could be expeditiously massed for mobilization and training before

proceeding to the European battle ground. In all, thirty-two of these

camp cities were required, the regular army and National Guard

providing another sixteen divisions for which such training grounds

were needed. The camp sites were chosen for spaciousness, absence of

marshes, natural drainage situations, and proximity to lines of

transport and a good water supply. Each army camp called for vast

building supplies, as each was designed to constitute a complete town,

with sewerage, water works, lighting system, and streets.

[Illustration: United States naval gunners defending the troop

transport ships from submarine attack. The troop ships of the first

contingent to cross the sea were twice attacked by submarines on the

way.]

The volunteer system was largely depended upon to recruit the regular

army and the National Guard to their required strength; but in the

draft call a provision of 187,000 men had been made for service in

these two branches to fill up gaps caused by failure of volunteer

enlistments or by the detailing of regulars or guardsmen to aid in

training the draft recruits. The President pointed out that there was

ample scope for the volunteer system in augmenting the two established

services, which needed as many men as the draft army. On April 1,

1917, before war was declared, the regular army and National Guard

numbered about 225,000 men. These branches needed augmenting to a

strength of 293,000 and 400,000 respectively, making a combined force

of 693,000. There was thus a call for 468,000 men, which was mainly

responded to by volunteers. The draft citizen army of 500,000 and this

force of 693,000 made an army approaching 1,200,000 men which the

Government organized for field service in Europe in the first year of

America's participation in the war. Adding to this an augmented naval

force of 150,000, and the Marine Corps, numbering 30,000, a grand

total approximating 1,400,000 men appears as the first American

contribution to the forces fighting Germany.

CHAPTER LXVIII

ENVOYS FROM AMERICA'S ALLIES

What perhaps most vividly brought home to the nation that it was now

one of the belligerents of the Allied Powers was the visit of a number

of special commissioners from the governments of the latter countries,

following the American declaration of war. The presence of the British

and French missions in particular made a deep impression, not only

because of the importance and magnitude of their errand, but because

of their personnel. The British mission was headed by Arthur James

Balfour, a former Conservative premier, and now Foreign Secretary in

the Lloyd-George cabinet. The French mission included Rene Viviani, a

predecessor of Premier Ribot and a member of his cabinet, and Marshal

Joffre, the victor of the Battle of the Marne and an idol of France.

The commanding personalities of Mr. Balfour and Marshal Joffre caught

the American imagination and the visits they paid to several cities

during their brief stay partook of the character of state events,

marked by an imposing welcome and sumptuous hospitality.

A reception no less generous was accorded the members of the other

missions--the Italian, headed by the Prince of Udine, son of the Duke

of Genoa and nephew of King Victor Emmanuel, and including Signor

Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy; the Russian, headed by

Boris Bakhmetieff, the new Russian Ambassador; and the Belgian, headed

by Baron Moncheur. Other missions came from Ireland, Rumania, and

Japan.

The reception of these various missions formed the occasion for a

number of state functions which placed the Administration in the role

of a national host to many distinguished guests from foreign countries

with which the United States was now allied for the first time in a

devastating war. The honors paid to them produced remarkable

proceedings in Congress without parallel in that body's deliberations;

but then the great world war had shattered precedents wherever it

touched. The spectacle was witnessed of a British statesman, in the

person of Mr. Balfour, addressing the House and Senate, an event which

became an enduring memory. Congress also heard addresses from M.

Viviani, Baron Moncheur, and the Prince of Udine. They told why their

countries were in the war--a familiar story whose repetition within

the halls of Congress had considerable point in that the national

legislature itself had sanctioned war on Germany for the same reasons.

American and Allied statesmen thus met on common ground in a common

cause. The numerous conferences between the various sections of the

Allied missions and American officials--beginning with that between

the President and Mr. Balfour--were councils of war. They symbolized

the joining of hands across the sea in a literal sense--across a sea

infested with German submarines, which the envoys, incidentally,

escaped both in coming and returning.

In the public ceremonials that marked their visit the leading envoys

freely and repeatedly expressed their grateful recognition to the

United States for unselfishly entering the war at last on the side

which was fighting for civilization--a disinterested action without

parallel in the history of wars, as Mr. Asquith had called it. Their

gratitude might well be taken for granted; but, like the Allies' aims

in the war, it bore repetition, because American aid was sorely

needed, and they had, in fact, come to accept as much assistance as

the United States had to give.

The immediate need was money, food, ships--all the accessories of war

outside the fighting zone. Funds for loans having become available,

the American Treasury proceeded to distribute its largesse generously.

Great Britain received $200,000,000 as the first installment of a

number of loans; France and Italy received $100,000,000 each; Serbia

got $3,000,000; Russia $175,000,000; France another $60,000,000; and

Great Britain $300,000,000 more. Further credits to the various

countries brought the amount loaned to $1,525,000,000 by the close of

July, 1917, or more than half of the $3,000,000,000 sanctioned by

Congress for financing the Allies.

By these transactions the United States Government displaced the

banking firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., who had been acting as fiscal

agent for the Allies since they began to purchase huge supplies in

America on American credits.

Great Britain, as the bulwark of her allies, had many weighty matters

to lay before the United States. Her mission sought an understanding

regarding the conduct of the blockade, naval operations, munition

supplies, military dispositions and resources, and the shipment of

foodstuffs. There was no driving of bargains, since neither was a

competitor of the other, and hence could have no radical difference of

view on questions to the settlement of which they had been drawn in

union against a common foe. The attitude of the British mission

invited American cooperation, reciprocal service, and expressed

gratitude for the American partnership. They had no policies to

suggest to the Administration. They had much information on the

conduct of the war to lay before the United States--specially

blunders to be avoided; but they did not presume to teach Americans

how to make war. The United States, on its part, eagerly wanted to

know all that could be known, and to be guided accordingly.

A week of conferences clarified the situation. Both the British and

French missions revealed with surprising frankness the status of the

Allied resources and the military situation. Great Britain was

especially candid in disclosing the extent of her losses by

submarines. She needed ships, as many as America could build. France

needed an American army at once to augment her man power. Italy wanted

coal and grain. Most of all, the collapse of Russia's military

organization had brought the Allies to the pass of relying on American

aid as imperative if Germany was to be defeated.

The personal contact between American Government officials and the

various missions, especially the British, produced a mutual confidence

and sympathy not to be measured by words. Resources and needs were

frankly stated. The United States disclosed what it could do and how.

The way, in short, was cleared for the United States to enter the

Grand Alliance on a basis making for efficient cooperation in the

conduct of the war.

A gentleman's agreement was effected with neither side committed to

any binding policy. The United States retained a free hand, and was

not controlled, formally or informally, by any entangling undertaking

as to any future course it might elect to take in its relations with

Germany. But one enlightening point emerged. It was that while the

United States was free to enter into any peace it chose, it would not

enter into a separate peace. No action in that direction was

imaginable in the circumstances without consulting the Entente Allies.

This injection of peace considerations into the war situation, before

the United States had really entered the lists with troops and guns,

was taking time by the forelock. But it was needful to clear the air

early, as one of the reasons ascribed to Germany's apparent

complacence to the entrance of America as a belligerent was that she

counted on the United States as a balance wheel that might restrain

the Entente's war activities and hasten peace, or later operate to

curtail the Entente's demands at the peace conference. On these

assumptions America's participation was supposed to be not wholly

unwelcome to Berlin.

American freedom of action was unlikely to confuse the war issues in

the manner Germany looked for. Whatever hopes Germany built upon that

freedom did not deter Secretary Lansing and Mr. Balfour from hastening

to counteract misleading impressions current that America would be

embarrassed in its postwar foreign policy by becoming involved in

European territorial questions, from which, for more than a century,

it had remained aloof.

