The fact is, we have only just begun to understand the real nature of the German secret service, which works with, and either under or over, the diplomatic service.
It is certainly the most highly organized, systematic, and expensive, and at the same time probably the most bone-headed and unscrupulous, secret service in the world.
Its powers of falsification and evasion are only exceeded by its capacity for making those mistakes which spring from a congenital contempt for other people.
At The Hague I had numerous opportunities of observing and noting the workings of this peculiar system. The story of many of them cannot be publicly told without violating that reserve which I prefer to maintain in regard to confidential communications and private affairs in which the personal reputation of individuals is involved. But there are two or three experiences of which I may write freely without incurring either self-reproach or a just reproach from others. They are not at all sensational. But they seemed at the time, and they seem still, to have a certain significance as indications of the psychology of the people with whom we were then in nominal friendship.
Three requests were made to me for the forwarding of important communications to Brussels under cover of the diplomatic privilege of the American Legation. The memoranda of the dates and so on are in the Chancellery at The Hague, so I cannot refer to them. But it is certain that the requests came shortly after the beginning of the war, in the first or second week of August, 1914, and the content and purport of them are absolutely clear in my memory.
The first request was from Berlin for the transmission of a note to the Belgian Government, renewing the proposition which the Potsdam gang had made on August 2: namely, that Belgium should permit the free passage of German troops through her neutral ground on condition that Germany would pay for all damage done and that Belgian territory would not be annexed. (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 402.) King Albert had already replied, on August 3, to this proposition, saying that to permit such a passage of hostile troops against France would be "a flagrant violation of international law" and would "sacrifice the honor of the nation." (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 421.) After such an answer it did not seem to me that the renewal of the dishonorable proposal was likely to have a good effect. Yet the Berlin note was entirely correct in form. It merely offered a chance for Belgium to choose again between peace with the friendship of Germany and dishonor attached, and war in defense of the neutrality to which she was bound by the very treaties (1831, 1839) which brought her into being. I had no right to interpose an obstacle to the repetition of Belgium's first heroic choice. I pointed out that, not being accredited to the Belgian Government, I was not in a position to transmit any communication to it. But I was willing to forward the note to my colleague the American Minister in Brussels, absolutely without recommendation, but simply for such disposal as he thought fit. Accordingly the note was transmitted to him. [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: My colleague, Honorable James W. Gerard, Ex-Ambassador toGermany, has referred to this in his very interesting book, "My FourYears in Germany," p. 136.]
What Whitlock did with it I do not know. What answer, if any, Belgium made I do not know. But I do know that she stood to her guns and kept her honor intact and immortal.
The second request was of a different quality. It came to me from the Imperial German Legation at The Hague. It was a note for transmission to the Belgian Government, beginning with a reference to the fall of Liege and the hopeless folly of attempting to resist the German invasion, and continuing with an intimation of the terrible consequences which would follow Belgium's persistence in her mad idea of keeping her word of honor. In effect the note was a curious combination of an insult and a threat. I promptly and positively refused to transmit it or to have anything to do with it.
"But why," said the German counsellor, sitting by my study fire—-a Prussian of the Prussians—"why do you refuse? You are a neutral, a friend of both parties. Why not simply transmit the note to your colleague in Brussels as you did before? You are not in any way responsible for its contents."
"Quite so," I answered, "and thank God for that! But suppose you had a quarrel with a neighbor in the Rheinland, who had positively declined a proposition which you had made to him. And suppose, the ordinary post-boy services being interrupted, you asked me to convey to your neighbor a note which began by addressing him as a 'silly s— of a b——,' and ended by telling him that if he did not agree you would certainly grind him to powder. Would you expect me to play the post-boy for such a billet-doux on the ground that I was not responsible for its contents and was a friend of both parties?"
"Well," replied the counsellor, laughing at the North American directness of my language, "probably not." So he folded up the note and took it away. What became of it I do not know nor care.
The third request was of still another quality. It came from the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Legation, which very politely asked me to transmit a message in the American diplomatic code to my colleague in Brussels for delivery to the Austro-Hungarian Legation, which still lingered in that city. The first and last parts of the message were in plain language, good English, quite innocent and proper. But the kernel of the despatch was written in the numerical secret cipher of Vienna, which of course I was unable to read. I drew attention to this, and asked mildly how I could be expected to put this passage into our code without knowing what the words were. The answer was that it would not be necessary to code this passage; it could be transmitted in numbers just as it stood; the Austro-Hungarian charge d'affaires at Brussels would understand it.
"Quite so," I answered, "but you see the point is that I do not understand it. My dear count, you are my very good friend, and it grieves me deeply to decline any requests of yours. But the simple fact is that our instructions explicitly forbid us to send any message in two codes."
The count—who, by the way, was an excellent and most amiable man— blushed and stammered that he was only carrying out the instructions of his chief, but that my point was perfectly clear and indisputable. I was glad that he saw it in that light, and we parted on the most friendly terms. What became of the message I do not know nor care.
It was about the 1st of September, 1915, that I came into brief contact with the case of Mr. J. F. J. Archibald. This gentleman was an American journalist, and a very clever and agreeable man. We had met some months before, when he was on his way back to America from his professional work in Germany, and he had been a welcome guest at my table. But the second meeting was different.
This time Mr. Archibald was returning toward Germany on the Holland-America steamship Rotterdam. When the boat touched at Falmouth, on August 30, the British authorities examined his luggage and found that he was carrying private letters and official despatches from Doctor Dumba the Austrian Ambassador at Washington, from Count Bernstorff the German Ambassador, and from Captain von Papen his military attache. Not only was the carrying of these letters by a private person on a regular mail route a recognized offense against the law, but the documents themselves contained matter of an incriminating and seditious nature, most unfriendly to the United States. The egregious Doctor Dumba, for example, described how it would be possible to "disorganize and hold up for months if not entirely prevent," the work of American factories; and the colossal Captain von Papen, in a letter referring to the activities of German secret agents in America, gave birth to his eloquent and unforgettable phrase, "these idiotic Yankees." The papers, of course, were taken from Mr. Archibald at Falmouth, but he was allowed to continue his voyage to Rotterdam en route for Berlin.
Before his arrival, however, a cablegram came from the Department of State at Washington instructing me to take up his regular passport which was made out to cover travel in Germany; to give him an emergency passport valid for one month and good only for the return to the United States; and to use all proper means to get him back to New York at the earliest possible date.
