Germany, The Next Republic? Part 4

"The Chancellor is extremely desirous of placing Germany on record as an observer of international law as regards sea warfare, and in this case will win his demand that submarines in the future shall thoroughly warn enemy ships before firing their torpedoes or sh.e.l.ls.

"There is considerable discussion in official circles as to whether the Chancellor's steps create a precedent, but it is agreed that it will probably close all complications with America, including the _Lusitania_ case, which remained unsettled following President Wilson's last note to Germany.

"Thus if the United States approves the present att.i.tude of the Chancellor this step will aid in clearing the entire situation and will materially strengthen the policy of von Bethmann-Hollweg and von Jagow, which is a deep desire for peace with America."

After this despatch was printed I was called to the home of Fran von Schroeder, the American-born wife of one of the Intelligence Office of the General Staff. Captain Vanselow, Chief of the Admiralty Intelligence Department, was there and had brought with him the Manchester _Guardian_. He asked me where I got the information and who had pa.s.sed the despatch. He said the Navy was up in arms and had issued orders to the General Telegraph Office that, inasmuch as Germany was under martial law, no telegrams were to be pa.s.sed containing the words submarines, navy, admiralty or marine or any officers of the Navy without having them referred to the Admiralty for a second censoring.

This order practically nullified the censorship powers of the Foreign Office. I saw that the Navy Department was again in the saddle and that the efforts of the Chancellor to maintain peace might not be successful after all. But the conferences at Great Headquarters lasted longer than any one expected. The first news we received of what had taken place was that Secretary von Jagow had informed the Kaiser he would resign before he would do anything which might cause trouble with the United States.

Germany was split wide open by the submarine issue. For a while it looked as if the only possible adjustment would be either for von Tirpitz to go and his policies with him, or for von Jagow and the Chancellor to go with the corresponding danger of a rupture with America. But von Tirpitz would not resign. He left Great Headquarters for Berlin and intimated to his friends that he was going to run the Navy to suit himself. But the Chancellor who had the support of the big shipping interests and the financiers, saw a possible means of checkmating von Tirpitz by forcing Admiral von Pohl to resign as Chief of the Admiralty Staff. They finally persuaded the Kaiser to accept his resignation and appoint Admiral von Holtzendorff as his successor.

Von Holtzendorff's brother was a director of the Hamburg-American Line and an intimate friend of A. Ballin, the General Director of the company. The Chancellor believed that by having a friend of his as Chief of the Admiralty Staff, no orders would be issued to submarine commanders contrary to the wishes of the Chancellor, because according to the rules of the German Navy Department the Chief of the Admiralty Staff must approve all naval plans and sign all orders to fleet commanders.

Throughout this time the one thing which frightened the Foreign Office was the fear that President Wilson might break off diplomatic relations before the Foreign Office had an opportunity to settle the differences with the United States. For this reason Amba.s.sador Gerard was kept advised by Wilhelmstra.s.se of the internal developments in Germany and asked to report them fully but confidentially to Wilson. So, during this crisis when Americans were demanding a break with Germany because of Germany's continued defiance of President Wilson's notes, the American Government knew that if the Foreign Office was given more time it had a good chance of succeeding in cleaning house. A rupture at that time would have destroyed all the efforts of the Foreign Office to keep the German military machine within bounds. It would have over-thrown von Jagow and von Bethmann-Hollweg and put in von Tirpitz as Chancellor and von Heydebrand, the reactionary leader of the Prussian Diet, as Secretary of State. At that time, all the democratic forces of Germany were lined up with the Foreign Office. The people who blushed for Belgium, the financiers who were losing money, the shipping interests whose tonnage was locked in belligerent or neutral harbours, the Socialists and people who were anxious and praying for peace, were looking to the Foreign Office and to Washington to avoid a break.

CHAPTER IV

THE HATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST AMERICA

While Germany was professing her friendship for the United States in every note written following the sinking of the _Lusitania_, the government was secretly preparing the nation for a break in diplomatic relations, or for war, in the event of a rupture. German officials realised that unless the people were made to suspect Mr. Wilson and his motives, unless they were made to resent the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies, there would be a division in public opinion and the government would not be able to count upon the united support of the people. Because the government does the thinking for the people it has to tell them what to think before they have reached the point of debating an issue themselves. A war with America or a break in diplomatic relations in 1915 would not have been an easy matter to explain, if the people had not been encouraged to hate Wilson. So while Germany maintained a propaganda bureau in America to interpret Germany and to maintain good relations, she started in Germany an extensive propaganda against Wilson, the American press, the United States Amba.s.sador and Americans in general.

This step was not necessary in the army because among army officers the bitterness and hatred of the United States were deeper and more extensive than the hatred of any other belligerent. It was hardly ever possible for the American correspondents to go to the front without being insulted. Even the American military attaches, when they went to the front, had to submit to the insults of army officers. After the sinking of the _Arabic_ the six military observers attached to the American Emba.s.sy were invited by the General Staff to go to Russia to study the military operations of Field Marshal von Mackensen. They were escorted by Baron von Maltzahn, former attache of the German Emba.s.sy in Paris. At Lodz, one of the largest cities in Poland, they were taken to headquarters. Von Maltzahn, who knew Mackensen personally, called at the Field Marshal's offices, reported that he had escorted six American army officers under orders of the General Staff, whom he desired to present to the Commander-in-Chief. Von Mackensen replied that he did not care to meet the Americans and told von Maltzahn that the best thing he could do would be to escort the observers back to Berlin.

