My Four Years in Germany Part 18

[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH GERMAN OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE FRENCH FOOD COMMISSION BEFORE THE COTTAGE AT BAZEILLES, WHERE NAPOLEON III AND BISMARCK MET AFTER THE BATTLE OF SEDAN.]

The feeding of the French population, which is carried on by the American Relief Commission, was a very interesting thing to see and, in company with one of the members of the French committee, we saw the workings of this system of American Relief.

We first visited a storehouse in Charleville, the headquarters for the relief district of which Charleville may be called the capital.

For relief purposes Northern France is divided into six districts.

From the central distribution point in each district, food is sent to the commune within the district, the commune being the ultimate unit of distribution and each commune containing on the average about five hundred souls. We then motored to one of the communes where the distribution of food for the week was to take place that afternoon. Here in a factory, closed since the war, the people of the commune were lined up with their baskets waiting for their share of the rations. On entering a large room of the factory, each stopped first at a desk and there either paid in cash for the week's allowance of rations or signed an agreement to pay at some future date. The individuals who had no prospect of being able to pay received the rations for nothing. About one-third were in each cla.s.s. The money used was not always French, or real money, but was, as a rule, the paper money issued in that part of Northern France by each town and redeemable after the war.

Signs were hung up showing the quant.i.ty that each person was ent.i.tled to receive for the next fifteen days and the sale price per kilo to each inhabitant. For instance, in this particular period for the first fifteen days of the month of May, 1916, each inhabitant could, in this district, receive the following allowances at the following rates:

ARTICLE AMOUNT PER HEAD PRICE Flour 4 K. 500 The Kilogram 0 fr. 48 Rice K. 500 0 fr. 55 Beans K. 500 0 fr. 90 Bacon K. 500 2 fr. 80 Lard K. 250 2 fr. 30 Green Coffee K. 250 1 fr. 70 Crystallized Sugar K. 150 0 fr. 90 Salt K. 200 0 fr. 10 Soap (hard) K. 250 1 fr. 00

In addition to these articles each inhabitant of the commune which we visited, also received on the day of our visit a small quant.i.ty of carrot seed to plant in the small plot of ground which each was permitted to retain out of his own land by the German authorities.

The unfortunate people who received this allowance looked very poor and very hungry and very miserable. Many of them spoke to me, not only here but also in Charleville, and expressed their great grat.i.tude to the American people for what was being done for them. Those in Charleville said that they had heard that I was in their town because of trouble pending between America and Germany. They said they hoped that there would be no war between the two countries because if war came they did not know what would become of them and that, in the confusion of war, they would surely be left to starve.

In Charleville notices were posted directing the inhabitants not to go out on the streets after, I think, eight o'clock in the evening, and also notices informing the population that they would be allowed a small quant.i.ty of their own land for the purpose of growing potatoes.

After visiting the factory building where the distribution of rations was taking place, we motored to Sedan, stopping on the way at the hamlet of Bazeilles, and visiting the cottage where Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon the Third had their historic interview after the battle of Sedan.

The old lady who owns this house received us and showed us bullet marks made on her house in the war of 1870, as well as in the present war. She apologised because she had had the window-pane, broken by a rifle shot in this war, replaced on account of the cold. As a girl, she had received Bismarck and Napoleon and had shown them to the room upstairs where they had held their consultation. I asked her which chair in this room Bismarck had sat in, and sat in it myself, for luck. I also contributed to the collection of gold pieces given to her by those who had visited her cottage.

In Sedan we visited an old mill where stores of the relief commission were kept, and in the mayor's office were present at a sort of consultation between the Prussian officers and members of the French Committee of Sedan in which certain details relative to the feeding of the population were discussed.

The relief work is not, of course, carried on right up to the battle line but we visited a small village not many kilometres in the rear of the German line. In this village we were, as before, shown the stores kept for distribution by the relief commission.

As there were many soldiers in this village I said I thought that these soldiers must have stores of their own but, in order to be sure that they were not living on the supplies of the relief commission, I thought it only fair that I should see where the soldiers' stores were kept. I was taken across the railroad track to where their stores were kept and, judging from the labels on the barrels and boxes, I should say that a great many of these stores had come from Holland.