The French mission also achieved an incontestable popular triumph, due

to the presence of Marshal Joffre and to memories of French assistance

in the Revolutionary War. France's heroic resistance to German

invasion of her territory, specially in thwarting the advance on

Paris, had also attached American sympathies to her cause. M. Viviani

and Marshal Joffre did not hesitate to avail themselves of this

feeling by plainly requesting the immediate dispatch of American

troops to France. While this course conflicted with the early plans of

the American General Staff, the latter had to recognize the immense

moral effect which the flying of the Stars and Stripes would have on

the Allied troops in the Franco-Belgian trenches, and the request did

not go unheeded. The country realized that the French importunity for

troops was born of an equally importunate need.

All the missions, except the British, were birds of passage, who

departed upon fulfilling their errands of securing American aid in

directions where it was most required. There was more permanency to

the British mission, owing to Great Britain's role of general provider

to her Allies, which called for the establishment of several British

organizations in New York and Washington as clearing houses. Mr.

Balfour and his suite left, to be succeeded by Lord Northcliffe, chief

proprietor of the London "Times," London "Daily Mail," and many other

British publications, who was commissioned by Lloyd-George to continue

the work Mr. Balfour had begun and to coordinate the ramifications

produced by extensive scope of the Allies' calls on American

industries for war equipment.

In the same direction the American Government consolidated its

energies in a War Industries Board, which it created to supervise the

expenditure of millions of dollars on equipping the American armies.

CHAPTER LXIX

IN IT AT LAST

The Administration decided to send an American expeditionary force to

France as an advance guard of the huge army in process of preparation.

Major General John J. Pershing was placed in command of this

expedition, which was believed to embrace an army division, a force of

the Marine Corps, and nine regiments of engineers. A veil of official

secrecy (religiously respected by the press in pursuance of the

voluntary censorship it imposed upon itself) was thrown over the

dispatch of the preliminary force, and nothing further was heard of it

until tidings came of the unheralded arrival of General Pershing in

England on June 8, 1917, and of the appearance of a number of American

warships off the French coast about the same time.

This latter event proved to be the safe arrival of a convoyed naval

collier, the _Jupiter_, which served as a harbinger of the fleet of

transports conveying the American troops. It carried a cargo of army

provisions, including over 10,000 tons of wheat.

The arrival of the first division of transports at an unnamed French

seaport was reported on June 26, 1917. They were signaled from the

deserted quays of the town at 6 o'clock in the morning, and as they

steamed toward port in a long line, according to an eloquent

eyewitness, they appeared a "veritable armada," whose black hulls

showed clearly against the horizon, while the gray outlines of their

escorting destroyers were almost blotted out in the lead-colored sea.

Dominating all was an enormous American cruiser with its peculiar

upper basket works. The warships went to their allotted moorings with

clockwork precision, while tugs took charge of the transports and

towed them to their berths. Resounding cheers were exchanged between

the troops which lined the rails of the incoming ships and the

populace which lined the quays.

The next day came a formal intimation from Paris that the first

expeditionary unit of American troops, in command of Major General

William L. Sibert, had safely reached their destination. Rear Admiral

Gleaves, commanding the destroyer force which accompanied the

transports, telegraphed the Navy Department to the same effect. But it

subsequently transpired that all had not been plain sailing in passing

through the submarine zone.

The expedition was divided into contingents, each contingent including

troopships and a naval escort designed to hold off any German raiders

that might be sighted. An ocean rendezvous had also been arranged with

the American destroyer flotilla under Admiral Sims, which had been

operating in European waters since May 4, 1917, in order that the

passage of the danger zone might be attended by every possible

protection. Frequent indications pointing to the presence of

submarines in the expedition's course were observed as the transports

neared European waters. The passage through the infested zone was

therefore made at high speed; the men were prepared for any emergency;

boats and life belts were at hand for instant use; and watches at

every lookout were heavily reenforced.

These precautions were timely and more than warranted. The first

contingent of transports was attacked twice by German U-boats. Admiral

Gleaves, describing these incidents in reporting to Admiral Mayo,

commander in chief of the Atlantic fleet, said the first attack was

made at 10.15 p. m. on June 22. The location, formation, and names of

the transports and the convoys, the speed they made, and the method

of proceeding, were suppressed in the account made public by the Navy

Department.

It appeared that the destroyers' flagship, which led the transport

fleet, was the first to encounter the submarine. At least the officer

on deck and others on the bridge saw a white streak about fifty yards

ahead of the ship, crossing from starboard to port at right angles to

the ship's course. The ship was sharply turned 90 degrees to starboard

at high speed, a general alarm was sounded, and torpedo crews were

ordered to their guns. One of the destroyers called _A_ and one of the

transports astern opened fire, the destroyer's shell being fitted with

tracers. Other members of the convoying destroyers turned to the right

and left. At first it was thought on board the flagship that the white

streak was caused by a torpedo, but later reports from other ships

warranted the conclusion that it was the wake of the submarine itself.

At 10.25 the wake of a torpedo was sighted directly across the bow of

the destroyer called _A_, about thirty yards ahead. The ship's course

was swung to the left, and shots were fired from port batteries in

alarm, accompanied by blasts from the siren. The destroyer then passed

through a wake believed to be from the passing submarine. A second

torpedo passed under the destroyer _A's_ stern ten minutes later.

Another destroyer known as _D_ was also the target of a torpedo which

passed it from starboard to port across the bow about forty yards

ahead of the ship, leaving a perceptible wake visible for about four

or five hundred yards.

The submarine sighted by the flagship immediately engaged the

attention of destroyer _B_. In fact it darted under the latter and

passed the flagship's bows, disappearing close aboard on the

flagship's port bow between the destroyer columns. The _B_ followed

the wake between the columns and reported strong indications of two

submarines astern, which grew fainter. The _B_ afterward guarded the

rear of the convoy.

So much for the ghostly movements of the submarine or submarines which

crossed the tracks of the first contingent of American transports on

the night of June 22. In the absence of more tangible proof of their

presence beyond that provided by white streaks and wakes on the sea

surface, the incident might well have been a false alarm. It only

occasioned much excitement and activity. But its interest lay in the

alertness of the destroyers to danger. The officers on board the

flotilla had no doubt at all that the danger was real. Admiral

Gleaves, indeed, saw circumstantial evidence of the menace in alluding

to a bulletin of the French General Staff which referred to the

activities of a German submarine off the Azores. This U-boat, the

bulletin said, was ordered to watch in the vicinity of those islands,

"at such a distance as it was supposed the enemy American convoy would

pass from the Azores."

The second contingent of transports, which arrived in France a week

later, had a similar experience, with the important difference that

their encounters with submarines took place in broad daylight, and

that the firing at one of them produced material traces of the enemy's

proximity. Two submarines were met on the morning of June 26, 1917,

one at 11.30, when the ships were about a hundred miles off the coast

of France, the other an hour later. The destroyer _H_, which was

leading, sighted the first U-boat, and the _I_ pursued the wake, but

without making any further discovery. The second episode was more

convincing of the actual presence of a submarine. The destroyer _J_

saw the bow wave of one at a distance of 1,500 yards and headed for it

at a rapid speed. The pointers at the destroyer's gun sighted its

periscope several times for several seconds; but it disappeared each

time before they could get their aim, which the zigzagging of the ship

impeded. Presently the _J_ passed about twenty-five yards ahead of a

mass of bubbles which obviously came from the submarine's wake. A deep

charge was fired just ahead of these bubbles. Several pieces of

timber, quantities of oil and debris then came to the surface. Nothing

more was seen of the submarine. There was plain evidence that it had

been sunk.