Having found out that he was lodged at a certain hotel I sent him a courteous invitation to call at the Legation on business of importance. He came promptly and we sat down in the library for a conversation which you will admit had its delicate points.
He began by saying that he supposed I had seen the newspaper accounts of what happened to him at Falmouth; that he was greatly surprised and chagrined about the matter; that he had been entirely ignorant of the contents of the documents found in his possession; that he had imagined—indeed he had been distinctly told—that they were innocent private letters relating to personal and domestic affairs; that he did not know there was any impropriety in conveying such letters; that if he had suspected their nature or known that they included official despatches he would never have taken them.
I replied that his personal statement was enough for me on that point, but that it seemed to throw rather a dark shadow on the character and conduct of his friends in the German and Austrian Embassies who had knowingly exposed his innocence to such a risk. I added that it was probably with a view to obtaining his help in clearing up the matter that the Department of State had instructed me to take up his passport.
"But have you the legal right to do that?"
"Under American law, yes, unquestionably."
"But under Dutch law?"
"Probably not. But I hope it will not be necessary to invoke that law.Simply to inform the Dutch Foreign Minister of the presence of anAmerican whose passport had been revoked but who refused to give it up,would be sufficient for my purpose."
He reflected for a moment, and then said, smiling:
"I don't refuse to give it up. Here it is. Now tell me what I shall do without a passport.
"Thank you. Fortunately I have authority to give you an emergency passport, good for a month, and covering the return voyage to America."
"But I don't want to go there. I want to go on to Berlin."
"Unfortunately I fear that will be impossible. Your old passport is invalid and will not carry you over the Dutch border. Your new passport cannot be made out for Germany. Your best course is to return home."
"I see. But have you any right to arrest me and send me to America?"
"None whatever, my dear sir. Please don't misunderstand me. This is just a bit of friendly advice. 'Your country needs you.' You naturally want an early chance to tell Washington what you have told me. The Rotterdam is a very comfortable ship, and she sails for New York the day after to-morrow. I have already bespoken an excellent room for you. Do you accept?"
"Yes, and thank you for the way you have put the matter. But do you think they will arrest me when I get to New York?"
"Probably not. But to help in forestalling that unpleasant possibility I will cable Washington that you are coming at once, of your own free will, and anxious to tell the whole story."
So he went, and I saw him off on the Rotterdam, a pallid and downcast figure. I pitied him. It seemed strange that any one should ever trust that unscrupulous, callous, thick-pated diplomatic-secret-service machine which is always ready to expose a too confiding and admiring friend to danger or disgrace in order to serve its imperious necessities.
Holland, of course, owing to its geographical situation, was a regular nest of German espionage. Other spies were there, too, but they were much less in evidence than the Germans. Of the tricks and the manners of the latter I had some picturesque experiences which I do not feel at liberty to narrate. The Department of State has been informed of them, and has no doubt put the information safely away with a lot of other things which it knows but does not think it expedient or necessary to tell until the proper time.
But there is no reason why the simple little tale of the futile attempt to plant two German spies in my household at The Hague should not be told. One of the men in our domestic service, a Hollander, had been obliged to leave and we wanted to fill his place. This was difficult because the requirements of the Dutch army service claimed such a large number of the younger men.
The first who applied for the vacant place professed to be a Belgian. Perhaps he was. On demand he produced his "papers"—birth-certificate, baptismal registry, several Passier-scheine, and so forth. But down in a corner on the back of one of the papers was a dim blue stamp—"Imperial German Marine." What was the meaning of this? What had the Potsdam High-Sea Fleet to do with this peaceable overland traveller from Belgium? Voluble excuses, but no satisfactory explanation. I told him that I feared he was too experienced for the place.
The second who applied was an unquestionable Dutchman, young, good- looking, intelligent. Papers in perfect order. Present service with a well-known pro-German family. Previous service of one year with a lady who was one of my best friends—the wife of a high government official. I rang her up on the telephone and asked if she could tell me anything about A. B., who had been in service with her for a year. A second of silence, then the answer: "Yes, a good deal, but not on the telephone, please. Come around to tea this afternoon." Madame L. then told me that while the young man was clean, sober, and industrious, he had been found rummaging among her husband's official papers, in a room which he was forbidden to enter, and had been caught several times listening at the keyhole of doors while private conferences were going on.
It seemed to me that a young man with such an uncontrollable thirst for knowledge would not be suited for the very simple service which would be required of him in our household.
Afterward, traces of both of these men were found which led unmistakably to the lair of the chief spider of the German secret service at The Hague. The incident was a very small one. But, after all, life is made up of small incidents with a connected meaning.
At the time when I am writing this (September 24, 1917) the moral character of the tools of the Potsdam gang has again been stripped naked by the disclosure of the treachery by which the German Legation in Argentina has utilized the Swedish Legation in that country to transmit, under diplomatic privilege, messages inciting to murder on the high seas. Argentina has already taken the action to be expected from an American Republic by dismissing the German Minister. What Sweden will do to vindicate her honor remains to be seen. Her attitude may affect our opinion of her as a victim or a vassal of Potsdam.
There are two points in the disclosures made on September 23 by the Department of State which bear directly upon this simple narrative of experiences at The Hague.
The fetching female comic-opera star, Ray Beveridge, discreetly alluded to in the third chapter (p. 71), was secretly paid three thousand dollars by the Imperial German Embassy in Washington to finance her artistic activities. So, you see, I was not far wrong in forwarding her divorce papers to Germany and refusing to transmit her newspaper correspondence to America. She was a paid soubrette in the Potsdam troupe.
The affable and intelligent Mr. Archibald, alluded to in this chapter (p. 169), received on April 21, 1915, according to these disclosures, five thousand dollars from the Imperial German Embassy in Washington for "propaganda" services. If I had known this when he came to me in September, it is possible that I should have been less careful to spare his feelings.
The record of the German submarine warfare on merchant shipping is one of the most extraordinary chapters in history. Americans have read it with appropriate indignation, but not always with clear understanding of the precise issues involved. Let me try to make those issues plain, since the submarine campaign was one of the causes which forced this war upon the United States. (President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917, paragraphs 2-10.)
In war all naval vessels, including of course submarines, have the right to attack and destroy, by any means in their power, any war-ship of the enemy. In regard to merchant-ships the case is different, according to international law. (See G. G. Wilson, International Law, paragraphs 1l4, 136, New York, 1901-1909.)
