Germany, The Next Republic? by Carl W. Ackerman

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The very fact that the belligerents tried to mobilise public opinion in
the United States in their favour shows that 1914 was a milestone in
international affairs. This was the first time any foreign power ever
attempted to fight for the good will--the public opinion--of this
nation. The governments themselves realised the value of public
opinion in their own boundaries, but when the war began they realised
that it was a power inside the realms of their neighbours, too.

When differences of opinion developed between the United States and the
belligerents the first thing President Wilson did was to publish all
the documents and papers in the possession of the American government
relating to the controversy. The publicity which the President gave
the diplomatic correspondence between this government and Great Britain
over the search and seizure of vessels emphasised in Washington this
tendency in our foreign relations. At the beginning of England's
seizure of American merchantmen carrying cargoes to neutral European
countries, the State Department lodged individual protests, but no heed
was paid to them by the London officials. Then the United States made
public the negotiations seeking to accomplish by publicity what a
previous exchange of diplomatic notes failed to do.

Discussing this action of the President in an editorial on "Diplomacy
in the Dark," the New York _World_ said:

"President Wilson's protest to the British Government is a clear,
temperate, courteous assertion of the trade rights of neutral countries
in time of war. It represents not only the established policy of the
United States but the established policy of Great Britain. It voices
the opinion of practically all the American people, and there are few
Englishmen, even in time of war, who will take issue with the
principles upheld by the President. Yet a serious misunderstanding was
risked because it is the habit of diplomacy to operate in the dark.

"Fortunately, President Wilson by making the note public prevented the
original misunderstanding from spreading. But the lesson ought not to
stop there. Our State Department, as Mr. Wickersham recently pointed
out in a letter to the _World_, has never had a settled policy of
publicity in regard to our diplomatic affairs. No Blue Books or White
Books are ever issued. What information the country obtains must be
pried out of the Department. This has been our diplomatic policy for
more than a century, and it is a policy that if continued will some day
end disastrously."

Speaking in Atlanta in 1912, President Wilson stated that this
government would never gain another foot of territory by conquest.
This dispelled whatever apprehension there was that the United States
might seek to annex Mexico. Later, in asking Congress to repeal the
Panama Tolls Act of 1912, the President said the good will of Europe
was a more valuable asset than commercial advantages gained by
discriminatory legislation.

Thus at the outset of President Wilson's first administration, foreign
powers were given to understand that Mr. Wilson believed in the power
of public opinion; that he favoured publicity as a means of
accomplishing what could not be done by confidential negotiations; that
he did not believe in annexation and that he was ready at any time to
help end the war.

III

Before the Blockade

President Wilson's policy during the first six months of the war was
one of impartiality and neutrality. The first diplomatic
representative in Washington to question the sincerity of the executive
was Dr. Constantine Dumba, the exiled Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, who
was sent to the United States because he was not a noble, and,
therefore, better able to understand and interpret American ways! He
asked me one day whether I thought Wilson was neutral. He said he had
been told the President was pro-English. He believed, he said, that
everything the President had done so far showed he sympathised with the
Entente. While we were talking I recalled what the President's
stenographer, Charles L. Swem, said one day when we were going to New
York with the President.

"I am present at every conference the President holds," he stated. "I
take all his dictation. I think he is the most neutral man in America.
I have never heard him express an opinion one way or the other, and if
he had I would surely know of it."

I told Dr. Dumba this story, which interested him, and he made no
comments.

As I was at the White House nearly every day I had an opportunity to
learn what the President would say to callers and friends, although I
was seldom privileged to use the information. Even now I do not recall
a single statement which ever gave me the impression that the President
sided with one group of belligerents.

The President's sincerity and firm desire for neutrality was emphasised
in his appeal to "My Countrymen."

"The people of the United States," he said, "are drawn from many
nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and
inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and
desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the
conflict. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the
momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to
allay it. Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy
responsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people
of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to
the government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honour and
affection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in
camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war
itself in impulse and opinion, if not in action.

