The World War and What was Behind It Part 16

The government, as formed at first, with its ministers of different departments like the American cabinet, was composed of citizens of the middle cla.s.ses--lawyers, professors of the universities, land-owners, merchants were represented--and at the head of the ministry was a prince. This arrangement did not satisfy the rabble. The radical socialists, most of whom owned no property and wanted all wealth divided up among all the people, were not much happier to be ruled by the moderately well-to-do than they were to submit to the rule of the n.o.bles. The council of workingmen and soldiers, meeting in the great hall which had formerly housed the Duma, began to take upon themselves the powers of government. Someone proclaimed that now the Russian people should have peace, and when Prof. Milioukoff, foreign minister for the new government, a.s.sured France and England that Russia would stick by them to the last, a howling crowd of workingmen threatened to mob him. "No annexations and no indemnities," was the cry of the socialists. "Let us go back to conditions as they were before the war.

Let each nation bear the burden of its own losses and let us have peace." After a stormy session, the new government agreed to include in its numbers several representatives of the soldiers and workingmen.

Prof. Milioukoff resigned and Alexander Kerensky, a radical young lawyer, became the real leader of the Russian government.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kerensky (standing in automobile) reviewing Russian troops]

Germany and Austria, meanwhile, had eagerly seized the advantage offered by Russia's internal troubles. Their troops were ordered to make friends with the Russians in the trenches opposite. They played eagerly upon the new Russian feeling of the brotherhood of man and freedom and equality, to do away with fighting on the east, thus being able to transfer to the western front some of their best regiments. As a result the French and English, after driving the Germans back for many miles in northern France were at last brought to a standstill.

The burden of carrying the whole war seemed about to fall more heavily than ever upon the armies in the west. Talk of a separate peace between Russia and the central powers grew stronger and stronger. The Russian troops felt that they had been fighting the battles of the Czar and the grand dukes and they saw no reason why they should go on shooting their brother workingmen in Germany.

At this point Kerensky, who had been made minister of war, set out to visit the armies in the field. Arriving at the battle grounds of eastern Galicia he made rousing speeches to the soldiers and actually led them in person toward the German trenches. The result was a vigorous attack all along the line under Generals Brusiloff and Korniloff which swept the Germans and Austrians back for many miles, and threatened for a time to recapture Lemberg. German spies, however, and agents of the peace party were busy among the Russian soldiers.

They soon persuaded a certain division to stop fighting and retreat.

The movement to the rear, begun by these troops, carried others with it, and for a time it seemed as though the whole Russian army was going to pieces. Ammunition was not supplied to the soldiers. The situation was serious and called for a strong hand. Kerensky was made prime minister and the members of the government and the council of workingmen and soldiers voted him almost the powers of a Czar. He was authorized to give orders that any deserters or traitors be shot, if need be, without trial. Under his rule the Russian army began to re-form, and the situation improved.

In November, 1917, a faction of the extreme Socialists called the Bolsheviki (Bo?l-she?-vi'ki) won over the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow, seized control of the government, forcing Kerensky to flee, and threatened to make peace with Germany. These people are, for the most part, the poor citizens of large cities. They have few followers outside of the city population, for the average Russian in the country is a land owner, and he does not take kindly to the idea of losing his property or dividing it with some landless beggar from Petrograd.

The revolt of the Bolsheviki, then, simply added to the confusion in the realm of Russia. That unhappy country was torn apart by the fights of the different factions. Finland demanded its independence, and German spies and agents encouraged the Ruthenians living in a great province called the Ukraine, to do the same. The Cossacks withdrew to the country to the north of the Crimean peninsula, and the only Russian armies that kept on fighting were those in Turkey. These forces had been gathered largely from the states between the Black and Caspian Seas. Having suffered persecution in the old days, they had hated the Turks for ages and needed no orders from Petrograd to induce them to take revenge.