During this trip about the country, I saw a number of women and girls working, or attempting to work, in the fields. Their appearance was so different from that of the usual peasant that I spoke to the accompanying officers about it. I was told, however, that these were the peasants of the locality who dressed unusually well in that part of France. Later on in Charleville, at the lodging of an officer and with Count Wengersky, who was detailed to act as sort of interpreter and guide to the American Relief Commission workers, I met the members of the American Relief Commission who were working in Northern France and who had been brought on a special train for the purpose of seeing me to Charleville. This Count Wengersky spoke English well. Having been for a number of years agent of the Hamburg American Line in London, he was used to dealing with Americans and was possessed of more tact than usually falls to the lot of the average Prussian officer. We had tea and cakes in these lodgings, and then some of the Americans drew me aside and told me the secret of the peculiar looking peasants whom I had seen at work in the fields surrounding Charleville.

It seems that the Germans had endeavoured to get volunteers from the great industrial town of Lille, Roubeix and Tourcoing to work these fields; that after the posting of the notices calling for volunteers only fourteen had appeared. The Germans then gave orders to seize a certain number of inhabitants and send them out to farms in the outlying districts to engage in agricultural work. The Americans told me that this order was carried out with the greatest barbarity; that a man would come home at night and find that his wife or children had disappeared and no one could tell him where they had gone except that the neighbours would relate that the German non-commissioned officers and a file of soldiers had carried them off. For instance, in a house of a well-to-do merchant who had perhaps two daughters of fifteen and seventeen, and a man servant, the two daughters and the servant would be seized and sent off together to work for the Germans in some little farm house whose location was not disclosed to the parents. The Americans told me that this sort of thing was causing such indignation among the population of these towns that they feared a great uprising and a consequent slaughter and burning by the Germans.

That night at dinner I spoke to von Bethmann-Hollweg about this and told him that it seemed to me absolutely outrageous; and that, without consulting with my government, I was prepared to protest in the name of humanity against a continuance of this treatment of the civil population of occupied France. The Chancellor told me that he had not known of it, that it was the result of orders given by the military, that he would speak to the Emperor about it and that he hoped to be able to stop further deportations.

I believe that they were stopped, but twenty thousand or more who had been taken from their homes were not returned until months afterwards. I said in a speech which I made in May on my return to America that it required the joint efforts of the Pope, the King of Spain and our President to cause the return of these people to their homes; and I then saw that some German press agency had come out with an article that I had made false statements about this matter because these people were not returned to their homes as a result of the representations of the Pope, the King of Spain and our President, but were sent back because the Germans had no further use for them. It seems to me that this denial makes the case rather worse than before.

At the Chancellor's house in the evenings we had discussions on the submarine situation and I had several long talks with von Bethmann-Hollweg alone in a corner of the room while the others listened to music or set the mechanical toys in motion.

These discussions, without doubt, were reported to the Emperor either by the Chancellor or by von Treutler who at that time was high in favor with his Majesty.

I remember on one evening I was asked the question as to what America could do, supposing the almost impossible, that America should resent the recommencement of ruthless submarine warfare by the Germans and declare war. I said that nearly all of the great inventions used in this war had been made by Americans; that the very submarine which formed the basis of our discussion was an American invention, and so were the barbed wire and the aeroplane, the ironclad, the telephone and the telegraph, so necessary to trench warfare; that even that method of warfare had been first developed on something of the present scale in our Civil War; and that I believed that, if forced to it, American genius could produce some invention which might have a decisive effect in this war. My German auditors seemed inclined to believe that there was something in my contentions. But they said, "While possibly you might invent something in America, while possibly you will furnish money and supplies to the Allies, you have no men; and the public sentiment of your country is such that you will not be able to raise an army large enough to make any impression." I said that possibly if hostilities once broke out with the Germans, the Germans might force us by the commission of such acts as had aroused England, to pa.s.s a law for universal military service. This proposition of mine was branded by the Germans as absolutely impossible; and, therefore, I am sure that the adoption by the United States of universal service in the first round of the war struck a very severe blow at the morale of Germany.