As soon as the military attaches reached Berlin and reported this to Washington they were recalled.

BLOOD-TRAFFICKERS

Cowards, who kill three thousand miles away, See the long lines of shrouded forms increase!

Yours is this work, disguise it as you may; But for your greed the world were now at peace.

Month after month your countless chimneys roar,-- Slaughter your object, and your motive gain; Look at your money,--it is wet with gore Nothing can cleanse it from the loathsome stain.

You, who prolong this hideous h.e.l.l on earth, Making a by-word of your native land, Stripped of your wealth, how paltry is your worth!

See how men shrink from contact with your hand!

There is pollution in your blood-smeared gold, There is corruption in your pact with Death, There is dishonor in the lie, oft-told, Of your "Humanity"! 'Tis empty breath.

What shall it profit you to heap on high, Makers of orphans! a few millions more, When you must face them--those you caused to die, And G.o.d demands of you to pay your score?

He is not mocked; His vengeance doth not sleep; His cup of wrath He lets you slowly fill; What you have sown, that also shall you reap; G.o.d's law is adamant,--"Thou shalt not kill"!

Think not to plead:--"I did not act alone,"

"Custom allows it," and "My dead were few"; Each hath his quota; yonder are your own!

See how their fleshless fingers point at you, at you!

You, to whose vaults this wholesale murder yields Mere needless increments of ghoulish gain, Count up your corpses on these blood-soaked fields!

Hear . . . till your death . . . your victims' moans of pain!

Then, when at night you, sleepless, fear to pray, Watch the thick, crimson stream draw near your bed, And shriek with horror, till the dawn of day Shall find you raving at your heaps of dead!

JOHN L. STODDARD.

The League of Truth Head Offices for Germany: Berlin W 40 Potsdamer Str.

July 4th, 1916. Printed by Barthe & Co., Berlin W.

But this was not the only time von Mackensen, or other army officers, showed their contempt for the United States. After the fall of Warsaw a group of American correspondents were asked to go to the headquarters of General von Besseler, afterward named Governor General of Poland.

The general received them in the gardens of the Polish castle which he had seized as his headquarters; shook hands with the Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Swiss and South American newspaper men, and then, before turning on his heels to go back to his Polish palace, turned to the Americans and said:

"As for you gentlemen, the best thing you can do is to tell your country to stop shipping arms and ammunition."

During General Brusiloff's offensive I was invited together with other correspondents to go to the Wohlynian battlefields to see how the Germans had reorganised the Austrian front. In a little town near the Stochod River we were invited to dinner by Colonel von Luck. I sat opposite the colonel, who was in charge of the reorganisation here.

Throughout the meal he made so many insulting remarks that the officer who was our escort had to change the trend of the conversation. Before he did so the colonel said:

"Tell me, do they insult you in Berlin like this?"

I replied that I seldom encountered such antagonism in Berlin; that it was chiefly the army which was anti-American.

"Well, that's the difference between the diplomats and the army. If the army was running the government we would probably have had war with America a long time ago," he concluded, smiling sarcastically.

Shortly after the sinking of the _Lusitania_ the naval propaganda bureau had bronze medals cast and placed on sale at souvenir shops throughout Germany. Amba.s.sador Gerard received one day, in exchanging some money, a fifty mark bill, with the words stamped in purple ink across the face:

"G.o.d punish England and America." For some weeks this rubber stamp was used very effectively.

The Navy Department realised, too, that another way to attack America and especially Americans in Berlin, was to arouse the suspicion that every one who spoke English was an enemy. The result was that most Americans had to be exceedingly careful not to talk aloud in public places. The American correspondents were even warned at the General Staff not to speak English at the front. Some of the correspondents who did not speak German were not taken to the battle areas because the Foreign Office desired to avoid insults.

The year and a half between the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the severance of diplomatic relations was a period of terror for most Americans in Germany. Only those who were so sympathetic with Germany that they were anti-American found it pleasant to live there. One day one of the American girls employed in the confidential file room of the American Emba.s.sy was slapped in the face until she cried, by a German in civilian clothes, because she was speaking English in the subway.

At another time the wife of a prominent American business man was spit upon and chased out of a public bus because she was speaking English.

Then a group of women chased her down the street. Another American woman was stabbed by a soldier when she was walking on Friedrichstra.s.se with a friend because she was speaking English. When the State Department instructed Amba.s.sador Gerard to bring the matter to the attention of the Foreign Office and to demand an apology Wilhelmstra.s.se referred the matter to the General Staff for investigation. The soldier was arrested and secretly examined. After many weeks had elapsed the Foreign Office explained that the man who had stabbed the woman was really not a soldier but a red cross worker. It was explained that he had been wounded and was not responsible for what he did. The testimony of the woman, however, and of other witnesses, showed that the man at the time he attacked the American was dressed in a soldier's uniform, which is grey, and which could not he mistaken for the black uniform of a red cross worker.

It was often said in Berlin, "Germany hates England, fights France, fears Russia but loathes America." No one, not even American officials, questioned it.

The hate campaign was bearing fruit.

In January, 1916, there appeared in Berlin a publication called _Light and Truth_. It was a twelve-page circular in English and German attacking President Wilson and the United States. Copies were sent by mail to all Americans and to hundreds of thousands of Germans. It was edited and distributed by "The League of Truth." It was the most sensational doc.u.ment printed in Germany since the beginning of the war against a power with which Germany was supposed to be at peace. Page 6 contained two ill.u.s.trations under the legend:

WILSON AND HIS PRESS IS NOT AMERICA

Underneath was this paragraph: