My Four Years in Germany Part 11

I complied with his request and it is characteristic of the President's desire to preserve good relations that publication was withheld. Now, when the two countries are at war; when the whole world, and especially our own country, has an interest in knowing how this great calamity of universal war came to the earth, the time has come when this message should be given out and I have published it by permission.

This most interesting doc.u.ment in the first place clears up one issue never really obscure in the eyes of the world--the deliberate violation of the neutrality of Belgium, whose territory "had to be violated by Germany on strategical grounds." The very weak excuse is added that "news had been received that France was already preparing to enter Belgium,"--not even a pretense that there had ever been any actual violation of Belgium's frontier by the French prior to the German invasion of that unfortunate country. Of course the second excuse that the King of the Belgians had refused entrance to the Emperor's troops under guarantee of his country's freedom is even weaker than the first. It would indeed inaugurate a new era in the intercourse of nations if a small nation could only preserve its freedom by at all times, on request, granting free pa.s.sage to the troops of a powerful neighbour on the march to attack an adjoining country.

And aside from the violation of Belgian neutrality, what would have become of England and of the world if the Prussian autocracy had been left free to defeat--one by one--the nations of the earth? First, the defeat of Russia and Serbia by Austria and Germany, the incorporation of a large part of Russia in the German Empire, German influence predominant in Russia and all the vast resources of that great Empire at the command of Germany. All the fleets in the world could uselessly blockade the German coasts if Germany possessed the limitless riches of the Empire of the Romanoffs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALLEGED DUM-DUM BULLETS, WHICH THE GERMANS DECLARED HAD BEEN FOUND IN LONGWY.]

The German army drawing for reserves on the teeming populations of Russia and Siberia would never know defeat. And this is not idle conjecture, mere dreaming in the realm of possibilities, because the Russian revolution has shown us how weak and tottering in reality was the dreaded power of the Czar.

Russia, beaten and half digested, France would have been an easy prey, and England, even if then joining France in war, would have a far different problem to face if the V-boats were now sailing from Cherbourg and Calais and Brest and Bordeaux on the mission of piracy and murder, and then would come our turn and that of Latin America. The first attack would come not on us, but on South or Central America--at some point to which it would be as difficult for us to send troops to help our neighbor as it would be for Germany to attack.

Remember that in Southern Brazil nearly four hundred thousand Germans are sustained, as I found out, in their devotion to the Fatherland by annual grants of money for educational purposes from the Imperial treasury in Berlin.

It was not without reason that at this interview, when the Kaiser wrote this message to the President, he said that the coming in of England had changed the whole situation and would make the war a long one. The Kaiser talked rather despondently about the war. I tried to cheer him up by saying the German troops would soon enter Paris, but he answered, "The English change the whole situation--an obstinate nation--they will keep up the war. It cannot end soon."

It was the entry of England into the war, in defence of the rights of small nations, in defence of the guaranteed neutrality of Belgium, which saved the world from the harsh dominion of the conquest-hungry Prussians and therefore saved as well the two Americas and their protecting doctrine of President Monroe.

The doc.u.ment, which is dated August tenth, 1914, supersedes the statement made by the German Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg in his speech before the Reichstag on August fourth, 1914, in which he gave the then official account of the entrance into the war of the Central Empires. It will be noted that von Bethmann-Hollweg insisted that France began the war in the sentence reading: "There were bomb-throwing fliers, cavalry patrols, invading companies in the Reichsland (Alsace-Lorraine). Thereby France, although the condition of war had not yet been declared, had attacked our territory." But the Emperor makes no mention of this fact, of supreme importance if true, in his writing to President Wilson six days later.

Quite curiously, at this time there was a belief on the part of the Germans that j.a.pan would declare war on the Allies and range herself on the side of the Central Powers. In fact on one night there was a friendly demonstration in front of the j.a.panese Emba.s.sy, but these hopes were soon dispelled by the ultimatum of j.a.pan sent on the sixteenth of August, and, finally, by the declaration of war on August twenty-third.

During the first days of the war the warring powers indulged in mutual recriminations as to the use of dumdum bullets and I was given several packages of cartridges containing bullets bored out at the top which the Germans said had been found in the French fortress of Longwy, with a request that I send an account of them to President Wilson and ask for his intervention in the matter.

Very wisely President Wilson refused to do anything of the kind, as otherwise he would have been deluged with constant complaints from both sides as to the violations of the rules of war.