"My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel sure, the earnest
wish and purpose of every thoughtful American that this great country
of ours, which is of course the first in our thoughts and in our
hearts, should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a nation fit
beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the
dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a
nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in
her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is
honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the
world."

Many Americans believed even early in the war that the United States
should have protested against the invasion of Belgium. Others thought
the government should prohibit the shipments of war supplies to the
belligerents. America _was_ divided by the great issues in Europe, but
the great majority of Americans believed with the President, that the
best service Uncle Sam could render would be to help bring about peace.

Until February, 1915, when the von Tirpitz submarine blockade of
England was proclaimed, only American interests, not American lives,
had been drawn into the war. But when the German Admiralty announced
that neutral as well as belligerent ships in British waters would be
sunk without warning, there was a new and unexpected obstacle to
neutrality. The high seas were as much American as British. The
oceans were no nation's property and they could not justly be used as
battlegrounds for ruthless warfare by either belligerent.

Germany, therefore, was the first to challenge American neutrality.
Germany was the first to threaten American lives. Germany, which was
the first to show contempt for Wilson, forced the President, as well as
the people, to alter policies and adapt American neutrality to a new
and grave danger.

CHAPTER II

"PIRATES SINK ANOTHER NEUTRAL SHIP"

On February 4th, 1915, the _Reichsanzeiger_, the official newspaper of
Germany, published an announcement declaring that from the 18th of
February "all the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland as well
as the entire English channel are hereby declared to be a war area.
All ships of the enemy mercantile marine found in these waters will be
destroyed and it will not always be possible to avoid danger to the
crews and passengers thereon.

"_Neutral shipping is also in danger in the war area_, as owing to the
secret order issued by the British Admiralty January 31st, 1915,
regarding the misuse of neutral flags, and the chances of naval
warfare, it can happen that attacks directed against enemy ships may
damage neutral vessels.

"The shipping route around the north of The Shetlands in the east of
the North Sea and over a distance of thirty miles along the coast of
The Netherlands will not be dangerous."

Although the announcement was signed by Admiral von Pohl, Chief of the
Admiralty Staff, the real author of the blockade was Grand Admiral von
Tirpitz. In explanation of the announcement the Teutonic-Allied,
neutral and hostile powers were sent a memorandum which contained the
following paragraph:

"The German Government announces its intention in good time so that
hostile _as well as neutral_ ships can take necessary precautions
accordingly. Germany expects that the neutral powers will show the
same consideration for Germany's vital interests as for those of
England, and will aid in keeping their citizens and property from this
area. This is the more to be expected, as it must be to the interests
of the neutral powers to see this destructive war end as soon as
possible."

On February 12th the American Ambassador, James W. Gerard, handed
Secretary of State von Jagow a note in which the United States said:

"This Government views these possibilities with such grave concern that
it feels it to be its privilege, and indeed its duty in the
circumstances, to request the Imperial German Government to consider
before action is taken the critical situation in respect of the
relations between this country and Germany which might arise were the
German naval officers, in carrying out the policy foreshadowed in the
Admiralty's proclamation, to destroy any merchant vessel of the United
States or cause the death of American citizens.

"It is of course unnecessary to remind the German Government that the
sole right of a belligerent in dealing with neutral vessels on the high
seas is limited to visit and search, unless a blockade is proclaimed
and effectively maintained, which the Government of the United States
does not understand to be proposed in this case. To declare and
exercise the right to attack and destroy any vessel entering a
prescribed area of the high seas without first accurately determining
its belligerent nationality and the contraband character of its cargo,
would be an act so unprecedented in naval warfare that this Government
is reluctant to believe that the Imperial German Government in this
case contemplates it as possible."

