Find an explanation for these Belgian atrocities if you can. What if a few shots were fired by ignorant and infuriated civilians from the windows of houses? It has not been proved. But even if it were, it would be no reason for the martyrdom of a whole population, for the destruction of distant and unincriminated towns, for the massacre of evidently innocent persons.
Was it the drink found in the cellars of the houses that made the German officers and soldiers mad? Perhaps so. But that makes the case no better. It was stolen drink.
Was it the carrying out of the cold-blooded policy of "frightfulness" as a necessary weapon of war? That is the wickedest excuse of all. It is really an accusation. The probable truth of it is supported by what happened later, when the Germans came to Poland, and when the Turks, their allies and pupils in the art of war, slaughtered 800,000 Armenians or drove them to a slow, painful death. It means just what the title of this article says. The Werwolf was at large.
The first evidence of this spirit in the German conduct of the war that came to my personal knowledge was on August 25. Two or three days before, our American Consul-General in Antwerp, which was still the temporary seat of the Belgian Government, had written to me saying that he was absolutely destitute and begging me to send him some money for the relief of his family and other Americans who were in dire need. The Tennessee was lying off the Hook of Holland at that time, and there were several of our splendid army officers ready and eager for any service. One of the best of them, Captain Williams, offered himself as messenger, and I sent him in to Antwerp, with three thousand dollars in gold in a belt around his waist, on August 24. He had a hard, slow journey, but he went through and delivered the money.
That very night, while he was in the city, a Zeppelin air-ship, the first of its devilish tribe to get into action, sailed over sleeping Antwerp dropping bombs. No military damage was done. But hundreds of private houses were damaged and sixty destroyed. One bomb fell on a hospital full of wounded Belgians and Germans. Scores of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, were killed. "In a single house," writes an eye-witness, "I found four dead: one room was a chamber of horrors, the remains of the mangled bodies being scattered in every direction."
Mark the exact nature of this crime. The dropping of bombs from aircraft is not technically illegal. The agreement of the nations to abandon and prohibit this method of attack for five years unfortunately expired by limitation of time in 1912 and was not renewed. But the old-established rules of war among civilized nations have forbidden and still forbid the bombardment of populous towns without due notice, in order that the non-combatants may have a chance to find refuge and safety. This German monster of the air came unannounced, in the dead of night, and, having wrought its hellish surprise, vanished into the darkness again. This was a crime against international law as well as a sin against humanity.
My captain returned to The Hague the next morning, bringing his report. He had seen the horror with his own eyes. More: with the care of a true officer he had made a map of the course taken by the air-ship in its flight over the city. That map showed beyond a doubt that the aim of the marauder was to destroy the principal hospital, the hotel where the Belgian Ministers lived, and the palace in which the King and Queen with their children were sleeping.
I cabled the facts to Washington at once, and sent the map with a fuller report the next day. I felt deeply (and ventured to express my feeling) that the United States could, and ought to, protest against this clear violation of the law of nations—this glaring manifestation of a spirit which was going to make this war the most cruel and atrocious known to history. The foreboding of a return to barbarism has been fulfilled, alas, only too abominably!
In every step of that downward path Germany has led the way, by the perfection of her scientific methods applied to a devilish purpose.
Take, for example, the use of poisonous gas in warfare. This was an ancient weapon, employed long before the beginning of the Christian era. It had been abandoned by civilized nations, and was prohibited by one of the Hague conventions, for a period of five years. But that period having expired, and the convention being only a "scrap of paper," Germany revived the ancient deviltry in a more scientific form. On April 22, 1915, she sent the yellow clouds of death rolling down upon the trenches of Ypres, where the British defended the last city of outraged Belgium. The suffocating horrors of that hellish method of attack are beyond description. The fame of this achievement of spectacled barbarism belongs to the learned servants of the predatory Potsdam gang. But we cannot blame the Allies if they were forced reluctantly to take up the same weapon in self-defense.
The real character and the inhuman effect of the German invasion were brought home to us, and made painfully clear to our eyes and our hearts, by the amazing tragic spectacle of the flood of refugees pouring out of Belgium.
It began slowly. When the quaint frontier town of Vise, surrounded by its goose-farms, was attacked and set on fire on August 4, there were many families from the neighborhood who fled to Holland. When Liege was captured on the 7th after a brave defense, and its last fort fell on the 15th, there were more fugitives. When Brussels was occupied without resistance on the 20th there were still more. As the invasion spread westward and southward, engulfing city after city in widening waves of blood, the tide of terror and flight rose steadily. It reached its high-water mark when Antwerp, after the Germans had pounded its outer and inner circle of forts for nine days, was bombarded on October 7 and captured on the 18th.
Nothing like that sad, fear-smitten exodus has been seen on earth in modern times. There was something in it at once fateful, trembling, and irresistible, which recalled De Quincey's famous story of The Flight of a Tartar Tribe. No barrier on the Holland border could have kept that flood of Belgian refugees out. They were an enormous flock of sheep and lambs, harried by the Werwolf and fleeing for their lives.
But Holland did not want a barrier. She stood with open doors and arms, offering an asylum to the distressed and persecuted.
I do not believe that any country has ever made a better record of wise, steady, and true humanitarian work than Holland made in this matter. It is not necessary to exaggerate it. Naturally, Belgium and Great Britain bore by far the largest part of the financial burden of caring for the refugees. Regular subsidies were guaranteed for this purpose. But Holland gave freely and generously what was more important: a prompt and sufficient welcome and shelter from the storm; abundant supplies of money for immediate needs, food and clothing, a roof and a fire; personal aid and care, nursing, medical attendance—all of which these bewildered exiles needed desperately and at once.
This is not the place, nor the time, in which to attempt a full report of the humane task which was suddenly thrown upon Holland by the deadly doings of the German Werwolf in Belgium, nor of the way in which that task was accepted and carried out. I shall note only a few things of which I have personal knowledge.
Going along the railway line which leads to Antwerp, I saw every train literally packed with fugitives. They had come, not in organized, orderly companies, but in droves—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. They were dazed and confused, escaping from they knew not what, carried they knew not whither. It is well for the poet to say:
"Be not like dumb, driven cattle";
but what can you do in a case like this except run from hell as fast as you can and take the first open road?
The station platforms were crowded with folks in motley garments showing signs of wear and tear. Their possessions were done up in bags and shapeless bundles, rolled in pieces of sacking, old shawls, red-and-white-checkered table-cloths. The men, with drawn and heavy faces, waited patiently. The women collected and watched their restless flocks. The baby tugged at its mother's breast. The little sister carried the next-to-baby in her arms. The boys, as usual, wandered everywhere undismayed and peered curiously into everything.
The crowds were not disorderly or turbulent; there was no shrieking or groaning. There were, of course, some of the baser sort in the vast multitude that fled to Holland—street rowdies and other sons of Belial from the big towns, women of the pavements, and other wretched by-products of our social system. How could it be otherwise in a throng of about a million, scooped up and cast out by an evil chance? But the great bulk of the people were decent and industrious—no more angels than the rest of us can show per thousand.
I remember a very respectable old couple, cleanly though plainly clad, waiting at the station of a small village, looking in vain for a chance to board the train. Everything was full except the compartment reserved for us. We opened the door and asked them to get in. The old gentleman explained that he was a landscape-gardener, living in a small villa with a small garden, in a suburb of Antwerp.
"It was a beautiful garden, monsieur," he said with glistening eyes. "It was arranged with much skill and care. We loved every bush, every flower. But one evening three German shells fell in it and burst. The good wife and I" (here a wan smile) "thought the climate no longer sanitary. We ran away that night on foot. Much misery for old people. Last night we slept in a barn with hundreds of others. But some day we go back to restore that garden. N' est-ce pas vrai, cherie?"
Rosendaal, the Dutch custom-house town on the way to Antwerp, claims 15,000 inhabitants. In two nights at least 40,000 refugees poured into that place. Every house from the richest to the poorest opened its doors in hospitality. The beds and the floors were all filled with sleepers. A big vacant factory building was fitted with improvised bunks and straw bedding. Two thousand five hundred people were lodged there. Open-air kitchens were set up. The burgomaster and aldermen and doctors and all the other "leading citizens" took off their coats and worked. The best women in the place were cooking, serving tables, nursing, making clothes, doing all they could for their involuntary guests.
In the picturesque old city of Bergen-op-Zoom—famous in history—I saw the same thing. There a large tent-camp had been set up for the overflow from the houses. It was like a huge circus of distress. The city hall was turned into an emergency storehouse of food: the vaulted halls and chambers filled with boxes, bags, and barrels. When I went up to the bureau of the burgomaster, his wife and daughters were there, sewing busily for the refugees.
I visited the main hospital and the annexes which had been established in the schoolhouses. Twice, as we climbed the steep stairs, we stood aside for stretchers to be carried past. They bore the bodies of people who had died from exposure and exhaustion.
In one ward there were a score of the most ancient women I have ever seen. They had made the flight on foot. God knows how they ever did it. One of them was so weak that she could not speak, so short of breath that she could not lie down. As she sat propped with pillows, rocking slowly to and fro and coughing, coughing, feebly coughing her life out, she looked a thousand years old. Perhaps she was, if suffering measures years.
Another room was for babies born in the terror and the flight. A few were well-looking enough; but most of them were pitiful scraps and tatters of humanity. They were tenderly nursed and cared for, but their chance was slender. While I was there one of the little creatures shuddered, breathed a tiny sigh, and slipped out of a world that was too hard for it.
It was part of my unofficial duty to visit as many as possible of the private shelters and hospitals and workrooms and the public camps, because the Belgian Relief Committee and other friends in New York had sent me considerable sums of money to use in helping the refugees. In the careful application of these funds I had the advice of Mr. Th. Stuart, President of the "Netherlands Relief Committee for Belgian and Other Victims of War," and of Baron F. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, a great friend of mine, whom the Queen had appointed as General Commissioner to oversee all the public refugee camps.
Three of these, Nunspeet, Ede, and Uden, were improvised villages, with blocks of long community houses, separate dormitories for the unmarried men and for the single women, a dining-hall, a chapel, one or two schoolhouses, a recreation-hall, a house of detention for refractory persons, one hospital for general cases, and another for infectious diseases. It was all built of wood, simple and primitive, but as comfortable as could be expected under the conditions. The chief danger of the camps was idleness. In providing work to combat this peril the Rockefeller Foundation and the committee of the English "Society of Friends" were of great assistance. Each of these camps had accommodation for about 10,000 people.
The fourth camp was at the ancient city of Gouda, famed for its great old church with stained-glass windows and for its excellent cheese and clay pipes. This camp was the earliest and one of the most interesting that I visited. It was established in a series of exceptionally large and fine greenhouses, which happened to be empty when the emergency came. Somebody—I think it was the clever Burgomaster Yssel de Scheppe and his admirable wife—had the good idea of utilizing them for the refugees. It seemed a curious notion, to raise human plants under glass. But it worked finely. The houses were long and lofty; they had concrete floors and broad concrete platforms where the "cubicles" for the separate families could easily be erected; steam heat, electric light, hot and cold water were already "laid on"; it was quite palatial in its way. A few wooden houses, a laundry, a kitchen, a carpenter-shop for the men, and so on, were quickly run up. There was a bowling-alley and a playground and a schoolhouse. The people could go to church in the town. Soon twenty-five hundred exiles were living in this queer but comfortable camp.
But it was evident that this refugee life, even under the best conditions that could be devised, was abnormal. There was not room in the industrial life of Holland for all these people to stay there permanently. Besides, they did not want to stay, and that counts for something in human affairs. The question arose whether it might not be wise to let them go home. Not to send them home, you understand. That was never even contemplated. But simply to allow them to return to their own country, at least in the regions where the fury of war had already passed by. I suggested to Mr. Stuart that before you allow poor folks to "go home," you ought to know whether they have a "home" to go to. So we took my motor in October and made a little tour of investigation in Belgium.
That was a strange and memorable journey. The long run in the dripping autumn afternoon along the Antwerp Road, where the miserable fugitives were still trudging in thousands; the search for lodgings in the stricken city, where most of the streets were silent and deserted as if the plague had passed there, and the only bustling life was in the central quarter, where "the field-gray ones" abounded; the closed shops, the house-fronts shattered by shells, the great cathedral standing in the moonlight, unharmed as far as we could see, except for one shell which had penetrated the south transept, just where Rubens's "Descent from the Cross" used to hang before it was carried away for safety—I shall never forget those impressions.
The next morning, provided with permits which the German Military Commandant had very courteously given us, we set out on our tour. The journey became still more strange. The beautiful trees of the suburbs were razed to the ground, the little villas stood empty, many of them half-ruined. (Perhaps one of them belonged to our friend the landscape-gardener.) We could see clearly the emplacements for the big German guns, which had been secretly laid long before the war began, concealed in cellars and beneath innocent-looking tennis-courts. The ring-forts surrounding Antwerp were knocked to pieces, their huge concrete gateways, their stone facings, their high earthworks, all battered out of shape.
Town after town through which we passed lay half-destroyed or in complete ruins. Wavre, Waelhem, Termonde, Duffel, Lierre, and many smaller places were in various stages of destruction, burned or shattered by shell fire and explosives. The heaps of bricks and stones encumbered the streets so that it was hard to pick our way through. The smell of decaying bodies tainted the air. The fields had been inundated in the valleys; the water was subsiding; here and there corpses lay in the mud. Old trenches everywhere; thousands of rudely heaped graves, marked by two crossed sticks; miles on miles of rusty barbed-wire defenses, with dead cows or horses entangled in them, slowly rotting, haunted by the carrion crows.