The cartridges given to me were in packages marked on the outside "_Cartouches_de_Stand_" and from this I took it that possibly these cartridges had been used on some shooting range near the fort and the bullets bored out in order that they might not go too far, if carelessly fired over the targets.

On August fifth, with our Naval Attache, Commander Walter Gherardi, I called upon von Tirpitz, to learn from him which ports be considered safest for the ships to be sent from America with gold for stranded Americans. He recommended Rotterdam.

I also had a conversation on this day with Geheimrat Letze of the Foreign Office with reference to the proposition that English and German ships respectively should have a delay of until the fourteenth of August in which to leave the English or German ports in which they chanced to be.

The second week in August, my wife's sister and her husband, Count Sigray, arrived in Berlin. Count Sigray is a reserve officer of the Hungarian Hussars and was in Montana when the first rumours of war came. He and his wife immediately started for New York and sailed on the fourth of August. They landed in England, and as England had not yet declared war on Austria, they were able to proceed on their journey. With them were Count George Festetics and Count Cziraki, the former from the Austrian Emba.s.sy in London and the latter from that in Washington. They were all naturally very much excited about war and the events of their trip. The Hungarians as a people are quite like Americans. They have agreeable manners and are able to laugh in a natural way, something which seems to be a lost art in Prussia. Nearly all the members of Hungarian n.o.ble families speak English perfectly and model their clothes, sports and country life, as far as possible, after the English.

The thirteenth saw the departure of our first special train containing Americans bound for Holland. I saw the Americans off at the Charlottenburg station. They all departed in great spirits and very glad of an opportunity to leave Germany.

I had some negotiations about the purchase by America or Americans of the ships of the North German Lloyd, but nothing came of these negotiations. Trainloads of Americans continued to leave, but there seemed to be no end to the Americans coming into Berlin from all directions.

On August twenty-ninth, Count Szoegyeny, the Austrian Amba.s.sador, left Berlin. He had been Amba.s.sador there for twenty-two years and I suppose because of his advancing years the Austrian Government thought that he had outlived his usefulness. Quite a crowd of Germans and diplomats were at the station to witness the rather sad farewell. His successor was Prince Hohenlohe, married to a daughter of Archduke Frederick. She expressly waived her right to precedence as a royal highness, and agreed to take only the precedence given to her as the wife of the Amba.s.sador, in order not to cause feeling in Berlin. Prince Hohenlohe, a rather easy-going man, who had been most popular in Russia and Austria, immediately made a favourable impression in Berlin and successfully occupied the difficult position of mediator between the governments of Berlin and Vienna.

On September fourth the Chancellor gave me a statement to give to the reporters in which he attacked England, claiming that England did not desire the friendship of Germany but was moved by commercial jealousy and a desire to crush her; that the efforts made for peace had failed because Russia, under all circ.u.mstances, was resolved upon war; and that Germany had entered Belgium in order to forestall the planned French advance. He also claimed that England, regardless of consequences to the white race, had excited j.a.pan to a pillaging expedition, and claimed that Belgian girls and women had gouged out the eyes of the wounded; that officers had been invited to dinner and shot across the table; and Belgian women had cut the throats of soldiers quartered in their houses while they were asleep. The Chancellor concluded by saying, in this statement, that everyone knows that the German people is not capable of unnecessary cruelty or of any brutality.

We were fully occupied with taking care of the English prisoners and interests, the Americans, and negotiations relating to commercial questions, and to getting goods required in the United States out of Germany, when, on October seventh, a most unpleasant incident, and one which for some time caused the members of our Emba.s.sy to feel rather bitterly toward the German Foreign Office, took place.

A great number of British civilians, men and women, were stranded in Berlin. To many of these were paid sums of money in the form of small allowances on behalf of the British Government. In order to facilitate this work, we placed the clerks employed in this distribution in the building formerly occupied by the British Consul in Berlin. Of course, the great crowds of Americans resorting to our Emba.s.sy, when combined with the crowds of British, made it almost impossible even to enter the Emba.s.sy, and establishment of this outlying relief station materially helped this situation.

I occupied it, and employed English men and English women in this relief work by the express permission of the Imperial Foreign Office, which I thought it wise to obtain in view of the fact that the Germans seemed daily to become more irritable and suspicious, especially after the Battle of the Marne.