The Chancellor always desired to make any settlement of the submarine question contingent upon our doing something against England; but I again and again insisted that we could not agree to do anything against some other power as a condition of obtaining a recognition of our rights from the German Empire.

During my stay at the General Headquarters, General Falkenhayn, although he was there at the time, carefully avoided me, which I took to be a sign that he was in favour of war with America.

In fact, I heard afterwards that he had insisted on giving his views on the subject, but that a very high authority had told him to confine himself to military operations.

After we had been a day or so at Charleville, the Vice-Chancellor, Helfferich, arrived. I have always believed that he was sent for to add his weight to the arguments in favour of peace and to point out that it was necessary for Germany to hate the friendship of America after the war, so as to have markets where she could place her goods. And I am convinced that at this time, at any rate, the influence of Helfferich was cast in the scale in favour of peace.

Finally, I was told that on the next day, which was Monday, May first, I was to lunch with the Emperor. Grew was invited to accompany me, and the Chancellor said that he would call for me about an hour before the time set for lunch as the Emperor desired to have a talk with me before lunch. In the afternoon an extract from the log of a German submarine commander was sent to me in which the submarine commander had stated that he had sighted a vessel which he could easily have torpedoed, but as the vessel was one hundred and twenty miles from land, he had not done so because the crew might not be able from that distance to reach a harbour. When the Chancellor called for me the following morning, he asked me if I had read this extract from the submarine officer's log, and noted how he had refrained from torpedoing a boat one hundred and twenty miles from land. I told the Chancellor that I had read the extract, but that I had also read in the newspaper that very morning that a ship had been torpedoed in stormy weather at exactly the same distance from land and the crew compelled to seek safety in the ship's boats; that, anyway, "one swallow did not make a summer," and that reports were continually being received of boats being torpedoed at great distances from land.

We then got in the motor and motored to the chateau about a mile off, where the Kaiser resided. We got out of the motor before going into the courtyard of the chateau, and immediately I was taken by the Chancellor into a garden on the gently sloping hillside below the chateau. Here the Emperor, dressed in uniform, was walking.

As I drew near the Emperor, he said immediately, "Do you come like the great pro-consul bearing peace or war in either hand?"

By this he referred, of course, to the episode in which Quintus Fabius Maximus, chief of the Roman envoys sent to Hannibal in the Second Punic War, doubled his toga in his hand, held it up and said: "In this fold I carry peace and war: choose which you will have." "Give us which you prefer," was the reply. "Then take war," answered the Roman, letting the toga fall. "We accept the gift," cried the Carthaginian Senator, "and welcome."

I said, "No, your Majesty, only hoping that the differences between two friendly nations may be adjusted." The Emperor then spoke of what he termed the uncourteous tone of our notes, saying that we charged the Germans with barbarism in warfare and that, as Emperor and head of the Church, he had wished to carry on the war in a knightly manner. He referred to his own speech to the members of the Reichstag at the commencement of the war and said that the nations opposed to Germany had used unfair methods and means, that the French especially were not like the French of '70, but that their officers, instead of being n.o.bles, came from no one knew where. He then referred to the efforts to starve out Germany and keep out milk and said that before he would allow his family and grand-children to starve he would blow up Windsor Castle and the whole Royal family of England. We then had a long discussion in detail of the whole submarine question, in the course of which the Emperor said that the submarine had come to stay, that it was a weapon recognised by all countries, and that he had seen a picture of a proposed giant submarine in an American paper, the _Scientific_American_. He stated that, anyway, there was no longer any international law. To this last statement the Chancellor agreed. He further said that a person on an enemy merchant ship was like a man travelling on a cart behind the battle lines--he had no just cause of complaint if injured. He asked me why we had done nothing to England because of her alleged violations of international law,--why we had not broken the British blockade.