I sailed from New York February 13th, 1915, on the first American
passenger liner to run the von Tirpitz blockade. On February 20th we
passed Queenstown and entered the Irish Sea at night. Although it was
moonlight and we could see for miles about us, every light on the ship,
except the green and red port and starboard lanterns, was extinguished.
As we sailed across the Irish Sea, silently and cautiously as a muskrat
swims on a moonlight night, we received a wireless message that a
submarine, operating off the mouth of the Mersey River, had sunk an
English freighter. The captain was asked by the British Admiralty to
stop the engines and await orders. Within an hour a patrol boat
approached and escorted us until the pilot came aboard early the next
morning. No one aboard ship slept. Few expected to reach Liverpool
alive, but the next afternoon we were safe in one of the numerous snug
wharves of that great port.

A few days later I arrived in London. As I walked through Fleet street
newsboys were hurrying from the press rooms carrying orange-coloured
placards with the words in big black type: "Pirates Sink Another
Neutral Ship."

Until the middle of March I remained in London, where the wildest
rumours were afloat about the dangers off the coast of England, and
where every one was excited and expectant over the reports that Germany
was starving. I was urged by friends and physicians not to go to
Germany because it was universally believed in Great Britain that the
war would be over in a very short time. On the 15th of March I crossed
from Tilbury to Rotterdam. At Tilbury I saw pontoon bridges across the
Thames, patrol boats and submarine chasers rushing back and forth
watching for U-boats, which might attempt to come up the river. I
boarded the _Batavia IV_ late at night and left Gravesend at daylight
the next morning for Holland. Every one was on deck looking for
submarines and mines. The channel that day was as smooth as a small
lake, but the terrible expectation that submarines might sight the
Dutch ship made every passenger feel that the submarine war was as real
as it was horrible.

On the 17th of March, arriving at the little German border town of
Bentheim, I met for the first time the people who were already branded
as "Huns and Barbarians" by the British and French. Officers and
people, however, were not what they had been pictured to be. Neither
was Germany starving. The officials and inspectors were courteous and
patient and permitted me to take into Germany not only British
newspapers, but placards which pictured the Germans as pirates. Two
days later, while walking down Unter den Linden, poor old women, who
were already taking the places of newsboys, sold German extras with
streaming headlines: "British Ships Sunk. Submarine War Successful."
In front of the _Lokal Anzeiger_ building stood a large crowd reading
the bulletins about the progress of the von Tirpitz blockade.

For luncheon that day I had the choice of as many foods as I had had in
London. The only thing missing was white bread, for Germany, at the
beginning of the war, permitted only Kriegsbrot (war bread) to be baked.

All Berlin streets were crowded and busy. Military automobiles,
auto-trucks, big moving vans, private automobiles, taxi-cabs and
carriages hurried hither and thither. Soldiers and officers, seemingly
by the thousands, were parading up and down. Stores were busy. Berlin
appeared to be as normal as any other capital. Even the confidence of
Germany in victory impressed me so that in one of my first despatches I
said:

"Germany to-day is more confident than ever that all efforts of her
enemies to crush her must prove in vain. With a threefold offensive,
in Flanders, in Galicia and in northwest Russia, being successfully
prosecuted, there was a spirit of enthusiasm displayed here in both
military and civilian circles that exceeded even the stirring days
immediately following the outbreak of the war.

"Flags are flying everywhere to-day; the Imperial standards of Germany
and Austria predominate, although there is a goodly showing of the
Turkish Crescent. Bands are playing as regiment after regiment passes
through the city to entrain for the front. Through Wilhelmstrasse the
soldiers moved, their hats and guns decorated with fragrant flowers and
with mothers, sisters and sweethearts clinging to and encouraging them."

A few weeks before I arrived the Germans were excited over the shipment
of arms and ammunitions from the United States to the Allies, but by
the time I was in Berlin the situation seemed to have changed. On
April 4th I telegraphed the following despatch which appeared in the
_Evening Sun_, New York:

"The spirit of animosity towards Americans which swept Germany a few
weeks ago seems to have disappeared. The 1,400 Americans in Berlin and
those in the smaller cities of Germany have little cause to complain of
discourteous treatment. Americans just arriving in Berlin in
particular comment upon the friendliness of their reception. The
Germans have been especially courteous, they declare, on learning of
their nationality. Feeling against the United States for permitting
arms to be shipped to the Allies still exists, but I have not found
this feeling extensive among the Germans. Two American doctors
studying in German clinics declare that the wounded soldiers always
talk about 'Amerikanische keugel' (American bullets), but it is my
observation that the persons most outspoken against the sale of
ammunition to the Allies by American manufacturers are the American
residents of Berlin."