On the night of October second, our Second Secretary, Harvey, went to this relief headquarters at about twelve o'clock at night, and was witness to a raid made by the Berlin police on this establishment of ours. The men and women working were arrested, and all books and papers which the police could get at were seized by them.

The next morning I went around to the place and on talking with the criminal detectives in charge, was told by them that they had made the raid by the orders of the Foreign Office. When I spoke to the Foreign Office about this, they denied that they had given directions for the raid and made a sort of half apology. The raid was all the more unjustified because only the day before I had had a conversation with the Adjutant of the Berlin Kommandantur and told him that, although I had permission from the Foreign Office, I thought it would be better to dismiss the English employed and employ only Americans or Germans; and I sent round to my friend, Herr von Gwinner, head of the Deutsche Bank, and asked him to recommend some German accountants to me.

The Kommandantur is the direct office of military control. When the Adjutant heard of the raid he was almost as indignant as I was, and on the tenth of October informed me that he had learned that the raid had been made on the joint orders of the Foreign Office and von Tirpitz's department.

The books and papers of an Emba.s.sy, including those relating to the affairs of foreign nations temporarily in the Emba.s.sy's care, are universally recognised in international law as not, subject to seizure, nor did the fact that I was carrying on this work outside the actual Emba.s.sy building have any bearing on this point so long as the building was directly under my control and, especially, as the only work carried on was work properly in my hands in my official capacity. The Foreign Office saw that they had made a mistake, but at Zimmermann's earnest request I agreed, as it were, to forget the incident. Later on, this precedent might have been used by our government had they desired to press the matter of the seizure of von Igel's papers. Von Igel, it will be remembered, was carrying on business of a private nature in a private office hired by him. Nevertheless, as he had been employed in some capacity in the German Emba.s.sy at Washington, Count von Bernstorff claimed immunity from seizure for the papers found in that office.

On August sixteenth the Kaiser left Berlin for the front. I wrote to his master of the household, saying that I should like an opportunity to be at the railway station to say good-bye to the Emperor, but was put off on various excuses. Thereafter the Emperor practically abandoned Berlin and lived either in Silesia, at Pless, or at some place near the Western front.

At first, following the precedent of the war of 1870, the more important members of the government followed the Kaiser to the front, even the Chancellor and the Minister of Foreign Affairs abandoning their offices in Berlin. Not long afterwards, when it was apparent that the war must be carried on on several fronts and that it was not going to be the matter of a few weeks which the Germans had first supposed, these officials returned to their offices in Berlin. In the meantime, however, much confusion had been caused by this rather ridiculous effort to follow the customs of the war of 1870.

When von Jagow, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was absent at the Great General Headquarters, the diplomats remaining behind conducted their negotiations with Zimmermann, who in turn had to transmit everything to the great general headquarters.

In August, there were apparently rumours afloat in countries outside of Germany that prominent Socialists at the outbreak of the war had been shot. The State Department cabled me to find out whether there was any truth in these rumours, with particular reference to Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

Liebknecht is a lawyer practicing in Berlin and so I telephoned him, asking him to come and see me. He did so, and of course, by his presence verified the fact that he had not been executed.

He told me that the rumours as to the treatment of the Socialists were entirely unfounded and said that he had no objection to my cabling a statement that the Socialists were opposed to Czarismus and that he personally had confidence in the German army and the cause of the German people.

Many people confuse Liebknecht with his father, now dead. Liebknecht, the son, is a man of perhaps forty-three years, with dark bushy hair and moustache and wearing eye-gla.s.ses, a man of medium height and not at all of strong build. In the numerous interruptions made by him during the debates in the Reichstag, during the first year of the war, his voice sounded high and shrill. Of course, anyone who defies the heavy hand of autocracy must suffer from nervousness. We all knew that sooner or later autocracy would "get" Liebknecht, and its opportunity came when he appeared in citizen's clothes at an attempted ma.s.s-meeting at the Potsdamerplatz.

For the offence of appearing out of uniform after being called and mobilized, and for alleged incitement of the people, he was condemned for a long term of imprisonment. One can but admire his courage. I believe that he earns his living by the practice of law before one of the minor courts. It is hard to say just what _role_ he will play in the future. It is probable that when the Socialists settle down after the war and think things over, they will consider that the leadership of Scheidemann has been too conservative; that he submitted too readily to the powers of autocracy and too easily abandoned the program of the Socialists.