Finally the Bolshevik government agreed to a peace with the central powers which gave Germany and Austria everything that they wanted. The Russian armies were disbanded and the Germans and Austrians were free to turn their fighting men back to the western front. In the meantime, the Ruthenian republic, now called the Ukraine, was allowed by the Bolsheviki to make a separate peace with Germany and Austria. The troops of the Germans and Austrians began joyously to pillage both Russia and the Ukraine, hunting for the food that was so scarce in the central empires. However, for a whole year hardly anybody in Russia had been willing to do a stroke of work. The fields had gone untilled while the peasants, drunk with their new freedom, and without a care for the morrow, lived off the grain that had been saved up during the past years. As a result, whatever grain the enemy found proved spoiled and mouldy, hardly fit to feed to hogs. As the Germans went about, taking anything that they wished and as food grew scarce, the unrest in Russia grew greater.

The Bolshevik government had not set up a democracy--a government where all the people had equal rights: they had set up a tyranny of the lower cla.s.ses. The small land owners, the tradesmen, the middle cla.s.ses were not allowed any voice in the government. When the first National a.s.sembly or Congress was elected and called together, the Bolsheviki finding that they did not control a majority of its members, disbanded it by force.

Little by little people began to oppose this rule. They objected to being robbed of their rights by the rabble just as much as by the Czar.

When the Russian armies were disbanded, there were some troops that refused to throw down their arms. Among them were the regiments of Czecho-Slovaks. These men had been forced, against their will, to serve in the Austrian army. They were from the northern part of the Austrian empire, Bohemia and Moravia. They were Slavs, related to the Russians, speaking a language very much like Russian, hating the Germans of Austria and anxious to free their country from the empire of the Hapsburgs. When General Brusiloff made his big attack in June, 1916, these men had deserted the Austrian army and re-enlisted as Russians. They could not get back to Austria for the Austrians would shoot them as deserters. Of course, the Austrian and the German generals would make no peace with them. Therefore, this army, 200,000 strong, kept their own officers and their order and their arms and refused to have anything to do with the cowardly peace made by the Bolsheviki. Several thousand of them made their way across Siberia, across the Pacific Ocean, across America, across the Atlantic to France and Italy, where they are fighting by the thousands in the armies of the Entente. The main body of them, however, are still in Russia (August 1, 1918), holding the great Siberian railway, fully ready to renew the war against the central powers at any time when the patriotic Russians will rise and help them. The problem of how to get aid to the Czechs without angering the Russian people is a big one for the allied statesmen.

The trouble with the Russians is that they are not educated; the result of this is that they readily believe the lies of spies and tricksters, that would never deceive an educated man.

Questions for Review

1. Was the Russian government as harsh as that of Germany?

2. Why was Russia a source of weakness to the Entente?

3. Why was Rasputin killed?

4. Why did the Czars prefer the Cossacks?

5. What cla.s.ses fought after the Czar's downfall?

6. How did the central powers take advantage of Russia's troubles?

7. How did the peace with the Bolsheviki help Germany?

8. Explain where the Czecho-Slovak army came from.

CHAPTER XXIII

The United States at War--Why?

Germany throws to the winds all rules of civilized war.--Dr.

Zimmermann's famous note.--Congress declares war.--Other nations follow our example.--The plight of Holland, Denmark, and Norway.--German arguments for submarine warfare shown to be groundless.--German agents blow up American factories.--German threats against the United States.--Germany and the Monroe Doctrine.--A government whose deeds its people cannot question.--Why American troops were sent to Europe.--Why the war lords wanted peace in January, 1918.

In the meantime, two months had elapsed from the time when the German amba.s.sador, Count Von Bernstorff, had been sent home by the United States. The Germans, true to their word, had begun their campaign of attacking and sinking without warning ships of all kinds in the waters surrounding Great Britain and France. Even the hospital ships, marked plainly with the red cross, and boats carrying food to the starving people of Belgium, were torpedoed without mercy. The curious state of public feeling in Germany is well ill.u.s.trated by an incident which happened at this time. It so happened that an English hospital ship, crossing the channel, was laden with about as many German wounded as British. These men had been left helpless on the field of battle after the Germans had retreated, and had been picked up and cared for by the British, along with their own troops. A German submarine with its deadly torpedo sent this vessel to the bottom. The wounded men, German and British alike, sank without the slightest chance for their lives.

A burst of indignation came from all over Germany against the "unspeakable brutality" of the British who dared to expose German wounded men to the danger of travel on the open sea! The British were warned that if this happened again the Germans would make reprisals upon British prisoners in their hands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flight from a Torpedoed Ocean Liner]

Week followed week and still there was no declaration of war between the United States and Germany. But in the latter part of February, the United States government made public a note which its secret agents had stopped from being delivered to the German amba.s.sador in Mexico.