Two days later--on the morning of June 28, 1917, at 10 o'clock--the

destroyer _K_ opened fire at an object, about three hundred yards

ahead, which appeared to indicate a submarine. Admiral Gleaves

described it as a small object rising a foot or two high out of the

water, and leaving a small wake. Through binoculars he made out a

shape under the water, too large to be a blackfish, lying diagonally

across the _K's_ course. The port bow gun fired at the spot, and the

ship veered to leave the submarine's location astern. Then the port

aft gun crew reported sighting a submarine on the port quarter, and

opened fire. The lookouts also reported seeing the submarine under the

water's surface. The ship zigzagged and the firing continued. Not only

was the submarine seen but the lieutenant in charge of the firing on

the _K_ destroyer, as well as the gun crews and lookouts aft,

testified that it fired two torpedoes in the direction of the convoy.

The latter, however, had sheered off from its base course well to the

right when the alarm was sounded. The _K_ continued to zigzag until

all danger had passed, and duly joined the other escorts. The convoy

then formed into column astern.

No submarine ambuscades awaited the third group of transports. Their

voyage was quite uneventful. Apart from the probability that much of

the commotion marking the passage of the first and second contingents

might well have been due to groundless fears, the success of the

American expedition in safely landing in France registered Germany's

first defeat at the hands of the United States. It was her boast that

her submarines would never permit any American army to reach its

destination.

General Pershing was in Paris when the first transport contingent

arrived, and immediately set out for the French port to get in touch

with his troops. They were debarking in long lines when he arrived,

making their way to their temporary camp, which was situated on high

ground outside the town. Their debarkation signalized the actual

beginning of General Pershing's command in the European theater of war

of an army in being, as yet small, but composed of seasoned troops

from the Mexican border and marines from Haiti and Santo Domingo, all

fit and ready for immediate trench service. He had been greeted in

England as America's banner bearer, was immediately received by King

George on his arrival in London, while Paris accorded him, as London

did, the royal welcome which a sister democracy knows how to extend

to the representative of a democracy bound to the Anglo-French Entente

by the grimmest of ties. The landing of the vanguard of his army

disposed of further hospitalities and brought him squarely to the

business in hand, which was to get his troops in the fighting zone.

A section of the French battle front for eventual occupancy by the

American forces was early selected after General Pershing had

inspected the ground under the guidance of the British and French

military authorities. Its location, being a military secret, was not

disclosed. Meantime the troops were dispatched to training bases

established for affording them the fullest scope to become familiar

with trench operators. The bases also included aviation, artillery,

and medical camps. Further tidings of them thenceforth came from the

"American Training Camp in France," wherever that was. Toward the

close of July, 1917, actual intensive work was under way and pursued

with an enthusiasm which warranted hopes that the troops would soon

reach a stage of efficiency fitting them for the firing zone. Trenches

were dug with the same spirit as that animating soldiers digging

themselves in under artillery fire. The trenches were of full depth

and duplicated those of certain sections of the front line, consisting

of front or fire trenches, support trenches, and reserve trenches,

with intricate communicating passages between them.

The marines--those handy men who apply themselves to every service

in warfare, as to the manner born, whenever the occasion

requires--cheerfully bent their ardent energies to spade work, which

was probably a new task even for that many handed corps. Thereafter

they wired themselves in their trenches behind barriers of

barbed-metal entanglements.

All this intensive work was performed under conditions approximating

to actual warfare. Both offensive and defensive tactics were employed,

including lively sham battles with grenades, bayonets, and trench

mortars. For bayonet practice dummies were constructed and the men

were taught the six most vital points of attack. The troops were

entertained by stories telling how the French decorated and painted

their dummies to resemble the kaiser, Von Hindenburg, and other enemy

notables, and each company searched its ranks for artists who could

paint similar effigies.

Practice in trench warfare did not displace route marching. The

hardening process in that direction continued as part of the

operations. The men's packs increased in weight until they neared

fifty pounds. Duly the men would be equipped with steel helmets and an

extra kit, when their packs would weigh eighty pounds, like the burden

carried by the British troops. Accordingly the Americans were drilled

to bear this burden without undue fatigue. This was the stage American

operations in France had reached by the beginning of August, 1917.

Little was disclosed regarding naval movements--beyond the activities

of American destroyers, which were not only occupied in convoying

transports and passenger liners through the submarine zone, but

cooperated with British patrols in checking submarine destruction in

other lanes of travel. The British recognized them as a formidable

part of the grand Allied fleet.

As to the navy itself, its personnel was increased to 150,000 men.

Where the main American fleet was--whether with the British fleet at

the Orkneys, or stationed in some other zone--no event transpired to

give any clue. But patrol of the South Atlantic, as well as of the

American coast, was assumed by the Pacific coast fleet under Admiral

Caperton, the remaining French and British warships in those waters

acting under his authority.

Sea warfare conditions, outside the useful work of the American

destroyers provided by the German submarines, gave little scope for

naval operations, and it was assumed that the main American fleet,

like the British, was lying quiescent, with its finger on the trigger,

awaiting its opportunity. The Navy Department meantime busied itself

arming scores of American merchant vessels to brave the submarines,

and in carrying out an extensive building program, which included the

construction of hundreds of submarine chasers--a new type of swift,

powerfully armed small craft--as well as of many new destroyers.

PART IX--THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

CHAPTER LXX

FORESHADOWING REVOLUTION

Without danger of overstatement or exaggeration, it may be said that

the most dramatic feature of the Great War's history during the period

February-August, 1917, was the revolution in Russia. To outsiders,

acquainted with Russian conditions only superficially, it was

startlingly unexpected. A revolution, usually, is merely the climax of

a long series of events of quiet development, the result of a long

period of propaganda and preparation, based on gradually changing

economic conditions. The overthrow of the Russian autocracy seems to

have been an exception to this general rule--at least in part. For

even to close observers nothing seemed more dead than the

revolutionary organizations in Russia on the outbreak of the Great War

in the summer of 1914. To be sure, when the opportunity came, they

sprang into life again and were able to place themselves in control of

the situation. But the great climax certainly did not come about

through their conscious efforts.

For this reason a detailed description of the early revolutionary

movements directed against the czar's government is not necessary to a

thorough understanding of the events which so startled the world in

March, 1917. The causes which brought them about originated after the

outbreak of the war.

We were in the habit of describing the two great governments, that of

the German Empire and that of the Russian Empire, with the word

"autocracies." And in that each was, and one still is, controlled

absolutely by a small group of men, responsible to nobody but

themselves, this was true. Aside from that, no further comparison is

possible.

The German autocracy is the result of the conscious effort of highly

capable men who built and organized a system with thoughtful and

intelligent deliberation. With a deep knowledge of human psychology

and the conditions about them, they have guided their efforts with

extreme intelligence, knowing when to grant concessions, knowing how

to hold power without being oppressive.

The Russian autocracy was a survival of a former age, already growing

obsolete, rarely able to adapt itself to changing conditions, blindly

fighting to maintain itself in its complete integrity against them.

Change of any sort was undesirable to those controlling its machinery,

even though the change might indirectly benefit it. It had been

crystallized in a previous epoch, even as the tenets of its church

were the crystallized superstitions of a barbaric age. It was, in

fact, a venerable institution which certain men wished to perpetuate

not so much from self-interest as from a blind veneration for its age

and traditions. To them even the interests of the people were of far

less importance than the maintenance of this anachronism in its

absoluteness. Where the German rulers had the intelligence to divert

opposing forces and even to utilize them to their own benefit, the

Russian autocrats fought them and attempted to suppress them.

The chief of those forces which oppose autocracies are, naturally, the

growing intelligence of the people and the resulting knowledge of

conditions in other countries which they acquire. Realizing this fact,

at least, the Russian rulers were bitterly opposed to popular

education and made every effort to suppress the craving of the common

people for knowledge of any kind.

These facts considered, it is not surprising that the first

revolutionary movements in Russia should have been generated among the

educated classes, even among the aristocracy itself. As far back as a

century ago a revolutionary society was formed among the young army

officers who had participated in the Napoleonic Wars, and who, in

their contact with the French, imbibed some of the latters' democratic

ideas, though they were then fighting them. Failing in their efforts

to impregnate these ideas among the czar and his ruling clique, they

finally, in 1825, resorted to armed violence, with disastrous results.

Nicholas I had just ascended the throne, and with furious energy he

set about stamping out the disaffection which these officers had

spread in his army, and for the time being he was successful.

CHAPTER LXXI

THE RISE OF NIHILISM

The first agitators for democracy among the civil population were the

Nihilists, those long-haired, mysterious individuals whose

bomb-throwing propensities and dark plottings have furnished so many

Western fiction writers with material for romances. The Nihilists, so

well described as a type in Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," were the

sons and daughters of the landed aristocracy, the provincial gentry,

who went abroad and studied in foreign universities, or, studying at

home, imbibed revolutionary ideas through foreign literature. Coming

together in small groups, they began to formulate ideas of their own

especially adapted to Russian conditions. At first these ideas were of

a nonpolitical character and extremely abstract. They wished to go

among the ignorant peasants and educate them in the Western sciences.

"Going among the people" was a phrase among them which assumed the

significance of a program. But with its antipathy toward all forms of

learning the Government soon showed its determination to suppress all

these efforts at educating the common people, and the youthful

agitators were arrested and thrown into prison by the hundreds.

As a matter of fact their abstract ideas had made little impression on

the ignorant mujiks, and had the Government ignored the Nihilists it

is probable that their organization would have died a natural death

from lack of success. But the opposition of the police only roused the

fighting spirit of the young aristocrats, and they not only became

more enthusiastic, but added recruits to their ranks more than enough

in numbers to fill the gaps made by those in prison. The persecution

by the police, furthermore, forced them to make a secret organization

of their loosely knit groups, and this too fired the romantic

imaginations of the young people.

The fight between the agitators and the police waxed stronger and more

bitter. Then one day all Russia was shocked by the news that a

Petrograd police chief had had a young woman in prison as a Nihilist

suspect disrobed and flogged.

Hitherto the Nihilists had been entirely peaceful in their methods;

violence had formed no part of their tactics. The indignation roused

within their ranks by the outrage to the young woman resulted in a

change. They decided to instill terror into the hearts of the

Government officials by a systematic policy of assassination, whereby

the most oppressive of the officials should be removed from their

field of activity by death. The first of these assassinations, not

quite successful, took place in Kiev in 1878. From then on violence on

both sides increased and the bitterness intensified until in 1881 it

culminated in the assassination of Alexander II. This so enraged the

Government officials and vitalized their energy that soon after all

the most active Nihilists had been captured or driven abroad, and for

some years there came a lull in the agitation for democracy in Russia.

But it was, after all, lack of success which had killed Nihilism

rather than the violent measures of the Government. Practically all of

the Nihilists had imbibed the radical doctrines of Karl Marx and

Michael Bakunin, especially those of the latter, himself a Russian and

more inclined toward violent anarchism than toward political

socialism. These doctrines were far too abstruse for the untutored and

practical minds of the peasants, and in most cases they had shown

animosity rather than sympathy toward the agitators.

Yet the Nihilist doctrines and program formed the basis for later

efforts toward creating a revolutionary spirit among the Russian

people. To this day the few surviving Nihilists of the early days,

notably Katherine Breshkovskaya, "the grandmother of the Russian

Revolution," are venerated by the people as the last representatives

of the heroic age.

It was not until the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth

century, after the succession of Nicholas II to the throne in 1894,

that revolutionary organization was revived in Russia. These modern

efforts were concentrated into two forms of organization. The largest

of these was the Social Democratic party, whose program consisted

mainly of organizing the working people in the large cities and

industrial centers. Its leaders were made up largely of recruits from

the educated middle classes and from the Jewish elements.

Second in size, though quite as important in influence, was the Social

Revolutionary organization. Though smaller in regard to membership,

its leaders and most active members were those same students from the

aristocratic classes which had made up the Nihilist groups. It was

interested in injecting its doctrines into the peasantry, rather than

propagating them among the working classes. And a certain branch of

the organization, known as the Fighting Branch, still practiced

assassination as a means to gaining its ends. As a result of its

activities some of the highest officials of the Government and the

most important dignitaries of the ruling clique lost their lives.

CHAPTER LXXII

REVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINES

As members of both these organizations are at present in power in

revolutionary Russia, it may be quite appropriate to enunciate their

fundamental principles.

The Russian Social Democrats, together with all the Socialist parties

of the world, stand for a democracy that shall be economic or

industrial as well as political. They contend that a nation, such as

the United States, which is democratic in its political organization,

but whose industries and natural resources are in private hands, is

democratic only in appearance. They stand for the socialized state

which, being controlled by the universal suffrage of its people, shall

in its turn own and control the natural resources and the industries

through which the people are supplied with their daily needs. Their

first aim is to gain control of the political machinery of the state,

then reorganize industry on a socialistic basis.

The aims of the Social Revolutionists are not so easily defined, for

the reason that there is more diversity of opinion among the

membership. Most of them are undoubtedly Socialists, and many again

are Anarchists of the Kropotkin school. Temperamentally the Russian is

much more an Anarchist than a State Socialist, more an individualist

than a collectivist. It is the Jewish element which gives the Social

Democrats their numerical superiority. As compared to the Social

Democrat it may be said that the Social Revolutionist, taking the

average, is opposed to the strongly centralized state and bases his

scheme of reconstruction on the local autonomy of the small community.

It is the same difference that may be found, or is supposed to exist,

between the principles of the Republican and the Democratic parties of

the United States. The Social Revolutionist is the Democrat of

Socialistic Russia; the Social Democrat is the Republican.

The failure of the war with Japan proved a strong stimulus to the

revolutionary movements in Russia. In fact, their activities compelled

the Government to conclude a peace when further hostilities might

have brought about the defeat of the Japanese. To bring this domestic

unrest to a head before it should gain too wide a volume, the

Government sent its own agitators among the workingmen and incited

them to make demonstrations and other forms of disturbance, which

should serve the police as a pretext for violent suppression. The

first of these demonstrations occurred on January 21, 1905, a date

which remains in: scribed in the pages of Russian history as "Red

Sunday." The workingmen, some thousands in number, were led by Father

Capon, a priest, who was at least under the influence of the

Government, if not in its pay. Against the wishes of the Social

Democrats, with whom his organization cooperated, he decided to lead a

great army of his followers to the gates of the palace and petition

the czar for constitutional government. When the unarmed demonstrators

arrived at the palace they were shot down by the hundreds and trampled

into the mud by the hoofs of the cavalry horses.

The outrage stirred the Russian people profoundly. The revolutionary

elements now began to act in earnest, though they were not quite as

prepared as they had wished to be. A general strike was organized, and

so effectively was it maintained that the czar and his clique promised

the people a constitution. But when the strike had been called off and

the disturbances subsided, it soon became evident that the promises

were not to be fulfilled. More than that, the police now began such a

series of repressive measures that again the fires on the revolution

were lighted. Most notable of these was the uprising in Moscow in

December, 1905, when the people and the soldiers fought bloody battles

in the streets. But the revolutionary forces lacked proper

organization, and were finally crushed. Of all the promises which had

been made only the Duma remained, amounting to little more than a

debating club with absolutely no independent legislative power.