Two weeks later the situation had changed considerably. On the 24th I
telegraphed: "Despite the bitter criticism of the United States by
German newspapers for refusing to end the traffic in munitions, it is
semi-officially explained that this does not represent the real views
of the German Government. The censor has been instructed to permit the
newspapers to express themselves frankly on this subject and on
Secretary Bryan's reply to the von Bernstorff note, but it has been
emphasised that their views reflect popular opinion and the editorial
side of the matter and not the Government.

"The _Lokal Anzeiger_, following up its attack of yesterday, to-day
says:

"'The answer of the United States is no surprise to Germany and
naturally it fails to convince Germany that a flourishing trade in
munitions of war is in accord with strict neutrality. The German
argument was based upon the practice of international law, but the
American reply was based upon the commercial advantages enjoyed by the
ammunition shippers.'"

April 24th was von Tirpitz day. It was the anniversary of the entrance
of the Grand Admiral in the German Navy fifty years before, and the
eighteenth anniversary of his debut in the cabinet, a record for a
German Minister of Marine. There was tremendous rejoicing throughout
the country, and the Admiral, who spent his Prussian birthday at the
Navy Department, was overwhelmed with congratulations. Headed by the
Kaiser, telegrams came from every official in Germany. The press paid
high tribute to his blockade, declaring that it was due to him alone
that England was so terror-stricken by submarines.

I was not in Germany very long until I was impressed by the remarkable
control the Government had on public opinion by censorship of the
press. People believe, without exception, everything they read in the
newspapers. And I soon discovered that the censor was so accustomed to
dealing with German editors that he applied the same standards to the
foreign correspondents. A reporter could telegraph not what he
observed and heard, but what the censors desired American readers to
hear and know about Germany.

[Illustration: A Berlin "Extra"]

I was in St. Quentin, France (which the Germans on their 1917
withdrawal set on fire) at the headquarters of General von Below, when
news came May 8th that the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed. I read the
bulletins as they arrived. I heard the comments of the Germans who
were waging war in an enemy country. I listened as they spoke of the
loss of American and other women and children. I was amazed when I
heard them say that a woman had no more right on the _Lusitania_ than
she would have on an ammunition wagon on the Somme. The day before I
was in the first line trenches on the German front which crossed the
road running from Peronne to Albert. At that time this battlefield,
which a year and a half later was destined to be the scene of the
greatest slaughter in history, was as quiet and beautiful as this
picturesque country of northern France was in peace times. Only a few
trenches and barbed wire entanglements marred the scene.

On May 9th I left St. Quentin for Brussels. Here I was permitted by
the General Government to send a despatch reflecting the views of the
German army in France about the sinking of the _Lusitania_. I wrote
what I thought was a fair article. I told how the bulletin was posted
in front of the Hotel de Ville; how the officers and soldiers marching
to and away from the front stopped, read, smiled and congratulated each
other because the Navy was at last helping the Army "win the war."
There were no expressions of regret over the loss of life. These
officers and soldiers had seen so many dead, soldiers and civilians,
men and women, in Belgium and France that neither death nor murder
shocked them.

The telegram was approved by the military censor and forwarded to
Berlin. I stayed in Belgium two days longer, went to Louvain and Liege
and reached Berlin May 12th. The next day I learned at the Foreign
Office that my despatch was stopped because it conflicted with the
opinions which the German Government was sending officially by wireless
to Washington and to the American newspapers. I felt that this was
unfair, but I was subject to the censorship and had no appeal.