In this case, Liebknecht perhaps will be made leader of the Socialists, and it is within the bounds of probability that Scheidemann and certain of his party may become Liberals rather than Socialists.

CHAPTER XII

DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS

In the autumn of 1914, the rush of getting the Americans out of Germany was over. The care of the British civilians was on a business basis and there were comparatively few camps of prisoners of war. Absolutely tired by working every day and until twelve at night, I went to Munich for a two weeks' rest.

On February fourth, 1915, Germany announced that on February eighteenth the blockade of England through submarines would commence.

Some very peculiar and mysterious negotiations thereafter ensued.

About February eighth, an American who was very intimate with the members of the General Staff came to me with a statement that Germany desired peace and was ready to open negotiations to that end. It was, however, to be made a condition of these peace negotiations that this particular American should go to Paris and to Petrograd and inform the governments there of the overwhelming strength of the German armies and of their positions, which knowledge, it was said, he had obtained by personally visiting both the fronts. it was further intimated that von Tirpitz himself was anxious that peace should be concluded, possibly because of his fear that the proposed blockade would not be successful.

Of course, I informed the State Department of these mysterious manoeuvres.

I was taken by back stairways to a mysterious meeting with von Tirpitz at night in his rooms in the Navy Department. When I was alone with him, however, he had nothing definite to say or to offer; if there was any opportunity at that time to make peace nothing came of it. It looked somewhat to me as if the whole idea had been to get this American to go to Paris and Petrograd, certify from his personal observation to the strength of the German armies and position, and thereby to a.s.sist in enticing one or both of these countries to desert the allied cause. All of this took place about ten days before the eighteenth of February, the time named for the announcement of the blockade of England.

Medals were struck having the head of von Tirpitz on one side and on the other the words "Gott strafe England," and a picture of a sort of Neptune a.s.sisted by a submarine rising from the sea to blockade the distant English coast.

The Amba.s.sador is supposed to have the right to demand an audience with the Kaiser at any time, and as there were matters connected with the treatment of prisoners as well as this coming submarine warfare which I wished to take up with him, I had on various occasions asked for an audience with him; on each occasion my request had been refused on some excuse or other, and I was not even permitted to go to the railway station to bid him good-bye on one occasion when he left for the front.

When our Military Attache, Major Langhorne, left in March, 1915, he had a farewell audience with the Kaiser and I then asked him to say to the Kaiser that I had not seen him for so long a time that I had forgotten what he looked like. Langhorne reported to me that he had given his message to the Kaiser and that the Kaiser said, "I have nothing against Mr. Gerard personally, but I will not see the Amba.s.sador of a country which furnishes arms and ammunition to the enemies of Germany."

Before the departure of Langhorne, I had succeeded in getting Germany to agree that six American army officers might visit Germany as military observers. When they arrived, I presented them at the Foreign Office, etc., and they were taken on trips to the East and West fronts.

They were not allowed to see much, and their request to be attached to a particular unit was refused. Nearly everywhere they were subject to insulting remarks or treatment because of the shipment of munitions of war to the Allies from America; and finally after they had been subjected to deliberate insults at the hands of several German generals, Mackensen particularly distinguishing himself, the United States Government withdrew them from Germany.

Colonel (now General) Kuhn, however, who was of these observers, was appointed Military Attache in place of Major Langhorne. Speaking German fluently and acting with great tact, he managed for a long time to keep sufficiently in the good graces of the Germans to be allowed to see something of the operations of the various fronts. There came a period in 1916 when he was no longer invited to go on the various excursions made by the foreign military attaches and finally Major Nicolai, the general intelligence officer of the Great General Headquarters, sent for him early in the autumn of 1916, and informed him that he could no longer go to any of the fronts. Colonel Kuhn answered that he was aware of this already. Major Nicolai said that he gave him this information by direct order of General Ludendorf, that General Ludendorf had stated that he did not believe America could do more damage to Germany than she had done if the two countries were actually at war, and that he considered that, practically, America and Germany were engaged in hostilities. On this being reported to Washington, Colonel Kuhn was quite naturally recalled.

I cannot praise too highly the patience and tact shown by Colonel Kuhn in dealing with the Germans. Although accused in the German newspapers of being a spy, and otherwise attacked, he kept his temper and observed all that he could for the benefit of his own country. As he had had an opportunity to observe the Russian-j.a.panese war, his experiences at that time, coupled with his experiences in Germany, make him, perhaps, our greatest American expert on modern war.