The war-vessel has the right of "visit and search" on all merchant-ships, enemy or neutral. It has also the right, in case the cargo of the merchant-ship appears to include more than a certain percentage of contraband, to capture it and take it into a port for adjudication as a prize. The war-vessel has also the right to sink a presumptive prize under conditions (such as distance, stress of weather, and so forth) which make it impossible to take it into port.
But here the right of the war-vessel stops. It has absolutely no right to sink the merchant-ship without warning and without making efficient provision for the safety of the passengers and crew. That is the common law of civilized nations. To break it is to put one's self beyond the pale.
Some Germanophile critics have faulted me for calling the Teutonic submarines "Potsdam pirates." A commissioned vessel, these critics say, which merely executes the orders of its government, cannot properly be called a pirate.
Why not? Take the definition of piracy given in the New Oxford Dictionary: "The crime of robbery or depredation on the sea by persons not holding a commission from an established civilized state."
There's the point! Is a nation which orders its servants to commit deeds forbidden by international law, a nation which commands its naval officers to commit deliberate, wanton, dastardly murder on the high seas (case of Belgian Prince, July 31, 1917, and others), is such a nation to be regarded as "an established civilized state"?
Were Algiers and Tunis and Tripoli "civilized states" when they sent out the Barbary pirates in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? We thought not, and we sent our war-ships to whip the barbarism out of them.
Commodore Stephen Decatur, in 1815, forced the cruel and cowardly Dey of Algiers to sign a deed of renunciation and a promise of good conduct, on the deck of an American frigate, under the Stars and Stripes.
A hundred years ago the glory of the American navy was made clear to the world in the suppression of the pirates of North Africa. To-day that glory must be maintained by firm, fearless, unrelenting war against the pirates of North Germany.
A commission to do a certain thing which is in itself unlawful does not change the nature of the misdeed. No nation has a right to commission its officers to violate the law of nations.
But the Germans say their submarines are such wonderful, delicate, scientific machines that it is impossible for them to give warning of an attack, or to do anything to save the helpless people whose peaceful vessel has been sunk beneath their feet. The precious, fragile submarine cannot be expected to observe any law of humanity which would imperil its further usefulness as an instrument of destruction.
Marvellous argument—worthy of the Potsdam mind in its highest state of Kultur! By the same reasoning any assassin might claim the right to kill without resistance because he proposed to commit the crime with a dagger so delicately wrought, so frail, so slender, that the slightest struggle on the part of his victim would break the costly, beautiful, murderous weapon.
Again, these extraordinary Germans say that merchant-ships ought not to carry weapons for defense; it is too dangerous for the dainty U-boat; every merchantman thus armed must be treated as a vessel of war. But the law of nations for more than two centuries has sanctioned the carrying of defensive armament by merchant-ships, and precisely because they might need it to protect themselves against pirates.
Shall the United States be asked to rewrite this article of international law, in the midst of a great war on sea and land? Shall the government at Washington be seduced by cajolery, or compelled by threats, to rob the merchantmen of the poor protection of a single gun in order that they may fall absolutely helpless into the black hands of the prowling Potsdam pirates? That would be neutrality with a vengeance! Yet that is just what the Imperial German Government tried to persuade or force the United States to do. Thank God the effort was vain.
These were the matters under discussion when I was called to Washington in February, 1916, for consultation with the President. The long and wearing controversy had been going on for months. Every month notes were coming from Berlin, each more evasive and unsatisfactory than the last. Every week Count Bernstorff and his aides were coming to the State Department with new excuses, new subterfuges, and the same old lies. The President and Secretary Lansing, both of whom are excellent international lawyers, found their patience tried to the uttermost by the absurdity of the arguments presented to them and by the veiled contempt in the manner of the presentation. But they kept their tempers and did their best to keep the peace.
On two points they were firm as adamant. First, the law of nations should not and could not be changed in the midst of a war to suit the need of one of the parties. Second, "the use of submarines for the destruction of commerce is of necessity, because of the very character of the vessels employed and the very methods of attack which their employment of course involves, incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long-established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the sacred immunities of non-combatants." (President Wilson's Address to Congress, April 19, 1916.)
It was on my return from this visit to Washington that I had an opportunity of observing at close range the crooked methods of the Potsdam gang in regard to the U-boat warfare. Arriving at The Hague on March 24, 1916, I found Holland aflame with helpless rage over the recent sinking of the S.S. Tubantia, the newest and best boat of the Netherlands-Lloyd merchant-fleet. She was torpedoed by an unseen submarine on March 15.
An explanation was promptly demanded from the German Government, which denied any knowledge of the affair. Holland, lacking evidence as to the perpetrator of the crime, would have had to swallow this denial but for an accident which furnished her with the missing proof. One of the Tubantia's small boats drifted ashore. In the boat was a fragment of a Schwarzkopf torpedo—a type manufactured and used only by Germany. This fragment was forwarded to Berlin, with another and more urgent demand for explanation, apology, and reparation.
The German newspapers coolly replied with the astounding statement thatthere had been two or three Schwarzkopf torpedoes in naval museums inEngland, and that this particular specimen had probably been given to aBritish submarine and used by her to destroy the good ship Tubantia.
Again Holland would have been left helpless, choking with indignation, but for a second accident. Another of the lost steamship's boats was found, and in it there was another fragment of the torpedo. This fragment bore the mark of the German navy, telling just when the torpedo was made and to which of the U-boats it had been issued.
With this bit of damning evidence in his bag a Dutch naval expert was sent to Berlin to get to the bottom of the crime and to demand justice. He got there, but he found no justice in that shop.
The German navy is very systematic, keeps accurate books, makes no accidental mistake. The pedigree and record of the Schwarzkopf were found. It was issued to a certain U-boat on a certain date. Undoubtedly it was the missile which unfortunately sank the Tubantia. All this was admitted and deeply regretted. But Germany was free from all responsibility for the sad occurrence. The following amazing reason was given by the Imperial German Government.
This certain U-boat had fired this certain torpedo at a British war-vessel somewhere in the North Sea ten days before the Tubantia was sunk. The shot missed its mark. But the naughty, undisciplined little torpedo went cruising around in the sea on its own hook for ten days waiting for a chance to kill somebody. Then the Tubantia came along, and the wandering-Willy torpedo promptly, stupidly, ran into the ship and sank her. This was the explanation. Germany was not to blame. (See the official report in the Orange Books of the Netherlands Government, July, 1916, December, 1916.)