In addition to the technical arguments based on international law, I answered that no note of the United States had made any general charge of barbarism against Germany; that we complained of the manner of the use of submarines and nothing more; that we could never promise to do anything to England or to any other country in return for a promise from Germany or any third country to keep the rules of international law and respect the rights and lives of our citizens; that we were only demanding our rights under the recognised rules of international law and it was for us to decide which rights we would enforce first; that, as I had already told the Chancellor, if two men entered my grounds and one stepped on my flower beds and the other killed my sister, I should probably first pursue the murderer of my sister; that those travelling on the seas in enemy merchant ships were in a different position from those travelling in a cart behind the enemy's battle lines on land because the land travellers were on enemy's territory, while those on the sea were on territory which, beyond the three-mile limit, was free and in no sense enemy's territory. We also discussed the position taken by the German Government in one of the _Frye_ Notes, in which the German expert had taken the position that a cargo of food destined for an armed enemy port was presumed to be for the armies of the enemy, and therefore contraband. The Emperor spoke of the case of the _Dacia_ with some bitterness, but when I went into an explanation the Chancellor joined in the conversation and said that our position was undoubtedly correct. I said that it was not our business to break the blockade--that there were plenty of German agents in the United States who could send food ships and test the question; that one ship I knew of, the _Wilhelmina_, laden with food, had been seized by the British, who then compromised with the owners, paying them, I believed, a large sum for the disputed cargo. And in taking up the doctrine of ultimate destination of goods, i.e., goods sent to a neutral country but really destined for a belligerent, I said I thought that during our Civil War we had taken against England exactly the same stand which England now took; and I said I thought that one of the decisions of our Supreme Court was based on a shipment to Matamoras, Mexico, but which the Supreme Court had decided was really for the Confederacy.

Discussing the submarine question, the Emperor and Chancellor spoke of the warning given in the _Lusitania_ case; and I said: "If the Chancellor warns me not to go out on the Wilhelmplatz, where I have a perfect right to go, the fact that he gave the warning does not justify him in killing me if I disregarded his warning and go where I have a right to go." The conversation then became more general and we finally left the garden and went into the chateau, where the Emperor's aides and guests were impatiently waiting for lunch.

This conversation lasted far beyond lunch time. Anxious heads were seen appearing from the windows and terraces of the chateau to which we finally adjourned. I sat between the Emperor and Prince Pless. Conversation was general for the most of the time, and subjects such as the suffragettes and the peace expedition of Henry Ford were amusingly discussed.

After lunch, I again had a long talk with the Emperor but of a more general nature than the conversation in the garden.

That night about eleven o'clock, after again dining with the Chancellor, we left Charleville in the same special salon car, arriving at Berlin about four P. M. the next day, where at the station were a crowd of German and American newspaper correspondents, all anxious to know what had happened.

At this last dinner at the Chancellor's he took me off in a corner and said, "As I understand it, what America wants is cruiser warfare on the part of the submarines." And I said, "Yes, that is it exactly. They may exercise the right of visit and search, must not torpedo or sink vessels without warning, and must not sink any vessel unless the pa.s.sengers and crew are put in a place of safety."

On the morning of the third of May, I heard that the German note had been drafted, but that it would contain a clause to the effect that while the German submarines would not go beyond cruiser warfare, this rule, nevertheless, would not apply to armed merchantmen.

As such a proposition as this would, of course, only bring up the subject again, I immediately ordered my automobile and called on the Spanish Amba.s.sador, stating to him what I had heard about the contents of the note; that this would mean, without doubt, a break with America; and that, as I had been instructed to hand the Emba.s.sy over to him, I had come to tell him of that fact. I gave the same information to other colleagues, of course hoping that what I said would directly or indirectly reach the ears of the German Foreign Office. Whether it did or not, I do not know, but the _Suss.e.x_ Note when received did not contain any exception with reference to armed merchantmen.

With the receipt of the _Suss.e.x_ Note and the President's answer thereto, which declined a.s.sent to the claim of Germany to define its att.i.tude toward our rights in accordance with what we might do in regard to the enforcement of our rights against England, the submarine question seemed, at least for the moment, settled. I, however, immediately warned the Department that I believed that the rulers of Germany would at some future date, forced by public opinion, and by the von Tirpitz and Conservative parties, take up ruthless submarine war again, possibly in the autumn but at any rate about February or March, 1917.

In my last conversation with the Chancellor before leaving the Great General Headquarters, when he referred to the cruiser warfare of the submarines, he also said, "I hope now that if we settle this matter your President will be great enough to take up the question of peace." It was as a result of intimations from government circles that, after my return to Berlin, I gave an interview to a representative of a Munich newspaper, expressing my faith in the coming of peace, although I was careful to say that it might be a matter of months or even years.