The first Duma at least served to give some conception of the coloring

of public opinion in Russia. The majority of the deputies belonged to

the Constitutional Democrats, a political party which appeared and

represented the moderate progressives, those who wished a

constitutional monarchy and progressive reforms. Their leader was

Paul Milukov, a professor in the University of Moscow and at one time

professor in the University of Chicago.

The Duma, though the restrictive election laws had minimized the

revolutionary elements within it, clamored for the promised reforms

until it was finally dissolved by the Government. A number of deputies

went to Finland and there issued a manifesto with the object of

rousing a general demonstration, but without success. The second Duma

proved quite as progressive as the first and was also dissolved

arbitrarily. Then the electoral laws were made still more restrictive,

so that the landed nobility and the clergy should be more represented.

The third Duma, as a result, proved quite innocuous, and for five

years it sat, never attempting to initiate any changes, attracting

very little attention.

During this period reaction regained all its former ascendency, within

the Social Revolutionary organization it was discovered that the chief

of the fighting organization, Eugene Azev, was nothing more than the

paid agent of the secret police and that he had been delivering the

members of the organization into the hands of his masters as they

proved themselves most dangerous. The agent through whom the exposure

had been made, by an ex-police chief, was an obscure Russian

journalist, Vladimir Bourtsev, who at once rose to international

prominence as the "Sherlock Holmes of the Russian Revolution." To

maintain his reputation he began with much publicity further

investigations and discovered a great number of smaller-fry spies in

the organization, with the result that all mutual confidence of the

members was broken and the organization went completely to pieces.

After this, 1907, little more was heard in foreign countries of

Russian revolution. Within Russia itself the university students who

had formed the best material for the working committees turned their

energies in other directions, degenerating into the notorious

"candle-light clubs" and other somewhat depraved practices with free

love as a basis.

Nor had anything occurred to revive the hopes of the friends of

Russian freedom when hostilities broke out between Russia and Germany

in 1914, and the greatest of all wars was precipitated. Certainly not

within revolutionary circles. Among the peasantry and the working

classes, indeed, and of spontaneous origin, there had appeared a great

economic movement, more directly revolutionary in character than the

more picturesque terrorist organizations. This was the cooperative

societies. In the towns and cities and the industrial centers they

took the form of consumers' organizations in which the people combined

their purchasing power and conducted their own stores for the supply

of their daily needs. These local societies again federated into the

Moscow Wholesale Society, which purchased in bulk for its

constituents. In the rural districts the peasants organized for the

purpose of marketing their produce jointly; this form of cooperation

was especially marked in Siberia among the dairy farmers. Then there

were the credit societies, cooperative banks which federated in the

Moscow Narodni (People's) Bank, and so had millions of rubles at its

disposal with which to finance more cooperative organizations. All

these societies were much restricted by the police, but they gained

enough headway to play an important part in the economic life of the

nation after the outbreak of hostilities and to become a big element

in the final revolutionary movement.

Closely akin to the cooperatives, and of much older origin, were the

Zemstvos. These local governing organizations were established in 1864

by Alexander II to satisfy the desire of the peasants to express

themselves in local politics. The local Zemstvo is charged with the

administration of education, sanitation, medical relief for the poor,

maintenance of highways, and other local matters outside the sphere

of the central government. Naturally the Zemstvo was not intrusted

with any power that was likely to prove dangerous to the Petrograd

Government, but as the members were elected by popular suffrage,

restricted by certain qualifications demanding the ownership of

property on the part of the electors. The Zemstvos proved highly

effective training schools in which the peasants could learn

self-government and parliamentary procedure. The local Zemstvos, like

the cooperative societies, federated into district Zemstvos, which

sometimes had the control of large affairs on their hands.

CHAPTER LXXIII

RUSSIAN WAR SPIRIT AROUSED

With the declaration of war against Germany, slumbering Russia seemed

suddenly to awaken, and elements which had hitherto been antagonistic

joined together for the common purpose of repelling the German

invasion. Keenly patriotic, even to the point of fanaticism, in spite

of his ready acceptance of radical doctrines, the Russian is ever

ready to present a solid front against outside interference. Thus it

was that when the war began revolutionists who had fled from Russia,

or who had been exiled abroad, flocked home in great numbers and

offered their services to the autocracy to fight the Germans. Never

has Russia shown such unanimity of spirit and such solidarity of

purpose. The Japanese War had been so plainly one of aggression, and

in so distant a part of the world, that this same spirit had not been

manifested in 1904. But now the Germans, always hated by the Slavs,

were actually crossing the Russian frontier, close to the national

capital. All Russia rallied to the call for action. As a matter of

fact, it was the Russian autocracy itself which presently began

realizing that it had unintentionally and illogically arrayed itself

on the side of the forces which it had always fought, as the

revolutionary elements in Russia also presently began realizing that

they had followed their truest instincts in supporting the war against

Germany.

For within a few weeks after the outbreak of hostilities the war

assumed an entirely different character. In its first aspect it was a

quarrel between various autocracies over greed for influence and

territory. The Russian autocracy went into the fight because of its

pretensions in the Balkans. Then France and Great Britain, the two big

democracies of Europe, threw themselves into the conflict. They fought

to oppose the ambition of the German rulers to Prussianize the whole

of Europe. It soon became obvious that the Teutonic Powers wanted

something of immensely more importance than territorial gains in

Serbia; they wanted to become the masters of all Europe. And so the

initial character of the war changed within a few weeks: it developed

into a conflict between international democracy on the one hand and

international autocracy on the other hand. It was then when the

question of Serbia sank into comparative insignificance that the

Russian autocrats realized that they had enlisted on the wrong side.

But with the whole populace of the country enthusiastically united

behind it, the Government was swept onward; it was too late to make an

abrupt change of front.

Undoubtedly all the members of the ruling class of Russia realized

this fact. But in full justice to them it must be said that the large

majority of them, those who previously had supported the Government

against the revolutionary and progressive elements, decided to accept

the situation and support the war against Germany to a finish,

whatever the results might be in internal affairs after the war.

Within the governing clique, comprising some of the most influential

individuals, was a small group, later known as "the dark forces,"

which quickly came to the conclusion that democracy must be defeated

at all costs.

First of all came the czar himself. Nicholas, however, played a very

small figure as a personality in all the later intrigues. Weak of

character, almost to the point of being mentally defective, he

reflected only the personalities of those about him. Yet he was by

blood seven-eighths German.

Next came the czarina, entirely German, with not a drop of Russian

blood. Of a stronger personality, though scarcely more intelligent,

she formed the real power behind the throne, in so far as direct

control was concentrated in any one person. By persons of more

intelligence than herself she could be used in manipulating the will

of the czar to their own purposes. Behind her, or rather to one side

of her, stood a group of the Russian nobility of German origin,

descendants of the courtiers and officials brought into Russian court

circles by the German wives of Russian czars. These still retained

enough of their German sympathies to counteract any consideration they

might otherwise have felt for the interests of Russia itself,

especially as this was further strengthened by their realization that

the defeat of Germany would also mean the doom of Russian autocracy,

of which they were a part.

CHAPTER LXXIV

RASPUTIN, THE EVIL SPIRIT OF RUSSIA

The dominating figure of this dark circle of pro-Germans within the

Russian court was the monk Rasputin--Rasputin the peasant, the

picturesque, the intriguing, the evil medium through which the agents

of Germany manipulated the Russian Government toward their own ends,

the interests of the German autocracy. Such a figure could have played

a part in no other than a court of Oriental pattern, and such the

Russian court was.