I did not forget this incident because it showed a striking difference
of opinion between the army, which was fighting for Germany, and the
Foreign Office, which was explaining and excusing what the Army and
Navy did. The Army always justified the events in Belgium, but the
Foreign Office did not. And this was the first incident which made me
feel that even in Germany, which was supposed to be united, there were
differences of opinion.

In September, 1915, while the German army was moving against Russia
like a surging sea, I was invited to go to the front near Vilna.
During the intervening months I had observed and recorded as much as
possible the growing indignation in Germany because the United States
permitted the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies. In June I
had had an interview with Secretary of State von Jagow, in which he
protested against the attitude of the United States Government and said
that America was not acting as neutral as Germany did during the
Spanish-American war. He cited page 168 of Andrew D. White's book in
which Ambassador White said he persuaded Germany not to permit a German
ship laden with ammunition and consigned for Spain to sail. I thought
that if Germany had adopted such an attitude toward America, that in
justice to Germany Washington should adopt the same position. After
von Jagow gave me the facts in possession of the Foreign Office and
after he had loaned me Mr. White's book, I looked up the data. I found
to my astonishment that Mr. White reported to the State Department that
a ship of ammunition sailed from Hamburg, and that he had not
protested, although the Naval Attache had requested him to do so. The
statements of von Jagow and Mr. White's in his autobiography did not
agree with the facts. Germany did send ammunition to Spain, but
Wilhelmstrasse was using Mr. White's book as proof that the Krupp
interests did not supply our enemy in 1898. The latter part of
September I entered Kovno, the important Russian fortress, eight days
after the army captured it. I was escorted, together with other
foreign correspondents, from one fort to another and shown what the 42
cm. guns had destroyed. I saw 400 machine guns which were captured and
1,300 pieces of heavy artillery. The night before, at a dinner party,
the officers had argued against the United States because of the
shipment of supplies to Russia. They said that if the United States
had not aided Russia, that country would not have been able to resist
the invaders. I did not know the facts, but I accepted their
statements. When I was shown the machine guns, I examined them and
discovered that every one of the 400 was made at Essen or Magdeburg,
Germany. Of the 1,300 pieces of artillery every cannon was made in
Germany except a few English ship guns. Kovno was fortified by
_German_ artillery, not American.

A few days later I entered Vilna; this time I was moving with the
advance column. At dinner that night with General von Weber, the
commander of the city, the subject of American arms and ammunition was
again brought up. The General said they had captured from the Russians
an American machine gun. He added that they were bringing it in from
Smorgon to show the Americans. When it reached us the stamp, written
in English, showed that it was manufactured by Vickers Limited,
England. Being unable to read English, the officer who reported the
capture thought the gun was made in the United States.

In Roumania last December I followed General von Falkenhayn's armies to
the forts of Bucharest. On Thanksgiving Day I crossed by automobile
the Schurduck Pass. The Roumanians had defended, or attempted to
defend, this road by mounting armoured guns on the crest of one of the
mountain ranges in the Transylvanian Alps. I examined a whole position
here and found all turrets were made in Germany.

I did not doubt that the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies
had been a great aid to them. (I was told in Paris, later, on my way
to the United States that if it had not been for the American
ammunition factories France would have been defeated long ago.) But
when Germany argued that the United States was not neutral in
permitting these shipments to leave American ports, Germany was
forgetting what her own arms and munition factories had done _for
Germany's enemies_. When the Krupp works sold Russia the defences for
Kovno, the German Government knew these weapons would be used against
Germany some day, because no nation except Germany could attack Russia
by way of that city. When Krupps sold war supplies to Roumania, the
German Government knew that if Roumania joined the Allies these
supplies would be used against German soldiers. But the Government was
careful not to report these facts in German newspapers. And, although
Secretary of State von Jagow acknowledged to Ambassador Gerard that
there was nothing in international law to justify a change in
Washington's position, von Jagow's statements were not permitted to be
published in Germany.

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