Thereafter, on many occasions the Chancellor impressed upon me the fact that America must do something towards arranging a peace and that if nothing was done to this end, public opinion in Germany would undoubtedly force a resumption of a ruthless submarine war.

In September of 1916, I having mentioned that Mrs. Gerard was going to the United States on a short visit, von Jagow insistently urged me to go also in order to make every effort to induce the President to do something towards peace; and, as a result of his urging and as a result of my own desire to make the situation clear in America, I sailed from Copenhagen on the twenty-eighth of September with Mrs. Gerard, on the Danish ship, _Frederick_VIII_, bound for New York. I had spent almost three years in Berlin, having been absent during that time from the city only five or six days at Kiel and two week-ends in Silesia in 1914, with two weeks at Munich in the autumn, two days at Munich and two days at Parten-Kirchen in 1916, and two week-ends at Heringsdorf, in the summer of the same year, with visits to British prison camps scattered through the two and a half years of war.

On the _Frederick_VIII_ were Messrs. Herbert Swope of the _New_York_World_ and William C. Bullitt of the _Philadelphia_Ledger_, who had been spending some time in Germany. I impressed upon each of these gentlemen my fixed belief that Germany intended shortly, unless some definite move was made toward peace, to commence ruthless submarine war; and they made this view clear in the articles which they wrote for their respective newspapers.

Mr. Swope's articles which appeared in the _New_York_World_ were immediately republished by him in a book called "Inside the German Empire." In Mr. Swope's book on page ninety-four, he says, "The campaign for the ruthless U-boat warfare is regarded by one man in this country who speaks with the highest German authority, as being in the nature of a threat intended to accelerate and force upon us a movement toward peace. Amba.s.sador Gerard had his attention drawn to this just before he left Berlin but he declined to accept the interpretation."

On page eighty-eight he writes, "Our Emba.s.sy in Berlin expected just such a demonstration as was given by the U-53 in October when she sank six vessels off Nantucket, as a lesson of what Germany could do in our waters if war came."

On page seventy-four he says further, "Throughout Germany the objection for the resumption of ruthless U-boat warfare of the _Lusitania_ type grows stronger day by day. The Chancellor is holding out against it, but how long he can restrain it no one can say. I left Germany convinced that only peace could prevent its resumption. And the same opinion is held by every German with whom I spoke, and it is held also by Amba.s.sador Gerard.

The possibility was so menacing that the princ.i.p.al cause of the Amba.s.sador's return in October was that he might report to Washington. The point was set out in press despatches at that time."

I wrote a preface to Mr. Swope's book for the express purpose of informing the American public in this way that I believed that Germany intended at an early date to resume the ruthless V-boat warfare.

Our trip home on the _Frederick_VIII_ was without incident except for the fact that on the ninth day of October, Swope came to the door of my stateroom about twelve o'clock at night and informed me that the captain had told him to tell me that the wireless had brought the news that German submarines were operating directly ahead of us and had just sunk six ships in the neighbourhood of Nantucket. I imagine that the captain slightly changed the course of our ship, but next day the odour of burning oil was quite noticeable for hours.

These Danish ships in making the trip from Copenhagen to New York were compelled to put in at the port of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, where the ship was searched by the British authorities. On the occasion of our visit to Kirkwall, on this trip, a Swede, who had been so foolish as to make a sketch of the harbour and defences of Kirkwall from the top deck of the _Frederick_VIII_, was taken off the boat by the British. The British had very cleverly spotted him doing this from the sh.o.r.e or a neighbouring boat, through a telescope.

Ships can enter Kirkwall only by daylight and at six o'clock every evening trawlers draw a net across the entrance to the harbour as a protection against submarines. A pa.s.sage through this net is not opened until daylight the following morning.

Captain Thomson of the _Frederick_VIII_, the ship which carried us to America and back to Copenhagen, by his evident mastery of his profession gave to all of his pa.s.sengers a feeling of confidence on the somewhat perilous voyage in those dangerous waters.

When I reached America, on October eleventh, I was given a most flattering reception and the freedom of the City of New York.