Gregory Novikh was a Siberian by birth, the son of a common,

illiterate mujik, as illiterate and as ignorant as his father. Early

in life, while still a common fisherman, he showed abnormal qualities.

Degenerate, unrestrained in all his appetites, he possessed a magnetic

personality sometimes found in persons of that type. It was said that

no woman, even of the highest culture and quality, could resist his

advances. So loose was his behavior that he acquired the nickname of

Rasputin, which means a rake, a person of bad morals. And by this name

he gradually became notorious all over the land.

From fishing Rasputin turned toward easier ways of making a living.

He became an itinerant monk, a holy man, a mystic. A role he was able

to play on account of his peculiar hypnotic powers. As a religious

fakir he acquired influence over women of high degree, though his

manners were coarse and his person was decidedly unclean.

Eventually Rasputin made the acquaintance of Madame Virubova, the

favorite lady-in-waiting of the czarina. With the credulity of a

superstitious woman of her class, the czarina was a patroness of many

occult cults and had a firm belief in the influence of invisible

spirits. Rasputin was presented to her by the lady-in-waiting as an

occult healer and a person of great mystic powers. Immediately he was

asked to show his powers on the young czarevitch, Alexis, heir to the

throne, who was constitutionally weak and at that moment was suffering

especially from attacks of heart weakness. Rasputin immediately

relieved the sufferings of the child and so permanently established

himself with the czarina and even with the czar. As has been explained

since, Madame Virubova had previously administered a drug to the young

czarevitch, and by applying the antidote Rasputin had obtained

immediate results. Whether this story be true, or whether Rasputin

really did possess those peculiar healing powers which certain

abnormal persons undoubtedly do possess, the fact was that he remained

in court as a permanent attachment and acquired an influence there

which was equaled by no other person. He became, in actual fact, the

real ruler of all the Russias, for the prime minister who incurred his

displeasure did not long remain in power. Such a man, naturally, would

have many enemies, even within court circles, and efforts were made to

bring about the downfall of Rasputin. Once his enemies did actually

succeed in having him expelled from Petrograd for a while, but

immediately the czarevitch became critically ill and during his

absence the czarina was almost continuously hysterical. Again he was

invited back to court and then he set about building up his influence

into a political machine that was never again to be broken, even after

his death, until it became necessary for the reactionaries themselves

to help destroy the autocracy itself in order to purge Russia of the

spirit of Rasputin.

Rasputin, not the revolutionary movement, brought about the downfall

of czarism.

Yet up until after the outbreak of the war Rasputin had been

intelligent enough to refrain from interfering in matters of state

importance. His influence had thus far been wielded only to secure his

own position. Perhaps his keen instincts, rather than his

intelligence, warned him against too deep an interference in political

matters. To this self-restraint he owed his long continuance in power,

for though the situation was well known all over Russia, it was

regarded rather in the light of a joke. Rasputin's power was

underestimated, perhaps; he was more or less regarded as the pet

poodle of the czarina.

It was after the war that he suddenly changed his attitude. He was one

of the first to realize the danger to the autocracy that a German

defeat would mean; that the Russian court was ranged against the

forces which would perpetuate it. Whether it was this realization

which determined Rasputin to wield his powerful influence in favor of

Prussianism, or whether he had been bought by German gold, the fact

remains that he became the central figure about which revolved all

those "dark forces" which were working for either a separate peace

with Germany or the utter military defeat of Russia in the war. In

this object Rasputin and his allies nearly succeeded. It was to avert

this that practically all the social elements, both liberal and

reactionary, united with the revolutionists in overturning czarism.

What the plans of the dark forces were during the first year of the

war cannot now of course be definitely known. Perhaps they realized

that the utter inefficiency of the Russian autocracy would soon decide

the issue on the eastern front. And had there not appeared other

elements to guide and support the Russian soldiers at the front,

Russia would undoubtedly have been overrun by the German-Austrian

armies before the end of the first year.

But the patriotic enthusiasm which German aggression had awakened

also brought into life powerful social organizations created for the

purpose of supporting the army in its fight against the Germans. Five

days after war was declared a congress of all the Zemstvos met in

Moscow and organized the Russian Union of Zemstvos. A Central

Committee was appointed and, with almost unlimited funds at its

disposal, raised through subscriptions, set to work to supplement the

work of the Red Cross and the commissary department of the army, both

of which were obviously unable to meet the needs of the situation.

This organization practically took the place of the two other

departments of the Government, establishing hundreds of hospitals and

supplying their equipment, caring for the wounded soldiers, supplying

the soldiers at the front not only with their necessities, but with

tobacco, bathing facilities, laundries, and many other minor luxuries.

During the first two years of the war the Central Committee disbursed

over half a billion dollars. At the head of this organization,

democratic in form, as its president was Prince George Lvov, who was

later destined to play an important part in the organization of the

revolutionary government.

Another spontaneous and democratic organization which came into

existence to support the army against the Germans was the Union of

Towns, representing 474 municipalities in Russia and Siberia. It, too,

carried on a work similar to that of the Zemstvos, raising and

spending vast sums of money. Then came the cooperative societies,

supplying the army with food. In the towns and cities the consumers'

societies combated the intrigues of the food speculators, which were

even more active in Russia than they are in this country, and

stabilized prices. In some of the cities the local municipal

administrations turned over the whole problem of food supply to the

local cooperatives, doing nothing more than foot the bills. During the

war the membership of these societies rose to thirteen million. They,

too, were democratic in form.

It would seem that the Government could have done no less than accept

the cooperation of these social organizations thankfully and done all

in its power not to handicap them in their efforts. But this did not

happen. On the contrary, from the beginning they were hampered as

though they were dangerous revolutionary organizations. This policy

became even more pronounced later on, when the success of the Allies

made the dark forces desperate.

CHAPTER LXXV

TREACHERY OF THE AUTOCRACY

On the outbreak of the war the premier was Ivan L. Goremykin, a

typical autocrat, who had served under four czars, and who was now

well past seventy. As though utterly unconscious of the war situation,

he carried his administration on as he had done previous to the war.

First of all, he began a determined campaign of persecution of the

Jews, at a moment when the most violent anti-Semites would be

irritated by such a course. He even went so far as to have a number of

pogroms perpetrated and he spread persistent rumors that the Jews were

betraying the cause of Russia, in spite of the fact that they were

playing a leading part in the social organizations and were more than

proportionately represented in the army. Then he instituted similar

persecution among the Ruthenians and the Poles, and when Galicia was

occupied by the Russian military forces Goremykin sent there a number

of petty officials whom he instructed to make the inhabitants into

Russians according to old methods. Then when the commander in chief,

Grand Duke Nicholas, issued his manifesto promising the Poles liberty,

the Goremykin ministry completely ignored the promise. And finally, a

number of political refugees, who had returned from abroad to offer

their services, either in the army or in the social organizations,

were imprisoned or sent to Siberia.

Even the reactionaries who had previously supported all that the

Government stood for were indignant. This feeling became most manifest

in the Duma. In 1914 the Duma had been a reactionary body, the

majority of the deputies being in favor of trusting entirely to the

Government. In August, 1915, a most astonishing thing happened, the

Duma, with a large majority, which included Conservatives, Liberals

and Radicals alike, drew up a demand for a series of reforms,

including the institution of a cabinet responsible to the people

through itself. Another demand was for a general amnesty for all

political prisoners. This was the famous Progressive Bloc. Goremykin

refused even to discuss the program. Instead, he hurried to the czar

to get his signature to a decree proroguing the Duma, in which he

succeeded. The result was that the whole population rose in

threatening revolution, and this time the threat was not from the

revolutionary elements. Even former leaders of the Black Hundreds were

among the protestants. It was then that Rodzianko, the president of

the Duma, addressed a letter to the premier, placing the

responsibility of Russia's recent defeats squarely on him and added:

"You are obviously too old to possess the vigor to deal with so

difficult a situation. Be man enough to resign and make way for some

younger and more capable man." Then Goremykin resigned.

But the change was for the worse, rather than for the better, for the

next premier was a close friend and associate of Rasputin, a younger

man, to be sure, and more capable, but whose capabilities were to be

turned in the wrong direction. Boris Sturmer, a German by blood and

sympathies, former governor of Tver, one of the blackest of

reactionaries, was appointed to fill the vacant premiership.

Sturmer, where his predecessor had perhaps been merely incompetent,

now set about consciously to make a separate peace with Germany, and

this object he hardly took the trouble to hide. Through the censorship

he suppressed the loyal press and encouraged a number of papers which

openly denounced Russia's allies and demanded a separate peace with

the kaiser. Then he sent agents to Switzerland, there to confer with

representatives of the German Government, so openly that it was known

all over Russia, even among the peasants, that a separate peace was

being prepared.

CHAPTER LXXVI

PARTY INTRIGUES

Again the popular protest checked the machinations of the dark forces.

Then Sturmer turned deliberately to suppress the democratic

organizations. Early in 1916 he issued an order forbidding any of

these societies, which were keeping the armies in the field, from

holding meetings. Next the headquarters of all these organizations

were placed in charge of the police. And then came the removal from

the Cabinet of Sazonov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the one man

in whose loyalty to Russia the people had confidence. Sazonov had

always been a keen admirer of the British and the French, and was in

close touch with the embassies of these countries in Petrograd. To the

Russians he had seemed at least some sort of a guarantee against being

surprised with a sudden separate peace. Nor can there be any doubt

that he was a serious obstacle in the way of the dark forces in their

efforts to bring about their object. Sazonov's removal acquired still

deeper significance when it was announced that Sturmer himself would

take charge of foreign affairs, business of which he had absolutely no

experience.

Of a deep significance, though this was not obvious at the time, was

the appointment of Alexander D. Protopopoff as Minister of the

Interior. This was the man who was finally to kick aside the last

wedge shoring up the tottering walls of the Russian autocracy.

Protopopoff, who had for the first time entered politics in 1908,

being a cloth manufacturer of Simbirsk, was in that year elected a

deputy to the Duma by the moderate Octobrists, a conservative body

which usually sided with the Government. But when the Octobrists

joined the Progressive Bloc against the Government, Protopopoff had

shown himself quite radical and supported it. Quite unexpectedly, by

the resignation of a vice president of the Duma, he rose to prominence

by being elected to the vacant office. In the summer of 1916 he was

one of a delegation which visited England, France, and Italy. On his

return to Russia, through Stockholm, he there met and held a

conversation with a German agent, but at the time, though the matter

was taken up by the Duma for investigation, he managed to exonerate

himself. But, as became known, the incident caused him to attract the

attention of Rasputin, and he and the court favorite came together and

to an understanding. The result was his appointment to the cabinet.

At first it was hoped that Protopopoff would prove the sign of

surrender of the autocracy; that a liberal element was to be

introduced into the administration through him. But the new minister

showed himself in close harmony with Sturmer, and presently this last

hope was destroyed.

With Protopopoff a new idea was introduced into the Government. It was

he undoubtedly who conceived the idea of staging a revolution in

Russia, of creating or precipitating a premature uprising, as had been

done so successfully in 1905, but for a different purpose. The idea

now was to create such internal disorders as to give the Government a

pretext for making separate peace with the Central Powers. This might

deceive everybody; the revolutionary elements, which would be used as

the medium for the disorder, and the liberals and conservatives who

were now strongly anti-Government. In the midst of the turmoil the

separate peace could be effected; then the soldiers could be recalled

from the front and used in suppressing the revolution, a task that

could be easily accomplished with the vast number of men under arms.

As was later to be demonstrated, the dark forces did not reckon with

the psychological changes which the army was also undergoing.

Mysterious placards now began to appear in the factories and munition

shops calling on the workingmen to go out on strike and organize

demonstrations. Police agents, disguised as workingmen, went into the

industrial plants and began to preach revolution. It was easy enough

to utilize Socialist philosophy for this purpose. Why should the

workers of Russia fight the workers of Germany, when their interests

were identical? Why should they shed their blood for the ruling

classes, when the ruling classes were the only ones who could gain

through the war? The German Socialists were even then rising against

their masters; the Russian Socialists were urged to do likewise and so

join their German comrades in paving the way to the cooperative

commonwealth.

Fortunately the Social Democratic party had already issued a detailed

manifesto explaining why the Russian Socialists should stand by the

war. The genuine leaders of the Socialists should [see TN] the labor

organizations realized immediately the policy which the dark forces

were initiating. For once they came together with the liberals and

even with the conservative elements, and prepared to combat this

underhanded propaganda. Placards were posted and proclamations were

issued by the real leaders denouncing the impostors and explaining

their tactics. This underground fight among the laboring classes was

of long duration, however. In instituting this policy the dark forces

were indeed playing with the fire which was eventually to consume

them.

Throughout the war the food supply had been very bad, not on account

of any real scarcity of foodstuffs, but because of the inefficient

handling of the inadequate transportation facilities. In some

localities provisions rotted in the warehouses while in the large

cities the people were starving, on the verge of famine. Instead of

handling the food situation as the other belligerent countries were

doing, Sturmer encouraged a group of dishonest financiers to acquire

control of the food supplies, thereby making big financial profits

himself. This greediness on his part was, however, to cause his own

downfall before that of his associates. A traitor to his country, he

was also a thief.

CHAPTER LXXVII

THE WORK OF TRAITORS

Such were the tactics the dark forces had fully adopted in the fall of

1916, only a few months before the revolution. They deliberately set

about disorganizing the machinery of the nation to facilitate a

Russian defeat. As has been proved, they did not stop short of actual

treachery in the military field. The failure of the Rumanian defense

was the result of actual betrayal by those higher even than the

generals in the field. The Germans and Austrians had known every

detail of the campaign plans of the Rumanians and the Russian army

supporting them, and this information they had obtained directly from

Petrograd.

Had it not been for the fact that the whole nation was awaiting the

opening of the Duma to take place on November 14, 1916, it is more

than probable that the revolution would have taken place in the fall

of 1916 instead of four months later. It would then, however, have

been a far bloodier event, for then the disintegration of the

autocracy had not yet reached such a complete stage as it did in the

following spring, and it might have offered a far more serious,

perhaps a successful, resistance. But the last hope of the people was

in the Duma, and they awaited its session in that spirit.

The Duma convened on the date set, and then was witnessed the

remarkable spectacle of the conservative members denouncing the

Government with the fiery oratory of Socialist agitators. The

president himself, Michael Rodzianko, who hitherto had always been a

stanch supporter of the autocracy, being a prosperous landowner and

the father of two officers in a crack regiment, arraigned Sturmer as

once he had arraigned the revolutionary agitators. But it was left to

Professor Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, to

create the sensation of the meeting. He not only denounced Sturmer as

a politician, but he produced the evidence which proved beyond a doubt

that Sturmer was receiving bribes from the food speculators; the

specific case he brought up showed that Sturmer, through his

secretary, had offered to shield certain bankers under indictment for

a substantial consideration. Sturmer immediately took steps to

dissolve the Duma. But the czar, whose signature he needed, was at the

front. For the moment he was delayed.