This stupendous fairy-tale Holland was expected to believe and to accept as the end of the affair. She did not believe it. She had to accept it. What else could she do? Fight? She did not want to share Belgium's dreadful fate. The Dutch Government proposed that the whole Tubantia incident be submitted to an international commission. The German Government accepted this proposal en principe, but said it must be deferred until after the war.
I wonder why some of the Americans who blame Holland for not being in arms against Germany never think of that stern and awful deterrent which stands under her eyes and presses upon her very bosom. She is still independent, still neutral, still unravaged. Five-sixths of her people, I believe, have no sympathy with the German Government in its choice and conduct of this war. At least this was the case while I was at The Hague. But the one thing that Holland is, above all else, is pro-Dutch. She wants to keep her liberty, her sovereignty, her land untouched. To defend these treasures she will fight, and for no other reason. I have heard Queen Wilhelmina say this a score of times. She means it, and her people are with her.
Seven Dutch ships were sunk in a bunch in the English Channel by the Potsdam pirates on February 22, 1917. Holland was furious. She stated her grievance, protested, remonstrated—and there she stopped. If she had tried to do anything more she stood to lose a third of her territory in a few days and the whole in a few weeks—lose it, mark you, to the gang that ruined Belgium.
But the position, and therefore the case, of America in regard to theGerman submarine warfare was quite different. She was one of the eight"Big Powers" of the world. She was the mightiest of the neutrals.
Her rights at sea were no greater than theirs. But her duties were greater, just because she was larger, more powerful, better able to champion those rights not only for herself but also for others.
She would not have to pay such an instant, awful, crushing penalty for armed resistance to the brutalities of the Potsdam gang as would certainly be inflicted upon the little northern neutrals if they attempted to defend themselves against injustice and aggression.
Their part was to make protest, and record it, and wait for justice until the war was ended. America's part was to make protest, and then—her protest being mocked, scorned, disregarded—to stand up in arms with France and Great Britain and help to end the war by a victory of righteous peace.
But did we not also have objections to some of the measures and actions of the British blockade—as, for instance, the seizure and search of the mails? Certainly we did, and Secretary Lansing stated them clearly and maintained them firmly. But here is the difference. These objections concerned only the rights of neutral property on the high seas. We knew by positive assurance from England, and by our experience with her in the Alabama Claims Arbitration, that she was ready to refer all such questions to an impartial tribunal and abide by its decision. Our objections to the conduct of the German navy concerned the far more sacred rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The murder of one American child at sea meant more to us than the seizure of a thousand cargoes of alleged contraband.
No one has ever accused the British or French or Italian sailors in this war of sinking merchant-ships without warning, leaving their crews and passengers to drown. On the contrary, British seamen have risked and lost their lives in a chivalrous attempt to save the lives even of their enemies after the fair sinking of a German war-ship.
But the hands of the Potsdam pirates are red with innocent blood. The bottom of the sea is strewn with the wrecks they have made. "The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean" hide the bones of their helpless victims, who shall arise at the judgment-day to testify against them.
On May 7, 1915, the passenger liner Lusitania, unarmed, was sunk without warning by a German U-boat off the Irish coast. One hundred and fourteen Americans—men, women, and little children, lawful and peaceful travellers—were drowned—
"Butchered to make a [German] holiday."
The holiday was celebrated in Germany. The schools were let out. The soldiers in the reserve camps had leave to join in the festivities. The towns and cities were filled with fluttering flags and singing folks. A German pastor preached: "Whoever cannot bring himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the Lusitania—him we judge to be no true German." (Deutsche Reden in Schwerer Zeit, No. 24, p. 7.) A medal was struck to commemorate the great achievement. It is a very ugly medal. I keep a copy of it in order that I may never forget the character of a nation which was not content with rejoicing over such a crime but desired to immortalize it in bronze.
The three strong and eloquent notes of President Wilson in regard to the Lusitania are too well known to be quoted here. The practical answer from Potsdam (passing over the usual subterfuges and falsehoods) was the sinking of the Arabic August 19 and the murder of three more Americans. Then the correspondence languished until the torpedoing (March 24, 1916) of the Sussex, a Channel ferry-boat, crowded with passengers, among whom were many Americans. Then the President sent a flat message calling down the Potsdam pirates and declaring that unless they abandoned their nefarious practices "the United States had no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether" (April 18, 1916).
This brought a grudging promise from Germany that she would henceforth refrain from sinking merchant-vessels "without warning and without saving human lives, unless the ship attempted to escape or offer resistance." How this promise was kept may be judged from the sinking of the Marina (October 28), with the loss of eight American lives, and of the Russian (December 14), with the loss of seventeen American lives, and other similar sinkings.
During all this time Germany had been building new and larger submarines with wonderful industry. She had filled up her pack of sea-wolves. On January 31, 1917, she revoked her flimsy pledge, let loose her wolf-pack, and sent word to all the neutral nations that she would sink at sight all ships found in the zones which she had marked "around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean." (Why We Are at War, p. 23, New York, 1917.) The President promptly broke off diplomatic relations (February 3), and said that we should refrain from hostilities until the commission of "actual overt acts" by Germany forced us to the conviction that she meant to carry out her base threat.
The overt acts came quickly. Between February 3 and April 1 eight American merchant-ships were sunk, and more than forty American lives were destroyed by the Potsdam pirates.
The die was cast. On April 2, 1917, the President advised Congress that the United States could no longer delay the formal acceptance of "the status of belligerent which had been thrust upon it." On April 6 Congress took the necessary action. On the same day the President proclaimed that "a state of war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government."
Back of this momentous and noble decision, in which the hearts of the immense majority of Americans are with the President, there are undoubtedly many strong and righteous reasons. Some of these I have tried to set forth in the first part of this article. But we must never forget that the specific reason given by the President, the definite cause which forced us into the war, is the German method of submarine warfare, which he has repeatedly denounced as illegal, immoral, inhuman—a direct and brutal attack upon us and upon all mankind. These words cannot be forgotten, nor is it likely that the President will retract them.