It was signed by Dr. Zimmermann, German minister of foreign affairs, and it requested the amba.s.sador as soon as it was certain that there would be an outbreak of war with the United States as a result of the sinking of ships without warning, to propose to Mexico that she ally herself with Germany. "Together we will make war on the United States," said Dr. Zimmermann, "and together we will make peace. Mexico will receive as her reward her lost provinces of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico." "Ask the Mexican government," said Dr. Zimmermann, "to propose to the j.a.panese that j.a.pan break away from her alliance with England and join Mexico and Germany in an attack upon the United States."

The publication of this note made a tremendous change in feeling in the United States. Up to this time a great portion of the people had felt that perhaps we were hasty in breaking off relations with Germany, and in their earnest desire for peace had been willing to put up with injury and even insults on the part of the Germans, excusing them on the grounds of their military necessity. The publication of Dr. Zimmermann's note, however, showed the people of the United States the true temper of the government at Berlin. It showed them that the German war lords had no respect for anything but brute force, that the language of cannon was the only language which they could understand, and that any further patience on the part of this country would be looked upon as weakness and treated with scorn and contempt.

On the sixth of April, 1917, Congress, called into session by the President, by an overwhelming vote declared that a state of war existed between the United States of America and the Imperial Government of Germany.

At this point it may be well to sum up the causes that brought the United States into the great war. These causes may be given under two heads: (1) the war waged upon us by submarines; and (2) the German plots and threats against our country at a time when we were at peace with them. The latter, as given in pages to follow, comprise: (a) The Kaiser's threat, (b) Admiral Von Tirpitz's threat, (c) the blowing up of American factories and death of American workingmen, (d) the attempt to get us into war with j.a.pan and Mexico, and (e) the spending of the German government's money in an attempt to make our congressmen vote as Germany wished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: President Wilson reading his War Message to Congress]

The Submarine War

Up to the time when the United States declared war, two hundred and twenty-six Americans, men, women, and infants, had met their death through the sinking of ships, torpedoed without warning, under orders of the German government. These people were peaceable travelers, going about their business on the high seas in pa.s.senger steamers owned by private companies. According to the law observed by all nations up to this time there was no more reason for them to fear danger from the Germans than if they had been traveling on trains in South America or Spain, or any other country not at war. The attack upon these ships, to say nothing about the brutal and inhuman method of sinking them without warning, was an act of war on the part of Germany against any country whose citizens happened to be traveling on these ocean steamers. That the action of the United States in calling the submarine attacks an act of war was only justice is proved by the fact that several other nations, who had nothing to gain by going to war and had earnestly desired to remain neutral, took the same stand.

Brazil, Cuba, and several other South and Central American republics found that they could not maintain their honor without declaring war on Germany. German amba.s.sadors and ministers have been dismissed from practically every capital in Spanish America.

In Europe, also, neutral nations like Holland, Denmark, and Norway saw their ships sunk and their citizens drowned. In spite of their wrongs, however, the first two did not dare to declare war on Germany, as the Germans would be able to throw a strong army across the border and overrun each of these two little countries before the allies could come to their help. With the fate of Belgium and Serbia before them, the Danes and the Dutch swallowed their pride and sat helplessly by while Germany killed their sailors and defenseless pa.s.sengers. After the failure of the Entente to protect Serbia and Roumania, no one could blame Denmark and Holland.

Norway, too, was exposed to danger of a raid by the German fleet.

Commanding the Skager Rack and Cattegat as they did, with the Kiel Ca.n.a.l connecting them, the Germans could bombard the cities on the Norwegian coast or even land an army to invade the country. The three little countries together do not have an army any larger than that of Roumania, and it would have been out of the question for them to declare war on Germany without seeing their whole territory overrun and laid waste.

Nevertheless public opinion in Norway was so strong against Germany that the Norwegian government, on November first, 1917 sent a vigorous protest to Berlin, closing with these words:

"The Norwegian government will not again state its views, as it has already done so on several occasions, as to the violation of the principles of the freedom of the high seas incurred by the proclamation of large tracts of the ocean as a war zone and by the sinking of neutral merchant ships not carrying contraband.