During this interval another sensation occurred. General Shuvaiev,

Minister of War, and Admiral Grigorovitch, Minister of Marine,

appeared in the Duma, and declared themselves on the side of the Duma

and the people. This settled the fate of Sturmer. On his way to the

front to procure the signature of the czar to the proclamation

dissolving the Duma he was handed his dismissal.

His successor was Alexander Trepov, also an old-time bureaucrat, but

known not to be affiliated with the dark forces. It was hoped that he

would conciliate the angry people. But Trepov never played an

important part in later developments; the fight was now between the

Duma and the people on the one hand and the Minister of the Interior,

Protopopoff, on the other. This battle now began in earnest and was

destined to be fought out to a bitter finish.

With a brazen fearlessness which must be credited to him, Protopopoff

now arraigned himself openly against the whole nation and the Duma,

with only the few hundreds of individuals constituting the dark forces

behind him. But these sinister forces included Rasputin, the

all-powerful, the czarina, and, unconscious though he himself may have

been of the part he played, the czar himself.

Protopopoff now began persecuting the members and the leaders of the

social forces as though they were the veriest street agitators for

Socialism. Next he endeavored to have Paul Milukov assassinated, but

the assassin repented at the last moment and revealed the plot. Then

he gathered together former members of the Black Hundreds and

recruited them into the police force and trained them in machine-gun

practice. And finally he renewed the energy with which he had begun to

organize revolutionary disorders among the workers.

All Russia was against him, even to the great majority of the members

of the Imperial family. His own mother had warned the czar that

disaster threatened him. As early as December, 1916, the Grand Duke

Nicholas Michailovitch had held a long interview with the czar in

which he had openly denounced the czarina and Rasputin in such strong

terms that when he had finished, having realized he had gone extremely

far, he remarked:

"And now you may call in your Cossacks and have them kill me and bury

me in the garden." In reply the czar only smiled and offered the grand

duke a light for the cigarette which he had been fingering in his

nervous rage. It was by a member of the Imperial family that the first

vital blow was struck at the dark forces. In the early morning hours

of December 30, 1916, a dramatic climax was precipitated.

It was then that a group of men drove up in two motor cars to the

residence of Prince Felix Yusupov, a member of the Imperial family

through his having married a cousin of the czar. Among the men in the

two cars were Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, ex-Minister of the

Interior, A. N. Khvostov, also an ex-Minister of the Interior, and

Vladimir Purishkevitch, at one time a notorious leader of Black

Hundred organizations, but since the beginning of the war an active

worker in the social organizations and a deputy in the Duma, where he

formed one of the Progressive Bloc.

A few minutes later the policeman on duty in the neighborhood heard

shots within the house and cries of distress. On making an

investigation he obtained no satisfaction, nor did he dare to continue

his inquiry on account of the high rank of the owner of the house.

Again the men came out of the house and carried between them a large

bundle resembling a human form, which they hustled into one of the

automobiles and rode off.

Next morning blood spots were found in the street where the motor cars

had stood. Then a hole was discovered in the ice covering the river

Neva, beside which were found two bloody goloshes. Further search

revealed a human body, which proved to be the corpse of no less a

person than the notorious monk Rasputin himself.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

THREATENING OF THE STORM

Thus was Rasputin finally removed from his sphere of evil influence by

men who before the war had been of the very inner circles of the

autocracy, but who had gradually undergone a great change of opinion.

They believed that even the autocracy itself was only secondary in

importance to Russia herself, and they had taken it upon themselves,

after doing all in their power to circumvent the traitors through

legitimate means, to remove the archconspirator as such creatures

usually were removed in the days when they were more common. Rasputin

had been lured to the house of Prince Felix and there killed.

It was said that the czarina was hysterical for days after the

sensational news had swept over all Russia and Protopopoff fainted

upon being informed of the death of his dark ally and master. The

czar, who was at headquarters at the front, hurried home to Tsarskoe

Selo. And then, as though to insult the nation, the dead mujik was

buried with such pomp as was accorded only to members of the Imperial

family, the emperor and Protopopoff being among the pallbearers.

The people treated the event as though it were a great military

victory, rejoicing unrestrainedly. The premier, Trepov, who though a

mere figurehead, was still loyal to Russia and secretly an enemy of

Rasputin and Protopopoff, allowed all the details of the assassination

to be published in the papers, even to the names of those concerned in

the actual killing. These latter were of too high a rank to be

punished, besides which popular sentiment stood solidly behind them.

Trepov himself did not prosecute them because of his sympathy with

their deed.

Now that Rasputin, the undoubted leader and master mind of the dark

forces was dead, there was universal hope that the pro-German

conspiracy was killed with him. But the machine he had built up for

his own protection and medium through which to accomplish his ends was

too well organized to be broken even by his removal. Into Rasputin's

place stepped Protopopoff. He maintained his hold over the czar by

means of spiritualistic seances in which he pretended to have

communication with the spirit of the dead monk. The conspiracy

continued unabated, only now Protopopoff worked with the fury of

desperation. And so the crisis soon came to a head.

All Russia, save for the small palace group, was against him. At the

new year reception held in the palace he was most severely humiliated

by Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, who, when Protopopoff

approached him with extended hand, swung his back to him, causing a

sensation all over the country. At another time, when he entered the

rooms of the aristocratic club in Petrograd, of which he was a member,

all the other members present walked out. Yet he had the courage of

his evil convictions; with the desperate fury of a tortured bull in

the ring he faced all his enemies and continued on his path, the whole

nation against him.

Trepov, who had shown his sympathy for the executioners of Rasputin,

was removed. So were the Ministers of War and Marine, who had declared

themselves for the people. Black reactionaries and pro-Germans were

placed in their posts. Then he began arresting all the labor leaders

who were agitating against strikes and demonstrations and in favor of

prosecuting the war, leaving his own hirelings, who were preaching

strikes and revolution, to continue their efforts unharmed. This was

about the most obviously significant act he had yet committed. Then

the food-supply trains arriving daily in Petrograd were deliberately

halted in the provinces and the population drifted on to the verge of

actual famine.

Then Protopopoff's efforts, in the early days of March, 1917, began to

bear fruit. In spite of the warnings of the few loyal labor leaders

still at liberty, the workers began to grumble and to talk revolt.

Their stomachs were empty. On February 27, 1917, when the Duma went

into session again, 300,000 workingmen had gone out on strike in

Petrograd. The air was charged with electricity. Everybody realized

that the critical moment was approaching: the final battle between the

dark forces and the people.

On March 1, 1917, the only two leaders of the labor organizations

which supported the Duma issued an appeal exhorting the workers to

return to work.

And this appeal in favor of order and law was censored by the

Government.

Further proof of the treachery of Protopopoff were not needed; this

was the most convincing which had yet appeared.

During the first week of March, 1917, the unrest among the populace

continued growing, and the Duma and the labor leaders felt themselves

regarding the situation helplessly. Small riots occurred and martial

law was immediately declared. Food was so scarce that even the wealthy

were starving.

But Protopopoff had made one mistake: he was also starving the troops

garrisoning Petrograd.

On March 9, 1917, the street railways ceased running on account of a

strike of the street railway men. The streets were full of excited

crowds, though as yet no violence had been committed. Cossacks and

soldiers also patrolled the thoroughfares, while squads of police were

on the housetops, covering the street corners with machine guns.

Protopopoff wanted revolution, but he did not mean to allow it to

succeed. All he wanted was a few days of violent disorder, a prolonged

Red Sunday, during which a separate peace with Germany and Austria

might be proclaimed.