They set up at least one steadfast mark in the midst of the present flood of peace talk. There can be no parley with a criminal who is in full and exultant practice of his crime. Unless the U-boat warfare is renounced, repented of, and abandoned by the Potsdam pirates, an honorable peace is unattainable except by fighting for it and winning it. [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Belgian Relief ships sunk: S.S. Camilla, Trevier, Feistein, Storstad, Lars Kruse, Euphrates. Haelen, and Tunis (the last two shelled but not sunk).
Hospital ships sunk: Britannic (probably but not certainly torpedoed); Asturias, March 24. 1917; Gloucester Castle, March 30; Donegal, April 17; Lanfranc, April 17 (with British wounded and German wounded prisoners).
Among the neutral nations Norway alone has lost more than six hundred ships by mines and torpedoes of German origin. The dance of death still goes on.]
Only a little space is left for writing of my retirement from the post at The Hague and my experiences thereafter in England and France.
The reader may have gathered from the tenor of these chapters that the work at the legation was hard and that the situation was trying to a man with strong convictions and the habit of expressing them frankly. My resignation was tendered in September, 1916, with the request that it should not be made public until after the re-election of President Wilson, which I earnestly desired and expected. My reasons for resigning were partly of a domestic nature. But the main reason was a personal wish to get back to my work as a writer, "with full freedom to say what I thought and felt about the war."
The German-American press has tried to start a rumor that I was recalled to Washington to explain my action on a certain point. That is absolutely and entirely false. The government never asked for an explanation of anything in my conduct while in office, or afterward. On the contrary, the President has been kind enough to express his approval of my services in terms too friendly to be quoted here.
In November, after President Wilson had been triumphantly chosen for a second term, I ventured to recall his attention to my letter of September. He answered that he would "reluctantly yield" to my wishes, but would appreciate my remaining at The Hague until a successor could be found for the post. Of course I willingly agreed to this.
In December the name of this successor was cabled to me with instructions to find out whether he would be acceptable to the Queen and the Government of Holland. Her Majesty said that this gentleman would certainly be persona grata, and I cabled to Washington to this effect.
Early in January a message came from the Secretary of State saying that, as all was arranged except the final confirmation of the appointment, I might feel free to leave at my convenience. Having cleaned up my work and left everything in order for my successor (including the lease of my house), I took ship from Flushing for England on January 15, 1917.
The voyage through the danger zone was uneventful. The visit to England was unforgettable.
Everywhere I saw the evidences that Great Britain was at war, in earnest, and resolved to "carry on" with her Allies until the victory of a real peace was won.
Women and girls were at work in the railway stations, on the trams and omnibuses, in the munition factories, in postal and telegraph service, doing the tasks of men. We shall have to revise that phrase which speaks of "the weaker sex."
By night London was
"Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark."
But it was not still, nor terrified by the instant danger of Zeppelin raids. Every time a German vulture passed over England dropping bolts of indiscriminate death, it woke the heart of the people to a new impulse, not of fear but of hot indignation.
By day the great city swarmed with eager life. Business was going on at full swing, though not "as usual." Women were driving trucks, carrying packages, running ticket-offices. Men in khaki outnumbered those in civilian dress. Wounded soldiers hobbled cheerfully along the streets. The parks were adorned with hospitals. Mrs. Pankhurst spoke from a soap-box near the Marble Arch; not now for woman-suffrage—"That will come," she said, "but the great thing to-day is to carry on the war to a victory for freedom!"
Oxford—gray city of the golden dream, Learning's fairest and most lovely seat in all the world—Oxford was transformed into a hospital for the wounded, a training-camp for new soldiers, a nursery of noble manhood equipped for the stern duties of war.
Every family that I knew was in grief for a dear one lost on the field of glorious strife. But not one was in mourning. The great sacrifice was bravely accepted as a part of the greater duty.
The friends with whom I talked most—men like Lord Bryce, Sir Sydney Lee, Sir Herbert Warren, Sir Robertson Nicoll, Sir William Osler—were lovers of peace, tried and well-known. All were of one mind in holding that Britain's faith and honor bound her to accept the war when Germany violated Belgium, and that it must be fought through until the Prussian military autocracy which began it was broken.
There were restricted rations in England; but no starvation and no sign of it. There were partisan criticisms and plenty of "grousing." The Britisher is never contented unless he can grumble—especially at his own government. But there was no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to hang on to the enemy until he came down. It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, which was almost ignorant of what military preparedness meant, to put between three and four million troops into the field in defense of justice and liberty.
At the end of January I went to France, eager to see with my own eyes the great things that were doing there and to taste with my own lips the cup of danger. That at least I was bound to do before I could come home and urge my countrymen to face the duty and brave the peril of a part in this war.
Paris was not so dark as London but more tragic. After Belgium andServia the heaviest brunt of this dreadful conflict has fallen uponFrance. She has suffered most. Yet on the faces of her women I saw notears and in the eyes of her men no fear nor regret.
If Britain was magnificent, France was miraculous! Loving and desiring peace she accepted the cross of war without a murmur. Her women were no less brave than her men. She wears the hero-star of Roland and the saintly halo of Joan of Arc.
After meeting many men in Paris—statesmen, men of letters, generals—and after visiting the splendid American Ambulance at Neuilly and other institutions in which our boys and girls were giving their help to France in the chivalric spirit of Lafayette, I went out toward the front.
The first visit was under the escort of Captain Francois Monod to a chateau beyond Compiegne, where Rudyard Kipling with his family and I with my family had passed the Christmas week of 1913 together, as joyous guests of the American chatelaine Mrs. Julia Park. She has given the spacious, lovely house for a military hospital. And there, while the German guns thundered a few kilometres away from us and a German sausage balloon floated in the sky, I watched the skilful ministrations of French and American doctors and nurses to the wounded.
One thought haunted me—the memory of Kipling's only son, nineteen years old, who was with us in that happy Christmastide. The lad was reported "missing" after one of the battles between Loos and Hulluch. For six months I sought, with the help of Herr von Kuhlmann, German Minister at The Hague, to find a trace of the brave boy. But never a word could we get.
The second visit was to the battle-field of the Marne under the escort of Captain the Count de Ganay. We motored slowly through the ruined towns and villages. Those which had been wrecked by shellfire were like mouthfuls of broken teeth—chimneys and fragments of walls still standing. Those which had been vengefully burned by the retreating Germans were mere heaps of ashes. Most of our time was spent around the Marais de St. Gond, where the French General Foch held the Thermopylae of Europe.