"It has made a profound impression on the Norwegian people that not only have German submarines continued to sink peaceful neutral merchant ships, paying no attention to the fate of their crews, but that even German warships adopted the same tactics. The Norwegian government decided to send this note in order to bring to the attention of the German government the impression these acts have made upon the Norwegian people."

The two arguments that the Germans used in trying to justify themselves for their inhuman methods with the submarine are: (1) that on these ships which were sunk were supplies for the French and British armies, the arrival of which would aid them in killing Germans, and (2) that the English, by their blockade of Germany, were doing something which was contrary to the laws of nations and starving German women and children, and, therefore, since England was breaking some rules of the war game, Germany had the right to go ahead and break others.

The trade of the United States in selling war supplies to France and England was a sore spot with Germany. They claimed that the United States was unfair in selling to the Entente and not to them. Of course, this was foolish, as has been pointed out, for the United States was just as ready to sell to Germany as to the Allies, as was shown by the two voyages of the Deutschland. If our government had forbidden our people to sell war supplies at all, and if other neutral countries had done the same thing, then the result would be that all wars would be won by the country which made the biggest preparation for war in times of peace. A law pa.s.sed by neutral countries forbidding their merchants from selling munitions would leave a non-military nation, which had not been getting ready for war, absolutely at the mercy of a neighbor who for years had been storing up sh.e.l.ls and guns for the purpose of unrighteous conquest. So clear was this right to sell munitions that Germany did not dare protest, but ordered Austria to do so instead. In reply, our government was able to point out cases where Austrian firms had sold guns, etc., to Great Britain during the Boer War as you have already been told, and Austria had no answer to give.

What is more, at all of the meetings of the diplomats of different nations at the Hague, called for the purpose of trying to prevent future wars, if possible, or at least to make them more humane and less brutal to the women and children and others who were not actually fighting, Germany had always upheld the right of neutral nations to sell arms. Moreover, her representatives had fought strongly against any proposals to settle disputes by arbitration and peaceful agreements. At a time when many European nations signed treaties with the United States agreeing to allow one year to elapse between a dispute which might lead to war and the actual declaring of war itself, Germany positively refused to consider such an agreement.

As for the English blockade, England was doing no more to Germany than Germany or any other country would have done to England if the English navy had not been so strong. In our own Civil War the North kept up a like blockade of the South and no nation protested against it, for it was recognized as an entirely legal act. In the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans were blockading the city of Paris and the country around it. The Frenchmen tried to send their women and children outside the lines to be fed. The Germans drove them back at the point of the bayonet, and told them that they might "fry in their own fat."

According to the laws of war they were perfectly justified in what they did. Then, too, the English blockade, which stopped ships which were found to be loaded with supplies for Germany and took them peaceably to an English port, where it was decided how much the owners should be paid for the cargoes, was a very different matter from the brutal drowning of helpless men, women, and children by the German submarines. In one case, owners of the goods were caused a great deal of annoyance and in some instances did not get their money promptly.

On the other side, there was murder of the most fiendish kind, an act of war against neutral states.

Plots and Threats Against the United States

[Ill.u.s.tration: American Grain Set on Fire by German Agents]

Let us turn now to the second cause for grievance that the United States had against Germany. At a time when American citizens who sympathized with Germany were subscribing millions of dollars for the relief of the German wounded, it is strongly suspected that this was the very money, which, collected by the German government's own agents, was being spent in plots involving the destroying of the property of some American citizens and the death of others. The German amba.s.sador and his helpers were hiring men to blow up American factories, to destroy railroad bridges, and to kill Americans who were making war supplies for the armies of Europe. Factory after factory was blown up with considerable loss of life. Bombs, with clock work attachment to explode them at a certain time, were found on ships sailing for Europe. Money was poured out in great quant.i.ties to influence members of the United States Congress to vote against the shipment of war supplies to France and England. Revolts paid for by German money were organized in Mexico and the Islands of the West Indies. For a long time there had been a series of stories and newspaper and magazine articles trying to prove to the American people that j.a.pan was planning to make war on us. The same sort of stories appeared in j.a.pan, persuading the j.a.panese that they were in danger of being attacked by the United States. It now appears that the great part of these stories were started by the Germans, who hoped to get us into a war with j.a.pan and profit by the ill will which must follow between the two countries.