Yet there were some people in the countryside. Now and then we saw a woman or an old man digging in field or garden. We stopped at the front yard of a little farmhouse, where the farmer's wife stood, and asked her some directions about the road. She gave them cheerfully, though the house at her back was little more than a mass of ruins.
"Were you here in the fighting?" we asked.
"But no, messieurs," she answered with a short laugh. "If I had been here, I should not be here. I ran away to Holland and returned yesterday to my house. But how shall I creep in?" She pointed over her shoulder to the pile of bricks. "I am not a cat or a rat."
They are indomitable, those Flemish people. At Lierre we were very hungry and searched vainly for an inn or a grocery. At last in one of the streets we saw a little baker-shop. The upper story was riddled and broken. But the shop was untouched, the window-shade half up, and underneath we could see two loaves of bread. We went in. The bare-armed baker met us.
"Can you sell us a little bread?"
"But certainly, messieurs, that is what I am here for. Not the window loaves, however; I have a fresh loaf, if you please. Also a little cheese, if you will."
"Were you here in the fighting?"
"Assuredly not! It was impossible. But I hurried back after three days. You see, messieurs, some people were returning, and me—I am the Baker of Lierre."
He said it as if it were a title of nobility.
At Malines (Mechelen) the devastation appeared perhaps more shocking because we had known the russet and gray old city so well in peaceful years. Many of the streets were impassable, choked with debris. One side of the great Square was knocked to fragments. The huge belfry, Saint Rombaud's Tower, wherein hangs the famous carillon of more than thirty bells, was battered but still stood firm. The vast cathedral was a melancholy wreck of its former beauty and grandeur. The roof was but a skeleton of bare rafters; the side wall pierced with gaping rents and holes; the pictured windows were all gone; the sunlight streamed in everywhere upon the stone floor, strewn with an indescribable confusion of shattered glass, fallen beams, fragments of carved wood, and broken images of saints.
A little house behind the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the roof and upper story of which had been pierced by shells, seemed to be occupied. We knocked and went in. The man and his wife were in the sitting-room, trying to put it in order. Much of the furniture was destroyed; the walls were pitted with shrapnel-scars, but the cheap ornaments on the mantel were unbroken. In the ceiling was a big hole, and in the floor a pit in which lay the head and fragments of a German shell. I asked if I might have them. "Certainly," answered the man. "We wish to keep no souvenirs of that wicked thing."
I do not propose to describe the magnificent work of the "Commission for Relief in Belgium." It is too well known. Besides, it is not my story; it is the story of Herbert Hoover, who made the idea a reality, and of the crew of fine and fearless young Americans who worked with him. England and France furnished more money to buy food; but the United States, in addition to money and wheat, gave the organization, the personal energy and toil and tact, the assurance of fair play and honest dealing, without which that food could never have gotten into Belgium or been distributed only to the civil population.
Holland was the door through which all the supplies for the C. R. B. had to pass. The first two cargoes that went in I had to put through personally, and nearly had to fight to do it. My job was to keep the back of the United States against that door and hold it open. It was not always easy. I was obliged to make protests, remonstrances, and polite suggestions about what would happen if certain things were not done.
Once the Germans refused to give any more "safe-conduct passes" for relief ships on the return voyage. Of course, that would have made the work impossible. A German aircraft bombed one of these ships. I put the matter mildly but firmly to the German Minister. "This work is in your interest. It relieves you from the burden of feeding a lot of people whom you would otherwise be bound to feed. You want it to go on?" "Yes, certainly, by all means." "Well, then, you will have to stop attacking the C. R. B. ships or else the work will have to stop. The case is very simple. There is only one thing to do." He promised to take the matter up with Berlin at once. In a couple of days the answer came: "Very sorry. Regrettable mistake. Aviator could not see markings on side and stern of ship. Advise large horizontal signs painted on top deck of ships, visible from above. Safe-conducts will be granted."
When this was told to Captain White, a clever Yankee sea-captain who had general charge of the C. R. B. shipping, he laughed considerably and then said: "Why, look-a-here, I'll paint those boats all over, top, sides, and bottom, if that'll only keep the —— Germans from sinkin' 'em."
From a million and a half to two million men, women, and children in Belgium and northern France were saved from starving to death by the work of the C. R. B. The men who were doing it had a chance to observe the conditions in those invaded countries. They came to the Legation at The Hague and told simply what they knew. We got the real story of Miss Cavell, cruelly done to death by "field-gray" officers. We got full descriptions of the system of deporting the civil population—a system which amounted to enslavement, with a taint of "white slavery" thrown in. When the Belgian workmen were suddenly called from their homes, herded before the German commandant, and sent away, they knew not whither, to work for their oppressor, as they were entrained they sang the "Marseillaise." They knew they would be punished for it, kept without food, put to the hardest labor. But they sang it. They knew that France, and England too, were fighting for them, for their rights, for their liberty. They believed that it would come. They were not conquered yet.
Here I must break off my story for a month. It has not been well told. Words cannot render the impression of black horror that lay upon us, the fierce indignation that stirred us, during all those months while we were doing the tasks of peace in peaceful Holland.
We were bound to be neutral in conduct. That was the condition of our service to the wounded, the prisoners, the refugees, the sufferers, of both sides. We lived up to that condition at The Hague without a single criticism from anybody—except the subsidized German-American press in the United States.
But to be neutral in thought and feeling—ah, that was beyond my power. I knew that the predatory Potsdam gang had chosen and forced the war in order to realize their robber-dream of Pan-Germanism. I knew that they were pushing it with unheard-of atrocity in Belgium and northern France, in Poland and Servia and Armenia. I knew that they had challenged and attacked the whole world of peace-loving nations. I knew that America belonged to that imperilled world. I knew that there could be no secure labor and no quiet sleep in any land so long as the Potsdam Werwolf was at large.
The truth about the choosing, beginning, and forcing of this abominable war has never been told by official Germandom.
Now and then an independent German like Maximilian Harden is brave enough to blurt it out: "Of what use are weak excuses? We willed this war, … willed it because we were sure we could win it." (Zukunft, August, 1914.) But in general the official spokesmen of Germany keep up the claim that their country was attacked and forced to fly to arms to protect herself.
"Gentlemen," said the Imperial Chancellor to the members of the Reichstag on August 4,1914, "we are now acting in self-defense. Necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxembourg and have possibly already entered on Belgian soil. [A little earlier in the speech he confessed that they had also invaded France.] Gentlemen, that is a breach of international law. The French Government has notified Brussels that it would respect Belgian neutrality as long as the adversary respected it. But we know that France stood ready for an invasion. France could wait. We could not …. The injustice we commit—I speak openly—we will try to make good as soon as our military aims have been attained. He who is menaced as we are, and is fighting for his all, can only consider the one and best way to strike." [Footnote 1] (The word which Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg actually used was "durchhauen", which means "to hew, or hack, a way through.")
[Footnote 1: Out of several translations of this speech I have chosen as the fairest the one printed by the American Association for International Conciliation, November, 1914, No. 84.]
It was against such weak excuses as this, against the vain pretext that the German war-lords were the attacked instead of the attackers, that Herr Harden made the frank protest which I have quoted above.
Meantime the falsehood of the tales of French preparation for invasion and of actual violations of German territory has been exposed by the evidence of Germans themselves. General Freytag-Loringhoven, in his essay on "The First Victories in the West," has shown that the French high command was taken off its guard by the swift stab through Luxembourg and Belgium, and could not get the Fifth Army Corps to the Douai-Charleroi line until August 22. The municipal authorities of Nuremburg have declared that they have no knowledge of the dropping of bombs on that city by French aviators.
The falsehood of the Chancellor's promise that Germany would "make good her injustice" to Belgium after attaining her military aims is foreshadowed to-day. (September 27.) The newspapers of this morning contain a semi-official press statement in regard to a note verbale handed by the Foreign Secretary to the Papal Nuncio at Berlin. Germany, if this statement is correct, now proposes to spoil the future of Belgium by splitting the nation into two administrative districts, Flemish and Walloon, thus injecting the poison-germ of disunion into the body politic. She also demands "the right to develop her economic interests freely in Belgium, especially in Antwerp," and a guarantee that "any such menace as that which threatened Germany [from Belgium!] in 1914 shall be excluded." This is the German idea of making good an injustice by committing a fresh injury. It is in the style of a highwayman who says to his victim: "I will reward you by letting you go. But I must keep the big pearl, and you must permit me to break both your arms." [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: For further confirmation of these ideas see the Memoir of the late General von Bissing, former Governor-General of Belgium, published by the Bergisch-Markische Zeitung, May 18, 1917, and by Das Grossere Deutschland, May 19, 1917.
"History now shows us that, neither prior to, nor at the outset of hostilities, were people able to rely to any great extent on a neutral Belgium, and, should we attach a certain importance to these historic truths, we shall not, however, on the conclusion of peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is force that should achieve the result that the population, at present still hostile, should become used to German rule and submit to it. Moreover, it will be necessary, through a peace assuring us the annexation of Belgium, that we should be able to protect, as we are now compelled to do, the German subjects who have settled in this country, and the protection we shall be enabled to afford them will be of special service to us in the struggle about to take place in the world's market. It is only by reigning over Belgium that we shall be able to utilize (verwerten), with a view to German interests, Belgian capital in savings and the numerous Belgian joint-stock companies already existing in enemy countries. We ought to have control over the important enterprises that Belgian capital has founded in Turkey, the Balkans, and China. . . ."]
[End Footnote 2]
Somewhere I have read a Latin line—the name of whose author has slipped my memory—which seems to fit the case perfectly: "Quidquid non audet in historia Germania mendax!" [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: I have taken the references which follow, as far as possible, from Official Diplomatic Documents, edited by E. von Mach, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1916. The comments and footnotes in this volume are untrustworthy, but the texts are presumably correct, and it is polite to judge the Germans from their own mouths. The book is quoted as Off. Dip. Doc.]
In the latter part of 1916 the New York Times published an admirable series of articles, signed "Cosmos," on The Basis of Durable Peace.[Footnote 4] With almost every statement of this learned and able writer I found myself in thorough accord. But the fourth sentence of the first article I could not accept.
[Footnote 4: These articles are now published in book form by theScribners.]
"The question as to who or what power," writes Cosmos, "is chiefly responsible for the last events that immediately preceded the war has become for the moment one of merely historical interest."
On the contrary, it seems to me a question of immediate, vital, decisive interest. It certainly determined the national action of France, Great Britain, and Italy. They did not believe that Germany and Austria were acting in self-defense. If that had been the case, Italy at least would have been bound by treaty to come to the aid of her partners in the Triple Alliance, which was purely a defensive league. But she formally declined to do so, on the ground that "the war undertaken by Austria, and the consequences which might result, had, in the words of the German Ambassador himself, a directly aggressive object." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 431.) The same ground was taken in the message of the President of the French Republic to the Parliament on August 4, 1914 (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 444), and in the speech of the British Prime Minister, August 6, the day on which the Parliament passed the first appropriation for expenses arising out of the existence of a state of war (British Blue Book).
The conviction that the ruling militaristic party in Germany, abetted by Austria, bears the moral guilt of thrusting this war upon the world as the method of settling international difficulties which could have been better settled by arbitration or conference, is a very real thing at the present moment. It is shared by the Entente Allies and the United States. It is one of those "imponderables" which, as Bismarck said long ago, must never be left out of account in estimating national forces. It will hold the Allies and the United States together. It will help them to win the war for peace under conditions for Germany which may not be "punitive," but which certainly must be "reformatory".
Understand, I do not imagine or maintain that the primary or efficient causes of this war are to be found in any things that happened in 1914 or 1913. They are inherent in false methods of government, in false systems of so-called national policy, in false dealing with simple human rights and interests, in false attempts to settle natural problems on an artificial basis.
All nations have a share in them. They go back to Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908; to the Congress of Berlin in 1878; to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870; to the Prusso-Austrian War in 1866; to the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Yes, they go back further still, if you like, to the time when Cain killed Abel! That was the first assertion of the doctrine that "might makes right."
But the "occasional cause" of this war, the ground on which it was brought to a head and let loose by Germany, was the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, presented on July 23, 1914, at 6 P. M.
This remarkable state-paper, so harsh in its tone, so imperious in its demands, that it called forth the disapproval even of a few bold German critics, was apparently meant to be impossible of acceptance by Servia, and thus to serve either as the instrument for crushing the little country which stood in the way of the "Berlin-Baghdad-Bahn," or as a torch to kindle the great war in Europe. I do not propose to trace its history and consequences in detail. I propose only to show, by fuller proofs than have hitherto been available, that Germany must share the responsibility for this flagitious and incendiary document.
On July 25, 1914, the German Ambassador at Petrograd handed an official "note verbale" to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs which stated that "The German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian note before it was presented, and exercised no influence upon its contents." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 173.) Similar communications were presented in France and England.
This barefaced denial that the German Government knew what would be in the Austrian ultimatum, or had anything to do with the framing of it, was a palpable falsehood. It was discredited at the time. The antecedent incredibility of the statement has been well set forth by Mr. James N. Beck, in his vigorous book, The Evidence in the Case.[Footnote 5] New evidence has come in. I intend here to present briefly and arrange in a new order the facts which prove to a moral certainty that the German Government knew beforehand what the content and intent of the Austrian ultimatum would be, and what consequences it would probably entail.
[Footnote 5: The Evidence in the Case. Putnams. New York, 1914, pp. 31-46.]
(1) Austria was the most intimate ally of Germany, admittedly dependent upon her big friend for backing in all international affairs. The German Ambassador in Vienna, Herr von Tschirsky, and the Austrian Ambassador in Berlin, Count Szogyeny, were in close consultation with the Governments to which they were accredited during the weeks that followed the crime of Serajevo, June 28-July 23. It is absolutely incredible that Austria should not have consulted her big friend in regard to the momentous step against Servia, altogether impossible that Germany should not have insisted upon knowing what her smaller friend was doing in a matter of such importance to them both. You might as well imagine that the board of managers of a subsidiary railway would block out a new policy without consulting the directors of the main line.
(2) On July 5, 1914, it appears that a secret conference was held at Potsdam at which high officials of the German and Austrian Governments were present. It is not possible to give their names with certainty—not yet, perhaps never—because these gentlemen come and go in the dark. But the fact of the meeting was brought out publicly in the speech of Deputy Haase in the Reichstag, July 19, 1917, and not contradicted. Whatever may have been the ostensible object of this conference, it is impossible to believe that the most important affairs in the world for Austria and Germany at that moment, namely the nature of the ultimatum to Servia and the possible eventuality of a European war, were not discussed, and perhaps decided.
(3) On July 15, 1914, the Italian Ambassador to Turkey, Signor Garroni, had an interview with the German Ambassador to Turkey, Baron Wangenheim, who had just come back from a visit to Berlin. The German diplomat said that he had been present at a conference where it had been decided that the ultimatum to Servia was to be made of such a nature that it could not be accepted, and that this would be the provocation of the war which would probably ensue. Shortly afterward these statements were narrated by Signor Garroni to Mr. Lewis Einstein, attache of the American Embassy at Constantinople, who carefully noted them in his diary.
(4) On July 22, 1914, the British Ambassador in Berlin sent a despatch to his Government which indicated for the first time clearly the attitude which the German Government had decided to take. I therefore quote it in full.
"Last night I met Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the forthcoming Austrian demarche at Belgrade was alluded to by his Excellency in the conversation that ensued. His Excellency was evidently of opinion that this step on Austria's part would have been made ere this. He insisted that the question at issue was one for settlement between Servia and Austria alone, and that there should be no interference from outside in the discussions between those two countries. He had therefore considered it inadvisable that the Austro- Hungarian Government should be approached by the German Government on the matter. He had, however, on several occasions, in conversation with the Servian Minister, emphasized the extreme importance that Austro-Servian relations should be put on a proper footing.
"Finally, his Excellency observed to me that for a long time past the attitude adopted toward Servia by Austria had, in his opinion, been one of great forbearance." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 56.)
This shows that Germany knew what Austria was doing, approved her plan, and had resolved that there "should be no interference from outside in the discussion"—in other words, Germany would allow no other nation to prevent Austria from doing what she liked to Servia. Could Germany have taken this absolutely "committal" position if she had been ignorant of what Austria intended to do?
(5) On July 23, 1914, the crushing Austrian ultimatum, having been prepared in the dark, was sent to Servia and delivered in Belgrade at 6 P. M. On the same day, and almost certainly at an earlier hour, the German Chancellor prepared a circular confidential telegram to the Ambassadors at Paris, London, and Petrograd, instructing them to tell the Governments to which they were accredited that "the action as well as the demands of the Austro-Hungarian Government can be viewed only as justifiable. . . . [If the demands were refused] nothing would remain for it, but to enforce the same by appeal to military measures, in regard to which the choice of means must be left to it." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 60.)
Is it credible that the German Government would have pronounced a judgment so important, so far-reaching in its foreseen consequences, if it had had no previous knowledge of the "action and demands" of Austria?
(6) On July 23, 1914, the French Minister at Munich telegraphed his Government as follows: "The President of the Council said to me to-day that the Austrian ultimatum, the contents of which were known to him, seemed to him couched in terms which Servia could accept, but that, nevertheless, the actual situation appeared to him serious." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 59.)
How did this gentleman in Munich come to know about the ultimatum, while the gentlemen in Berlin professed ignorance?
(7) On July 25, 1914, the Russian Government was officially informed that: "Germany as the ally of Austria naturally supports the claims made by the Vienna Cabinet against Servia, which she considers justified." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 173.)
This was a very grave declaration, in view of the public announcement which the Russian Government had made on the same day: "Recent events and the despatch of an ultimatum to Servia by Austria-Hungary are causing the Russian Government the greatest anxiety. The Government are closely following the course of the dispute between the two countries, to which Russia cannot remain indifferent." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 170.)
Certainly Germany would not have come to the serious decision of giving unqualified support to the claims of Austria as against the expressed interests of Russia, unless she had long known and had full time to consider those claims and what they would involve.
(8) On July 30, 1914, the British Ambassador in Vienna telegraphed to his Government: "I have private information that the German Ambassador knew the text of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia before it was despatched, and telegraphed it to the German Emperor. I know from the German Ambassador himself that he indorses every line of it." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 330.)
(9) Count Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington, published an article in The Independent, New York, September 7, 1914. In this article he answered, officially, several questions. The first question was: Did Germany approve in advance the Austrian ultimatum to Servia? The answer was: "Yes. Germany's reasons for doing so are the following, &c."
(10) The German Government has itself acknowledged that it was consulted by Austria in regard to the attitude to be taken toward Servia, and the possibility of ensuing war if Russia intervened to protect the life of her little sister state. Germany accepted the responsibility and pledged support. "With all our heart we were able to agree with our ally's estimate of the situation, and assure him that any action considered necessary to end the movement directed against the conservation of the monarchy would meet with our approval." (German Official White Book, p. 4; Off. Dip. Doc., p. 551.)
This is a carte blanche of a kind which no great government could possibly give to another without a definite understanding of what it involved.
Here the summary of the evidence that Austria was not playing "a lone hand" ends—at least until further confidential documents and information about secret meetings are dug up.
Meantime the Imperial German Government maintains its plea of "not guilty." It still denies all previous knowledge of, and all part in, the nefarious Austrian ultimatum to Servia which precipitated the world war.
The denial is both impudent and mendacious.
"Credat Judaeus Apella!"
It has been loudly asserted and persistently maintained by the Potsdam gang that the cause of this abominable war was the mobilization of Russia in preparation to maintain the sovereignty of her little sister state Servia if necessary. "Germany," it is said, "earnestly desired, from the purest of motives, to 'localize the conflict'"—which means in plain words to let Austria deal with Servia as she liked, without interference—rather a one-sided proposition, considering the relative size of the two parties in the benevolently urged single combat. "But Russia rashly interfered with this beautiful design by declaring that she could not remain indifferent to the fate of a small nation of kindred blood, and by calling up troops to prevent any wiping out of Servia by Austria, to whom Germany had already given carte blanche and promised full support. This was a wicked threat against the life and liberty of Germany. This was an action which rendered the great war inevitable." So say the German authorities.
The subtitle of the official German White Book reads: "How Russia and HerRuler Betrayed Germany's Confidence and Thereby Made the European War."[Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: I quote from a copy of the original pamphlet, given to me with the compliments of Herr von Muller, German Minister at The Hague. Professor von Mach in his Off. Dip. Doc. does not reproduce this title-page.]
This is the Potsdam contention in regard to the cause of the war. The documents indicate that it is a false contention, based upon suppressions of the truth. This is what I intend to show.
I hold no brief for the late Imperial Russian Government. Doubtless it was shady in its morals and tricky in its ways.
The telegrams recently discovered by an excellent American journalist, Mr. Herman Bernstein, and published in the "New York Herald," show that the late Czar Nicolas and the still Kaiser Wilhelm were plotting together, a very few years ago, to make a secret "combine" which should control the world. When that plan failed, no doubt the vast power and resources of Russia, under an absolute imperial Government, were regarded by the equally autocratic Government of Germany with jealousy and distrust, not to say fear. No doubt Russia was an actual and formidable obstacle to the Pan-German purpose of getting Servia out of the path of the "Berlin-Baghdad-Bahn".
Grant all this. Pass over, also, the interminable and inextricable dispute about the precise meaning and application of the terms "mobilization," "partial mobilization," "complete mobilization," "precautionary measures," "Kriegsgefahr," an so on. That is an unfathomable morass wherein many deceptions hide. In that controversy each opponent always charges the other with lying, and a wise neutral doubts both. It seems to be true—mark you, I only say it seems—that the first great European Power to order partial mobilization was Austria, July 26, 1914. (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 197.) On July 28 the order for complete mobilization was signed, war was declared against Servia (pp. 272, 273), and on July 29 Belgrade was bombarded (p. 354).
On July 29 Russia ordered partial mobilization in the districts of Odessa, Kief, Moscow, and Kasan, and declared that she had no aggressive intention against Germany. (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 294.) The Russian preparations obviously had relation only to Austria's war on Servia which was already under way.
On July 30 Germany had effected her "covering dispositions" of troops along the French border, from Luxembourg to the Vosges, part of which by chance I saw in June (see p. 36 ff.), and on the same day the Berlin semi-official press announced that a complete mobilization had been ordered. (Off. Dip. Doc., pp. 324, 342.) This announcement was contradicted and withdrawn later on the same day by government orders.
On July 31, at 1 a.m., the Austrian order of complete mobilization, which was signed on the 28th, was issued. (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 356.) Later in the same day the Russian Government ordered complete mobilization and the German Government proclaimed a state of Kriegsgefahr, "wardanger." (Off. Dip. Doc., pp. 356-357.) At seven o'clock in the evening of the same day Germany sent an ultimatum to France, and at midnight an ultimatum to Russia.
On August 1 she declared war on Russia, and on August 3 she declared war on France, having previously invaded French territory and sent her army through neutral Luxembourg.
Now in all this the German Government tries to make it appear that it was simply acting on the defensive, taking necessary steps to guard against the peril threatened by the military measures of Russia.
The falsity of this pretense is easily shown from two facts: First, the Russian Government was all the time pleading for a peaceful settlement of the Austro-Servian dispute, by arbitration, or by a four-power conference. Second, definite offers were made to halt the Russian military measures at once on conditions most favorable to Austria, if Austria and Germany would agree to an examination by the Great Powers of Austria's just claims on Servia.
On the first point, I do not propose to retell the long story of the efforts supported by France, England, Italy, and Russia herself, to get Germany to consent to some plan, any plan, which might avert war by an appeal to reason and justice. To these efforts Germany answered in effect that she could not "coerce" her ally Austria.
But one document in this line seems to me particularly interesting—even pathetic. It is a telegram sent by the late Czar Nicolas to his Imperial Cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm. It is dated July 29, 1914, and reads as follows:
"Thanks for your telegram which is conciliatory and friendly, whereas the official message presented to-day by your Ambassador to my Minister was conveyed in a very different tone. I beg you to explain this divergency. It would be right to give over the Austro-Servian problem to The Hague Tribunal. I trust in your wisdom and friendship." "NICOLAS."
This telegram is not contained in the "German White Book." But Professor von Mach gives it in his "Official Diplomatic Documents" (p. 596).
I have been unable to find in any book, pamphlet, or collection of papers a trace of the Kaiser's answer. Probably he did not send one.
On the second point I propose to quote only the three definite proposals which were before the German Government on July 31, 1914.
Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had been trying with the cordial help of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sazonof, and the President of the Council of France, M. Viviani, to formulate a plan of averting general hostilities which would meet the approval of Germany.
(1) On July 29 Sir E. Grey had an official conversation with the German Ambassador in London and laid before him a proposal in regard to the halting of military measures, described in the following words:
"It was of course too late for all military operations against Servia to be suspended. In a short time, I supposed, the Austrian forces would be in Belgrade, and in occupation of some Servian territory. But even then it might be possible to bring some mediation into existence if Austria, while saying that she must hold the occupied territory until she had complete satisfaction from Servia, stated that she would not advance further, pending an effort of the Powers to mediate between her and Russia." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 307.) This proposal was telegraphed to Berlin on the same day, and from there to Vienna. So far as I know no answer to it has ever been received, though King George V warmly supported the proposal in a personal telegram (July 30) to Prince Henry of Prussia, and begged him to urge it upon the Kaiser.
(2) On July 30 Sazonof in the name of the Czar presented to the German Ambassador at Petrograd, and telegraphed for delivery to the Foreign Offices at Berlin and Vienna, the following proposal:
"If Austria, recognizing that the Austro-Servian question has assumed the character of a question of European interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her ultimatum points which violate the sovereign rights of Servia, Russia undertakes to stop her military preparations." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 341.)
The German Foreign Minister von Jagow, without waiting to consult Vienna, replied "that he considered it impossible for Austria to accept the proposal." (Ibid., p. 342.) Austria said nothing at all!
(3) On July 31 practically the same proposal, modified on the suggestion of Sir E. Grey and M. Viviani, was renewed by Russia. As presented to Berlin and Vienna it read as follows:
"If Austria consents to stay the march of her troops on Servian territory; and if, recognizing that the Austro-Servian conflict has assumed the character of a question of European interest, she admits that the Great Powers may examine the satisfaction which Servia can accord to the Austro-Hungarian Government without injury to her rights as a sovereign State or her independence, Russia undertakes to maintain her expectant attitude." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 370.)
No answer from Austria, who had ordered a general mobilization at one o'clock in the morning of that day!
No answer from Germany, except the prompt proclamation of Kriegsgefahr, and the declaration of war on Russia on August 1!
Thus three successive opportunities of putting a stop to further military preparations of Russia on the simple condition that Austria would go no further, but be content with what she already had occupied as a guarantee for reparation from Servia—three golden occasions of preserving the peace of Europe—were brushed aside by Germany practically without consideration.
Yet the marvellous people at Potsdam go on saying that it was the Russian military preparation that brought this war down on the world!—that Germany always wanted peace, and worked for it!
Why then did she not accept the proffered chance of staying the progress of Russian preparations when it lay within her power to do so by lifting a finger?
Because she did not wish the chance. Because she wished Austria to go on with the subjugation of Servia. Because she wished Russia to be forced to go on with her measures to intervene for the rescue of Servia from extinction. Because she wished herself to go on with her design of putting her own incomparable military machine at work to force her will on Europe. Because she wished to have a false excuse to cover her own guilt in making the war by saying: "Russia did it."
The Potsdam gang forgot one thing. Most liars forget something.
They forgot that by refusing the opportunity for peaceful settlement which would have removed their excuse for making war, they would furnish the proof that their excuse was false.
The house was badly wrecked by the struggle which had raged through it. The walls were marred, the windows and mirrors shattered, the pictures ruined, the furniture smashed into kindling-wood.
Worst of all, the faithful servants and some of the children were lying in dark corners, dead or grievously wounded.
The Burglar who had wrought the damage sat in the middle of the dining- room floor, with his swag around him. It was neatly arranged in bags, for in spite of his madness he was a most methodical man. One bag was labelled silverware; another, jewels; another, cash; and another, souvenirs. There was blood on his hands and a fatuous smile on his face.
"Surely I am a mighty man," he said to himself, "and I have proved it! But I am very tired, as well as kind-hearted, and I feel that it is now time to begin a Conversation on Peace."
The Householder, who was also something of a Pacifist on appropriate occasions, but never a blind one, stood near. Through the brief lull in the rampage he overheard the mutterings of the Burglar.
"'Were you speaking to me?" he asked. "As a matter of fact," answered the Burglar, "I was talking to myself. But it is the same thing. Are we not brothers? Do we not both love Peace? Come sit beside me, and let us talk about it."
"What do you mean by Peace," said the Householder, looking grimly around him; "do you mean all this?"
"No, no," said the Burglar; "that is—er—not exactly! 'All this' is most regrettable. I weep over it. If I could have had my way unopposed it would never have happened. But until you sit down close beside me I really cannot tell you in particular what I mean by that blessed word Peace. In general, I mean something like the status quo ante bel-"
"In this case," interrupted the Householder, "you should say the status quo ante furtum—not bellum [the state of things before the burglary, not before the war], You are a mighty robber—not a common thief, but a most uncommon one. Do you mean to restore the plunder you have grabbed?"
"Yes, certainly," replied the Burglar, in a magnanimous tone; "that is to say, I mean you shall have a part of it, freely and willingly. I could keep it all, you know, but I am too noble to do that. You shall take the silverware and the souvenirs, I will take the jewels and the cash. Isn't that a fair division? Peace must always stand on a basis of equality between the two parties. Shake hands on it."
The Householder put his hand behind his back.
"You insult me," said he. "If I were your equal I should die of shame. Waive the comparison. What about the damage you have done here? Who shall repair it?"
"All the world," cried the Burglar eagerly; "everybody will help—especially your big neighbor across the lake. He is a fool with plenty of money. You cannot expect me to contribute. I am poor, but as honest as my profession will permit. This damage in your house is not wilful injury. It is merely one of the necessary accompaniments of my practice of burglary. You ought not to feel sore about it. Why do you call attention to it, instead of talking politely and earnestly about the blessings of Peace?"
"I am talking to you as politely as I can," said the Householder, moistening his dry lips, "but while I am doing it, I feel as if I were smeared with mud. Tell me, what have you to say about my children and my servants whom you have tortured and murdered?"
"Ah, that," answered the Burglar, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands, palms upward, so that he looked like a gigantic toad, "—that indeed is so very, very sad! My heart mourns over it. But how could it be avoided? Those foolish people would not lie down, would not be still. Their conduct was directly contrary to my system; see section 417, chapter 93, in my 'Great Field-Book of Burglary,' under the title 'Schrecklichkeit.' Perhaps in the excitement of the moment I went a little beyond those scientific regulations. The babies need not have been killed—only terrified. But that was a mere error of judgment which you will readily forgive and forget for the sake of the holy cause of Peace. Will you not?"
The Householder turned quickly and spat into the fireplace.
"Blasphemer," he cried, "my gorge rises at you! Can there be any forgiveness until you repent? Can there be any Peace in the world if you go loose in it, ready to break and enter and kill when it pleases you? Will you lay down your weapons and come before the Judge?"
The Burglar rose slowly to his feet, twisting up his mustache with bloody brass-knuckled hands.
"You are a colossal ass," he growled. "You forget how strong I am, how much I can still hurt you. I have offered you a chance to get Peace. Don't you want it?"
"Not as a present from you," said the Householder slowly. "It would poison me. I would rather die a decent man's death."
He went a step nearer to the Burglar, who quickly backed away.
"Come," the Householder continued, "let us bandy compliments no longer. You are where you have no right to be. You can talk when I get you before the Judge. I want Peace no more than I want Justice. While there is a God in heaven and honest freemen still live on earth I will fight for both."
He took a fresh grip on his club, and the Burglar backed again, ready to spring.
Through the dead silence of the room there came a loud knocking at the door. Could it be the big neighbor from across the lake?
From the outset of this war two things have been clear to me.
First, if the war continued it was absolutely inevitable that the United States would be either drawn into it by the impulse of democratic sympathies or forced into it by the instinct of self-preservation.
Second, the most adequate person in the world to decide when and how theUnited States should accept the great responsibility of fighting besideFrance and Great Britain for peace and for the American ideal of freedomwas President Wilson.
His sagacity, his patience, his knowledge of the varied elements that are blended in our nationality, his sincere devotion to pacific conceptions of progress, his unwavering loyalty to the cause of liberty secured by law, national and international, made him the one man of all others to whom this great decision could most safely be confided.
The people of the United States believed this in the election of 1916. They trusted him sincerely then because "he kept us out of the war" until the inevitable hour. No less sincerely do they trust him now when he declares that the hour has come when we must "dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have" (President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917), to defend ourselves and the world from the Imperial German Government, which is waging "a warfare against mankind."
In the quiet, but never idle, American Legation at The Hague there was an excellent opportunity to observe and study the incredible blunders by which Germany led us, and the unspeakable insults and injuries by which she compelled us, to enter the war.
Our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine was, at first, an obstacle to that entrance. Believing that European governments ought not to interfere in domestic affairs on the American continents, we admitted the converse of that proposition, and held that America should not meddle with European controversies or conflicts. But we soon came to a realizing sense of the ominous fact that Germany was the one nation of Europe which openly despised and flouted the Monroe Doctrine as an outworn superstition. Her learned professors (followed by a few servile American imitators) had poured ridicule and scorn upon it in unreadable books. Her actions in the West Indies and South America showed her contempt for it as a "bit of American bluff." Gradually it dawned upon us that if France were crushed and England crippled our dear old Monroe Doctrine would stand a poor chance against a victorious and supercilious Imperial German Government. As I wrote to Washington in August, 1914, their idea was to "lunch in Paris, dine in London, and spend the night somewhere in America."
Another real barrier to our taking any part in the war was our sincere, profound, traditional love of peace. This does not mean, of course, that America is a country of pacifists. Our history proves the contrary. Our conscientious objections to certain shameful things, like injustice, and dishonor, and tyranny, and systematic cruelty, are stronger than our conscientious objection to fighting. But our national policy is averse to war, and our national institutions are not favorable to its sudden declaration or swift prosecution.
In effect, the United States is a pacific nation of fighting men.
What was it, then, that forced such a nation into a conflict of arms?
It was the growing sense that the very existence of this war was a crime against humanity, that it need not and ought not to have been begun, and that the only way to put a stop to it was to join the Allies, who had tried to prevent its beginning, and who are still trying to bring it to the only end that will be a finality.
It was also the conviction that the Monroe Doctrine, so far from being an obstacle, was an incentive to our entrance. The real basis of that doctrine is the right of free peoples, however small and weak, to maintain by common consent their own forms of government. This Germany and Austria denied. The issue at stake was no longer merely European. It was worldwide.
The Monroe Doctrine could not be saved in one continent if its foundation was destroyed in another. The only way to save it was to broaden it.
The United States, having grown to be a World Power, must either uphold everywhere the principles by which it had been begotten and made great or sink into the state of an obese, helpless parasite. Its sister republics would share its fate.
But more than this: it was the flagrant and contemptuous disregard of all the principles of international law and common humanity by the Imperial German Government that alarmed and incensed us. The list of crimes and atrocities ordered in this war by the mysterious and awful power that rules the German people—which I prefer to call, for the sake of brevity and impersonality, the Potsdam gang—is too long to be repeated here. The levying of unlawful tribute from captured cities and villages; the use of old men, women, and children as a screen for advancing troops; the extortion of military information from civilians by cruel and barbarous methods; the burning and destruction of entire towns as a punishment for the actual or suspected hostile deeds of individuals, and the brutal avowal that in this punishment it was necessary that "the innocent shall suffer with the guilty" (see the letter of General von Nieber to the burgomaster of Wavre, August 27, and the proclamation of Governor-General von der Goltz, September 2, 1914); the introduction of the use of asphyxiating gas as a weapon of war (at Ypres, April 22, 1915); the poisoning of wells; the reckless and needless destruction of priceless monuments of art like the Cathedral of Reims; the deliberate and treacherous violation of the Red Cross, which is the sign of mercy and compassion for all Christendom; the bombardment of hospitals and the cold-blooded slaughter of nurses and wounded men; the sinking of hospital ships with their helpless and suffering company—all these, and many other infamies committed by order of the Potsdam gang made the heart of America hot and angry against the power which devised and commanded such brutality. True, they were not, technically speaking, crimes directed against the United States. They did not injure our material interests. They injured only our souls and the world in which we have to live. They were vivid illustrations of the inward nature of that German Kultur whose superiority, the German professors say, "is rooted in the unfathomable depths of its moral constitution." (Deutsche Reden in Schwerer Zeit, II, p. 23.)
But there were two criminal blunders—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them two series of obstinate and stupid offenses against international law—by which the Potsdam gang directly assailed the sovereignty and neutrality of the United States and forced us to choose between the surrender of our national integrity and a frank acceptance of the war which Germany was waging, not only against our principles and interests, but against the things which in our judgment were essential to the welfare of mankind and to the existence of honorable and decent relations among the peoples of the world.
The first of these offenses was the cynical and persistent attempt to take advantage of the good nature and unsuspiciousness of the United States for the establishment of an impudent system of German espionage; to use our territory as a base of conspiracy and treacherous hostilities against countries with which we were at peace; and to lose no opportunity of mobilizing the privileges granted by "these idiotic Yankees" (quotation from the military attache of the Imperial German Embassy at Washington)—including, of course, the diplomatic privilege—to make America unconsciously help in playing the game of the Potsdam gang.
The second of these offenses was the illegal, piratical submarine warfare which the Potsdam gang ordered and waged against the merchant shipping of the world, thereby destroying the lives and the property of American citizens and violating the most vital principle of our steadfast contention for the freedom of the sea.
The message of the President to Congress on April 2, 1917, marked these two offenses as the main causes which made it impossible for the United States to maintain longer an official attitude of neutrality toward the German Government, which "did what it pleased and told its people nothing." The President generously declared that the source of these offenses "lay not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us." That was a magnanimous declaration, and we sincerely hope it may prove true.
But practically the difficulty lies in the fact that at the present hour several millions of the German people stand in arms, on land that does not belong to them, to maintain the purpose and continue the practices of the Potsdam gang. It is a pity, but it is true. The only way to get at the gang which chose and forced this atrocious war is to go through the armed people who still defend that choice and the atrocities which have emphasized it.
Forgiveness must wait upon repentance. Repentance must be proved by restitution and reparation. Any other settlement of this world conflict would be a world calamity. For America and for all the Allies who are fighting for a peace worth having and keeping, the watchword must be: Stand fast, ye free!
The offenses against the neutrality of the United States which were instigated and financed by the Potsdam gang were enumerated by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives in the first week of April, 1917, and amounted to at least twenty-one distinct crimes or unfriendly acts, including the furnishing of bogus passports to German reservists and spies, the incitement of rebellion in India and in Mexico, the preparation of dynamite outrages against Canada, the placing of bombs in ships sailing from American ports, and many other ill-judged pleasantries of a similar character.
The crown was put on this series of blundering misdeeds by the note of January 19, 1917, sent from the German Foreign Office (under cover of our diplomatic privilege, of course) to the German Minister in Mexico, directing him to prepare an alliance with that country against the United States in the event of war, urging him to use Mexico as an agent to draw Japan into that alliance, and offering as a bribe to the Mexicans the possession of American territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. (See War Message and Facts Behind It, p. 13. Published by the Committee on Public Information, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917.)