Four times he advanced across that marsh and was driven back, but not beaten. The fifth time he advanced and stayed, and Paris was forever lost to the Germans. Think of the men who made that last advance and saved Europe from the Potsdam gang. Their graves, carefully marked and tended, lie thickly strewn along the lonely ridges of all that region—humble but immortal reminders of glorious heroism.
The third visit was with the same escort to the fighting front atVerdun.
The long, bare, rolling ridges between Bar-le-Duc and the Meuse; the high-shouldered hills along the river and around the ruined little city; the open fields, the narrow valleys, the wrecked villages, the shattered woodlands—all were covered with dazzling snow. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky. A bitter, biting wind poured fiercely, steadily out of the north, driving the glittering snow-dust before it. Every man had put on all the clothes he possessed, and more; pads of sheepskin over back and breast; gunny sacks tied around the shoulders. The troops of cavalry, the teams of mules and horses dragging munition-wagons or travelling kitchens or long "75" guns, clattered along the iron surface of the Via Sacra—that blessed road which made the salvation of Verdun possible after the only railway was destroyed. Endless trains of motor-lorries lumbered by. The narrow trenches were coated with ice. The hillside trails were slippery as glass. In the deep dugouts small sheet-iron stoves were burning, giving out a little heat and a great deal of choking smoke. The soldiers sat around them playing cards or telling stories.
But there! What I saw in that shell-pitted, snow-covered, hard-frozen amphitheatre of heroism cannot be described in these brief paragraphs. The serenity, cheerfulness, courtesy, and indomitable courage of the French poilus defending their own land; the scenes in the trenches with the German shells breaking around us and the wounded men being carried past us; the luncheon in the citadel with the commandant and officers in a subterranean room where the motto on the wall, above the world-renowned escutcheon of Verdun, was "On ne passe pas"—"They don't get by"; the dinner with the general and staff of the Verdun army, in a little village "somewhere in France," and their last words to me, "On les aura! Ca peut etre long, mais on les aura!"—"It may take long, but we shall get them!"—all these and a thousand more things are vivid in my memory but cannot be told now.
One scene sticks in my mind and asks to be recorded.
The hospital was just back of the Verdun lines. Its roofs were marked with the Red Cross. Twenty-four hundred beds, all clean and quiet. Wards full of German wounded, cared for as tenderly as the French. "Will you see an operation?" said the proud little commandant who was showing me through his domain. "Certainly." A big, husky fellow was on the operating-table, unconscious, under ether. One of the best surgeons in France was performing the operation of trepanning. I could see the patient's brain, bare and beating, while the surgeon did his skilful work. Other doctors stood around, and three nurses, one an American girl, Miss Cowen, of Pittsburgh. "Will the man get well?" I asked the surgeon. "I hope so," he answered. "At all events, we shall do our best for him. You know, he is a German—c'est un Boche!"
On August 20, 1917, that very hospital, marked with the Red Cross, was bombed by German aeroplanes. One wing was set on fire. While the nurses and helpers were trying to rescue the patients, the bloody Potsdam vultures flew back and forth three times over the place, raking it with machine guns. More than thirty persons were killed, including doctors, German wounded, and one woman nurse. God grant it was not the American girl! Yet why would not the killing of a French sister under the Red Cross be just as wicked?
Here I break off—uncompleted—my narration of the evil choice of war and the crimes in the conduct of war which have made the name of Germany abhorred.
The Allies, from the beginning, have pleaded for peace and fought for peace. America, obeying her conscience, has joined them in the conflict.
But what do we mean now by peace? We mean more than a mere cessation of hostilities. We mean that the burglar shall give back all that he has grabbed. We mean that the marauder shall make good all the damage that he has done. We mean that there shall be an open league of free democratic states, great and small, to guard against the recurrence of such a bloody calamity as the autocratic, militaristic Potsdam gang precipitated upon the world in 1914.
In the next chapter I shall discuss briefly the practical significance of this kind of peace and the absolute preconditions which must be realized before any conference on the subject will be profitable or even safe.
The duty of the present is to fight on beside France, Great Britain,Italy, Belgium, Servia, Roumania, and, we hope, Russia, "to bring theGovernment of the German Empire to terms and end the war."
To talk of any other course is treason, not only to our country but to the cause of true Peace.
The trouble with the ordinary or garden variety of pacifist is that he has a merely negative idea of peace.
The true idea of peace is positive, constructive, forward-looking. It is not content with a mere cessation of hostilities at any particular period of the world's history. It aims at the establishment of reason and justice as the rule of the world's life. It proposes to find the basis of this establishment in the freely expressed will of the peoples of the world.
The men and women who do the world's work are the sovereigns who must guarantee this real peace of the world.
That is what we are fighting for. Not pax Romana, nor pax Germanica, nor pax Britannica, but pax Humana—a peace which will bring a positive benefit to all the tribes of humanity.
Since the choice by the Imperial German Government, in August, 1914, of war as the means of settling international disputes, the Allies have been fighting against that choice and its bloody consequences. Every one of them—Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia—had pleaded for arbitration, conference, consultation, to avert this fearful conflict of arms. But it was in vain.
The United States of America, forced by the flagrant violation of its neutral rights to take an active part in the war, and led by its vital sympathies to the side of the Allies, committed by honor and conscience to the duty of fighting for a real peace of mankind, must carry on this war until its humane and democratic object is attained. To do less than that would be to renounce our place as a great nation, to deny our faith as Americans, and to expose our country to incalculable peril and disaster.
But now that all the nations of the earth have begun to realize the horror of this abominable German war, and to desire its ending, it is necessary for us, in conjunction with our friends of peaceful and democratic purpose, to consider, first, the conditions under which peace may be discussed with the Imperial German Government, and, second, the terms on which a peace may possibly be concluded.
We should distinguish clearly between the conditions which must be fulfilled before we can honorably enter into any talk of peace with our adversary, the begetter and beginner of this war; and the terms which the Allies and the United States and the other nations at war with Germany would put forward in such a conversation as a just and durable basis for the establishment of peace.
This distinction is essential. The conditions are antecedent and indispensable. Until they are fulfilled we cannot talk with the enemy, except in the language which he has chosen and forced upon us—the stern tongue of battle by land and sea.
Germany grandiloquently claims to be the first to propose a peace-conference as a substitute for the horrors of war. (See the Kaiser's note of December 12, 1916. [Footnote 9])
[Footnote 9: This note contains not the slightest reference to the nature of the suggested peace. Its tone conforms to the orders which the Kaiser issued to his army on the same day: "Under the influence of the victory which you have gained by your bravery, I and the monarchs of the three states in alliance with me have made an offer of peace to the enemy. It is uncertain whether the object at which this offer is aimed will be reached. You will have meanwhile, with God's help, to continue to resist and defeat the enemy." It was not a proposal of peace. It was a proclamation of victory—German victory—and an invitation to surrender.]
She forgets the many proposals for such a conference which were made to her in the fateful month of July, 1914, by Servia, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia—all of which she contemptuously brushed aside in her scornful will to war. She forgets the offenses against international law and against the plain precepts of humanity which she has committed since that time and which have earned for her the indignation and mistrust of mankind. She forgets that her so-called proposal for a peace conference contained no suggestion of the terms of peace which she was willing to discuss. She forgets that such a proposal is a mere hypocritical mockery. No sane person, no intelligent nation, would enter into a conference without knowledge of the things to be considered.
This last point lies at the base of President Wilson's note of December 18, 1916, suggesting that the belligerent powers, on both sides, should "avow their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guarantee against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future." This note, I believe, was sent to all the American Ambassadors and Ministers in Europe, with instructions to communicate it to the Governments to which they were accredited, whether belligerent or neutral.
Here is a point at which I can throw a little new light upon the situation. I handed the note, as I was ordered to do, to the Dutch Minister, without comment or recommendation. Almost immediately the German-subsidized press in Holland began to assail the Dutch Government for refusing to support President Wilson's note. It seemed to me that this was a falsehood, unjust to Holland, injurious to our Government, which had not asked for support. Therefore I made the following statement to the press on January 9, 1917:
"The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs is absolutely correct in saying that I handed him President Wilson's note of December 18 without any request or suggestion that the Netherlands Government should support it. I did so because I was so instructed by my Government. I was told to transmit the President's note simply as a matter of information. No request was added. The reason for this is because America understands the delicate and difficult position of the Netherlands Government, in the midst of the present war, and will not urge nor even ask it to do anything which it does not judge to be wise and prudent and helpful. I have done my best to promote this right understanding of the position of Holland in the United States, and I shall continue to do so. I have no knowledge of any instructions from Washington in regard to the manner of delivering the President's note in Spain.
"What I cannot understand is the general misunderstanding of that note. It expressly declared that it was not an offer of mediation nor a proposal of peace. It was simply a suggestion that the belligerents on both sides should state the terms on which they would be willing to consider and discuss peace. The Entente Powers have already done this with some clearness, and will probably soon do so even more clearly. The Central Powers have politely, even affectionately, but very practically, declined the President's invitation to state their terms. There is the deadlock on peace talk at present. When both sides are equally frank the world can judge whether the peace which all just men desire is near or far away."
The accuracy and propriety of this statement have never been questioned by the Department of State. On the contrary, it was practically affirmed by the President in his address to the Senate on January 22, 1917, when he said:
"On the 18th of December last I addressed an identic note to the Governments of the nations now at war, requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy.
"The Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace.
"The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely and have stated, in general terms indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement." Here, then, we come within sight of the first of the conditions which are absolutely precedent, at least so far as America is concerned, to any discussion of peace.
1. Germany must answer President Wilson's note of December 18, 1916. She must state her terms of peace, maximum or minimum, frankly and unequivocally.
Germany asserts that she is waging a defensive war. She must tell the world what she is defending. That she has never been willing to do.
Germany asserts that she is victorious thus far. She must say what she thinks her "victories" mean, and what they entitle her to claim and keep.
In brief, Germany must lay her cards on the table. If she wants peace—and certainly she needs it,—she must be willing to say what she means by it.
2. The second condition precedent to any discussion of peace terms with Germany has been clearly defined by President Wilson in his reply to the note issued by His Holiness Pope Benedict.
That reply was thoroughly sympathetic and conciliatory. Among its frank and strong paragraphs there was one which must be particularly noted:
"We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation, could now depend on."
Understand—this is not a flat refusal to treat with the House of Hohenzollern in any circumstances, which the more rabid and less thoughtful newspapers of England have urged. It is merely a statement that the rulers of Germany must have behind them a sufficient and explicit mandate and guarantee of the people of Germany before we can trust them.
We do not presume to interfere in the internal affairs of the German Empire. The people of that empire have a right to say how they shall be ruled. If they like the Hohenzollerns, good!
All that we ask is some clear, democratic guarantee of the German people behind the word of its chosen Government.
Does this mean a complete reformation of the German Empire, which in effect now consists of twenty-two hereditary kings, princes, dukes, and grand dukes, with the Kaiser at the head? Does it mean a constitutional remoulding of the empire?
That would be a long process. The people of Germany are well disciplined. There is small prospect of a revolution in that country unless war compels it.
What is it that we are pledged by President Wilson's statement to insist upon as a precondition of any peace conference with Germany? Simply this—that behind the word of the Kaiser there must be the word of the German people.
That word must be given in advance and in a way which will satisfy both the Allies and the United States. It is for the German people to find the way.
We cannot honorably talk peace with Germany until that way is found.
3. The third condition antecedent to a conference on peace is the renunciation and abandonment of the German submarine warfare upon merchant shipping.
On this point I do not speak with any kind of authority or official sanction. What I say is based, indeed, upon words uttered with the highest authority. But the conclusion drawn from them is merely my own judgment and has no force beyond that of the reasoning that has led me to it.
The American position in regard to this submarine warfare—its illegality, its inhumanity—has been clearly and eloquently defined by our Government again and again.
"The Government of the United States has been apprised that the Imperial German Government considered themselves to be obliged, by the extraordinary circumstances of the present war and the measures adopted by their adversaries in seeking to cut Germany off from all commerce, to adopt methods of retaliation which go much beyond the ordinary methods of warfare at sea, in the proclamation of a war zone from which they have warned neutral ships to keep away. This Government has already taken occasion to inform the Imperial German Government that it cannot admit the adoption of such measures or such a warning of danger to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights of American shipmasters or of American citizens bound on lawful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent neutrality; and that it must hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for any infringement of those rights, intentional or incidental. It does not understand the Imperial German Government to question those rights. It assumes, on the contrary, that the Imperial German Government accept, as of course, the rule that the lives of non-combatants, whether they be of neutral citizenship or citizens of one of the nations at war, cannot lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of an unarmed merchantman, and recognize also, as all other nations do, the obligation to take the usual precaution of visit and search to ascertain whether a suspected merchantman is in fact of belligerent nationality or is in fact carrying contraband of war under a neutral flag." (The Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, May 13, 1915.)
"The fact that more than one hundred American citizens were among those who perished" (reference to the sinking of the Lusitania) "made it the duty of the Government of the United States to speak of these things and once more, with solemn emphasis, to call the attention of the Imperial German Government to the grave responsibility which the Government of the United States conceives that it has incurred in this tragic occurrence, and to the indisputable principle upon which that responsibility rests. The Government of the United States is contending for something much greater than mere rights of property or privileges of commerce. It is contending for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of humanity, which every government honors itself in respecting and which no government is justified in resigning on behalf of those under its care and authority." (The Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, June 9, 1915.)
"If a belligerent cannot retaliate against an enemy without injuring the lives of neutrals as well as their property, humanity, as well as justice and a due regard for the dignity of neutral powers, should dictate that the practice be discontinued. If persisted in it would in such circumstances constitute an unpardonable offense against the sovereignty of the neutral nation affected. . . . The rights of neutrals in time of war are based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. It is the duty and obligation of belligerents to find a way to adapt the new circumstances to them." (The Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, July 21, 1915.)
"The law of nations in these matters, upon which the Government of the United States based that protest" (i.e., against the German declaration of February, 1915, declaring the danger zone around Great Britain and Ireland) "is not of recent origin or founded upon merely arbitrary principles set up by convention. It is based, on the contrary, upon manifest principles of humanity and has long been established with the approval and by the express assent of all civilized nations. . . . It has become painfully evident to it (the Government of the United States) that the position which it took at the very outset is inevitable, namely—the use of submarines for the destruction of an enemy's commerce is, of necessity, because of the very character of the vessels employed and the very methods of attack which their employment of course involves, utterly incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long-established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the sacred immunities of non-combatants." (The Secretary of State, Washington, D. C., to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, April 18, 1916.)
"But we cannot forget that we are in some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesmen of the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those rights seem in process of being swept away in the maelstrom of this terrible war. We owe it to a due regard for our own rights as a nation, to our sense of duty as a representative of the rights of neutrals the world over, and to a just conception of the rights of mankind to take this stand now with the utmost solemnity and firmness." (President Wilson's Address to Congress, April 19, 1916.)
"The present German warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it." (President Wilson's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917.)
The United States cannot go back on these words. They are fundamental in our position. I do not know whether the Allies have formally indorsed them or not. But that makes no difference. It seems to me that for America, with her traditional, unalterable devotion to the doctrine of Mare Liberum, as Grotius stated it, there can be no peace conference with a Government which is in active and flagrant violation of that principle.
I think that for us at least—we do not venture to speak for the Allies, though we believe they sympathize with our point of view—there can be no peace parley with Germany until she renounces and abandons her atrocious method of submarine warfare on merchant shipping.
Here, then, are the three conditions which ought to be fulfilled before we can honorably enter a conference on peace with the Imperial German Government. The first is a legitimate inference from the statements of the President. The second has been positively laid down by the President. The third is drawn, purely on my own responsibility, from his words.
First, Germany should frankly declare the aims with which she began this war, and the purposes with which she continues it on the territories which she has invaded.
Second, Germany must offer adequate guarantees that in any peace negotiations her rulers shall speak only and absolutely with the voice of the people behind them—in other words, with a democratic, not an autocratic, sanction.
Third, Germany ought to give a pledge of good faith by the abandonment of her illegal and inhuman submarine warfare on the merchant shipping of the world.
Is it likely that the predatory Potsdam gang will be willing to accept these three conditions soon?
I frankly confess that I do not know. Germany is in sore straits. That I know from personal observation. But I know also that she is magnificently organized, trained, and disciplined for obedience to the imperial will. She will carry her fight for world empire to the last limit.
When that limit is reached, when the German people know that the attempt of their rulers to dominate the world by war has failed, then it will be time to talk with them about the terms of peace.
This is a long subject; and for that reason I mean to make it a short chapter.
1. A discussion of peace terms with our enemy, the Imperial German Government, is neither desirable nor safe under the present conditions.
Until that Government is disabused of the delusion that it has won, is winning, or will win a substantial victory in this war, it is not likely to say anything sane or reasonable about peace. A pax Germanica is what it is willing to discuss.
But that is just what we do not want. To enter such a discussion now would be both futile and perilous.
It would probably postpone the coming of that real pax humana for which the Allies have already made such great sacrifices, and for which we have pledged ourselves to fight at their side.
But meantime it is wise and right and useful to let the German people know, by such means as we can find, that we have not entered this war in the spirit of revenge or conquest, and that their annihilation or enslavement is not among the ends which we contemplate.
An admirable opportunity to give this humane and prudent assurance was offered by the Pope's proposal of a Peace Conference (August, 1917). President Wilson, with characteristic acuteness and candor, made good use of this opportunity. While declining the proposal clearly and firmly, as impossible under the present conditions, he added the following statement of the peace purposes of the United States—a statement which approaches a definition by the process of exclusion:
"Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient, and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace, that must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind." (President Wilson's Note to His Holiness the Pope, August 27, 1917.)
Thus far (and in my judgment no farther) we may go in an indirect, third-personal discussion of the terms of peace with our enemy.
2. On the other hand, a full discussion of the terms of peace with our friends, the allied nations, will be most profitable—indeed, it is absolutely necessary.
The sooner it comes—the more frank, thorough, and confidential it is—the better!
The Allies, as President Wilson said in the address already quoted (January 22, 1917), have stated their terms of peace "with sufficient definiteness to imply details."
These terms have been summed up again and again in three general words:
It is for us to discuss the details which are implied in these terms, not with our enemy, but with our friends who have borne the brunt of this German war against peace.
Nothing which would make their sacrifice vain could ever satisfy the heart and conscience of the United States.
We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave Belgium, Luxembourg, Servia, Montenegro, Roumania crushed and helpless in the hands of their captors.
We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave our sister-republic France hopelessly exposed to the same kind of an assault which Germany made upon her in 1870 and in 1914.
We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave Great Britain crippled and powerless to work with us in the maintenance of the freedom of the sea.